Eye On Life Magazine

Make every day a beautiful day.

Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine.  Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.

Rub me raw

Rub me raw
Stain my hands
With chloroform and
Colored hearts,

Paint my visage
With the skin of
Fallen natives,

Red men pushed into
The worst bits of land,
Roast my loins,

With blitzkrieg
And al Bashir’s untainted parts-
God bless the Sudan,

Scrape my skin
With the scope
Of Sanger’s scheme,
Genocide in a magazine,
Rub me raw,

Pull me across
Gettysburg’s untrimmed lawn,
Ford’s theater at early dawn-
Assassinate a dream,

Taste me, I am
Unkempt rage,
A generation of discontent
And deadly plagues,
I am little bones of anarchy,

Part the Deadly Sea,
And rub me
Raw.

by Jenn Kelly

(Drunk Before) The Blue Noon

I need to start a revolution somewhere in my head
To escape this madness and crippling boredom
That has confined me to my lonely room
Getting drunk again before the blue noon
Dissolving into the web of artificial lives
Dancing on the split-screen with spiders in their minds
I need an entomologist to identify my kind
When I'm glued to the repetition
That has paralyzed my time
But, I realize it's not the spiders I fear most
But, the mice that surf eternal seas
Of sticky webs and rotten streams
Wasting all my precious dreams
I need to start a revolution somewhere in my head
To absolve myself of feeling like the living dead

by Christopher Morris

For Burma

They stand together

Floating rows of tawny blossoms.

A low hum, like a gathering storm, bends the wind,

They do not break.

 

Dark clouds release torrents of lead-heavy heat,

Pearls of red rain dot golden petals, and 

Sink gently into pools of refulgent, crystal brightness,

Creeping vines climb and twist around tree necks, which

Slowly slump amoungst jags of roses and marigolds.

 

by Marie Jones

Austin, Texas

Three Poems by Megan McDonald

Jumper

Heart pounding
Racing toward the train
Life in every limb
He dives low
Dives for the sparking wheels
Heedless of the ever-wide eyes on-board
The hollow circle mouths

Purpose in every limb now
Scattered across the tracks
Clinging to the train
Begging two questions
Of the heavy silence
Where does the pain begin
And does it ever end

Several miles up the line
Held back by a weak link fence
The next one watches
And waits



Habitation

He rarely speaks my name anymore.
He says it’s not necessary.
He says names are for unfortunate others
Not acquainted so intimately.
I am not sure how I feel about this
Anonymous intimacy—are we
Two strangers living in a common house?

His body moves through mine as through a door,
Pushing toward escape so persistently.
I am not sure if I exist during
This communion of boredom and ecstasy.
The passionate prayer is uttered in silence
So as not to betray our identity:
Two strangers living in a common house.

Does he touch me as he touched women before,
Or am I different, separate from memory?
Do his hands hold the power to tell me from
Another flesh since his tongue ignores me?
I seek recognition in his voice
Because I no longer want to be
Two strangers living in a common house.

I listen for some whisper of opportunity
To articulate the forbidding words.
I will speak of love when introducing
Two strangers living in a common house.



When a Poem Speaks to My Soul

when a poem speaks to my soul
I can feel the air around me
move my fingers through it
sift it
push at it
and feel it push back
a living thing
a comforting thing
an embrace of something outside myself
larger than myself
something larger
something full of more promise
than I ever have been
or will be
and all is right and true
as long as the words persist
as long as those words breathe

 

About the poet, Megan McDonald

Land of the Free

Land of the Free, I ache within

This treasure trove of gaunt and thin

An Escalade uncaring

Pass the needy sharing

Why must it be this way?

 

The hunger pangs, a knot inside

Children groan; my pain is pride

The plasma TV news

I stare down at my shoes

While barefoot orphans pray

 

The tight insides of them and me

Which hunger’s worse, I think I see

To know and still be not giving

Is wealth that’s not worth living.

Redemption starts today!

 

by Ed Pierce

Metaphysical Nightmare

Whispers, images, flashes
Haunting
Deep waters move rapidly

Dream or memory
Confusion
Fevered imagination plotting

Insanity beckons
Looming
Shadows of reality or shades of imagination

Frame after frame
Clicking
Taunts fast and clear

Screaming conscience
Shrill
Mind mirrors shatter

Shards fall
Cutting
Tearing the delicate foundation

Death breathes close
Stop!
It does

 

By Bridget Bowen

Her Silenced Song

She seems to speak aloud,
Aloud so high pitched
It’s a constant ring in my ears,
A tune in my head,
A tune that stays stuck,
Stuck in my head,
So loud I feel I sweat it,
My heart pumps fast,
I sweat as it pumps faster,
She seems to pore out my pores,
As her tune beats with my beat,
It is similar to my heart beat,
Is her beat the same as my beat?
My sweat the same as her sweat?
I don’t know but I do know
She seems to speak aloud,
Aloud to me is what I hear,
Aloud to me is what I feel,
Aloud to me not with her voice,
But with her presence so soft,
Like her lips I feel,
She speaks to me aloud,
Even when she is silent,
Her silence is perfection,
Perfection is her,
Her perfection is her,
Stirring in my heart,
My heart beats to her,
It’s beating to her vibe,
Her vibe that’s in no need of her voice,
A voice that stays silent,
A soul in which coincides with my soul,
A soul that is no more a soul,
A soul that is no more alone,
My soul which is now our soul,
Bestowed upon me I am proud,
Proud to live with
And proud to die for,
No more does my heart
Beat alone by itself,
So with her tune in my heart,
It creates a tune that makes sense,
A sense that is heard,
A sense that cannot be silenced,
So that we may seem to speak aloud.

 

By Brandom White

Immigrant Dreams

A child of two lands

And two different cultures

Driven to find greener pastures

Fleeing from war, anguish and pain

I came to this land hoping to gain

A better life for my family and I

A chance for us to do more than survive

 

I came here a lifetime ago

I crossed many waters to land on this shore

A shore that held the promise of dreams fulfilled

The promise of a life of which I only dreamed

 

Here there would always be food and clean water

And schooling for my daughter

There would be no poverty, hunger or war

And opportunities would flow outside my door

 

What I found when I landed upon this shore

Was not what I dreamed of a lifetime ago

Problems abide in this foreign land

They are just of a different nature from what I left behind

 

There is still hunger but on a smaller scale

No one wants to employ foreign workers

Go back home they say

So I work in a diner

Although I have four degrees

I toil and I sweat to meet my family’s needs

 

I often dream of my home

On that other shore

I want to go back

To where I was before

But I cannot leave

Not just yet

I have growing children

And a load of debt

 

I will stay here just a few years more

and then I will return to that other shore

There is still hope in this land

For dreams unfulfilled

Hope for my children

but not for my dreams.

 

By Maureen Injete Chesoni

A Full Circle Dream

A brave young woman boards a boat,

she is determined to live a dream of freedom and

escape frozen tundra of tears and bitter hue.

She crosses the Atlantic and meets a man.

She a native of the land of Laps ,

and he a wayward son of Belgium blood blue.

She is not pretty and he is without care,

they both have motive to love and share:  

he for spite and she for a new home,

they hold each other for a short time

before he escapes to search out a more comely embrace. 

Before he leaves he does the right thing,

for his son he signs the certificate.

The life of the mother and son is not easy,

exiled from her home and her cold family.

The boy grows tough and steet smart.

A reflection of Chicago’s colorful past,

from his mother he inherits a true heart.

He serves her new land in World War Two,

and meets a woman of Scandinavia .

Three daughters are born soon,

one of them would be my mother.

A history of an immigrant family from the Lapland ,

Sami and proud.

We dwell in the new world now,

ever homeward our eyes are drawn,

to the frozen Lap and soil of our breed.

For now we toil in the land that has forgotten its creed.

“Home of the Brave and land of the Free”.

I followed my Grandfather’s example and served this land,

but the lies of traitors have left their mark upon me.

One day I will return home,

and hope I will find warmth among my people

and leave this stolen land of greed. 

Home to the land of my ancestors.

Home to die Free!

 

- By Robert Petersen