Two Poems by Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

Photo by Ron Lach

Ask

“What does it mean?” I asked my guardian angel

(who was also my angel of death).

“This means,” he replied, “that you are no longer human.

You are that place in space and time (or in the universe).

where there is no death (“there,” as some say), but there is only life.”

“What is there?” I asked.

The Guardian Angel smiled and said,

“There is nothing there but life.”

“What is here?  I asked.

The Guardian Angel smiled again and said, 

“There is only you here.”



Life is a computer virus

Life is a computer virus
They remove me as soon as they can
They try their best to erase me

Death follows me
My heels are cold and sore

Money is theft
However life is also a steal

© 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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On Our Anniversary, 29th by Kushal Poddar

 

Photo by Ylanite Koppens

On Our Anniversary, 29th

to us and Claire and Nick

I glow, summer heat on your cheek,

and you do the same, vice versa,

and when the town photographer 

who survives on taking pics

of the tourists travel there to see

the carnival of lost kisses reuniting 

produces our snaps we have no

other options but to buy the frame where

we look twins, porcelain, dolls and fragile,

look as if we are the foreground for a bearded man

Wwgo smiled after a long month. Hey,

let's laugh like that. Let's hold our hats

as if the evening wind will make those fly.

Remember the night in November we witnessed 

a white owl near the greying ocean? Even weighed 

with our years in our lungs we breathed fast,

glowed as the fireflies arranged the bushes,

for lives from another era observed the carnival.

Kushal Poddar has authored ten books, the latest being A White Can For The Blind Lane, and his works have been translated into twelve languages. He is a co-editor for Outlook Magazine and the editor of Words Surfacing. He does illustrations and sketches for various magazines.

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Grateful Heart by Cynthia Cady Stanton

 

Photo by Balazs Simon 

Grateful Heart

There is a lifting above

and a grounding below,

a warming at the center –

when I remember.

It is like the unexpected gift

presented with love

and perfect timing.

Or the lightness of being

that comes

with surrender

and trust –

even in the midst of

struggle or pain.

I hold onto it

even as I let go,

allowing the divine

to move through,

heal me with its dawning.

“I was born with a grateful heart,”

says the patient

on her dying bed.

I marvel at the gift she has

and how it fills her up at the end,

easing the way.

And then I remember,

so was I.

© Cynthia Cady Stanton

Cynthia Cady Stanton

Cynthia Cady Stanton is a woman with a deepening awareness of life and spirit and a desire to share her spiritual understandings as a way to be a helpful and healing presence for others. She lives in the roles of mom, wife, friend, sister, and grief counselor. Cynthia is what she describes as "an accidental poet." She discovered her poetic voice four years ago while writing in a coffee shop. Since then, she has published hundreds of poems on her blog. Her voice is one of reassurance and higher understanding. She offers her writings as a means to promote love, grace, mindfulness, and healing. Cynthia has been a featured contributor several times on Phoebe.com and has had a poem nominated for poem of the month on Spillwords.com. You can find her poems here: becomingandbeholding.com.

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Autumn Colors My Eyes by Myrtle Thomas

 

Photo of a lake in Batesville, Indiana © R & M Thomas 

Autumn Colors My Eyes

the night's darkness has moved

to expose the autumn day

frost glistens on the colored leaves

as they wave in their bright robes.

daylight brings the rumble of autumn

thunder, at first a trickle of rain drops

then steady crystal sheets wash the air

and battle the tree branches as they bend

in the wind like skeletons.

I recall a racoon walking through a corn field

searching for mice or left over corn kernels

feet so quiet not even a hair is disturbed

or a fallen leaf torn by their claws.

when autumn arrives my eyes are even larger

the window's of my soul rejoice at the first leaf

while my heart dances in the month of my birth

a day between sun and moon where Virgo passes

the torch to Libra.

time seems to move quickly from frost

to the whisper of winter's angry winds

the door seems to breathe and shudder

my eyes still hold the robes of red and gold

with just a hint of emerld green hues.

autumn is an artist without paint brushes

without borders and boundaries without rules

but it was just yesterday that my heart sank

in knowing that I have to let go of the beautiful

landscape of full moons resting on red branches.

it's here in the tabernacle of heaven and earth

that my restless soul finds the calm rivers of hope

the congregation of leaves and emerald moss

a chorus of sparkling stars hung in the universe

the moonlight and sunlight witness a stir of faith.

I can lay my mind to rest for maybe just a moment

and dream of white clouds against a blue sky

and the scent of fresh rain as it sits on a clump of moss

my church is found in the woods where I walk as a child

where I speak quietly and secretly to the creator

the spirit remains Holy.

© Myrtle Thomas

Myrtle Thomas lives in the United States and is retired which gives her time to write her poetry. Myrtle has been published in several poetry journals such as " Otherwise Engaged Literature and Arts Journal , Lothlorien Poetry Journal , Fevers of The Mind Journal, Keeping The Flame Alive,  Sincere Dalliances , Literary Cocktail Magazine , Writers and Readers Magazine , Masticadores USA WordPress , Chewers and Masticadores WordPress , October Stories , Ink Pantry. She can be found on ALL poetry .com under Penn name Blue2U.

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We are the Harvest by Linette Rabsatt

Photo by Phúc Phạm

We are the Harvest

 

If I am the harvest

Then you are the fields

If we are the harvest

the youth are the seeds

 

I stand today

As your harvest

Because you invested

Your love and nurture in me

Watering me with love

Fertilizing me with encouragement

Pruning me by admonishing me

When I got too out of sorts

And weeding out the tares

With your consistent and solid prayers

 

If I am the harvest

Then you are the bees

If we are the harvest

the youth are the seeds

 

they are priceless gems

filled with God-given

talent and energy

to carry on our legacy

they are the seeds to

be kept safe

to be kept nurtured

with our love

encouragement

admonishment

and consistent prayers

so that in future years

they can repeat

 

If we are the harvest

Then you are the fields

If we are the harvest

the youth are the seeds

© Linette Rabsatt

Linette Rabsatt

Linette Rabsatt is a Virgin Islands poet with roots in the British Virgin Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. She began writing in 1996. Her work is available in her Kindle book, Be Inspired: Poems by Linette Rabsatt, and on her blog, Words of Ribbon. Linette writes to inspire the world with her words.

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Hope by Shirani Rajapakse

Photo by Omar William David Williams

Hope 

Sometimes the sun smiles through holes in the roof,

that piece of plastic shielding us

blowing messages of sadness from other

places, scattering our words to winds.

 

If I had a bottle I’d store my memories inside

and fling in far into the ocean, but they are all

shattered into miniscule pieces,

broken

like my dreams every night.

 

Sometimes.

 

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to walk

outside to the silence

not see men with guns growing out of their arms,

taste freedom on the air and not breathe in

the foul stench of gun powder or

the stink of death calling, calling.

 

It’s just a dream that disappears

when I awaken to the sound of war howling outside

my window.

 

Sometimes I wish I was somewhere else

and I didn’t have to

grow up so soon.

 

Sometimes hope is all that’s left, but that’s begun to

disappear like the piece of photograph of my

grandmother that’s

turning the color of old paper,

dirty brown and fading.

© Shirani Rajapakse

This poem appears in Shirani’s new poetry collection, The Way It Is. 

Shirani Rajapakse

Shirani Rajapakse is an internationally published, award-winning poet and short story writer. The author of four collections of short stories and three collections of poetry, her work appears in many literary journals and anthologies. It has been translated into Spanish, Farsi, French, and Chinese. She has travelled widely, but calls Sri Lanka home.

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Submission Guidelines FEED THE HOLY

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SUBMISSION CALL

These are fraught times. Share positive energy and help people achieve peace of mind and heart. What brings you joy? How do you feed the holy or sacred in your life or community? How do you nurture love and kindness? What is it like to be human in this world? How and why do we suffer? How and why do we grieve? How do we heal? How do we honor nature? Others? Ourselves? The topic is broad and nuanced. However, please read these guidelines and the post with other details about submitting.

Before you submit, please read this post: 

Submission Call: Why Do We Feed the Holy?

Submissions are free and open year round. 

1. Submit up to 3 poems, 1 personal essay/memoir, or 1 fiction piece at a time. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but once we have scheduled the submissions, we will not pull them. Word lengths for prose and fiction are negotiable. 

2. Poetry: Left or center-aligned, minimal indenting. Prose: left-aligned

3. I prefer to select the images. However, original art is welcomed to illustrate your post. NO AI-generated images will be accepted.

4.  Include a photo of you and a short third-person bio (50 words or less).

5. Reprints are acceptable. Please state where the work was first published.

6. Please proofread and edit before submitting (This includes the bio).

7. Email submissions to meelosmom@gmail.com. In the Subject line, state "FEED THE HOLY SUBMISSION. Attach the submission as a Word document. Use Times New Roman 12.

8. Please pace submissions. Do not resubmit until the publication of your piece. 

9. After publication, all rights revert to the author.  If your work is republished in the future, please credit FEED THE HOLY as the previous publisher.

What we DON’T want: 

1. NO ranting, racism, antisemitism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, or sexually explicit subject matter. No blaming or shaming. No profanity. We aspire to be a diverse community built on mutual respect.

2. This is NOT a forum to promote a religion, a political party, or a product. No horror themes or battles with Satan, please.

3. NO AI-composed writing, only human writing. 

Before you submit, please read this post: Why Do We Feed the Holy?

I look forward to your submissions!

Barbara Leonhard, Editor

meelosmom@gmail.com

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