Shhh by Michael T. Smith

Валерия Шкода

Shhh

In me, you – the memory

Not even Lethe can efface

Those dulcet lays of yours 

Have converted me

 – into what?  Not even I know,

But I say it all in petto,

With my lips brushing your ear

In a reverie of endorphins.

I say it all in a lisp of wetness, 

My words a hansel 

With a glean of tomorrow,

Skylarking to your ear

On short feet, 

Treading oh so delicately.

So nobody else can hear,

I remember saying these things 

Y o u – a singularity

of history that Clio has

not yet even finished, 

whose antelucan eyes

repeat ourselves

like a duvet of a book,

who’s binding explodes

with billets-doux imagined. 

(Originally published in Pif in 2018)

© Michael T. Smith Enjoy more posts by Michael T. Smith HERE.

Michael T. Smith

Michael T. Smith is an Associate Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published roughly 300 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 100 different journals.  

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Fire Kept Some Memories by Kushal Poddar

Mikhail Nilov

Fire Kept Some Memories 

Fire kept the memories 

of some dances. 

Others in the smoke,

in the Brownian motion,

zigzag and ebb beyond. 

When it passes through 

the junkyard of hair on my head 

the whispering reminds me

what my mother used to say

about her meeting my father. 

The story was hardly interesting 

except that a war was in the background. 

© Kushal Poddar

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Kushal Poddar

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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Purple Mountain by Yongbo Ma

 

www.kaboompics.com 

Purple Mountain

Darling, the cold is setting in

has your tea gone cold as well?

that kettle of mountain spring water, simmering

since summer began—

has it still not come to a boil?

The sun is shining bright, I’m not thinking of you

I’m still up on the mountain, chopping firewood

rest assured, we are there, together with the sunshine

and this winter, too

the potatoes buried in the stove ash, still dusted

with home soil

have turned so tender and soft that they can barely

be held

the kettle is singing on and on

Everything remains as it was at the dawn of creation

no trace of hierarchy, no shadow or light to tell apart

I pause my work, and clearly see

beyond the undulating, variegated mountain ridges

a blue smile, printed upon the more distant treetops

© Yongbo Ma

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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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Untitled in Blue #2 to W by Gabriella Garofalo

Isabella Mariana

Untitled in Blue #2 to W 

Who’s that, can’t you see it’s only

A matter of time, and seeds everywhere, 

A red ochre on rough white rocks,

If she distrusts his smile, look, her sky bites

When handling trees, or limbs-

But words have nothing to do with it,

Words, her stale bread, her damaged goods, yes,

They can’t bite a bastard winter, or dirty sunsets,

So stop showing off, stop shouting for answers, 

Stop trees, or limbs, and rush 

To brambles, to blades of grass,

The answers you set to tangle her mind,

Just think of her women, the black that shines

If you foul up the trees, the sky, the moon, the grass,

If a tricky light breaks your desire for a lost creation-

And you, Father, please don’t waste your time

Carving comets, or trees, while in her lounge

The grudge springs up, stays on, 

Such a lovely bush, whenever you lend

To her dirty time sighs, blades of grass,

Young lovers on the road, 

On the trail of runaway stars -

Give it up, she can’t see the music of wombs 

They told you again and again, 

When desire is just around the corner,

That disgraced blade of grass of no interest

To deaf souls she sees lost in the undergrowth, 

Still dreaming of bold moves, 

And to your wait for a fall where at long last 

You might even bend to light.

© Gabriella Garofalo Enjoy other posts by Gabriella Garofalo HERE.

Gabriella Garofalo

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six, and is the author of these books: Lo sguardo di Orfeo, L’inverno di vetro, Di altre stelle polari, Casa di erba, Blue Branches, Blue Soul, and After The Blue Rush.

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Jumping Off an Out-of-Control Train by Nancy Machlis Rechtman

 

Bingqian Li

Jumping Off an Out-of-Control Train

Even long before they talked about honeymoons

Where she dreamed of Barbados

With horseback rides on the beach

And driving through citrus-splashed sunsets that were like paintings

She knew he couldn’t be moved from his desire

To hike the snow-covered trails out West

In the depths of the icy winter, which he assured her

Would be just as romantic as lying in the warm sand

With waves lapping at their feet

And they searched for a middle ground

Hoping like magic it would suddenly appear.

She should have stopped then

But she continued to make plans

Because she had boarded an out-of-control train

That was about to jump the tracks

As she held on tight.

But then the letter came and although she already knew

She pushed on and read the words 

That had always been hanging in the air

And now finally crashed on top of her

Like an avalanche.

She stood rock still for a moment 

Then with a deep inhalation of breath

As if she had just awoken from a dream

Or a nightmare

She grabbed the car keys

And raced outside

And drove past the strip malls

With their neon signs beckoning like Sirens

And the dilapidated hot-dog stand at the edge of town

Finally winding through the gnarled trees

Where hers was the only car on the hidden road that led down to the lake.

The warm air caressed her cheek as she sat 

Gazing at the sun-dappled horizon

Its reflection playing on the still waters

While the crickets chattered noisily to her

And she dreamed, hoping to find answers

As the darkness encircled her.

Soon she roused herself 

Realizing that the questions were gone

So she slowly bumped back down the road to town

And then farther, picking up speed

As she headed for the twinkling lights of the airport 

Wishing upon a star

That when she got there

She would find there was a night flight to Barbados

© Nancy Machlis Rechtman

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Nancy Machlis Rechtman

Nancy Machlis Rechtman has poetry and stories published in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, miniMAG, Discretionary Love, Young Ravens, and other publications. Nancy has had poetry, essays, and plays published in various anthologies. She wrote lifestyle stories for a local newspaper and served as the copy editor for another paper.

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Halfway Out The Door by Nick Allison

ROMAN ODINTSOV

Halfway Out The Door

Maybe it isn’t beauty we’re after

but the noise behind it,

the small pulse waiting

in the breath between gestures.

If I peeled back the veil

and let you see the clutter,

would you still call it true,

or would the shine dull

like chrome left too long in the rain?

I’ve heard the same song for years

and only now understand

what it never tried to say.

Meaning arrives when it’s tired,

when the last chord fades

and you’re halfway out the door.

Maybe all art is that—

a late arrival,

a whisper from the wrong direction.

I still don’t know

what to make of paint

thrown at a wall,

except maybe the truth

was never in the pattern

but in the throw itself—

the brief weight of the hand

before it lets go.

© Nick Allison 

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Nick Allison

Nick Allison is a writer based in Austin, Texas. His poems and essays have appeared in HuffPost, The Shore, CounterPunch, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Chaos Section, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere, as well as on his personal site, The Truth About Tigers. He recently edited the anthology Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age (TCS Press, 2025). Social: @nickallison80.bsky.social

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Untitled in Blue to Y Gabriella Garofalo

 

Vanessa Pozos

Untitled in Blue to Y

A clear, stark choice? No, stairs,

Stairs everywhere, the silent kindness 

Of her soul when she plays the game, 

But no shelter from quagmires, beasts, or moving sands,

And breathing the only gift if mothers rant

Against quilts and dahlias-

Got it? The sky was a no-man’s land, flowers were 

Rioting, blowing up, the winter they began dating, 

So long ago, when she would drink flowers

To dance away her soul in a frenzied sky,

As a defiant blue upset her-

The moon? Oh, like you she’s just a heaven’s pariah

As even in the deepest nights 

Stars always snap back, if shadows and light
Keep  tainting the sky in a mystic diversion-

So, you ready for a raid, you warriors of the blue flame?

And please keep in mind she hails from Essenes

Who smell blue even if the sky keeps wondering

Why do others exist, and why her dim light 

Sees herself as a most charming lady in a noble bearing,

Dressed to the nines.

© Gabriella Garofalo

Enjoy other posts by Gabriella Garofalo HERE.

Gabriella Garofalo

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six, and is the author of these books: Lo sguardo di Orfeo, L’inverno di vetro, Di altre stelle polari, Casa di erba, Blue Branches, Blue Soul, and After The Blue Rush.

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