Newsletter Poems

Stay Active

When is a newsletter not a newsletter
When it's full colour and 36 pages long
That was 12 years ago when I began designing it
It was a 4-page black and white newsletter
It has since grown into this schmaltzy
Quarterly full colour community publication
I've always taken great pride
In every venture I've become involved with
Now in my years since retirement
Once again had my fingers back in the pie
It has given me “raison d'être”
Translated... “a reason for being”
My only regret is that it's quarterly
Instead of monthly as I would have preferred
It is so very important to remain active
Any way we can in our retirement years

Yesterday's News

Their fussing over nesting material.
One sparrow has a lot to say
the other just shuffles her butt feathers.

The sun has got itself snagged like a balloon
on a high twiggy branch.
Foliage rustles where bushy tails whisk.

Some guy down the way
is using a buzz saw.
His ear protectors muffle the sound
of angry squirrels.

The sparrows are now throwing
pieces of yesterday’s free newsletter
at each other.

A hush falls for a moment
when an Amazon van
arrives to deliver a box to a doorstep.

A stray breeze slaps the ears
of a cat as it watches the sparrows.

The everyday ruckus resumes
as the morning sun escapes.

Touchdown

God won’t give the 17th if we just play n do touchdown
Need to show the newsletter I did for 3 days
Had a hard time putting it together
It’s nice, a friend says it’s professionally done

She wishes she could do the same
Want to send it to Churches
Affordable yet questionable
Gave it to my ex spiritual director, hoping he would do something but nothing

Need to show  u
Maybe play if time permits
The need to touchdown is a must
So can go back to praying

God, praying to give the 17th
To touchdown & do the works

Something

A letter has been forwarded to me
from my ex-wife.
A pamphlet from a spiritual group
I had some interest in years ago.
I’m reading the small newsletter
with its quotes and nuggets of ancient wisdom
wondering,
what became of that younger man
so earnestly seeking,
then again, maybe he found something -

better.

Failure

And all it happened
As i feared
Turned into life
A nightmare
When i touched the flame
I burned down
All my ashes
Lingered around
Seeing the sky
Lying on disgust
Can never bring stars
Into your palm anigh.
Awake
And revive
From those ashes
And burn down those stars 
With victory of crashes.


Subscribe to my newsletter to know more about me:
https://curiestark.substack.com/?r=g9tif&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

December

On a bleak-cold icy day,
When everything was white and grey,
When frost benumbed my hands,
I stumbled on a frozen lake,
That was tumulted with life and sand.
I put a step forward,
And then I sunk down,
To drink the exilir of happiness,
Abandoning my barbed crown.
Time tangled in ice lattice,
And I walked through the aisle of memories,
Of warmth and cold ,
Of basking in the sun,
In the freezing winters,
Of late december.
Of cold winds,
And Christmas lights,
Of carolings and bribes.
But now I am trammeled,
In a suburban house,
No one knocking at the door,
No one strutting around. 



Subscribe to my newsletter to read more from me:
https://curiestark.substack.com/?r=g9tif&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

What Is Freedom

What is freedom?
Is it to knock about the world
Bolt-hole,no serfdom?
Is it to fritter away
Sweat-embellished money,
Just to trounce boredom?
Is it to cross all the boundaries,
Spout off unwary,
Exposing solipsistic odium?
No?
Then,
What is freedom?



In this fastpace world,we demand for freedom,freedom of speech, freedom of movement,freedom of belief.But making these demans,tge true essence of feel of freedom is long gone.



Subscribe to my newsletter for more ideas like this
https://curiestark.substack.com/?r=g9tif&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Miles To Go

It's been just an hour ,
years to go,
Does that ignition of heart went slow?
Flames of your fury gone low?
Then there is one thing you should know,
That there are miles to go.





Contest:Bit size poem 3



Subscribe to my newsletter to know more about me or to read my stories:

https://curiestark.substack.com/?r=g9tif&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Sorrows

You melted my dreams,
Casted it on your expectations,
Slammed it on me,
To mesh with it with determination.
Draining myself for you,
Still heard what you have done?
Before I close my eyes every night,
I wonder,do you ever love?
You mock at my feelings,
That peep through my eyes,
It's of heartache you gave,
But I am tounge tied.
You care of me sometimes,
And it's alleviating,
I forget all my sorrows,
And think you're loving.
But when the daydream shatters,
And I come in light,
All I see,
Love is but a blight.
I cannot utter "I hate you",
I feel neither,
Though you made me hate myself,
Or the world either.
Everyone says,
I should be loving you,
But I donot feel suchlike,
I feel like I am at the darkest roads,
Forlorn,
Deaf and muted,
I cannot even scream or cry.


  Subscribe to my newsletter to know more about me or to read stories written by me:
https://curiestark.substack.com/?r=g9tif&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

A Letter From God

A letter has been forwarded to me
from my ex-wife.
She is good at delivering news from the past.

This massage was from a Hindu spiritual group
that I had some interest in years ago.

I’m reading the small newsletter
with its quotes and nuggets of ancient wisdom
and wondering,
what became of that younger man so earnestly seeking,
maybe he found something when he gave up searching?
My white flag has been flying for years.

I’m delivering news to you now
from my words to your eyes
and I know my ex-wife listens
with God’s ears.

Visiting Hours

The hands circle the clock
as I watch the minutes pass
into soundless history.

After a time or so
his eyes speak and vocal cords
try once again to master

that foreign language spoken
by both the aged and the young
when thoughts cannot find the words.

My hands cradle his face
as I kiss the salty brow
of his altered memory.

While teardrops freely flow
our eyes meet and two soul mates
sing an old refrain together

in a language understood
by both musicians and poets
when rhythm strikes the right chords.

June 26, 2019

contest:  Poetry Anthology, Music Theme Poetry Contest by Geraldine Taylor

to honor the work being done in using music to spark the
memory of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
written originally for an online newsletter, Music Therapy Matters, Spring 2008, Angie Elkins, editor.

Mikey

I didn't realize I hadn't posted my first poem I ever had published (albeit in a small newsletter). It was my first attempt at poetry after having been humiliated in high school (by an English teacher, no less) and I was proctoring a bar exam. I had written it on the back of one of those little passes we gave to students who needed to go to the restroom, if I remember correctly. Anyway, it was about my girlfriend's greyhound, who lived with me for several years (so he was kind of mine too). His name was Mikey, and he was a wonderful, unique pup.

MIKEY

Light foot flash on oval track,
Halvah-shaded straining back,
Playful buck, so full of *****,
Gentleman, yet ready to funk,
Bouncing, prancing, bowing boy,
Love ta shake dat rabbit toy.
Who would think that anyone,
After all that money and fun,
Would put beauty down to rest?
Glad we got him, he's the best.

Soul's Battle

Amuck in this life, she fights and bumbles
Onward and forward she kicks and stumbles
Easily, angrily, quickly she grumbles
While in the distance dark thunder rumbles.
At last she falters, listens, then mumbles
“Good God!” and into oblivion tumbles.










“Soul’s Battle” first appeared in the Dead of Night Newsletter, July 1994, then collected in Lake of the Devil: Poems of Morosity and Jest (Duck's-foot Tree Productions, 1995) limited to 75 copies. It was included in the poetry section of the omnibus edition of novel, poems, and tales Anthony Shriek: His Doleful Adventures; or, Lovers of Another Realm (Centipede Press, 2017). It is also included in my forthcoming Hippocampus Press collection The Ghost Garden and Further Spirits.

Kites and Tykes

The wind blew exactly right
For the flying of a kite.
Kites were nearly everywhere:
In telephone wires
And high in the trees,
One or two were in the air,
Blowing ever higher
On a gentle breeze.

Then all at once the wind increased;
It blew and blew, it hardly ceased,
Pulling all the kites so high
Into the clouds,
How high they go!
Pulling children in the sky,
Above the crowds
That watch below!

Children hanging by kite strings,
Dangling over homes and things,
Higher, higher, beyond sight,
Each child dangled from a kite.

Then there was a change in the weather.
The wind stopped blowing altogether.
Children fall, down they drop, one and all,
Plop…plop…plop.






This is another poem from the ongoing series "Lucifera's Questionable Daycare Poems and Stories." It previously had very minor publication in Pamela Olsen's mail art compilation zine The P&E Newsletter volume 2 number 9, October 1993.

Mushroom Stew

(for Gahan Wilson)

Mushroom stew, mushroom stew
Nothing more or less will do
Needs no spice, no barley rice,
Laced with wine would not be nice.

Every morning, noon and night
Mushroom buttons grace my plate
With my fork and spoon and knife
Feasting till the hour is late.

A tasty brew is mushroom stew
Makes you dream and makes you scream
Eat some and I promise you
You'll become a mushroom, too.





"Mushroom Stew" appeared in my newsletter Mushroom Stew 1, 1975. It was collected in the big omnibus  Anthony Shriek: His Doleful Adventures; or, Lovers of Another Realm (Centipede Press, 2017), containing the horror novel plus a second book's worth of short stories, novelettes, poems, and "odd end pieces."

• Short Newsletter Poems
• Famous Newsletter Poems
• Best Newsletter Poems
• Read Newsletter Poems
• Long Newsletter Poems
• Newsletter Quotes