Better Than Starbucks!
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!
September 2016 Vol. I No. III
Free Poems & Other Creative Matter
Note: All intellectual property used on this page is still under copyright by creator unless otherwise specificed, in writing, and may not be used without their permission
Alchemist
​
Sing, earth-captured starlight
Purest light to touch the earth
Purest light to flow through day and night
To flood our sense-zone;
Sing through my blinking tubes and phials,
All potions, never poured;
Yet all suffused in afterthought.
My litmus-jewels, made one by burning faces,
turning suns,
That charred the fixed eye, the rooted touch.
Bodies I gel, not cruelly liquefy,
Nor form from glass-defined portions;
I move them, through their opaqueness in my eyes
to their own whole frames and shapes;
Cast by a mould beyond the maker here,
the measurer
And yet exhausting first their full extent.
Fill out, oneself a phial,
Fluted to slender siphoning, a line, a moving;
Love-cornering the loving, clinging eye,
Love cornering skins in darkness, parched and bleached;
Locked in through small breedings
in clean-forgotten courses,
The moss, the earth-polluted tubes, the same.
​
David Russell
-from his collection Speculum
​
David Russell is a singer-songwriter, frequently published online in International Times.
ACADIA
​
the streets
switch at midnight
and we bounce along the February roads of Wolfville
(three tonnes of camper van)
in the blink
of a cat’s eye
we run over a skunk
the odour gland
explodes upon the back axle
embraces the vinyl interior
like a song
by Halifax
we are imagining unicorns and roses
​
Gareth Writer-Davies
Letchworth Garden City, Herts, UK
Williams Would Understand
So much depends
Upon my wife’s bag of Cheetos
With its artificial colors—
Including yellow 6,
Unopened in the brown kitchen cabinet.
This is just to say I found them—
And addictions cannot be trusted.
I know to whom these orange-dusted
Beauties belong.
Only a puritan could resist
Such cheesy flavored tidbits.
Yes—it was quite wrong of me to eat them,
But they were so crunchy; so insistent.
And so generous in forgiveness.
​Daniel Klawitter
Author Bio: Daniel has a BA from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico and a Master of Divinity from The Iliff School of Theology in Denver. A member of the Colorado Poets Center, he is the author of two full-length poetry collections:
A Poet Playing Doctor (2015)and Plato Poetica (forthcoming in spring, 2017), both published by White Violet Press, as well as a chapbook of children’s poems entitled Put On Your Silly Pants: Poems for Children and Very Immature Adults (Daffydowndilly Press, fall, 2016). He is also the lead singer and lyricist for the indie-rock band, Mining for Rain: www.miningforrain.com
A Note about Starting Up
and the work you find here on
Free for All
The thing is, when Abundance, A Harvest of Life, Literature & the Arts and Sleeping Bear Press were in their heyday (1998-2002), we received hundreds of submissions, but as we are brand new, we are still in the dozens. Fortunately, we are now listed in Poets & Writers, as a paying market for poetry, so maybe we will start getting hundreds again.
​
The problem is, that as our budget is limited to how much I have left over after the mortgage and groceries, and to the astounding kindness of a few folks who have actuallly clicked on the Donate button. We are not, in any way affiliated with any funding source, we are not selling ads, at least not at this point.
​
The ads you see are all gratis to promote the various enterprses of one Al Filreis and his amazing band of literary gueriellas who have turned the staid ivy league campus of U Penn, better know for its school of medicine and its Wharton School of Business into this hotbed ofall things cretive, and especially poetry. His Modern Poetry class taught on Coursera for free has changed my life, so I like to promote it and the rest of his cool stuff wherever I can.
​
We do want to pay for poetry and we look forward to our tiny contribution to paying for work, but if you want to be part of BTS in the future, you double your chances if you select, please pay, but please consider for publication in "Free for All", too.
​
The poetry that ends up on Free for All is not second class, not the "also rans." though sometimes we might publish something a little more experimental and not exactly to the editor's taste here, because the internet offers nearly unlimited space and because it doesnt stress our budget, but more often than not, they are of equal quality, but we have depleted our funds for the month.
Local Poetry Readings
Wherever local is to you, please send us your local poetry reading venue, be it traditional stand up poetry, slam, spoken word, or even a quiet circle in a living room reading quaint verses. If you know of live poetry anywhere, send it to us and we will post it here!
​
Cover Art from David Russell's Speculum
N O L I M E T A N G E R E
and now
the point in time is a wave
washing over THE ME
leaving THE ME washed over
the pearl of thoughts
dry on the skin
there is nobody to share
empty minded eyes stare ahead
empty sounded ears strain into memory below
there is nobody to share
THE ME feet stay stopped where they were
when the tsunami rolled over THE ME
being now a breathing automaton
there is nobody to share
solitude is adventure
of the numbing kind
where are the eyes THE ME eyes
needed for contact
where are the hands
THE ME skin needed for caressing
where is the sound of steps
of feet walking beside THE ME
the wave catapulted from the sudden realm
shock will have an aftermath
of pain
of suffering
of denial
of anger
of bargaining
of dawning
of axeptance
new steps
will carry THE ME mind
along untrodden paths
​
N O L I M E T A N G E R E
und nun…
der punkt in der zeit ist eine welle
die über
DAS UNS
spülte
und DAS ICH bleibt überspült zurück
die perlen von gedanken
trocknen auf der haut
da ist niemand da der mir zuhört
geistesleere augen starren hinaus
tonleere ohren suchen kontakt mit der erinnerung da unten
da ist niemand da der mir zuhört
DAS ICH
füsse bleiben stehen
als die tsunami über
DAS UNS
wogte
und ist nun ein automat mit atem
da ist niemand da der mir zuhört
einsamkeit ist abenteuer
der betäubenden art
und da sind die
DAS ICH
augen die kontakt brauchen
und da sind
DAS ICH
hände die Haut brauchen für zärtliche berührung
und da ist das geräusch von schritten
von
DAS UNS
füssen die nicht neben
DAS ICH
gehen
die welle katapultierte aus dem plötzlichen jetzt
schock wird ein nachbeben bringen
von schmerz
von leiden
von ablehnen
von verweigern
von zorn
von feilschen
von dämmern
von annehmen
neue schritte
werden den neuen
DAS ICH
geist entlang unbegangene wege führen
​
hewesufa teresa bencinic
​
hewesufa teresa bencinic was born in merano altoadige, italia and has a working knowledge of several languages for she lived in 11 countries.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
These poems, images or whatever are posted for your entertainment without compensation to, but with permission but the creator.
Please do not reuse without permission of the creator, and without noting "Published by Better than Starbucks".