High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution

January 29, 2007

Hello and Welcome!

I hope everyone had a good weekend, mine was fine and mostly restful.....Got a couple household appliances that were desperately needed, and the opportunity to read over a manuscript that a family friend is working on. I also purchased the 2007 Poet's Market, and will be featuring markets in this ezine that I think would be of interest to the majority of our readership.  For you professionals, however, I would say just get your own copy and locate those places that sound of most interest to you.

Which brings me also to my point of thought for today---Most of what editors, other poets, and academics will tell you is that you should read at least ten times as much as you write. As poets, it is a good idea to not only read the classics (Shakesphere, Homer, Dante, etc), but contemporary poets, to know what is really alive and in demand in today's market. In reading through the Poet's Market there are many names that come up time and time again, and I have made it my personal mission to become more informed as to their techniques, styles, and experiences. I have too often molded myself on artists and movements that were in vogue long ago, and lacked discipline in learning about current styles.

I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!

Michael J. Bernard 

Asperger's syndrome
by Byron Yatch III 

I've been, blessed with a curse, cursed with a gift.
Seems everything I needed never seemed to be noticed.
I was born different so I could never be the same.
Even when I got good, I never got to play the games.
Always picked last except for when it hurt.
People pushed me around and left me in the dirt.
Was it worth all the pain to become what I am?
I shouldn't complain, but you people dont understand.
All I needed was a hand, someone to follow.
But the path was blocked and the light wouldnt show.
So I wandered alone, abandoned and abused.
Couldnt figure out what you wanted, damn you got me confused.
But I refuse to lose, in this game I love to play.
You may not believe me tomorrow but listen anyway.
Cause I've got things to say, and people to meet.
The ones who faced adversity and snatched victory from defeat.
If you could see what I see, with these eyes of mine.
You'd truly comprehend what it means to be blind.
But I dont mind, to me it's just another decoy.
I feel like god's playin with his favorite toy.
Before I deploy a final trick up my sleeve.
All I ever wanted was to be heard, not decieved.



Pieces
by Panagiota Felecos 



The haunting sound of the howling wind
Surround me on this dark nite
I feel a chill that cuts me to the bone

The perfect elements to match
My emotions, raging and violent

I can feel the force of the wind in my room
Feel the presence of gloom
Eerie and full of doom

My shelves begin to shake
A vase falls and breaks

I go to pick up the pieces
And glass cuts into my skin
The pain somehow a release

I watch the blood trickle down my flesh
Watch it form a pool on the ground

I can hear the storm building outside
Feel it rage within as well
Another piece of glass pierces my skin

I close my eyes and savor the pain
Listening to the falling rain

Then I realize its not rain I hear
Just the sound of my own tears
Haunting and howling like the wind

Violently I begin to shake
As I feel my soul break

Piece by piece like
The vase on the floor
Shattered.....cutting me to the core....
©2007, Panagiota Felecos, All Rights Reserved

Jealousy

by Paullette Merritt 

Whirling, swirling, calling my name…
Rising, falling, the voice is the same…
Seeking to know, can she be tamed?

A whisper so soft and gentle she has…
Like the soft kisses of the mistress…
Or fresh snow on sweet meadow grass.

She looms in the distance dancing, peeking…
Never loosing sight of the one she is seeking..
A cleaver disguise, for her beauty is fleeting.

Ever so innocently she comes from behind…
Waiting and watching for the opportune time…
To send me her poison and sicken my mind.

She begins in my spine with a gentle prick…
In a matter of time as the earthly clock ticks…
I have fallen once more a slave to her tricks.

Now in the shadows her face changes shape…
To reveal ugliness I had forgotten of late...
She wants one thing, to create my fate.

Seeing her clearly it is silence I seek…
To gather the defenses I have learned to keep…
My mind is the sword and victory I will reap.

Her reason for coming prominent in my sight…
I will win this battle before I say goodnight…
Weighing it out I know she is just not right.

She comes at my thoughts I must clear her out…
In silence I hold her and scream and I shout…
You are not welcome here, get out, get out, get out!

Protecting my mind, my feelings, and thoughts…
Is important for the new love life has brought…
For I am the one who allows myself to be caught.

I hold her out at a distance and look at her face…
It is one I desire in my wholeness to erase…
I see you and set you free to the vastness of space.

My lovers face comes into my mind…
His sweetness and gentleness he is ever so kind…
Undeserving was he of the thoughts I did find.

When jealousy strikes she is swift and fast…
She stems from patterns we learned in the past…
When stung you must rid yourself of her fast.

Her thirst is for heartache, anger, and walls…
With no real proof that these are valid at all…
On the reasoning mind, not jealousy we must call.

Happy Anniversary to you, my dear

by Jennifer Coyle  


14 years ago today
I walked in - you looked my way.
Brought together on a friend's instinct
right away we felt a link.
I tried to convince myself: "friends only"
though away from you...it felt lonely.
Such passion I did see
when you strummed your guitar and looked at me.
You make me laugh....you've made me cry
your touch can always make me sigh.
I love that we can communicate
what we treasure - all that we hate.
At times it seems we never agree
each others view.....we fail to see.
We've learned by now, to just get past it
in the larger scheme, it's but one facet.
Our children definitely can drive us nuts
singing and laughing; "You said butts!"
Their love, however, can make our day
when all they want is to please, and play.
Our life up to this point, it can be said
is precious in not knowing, what's ahead.
The words I hold most dear, from you
is hearing you say; "I love you too."

The Life of Katz

by Richard Grayson 


He is born and grows up. He marries Catherine, his childhood sweetheart. They live in Greenwich Village as he doggedly pursues an acting career. He gets a bit part as the doctor in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. His next role, Dogberry in As You Like It, catapults him into theatrical stardom. He and Catherine regularly put on the dog and dine on expensive steaks at The Cattleman. On spring afternoons they walk all over New York until their dogs hurt and they have to take catnaps under dogwood trees in Central Park.

They have a baby, a son, and move to Brooklyn. Catherine insists the boy get a Catholic education, but Katz cannot abide dogma and hates Father Malley, that hypocrite in the dog collar; still, Junior has his first catechism. Father Malley likes to hit the boy with his cat-o'-nine-tails. Junior becomes a strange, withdrawn child. He is forever going around their new house with hangdog looks; he spends hours in the backyard, dissecting caterpillars.

Katz tries to be a father to his son for his wife's sake. He takes the boy to Yankee Stadium to watch Catfish Hunter pitch but gets angry when Junior puts catsup on his hot dog. Junior says he would rather be home writing some doggerel or in the library, bending over the card catalog or reaching for some dog-eared book. "Doggone it," Katz tells his wife, "there's no reasoning with that kid."

Meanwhile, his own career moves in a new direction: playwriting. The results are disappointing; after five years, he has two dogs and one turkey to his credit. The audience subjects him to catcalls. His life goes to the dogs. He can't even get small parts as an actor anymore. Catherine is unsympathetic. "It's a dog-eat-dog world," she tells him.

He takes up with a chorus girl, a cheap floozy who plays cat-and-mouse with him for a while. One dog day afternoon, they come out of a motel together, and Junior, walking home from school, spots them. The father categorically denies everything, but his son does not believe him. Finally Katz admits the truth but tells Junior to let sleeping dogs lie.

But Junior lets the cat out of the bag, and Katz is in the doghouse with Catherine. She leaves him, taking Junior to Catalonia , where a catastrophe occurs: on a catamaran on the Mediterranean , on their way to the Catacombs, there is a terrible accident. They both drown. Neither knew so much as the dog paddle.

Katz breaks down at the funeral when he sees the two coffins on the catafalque. He is taken to a mental hospital. For eight months he is catatonic. Then who should come to visit but Father Malley, whom he hadn't seen in a dog's age. The priest has mellowed with time and helps him get over the cataclysmic events of his life. Katz grows old. He is sent to a nursing home in the Catskills. He develops cataracts. He becomes senile. Dying, his last words are: "It's a dog's life."

Father Malley presides at the funeral. "Odi et amo," he says in his eulogy, quoting Catallus. "That's life," a mourner says as the coffin is put into the ground next to the other two graves. "Whether you're an underdog or sitting in the catbird seat, you end up in the same place." "Requiescat," Father Malley says.