Poetry

"...Don't tell us we need more and more shiny stuff in our lives..."

"...My next tour will be fully financed but I never question by who..."

Probal Basak, 31, from India, started his career as a journalist working with Press Trust of India, Business Standard, covering mostly socio-political issues. Currently employed as an officer with Department of Information & Cultural Affairs, Government of West Bengal, he also writes poetry and his recent works have been published in journals like Dissident Voice, News Verse News, Setu.

"...a cold wind, blowing gray scrum of clouds..."

Connie S. Tettenborn, PhD, began a career as a scientist in biotechnology and then transitioned to scientific editing and art/poetry. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"...one eye on the clock to watch numbers change..."

"...the old jacket, mended in the Spring..."

"...There've been no tragic or dramatic scenes..."

"I have a background in health care and have witnessed the healing power of the written word. My love of English literature, I attribute to my teachers. My interest in epic poetry and creative writing is rooted in my love and admiration of English classical literature. I therefore write in the hope that I might do for others what great writers have done for me."

"...And now I stand in the darkness asking everyone passing by..."

"...astonishing accumulations of wealth and privilege..."

Dan Provost's work deals with the darkness of depression, the certainty of death and the internal loneliness he feels daily. Sprinkle in episodes of adolescence/adult emotional defeats -- the reader will find his attempt to describe the quiet horror in everyday events.

"...despondent as all hope is slain..."

"...they battled with inhaling and exhaling..."

"...You won't put more on me than I can handle..."

"...waiting for the woman with a yellow umbrella, to dance with me..."

R.M. Engelhardt is an American poet, writer and minister who is the author of several books over the last two decades including Coffee Ass Blues & Other Poems, The Last Cigarette: The Collected Poems of R.M. Engelhardt, The Resurrection Waltz, Dark Lands and others.

"...Let us be the proverbs: our lives are short..."

"...It slithers in, defies and then deceives ..."

"Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, I rise..."

"...use those memories wisely..."

"...the others simply saw me as a lunatic..."

"...as happiness and sorrow wrestle it out..."

"...riding out pain like rodeo upstart..."

"...Let it be said we have split up..."

"...They drummed, drank, sang, danced..."

"Here it goes again, 3 a.m. solitaire..."

"...say goodbye to the night's nightmare..."

"...rusty robots under the rains of their dreaded thoughts..."

"...On the way to the bridge we pass birches, cedars, aspens, and evergreens..."