INTERNATIONAL POETRY PAGES

DEE RIMBAUD

BARBARA A. TAYLOR

JOHANNES URZIDIL

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Milos Petrovic is a 25 years old poet and poetry performer (jazz & poetry sessions) from Serbia, former Yugoslavia. He studied philosophy and Serbian language & literature in Belgrad and has written over 4 000 poems. You can email him at: majamilos035@yahoo.com

THREE by MILOS PETROVIC

I NEED

I need it all…

I need a world in which

I need not be (at all)

I need a world in which

I need not steal other people's words to utter

I need a life that will not end in death

I need a life that will not die with me

I need it all…

I need death that will not live after me

(and will be mine only)

I don't need to pay to water bill!

YOU HAD BETTER STAY HOME

You had better watch yourself hereafter.

They are coming…

If they sense you,

you had better post the guards.

You know, after all, what I am talking about.

Therefore, I hope

that we will meet each other next Tuesday,

that you will be all right.

They are coming…

If they sense you...

TO BREATHE MY LAST THROUGH YOU

Smile will turn you into the butterfly
and only then you should land on my cheek.
Wake up as an orchid and let me breathe you,
breathe my last through you.

BARBARA A. TAYLOR has published poetry in various ezines in USA, Canada and Europe. She is a regular reader/performer at local Live Poets' Evenings and a winning slammer. Her poems embrace politics, nature and women's rights. She lives freely in the Rainbow Region of northern NSW, Australia. See

<http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/displaypoem.asp?AuthorID=22934#453080140> and Audio poems at <http://batsword.tripod.com>

Light Downunder

At last, Summer's searing

temperatures have fallen.

Dramatic visual shifts

come with every season,

make welcome to

a different frame:

a new perception.

New glory.

Humpback green hills,

grand golden rugged ranges

changed today to this perfection:

calibrated verdigris.

Clarified, Autumnal days,

each shadow'd sandstone

rocky crack of dark and light,

the pinks to grey; delineated

silhouetted spikes of trees

on distant distinct peaks, and

shaky images of flickering fans

through the Bangalow palms;

changed nuances in orchard rows;

everything, dancing, daily,

graceful in fresh

mountain-breezes.

Bright King parrots screech in flight.

The kookaburra's cries are loud. They

mock me not. And too, sounds of

the bouncing thuds of kangaroos

moving quickly now through

drought-plagued pastures,

with hopes of finding sparkling

waters on a dam. Dramatic

visual shifts with the seasons

make obvious the reasons

why my heart and soul

belong right here.

Alone, at one with Nature,

day and night, in the wet,

in the dry, embraced by

Gaia, my Spirit, each ray

of spangled light on blades

of dewy grasses an existential

probe. A rare Birdwing butterfly

can force your tears. The blue

wren is your closest friend

but here there is no fear.

There is gratitude. Gratitude

for our glorious sunrises.

And when, at last, showers

fall from celestial realms, then,

after heavy wetting, from

rain-drenched earthen mound,

under tiny pinprick holes, just waiting,

like Pandora's Box, the lid removed,

swarms of flying insects soar, spiraling

from ochre red to Prussian blue.

Termites lift off in grey quivering

plumes like smoldering smoke

from revitalized cinders

at the campfire.

Avian choirs serenade. They

celebrate this welcome sacred

moisture for we are simply

nothing without water.

Here there is Peace. Peace

from gentle soothing coos

of doves patrolling sun-scorched

lawns. Under the Southern Cross

there is a special light. Lights

glow from white fungi rising, pushing

through the fecund soil reminding

us of life. Here there is hope.

And here there is love.

Multicultural, multilingual nation.

There is a vast endless horizon,

a vitally rich and enriching

open space. Here, like

anywhere else in the world,

people love and protect

their land because we care.

Because we know we

are only custodians and

must work diligently at

saving our precious planet.

DEE RIMBAUD is an artist, novelist, poet and editor. He is author of two full-length poetry collections and one novel; and is editor of The AA Independent Press Guide and the forthcoming ‘Book Of Hopes And Dreams'. His website is at www.thunderburst.co.uk and his blog is at http://deerimbaud.blogspot.com/

AN EPITAPH

(for Yin)

You are returned to the shadows of a name that was never you,

Yin: dark, passive, quiet, all-absorbing. In the end

Your name became you. I'm told the lupus tore the petals

From the flower that was your face: that your smile shriveled

To a dry parody of itself; and that you never laughed again.

I cannot imagine you, submissive, lying down

On the railway track, waiting for the train

That would take you away from us all.

They say a note was found in the wastepaper basket

Of a seedy room in a King's Cross hotel, crumpled up,

The words lost in a criss-cross of creases

As if your desperation was unworthy

Of further attention. No-one who knew

The bright sparkling jewel that was you

Could have dreamed up such a demise.

We are unwise after the event, each one of us shaken:

The terrible beauty that is life,

That is living, mystifies constantly,

Tears us from the soft womb of complacency.

I do not understand, Yin,

For all the years I've been here,

For all the books I've read,

For all of everything I've ever felt,

I do not understand.

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STEVE DEMOSS

"from June" 

 in yellow garden
enough weeds grow.
One lonely silver flower
is tended by
the Queen herself.
With one flower in garden
One should ask
"Would you care for yellow marigold?"
And reply she said, 
that all the happiness she could want
is in the dirt beneath her fingernails.

"the trains and the bicycles"

 Father and I have been to the races lately, 
between the trains and the bicycles.
and I swear, the trains win every time
and father smiles and we walk home alone.
             A little less silver in his pocket.

I laugh as if I understand
             but can't.

Father is gone, and me, I've grown into a man.
So we go down to the races, 
between the trains and the bicycles, 
and I put my money on the bicycles.

My son smiles and we walk home together laughing.
             A little less change in my pocket.

"for the man on the red tractor which takes 
gasoline not deisel"

He told me"dying is easy, 
being afraid to die is even easier, "
and he said "don't be afraid to die, 
man has never known this courage."
Even grown men cry, through their eyelids.
Whether on battlefield or pumpkin field.
He told me crying was hard.
But trying not to is even harder.

Steve DeMoss lives in Walla Walla, Washington, which would be reason enough to publish him but he is also

 one of the more interesting young poets Writers Unlimited has met recently which is why he leads off this

month as our newest featured poet! Steve can be reached at  erratic_alien@hotmail.com 

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MARIE LABROPOULOS

Sweet Memories

Herbert Kuhner was born in Vienna in 1935. He emigrated in 1939 and grew up and was educated in the United States. He has resided in Vienna since 1963. He is the author of novels, poetry, and plays and has published numerous volumes of poetry in translation, which include Austrian Poetry Today (Schocken Books, New York, 1985) and If the Walls Between Us Were Made of Glass: Austrian Jewish Poetry (Verlag Der Apfel, Vienna, 1992). Kuhner plays the drums and is author of a collection of jazz poems, Swing Men and Women, which has been illustrated by Austrian jazz guitarist Manfred Markowski. At present Kuhner is collaborating with American poet George Wallace on Before the Storm, an edition of the complete poems of Alter Brody.

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V writes: I am 29, born on October 29, 1973, in Volgograd, Russia. In 1996, I graduated from Volgograd Pedagogical University, the Foreign Languages Department. My current mailing address is: P.O. Box 237, 400006, Volgograd-6, Russia. Email: v_orlov@vistcom.ru

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Else Keren was born in 1924 in Bukovina. She studied in Paris from 1947-1950. She went to Israel in 1949, where she taught English and French. In addition to writing poetry, she painted and exhibited work in enamel. She also translated Hebrew poetry into German. In the Sand of Your Thoughts /Im Sand Deiner Gedanken, poetry by Else Keren was translated by Herbert Kuhner (Edition Mnemosyne/Alekto Verlag, 1997). She died in 1995.

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Heinrich Eggerth was born in Annaberg, Lower Austria in 1926. He has worked as worked as a teacher and school director. He has published poetry and novels. His poems are contained in Will the Stars Fall/Fallen nun die Sterne along with those of Rotraut Hackermüller and Herbert Kuhner (Austrian Literary Forum, 1995). Eggerth is also active as a translator. Among the poets he has rendered are John Skelton, T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, Alan Brownjohn and Alter Brody.

Johannes Urzidil was born in Prague in 1896. He belonged to the legendary Prague Circle, along with Franz Kafka and Max Brod. He emigrated in 1939, came to New York in 1941 and continued to live there. He died in 1970 at the Austrian Cultural Institute in Rome, while on tour, and is buried at the German Pilgrims' Cemetery in Rome.

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