Tuesday, January 13, 2026

New-York, New-ark by Mykyta Ryzhykh

Markus Spiske

New-York, New-ark

No one has ever thought about how mechanical relationships between people are. The human brain, like a processor, controls the flow of events, but we blindly and piously believe that, in reality, we have freedom of choice, are dependent on external circumstances, or have some kind of intuition.

The words ‘I love you’ are as mechanical and automatic as sex between two primates at one o’clock in the morning. Such words are no different from a memorized prayer. No one loves anyone, because the brain of each person cares only about the survival of the body in which this brain is placed (who is the boss here: the brain, the person, or the body?).

Remember how you touch yourself against a naked body at night, forgetting for a moment what it all means (is it love, reproduction process, psychological play, making money on prostitution, or just raising your own ego?). Touching yourself against a naked body is another mechanical illusion of love.

What is loneliness? It is when I feel my own lonely fingers on a single bed in my sleep. My anxiety has drawn a broken line that connects love and loneliness. My fingers represent loneliness. But my fingers in your hair are also lonely, because sooner or later, I will be forced to give this hair freedom. You will leave and I will be left alone, perplexed: have you gone away and will never return, or do you just need to leave for a while, for example, to go to the toilet? For me, it’s both: loneliness. Loneliness makes me defenseless, because in a state of deep loneliness, I turn into a baby or a dying person (as is known, everyone is born and dies in loneliness without having the right to choose).

I have no choice but between death and life. I have no choice but mechanical, almost illusory love and an eternal, useless search for love. I am mechanical like a turnstile. At the same time, I am forced to think. I dream of stopping thinking so much and becoming a turnstile or a stone.

The bare wires of time are doomedly wound around my no less doomed body. So my reactions (or rather my brain’s reactions) are predetermined based on these impulses: smells, touches, memories, endlessly unsuccessful experiences, blind faith.

You don’t know how to separate my brain from me. My selfish brain thinks only of itself, and my body is just a meat vessel for this brain. Soon all books, phones and computers will be replaced by chips and my brain will stop pretending that everything in this world is created for the convenience of man. No, everything in this world is created for the survival of the brain.

The waterproof case for my body and smart processors are only needed to protect the SIM card. I don’t even know the phone number assigned to my brain and the provider. I know only faith. I know nothing. I want love. But no one needs me, not even my own brain.

I want my freckles to disappear. While I have freckles, no one will love me, not even my own brain. My own fingers caress my leg in my sleep. I dream of love, but it’s a mirage. It is not only mechanical, but also a lie.

Originally published on Chewers by Masticadores

© Mykyta Ryzhykh

Mykyta Ryzhykh

Mykyta Ryzhykh, an author from Ukraine, now lives in Tromsø, Norway. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023 and 2024. He’s published in many literary magazines іn Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, and many others.




Monday, January 12, 2026

QUIET KINDNESS by Rose Anna Higashi

 

Eva Bronzini

QUIET KINDNESS

Healing Haiku from Hawaii

Spring

In the spring breeze, pink

Bougainvillea blossoms float

While the sparrows sing.

Monarch butterflies

Land on the lava sea wall

Above the sand crabs.

Summer

The old man makes a

Shadow where his wife can stand

At the hot bus stop.

The baby cries at

Nap time. The dog jumps up and

Snuggles beside her.

Autumn

The sea turns gray and

Flat as the golden plover

Lands with fall’s first rain.

A gecko darts up

The garden wall in the bright

September moonlight

Winter

Near the canal at

Dawn, old fishermen feed the

Herons in silence.

A drum circle sits

Under the banyan, sharing Their sounds with the sea.


© Rose Anna Higashi


Rose Anna Higashi

Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, and Poetry who lives in Honolulu with her husband, Wayne. She writes a haiku every day and publishes a monthly blog, “Tea and Travels” on her website, myteaplanner.com. Her poems appear in a variety of online and print media, including Poets Online, whose editors nominated her for the Pushcart Prize. Kelsay Books is scheduled to publish her third volume of poetry, Searching in Circles, in 2025.



Sunday, January 11, 2026

fall into holiness by Amrita Skye Blaine

ROMAN ODINTSOV
fall into holiness 

let go

all the way

it feels like falling

no landing, though

you won’t die—at least

not the way you think

ceding to surrender

each layer a skin

each skin gone, 

born anew

into this

© Amrita Skye Blaine

Amrita Skye Blaine

Amrita Skye Blaine develops themes of aging, disability, and awakening. She received a PocketMFA in poetry in 2024. She has published a memoir and a three-novel trilogy, and her work has appeared in fourteen poetry anthologies and numerous literary magazines. Two poetry collections, every riven thing and strange grace, were released in Spring 2025.  


Saturday, January 10, 2026

I Do Not Know My Soul by Yongbo Ma

 

Image / Trần Long


I Do Not Know My Soul

I do not know my soul

my mirror cannot reflect its appearance

he is my only friend and brother

he always endures me, without a word

he bears my clumsiness, heaviness, and scent

endures my stubborn thoughts

gloomy habits; he bears with me

the torments of the world, illness, and the humiliation of existence

I do not know when he became 

the flesh of my flesh, the bone of my bone

he will not betray me, yet I often betray him

he always forgives with silence

he knows my essence and the temporality of everything

The harm I suffer ultimately falls upon him

yet my joy and the honor pervading the air have nothing to do with him

only when I vanish will he emerge

his glory surpasses all peoples, in the golden city

My brother, my accomplice, my sweet executioner

you hollow me out bit by bit, turning me into you

I know not for whom, nor for what purpose

I have lived an inexplicable life on your behalf © Yongbo Ma


Yongbo Ma

Yongbo Ma was born in 1964. He has a PhD and is a translator, editor, and leading scholar of postmodern poetry. He has authored or translated more than 80 published books. Ma is a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Literature at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. His translations from English include works by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, W.C.Williams, John Ashbery, Herman Melville, and others. You can follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093276516900.



Friday, January 9, 2026

Flashes of Life by Michael Brockley

 

Ken Cheung

Flashes of Life

Thanking Luci

Luci worked at Panera for two weeks. She’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. to arrive at the bakery by 5:30. Dancing between wheeling pastry and bagel racks to ovens or displays and cleaning tables for the first morning customers. From 6:00 until noon, she ran the cash register between the caffeinery specials and the pecan braids. Luci cultivated smiles tailored for the needs of all her customers. A chuckle for the nurse in a hurry. A laugh of hilarity for the handsome man who resembles Tom Holland. A cheerful grin that was just right for me.


My Home Is Where My Tipi Sits After the Apsáalooke (Crow) multimedia artist, Wendy Red Star

We eat our last gratitude in the shadow of turkey balloons and skeletons. Wonder white bread sandwiching government cheese and bologna. Oatmeal cream pie desserts. Our grandfathers kept herds of ninety horses so the big sky might bless our tipis. Our ancestors rode brown-and-white paints through a history of blankets. They wore high-crown Western hats while staring toward the East. Now churches rise above junk cars with cockeyed crucifixes taped across passenger windows. Our children buy tents at Walmart. Or worship in immaculate shrines, while grandmothers grow old behind cardboard walls. We live upon the Earth our tipis sit upon.

© Michael Brockley


Michael Brockley

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His prose poems have appeared in The Prose PoemDoublespeak Magand Keeping the Flame Alive. In addition, Brockley's prose poems are forthcoming in Bay to Ocean JournalUnlikely Stories Mark VI, and Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Volume II.



Thursday, January 8, 2026

I Am Not The Face in The Mirror by Selma Martin

© Copyright Colin Smith

I Am Not The Face in The Mirror

Those who knew my mother will tell you,
I am the spitting image of her, that her
demure smile is alive in me; if they didn’t
know better, they’d swear I was her.

My looks are not me to begin with—
like rain is not only wet; every atom of
rain is formed from the soil, its vegetation,
its temperature, the air, its perfume.

Like earth’s perfume that joyrides on
the wind, I lope hand in hand with it too.
I am Petrichor, I Am Petrichor;
I’m discriminate light kisses on your cheeks,

the warmth you feel in an embrace,
the chiaroscuro ballet of sunshine and
sunshade dancing to the tune of trees.
Rise to meet the sun, dear. 

Rise to meet me outside. 
Open the window and let me inside so
I can cover you in me; I want to be covered in you.
And my soul will welcome your soul, the mirror

and we will be one—clear and pristine will be
its reflection; never vile, never inadequate, never
needing. We carry each other’s taste in our hearts
regardless of stories in the mirrors.

Let’s coat each other in the human melting pot and
see how our me-ness perfumes the rain falling.

©️ Selma Martin

Selma Martin

Selma Martin is a retired English teacher with 20 years of experience teaching ESL to children. She believes in people’s goodness and in finding balance in simple living. She lives in Japan with her husband of 35 years. In 2018, Selma participated in a networking course that culminated in a final lesson to publish a story on Amazon. She completed the course and self-published her short story, "Wanted: Husband/Handyman," in 2019. Later, collaborating with peers from that course, she published "Wanted: Husband/Handyman" in "Once Upon A Story: A Short Fiction Anthology." Selma has published stories on Medium for many years, in MasticadoresUSAThe Poetorium at StarlightShort Fiction BreakLit eZine, and Spillwords. In July 2023, she published her debut poetry collection, In the Shadow of Rainbows (Experiments in Fiction). You can find Selma as selmawrites on Instagram and Twitter, and on her website, selmamartin.com.

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

The Pigeon by Mary Kipps

 

Quang Nguyen Vinh

The Pigeon

On a cobblestone street corner

in the marketplace of old Jodhpur,

three young men are crouching

around what the populace

commonly referred to as a flying rat.

The pigeon, shocked to earth

by a spark in the tangle

of overhead electrical wires

where it had perched,

holds one wing tightly against its body,

while the other, fully extended,

flaps in spastic bursts.


Sheltering the bird 

from the wheels of motorbikes

and errant footsteps of pedestrians,

the men dribble bottled water

slowly, gently, over the quivering body,

trying to dispel the tremors.

What will happen to it, if they can’t

revive it? I ask my tour guide.

Then they will move it somewhere safe

and care for it until it dies.


© Mary Kipps


Mary Kipps

Mary Kipps enjoys composing in traditional forms as well as in free verse. A former Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems have appeared regularly in journals and anthologies across the U.S. and abroad since 2005.

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

The Oak Tree by Judith Burton Ph.D.

 

Tom Fisk

The Oak Tree

Don’t plant an oak tree they told me

It is so slow to grow

Suggesting at my age I would

Never see it mature.

Nature is full of surprises.

Outside my window

Stands a sturdy, tall oak tree

With many branches

And keeps its leaves 

Until new ones sprout in the spring.

It shades the west side

Of my Old Farmhouse

And fills my heart with joy!

Don’t depend on what other people say

Depend on God and Nature every day.

© Judith Burton, Ph.D.

Dr. Judith Burton

Photography by Gretchen Nelson

Judith Burton, Ph.D., a woman of faith, is passionate about helping others stretch and grow.  Writing from her heart, she is working her way through illness and isolation, quarantined since March 16, 2020. She has published a series of children’s books starring Two Little Ponies, which aim to encourage kindness and combat bullying. They are available on Amazon.

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New-York, New-ark by Mykyta Ryzhykh

Markus Spiske New-York, New-ark No one has ever thought about how mechanical relationships between people are. The human brain, like a proce...