Rich Ferguson

If you carefully listen to the fine print at the end of most every human breath, you’ll discover a song of life. A thumping, pumping, bump and grind of Why Can’t We All Just Get Along. It’s a chorus with many voices—some rage louder than sprouts in bomb gardens. Others are more sublime, like kindness making a 2 am booty call to your inner being. Still others choose to deny our song’s existence. They say it’s a ghost, white as sheets they wear to Klan rallies. Yet all that hate won’t make our song go away. That beat don’t need a pill to keep it rock hard and steady. Can’tcha feel it move you? Love is the axis upon which spins the record of our boldly playing hearts.

Lori Wall-Holloway

September Haiku

Pumpkin spice lattes 

in September launch autumn

New school year begins

Season of Newness

“And suddenly, you just know

it’s time to start something new

and trust the magic of beginnings.”

   -Inspire Uplift Blog.com

As the last bit of sweltering

heat consumes the month

I look forward to the soft 

song of autumn snuggled

in the days of September 

May its increase overcome 

summer so newness can begin 

May We Never Forget

September 11, 2001

In this month of September

pray we never forget when

the true spirit of America

awoke from its slumber

On the day tragedy struck 

heroism replaced fear 

Miracles transpired and willing 

sacrifices were made by many

so, others could live

Let us remember the time 

when the United States 

was unified and other

countries joined us 

in the fight against evil

Sadly, memories become 

like vapors and what occurred

in the past is forgotten 

In fickleness, some become

fixated on themselves 

and their ideas as they 

try to cancel the heart 

of previous generations

Instead of falsehoods 

and lies, may truth

reign with transparency 

so, the DNA of America 

can arise again 

And we can unite as one

Frankie Hernandez

The sun was shy this morning. Maybe it's coming into work late today. Maybe the sun is exhausted, or tired of being called names for all the misery it caused in the past few weeks. 6:35 am, coffee, my eyes seek the horizon covered by grey puffs. 

The light reveals a lone swimmer who'd been there since dark. I envy their freedom, fearlessness, foolishness. I fear the vastness, anything past the breaking waves but I'm compelled to be here. "Worry" is a bad habit I have been trying to shake since I grew up.

Age 18, I could talk any friend with a car to leave east side parties or clubs, drive north on the 101, exit Sunset Boulevard and wind our way to the water. After awhile, they'd put firewood and lighter fluid in their trunks before a Saturday night out with me, just in case. I didn't care that I missed my strict mama's curfew or that the tide soaked my clothes with sand. Or when my perfectly blow dried hair became a mess of swirl and the wind erased any trace of Maybelline and Cover Girl. I didn't care about homework, chores or bills. I would plant my feet on the shore, let the tide rush them and be transported somewhere while standing in the same place. Free, fearless, foolish

Pamela Shea

The clouds take on the shape of an eagle

As we remember twenty-one years ago

When life changed so profoundly

Individually and collectively

Someone said we no longer cry

But I have been shedding tears for weeks

I will never allow myself to forget

For then I will have lost my humanity

My faith sustains me

We must be better

Not bitter, but united

That songs of freedom will still be sung

Expand your lungs and sing along

Mary Langer Thompson

The Waste Land Revisited

September 11, 2001

Mr. Eliot, with all due respect,

April is no longer the cruelest month.

It's September that we will recollect

as the time we created a new front,

told young men and women to write their wills,

some three thousand deaths diminishing us.

The leaves fade, color is sucked out of hills.

Autumn attacks green for khaki surplus.

Bird scolding bird, all too shell-shocked to fly,  

dog days of summer twist to dogtag days.

There's too much work to do to pause to cry;

what was once clear is now a cloudy maze.

This encroaching darkness we must defeat,

then recapture spring, a season past sweet.

R A Ruadh

September’s Inheritance

If truth be told

he’d rather be on his farm

knee boots and kilt

a well worn cardigan

staff in hand between the rows

redolent of the season’s last tomatoes

winter vegetables coming on

He’d rather drink in

the rich scent of soil and pasture

blending harmoniously with birdsong

gossiping chickens

the occasional commentary of

a cow on the hill beyond

He’d rather enjoy purposeful

wanders along the hedges

wakening appetite for the simple dinner

at end of day

and restful evenings with his beloved

as the country night draws in

Yet it is country which calls

the long dreaded moment

of death and duty

for which he was born

and which one day

his son in turn will inherit

Others will tend these gardens and fields

as he travels

ever farther from the seasons’ turning

to be buried

alive and after life by

ceremony, sceptre, and

city stone

Jeffry Michael Jensen

A Song for My Supper 

Since I left school, I only sing in the shower or in the car.

A fortuneteller once told me that I should not give up my day job.

In September, I like to take long walks into the surrounding hills.

And we all know that the hills “are alive with the sound of music.”

I like to believe that whistling a cheerful tune can solve something of note.

Fairy tales can come true if I can only slay a few of the sleeping dragons

that seem to gather under my bed whenever there is a heat wave.

Maybe I shouldn’t blame my lack of storybook endings on these gate-crashing dragons.

I should be getting a delivery soon of the stew that my cats can’t live without.

If I play my cards right, I can bribe the cats into chasing off the uninvited guests.

By the weekend, I expect that I can be singing up a storm

and some real clouds that just happen to be in the neighborhood

will produce a measurable downpour.

I also will be feeding my face with a large helping of spicy meatballs.

And that will be the biggest fairy tale of them all.

 

 

Veronica Jauregui

My voice has left a disappearance 

It wanted to say the reaches of the universe yet I had not heard back from it 

I had become all eyes in observance of life 

Maybe this is to truly be 

In a state of non judgement but far beyond that 

In a state of dream because in dream we  only speak 

In a desperateness if there is ocassion 

In a dream we watch until the sun goes to the other side of the world up until  the moon sets it's place in it's heart and throbs the night through until it ventures 

Into true dream 

I saw a contraption where all energy funneled through 

Through worlds and galaxies it went up and water was it's base I looked at it and thought all energy has to go through something how peculiar and I saw all energy 

In transfer in it's most free state in it's state of wanting to be everything decide it's next pondering on the brilliance of what just happened 

Charles Harmon

"Leaving L.A."

September Song 

September has always been a portentous month, signaling an end

to the blazing hot days of summer and the dying of the old year.

Hitler and the Nazis chose September 1st, 1939, to invade Poland,

triggering World War 2, which eventually involved 132 countries.

Often forgotten is that Japan invaded or attacked dozens of countries

in the 30s even before hitting Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 

Auden reminded us of the complexities of war and peace in his poem

“September 1, 1939,” when he wrote, “Those to whom evil is done

do evil in return.” Imposition of massive reparations crushed the

German economy and led to financial collapse and hyperinflation

that pushed Germany into dictatorship and war when Hitler and the

National Socialists were voted into power, resulting in disaster. 

As a curious and motivated student, I always looked forward to

returning to school in September after a summer of sports, books,

hiking and climbing and fishing in the mountains, and vacation.

I climbed the Matterhorn in Switzerland on September 1, 1979,

fulfilling a childhood dream from when I saw the one at Disneyland.

I was reminded of four German climbers who died on its treacherous

North face the week before, and of 85 million lives lost in the war. 

Mom was born in September, a sister, and friends also, and I followed

my parents into the teaching profession when students went back to

school in the seventh month. Oh, yes. September means the seventh

month, so why is it now the 9th month? The Romans added months

named for emperors thought to be gods and the Calendar adjusted.

Despite heat and humidity and hurricane conditions recently I still

think of September as signaling the approach of autumn and winter

and the end of the old year as plants lose their leaves and seem to die,

animals hibernate or migrate to warmer climes, the sun god appears

to be dying, seasons pass, yet April come she will. 

I found it easier to learn foreign languages when I listened to songs

and memorized lyrics, often singing along with the music

I love “The Threepenny Opera,” composed by Kurt Weill, one of the

20th century’s greatest, with hits like “Mac the Knife.” My favorite

is “September Song” recorded by his wife, Lotte Lenya, who fled

Germany with him for America because he was Jewish.

“But the days grow short when you reach September,

And these few precious days I’ll spend with you.”

September 11, 2001

September, I remember, we can never forget

Study the past and you will learn to see the future

And what kind of future can we predict?

For centuries people came to America for freedom

Freedom to live life on their own terms

To live hard, to work hard, to invent and create

To build and expand and make a great country

But now many are drawn by the lure of free money

And government is printing plenty of it

To buy votes, to buy compliance, to make people sheep

And we see where excessive money printing has led

To making the rich boys who control everything

Even richer, and making the politicians they buy off

Even richer, even as they make the money worth less

Until it is worthless, and yes it has happened before

Many times before as when hyperinflation made

Germany bankrupt to where they voted in Hitler

Hyperinflation made Russia bankrupt

To the point they threw in with Lenin and Stalin

And created the vast enslavement of the Soviet Union.

It happened in China to the point they threw in with Mao

And hundreds of millions were slaughtered

By their own governments in the name of socialism

But what of a religion that says they are the only true one

Discounting ancient religions that came long before

And they claim the right to enslave and slaughter

Those who do not obey, those that do believe it is right

For a man to have four wives who are mere property

And whose prophet had 97 wives and married one aged nine?

September, I remember, they used the inventions of freedom

To attack a free country and kill citizens of 165 countries

Who were living and working and creating here

Who used the airplanes, flight fuel, telephones, and computers

To bring down the skyscraper towers that free people invented

To bring us back to primitive dictatorships of 14 centuries ago.

Please notice that millions of people are coming here

Not just for the free money but for the freedom and opportunity.

Not many are leaving for better opportunities elsewhere

Although some are leaving because they fear collapse and war.

Study the past and you will see the future.

There was a band I once saw that called it “Devolution.”

 

Gia Civerolo

Poem One About September

She forgot what she wanted to say

There was too much 

like a tree in the

Fall

falling

Nothing at all

The confetti 

colors

falling 

Fall

It was not a 

September to remember

Just a sad song

They played it 

over and 

over again

In her head

falling

fitfully asleep

Alone

while lying 

next to you 

in bed

Sitting on the Porch 2

Sitting on the porch

she saw the Fall

leaves 

cascading

down

shafts of sunlight

the orange cats

nonchalantly

batted them away

she wasn’t sure

why

it made her 

wish

she remembered

it might

have been September

the last time they had

kissed

while the black crow

sat on the telephone pole

wondering 

if they ever had a

love song

September Slumber

The requiem for the summer

played softly throughout her slumber

Searching in the darkness

shocked by the sheer starkness

Trying hard to remember

what it was about September

that made her feel

like nothing was real

Watching dancers from the balcony

she caressed her melancholy

Trying to remember

Trying to remember

What it was about September

Thom Garzone

Cadence

Her scent guides me,

smothers me in sweet blossoms stirring

below my senses struggling

to rise in erotic emotions.

A hint of nicotine I detect on her breath

as she brushes her lips to my neck

and whispers faint words, then

purrs and blows in my ear.

She grinds her hips up against my own,

shakes her cheeks, slapping them

like a naughty child.

I inhale her bouquet, a blend

of body lotion and talcum,

same as the other dancers.

I see her talk to the DJ,

gesturing with her finger as to

my limp penis;

yet I still feel passion for her,

as the other dancers.

I toss them five dollars at a time

just to inhale their aroma

engulfed in desire

bordering helpless fantasy

in myriads of enchantment.

Her torso is built like a flat surface,

yet geometrically perfect to me.

She delivers me to mountains of

twilight dancing formless

in the shades of my brain

I wish I can press my lips to her smooth body,

though Cadence is only a dream,

a dream who dances on a lighted stage

leading me by the hand to a private booth.

Her long legs and firm back

wants to rest upon my lap.

My friend and I see her outside the club,

puffing a cigarette.  Yet in my mind

I sense her ambrosia emitting from her pores

through the rough night that follows.

I shut my eyes remembering her perfumed body

and feel erect with joy

to chant an iridescent canto

over her vicious energy.

September

To cross this desert of time and fuse mountains of my mind with the curved hips

of a young woman called Cadence, serenading her as the song she is named, and

kiss her cool skin drawn with symbols signaling my dreams to lie dormant on a rejected

landscape, helpless for two more decades, so I can ponder further among lonesome ranges,

empty fields in the evolution of my soul; perhaps, to alter it all, yet when it comes down to

reality, I drown in morose moments at a Nevada brothel, watching the whores line up but

only to desire in raising enough money next chance I'm in town, so that I can afford sex.

Afford sex! Why is there a price on love? Can I use my credit card? Cadence dances

to 1940s jazz. I struggle to get erect, but suffer from 21 years of being sexually inactive,

21 years of nerves building like an earthquake that never leveled Northern Nevada. My friend

and I drive through the town of Wells. Vacant windows gaze at our lost fate, eternal eyes of

desolation. Boarded-up stores, a period to another era. Inside our motel room we listen to tractor trailers rumble, winds strike meager structures of Wells, dust swirling, leaving me, Jason, and an old Clint Eastwood Western on cable TV. Outside trucks brake and squeal with steel, also seeming to halt my sex life and I wallow in low wages, and disgusted with my life, I doubt my future will ever be

filled with love. Around me, the world is mundane yet in harmony with certainty, creating motions

that makes fools of us all

Song Girl

Lie down on me like a tapestry

enveloping the languid dream

I have of you

of your hair that presses against my chest

yet just a snapshot in my mind

flickering with the spreading of your limbs

across a shore,

on sand grains like the color of your hair

Look into my soul

with such iridescent eyes

to desire and glow with an image,

even though now serving coffee behind a counter

charging, and taxing me with glory

Sing along with the keys of my will,

soothe me of my transgressions

and fill me with this compassion

from the magic of your singular presence

Shih-Fang Wang

September Song

Time shifts to September 

The flamboyant summer sun

Has aged by now 

Its oomph is waning

Heat dwindling 

Sharp sunbeams turn softer

Sky is lucid

Higher and bluer

Air fresher

With a touch of damp

Days are shorter

Nights darker

Nature starts to compose

Autumn poetry 

Rich in colors

Beautiful and sentimental 

Yet with shadows of sorrow 

Soon fall foliage will turn 

Lifeless and drop like rain

Grass dries out and wilts

Gilded with morning frost

Singing no more the birds

They fly south

Leaving autumn songs   

Merely sighs of wind

Patricia Murphy

September Song

I love the September songs. 

Love in September.  

It was in the month of September before 

Labor Day when my true love and I 

First went out to see a movie. 

We went to Burger King first 

And got drinks then onto 

Cinemark Theatres in NoHo. 

It was a  fun time. 

We had a great time.

We saw Planet Of The Apes. 

The songs were wonderful. 

The music was great. 

The whether was cool and calm. 

The food was delicious. 

Later on Labor Day we went to a 

BBQ at a friend's house. 

We shared a meal with friends. 

We had a lovely time. 

We sang songs. 

We had a hilarious time. 

Love in September. 

It's always spectacular. 

September 

The September song of life. 

I love the cool weather.  

I love the leaves turning gray and brown. 

September 8th is the day our beloved 

Queen Elizabeth passed away. 

On September 6th Queen Elizabeth 

Greeted new Prime Minister Liz Truss.  

The Queen looked great with her 

Warm, welcoming smile and demeanor.  

Her true spirit shone through. 

She rejoiced and reigned for seventy years. 

Her presence was felt throughout the world. 

Her devotion to the people was astonishing. 

She truly was a Queen. 

The people's Queen. 

We treasure her presence. 

We pray she's in heaven. 

Mark A Fisher

September

when the summer crumbles

finally burned out

leaving more ashes

gray like my hair

for another autumn

at least one

across forested mountains

while the vultures

migrate through

once again

remembering their

centuries

and the phantoms

of wanderers coming home

preparing themselves

for a spring

that whispers secrets

in the dreams of bears

waiting for the coming rain

to run down rocky slopes

washing away

all the accumulated

moments

of another year

passing around the sun

with all the fanfare

forgotten

and I become

older

Terry McCarty

The Ballad of Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal 

she made records he made movies  

she was an old soul when it came to business 

but young enough to still believe in love 

as something that mattered more than 

mere material for song lyrics 

but he was ten years older and steeped

in the ways of the world as he saw it 

when the breakup came,

he apparently said something about 

how the age difference made a difference 

so therefore he was okay with leaving 

she felt like a crushed pomegranate 

then turned heartbreak 

into no ordinary end of relationship song 

singing for ten minutes on SNL 

with audible grief of youth 

still present in the thirtyish woman 

telling fans not to walk down this particular path 

if you don’t yet have self awareness

especially don’t give yourself to a man 

who may regard you as no more than a mere trifle

 

Remembering a September Poem

In 1997, I wrote one of my earliest poems

There was an attempt at a conceptual metaphor

Regarding September’s continuation of summer weather

And how sobering it was to see an empty swimming pool

That was the 38-year-old me wondering if joy would return

The following spring, I phoned someone who I met online

Once I arrived at her house, there was no further need to write 

Despairing poems about pools without water in El Monte

Singing Top Forty on the School Bus

seventh graders in unison

doing a rendition of American Pie

loud and pretty much in tune

but no interpretive skills to be found

since young folks born in 1958 and 1959

weren’t aware of regret and good old days

but they knew more about those subjects

when the ten year reunion arrived in 1987

Joseph Nicks

October’s Opus

since 1979

it happens every autumn

as the diminishing daylight

and the quickening air

begin to work their magic

on my dull and torpid 

summer-weary soul

and soon enough I feel 

that hunger, that thirst,

that insatiable desire

to capture every hue – 

every barely perceptible

nuance, of the landscape’s

metamorphosis into waning 

equinox

such a seemingly simple task, 

the distillation of a season 

into an inexorable ink 

that will effuse throughout the room 

and permeate these pages 

of its own unsolicited volition

and I almost pulled it off 

in 1992 and 1999, 2003, 2005, 

2015-2020 – 13 lost and lonely 

poems in 10 of these 43 years

that’s about as close as I ever came

all those other autumns simply 

slipped away unpressed

between the pages of remembrance,

each one of them a moment lost in time:

September’s song so quickly eclipsed 

by unrehearsed October’s opus –  

itself a fleeting symphony 

of reds and yellows, golden browns

all too swiftly overcome 

by November’s lament

and December’s dirge

 

the window of opportunity 

slams shut almost as soon 

as it blew open,

the brash wind-driven 

intermingling colors of the fall

predictably succumbing 

to the blinding monotonous 

whiteness of winter once again

Mary Mayer Shapiro

Music in the sky

Sitting out side

Enjoying the cool September evening

Eliminating the bugs,

Suddenly there was a disturbance in the atmosphere

As if the conductor waves the baton

And the orchestra began to play

Music in the sky had begun

Playing a song of their own

The cumulus clouds

Drifted near,

Accompanied by falling chords

Imitated the soft rain drops

Dancing in the air

Zeusaphone sparks flying in the air

Brought lightning bolts

From the sky

Touching the ground

Thunder Drum springs movement

And creates a continuous resonance

And the sound of thunder

Could be heard

Cumulus clouds

Brought cumulonimbus clouds

And heavy rain storm

And the Tibetan sing Bowls

Played on

The conductor’s baton

Continued to wave

The orchestra

Played on

As time passed

Lightning and thunder stopped

The tempo slowed down

The flute blew tiny rain drops

The conductor stop

Waving the baton

The music came

To a halt.

As I step outside

Zephyr brushed

My cheek

As it went by me

I looked up to the sky

And saw a rainbow

Wonder if at the end

Of the rainbow

There was a

Leprechaun granting three wishs

Or a pot of gold

Or just a symbol reminding us of a promise

Kathee Hennigan Bautista

September

September is hot in California

Days of sunshine burning shoulders

Of those needing to be outside

Metal doorknobs scorching hands as we scramble in the house.

Where is an oven mitt when it’s needed?

Construction workers, delivery persons, gardeners 

Begin work at dawn to start in cooler light

 Sweating under hats that don’t prevent sweat

From rolling down the backs of shirts

September is hot in California

A delivery truck is stocked with a dozen bottles of frozen water

That the driver will replenish by noon 

Roofers keep their ice chest full of water and Gatorade 

Waiting in the shade for thirsty lips

Co-workers keep an eye out for one another for signs of heat exhaustion

Boy it is hot on the roof!

September is hot in California

Back-to-school sales and pumpkin lattes claiming the arrival of autumn. 

Thermometers and calendars remind us that summer continues

Schools keep children in for recess lest 

A child fall from the jungle gym while experiencing sun stroke

Or third degree burns while kicking a ball.

Senior citizens crowd into “cooling centers” at the community center or library

Feigning an interest in playing cards while

Secretly worried about the price of electricity during a heat wave.

California is hot in September

My Dear One

You bring focus to all that is 

Important

In a hurried and rushed world

I slow down for you.

Your thoughts are important 

As you share

With halted speech and slurred words

You speak with your eyes

I lay everything aside to listen to your 

Wisdom.

In my busy world I see

That you are a dancer, an athlete, a singer,

A bicyclist, an artist, a techie 

One who smiles with your whole body

Because your joy can not be contained

On your face alone. 

I hear your song!

Indeed, you are joy in every movement!

In the midst of what others see as limitations

You bring wholeness to my life

And in seeing your gifts, my own brokenness begins to find peace. 

We bring healing to one another.

You teach me that the purpose of life is to love. 

Kim Schroeder

Ecuador Cries

Strumming his armadillo-shell guitar 

he ululates a lament. His daughter 

wrestles with a ‘poncho as cover’

restless as the guinea pigs corralled 

in a corner of the kitchen.

He is with waterfalls, rainforests,

volcanic peaks which imprint like a 

four thousand year old rubber stamp. 

He’s aware of the smell of llamas.

His wife prepares flax he’ll weave 

in the Inca tradition of colour and meaning.   

His back will ache after hours 

on the loom he wears 

like an ice cream seller at the cinema.

He chants in descant to sweet squeaks -

they suddenly cease. His wife rodeos a feast.   

Oils sizzle his consciousness like acid rain.   

His daughter grimaces with arms 

halo-ing her head like a deep-fried  

South American delicacy.   

He begins a lullaby.

Joe Grieco

Metriculation

September swaps your swashbuckle August

for leafy confetti on autumn halls

                the niner month gets so chiaroscuro  

 

go-away parties go  away

your back-to-school shirt smells like starch

                class starts tomorrow for the rest of your life     

 

write “how I spent my summer vacay”

learn the words to the fight song

                delete the photos on your phone

               

and by the way,

                stop searching for meaning

 

 

Rick Leddy

Desert Song

They sing a disappointed September tune

Wail for the forgotten lyrics of changing colors and falling temperatures

But Los Angeles is Stravinsky

It is screeching violins of leaves spontaneously combusting

An unpopular cacophony of shimmering fall sidewalks and weary burned soles

They demand a soaring swan song

Not paved mirages filling them with confusion and despair

They want an aria for change

A sad, slow dirge recalling the loss of warmth and growth 

A requiem for Spring and Summer

But, we give them angry rap, a hot staccato ode to blistering autumns

A sneer in the direction of over the river and through the woods

They want the snap of chill and warm sweaters and the first smell of coming ice

But, we offer them the shaman’s rattle, burning sage and incomprehensible incantations 

We force the purification of wildfire and black, skeletal trees upon them

Even we practice amnesia of the desert lyrics

Hypnotized by the dissonance of blurred seasons 

We forget we are only visitors 

That the siren song beckons us to our destruction

The others banshee why?

These denizens of seasonal climes

And they are met with a shrug

It is how it is

How can you understand?

We surrender to inevitability

Wait for the earth to fall far enough from the sun to mute the desert song 

We wait for the last-ditch devil winds to crescendo through the hard-scrabbled canyons

And sometimes the chorus whispers we are scraping by on the dreams of others

We are singing a song learned by rote; its true meaning long forgotten

The lyrics of dust and bones slow and eternal

The desert waiting

Hedy Habra

Flora & the End of the Bird’s Song

Do you think I don’t feel spiraling ferns unfurl all over my moss-covered hair, vibrant like a horse’s mane, tips brushing over my naked shoulders? Don’t you see how pale my skin is from hiding in the shadows of the underwoods, surrounded with silence yet still sensing the growth of each ripening berry, my thoughts mushrooming like foam as I sense slippery serpentine movements and a sudden flutter of wings, both predator and prey feasting on the free meal crowning my head. But why should I feel sorry for the end of the bird’s song? Doesn’t he also stop the worm from unfolding its butterfly’s wings?

First published by Parting Gifts from Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

 

Expectations  

Face to face, standing in an immobile boat, two lovers are enveloped by a lapis lazuli glow as though out of a painting by Miró revisited by Klein: the deep sea evaporates around them, freeing a school of red fish gliding at ease as in an aquarium: only their fins flicker like fireflies around the nascent crescent, a silent witness to that still scene: the boy holds a loaf of moon in one hand while in the other shines a scarlet star, color of the girl’s bonnet. Slightly bent over his offerings, she reflects, her crossed hands weighing her breasts heavy with promises and songs.

 

First published by Knot Literary Journal from Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015) 

I’d Like to Write a Song of Freedom, 2011

The daily news defies me as does the almanac when

early signs of spring sprout, in Egypt & Lebanon,

budding with innocence, walls rise, crushing voices

with indifference. I’d like to write a song of freedom,

a Song of Songs merging the dialects of my youth

into one heart, and share the lush ruby red arils of

Phoenician apples. Syllables fall off the table, lie

formless all over the floor, powerless, unable to unite.

How could they concoct an elixir of hope when time

and again in the land of milk and honey fear settles

its motto in streets steeped in carmine ink where shades

wander, forever haunting the site of their bloodshed.

Unable to decipher the elusive pattern of unuttered

words cluttered between my temples, a heavy armor

pressed against my chest, I only feel the lift and pause

of the waves surrounding silence. Will I ever learn

the language of invisible scars tattooed all over my skin?

First published by Mizna Literary Journal from The Taste of the Earth (Press 52 2019)

Jackie Chou

Come September

The schoolyard filled with 

children once again.

Even while they shrieked,

playing ball,

they could see me.

They had eyes like bullets–

a thousand pierced through

the wire fence.

I walked faster,

keeping my head down,

my mother's hand

pulling me toward 

the backroom of her store

where I squatted on a box

for five years,

teaching myself math 

and reading.

When I was eleven

mom finally sent me to school,

which didn’t erase 

the freak in me.

Marlene Hitt

September Then

The yellow light of autumn

fills my kitchen, lifts gold

from my children's hair.

They sit on the floor

carving apple faces to dry

into heads for granny dolls.

The yellow light of autumn

smells like pumpkin pie,

like cider, like dry earth,

like the scent

of  crumbling leaves.

September came in

during the night, set down

by the hand of man.

This should be the day

to usher in a new year!

Indian summer is over,

the harvest is in.

We eat supper

of orange and yellow,

wait in our beds

like the last of the trees.

We are dropping down

into winter

to huddle beneath blankets,

drink something

by the fire.

Today, the first day of

something new,

the beginning of a new harvest

Dean Okamura

 

“Crepuscule” (2022)

A glimpse into a dark soul

He ate the poison of his deeds; his body held reservoirs of self-hate.
Knew little of freedom — trapped in repetition.
     over and over,
     it is not a thing learned — 

The condemnation came from those; the holy ones should have been pillars of hope.
Collapsed in the heaps — lost souls.
     homeless, living in a house he owns,
     it is poverty of another kind —

Tonight, he died, tomorrow, he lives; living scares him more than dying.
Death is waiting — around each corner.
     Death is a cynic,
     draining empty hearts —

He believes that heaven and hell do not exist for him; that he is different.
While others find peace — others tormented after Death.
     he suffers here,
     imagining more and more suffering —

Because he knows the September sun rises, and tomorrow is a harvest of despair.

He thinks it over. He remembers no message of good news: just false, empty words.
While each of the shit house philosophers collects their pay.
     he sits in dark despair,
     twisting his wrists around his neck —

"Blue moment" (2022)

Song of blue moment

   

Oh baby, 

Let me ask you 

please, please, hear me. 

Can we 

Find a way to 

live in this crazy, crazy… 

Madness? 

With the world fall- 

ing apart and vanishing? 

Oh baby, 

Let me ask you 

please, please, imagine 

Can we 

Find a way to 

build us a sanctuary… 

Calmness? 

Within our selves 

tranquility together. 

agitated pond — 

the uneasy surface hides… 

pockets of refuge 

Petrouchka Alexieva

September Song 

(to my father)

Photo cutesy: Public Domain Pictures

I still sing these songs in September -

All the melodies from my childhood, from my youth. 

Yes, I remember them all with my heart.

We harvested grapes in my father’s vineyard - 

Heavy pearls in gold and red.

It was his season, his main campaign. 

So, we harvested them for days. 

And then the autumn fan began. 

Beautiful girls and strong handsome boys 

Jumped into huge wooden barrel. 

Tightening up their clothes to the knee

And singing harvesting songs,

Dancing and mashing the sweet juicy pearls

With their bare feet and laughter was burst.

While grandma was cooking, 

Kneeled down on the ground,

My father was blessing the vines. 

Spieling red wine deep into the roots.

He was thankful for the year that past.

Happy harvesting songs were herd far away

Until moon got high in the sky

Spreading shimmering dust

On the vines from above.

The next day and the very next day

It happened again and again.

So, the job was entirely done.

Yes, I remember this magical time

In which grapes were turned to wine.

I remember the songs of September

And my father’s harvesting chants.

Alicia Viguer-Espert

 

The Seventh Month

From the door I search 

the blues from my youth

which were many.

The heat of august sails

over a straight horizon,

light offers shade to pine trees

no longer trampled by torridity.

As September expires, 

I lift my eyes which have seen so much sky,

above torsos of fishermen, their straw hats, 

espadrilles, even flying seagulls.

At the shore

the frothy sound of a playful sea delights,

keeps my toes cool, 

the heart burning,

with nostalgia. 

Robert Fleming

Walt Whitman's Song of Myself - excerpt

Body to Soul

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, 

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, 

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. 

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? 

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? 

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? 

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

Robert Fleming Response

I seek to sing my soul

The peace doves, I love, flock, but I fail to flock to peace doves

I seek the secret to hear my silence

And release them and charge solely myself with my soul

I doubt that eating the soul of the sea shall find the sole in me

And still I fry sole fish to eat soul into my body

And I remove my socks to skip on my soles

And when my body is soot, I shall sing my soul

Tim Tipton

New Start

it’s late September

the leaves on the sycamore tree

have touched earth

the wind clears the last days of

summer like a sky of clouds

there’s not much left now but

the faint echo of carefree children

making most of their long hours

these changes depress most

but encourage me

rustle of feet on brittle grass,

the early evenings, and

the cold air blowing on my face

September brings in a fresh start

a feeling of rebirth

it’s a great time to change your life.

Crescent Moon

Crescent moon of

September is my birthday month.  

A month when the fading light of

the wild lure of Indian Summer 

cuts to the bone by the scent of autumn.   

Golden poplar leaves float gently  

to the sweet surface of earth. 

Sliver of moon glimmers its way into a

long night.

Savor of a burning fire  

creates a revolution inside my body,

where passions of a raging blaze

pulsate through my system.

Everything is reborn.

linda m crate

now i'm cognizant 

there's a few september songs

playing in my mind,

one tethers me to sadness 

and longing and you;

no matter how much i wish you

wouldn't cross my mind—

so instead i try to focus

on happier lyrics instead like those of 

autumn's coming arrival or my

sister's birthday,

anything but the melancholy of your name—

because you were just a man full of

longing and lust not knowing how to love,

and i had so much love to give i was willing

to starve to feed you;

had to learn my worth was never measured 

by anyone's need or approval of me—

i was always worthy, i just gave you

a discount you didn't deserve;

but i have learned my lesson and now

i am cognizant that not everyone

deserves my magic or my love.

a breath of fresh air

september is arriving,

people are still clinging to summer

as i am more than ready to witness

the beauty of autumn leaves;

i have never liked summer

always too hot and uncomfortable—

september's song is softer, cooler

a breath of fresh air after

the unbearable tongue

of august;

my gran says she doesn't like autumn

because what comes after it but you cannot

judge autumn by winter—

that's like hating a ruby for not being an opal,

it just doesn't make sense.

nothing is better than autumn

i am ready for september's song

to come,

autumn is lingering on;

insisting on being recognized—

but i am over summer,

i am ready for spooky season;

pumpkin spice, apple pie,

cinnamon and cloves;

autumn leaves and cooler days—

i am ready to leap into

september's song and leave august

and summer behind me

because nothing is better than autumn.

Carl Stilwell AKA CaLokie

 

To the Pro-Life Governor of Oklahoma

Starting in September, “Oklahoma plans to execute a person a month

for the next two years —Democracy Now, August 26, 2022

Why

do we kill people

who kill people

to show

that killing people

is wrong

and why,

if we kill people

who kill people

to show

that killing people

is wrong

are we four times more likely

to kill people

who kill white people

to show

that killing white people

is wrong

than we are people

who kill black people

to show

that killing black people

is wrong

and why,

if we spend six times more

to kill people

who kill people

than we do when we

imprison without parole people

who kill people

and why,

if killing people who kill people

deter people

from killing people

do countries

who kill people who kill people

to show

that killing people is wrong

have more

people who kill people

than countries who imprison

people who kill people

to show

that killing people is wrong

and why,

if our country has so many

people who believe in God

and so glories in the cross

on which Jesus was tortured

and killed

but that cross was how

Roman people tortured

and killed people

who they believed had done

something wrong

and why,

if you can’t fight fire

with fire

and two wrongs

never make

a right

and why,

if we sometimes

kill people

who did not kill

the people

we said

they had killed

and since we are

not GOD

but people

why

do we kill people

who kill people

to show

that killing people

is wrong?

Marianne Szlyk

His Dreams of Chinatown

-- after a Boston Globe article by Kate Selig

Each September he thought about starting over,

finding a room on Wang Street above the cafes

and travel agencies, the open-air markets

and billiard halls, the one bookstore

run by Christian Scientists.

He wouldn’t mind a small room, even

one with a shared bathroom.  He imagined

learning Chinese, first a word here and there,

something he’d have to repeat to say right.

He'd test his neighbors’ patience.

He'd haul his box of books and few clothes

up four flights of stairs.  Wait.  He’d give away

some books to friends from his neighborhood

of large houses and trees with signs in English.

With his books, he wouldn’t miss the trees.

He'd sleep little, rise early, go to bed late,

not let the street sounds, the buses from New York,

or shuddering trucks bother him.  

He’d eat little, buy his rice from the corner market,

not mind that the grains were white.

One summer he read about the woman on Wang Street.

She carried the bucket of ice up four flights of stairs,

soaked her thin blanket in melting ice, then hung

the cloth in her one window to catch the breeze

from hot asphalt, deep-fryers, the absence of trees.

Perhaps when he was younger he could have lived

the life he dreamed about in apartments shared

with English-speakers who drank lite beer, 

watched Fox, let fruits and vegetables rot.

Closer to the age of the woman on Wang Street,

he could not live the life he dreamed of.

Even if he knew he could sleep through

the trucks’ shudder, could study

the Tao te Ching each morning, even

learn a phrase or two of Chinese.

He knew that, like her, he could die there.

 

On the Heat Island

-- after a Boston Globe article by Kate Selig

At last it was September, month of blue skies

without harsh sun, cool breezes on nights

that fell sooner.  One could smell ocean.

For the old woman on Wang Street, it was

a light month, no buckets of ice

in her tiny grasp. No watermelon

in her totebag that she carried up five flights

to her room whose walls closed in on her

each summer. No thin blanket

dripping with water, hung from her one window

to cool down the breeze that came in from

hot asphalt, hotter buildings, the absence of trees.

September was a light month when her room

felt larger, when she did not stop 

on the second floor landing, when even

the air felt lighter.  She could smell the salt 

from the ocean she’d never seen.

 

Sunday Nights with Dr. Demento

Because we were too young to listen to

the Rock of Boston in its free-form prime.

Because my brother hated the records

I bought for a dollar in Harvard Square.

Because he didn’t want to listen to

punk rock like my high school friends did.

Because it was Sunday and we could not

play rock music on our radios.

My brother and I sat up Sunday nights

to listen to Dr. Demento’s show.

These songs my father could have listened to

through crystal radios he built from kits.

These songs conjured his parents’ narrow streets, 

the accents, the klaxon, the streetcar’s rush

to summer Saturdays’ bustling downtown,

everyone dressed up despite feeble heat.

Benny Bell’s “Shaving Cream” finished.  Next came

a song by Spike Jones.  Then high-pitched kids sang

about the molicepan and the biddle lum

on the sterbcone chewing some gubber rum,

one of the poems our grandma recited.

This song she could have sung in the parlor

by the piano on the second floor

but not on Sunday, a day for church hymns.

 

We heard Weird Al add his accordion,

his lyrics to a Monday morning song,

one I had to listen to at work

at the mall where girls in shorts ambled, safe

from the heat, safe from cars, safe from the men

who drank in the shade of the closed-up stores.  

Ann Privateer

Radomir Vojtech Luza

September Song

Autumn leaves falling like molested dreams

Electric yellow like Tibetan seams

I love you sight unseen

Without the green

On you I lean

In good or bad

Joyous or sad

Perhaps too much will

Throw you under the bus

September save me

Sing me a song of sand

Bringing love to my land

Ninth month slinging hand

To the voice in my band

Fall tears drinking German beers

Football going long

Like the poem in this song

We are strong without a bong

Imagination never getting a gong

September Salsa

I am in a September state of mind

Catching stares as I get along

Rinsing glimpses

As I write this poem

Slow and easy like

A New Orleans song

Deep and dry like

A California wrong

Walking Times Square

On a leash so long

My September state of mind

Never in a bind

Like the well dined

No grind

I am one of a kind

Galloping blind

Already signed

I am one hell of a find

On the black

Where play is lined

God maligned

Howl Down the Hallway

Here at Grand Valley Healthcare Center

In Van Nuys, CA

He screams day and night

Not looking for a fight

"Help"

"Help"

This boy belongs on yelp

His song heartfelt

On a pew knelt

"Help"

"Help"

Yelling on his bed

Where he is fed

Probably named Ted

"Help"

"Help"

He will caterwaul

Into September fall

Unless he is given an answer

For I would cry too

If I had no legs and

Had to beg a nurse named Meg for pegs

"Help"

"Help"

Drama unfolding

Soap opera unyielding

No one answering

Towel over his waist

Like Spearmint toothpaste  

Out Now: TIN TULIP, my 36th book (32nd collection of poetry) published by Four Feathers Press in Pasadena.

The tome contains 35 poems on and about pornography.

Publisher and Editor Don Kingfisher Campbell hit this one out of the park.

The book is on sale for $10 plus $6 for the skyrocketing price of shipping and handling for a total of $16, 

Simply snail mail a check made out to Radomir Luza to:

Radomir Luza,

6300 Lankershim Boulevard,

Apt.#321,

North Hollywood, CA 91606-3540

Don Kingfisher Campbell

Impressions of September LV

Shiny skyscraping hotels line the I-15

Casino themed car-filled boulevards

Tanned homeless slumping along sidewalks

110 degree heat thickens the cloudless air

Mattresses left curbside in front of too many houses

Cultural businesses just like any other city

Palm trees and pools seen outside tower room windows

Post-pandemic non-emptiness in smoky gambling halls

Man-made entertainment volcano blasts night fire

Balding retired men escort their women to $100 a ticket shows

Neighborhoods of stuccoed homes in named clusters

The whole desert valley ringed by highways