GAS Featured Poet: Aaron Woodson

"I currently have 81 5-star Amazon reviews for THE FACE OF EXPRESSION and 18 5-star Amazon reviews for THE FACE OF EXPRESSION 2:IN YOUR FACE. I have been featured on CBS AL COLE's People of Distinction podcast, RIC BRATTON's Good Morning America show, & Dreamspire TV show. I attended the Miami Book Fair, the largest Book Fair in the country in 2019 and also The Book Expo in NYC (2019) as a vendor. I released an audiobook version of THE FACE OF EXPRESSION in 2021 through ACX. I was recently featured on News 4 Jax 10 o'clock news and I read a poem from my book to veterans returning from Afghanistan. I am a military veteran whose served combat tours to Iraq and Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom." 

Available on Amazon.

See this beautiful video below:

Still On My Feet

Original poem by Aaron Woodson

Music and extra lyrics/vocals by brotherwell

(re:covery 10)

Copyright 2022

STILL ON MY FEET

I was hit by the unexpected. I was surrounded by enemies that were like sharks that smelled blood. They attacked me relentlessly. I held my own and stayed on my feet. I didn’t know how to accept defeat and I sure wasn’t about to retreat! In the face of an ambush, I fought back. I kicked, scratched, and clawed my way back to the top! I will wear scars from the battles I’ve endured. I got my head held high and I’ve shaken everything off. I’m still a king on the rise. From sunrise to sunset each day, I’ll still be on my feet!

GET TO KNOW ME

Some people don’t see me for who I am. They assume I’m this or that. Always running off at the mouth like they know so much. But the truth is, they really don’t know nothing. Most people like to assume the worst but won’t take the time to get to know a person first. Don’t get me wrong there are a few people that can actually see beyond the surface and not judge me.

 

They admire, respect and love for me who I am. Those other folks like to throw red flags on every good character trait I exhibit. They are inhibited by their own insecurities and fears. In my world, hate and discrimination are not tolerated. Therefore, all of the above I’ve mentioned is prohibited! I don’t give any ounce of space for anyone’s disrespect. If you’re with that crap, you can just bounce and take all that elsewhere. None of that belongs here.

 

Yeah, I took it there and there’s nothing you’re going to do about it either. You know you’re wrong. Dead wrong! I stand on the strength of my faith and the image of God that I bear. I wear these blessings like they will never go out with styles. Why should I care how you feel about me? You don’t want me to be free so guess what? I’m gonna continue to exercise my freedom and fight for it!

 

You don’t want me to be me, but guess what? I’m gonna continue to be me and become the best version of myself whether you like it or not! I have nothing to prove to you. I’m not perfect but everyday I strive to become better. Some of y’all seem to enjoy being bitter! Put your anger away and learn to embrace happiness. If you even know what that looks and feels like. We all have our moments, but remember that’s all what they are. Don’t stay there. Do better. Be better.

 

Look at yourself before you come steppin’ to me. I know the man in the mirror, get to know my reflection for your protection. Stop trying to put a crack in my image. I’m a whole person that is made to shine and be beautiful! Get to know me!

GAS Featured Poet: Ram Krishna Singh

Ram Krishna Singh, born on 31 December 1950 in Varanasi, India, has been writing for over four decades now. A retired Professor of English at Indian Institute of Technology--ISM, Dhanbad, he has published over 20 poetry collections, including Growing Within/Desăvârşire lăuntrică (English/Romanian, 2017), There's No Paradise and Other Selected Poems, Tanka & Haiku (2019), Tainted With Prayers: Contaminado con Oraciones (English/Spanish, 2020),  A Lone Sparrow (English/Arabic, 2021), Against the Waves: Selected Poems (2021) More here.

ONE  MORE DAY PASSES

I don't long for the past that swings and rings

I don't care for the  future I colour

with empty wishes prayers and meditation

dreams dark inspiration carves the present

I suffer more at night than in the day

breathe hell seeking freedom in the body

through friends in spirit turn sanguine despite

the tricky degeneration in shared life

one more day passes   one more poem born

 

GAS Featured Poet: Michael Lee Johnson

 

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada, Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL.  He has 244 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 43 countries, several published poetry books, nominated for 4 Pushcart Prize awards and 5 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 536 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry.

Poets Die (V2)

Why do poets die;

linger in youth

addicted to death.

They create culture

but so crippled.

They seldom harm

except themselves—

why not let them live?

Their only crime is words

they shout them out in anger

cry out loud, vulgar in private

places like Indiana cornfields.

In fall, poets stretch arms out

their spines the centerpiece

on crosses on scarecrows,

they only frighten themselves.

They travel in their minds,

or watch from condo windows,

the mirage, these changing colors,

those leaves; they harm no one.

 

Deep in my Couch (V2)

 

Deep in my couch 

of magnetic dust,

I am a bearded old man.

I pull out my last bundle 

of memories beneath

my pillow for review.

What is left, old man,

cry solo in the dark.

Here is a small treasure chest

of crude diamonds, a glimpse 

of white gold, charcoal, 

fingers dipped in black tar.

I am a temple of worship with trinket dreams,

a tea kettle whistling ex-lovers boiling inside.

At dawn, shove them under, let me work.

We are all passengers traveling

on that train of the past—

senses, sins, errors, or omissions

deep in that couch.

 

GAS Featured Poet: Stark Hunter

 

    Born in Whittier, California in 1952, Stark Hunter was an English teacher for 38 years before retiring from the classroom in 2017. He has written and published 12 books, which are available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. His work has appeared in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal, SpillWords Press, GAS: Poetry, Art and Music Journal, and several poetry anthologies.

    In 2015, fourteen of Mr. Hunter’s poems were set to music by Dr. George  Mabry, former conductor of the Nashville Symphony Chorus, for his musical drama, Voices. The performance took place at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

    Mister Hunter has been a literary guest on Chat and Spin Radio in the UK, and  the GMAP1 Network in the U.S. His poetry works can be perused at Poetrysoup.com. and Allpoetry.com.

Reunion

Eighteen thousand sunsets recline under the freshman bridge.

All my teachers are buried deep in the cemetery now,

And the wise burritos at the Cardinal Cafeteria, 

Are quivering still, and are eternally on the edge.

Familiar faces grown ancient reveal nothing new,

Except for a sliver of humility among the finger foods,

Atop the round tables with apprised eyes that can smell time,

Astonished that life has brought us to this high dive into the darkness.

Old songs from the old times dance to themselves without sound.

Memories made of perfume and cologne glide by unseen.

On a side table, pregnant with haunted photographs from 1970,

Are the insistent dead, looking in from the outside.

Candles burn before their frozen smiles; these dead know now,

The secrets of the big party beyond the final bell at 3 p.m.

They know now that life is a death dance under the stars—    

Even among friendly strangers.

The Coming Andantes

you are flying on a hazy dream carpet —
floating up there, above these old streets, 
these ancient genuflecting pines and cedars,
rising above the sleeping dead on Broadway, 
soaring now through the white tombstones—
the low walnut branches that flail like hungry cats.
now the sudden rush out of death’s hand we fly,
whirring by faster than blood flow in a silver sieve,
in and out of the shadowed majesties far inside,
these soul itchers that foretell the coming andantes, 
here in this perfumed dreamland with only you, 
as we seep through the spinning pines and cedars,
the long extending blood rivers naked with stones,
of venison death and fish spasms in the final sun.

GAS Featured Poet: Jason Ryberg

Jason Ryberg is the author of fourteen books of poetry,

six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders,

notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be

(loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry

letters to various magazine and newspaper editors.

He is currently an artist-in-residence at both 

The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s 

and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor 

and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection

of poems is Are You Sure Kerouac Done It This Way!?

(co-authored with John Dorsey, and Victor Clevenger,

OAC Books, 2021).

Evening Report,

8-7-2021, 9:17pm

 

 

Just a few scattered stars,

here and there, though I suppose

 

the stars are always there,

night or day, as well as always

 

rushing away from us (and each other),

they say, towards some ever-receding

 

frontier or event horizon-like moment

of maximum elasticity when the whole

 

thing has spread out about as far

as it can to one uniform temperature

 

and consistency and slowly begins to

contract and reverse-engineer itself back

 

into a condensed and combustible state

that’s ready for another big bang.

 

 

Never Too Many Sunsets: Three Generations, Whitehead, Amram and Messina, reviewed by Belinda Subraman

Whitehead, Amram and Messina

Ron Whitehead, U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate, Frank Messina and David Amram, Music Artist and Beat (2020-Lifetime) Award from the National Beat Poetry Foundation, have come together to share their talent and souls with us. They recite story poems with the accomplished musical backing by David Amram. Every track is moving and beautiful in its own way but I'll just mention some of them in hopes you'll listen to them yourselves.

Amram starts the album with deep reflection in Old Man in the Mirror.  In Track 3, Whitehead tells of his deep love for his roots in Kentucky Bound. Then, in The Bottoms, he tells about working hard, farming in his homeland. You can hear his pride and excitement in helping his father tame the land. In Track 6, Mrs. Brickman, Messina reminds us that everything we do leaves a lasting impression.  On Track 9, Playing for the Mets, Messina relays an exciting story of playing baseball with his friends, age 10, with a couple of real NY Mets players watching and encouraging them. Track 10, Mama, is one of the most moving pieces, taking us back to Ron's childhood watching his mom kill chickens by popping their heads off or shooting a chicken off a high roost, also shooting a tree down for Christmas! On Track 12, Daddy Screamed in the Night, Whitehead tells of his father's nightmares after a long day's work and how he would sometimes yell out his name and made him realize his Dad really loved him. Track 14, Emotional Frostbite, Messina tells of a long period of depression but how he recovered through the love of his son. On Track 14, My Heart Swells for You, Messina tells the story of a deep love for a woman, a child they had together and the tragedy of her death/departure.

This album also features the excellent music of Owen Reynolds on on bass and Teddy Owens (Director/Conductor of The Louisville Symphony Orchestra). on clarinet and beautiful, moving vocals of Robin Whitehead Tichenor. David Amaram plays piano, French horn, flute(s), & percussion. He plays at least one instrument, and often more, on every track.

 Mama Gave Me the World by Ron Whitehead from Never Too Many Sunsets: Three Generations, Whitehead, Amram and Messina.

Available on Amazon, Apple music  

 

Listen FREE on Spotify!  

NEVER TOO MANY SUNSETS CD and many other titles by Ron Whitehead & Jinn Bug are available from Trancemission Press 

You can also find this album on Pandora and other online venues. 

GAS Featured Poet: Bruce McRae

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press) and Like As If (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

 A Little Chat With Ourself


I’m talking to you through a rip in the seaside,
out of a warmed dent in the passing nothingness,
from behind a loop of tightly woven angel-hair.

I’m talking to you, and the wind is rubbing a cornfield.
I’m telling you the sun is sawing its right hand.
That the moon is a knothole in God’s coffin,
the stars His marred and excitable match-heads.

I’m going along, caught between a feather and a flower.
I’m shouting from the top of my voice,
from the foot of the stairs.
I’m talking to you from a squeak at the circus.
Pointing out opossum’s breath.
Explaining, carefully, gunpowder.

I’m telling you the world is a fog of consciousness.
I’m telling you about the mountain chain
that’s fallen in love with a river.
About a river pouring itself into your tea.
About a cup of tea embarrassed by the cosmos’s antics.

You’re listening to me spouting forth
from the swirling vortex in mommy’s sewing machine.
You’ve been asleep under a stone for a thousand years.
You’re hearing my voice, but believe it’s the rain falling,
and that each cold drop is a planet or miniature Himalayas.

I’m talking to you from the ragged hum of my hands.
I want you to realize that I’m snow
drifting in a far-off land.
I want you to see how the world still loves you.
To know the stars understand.





Chickadee Thinking

In the mind of the chickadee
is a ball of sparks,
a knot of entrails,
the planet’s littlest vacuum.

The chickadee’s mind whistles,
colour fusing to colour.
It smells of beetles’ fears.
It tastes like summer.

Actually, phantoms there
stroll between atoms of moonlight
and lordly Titans gambol
over the seemingly endless vistas.

There are great thoughts,
and these crackle like spruce tinder.
Like soda bubbles, but they weigh tons
and feel barbed to the touch.

Like wind over a hilltop.
Like lines intersecting wires.
Like smoking campfires of the Mongols,
as seen from a blood-red sky.

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