PLACES by Anjetta Williams-Brown

 

SHVETS production

PLACES

Where you use to sit

Glows with sadness

The chair cries from emptiness

Not just one chair cries but,

The chairs of youth and wisdom cries also

Dad, you caught your wings

You left us unable to sing

The chair at the table head is bare

The chair that made the holidays special and rare

Dearest grandmother, I miss you

Ooooh, for the aroma of yeast rolls and desserts

The holidays are lonesome 

The palate is abandoned

Without your chair, the aromas of desserts, are deserted

When the sun arose so did you

The son that made the sun smile

Your bouncy spot at the table is still now

The places where you sat are lonesome now

But the years of memories still fill my heart and mind.

The chairs are empty, but your spirits fill the rooms

Your spirits are forever engrained in me,

The spirits of memories past are still aglow.

© Anjetta Williams-Brown

Anjetta Williams-Brown

Anjetta (Anjie) Williams-Brown, is a Tennessee State University retiree after 22 years of service.  She self-published her first poetry book in 2022.  She hosts three (3) open mic poetry programs, one (1) author/artist spotlight program, and one (1) talk show.  She has poems in anthologies and magazines.

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Waking Early One Morning I Pen This Poem for You, A Recluse Living in Clouds by Daniel Skach-Mills

 

Chai Tao (779-843 CE.)

Waking Early One Morning

I Pen This Poem for You, 

A Recluse Living in Clouds

Lan Su Chinese Garden—Portland, Oregon

You dwell in a world 

of gods and mountains—

trails your heart follows quietly

the way this poet follows a line.

What use

to the frenetic human world

these landscapes you love

where switchbacks

slow everything down?

Where heights of success

and ravines of failure

mean nothing?

No hidden teachings 

or practices to impart,

no special robes to wear,

how many peaks ago 

did you leave

the narrow valley 

of dogma 

behind?

Your only ritual—

a simple bow 

each morning

to sunlight shrines

haloing what's here:

gate, boulder,

pine.

© Daniel Skach-Mills

Daniel Skach-Mills

Daniel Skach-Mills’ poetry has appeared in Braided Way, Sojourners, Sufi (Featured Poet), and Kosmos Journal. His book, The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems, was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist. A former Trappist monk, Daniel resides in Portland, Oregon, where he has served for fifteen years as a docent at Lan Su Chinese Garden.

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A Poem: Wild Goose Chase by Tina Hudak

ela dalgın

A Poem: Wild Goose Chase

Dogged in the pursuit of peace,

the windows slam shut. Sounds 

of leaf blowers, lawn mowers

are muffled if not erased by her

chosen confinement. 

The phone is on "Rest." No dings, 

no music suddenly interrupting

time needed to regroup. To

rethink what has sent her on

a wild goose chase at finding

happiness this late in life.

© Tina Hudak

Tina Hudak

Tina Hudak is an artist and writer who lives only six miles from the U.S. Capitol. She wishes it were further. Her work is included in The Library of Congress, University of Maryland Special Collections, and other esteemed places. She is not sure why. She appreciates those who are kind to all living things.

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Sail On, Magic Stones by Linda Imbler

Quang Nguyen Vinh

Sail On, Magic Stones

Each stone moves in similar fashion,

not by any diabolical arts,

nor deceit and trickery,

nor by people of the deep, the skies, or the seas.

Vast boulders, 

moving atop mud, ice, water having the smoothness of glass,

drawn away from their stony rest

in the aftermath of 

big and dark clouds that dropped moisture.

Substantial chunks of rock moving as great crafts 

that sail over the land,

and can be counted on to settle

somewhere down Death Valley’s playa.

It’s been this way through the ages.

In a world full of sadness,

when the book of life seems in disarray,

we can watch this and fall into the memory

of one of the coolest events to ever be witnessed.

© Linda Imbler

Linda Imbler

Linda Imbler is the author of eleven paperback poetry collections and four e-book collections (Soma Publishing). This writer lives in Wichita, Kansas, with her husband, Mike the Luthier, and an ever-growing family of gorgeous guitars. Learn more at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.

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A SON'S LAMENT by Duane L. Herrmann

cami

A SON'S LAMENT

When lilacs last

in the backyard bloomed,

and I lived with

my father, I

barely survived

mental breakdowns

that removed me

from physicality.

He never knew,

oh, he never knew

how close I came

to leaving life.

Then, not long later,

he was removed

and life has never

been all right.

What might have been? Oh, what might have been?

© 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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Homewards Bound by Supatra Sen

 

Andreea Ch

Homewards Bound…

When paths diverge 

Dust gathers

And forevers become fleeting

When passion turns to mere duty

Time to return soulwards

My very own

Home…

The old old home

Housing my multiple versions

The innocence of childhood

Impulse of teenage

Solitude of later years…

The quaint balcony

The room on the roof

The solitary armchair

The scent of old books

The gentle echoing greens

With the large window 

Through which the moon peeps 

Creating magic each night

Wait with quiet patience

For the traveller to return 

The old home stretches its lonely arms

To greet the weary 

The wise old trees

Bend to shelter 

The cloud comes peeping 

Through the lonesome window

While the many versions meet and mingle

To commence the journey

Homewards

Inwards 

Soulwards…

© Supatra Sen

Supatra Sen, Ph.D.

Supatra Sen, Ph.D., alumnus of Presidency College and Ph.D. University of Calcutta is an Associate Professor with 125 academic publications in Botany and Environment. She is the founder and Chief Editor of an ISSN peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary journal ‘Harvest’. She has two poetry anthologies, ‘My Autumn Sonata’ and ‘Sojourns in Autumn’.

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Love is religion by Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

Ayberk Mirza

Love is religion

Love is religion

Every time I drown in you I forget that I can’t swim

Every time I forget that the shore does not exist

Every time I use the right to remember and try to forget

The heart is leather satisfaction

Teach me to steal money not only from talent but also from the body

Teach me how to kiss people I don’t like

Teach me the night because the day is long over

Insatiable bodies fuck in all cracks

I no longer have a body

The body no longer has me

Love is walls without a ceiling in a homeless house

Originally published on Orbis 

© 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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Blackberry Heart by Don Brandis

 

Skyler Ewing

Blackberry Heart

We humans are more likely to feel proud

of ‘our’ evolving consciousness

than of our foot-dragging, backward-looking

blackberry heart.  Bittersweet, both at once

though the mix varies and often one predominates

and we won’t see its sweetness, its bitterness

for the woodfire glow of the one or the steely eye of the other.

Am I not the same person you loved last week?

Sadly not.  Now I’m an incarnated irritant

disgustingly unwelcome. The flow we are deceives us

when considered static; even the Gulf Stream shifts, 

the climate changes.  Didn’t you notice my wandering eye,

gambling habit, moodiness, barely controlled diabetes?

Sometimes my twin brother visits and we switch places.

He’s a caramel fudge sundae, a seedless watermelon

just short of overripe, a winning lottery ticket,

an endless innovative lead guitar riff.

We have the same heart everyone does.  Even you,

though we tend to see just one side of it at a time

and can’t sustain either.  Otherwise, we’d all be saints

or demons, not mere humans.

© 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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