Singers, drummers, movers and bootie-shakers – we are excited to announce the Official launch of our Virtual Choir of Joy! You can hear the music and find out all you need to join NOW at https://thebookofrounds.com/virtualchoirofjoy. Uploads of your recordings will be accepted beginning this Friday, May 22. We‘re excited to see each one of you!
Please also join our Virtual Choir of Joy Facebook Group to meet and connect with fellow participants. Please join us to help spread JOY!
(Art is an expression of love or it is nothing. Marc Chagall)
You spread the velvet red,
Heart flutters and flips
You feel a sudden burn for more
Veins swell of heat
Sweet trickle down your face, hand,
And thighs
So you splash a little yellow and
Out of butter -lust
With the want of more!
Sun grows bolder
In its heat
Tickles toe tips and fingers—
Apply more paint!
Change the brush. Smear blue, white,
Turquoise, soft mysterious gray
Till the eyes fill with tears—
How can sea and sky flirt
With power, with passion?
The colors seem to lick the skin
Kiss the face, hands, chest, abdomen,
Dimples of Venus
As if too deep in the ocean or too close to heaven,
And you have a hard time breathing.
Grab a pallet knife of black
Making trees and branches to hold onto,
Close your eyes and
The absence of light haunts you
As if you had been long void of feeling.
This affair is turning to love,
Picture shapes, more strokes, more color
Hard strokes faster, faster and stronger
Till hands up thrown to the ecstatic air
The spentness of it all,
And you, done to this,
Pray a new fire.
(c) 2020 Stan Sujka
Stan Sujka is a physician poet, part of the “Twelve Chair” poetry group in Orlando Florida and member of the Central Florida Chapter of the Florida State Poets Association.
Under any other circumstances you would not be here but because my father found that lot in Burlington Heights, built our house there and joined North Roanoke Baptist Church I met your grandmother.
That was 1962, the first time I fell in love with her was a year later at an ice skating party, with the church youth group. she was sweet to me even though I couldn’t skate
She wore blue velvet, or something close enough to velvet that her gliding around the rink anchored that song in my heart where it has remained all these years since
That’s how it all started, the tidbits of our histories up to our marriage, then your mom’s birth we’ll save for another time
What I want you to understand Is how unique you are, how in the cosmic scheme of things it all fell into place that you are here, a beautiful accident
Just like I was, Just like every other person, on this earth, for better or worse, since the first human sunrise
So celebrate your being, revel in the chance meeting of your mom and dad and at your great grandfather finding that lot in Burlington Heights
Bobby Myers lives with his wife of nearly 48 years on twenty-five acres in the mountains of southwest Virginia. He is retired from a life, first as a labor leader and lastly in public service for the Commonwealth.
“To be drunk, in love, and in NYC,” just one more time. Thinking I am invincible; both invisible and bullet proof. Piling into a taxi after 1:00 am, heading uptown, Laughing at traffic, sweaty and smiling, holding your hand, Our ears ringing from loud noises and recent music.
Stopping at the bodega around the corner, Picking up a cold pint of Frusen Glädjé and the Sunday New York Times, just delivered but Not completely assembled, and paying with a Hamilton Before bounding up the stairs of my walk-up flat.
Waking up with a stunning red head in my bed (And I married her, you bums). Grinding beans and Cranking up hot coffee in huge white cups Seasoned with vanilla, half-and-half, and cinnamon sugar. Pouring through the paper, and then a hot shower.
Broad shoulders sporting perfect pink Brooks button-down, Khaki trousers with a ridiculous Ralph Lauren striped cotton belt, Topsiders pre-tied with knots at the ends. No sox. A splash of Paco Rabanne Cologne, only for her sake, And bounding down the steps again into warm sunshine.
Within a five block walk are dozens of brunch joints, Most featuring generous Bloodys or bottomless Mimosas, Eggs benedict, perhaps, or flapjacks with bacon, Or a goat cheese salad slathered with Vidalia onion vinaigrette. Or waffles with a rich mysterious sweet fruit viscid atop.
Our waitress makes an obvious pass at my date, As if I need any validation of her beauty, wit, and desirability, Still, it’s not a bad compliment, I guess, and we Share a smile and a knowing laugh. Her bill, with a decent tip, Disappears with a swipe of American Express. Feeling full of myself and awed by good fortune, I know The week begins, and back to the grindstone Working hard and under pressure on things That likely won’t mean a damn, still being paid handsomely. Life has moments worth living again.
(c) 2020 Jeffrey Manning
Jeff is a Managing Director with CohnReznick Capital and is based in the Baltimore office. His poems “Red Chief” and “Just One More Time” – a poem written for this year’s Valentine’s Day – are winning submissions in the Metropolitan Diary.
After Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows and The Harvest
Crows crowd the horizon Bleeding onto the canvas In curves of inky black—
In a scythe, in a comma Indicating a pause and A procession, though not Quite an ending—
In a Rorschach test that reads Reads where will you go From here, there is nowhere To go from here.
Home is on a different Horizon.
Across the way, a farmer Burrows about in the foliage In that insistent way that Little clouds grow on trees.
Every ladder he has ever owned Leads nowhere. Up, not away.
And yellow— My god, there is so much yellow.
(c) 2020 Nooshin Ghanbari
Nooshin Ghanbari is a 2018 UT Austin graduate with degrees in Plan II Honors and English, and currently serves as communications director at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. When she isn’t writing, teaching, or singing, you can find her playing with her three-legged dog, Marigold.
