Showing posts with label Featured Poet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Featured Poet. Show all posts

Thursday, October 16, 2025

GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

 


Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio, teaches English for Clark State College and is the lead poetry editor for October Hill Magazine. She has published work in over 100 journals and magazines, and her poetry books, The Human SideThis is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon. Arvilla’s life advice: never leave home without a snack (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website and check out her new poetry magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/


How to Eat An Over-Easy Egg

in Front of Your Ex

 

carefully,

deliberately,

fork cutting

straight down the middle,

yolk pooling

like a daisy-yellow pond,

perfect for dipping

butter-covered toast;

fold the bread,

drag it along the plate

in slow, circular motions,

absorbing,

never dripping—

never leaving the table

with egg on your face




Momma Needs a Moment

 

just five minutes to close my eyes,

to allow my chest to rise and fall,

to let my mind go blank.

Put your badgering on a shelf,

tuck those questions under your arms,

and just let        me         be.

I cannot answer the rapid-fire requests

that press into the gray matter of my brain

like bullish thumbs against a tender wrist.
I cannot tell you what’s for dinner.

No, I don’t know where birds go

when they leave their nests.

I don’t know why the store

was completely out of grapes.

Just let me have this bubble;

I’ll close my eyes and imagine,

if only for a moment

that I have all the space I need.

I’ll stretch my arms over my head,

yawn,

listen to the coo of doves,

step into the sun’s warm orb,

and measure my brief autonomy

in the beat of a hummingbird’s wings.




The Air Between Us

 

without the mixture of my molecules

and your molecules, the air is clearer,

fresher somehow, with a hint of jasmine,

pine, and tangerine—

 

without the verbal bullet holes and

the cock crowing, I can take a breath,

can spin around without hitting your ego,

fragile as it was—

 

without the rumbling of your empty

thunder, the sky has returned to me,

a prodigal piece of blessed haven,

draping me like a prayer



The Mad Librarian

 

Everyone said he was crazy,

my grandfather,

but I liked to think of him as

                  unconventional.

OK—so maybe the five hens

that slept in old milk crates

on his front porch was a little crazy.

Maybe the life-size garden statue

of Edgar Allan Poe with a raven

sitting on his head was—

well, odd at best.

But the pinnacle of his peculiarity,

according to the wholesome folks in town,

was his insatiable love of books.

Having converted his 1920-something

house into a massive library

when I was just a kid,

I found the rows and rows of bookcases

perfectly normal! Little books, big books,

books that smelled like the earth itself,

books with water marks and wax seals.

Books with red covers, brown covers,

no covers at all—tattered pages clinging

desperately to the threads that bound them.

Grandfather often sat in a winged back chair,

a book perched upon his knee, a book open

on his lap, a book held between two gnarled hands,

his gold, wire-rimmed glasses perched smartly

on the end of his thin nose.

I stepped on his glasses once, breaking both lenses,

but he kept reading with them anyway,

said it gave him a whole new perspective.

And it’s those glasses, sitting demurely on the last stack

of books he read that now waver behind the salty film

of tears in my eyes. I blink twice, put the specs on my face,

trying to see through Grandfather’s eyes.




Hazy Days

 

Clouds stretch thin

like prim Puritan lips;

the sun pouts

from behind the sultry veil,

searing the soil with her breath.

I stretch out on a lounger,

sweet tea glass to my forehead

icy condensation dripping

down flushed cheeks.

The bees fly in slow motion,

tipsy on pollen,

This is summer’s sweet spot,

the arc of time where days stretch

like melted salt-water taffy,

the radio scratches out Beatle songs,

and I forget about everything

except a raspberry sorbet

in the freezer.

straight down the middle,

yolk pooling

like a daisy-yellow pond,

Thursday, October 2, 2025

GAS Featured Poet: John Yamrus

 


John Yamrus is widely recognized as master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, he has had nearly 4,000 poems published in books, magazines and anthologies around the world. His writing is often taught in college and university courses. Three of his more than 40 books have been published in translation.  2025 has seen the release of two new books: the quasi-memoir CAPTAIN BEEFHEART NEVER LICKED MY DECALS OFF, BABY and a book of poems, DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER: JUST GIVE HIM A GOOD PLACE TO HIDE.




his favorite response

 

to almost 

anything she said 

was “well I’ll be dipped in shit!”.   

 

it 

didn’t 

matter what she said, 

 

or 

how, 

 

or 

why,

 

 or 

even if 

the response 

was appropriate, 

 

or fit...

 

it 

was always 

“well, I’ll be dipped in shit.”

 

it 

was so 

awkwardly annoying 

 

that 

she couldn’t wait 

till he’d offer something new. 

 

but, 

two weeks 

after the accident,

 

and 

the light 

that was or wasn’t green, 

 

she’d give 

anything she had 

 

to 

hear him say it 

one more time and smile.



Thursday, September 25, 2025

GAS Featured Poet: Michael Lee Johnson


 Michael Lee Johnson lived in Canada for ten years during the Vietnam era. Today, he is a poet in the greater Chicago-land area, IL. He has 354-plus YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 46 countries, a song lyricist with several published poetry books, and a nominee for 7 Pushcart Prize awards and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. He is the editor-in-chief of three poetry anthologies, all of which are available on Amazon, and has authored several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 653 published poems. Michael has administered and created 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member of the Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/ and Poets & Writers: https://www.pw.org/.  His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence "Citta' Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis" XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, "If I Were Young Again." 


I Conceal My Craft

 By Michael Lee Johnson

 

I conceal my craft beneath the shell

of an armadillo, snug in its embrace,

nestled near its warmth,

as insects buzz under the midday sun,

where stories collide with struggles,

and words fester like unresolved thoughts,

distant from the critics' needle pen hearts.

Their relentless demands, cold cash, 

and hollow praise layered thick with honey

on pages between verses, where every line

holds a lingering scent or memory.

I gaze up at the vast sky and chuckle.

Speaking in tongues nervously out of mind

shining chimes waiting for the next critic

to declare my thoughts don’t flow,

out of character, my rhythm’s a misstep.

I tally each word, joy, and sorrow.

One poem, one collection of verses for me;

One poem, one collection, a poetry book against me.

Breath shallow, breath hard for the heart with age.

I conceal my craft under the armor of the armadillo.







 

The Older I Get (3)

By Michael Lee Johnson

 

The older I get,

the fewer friends I got.

My teardrops fall on empty ears.

Imagine those soaked pillows.

Friends, some I've had for over 30 years.

Now, they are petrified by their own fears,

confined in jealousy, self-disgust, or gone.

Evaporation takes over the space where leftovers are stored.

They left my world nibbling on little, left behind.

My abysmal room, insane, schizophrenic

smells of pending death. Do my crying, do my praying.

Brian Wilson, “In My Room.”

Prayers seldom go beyond my ceiling,

mystically tucked back inside my brain.

Growing older, wiser, figured out nothing at all;

nothing worth worrying about.

Less tolerance, more self-opened space,

fewer gutless enablers, as time passes, doors close.

Old doors don’t squeak, no need for WD-40.

Key phrase: they die or show their true colors.

The older I get, the fewer friends I got.

I start best when the world awakens, roosters crow.

I fall asleep, like my mother, into slow-wave sleep.






 

Thursday, September 11, 2025

GAS Featured Poet: R. Bremner


 A four-time honoree in the Allen Ginsberg Awards, R. Bremner has been writing of incense, peppermints, and the color of time since the 1960s, in nine books/chapbooks, and hundreds of journals and anthologies including International Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, The Journal of Formal Poetry, Red Wheelbarrow, Oleander Review, seventeen jazz poems in Jerry Jazz Musician, and Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry. His eBook Mirrors, from Grandview University, is available free of cost from the author. Ron appeared in the legendary first issue of Passaic Review in 1979  along with Ginsberg, Laura Boss, and a plethora of sanguine young poets.


Mega


You have an ego the size of a small planet.

You have to win at everything.

But there is no assurance that you won’t end up in a spittoon.

Perhaps, depending upon your luck and the weather,

       you will even be a footnote to history.


You have a target on your face 

(or what remains of your face after the cosmetic procedures have worn off).

Dorian Grey reminds himself of your life.


Take nothing for granted, my buddy, my pal.

You have been the winner in wars

     in wives, in arguments, in poker, in stocks.

In real life. 

In the olden days it was enough.

“A glimpse of stocking was looked on

       as something shocking.” 

Today, your earnings, your wins, 

     are subject to “legal review”, 

     especially if others who’ve triumphed

     seek to assure their continued triumph.

 

Having a headline featuring your financial ruin

       is no enviable position. 

Those who are featured on the covers of magazines

      which pretend respectability and honor, and

      newspapers which twist and disparage the truth  

      eventually end up recycled or burned.

 When the picture of a disfigured Dorian Grey

        begins to appear familiar when you look in the mirror, 

        it’s time to hire a ghost writer.


Take nothing for granted, old pal,

       after your eyes have been yanked and sold for spare parts. 

Your heart, kidneys, liver, sold to the highest bidder. 

Your conscience, vote, opinion, beliefs — 

       kidnapped, and held for ransom. 


No more “good old days” for you

       unless decency and justice rear their beautiful heads.


I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for decency and justice.

Not in this time and place.




By the numbers


1. Subcutaneous dreams ensconce sodden memories. Wishes from your secret self perpetuate themselves in a swollen cask, like a fine wine.


2. Push back the cuticles of daily subterfuge to find yourself lurking unawares.


3. The whole shebang wandered in search of freedom’s sarcophagus on the dawn of an era presumed to be darkened by the blood of the lamb, but actually consecrated to heights unimagined.


4. Your mental muscles move cautiously beyond the realm of sequestered innocence.


5. Your giving back the blue jeans you wore in yesteryear's triumphs collided with my memories of unsanctioned, filibustered gallons of hope and bliss.


6. Dubious explanations dominated our desires.


7. Curious endeavors cornered the market on contrived creativity.




her feet echo from wall to wall


her feet echo from wall to wall.

the quick air died at her back.

lost luster blew its whistle

in the whorl of her burdened ear.

all the night gave her was granite shadow.

the guise of the world 

could break her down, but 

with the weight of her grit and

the bulk of her heart

she turned back.


(A found poem. All lines taken from various poems in Sylvia Plath’s Colossus.)