Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning by Carole Mertz

 

Artem Lysenko

Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning

It is well with my soul

but sometimes I must cling

to the branch extended—

the branch that keeps me

from drowning, that lets me sing

of the good that is happening.

It is well with my soul

when I reach out to my neighbor,

when I offer an hour or two

to listen, when I share

a cup of tea, or refuse to harbor

the anger that wants to suffocate.

It is well with my soul

when I remember to shout

praises to the sunlight

that keeps me whole,

when I remember to do without

unneeded things

that clutter and make me stumble.

It is well to recall

what keeps me humble.

© Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz loves to interview authors and publish reviews of their works. She is the Book Reviews Editor at Dreamers Creative Writing. Her poems and reviews have appeared recently in World Literature Today, Mom Egg Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. Carole resides with her husband in Parma, Ohio.
www.CaroleMertz.com

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LIFE UNDER CONSTRUCTION by Ann Favreau

 

Karolina Grabowska www.kaboompics.com

LIFE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

   

Proceed with caution.

Hazards ahead

I take a giant step into the dementia roadway.

A caregiver doing the best I can,

watching for the barriers of discontent,

flashing lights of aggravation,

caution tape of words that make no sense. 

His essence hidden in the greenery of the medium,

chopped away with the memory mowing machine.

I consult my journal filled with work orders for daily living.

Pages with little progress cast away, seeking a grief dumpster,

knowing that this construction site is beyond repair.

These dementia potholes may be patched,

but death will come without a permit.

Published in Life Under Construction, A Caregiver’s Journey Through Dementia (2025) 

© Ann Favreau

Ann Favreau

Ann Favreau is a retired educator who lives in Venice, FL.  She is President of the Suncoast Writer Guild, Inc. She has self-published eight books, gives presentations to local women’s groups and loves sharing her work with others.

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Why do people die by Mykyta Ryzhykh

syd.trgt

Why do people die

Why do people die as volume and not as emptiness? Why doesn’t your dead body disappear when you’re gone?

Why does the cemetery boast of its crosses, and flowers cannot live without a mourning ribbon?

Agony is a very simple word. The word death is an even simpler word. It is better to remain silent like proud trees. It is better to drink silence like birds. It’s better to move through the air like words. It’s better not to live in a cage.

On a cast-iron evening, death knocked on the bird’s temple with metallic softness instead of fingers.

The night never ends anywhere. There are only two of us: me and death. I am always alone. Conscious death does not exist; however, as well as conscious life.

Originally published on Sybil Journal

© 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.

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Behind the Curtains by Arvilla Fee

 

Pixabay

Behind the Curtains

I stopped on the curb opposite the house

where I grew up. How strange to see

the crabapple tree where I’d read books

and skinned my knees, cut down to a stump.

How strange to see an unfamiliar car

on the rough-paved driveway and a pot

of red petunias nodding on the porch.

How strange to see a little girl, around age 8

parting the curtains, peering out at me, 

a half-smile on her lips. How strange to see 

love in her acorn-brown eyes and watch her

twist her braid, as I had done as a child

in that house. How strange that I knew

what she’d do next—that she’d lift her hand,

wave, and blow a kiss, such a familiar gesture. How strange that I saw myself behind the curtains.

© Arvilla Fee

Arvilla Fee

Arvilla Fee, from Dayton, Ohio, has been published in numerous presses, and her poetry books, The Human Side This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon. Arvilla’s life advice: Never travel without snacks. To learn more, visit her website and her new magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/

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A Poem Twice-Read, Half-Seen by Don Brandis

 

betül akyürek

A Poem Twice-Read, Half-Seen

The pond is still a humble pool whose edges 

aren’t horizons like the sea.  There are woods

all around it, three ducks paddling across it 

are just ducks.  No fish have surfaced or even nearly.

Its water isn’t rain nor vapor, only a muddy grey 

placeholder obscured sunlight has yet to paint 

with rainbows.  The scene’s a brick we’d grind 

to make a mirror if it weren’t one already 

not that we can see and yet, vaguely, nearly conscious, 

it nudges us with glitters, flashes glimpsed side-eye

we just might have seen ourselves

maybe on a third reading, it invites.

© Don Brandis

Don Brandis

Don Brandis lives quietly outside Seattle, reading and writing poems when they show up.  He has a degree in philosophy and a long fascination with Zen.  Some of his poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Black Moon Magazine, Blue Unicorn, Last Leaves, and elsewhere.  A book of his poems, called Paper Birds (Unsolicited Press, 2021), is available.  He hasn’t read your poems either, unless he did so without knowing they were yours.  

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GO TELL MOMMA by Duane L. Herrmann

Kindel Media

GO TELL MOMMA

Young man of 15   

working with father   

cutting, baling, hauling   

a field of hay   

on his father’s parents’ farm,   

work almost done   

mealtime approached;   

Granma would provide.

“We’ll be done in half an hour,”   

Father told his son.

“Go to the house,   

and tell Momma.”

The boy had never heard   

his father   

address his mother thus.

‘How sweet,’

he thought. ‘She is Daddy’s Momma.’ 

© Duane L. Herrmann

Duane L. Herrmann

With degrees in Education and History, Duane L. Herrmann has work published in print and online, in fifty-plus anthologies, over one hundred other publications (Gonzo Press, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Page and Spine, etc), plus a sci fi novel, eight collections of poetry, a local history, stories for children, a book on fasting and other works, despite an abusive childhood with dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia, an anxiety disorder, a form of Mutism, and now, PTSD.  

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If Not for You by Yongbo Ma

Emma Li

If Not for You  

If not for you, I would wake upon a reef,  

not knowing how I had come to sea,  

I would look around at the vast expanse,  

at the first elements of the universe,  

not knowing what they were, nor what I was.  

If not for you, I would sit atop a solitary suitcase,  

its supple wicker exuding ancestral fragrance,  

inside it, my manuscripts that no one has ever seen,  

Siberian snow scrawled on the back sides of diagnoses,  

arguing in ciphers against the Latin certainties

on the front sides. I will always be waiting

for a black train in a big windy square 

to take me to the far side of the moon—  

a train with no conductor.  

If not for you, I would not be this shape,  

a net cast wide, now reduced to a single knot,  

I would keep changing—face, age, flag, even gender,

the tears of the innocent would sharpen scythes,  

a mother who feeds her offspring with rust

would give birth to more reefs like round skulls,

and step upon them, come towards me

with a vague smile. 

© Yongbo Ma

Yongbo Ma

Ma Yongbo was born in 1964, holds a Ph.D., is a representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and is a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the founder of polyphonic writing and objectified poetics. He is also the first translator to introduce British and American postmodern poetry into Chinese.

He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986, including 9 poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose, including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Amy Lowell, Williams, and Ashbery. He published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over 600,000 copies. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024), comprising 1178 poems, celebrates 40 years of writing poetry.

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peeling wave by Amrita Skye Blaine

Ron Lach

peeling wave

the board 

a planing blade,

I ride  

the barrel

deep and long

prefer a left-hand

break    turning 

toward my heart

every wave

stripping all

but wide attention

© 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.  

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