tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838086753621686942024-03-18T23:47:55.491-04:00The Five-TwoCrime poetry weekly Sep. 12, 2011–Sep. 4, 2023 · ed. Gerald SoGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.comBlogger1522125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-24730498049878766542024-03-18T23:30:00.001-04:002024-03-18T23:46:56.308-04:00Middle Age Spread by Peter M. GordonFrequent contributor Peter M. Gordon sends word he's published a new poetry collection on Amazon.com:
In Middle Age Spread award-winning poet Peter M. Gordon delves into the mysteries and shared moments between friends and family, along with his thoughts about 30 years living in Central Florida. The collection includes the "Best of the Net" nominated poem, "Florida Man," the Thomas Burnett SwannGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-45711902422744858742023-12-27T10:00:00.006-05:002023-12-27T10:23:34.709-05:00Pitching for the Apostates by Paul HostovskyFrequent contributor Paul Hostovsky sends word of his new release from Kelsay Books, published December 4:
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to read more poetry, or to write more poetry, or to stop writing those difficult and obscure organic-intuitive poems that no one understands and to start writing those accessible and reader-friendly humorous and poignant poems that everybody loves, Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-19399534283107824312023-11-06T00:00:00.051-05:002023-11-06T00:00:00.136-05:00Guest Post: Thoughts on a Poem and a Past Relationship by Jess ChuaI’m grateful that my poem, “I Should’ve Known,” was published here on The Five-Two back in 2021!
It was my one and only crime poem then.
The span of time between 2018 to 2022 was somewhat like wilderness years for me, where I didn’t have a strong direction of what I wanted to do writing-wise.
In the late summer of 2023, my debut poetry chapbook on heartbreak, let it rip, was published by Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-10106849178354767472023-10-11T09:30:00.000-04:002023-10-11T09:40:51.589-04:00See What I Mean? by Charles RammelkampFrequent contributor Charles Rammelkamp's latest Kelsay Books release, See What I Mean?, includes his 2013 Five-Two poem "The Day Sadat Died" and is blurbed by Bob Cooperman and Eric D. Goodman.Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-81156947394005132952023-09-20T06:00:00.003-04:002023-09-20T06:04:44.389-04:00Youth's Joyful Noise by Robert CoopermanFive-Two alum Bob Cooperman tells me his latest Kelsay Books release, Youth's Joyful Noise, is a "last love letter to The Grateful Dead."Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-15977990740051306532023-09-04T00:01:00.026-04:002023-09-04T00:01:00.147-04:00J.H. JohnsSOMETHING FISHY
Multiple bodies
buried
along Ocean Parkway;
legs and feet
showing up
at
Davis Park;
who dunit;
how dunit;
how many dunit;
crimes being “solved;”
a suspect being “arrested;”
a wife filing for divorce;
children who are traumatized;
communities now at ease;
hey;
pull over;
stop the car;
get out;
go into the dunes;
face the ocean;
take a moment-
there!
Do you smell it?
Is there Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-32280879717872362242023-09-01T00:00:00.023-04:002023-09-01T06:44:28.081-04:00This is itI haven't received enough submissions to continue The Five-Two's Poem of the Week for a thirteenth year. The final poem of Year Twelve will run Monday, September 4, "Something Fishy" by J.H. Johns, about the recent arrest of a suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders.
Beyond that, The Five-Two's archive of 625 poems will remain online. The blog will be open to posts promoting poetry. I, meanwhile, am Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-44388210524671001092023-08-28T00:01:00.033-04:002023-08-28T00:01:00.140-04:00Rena J. WorleyQUEEN'S HAWKER
Step right up
Slip right in
Slide right out
Hey you John
Pinches for ten
Touches for twenty
Kisses aplenty
A mere cash bargain away
Hurry hurry hurry
Get your hot ones here
Name a desire
Shy to cheeky
Feathers and whips
Pose or strip
Shapes and sizes to please
Hurry hurry hurry
Get your hot ones here
Stroll the line
Pick your prize
Tight laced vamps
Booted tramps
Leather Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-79449212624551961462023-08-21T00:01:00.051-04:002023-08-21T00:01:00.156-04:00Tom BarlowTHE CROWBAR
She stands at the riverside
holding a bloody crowbar,
watching the grain barges
float by on their way to the Gulf.
The steel in her bruised hand,
once used by ancestors to pry
worn shoes off work horses, to
tear down plaster, yank floor tile,
now her gift to the river to join
all those other victim's weapons.
What tales the turtles could
tell of the arsenal down there
in the mudGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-90517045144673649522023-08-14T00:01:00.061-04:002023-08-14T00:01:00.144-04:00Jennifer LagierTHOUGHTS AND PRAYERS
“'Really angry' gunman who killed 3 at Gilroy Garlic Festival cut fence, shot randomly for less than a minute.” –USA Today
While I attend a Monterey poetry reading where
two Latino poets promote love and unity,
one more furious white man cuts through a fence,
with his automatic rifle, shoots down
fifteen festival attendees, killing three,
including a six-year-old boy,
Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-49488179051114775952023-08-07T00:01:00.037-04:002023-08-07T09:55:41.349-04:00Libby CudmoreL.A. NOCTURNE
It’s 2 AM & we’re coffee-drunk in a Waffle House off the highway that cuts across Alabama like an old scar. We eat heartburn rib-eyes on blood-soaked toast as our waitress gives us someone’s else’s check. You pay the cost. You don’t correct an Alabama woman no matter how wrong she is.
You crack open another biscuit, watch me eat with eyes like Katrina streets. Los Angeles is aGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-47638767666421357872023-07-31T00:01:00.044-04:002023-07-31T00:01:00.136-04:00Sylvia WenmackersBALLAD OF MENSTRUATION & CRIME
Good girls act up, their grades are low,
their mums go on a stealing spree,
their aunties’ police sheets grow,
‘be nice’ is not their cup of tea,
they’re into theft or burglary,
and forgery while feeling blue.
They are retaining water, too.
When caught, into a cell they go.
But once in prison, we foresee
they keep up hustling like a pro,
behaving so disorderlyGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-65565958659805586882023-07-26T10:30:00.007-04:002023-07-30T06:31:41.877-04:00This could be it.The Five-Two needs six poems to finish its twelfth year, especially a poem to publish July 31-August 6, 2023 to keep the site going uninterrupted.
If I don't receive a poem, the site will go on hiatus until I do get six more. After accepting those, the site will close to submissions for good, but the published poems will be available in the archives.
Five-Two alums, if you wish any poems Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-76700299404684937062023-07-24T00:01:00.037-04:002023-08-29T16:06:19.132-04:00J.H. JohnsA CRIME UNSPOKEN
There’s probably a plan-
there has to be a plan-
I’m sure
there’s almost always
been a plan;
just talk at first;
maybe wishful thinking
or
a drunken indiscretion;
formalized-
back then-
with
a nod of the head;
a muffled laugh;
a raised glass;
becoming-
over time-
more secret;
more elusive;
moving from
the dining rooms,
libraries
and
private places;
waiting now,
waiting for Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-72525798723173665902023-07-17T00:01:00.031-04:002023-07-17T00:01:00.138-04:00Sarah Das GuptaMIDSUMMER MISCHIEF!
Milk stands in wooden basins
A fly crawls along blackened rafters
an escape from the midsummer heat
I have many names in the villages and fields
Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Hobgoblin
Spirit of mischief, trickery and jokes
I trace my fingers over the clotting cream
in the evening twilight.
I chuckle to see it turning sour.
In the herb garden, parsley, thyme,
sage, rosemary, Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-88891182097562447302023-07-10T00:01:00.030-04:002023-07-10T00:01:00.142-04:00Adam StempleBAR FIGHT
he throws the drunk
to the barroom floor
sickening crunch
of skull on cement
but the drunk is up again
nose flattened
and blood
from a thirty stitch gash
streaming down his forehead
he’s half-blind with it
but doesn’t know
he’s hurt
and he’s still throwing
haymakers
like he’s Don Quixote
and the bar is full
of windmills.
eyes wide
with the knowledge
of what he’s done
the first guy Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-5327954683481685492023-07-03T00:01:00.022-04:002023-07-03T00:01:00.138-04:00Paul HostovskyOSIP
Osip Mandelstam wrote a poem
making fun of Stalin. It got Osip
in a lot of trouble. He recited it
at a salon where it got some laughs
and then someone informed on him
and he ended up dying in a Gulag
in the Soviet Far East. I wrote a poem
making fun of Donald Trump and it got
no attention because this is America
where nobody listens to poets or reads
their poems. And maybe Osip would say
I Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-22139103072601058322023-06-26T00:01:00.046-04:002023-06-26T00:14:20.311-04:00Peter MladinicSEVENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS
The late eighties. Since my
last visit home, you’d been on the jury
of a murder trial. A young
black man shot a black teenage boy
in a fast food restaurant
one night after the place had closed.
The man had been staking it out.
He entered through a back door
and ordered the girl employees
and the boy a cook to lie down.
He got seventy-eight dollars.
Before he fled he fired
Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-47093890541623890022023-06-19T00:01:00.066-04:002023-06-19T00:01:00.143-04:00Charles RammelkampJEALOUS GUY
“Ever notice how John Lennon
goes almost Full Othello
in some of those early Beatles songs?”
“Such as?”
"Well, there’s that song
from the Hard Day’s Night album,
‘You Can’t Do That’:
If I catch you talking to that boy again..."
"Oh right! The guy threatening
his girlfriend because she dares
talk to his pals. He tells her
they’d laugh in his face
if they’d seen the way she was Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-17801953876287092542023-06-12T00:01:00.060-04:002023-06-12T00:01:00.138-04:00Melodie BoltB&E
Prepping for surgery
your nurse asks
about the scars on your forearms.
You laugh remembering
the sweltering July heat in ‘84
and your yearning for something new.
You picked the lake house
because they normally went up north
for the weekend, an escape
to cooler air and colder water.
There was nothing to do
but break the window
and undo the lock.
But shards of glass, ragged like shark Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-36914535963683220722023-06-05T00:01:00.040-04:002023-06-05T00:01:00.134-04:00Paul HostovskySMILE
I don’t speak your language
and you don’t speak mine–
but there is this smile,
the one that means I wish
I knew your language,
this shy, innocent, ignorant,
helpless smile that says
This is all I know how to say
in your language,
this smile I imagine
someone among the first
explorers might have smiled
at someone among the first
Indigenous people they encountered—
just might have–
before Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-13789429269324900682023-05-29T00:01:00.038-04:002023-05-29T00:01:00.162-04:00Adam StempleTHE DREAM
the dream is a corpse
rotting in school hallways
and the grocery aisle at Walmart
sacrificed on the anthill altar
of colony and mindlessness
the dream is a lie
oft-repeated
by shaved heads and tailored suits
brothers-in-arms in a war
that only they are fighting
the dream is a fire
that chars the conqueror's soul
and tells him to burn his ships
on the shores of a world
new only to himGerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-80665385741329919762023-05-22T00:01:00.044-04:002023-05-22T00:01:00.136-04:00Charmaine ArjoonlalSECRETS
I waited behind the wall to watch them
fawn skin and giggles
crisp uniforms and ponytails.
I knew they’d be a juicy treat and I salivated
drool dripped
a pond formed
deep, dark
I gazed into it and it stirred
ripples appeared
it clouded,
I stepped back and screamed
the building shook and shuddered
concrete and dust,
I looked into the pool and saw
Nothing
Charmaine's YouTube video Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-22890262100317074872023-05-16T16:30:00.024-04:002023-05-18T04:31:38.430-04:00Format ChangeI use DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials web browser extension, which has begun blocking embedded YouTube videos because Google tracks users' interaction with them. While no longer embedding videos, I will still upload them to my YouTube channel, linking to them in poem text posts as in the post for "Hawk's Day in Court" by Peggy Landsman.Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183808675362168694.post-32779581802953161552023-05-15T00:01:00.043-04:002023-05-16T17:11:56.702-04:00Peggy LandsmanHAWK'S DAY IN COURT
Thanks to Robert B. Parker for his Spenser series
"We shall prove this enforcer named Hawk
Shot these men we have outlined in chalk..."
"For the defense, sir,
We call Mr. Spenser."
Hawk nodded, he knew he would walk.
Peggy's YouTube video reading of "Hawk's Day in Court"
Peggy confesses: "My husband and I used to take turns reading out loud to each other. Robert B Gerald Sohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571407711439433431noreply@blogger.com1