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22 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

By 

Motivation
  
 The whole day stretched before me
 To work on all this mess
 Dust bunnies danced along the shelf,
 Much laundry, I confess.
  
 I scrunched down in my favorite chair.
 My pans were mucked in swill.
 I wondered what to tackle first –
 The socks piled in a hill?
  
 While I yawned and stretched my arms 
 A towel fell off its rack.
 My virgin sweeper stood at ease
 With cobwebs on its back.
  
 My family will arrive here soon
 To meet their humbled home.
 They’ll ask me what I did today.
 I’ll say, “I wrote a poem.”
  
 ~ Connie Williams

Connie Williams is a wife, mom, grandma, and retired teacher.  She has published articles, curriculum, and children’s chapter books.  Oh, and surprisingly enough–one poem, this one.  Check out her first attempt at a website: https://connie-a-williams.wixsite.com/mysite

21 April 2019 | National Poetry Month

By 

A F T E R

 After there’re no mountains left to climb
 After there’re no poems left to rhyme
 After there are no more problems left for me to solve
 After there are no more urgent conflicts to resolve
 After goals I set no longer shine
 After things I wished for all are mine           
 I will still find happiness in everything we do, and
 Want for nothing more than just to always be with you.
  
 After dreams we dreamed have come to pass
 After Autumn’s leaves have cloaked the grass
 After all the hard times and the good times we have known
 After all our children are grown up and on their own
 After there is time to smell each rose.
 After doors once open slowly close
 I will still find happiness in everything we do
 And want for nothing more than just to live my life with you.
  
 ~ Nelson Varon

In addition to being a musician and a writer of song lyrics & poems, Nelson Varon was a NYC school teacher, the founder of Nelson Varon Organ Studios in NYC,       a published songwriter & author of PlayNow Method For All Organs. He wrote  feature articles for The Music Trades  magazine, and How to Open a Piano & Organ Store (a chapter in the industry publication, How To Open A Music Store) and the short story, Fixing Things.  He was also the founder, publisher & editor of The Music & Computer Educator magazine, and the founder of Kern Piano Mall, in Bakersfield.

20 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

By 


 
 
 Femme
 for love & culture

 You weep inwardly (inner cry-New York Style)
 after your friend asks you – did you ever want a relationship 
   with your father?
 after twenty years – filled with antiseptic/// hardened glow
  
 No, I say, and I want to cry.
  
 no resource will fill—I doubt the hand that feeds me
 promise, promise is not forever, can still, quiet roaring.
  
 & when I stare into the sun
 burning up my retina—destroying images of men leaving or 
   papa dying.
 Do I ever want real relationships?
  
 I burn a hand that feeds
 burn feeding-you hands
 char flesh center-stage, focus of undoing.
  
 I’m weeping, calling my mother
 it’s just us & this hostility & genesis 
 stalking us everywhere we go—with every man we meet.
 sharp glare thrust knock politely tap, tap on thin bone
 scattering dazzling pink light, scaly, glittering on wish-less 
   tongue
 bloody from memory of darkest sky, omen of past retreat.
  
 we cannot beat our demons, but we trap them and suck out 
   the meat
 only bone is left, we sprinkle colorful light and leave remains 
   like that.

~Mateo Lara

Mateo Perez Lara is queer latinx, originally from Bakersfield, California. He received his B.A. in English at CSU Bakersfield. He is currently working on his M.F.A. in Poetry at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA. His poems have been featured in Emerson Review, EOAGH. He is an editor for RabidOak online literary journal & Zoetic Press.

19 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

By 

To Bring One Home
  
 Do you hear it?
 The plaintive drone,
 A wild melody,
 Drifting on the wind.
  
 Follow me
 Down cobbled alleyways,
 Past stonewalled cottages,
 Into fields of heather
 Across a grassy moor.
  
 The call is louder now,
 Pulling you inexorably,
 Stirring the blood
 With cries of warriors
 Marching into battle,
 Fearing death,
 Yet going forward anyway.
  
 Your heart is filled with longing.
 The wind is cold,
 Making the reddened nose run
 And eyes tear.
 The sun is setting its golden blessing
 Across the hills.
 Serpentine stone walls cast shadows.
 Sheep bleat,
 Adding grace notes
 To the haunting tune.
  
 Stumble over a rise
 And there they are!
 Standing stock still
 In rows upon rows,
 Wrapped in crimson and emerald tartans
 Whipping in the wind.
  
 The highland pipers
 Calling
 At the end of day.
  
 ~ Carla Joy Martin

Carla Joy Martin was born in New York City and grew up in St. Andrews, Scotland and Pasadena, California.  I have lived in Bakersfield for thirty years now, having raised my two sons here.  I have taught piano, art and English.  In these “Golden Years” of life, I am a substitute teacher and aspiring poet and children’s book author.

18 April 2019 | National Poetry Month WebPoetrySlam

By 


 Put your head on my shoulder, 
 let me reminisce in your autumn sky, 
 lemongrass, sweet chocolate chip hair
 Each strand like momma's fresh baked cookies
 Lay your head next to mine dear
 And let me inhale
 until i can't smell sadness no more
 Until all that lingers in my soul
 Is the scent of home
  
 -Z

Hello, I’m Zainab, but you can call me Z. I’m just a 19-year-old girl blessed with hazelnut skin, an electric Brain, and a love for life, trying my best to write about what I know to be true.