The Skrews Poetry Syndication, Issue 005: The Skrews Poetry Syndication, #5

By The Skrews Syndication

The Skrews Poetry Syndication is an independent literary publication that is dedicated to the darker, pain-filled words of poets who've experienced severe adversity, trauma, and tribulation in their lives. While the element of suffering is often held in high esteem in the poetry community, most poets who haven't already created a name go unheard. This publication is here to change this. We are by those, for those, and celebrated by those who are in this very real state of chaos.

 

Issue 005 (Macabre Minutiate, 2023), is a collection of forty-four poems from a selection of amateur poets across the globe. 2023 brought war, economic fluctuations, and often societal divisions. With regard to this, these poets have written a wide encompassment of poetry that highlights subjects such as isolation, grief, past trauma, mental angst, displacement, and much much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Skrews Syndication
• Release date: Oct 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223622048

Book preview

The Skrews Syndication, Issue 005, 2023The Skrews Syndication Publishing Collective

- 2023 -

The Skrews Syndication

Issue 005, 2023

MACABRE MINUTIATE.

Text copyright © 2023 by the Skrews Syndication. All rights reserved.

Poetry copyrights are held by their respective authors with all rights reserved. Editorial text copyrights are held by L.A. Wyatt © 2023.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without explicit written permission from the publisher.

This book was published digitally in Atlanta, Georgia by the Skrews Syndication Publishing Collective in the year 2023.

Publishing permissions are granted by their holders.

https://loose.skre.ws

Written correspondence can be sent to:

The Skrews Syndication

P.O. Box 781

Cumming GA 30028

All distributor logos are trademarks of their respective companies and affiliates.

Cover design and derivative copyrights © 2023 by the Skrews Syndication. All rights reserved.

SSBN: 785A1F7B-E643-4C25-B2E8-4966FF782676 (Digital)

Originally published in the United States of America

October 2023

First edition

Only darkness can bring meaning to the light... for the darkness is a mirror, a mere reflection of luminescence on the other side. Both are meant to be felt, and only when seeing the beauty within the darkness, can one be guided into the light.

In Memory of

This issue is dedicated to Maureen, Allison, Bobby, and Amanda. Our numbers are dwindling and I never imagined that 2023 would claim so many lives, your lives. I’ll carry the memory of each of you until, someday, I join you in eternal solace.

Allison, veering down from a second-story window in the dead of night, -a firetruck only yards away, my clothing was painted in red stripes by the emergency beacon as its effulgent pulses of light emitted through the blinds. The responders left their sirens off, deliberately. The scene was surreal.

I watched them load your body into a nearby ambulance; a white cloth covering you from head to toe. Your daughter sat preoccupied with the firemen, showing them her toys. You were obscured from her view, thank goodness.

Allison, her life changed forever that day.

L.A. Wyatt.

Cynosures

A Psalm of Life

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Public Domain, 1838

What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist:

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

and things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

dust thou art, to dust returnest,

was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

is our destined end or way;

but to act, that each to-morrow

find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

and our hearts, though stout and brave,

still, like muffled drums, are beating

funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

in the bivouac of Life,

be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

we can make our lives sublime,

and, departing, leave behind us

footprints on the sands of time;

footprints, that perhaps another,

sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

a forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

with