We rarely meet someone so genuine, radiating, and accomplished as an individual and professional like poet, novelist, and professor Melissa Studdard. I came in contact with Melissa Studdard through social media and read her work for the first time when I published her poems in Life and Legends. I immediately felt a connection with the…
Poetry: John Comminos
Awakening The incidence of flightwithin flightwas, for crow,an audacity unspoken.Dreams of this plague,a prelude anticipating hope.For crow, the truth,unvarnished as truth’s manifesto, was lostin winged translation. Lostin archives,where hope trained in narrative,crow deferred to truth,at times, when truth was allhe had, obscure—reminded himof living,tasks, of the vital and the vincible—but oh, crow longed for the daywhen pursued by the very…
Poetry: Clara Burghelea
The struggle to give everything away Inside the ferry’s heartbeat, we fold ourselves like prayers, sheathed in metal, plastic and flesh, part animal, part technology, it is the thoughts that rise like snapping turtles, rocked by the Aegean green. I want this to be the end of it, a wounded winter amidst the very summer…
Poetry: Alicia Viguer-Espert
Nocturnal Fear I listen to the smooth rowing of his breathfrom one shore to the other side of dreams,consciousness, a gently rhythm of sloshingwater fills the bedroom like music. I panic when it deviates its coursethe lengthy pause of a median size rock.I fear the boat not reaching its destination,getting stucked in the middle of…
Poetry: Amy Small-McKinney
One Day I Am A Field Instantly, soundlessly, a meadow called bereft.……………One day, a hawk’s meadow. Above, a red-tailed hawk fools meinto thinking he’s an eagleflaps his wings wildly then glides until I know, yes, it is you. What is remembered when blinded?Try to wake to the sun’s flash of denial.……………The problem: I am grief’s…
Poetry: Pragya Suman
T S Eliot is Traditional Now The sea waves iced………..on the ledge I saw……………….Eliot chopping it —-Though hardly I noticed The sea skulls were………..bobbing up in leftover……………….of stale breath. A square hole was in my chiseled chest– Spoons knives forks of………..my modern cutlery……………….Are hung in kitchen –Though my ancestors cooked in Iron cauldron. In breakfast…
Poetry: Oindri Sengupta
Insignificant wanderings I have left the sea at the parched door of oblivionWhere your eyes stood to receive my empty eyes. Words have meanings only if we knowHow to listen to the sky when a lightning strikes.To listen is to completely disown yourselfLike the leaves at the end of a rain. I have left the…
Poetry: Lauren Scharhag
Magic Eye When you catch my eye, I take off my glasses. That way, there’s nothing between us. Sometimes, I like thingsto be not too distinct, like an impressionist painting. Lightand color and mood more important than detail. I collectCatholic kitsch, telling myself it’s ironic. St. Lucy with her eyeson a plate. Baron Samedi with…
Poetry: John J. Ronan
Dives: On Rejection There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen… Luke 16:19 “It is not impoverished to say,” the screener wrote,“Your erotic sonnets are no small achievement.”Poets are grateful for any warmth in the cold –The longhand, a scribbled signature, scent.In the business-like second paragraph,…
Poetry: Kevin Powell
Our Mothers (for my aunt, Birdie Lou Powell)What would we be without you?Even God herselfKnows that our mothersAre miracle angelsSwiping away the sun’s burns and tearsWith their leatherlike handsWe meanMother mom ma mommy mama mamiGive birth to the earth dailyTransport the moon and stars on their backsWork like hungry ancestors in orange fieldsSmuggle their invisible…
Poetry: Kamala Platt
Pandemic is a Place Where Harassing Migratory Birds is Essential Business #1 First days of December 2019, Bird Island was denuded by San Antonio Parks following plans from USDA Wildlife “Services.” All nests were removed from Bird Island; six, transferred to Edward’s Tank at Mitchell Lake Audubon, way south of town. Around those same days, on the other side of…
Poetry: Suchita Parikh-Mundul
I Collect Grandmothers I collect grandmothers like flowersyours, mine, everyone’sonce they’ve been plucked from the earthafter they’ve wilted and shriveledin provincial flower potsor upcycled urban glass bottlesI gather their corpsesand lay them between my favourite booksso they flatten like the pages that hold themso words that matter are imprintedonto their petalled facestheir leafy handstheir stalk-like…