Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suffering. Show all posts

Monday, May 4, 2026

Guernica at the Prado by Jack D. Harvey

Mural del 'Guernica' de Picasso - Guernica, Spain

Guernica at the Prado

For a year or more

I looked and looked at it,

in my soul,

lived under the spell

of Picasso's baleful

grey and black fandango

of a bombed town,

a farrago of agonies

of bull and horse,

parts of people

caught and displayed

in sharp outline;

then it became too fine,

too perfect in its kind,

too much to take

and I had to turn away,

turn my mind and eye,

try to isolate and

banish the pieces,

try to burn away the vision

of that monstrous canvas,

bury a pretense, a practice,

a sacrifice of time;

none of it worked.

Never forgotten,

that huge ghastly swipe

of paint haunts me still,

hurts me and will

until the end of its world,

ending as it did,

and the end of mine.   


(First published in Scarlet Leaf.)


© Jack D. Harvey

Enjoy other posts by Jack. D. Harvey HERE.


Jack D. Harvey

Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. The author has been a Pushcart nominee and has been published in a few anthologies over the years.

Monday, October 13, 2025

I want by Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

Alan Cabello

I want 

I want to be a killer sleeping on crumpled grass

I want to be buried in crumpled grass


I want to kill

I want to be


Buried under the grass is a home for worms and insects

The buried has no room for error


I want to kill the war

I want to be home

Reprint from The Gravity of the Thing

© Mykyta Ryzhykh

Enjoy more posts by Mykyta Ryzhykh HERE.


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.

Friday, September 12, 2025

Poems of Trauma by Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

Steve Johnson

birds

birds that do not live are more adapted to this world

every time I check the box in the contract, I pretend that I give birth to a bird

every time I cry and shed my skin, I pretend that a beach will soon form on the floor

the surf washes away our traces with you which never existed


sacrifice

nocturnal animals crawl out of my throat

they scream fight and kill each other


the sun dries up like a tangerine peel

I cut tangerines in front of dozens of witnesses


silent water

silent water counts its quantity

bread soaks and swells


I don't eat anything 

because my hunger is bodily

I drink air 

because my thirst is fluid


my stomach is pretending to be a dead bird

after a hydroelectric explosion


© Mykyta Ryzhykh

Enjoy more posts by Mykyta Ryzhykh HERE.


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.

Friday, June 6, 2025

TO A CALMER PLACE by Lorraine Caputo

Ivan Samkov

TO A CALMER PLACE

I often wonder how I got here

where fierce winds batter

my life, memories mounding

like sands duning, burying 

my bare feet, duning,

burying my ankles, my shins …

 

imprisoning me

trapping me

immobilized

paralyzed

 

I must break free …

first wiggle my toes,

flexing my muscles

to fracture those dunes,

those mounds, the sands

slowly cascading, falling away

 

until I am free – 

walk away,

leave those memories,

escape the winds – 

 

journey to a calmer place ….


© Lorraine Caputo

Enjoy more posts by Lorraine Caputo HERE.


Lorraine Caputo

Poet-translator Lorraine Caputo’s
works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 23 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (Dancing Girl Press, 2023). She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Return by Mykyta Ryzhykh

Alexander Zvir

return

(based on news stories)

 

he thought that he was still at war– every morning trying to rescue grandmothers at bus stops

 

he asked to be tied up with ropes

he asked for an ambulance every day for no apparent reason

he asked for the day not to break so loudly

 

he thought about eternal return

he didn’t know what to do next

he drank and drank and drank and nothing changed

 

he thought he remembered how he had saved comrades in a minefield

 

he dreamed of Mercury

he dreamed of having a child

he dreamed that the creak of an old door was the sound of a enemy missile overhead

 

he thought he had forgotten how to dream

he didn’t know what to do next

he drank and drank and drank and nothing changed

 

he thought he remembered how he had finished off too many enemy wounded

 

he breathed like a dying man

he wanted to return to the battlefield

he changed his mind every hour

 

he thought he remembered the way home but he couldn’t be sure

he didn’t know what to do next

he drank and drank and drank and nothing changed

 

*  *  *


he fed the titmice on the balcony

he looked at his Facebook feed

 

he didn’t know what to do next

he drank and drank and drank and nothing changed


© Mykyta Ryzhykh

Enjoy more posts by Mykyta Ryzhykh HERE.


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.

Monday, February 24, 2025

I ADMIT by YONGBO MA



I ADMIT

I admit, I came to this world to suffer,

but it will never compare to the pain you endure.

I admit, I always live

within the unhealed wounds beneath your ribs,

with eyes that open in your blood, not innocent.

I admit, you've granted me eternal blessings,

yet I still gaze at every window emitting light,

Though there may be filled with unease grey.

I admit, I will ultimately return as a glorified angel,

yet still covet the splendor of earthly things.

I admit, I have not finished this beautiful fight,

yet I yearn in fatal fatigue

to return to your throne, under your wings.

I admit, life is an adventure,

yet I often hesitate, fearing to leap into the darkness.

I admit, I bear a secret and noble mission,

yet often don't know the path I tread.

I admit, you are with me

by the waning fireside,

in the morning mist, in the empty square,

in the fierce silence of midnight,

in every word that comes from the sky.

I admit, you dwell within the temple of my body,

yet I still fail to cherish myself.

I admit, you and I weep together, endure pain, and rejoice

in the crowds, in the valleys, at the ends of the earth.

You protect me, comfort me, I admit.

I've journeyed with you through trials and cosmic changes.

I admit, I will die, so you may thrive.

© Yongbo Ma

Enjoy more poetry by Yongbo Ma HERE.

Yongbo Ma

Yongbo Ma was born in 1964. He has a PhD and is a translator, editor, and leading scholar of postmodern poetry. He has authored or translated more than 80 published books. Ma is a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Literature at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. His translations from English include works by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, W.C.Williams, John Ashbery, Herman Melville, and others. You can follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093276516900.

Monday, February 3, 2025

Fire and Bees by Kenneth Pobo



FIRE AND BEES

I descend

into a dishwasher, 

 

battle the slurg, 

weep with scalded plates.  

Wet eyelashes 

 

cover me in vision.  

Upstart time pulls 

a rug out 

from under me, 

threads made of fire 

and bees.

 

 © Kenneth Pobo

Enjoy other posts by Kenneth Pobo HERE.


Kenneth Pobo

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections.  Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press) and Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.  

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