*Please Note: our new address is www.betterthanstarbucks.org
December 2016 Vol. I No. VI
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
IN THE DELIVERY ROOM
Such a beautiful baby
Oh, that's so sweet
I'd love one though we can't smoke them in here
Is that a defect
Look at all those balloons
I hear there was a lot of blood
My father has those eyes
I hope insurance covers it
Here's to a happy life
​
Matt Corey is a long-time ModPo CTA who divides his time between Chicago and Atlanta.
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A map of the sea
​
He’s gathering virgin crossword puzzles against
The storm coming home
Cassandra peers inside sees a gold flamingo flying by
The shore air warm as the dreaded harbinger
The game still within his grasp it can’t reach out forever
It can barely circumnavigate its own scope
Cassandra shows him some words she’s described
Spreading red across the horizon
Submerged and held
Brutal in an iron grid he’d made.
​
Ken Hay
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Cityscape in Winter
Drunks sleep in doorways,
pigeon poop drips from above,
hookers in six inch heels
slouch through gray slush,
sirens wail in b-flat under my window.
Winter winds whistle between granite towers.
Elevator doors clank shut,
rattle slowly upwards
to stop between floors.
Trick or treat only as far
as neighbors across the hall.
Ladies in layers
of grit and grime
push shopping carts full of clothes,
bound for nowhere
but pledged
to abandon nothing.
​
Margaret Fieland
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Life Cycle of a Rose
Bud
opening
nipped in
now flowering
open wide
any bee will do
drunken little tippler
pistils pollen stamens
full bloom
petals fall
pudendum, oh the stigma the shame
softening fading balding
everything going south
closing in
drooping shrinking
middle aged spread
hips
rose hips rosy swell –
see tea's made.
Sometimes age is good for you.
​
Christine Coates is a poet from Cape Town South Africa.
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Depression
darkness all I see
can't get off the couch today
running the t.v.
out of the way
no nourishment of the mind
life is so unkind
spiritually
bereft, thoughts are lost to me
sleep is my best friend
the end of it all
I call for the wilderness
languish in the pain
no gain, no framework
no work, no will, no reason
sadness the season
motivation gone
apathy reality
please God will you be
there for me to see
light in the dark recesses
I don't care for self
health I just let fade
fading fast, pain is lasting
must get up and go
can't get off the couch all days
darkness all I know
​
Cristofer C. Lentsch
​
Poets
Poets say
What they say
In a different way
So we
May feel
And think
More broadly
Or less widely
About
​
Chuck Kellum​
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Memories. ...
​
Alas ! The forgotten memories,
Please do not trouble me this much !
Let me survive peacefully
Don't come close again
I have some broken stars in my hopes
Just some broken stars...
I don't know how long,
I would be able to live with them
I am a true lover
Please don't make me feel distressed !
Alas ! Those forgotten memories,
Please don't rob me like this
After lifting unto the visions
Just unto the visions...
Please don't call me back ,
After showing a new path !
After so hard I have stable
Don't ruin me again...
Oh! Those forgotten memories,
Please don't haunt me again.....
Pappee
​
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To End
​
to end
to end
What to end
What to
End
End
End
to End what
End what
End to what
To what end
to What end
- Malaika