Category: poet

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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Realize, by Ernest Roberson

If I could, I’d write for you a rainbow.
And splash it with all the colors of God.
And hang it in the window of your being.
So that each new God’s morning.
Your eyes would open first……
To hope and promise.
If I could, I’d wipe away your tears.
And hold you close forever in shalom.
But God never promised I could write a rainbow,
Never promised I could suffer for you,
Only promised I could love you,
That I do.

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If Walls Could Talk, by Christopher Kent

If walls could talk,

they’d hear a man

breathing all alone

as he stares longingly

out the window

watching a young robin

build her cozy nest

for a family quickly coming.

If walls could talk,

they’d hear the shuffle

of routine feet

assisting the man

from the chair to bed

and back again,

and the barrage of insults

issuing from a man

exhausted from sitting

for so long.

If walls could talk,

they’d hear an old man

fumble with his phone,

punching in the only

number he knows,

waiting and hoping

to hear her voice.

“Maybe tonight,”

they hear him whisper,

but they know the truth,

that number’s been

disconnected for three years

and it’s only the dementia

keeping the old man’s

love and drive alive

in this quiet nursing home.

If walls could talk,

they might say,

“I’m sorry

your robin’s flown away,

but it’s ok to let go

and fly too”

THE LAND WHERE SOULS PLAY, by Michael Levy

An awakening to dawn mist on the water,
flowing Spirit’s streams to God’s altar,
purifying essence whistles through the trees,
images of the sacred blowing in the breeze.

Flights of fancy from birds up high,
feathers of many colors filtering through the sky,
sun, moon and stars envelops Earth’s dome,
we’re all birds of a feather, finding our way home.

Spectacle of mesmerizing movements flashing in the mind,
melting pots of humans, secrets hard to find,
love all embracing whispers on the wind,
no physical presence, ecstasy from a light dimmed.

Gifts of joy enmeshed in music and dance,
visualizing images filtering in a trance,
warriors in a drumbeat at journeys end,
back to the womb of creation enmeshed in a substance blend.

Wondrous dreams in the stillness of the dark,
journey on uplifting voyages in paradise park,
thunder and lightening points the way,
a prelude to the land where Soul’s play.

Author poet philosopher

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Quaranxiety, by Melissa Calderon-Rougié

It’s been 30 or 40 days
At this point what’s the difference
An hour more a minute less
The silence sticks to me like a wool sweater, hot and uncomfortable
Bubbling over with every thought
Every doubt all competing in a race
For my full attention and the finish line
I feel fine
Just noticing how much these walls echo
Every step on these creaky wood floors
Louder than the last

You sure seem to have adapted well
Folding laundry, cooking, cleaning
Like any other day
I admire your ability to withstand it all
Thankful our daughter & son have you
Thankful my silence doesn’t overwhelm your strength
As it does mine
I want to rip the sweater off
But change is a process and I take my time with everything

For now I’ll comfort myself in the laughter echoing from our children
In the sunlight
Beaming through the window
And the uncharacteristic silence of our NYC street
So quiet you can hear the birds sing
I never noticed how many of them
Line up on the tree adjacent to our window
Flitting from one branch to the next
Like any other day

by Melissa Calderon-Rougié
andwhenshesings.wordpress.com

I understand why you died tonight, by Joel Schueler

I understand why you died tonight
why the devil grew his tail
as your mind became frail,
why the sky mistook him for an angel.

Vienna and Bruges, and all that is smooth —
when toe meets foreshore;
dark chocolate, the Louvre.

Of nard and koi, and all that is joy —
sparkling streams of cygnets,
hard liquor, soft toys.

And now for the news.

Lead ties to shank
surfeit from the crapulous,
there are those who wait for the
summer to fall
there are those who act
when tablet mountain calls,

who torched the trellis
watched the wind make it crawl

it’s hard when no-one knows
where no-one goes
behind your wall.

Old Love, New Love, by Ekawu Ukpo

Love letters i hold close to heart
Papers tainted with signature scents of you and I
Time and distance, counted as days to miss one and no other
Goodbye hugs tighter and reconcilation hugs deeper
Skin and sheets made the lovers sweeter
Happiness is kind and love is a keeper
and you say it means keep her
Keep her love, read her smiles and make beauty stay forever
Kisses meant, its you
Flowers say always.
Words held truth
Actions bore honor.
Truly blessed as true believers

My old soul travelled so far in time
Millenials believe love is telepathic
Fairytales lie, and they vibe
Absorb my love, It surrounds me but its not in me
Worship do not adore, they crave obsession
Hold my hair up while i throw up
Sick signs of true love.
Lets share bad habits, and say loving has evolved.

The very core of love they corrupt
They can’t even comprise on something so simple as color
They call hiding freedom of expression
Expressing love weakness of the subconscious
They propose with flare and disbelief
Romance is denied or dead
I tell them romance is not sex.
They say stay single then, one night stands is a trend.
The circle is vicious,but people like us don’t bend
No matter what lives,they have been given.
We know, knowing the universe
Designate souls meets wherever they may be
In their mordern world what’s meant to be will be.

Masking Selish-nesses…?, by David Keen

-How should we feel about face masks, as it is not essential, like spacesuits…?
-But, re: numbers, for those in the N.H.S., on mere citizens, do they seem cute…?
-These people might well need them, having the COVID, or just being older, & vulnerable…
-But the fact they may shock, or endanger, us others, might make us then view them as trouble…

-If one needs them, you should get, & things will be good,
-That they’re available to you, as protection…
-But I wonder about before, & each office ‘uniform’,
Does it more shows some users should be ‘sectioned’…? (!).

An Intense Love for Literature, by M.S. Muhammad Nawfal

She is my beloved,
Whom I love indeed.
The sacred ideals have been buried,
That I wish men dig hurried.

she has drowned her texts,
in evil-free oceans.
The scholar bathes in stream of texts,
That flow through education.

He kisses the aesthetic ideals,
That came from the great mind.
She knows no death,
And no wars could steal her wrath.

The art sows saplings of humanity,
That bloom in heart of men without vanity.
And I smile with similes and play with personification,
I dine with diction and cry with characterization.

I melt with motif,
And I nurture my soul with narrative.
I have sucked the pill of madness ,
On literature in kindness.

And it is the bad subject of my relations,
Upon whose tongue it lays waste.
For it, I apologize you my dear,
Now let those sicked ears hear.
The lines of your art are the well-cooked biriyani,
That melt deep in the whispering stomach.
Your body has flowered the bunch of righteous,
That mentor the humanity in priceless.

Your pride has unscalable path,
As the great wall of China hath.
Some taste the fruit of it,
Some waste it on innocence as unfit.

The elixir of ideas it gives men,
That travel on minds amid demon.
Drug dealers are the deepest thoughts of it,
That faint me and feed me merit.

The art that has killed social evils,
Race, class and other unequals.
The sailors on it,
Has looked the wind of humanity.

If not, they are pseudo sailors,
On whom she never unveils her.
Some false followers among the greats lay,
Who make her preaching disobey.

And shall the crown of good sit on her head,
And shall rule the mind of good and bad.
Dear God, bless me to clutch her hand,
That shall give society the cherished changes with writing wand.
-M.S. Muhammad Nowfal

MORSE CODE, by Carla Botha

——— • • • ———

I leave you
dits and dahs.
A brief sequence but you do not respond
like I do not respond to Mondays.
I try and decode my days for the sake of dealing
with time and dispensing of you. I am authorized
to dispense of things. I haven’t decided
the category you fall under — office hours,
overtime. The week is short.
I am working, planning to buy
a home for myself and my chickens.
The budget predicts I need to rid myself
of dots and dashes, I decipher
dreams. Everything seems like reality
except you — not included,
an untranslatable character.
#
#
#
The duration of a dash —
three times the duration
of a dot •
I memorize this distress signal —
three dashes
three dots
three dashes.
But I won’t send it.
I hear Morse code
is seldom used nowadays.