Category: new poetry

Bottom Of The Bottle, by Laye Da Writer

With this last drop I know the memories disappear

Going a step further to erase the fear

Depression is usually the killer

But these toxins are a different filler

Not living for tomorrow just want the now

I’m off a Fifth ready to ride out on the town

Sip after sip just chilling my veins

Call it what you want but with more I release my chains

I’ll keep going no need to encourage, slight work

Get help, I don’t care to I need to see where the evils lurk

Functional I always am way too much to lose so I proceed

A brick wall waiting my arrival destined from the planted seed

Has anyone stepped in to intervene the pain

Actually nope they just watch as I fall below the curve not accessing the strain

Numb to “are you ok”

Dulled by “itll get better”

Scarred from “the only way to get better is to talk about it”

Well let me tell you first hand this liquid has cured

Cured more than any person with a degree could fathom

Won’t even come close to understand why I do what I feel is natural

Remember the fifth I mention hell I’ve gone through my 3rd and its only been 2 hours

DARE ME TO DRIVE!?!?!

Give me my keys I no longer wish to sit around waiting for help

Rather than wait ill just go find it

May hit a couple of bumps on the way

Hell one of those bumps may create my brighter day

You wanted the insights of my mind well here they are

Now deal with the monster that comes

Tame him you wouldn’t dare

Man it’s getting bad the night just started and he’s not stopping

It’s feels great not to feel at all

Dead to emotions when I get this way and I have the dark light mixture swirling in this bottle

If they ever find me flipped over somewhere know I hid my friend under the seat

-Laye Da Writer

I RELEASE WHAT I AM RECEIVING WHAT I NEED, by Terry Mulcahy

I release this viral blue funk
sometimes dark thing
in my soul.
It haunts me
from time to time.

Release this loneliness
that feeds my blues.
Not lonely all the time
sometimes it just appears
out of the blue.
Does it feed my blues?
Or
Does that blue funk
feed my loneliness?

I release this obsession
that comes upon me too
obsession
about
what I’ve said or done.

I release this obsession
that comes upon me I release
this obsession that comes
I release this obsession.

I sit too much
at the computer
and watching movies
and reading
or just
wasting time.
I release all that.

Often I want forgiveness
for things I’ve said or done
but
I must give forgiveness
without expectations
of return.

I receive friendship
though
sometimes
it is not easily
given away.

I receive smiles
and those
O
those
I can reciprocate
easily.

I try to understand
how other people feel
put myself in their shoes
feel their perspective
but
sometimes
I get pissed off that they
do not understand.

With all these things
I know
I must lead by example
be open-minded
without expectations.

It is springtime
despite the snow and rain
and today’s cold damp air
hovering around my soul.

Yet it is time for Spring
Spring delayed
Spring postponed
but not canceled.

It will come.

Bonded, by Dominique Marks

Dear O,

I hope you’re well. Hope the family’s well also. I think of you often.. more so because of the uncertainty these days bring. Sometimes I’m happy.. sad.. mad or horny. But I’m hurt. Not because things ended but your denial of it all. I hate that I let you in. It’s so hard for me to do that and I often feel regret because I knew better. I understand that one experience— is just that an experience. When you looked at me— I smiled because deep down I knew. A moment. A season.. deep within. But in knowing, I’m still so traumatised that I don’t know how to yell. I’m trying though, learning.

~ dmo

The Global Foe, by Abubakarr Momoh Sesay

Have you heard about it?
Do you feel the pains and sorrows?
Can we all die of this?
Oh Corona!
You came like a wildfire, quickly vanishing the unforgettable pains of Ebola
You’re ruining lives through panic;
Affecting the known and unknown
Destroying our immune system

Oh Corona! what a deadly pandemic?

I tell you it’s tragic!
Far away from your magic
I am terrified by the numerous cases we see and hear
All you portray is fear

What a bitterness we are facing?
You keep spreading rapidly.
Leaving no nook or kranny
This is the right time to turn to our Maker
Let’s all seek His blessing.

There’s no where to hide
Everyone bears the brunt of of their burden
Nations to which we depend all succumb

Don’t feel sick and seat, reach 117 to assist.
Be sure to seek for medical aid
Ourselves are weapons to fight against this foe.

Let’s embrace ourselves and live as one big family!
It doesn’t matter where you are ,
Neither where you’re from.
Your race doesn’t matter
All we need is each other
Let’s forget our differences
We’re not enemies,

The Climax…, by Jo-Ann E

You’re yelling now.

The veins in your neck

Popping out as if they’re ready to attack me

Right then and there.

I sit on the bed as I watch you pace back and forth avoiding eye contact.

Can’t help but feel the tears gathering themselves, blurring my view

The knot in my throat ready to take over

Common sense, love, and empathy go flying out the window as I hear the words coming out of your mouth.

I open my mouth to interrupt you but I go mute. Out of fear.

Fear of our future. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of not being able to recognize the person that I claim to love. Fear of falling out of love.

So I stay quiet. Let it out.

But remember….

remember that a sponge can only be full for so long, until water starts spilling out of every hole.

random forests, by Mark Tiegs

we are in the random forests
we are. leo. adele. Ho[4][5] and Amit and German [6] in order (Fujitsu now)
we are random forests
we are decision trees. tree bagging (Main article: Bootstrap aggregating)
predictions for unseen samples x’ can be made by averaging the predictions
from all the individual regression trees onx’
we are from bagging to random forests
we are in the 7000 oaks
we are documenta 7 (joseph beuys)
we are 7000 oaks
we are the basalt stones pointing to the oaks
predictions for unseen situ (situationist international (not regression trees))
we are from random forests to 7000 oaks

Straightened My Life, by Wesley Hesketh

I walked a crooked path in life, sinning every day.

Drugs my meal of fun. Hiding in them

to get away from all the pain and suffering. From birth

to fourteen I was physically and verbally abused. At

fourteen, I was left on a street corner.

I would eat out of garbage cans or steal from the stores

just to survive. I was arrested and put in juvenile hall,

where I was beat up and raped.

My mother can and got me out. She was living with

an ex boxer. He liked to knock me around like a

punching bag.

At eighteen I ran away and thinking it would get better,

I joined the Army. I was wrong. In boot camp the sergeant

pushed me around and verbally abused me. It was like that

for sixteen weeks.

Then I went to Korea. I was put on the

front line to help keep the South safe from the North. Stress

was a daily thing and fear of being shot went along with it.

That’s where I got hooked on drugs. When I can back stateside,

I fell in with a bad crowd. I become a garbage can junky,

that means I took any drug I was given.

While I was on drugs I went through four very abusive marriages.

Up until then the only God I knew was one that sit in heaven.

He judged everyone and if you sinned you went to Hell.

So I could not look to him for help.

The rest of my life was a blur of mental hospitals. Into the hospital

out on the street over and over again.

Then one day I was sitting on the street corner looking for drugs.

A man came and sit down next to me. I thought he was looking

for drugs too. I shouted at him to get away but he did not move.

“Son,” he said, “What are you looking for?” Drugs I said you got

some? “I got something better,” he said. “it is God.” Oh no you don’t

I know about your God and He is a bad God, judging people and

sending then to hell.

He laughed, “My God loves you.” How could He love me I am just

a sinner? “He sent His Son Jesus to take away your sins.” How could

He do that I asked?

“Jesus was hung on a cross to suffer for your sins. He died so you

will never be judged for your sins now and forever.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. How would He do that for me? “He did that

because He loves you. Three days later He was resurrected from the grave,,

now He is in Heaven at the right hand of God. He intercedes for you.”

I looked at him and he smiled at me. No buddy smiled like that ever.

“Come let me help you.”

He led me to a clinic and introduced ne to a counselor. We talked and

she said I had PTSD and was bipolar.

That was twenty years ago. I found a Bible based churched, and found

a home there. I read my bible every day, and pray to God, Jesus, and

the Holy Spirit, I am no longer on drugs and have a handle on my

problems. Today I no longer walk that crooked road. I know God loves

me and He loves you too.

Cold-Turkey Cuts, by Saleda Abdul

I’m somehow paler now than I was through Winter

And ghosting when I’d rather be out toasting,

Even if it were still out frosting

Nah b, but I might just be lying to me,

Cuz time is teaching me what boundaries and growth mean

Like putting things in their proper place

Instead of tossed in a drawer of disheveled space

Because you don’t get taught the how,

Always just told the what

But I’m uncovering how poetry is my recovery

For, it is perspective renewed

When I can hardly see past the overcasts

And my eyes stay open doing unpaid overnights

Still, to honor ALL the parts that come with You

With the space to feel your feels

And just give it some comfort food

Or maybe a nap,

And take it all in with just a baby step

And, I couldn’t so much regret the ease..

For the tomorrows to perhaps bring a better breeze

By: Saleda Abdul

Ghost of You, by Lucia Irvine

Do you want to,
Come over later?
I hear myself say y e s.
It tastes sour in my mouth,
I didn’t like lemons until I met you.
I recount the time you smashed a bottle millimetres from my face,
Maybe my riposte was too smart,
You glunched and I braced.
I imagine gnashing the glass,
Desperately digesting your aggression,
Slurping my bloodied gums, I spit:
‘whatever you are, I am too’.
You are the train and I am the station,
Withdrawn entities and lifeless conversation.
I grin at you with my new veneers,
you recoil at my advance,
We are the clasp and the loop on my favourite necklace:
impossible at times.
And did anyone ever tell you I look for you the same way I look for post on a Sunday?
It’s unexpected, hopeful and
Sincerely yours,
Never There.

Cosmogony, by Iuliana Pașca

I would like to tell you about my birth
but how to start with no beginning?
…
Mother said I was born
ahead of my time;
I don’t remember,
but I know I was there when
I also gave birth to my mother.

I saw when from the heart
the galaxies
gushed streamingly,
suns were smiling on the spine
rasing satellites
from the tireless breath.
Neurons formed stars
in the rainbow hair,
while Mars was preparing
for the fight.

From the fingers of the left hand
it detached,
together with the rings, Saturn
then, as lightning,
Jupiter came out of nowhere,
and to my feet
was lying down
the Earth.

Iuliana Pașca (born on 26th of March, 1991 in Romania), studied Romanian Language and Literature-Chinese Language and Culture at Faculty of Letters (2010-2014), gaining two scholarships to study in China (2012-2014). She got her bachelor in Philology with the thesis Madness in Literature, graduated (2017) the Conflict Management International Master Program with the dissertation paper Mediation System in Mainland China and presented a series of research papers such as Diaoyu Islands-a contemporary dispute between China and Japan at international conferences at Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland (2016).

She participates in literary circles in Romania and overseas. She published in ARTivated Album (2015), anthologies of poetry (2018, 2020), but also in numerous literary magazines from Romania. She made her editorial debut with the trilingual (Romanian-Italian-English) poetry volume Reflectările unei molecule / Riflessioni di una molecola / Reflections of a molecule (Ecreator, Baia Mare, 2020). She teaches English in Barcelona, Spain since September 2019.

„Iuliana Pașca orchestrates the language register in an original and daring way, without prejudice to the reader’s sensibilities, so that, from the beginning of the book one has the impression that the author addresses an exhortation to be more open, more relaxed in front of the text” (Zorin Diaconescu, The challenge to the reader and the pact with poetry).

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