Best Editor Poems
"Dark-heaving . . . boundless, endless, and sublime . . ."
Lord Byron 1788-1824
_____________________
I am the wordsmith, guide and editor of this narrative,
this epic chronicle and story of abysmal dream love;
my fingers are ink-stained and worn from writing,
this account of my journey is both tragic and dreadful;
it is a ghost story both poetic and darkly painful.
I awoke one night to find a gossamer shape watching,
it was vague, misty and hovered vapor-like;
the form soon became a phantasmal beautiful man,
ethereal and cloud-born, unworldly and spiritual;
he floated about my bed whispering my name endlessly.
His face was noble with a smile dazzling,
fathomless eyes made me feel so calm and wanted;
when he reached for me I felt glorious and filled with love,
his touch was sublime and he whispered I was his;
at that moment- I was whirling into darkness.
I gasped and realized his skin was corpse-like cold,
oh, was he the spirit of a dead man- an apparition;
a ghostly shadow come the take me to some deathly destination,
but when the specter spoke it was like a warm wave;
washing over my soul and I found my arms embracing him.
All night I lay in his celestial strong arms kissing his lips,
it felt both heavenly and decaying and I had to escape;
I had to leave this divine desire- and this beautiful man,
so with all my strength I pushed, pushed him away;
and his arms became threadlike reaching out for me, reaching.
I woke in the morning in my bed with sun shining brightly,
but my blankets and feet were grave stained with mud;
and I fell back weeping for this love boundless, and endless.
______________________________
May 14, 2019
Poetry/Narrative/I Am The Wordsmith, Guide and Editor
Copyright Protected, ID 19-1144-258-02
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
Written for the contest, Epic Ethereal Editor
sponsor, William Kekaula
Second Place
___________________________________
Submitted to FGI Blog Series 20 - Epic
Brian Strand
Podium Place 1
Your judgments have me grinning.
Don't pretend you were immune
from the Avarice of Pride.
Which you delved past cover packet
into the gutworm of stardoms naked lunch?
Unfolding the artwork of your Deathsnake Bands- ministering to idol hands,
wandering the scent of artwork sleeve.
'Scent of new jacket
with walking around money in the pockets
made of 'feited hourglass sand.
Do you not find it pathetic and ugly,
to keep chanting me me me?
I like how they are stringed pearls of sos-,
smokerings,
death row-,
'peals of that Apple
"standing up to be counted with pi
and to give account"
as a bridge to understanding your insanity
and to give creedence to your selfish lies
of phi,
relational patterns of why is the sky...
-
Maggots of your own carrion luggage
left to fester to the Son.
Sacrificial Poseidon Aquariums,
Babylon Hanging Gardens,
Bloodsport of perceived insects in arena of jar, of Leviathan Media Priests and Running-man television,
(Black) arts.
Did you invent the term movie star?
(Vanity Smurf tearer),
take a look as reality draws nearer.
Symbiose of the mind's chemical- sea trench monsters.
Rally the sheeples to stampede by your musical serenadings,
box spring snakes coiled
in union of souls call of tune.
Do you court the Druids to "tie a yellow ribbon round the old Oak Tree..."
Such Romanticide, needy.
(Your True : CHORUS)
A falling star hung in the air by insindiary glare
legislating from your bench
like Hephaestus tears
tinkering above a lossless accomodater
puppeting to speak your own truth
while pride sets up another soothsayer booth
Lucy, you got kisses for five cents,
while the world is monopoly
burning your marketplace incense,
falling for the fallen to pay for incoming recompense.
So, Nephilim pretending to be our Creators
is your next one, huh.
Soon, the World will see, your sumptuous gush
of trans-humanity
is just mental masturbation
fantasy
escaping the real thing.
THE TOKEN POETRY EDITOR
Sexless, unloved, this poem tycoon
Reads the heart’s treasures as the brain's boon,
And riven with erudition, explores the spaces
Where uninvited couplets kill the places
With talk of probity and probability.
This mortgaged toad of honesty gives glee
To those who find in truth a rash offence
And save their daily lies in deference
To a lone columnist like herself, persuading
All that is needed is this harvest of envious raiding
To feed the bonfire of youth and exploitation –
The seducer’s vocabulary of apt explanation
On why God is absent from the universe,
And can only be heard in exploding verse.
(C) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER (2008)
The Editor
I see all you have written,
Every word on the page.
Each note in the score,
Every dancer on the stage.
I notice matched colors,
In shirts just the same.
I can't stop the patterns,
They're just there in my brain.
I see numbers as paragraphs,
Their beauty and ease.
If I'm at the zoo,
I'd notice the fleas.
Folks hate the corrections,
That come from the editors.
They're just honing our skills,
to face our competitors.
We say "Thanks" or "Oh No"
Cuz we cannot combat,
But just a twist and a tweak,
and the poem is "All That"
-Edlynn Nau
8-22-15
Dear Mr. G.,
I'm a sloppily manufactured good
the kind of
you don't want it to be
exposed to the view
the kind of
piles up in a humid warehouse
tacitly humiliated
collusively dehumanized
even that feeling of having price attached
was never introduced
and I've heard the story about 20 dollar bill
that doesn't lose its value
no matter what
yet, here I am
unpriced
magnitude of my role is reduced to
bidding for detour
and what if
no one ever unpacks my pages
what if ...
is this reticent predestination
my real path
or instructions are misplaced
give them an order
I'm patiently waiting for refinement
Kind regards
S.
He publishes poems
by writers who find
no publishers elsewhere.
They suffer rejection
and he gives them hope.
Some improve
and some do not.
But hope isn't always
the best thing.
It’s not hopeful to tell
a child with clubfoot
to take ballet.
Donal Mahoney
How do you feel about anger?
Does it feel good
like other passions?
Is it a friendly device
like a sharpened axe
to shape the hardwood?
Can one be
forgiven for it?
When I hold
anger in my mind's hand,
I cut through ropes,
jam smooth
uneven walls.
It vibrates hard
like a rifle butt.
Dear Editor or Shreditor
by Michael R. Burch
Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!
Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor-
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I checked!):
since he’s plagiarized Unknown, I’ll wager!
Originally published by The Eclectic Muse as "The Better Man"
RISQUE LIMERICKS
Dee Lite Full
by Michael R. Burch
A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,”
wore gowns luciferously bright
till he washed them one day
the old-fashioned way ...
in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.”
The Bender Ender Blender
by Michael R. Burch
There once was a bubbly bartender,
a transvestite who went on a bender.
“So I cut myself off,”
she cried with a sob,
“There’s the evidence, there in the blender!”
Keywords/Tags: Limerick, Humor, Light Poetry, Parody, Satire, Unknown, Poets, Editors, Humorous, Light Verse, Fun, Funny, Giggle, Editing, Publication, Publish, Publishing, Poet, Poetry, Write, Writing, Anonymous, Plagiarism, Dubious, Text, Texts, Competition, Contest, Acceptance, Rejection Letter, Risque, Naughty, Crude
These vain attempts at verse could not be droller.
Your stuff is less inviting than ebola
(and not as catchy). Wordier than Emil Zola,
you haven’t got the steam to be a roller.
I’ve seen more cutting-edge in Pepsi-Cola.
You clearly honed your style in Fuengirola.
About as challenging as last year’s “¡Hola!”
(I’m sure you’re highly thought of in Angola.)
But that aside, I need a favour, mate.
The flood of would-be Spensers is in spate.
I’d like you to review – that is, donate
your time and talent (at the going-rate,
which happens to be zero.) Desecrate
the pricks who prattle, and the prigs who prate.
Denounce, detract. Indulge that gelding hate
that wells in all of us. The cut-off date
is looming, so get hacking. Don’t be late!
I wonder still just what it is that motivates some people;
Is it a talent for illusion or is it perhaps a need to hide?
And it’s illustrated so well with so very many Hughes;
With a picture of ones fruits of labor held in a sieve and kept on the kitchen counter.
I ask you dear editor what say you to this;
Are there perhaps probable causes that causes one to persist with such mannerisms?
With coins tossed and collected and the curtain closed for the night;
Does not one shed their costume and remove the make up?
And the collector; he has left his card with its rendition of time as we know it;
Should we not make time-take time- use time?
Shouldn’t we acknowledge and thank the significant players involved?
Tell me please do I regress perhaps;
Do I waste words dwelling in matters already came and gone?
What say you dear editor I lack definition
I received a cookie cutter form letter of rejection from the editor for someone else's poem in my SASE. That someone else sent me the acceptance letter she received for my poem in her SASE.
My poetic response: this seventeen syllable "precursory curse" fixed form villanelle.
Dear Editor,
I appreciate the time you took to send this rejection letter
about your decision not to publish me or put my work in print,
but I think, indeed, you really need to do your rejections better.
With your fine job title I felt you'd be the writing standard setter
‘til you rejected me in an SASE someone else had sent.
Should I appreciate the time you took on this rejection letter?
My intent is not to anger or put my future chance in fetter,
nor is the matter of this patter solely to chastise you or vent,
yet I think, indeed, you really need to make your rejections better.
Some of my best saved rejections have never fed a paper shredder;
that's how I detect, in retrospect, rhyme and reason to circumvent
the monumental task you took to construct this rejection letter.
Try to get the right writer’s name in your rejection letter header
or you may wonder where the submissions for your next edition went.
So I think, indeed, you really need to sort your rejections better.
In closing, I’ll just make this point I surely hope you will consider:
Always remember you cannot edit what we writers never sent.
Though I appreciate the time you took on your rejection letter,
still I think, indeed, you really need to check your rejections better.
Yours Truly,
Carl “Papa” Palmer ~ writer
Submission
By Beverly Stock
I called the editor knowing
That my temper would be showing
And said the following to him:
“I sent a poem here, sir”
(I said growing fiercer,)
“And the subject which
I’d chosen, Sir, was Spring.”
“ I just scanned your paper,
By sunlight, torch and taper,
Of my poem, I do not see a thing”
He spoke, I’m sure it was a fib,
Said he, smug and very glib,
“Of the sixty-one submitted, we printed one.”
“And we’ve decided they should be divided
Among the years then reunited
With a new one each succeeding Spring.”
“Your submission, I’m pleased to mention-”
Will receive our best attention
In our Spring Edition - 2081.”
The Poet's Condition
by Michael R. Burch
(for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)
The poet's condition
(bother tradition)
is whining contrition.
Supposedly sage,
his editor knows
his brain's in his toes
though he would suppose
to soon be the rage.
His readers are sure
his work's premature
or merely manure,
insipidly trite.
His mother alone
will answer the phone
(perhaps with a moan)
to hear him recite.
Alternate Title: "Poetry Slam: The Hangup"
Keywords/Tags: poet, poets, poems, poetry, poetic expression, rhyme, editor, publisher, mother, readers, recite, recitation, reciting, performance, writing, reading, rap, slam, phone, telephone
I shall write while I rest
amid the faint hues channeled
by a functioning heart bottled
to perfection during the tranquil
lessons a masterpiece unfolds
the infamous characters bonded
beyond the galleries of distant carny
and Gothic folklores tampered above
a shattered notion of writers block
The Better Man
by Michael R. Burch
Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!
Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I checked!):
since he’s plagiarized Unknown, I’ll wager!