Category: poetry

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).

shutterstock_1083806558

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.

shutterstock_1083806558

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

Home

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