I’m supposed to be a poet but can’t find the words to say how I love you by Alex Stolis

 

Image / ricardo rojas

I’m supposed to be a poet but can’t find the words to say how I love you

for Catherine on our anniversary

Once, I knew love. It was guileless and free, wide open

borderless. Then the crows arrived in twos, threes,

and an obsidian grief swallowed the sky. 

Language was lost, buried under the thunder 

of beaks pecking out earth’s crust. My voice hoarse,

the words flotsam, adrift in an empty vocabulary. 

I armoured myself with night, burrowed into soft

feathered wings; drank to forget, appealed to a minor

god to strike me dead, unable to blackout memories 

of you: a young ponytailed artist, wishing to disappear 

and have a new girl take your place; the notquitewild 

hippie chick firebrand ready to conjure a new world. 

You survived, to teach, to love and protect fiercely

unconditionally; to write into the ether, past the pain

and sorrow into tenderness and grace.

Years later, the crows flock in fours, fives, and sixes; 

indefatigable Stygian soldiers carrying cancer, the shiny 

allure of the abyss, but I’m disarmed and ready. © Alex Stolis

Alex Stolis

Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full-length collections, Pop. 1280 and John Berryman Died Here, were released by Cyberwit and are available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His chapbooks include Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife (released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024), RIP Winston Smith (released by Alien Buddha Press in 2024), and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres (released by Bottlecap Press in 2024). He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra. 

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Poetry-like Flowers with Olive Tree-like Powers by Kevin Daniel Scheepers

 

Image / Min An

Poetry-like Flowers with Olive Tree-like Powers

Words build bridges like bridges build worlds,

All taken for granted when dialogue is forsaken.

It was the poet's duty to retain compassion in their margins,

So when the zeitgeist spoke, it could never be mistaken.

Beauty melting in warmth, as stars bask in baskets of light,

Ecstatic will makes contact with forms cast in delicate moulds sealed tight.

The caveat, like the cave painting, is that creativity leaks,

Formless, but tortured for all that it speaks.

At the contours, nuance begging for relief.

Fear feverishly corroded like rust—today the rain spared us.

Upon reflection, I felt what those poems did for you

And you know what that prose did for me.

Redshifted existential blues,

Imbued with depth to magnify contextual clues,

Even in a dead language trapped in history.

Permission to grow the rose with humility,

Even in the unforgiving sands of the Sahara.

Codebreakers made sacrifices to crack samsara,

Reached the boundary, but lost it all upon return.

Go again, as you inscribe time-bound spells spewing fleeting context

Like the unseen geometry that shaped your eyes.

Even then in the folds of the most cerebral cortex

Or in iterations that speak to no one.

Such peace, granted again and again.

© Kevin Daniel Scheepers

Kevin Daniel Scheepers

Kevin Daniel Scheepers is a 28-year-old man from South Africa. He completed an MSc in Biotechnology in 2023, but always maintained a personal interest in the written arts. His work has previously been published in Audience Askew and Harrow House Journal, and is forthcoming in Brittle Paper and Emergent Literary.

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Summer Haiku by Joshua St. Claire

Image / Nikolaeva Nastia

Summer Haiku

sun dogs 

his blond head disappearing 

over the horizon  

slowly 

then all at once 

the summer storm 

among them 

I become them 

the red pines 

deerpath 

the white-tails 

laying out a city 

deeper and deeper 

into the electric cyan 

goldenrod stowaway 

at dawn 

above the sun 

the eagle’s breast 

yard sales 

the ebb and flow 

of dandelions 

double daylily 

the crow 

into her shadow 

a season 

of facing inward 

lady’s tresses 

I’ll be with you 

shortly 

fading lilacs 

different now the summer hills 

© Joshua St. Claire

Joshua St. Claire

Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania, working as a financial director for a nonprofit. His haiku and related poetry have been published broadly, including in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Mayfly.

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Before the World Wakes by Peter A. Witt

 

Image / Dhanush K

Before the World Wakes

Morning lies quiet as an unwritten page.
The sky, a watercolor wash
of lavender and reluctant gold,
stretches over rooftops
like a shawl draped on a tired shoulder.

Leaves hang motionless,
thin green flags in a windless world,
while dew clings to grass
like a memory that refuses to fade.

A dog yawns by the fence,
his jaw cracking wide like a book
left open too long. The twitter of song birds
breaks the hush with a flurry of flutes,
notes rising like mist from a still pond.

The street is a hush of silence,
save for the soft swish of a broom
on a neighbor’s porch,
that slow, sacred act
of sweeping away stars.

My coffee steams in the mug,
bitter as regret, warm as yesterday.
A moth flutters near the screen,
wings catching light like tiny sails
on a sun-drenched sea.

Sprinkled with the dust of sleep
morning takes one long breath,
then opens its eyes.

© Peter A. Witt

Peter A. Witt

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a recovering academic who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. His work has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net award. He also writes family history and is an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

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Just like Theatrical Seasons by Edilson A. Ferreira

 

Image / Hkn clk

Just like Theatrical Seasons    

There is a world waiting for its time to happen. 

It waits, attentive to the counterpoint marker, 

its turn to enter the scene. 

Eyes open, anonymous among the spectators, 

an envoy, an emissary, and a plenipotentiary  

of the author of the play, so that each speech, 

each act, mainly unkind and wicked ones, 

do not become lost. 

The author, at home and even more anonymous, 

did not want to witness the event, surely regretful 

and disconsolate of the rawness at times 

he could not avoid the unfolding of the plot.

And so different worlds overlap on the stage,  

at its due and exact time. 

The author, yet aware he portrayed real life,

in his forced retreat,  

his decaffeinated coffee and non-alcoholic beer,

a cloistered five o’clock tea,  

a sad and lonely heart.   © Edilson A. Ferreira

Edilson A. Ferreira

Edilson A. Ferreira, 81, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. He has launched two poetry books, Lonely Sailor and Joie de Vivre, and has published 300 works in various international literary journals. Has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He began writing at the age of 67 after retiring from a bank.

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A Riposte, perhaps by Daniel P. Stokes

Image / Kampus Production

A Riposte, perhaps

Blithely unaware
of espionage, 
I packed my beach bag
(books in sequence, paper,
pencils, specs in separate slots)
till - as if a gate I hadn’t
opened banged behind me -
“You’re slowing down.”  Detached,
peremptory, “Half a week
It took you this time” - sigh -
“To slip into a routine.”
I shuffled through the doorway’s 
sudden sun glare, “Ready?”
Then, leaving her to follow
in her time, dumped bag in boot.

I wasn’t irked but thought,

she’s got this wrong. You slip

into ruts. Routines

are created to do the things

you want the way you want to.

And, Madam Mistress Mine,                              

perpend: each morning                                             

as you wake and press,                                                  

against me, I wrap                                                      

my arm beneath your arms 

across your breast and, synched,

we wallow in our warmth.                                

If routine must be ruled                                

innately vicious,

this warrants censure.

© Daniel P. Stokes

Daniel P. Stokes

Daniel P. Stokes has published poetry widely in literary magazines in Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A., Canada, and Asia, and has won several poetry prizes.  He has written three stage plays which have been professionally produced in Dublin, London, and at the Edinburgh Festival.

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Poems of Hope by Michael Braswell

 

Nandhu Kumar

Poems of Hope

In the End

In the end all will be forgiven

but not before . . . 

consequences judge us

for choices made,

even hidden ones

we tried to bury 

where no one would find them.

Not before the first will be last

and the high brought low.

The proud and unfeeling will fall hardest

into deep hole of desolation.

Far away from who they imagined 

themselves to be.

Far away from where they belong even if they 

don’t know it.

Hearts will be broken before they 

become open

to new way of seeing and feeling . . . and being.

The least of those they didn’t see,

the ones unworthy of their affection,

will greet them at heaven’s door

when they are ready to enter,

their second-chance hearts made tender

by brokenness and regret,

hungry for taste of forgiveness

and sweet joy that follows.

Silence

Silent night. Holy night.

A time to speak, a time to listen. So listen.

Listen with my heart, with all that I am.

Listen until the still, small voice comes to me.

And speaks to the deepest part of myself.

Previously published in The Memory of Grace

© Michael Braswell

Michael Braswell

Michael Braswell has published books on ethics, justice issues, and the spiritual journey, as well as four short story collections. His poems and stories have appeared in several publications, including Foreshadow, Mobius, and Literary Heist. His most recent books are When Jesus Came to the Cracker Barrel (2024) and Gracious Plenty (2025).

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