Tag: poet

Ricochet | Suzanne S. Rancourt

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Image: Cole Keister

Ricochet

a flock of chickadees, finches, or sparrows
descend from tree tops – a gradual Sneak Up
eyeing the 5 pounds of chia seeds i flung under the maple and basswood
wings a flutter in broken cadence the sound strewn
in a piffpiffpiff 12 gauge birdshot patter
a scattering through leafed shadows, landing as nothingness
these bird feet leave no prints – their weightless possibilities
love glancing off your cheek, or the obscure ricochet touch
spirit seeds leave pockmarks on soul constellations
imploded by lost dreams, speculations, expectations, the miraculous
surprise that followed success, friendship, profound beauty
the job we never thought qualified for or happiness undeserved
like that day we shared a plate of platanos maduros
the first time they came out right and true, you graciously forgot
how many bad batches you ate while i perfected the oil temp,
thickness of slice, the meticulous handling and smelling of the plantain
at the grocery store, selecting just the right ones
you teaching that the one with the most bruises
bears the greatest sweetness

Suzanne S. Rancourt, Abenaki/Huron, Quebecois, Scottish descent, has authored Billboard in the Clouds, NU Press, (Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award,) murmurs at the gate, Unsolicited Press, 2019, Old Stones, New Roads, Main Street Rag Publishing, 2021. Songs of Archilochus, Unsolicited Press, forthcoming October 2023. A USMC and Army Veteran, Suzanne is also a 2x Best of the Net nominee. www.expressive-arts.com

Twitter: @FlameSuzy

Gone, Already | Leah Mueller

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Image: Lars Dunker

Gone, Already

Vegetable matter,
dried skin on kitchen floor.

Scorpion season: thorax-shaped
tomato stems fool me into terror.

Dog presses against
barbed wire links,
with nowhere to go
but the same ten feet of earth.

One hundred degrees
for the rest of the month.

Ashes on shelf,
spirit in atmosphere,
long past the point

of concern. You have
flown north again,
towards cooler weather.

Sometimes your eyes
stare like the dog’s,
but I know it’s just me
trying not to forget.

Leah Mueller lives in Bisbee, Arizona. She is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her new book, “The Destruction of Angels” (Anxiety Press) was published in October 2022. Leah’s work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She is a 2023 nominee for both Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her flash piece, “Land of Eternal Thirst” appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Website: www.leahmueller.org.

For a Boy Answering the Name of Our Home as the Replica of His Pain. | Mubarak Said

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Image: June O

For a Boy Answering the Name of Our Home as the Replica of His Pain.

i called this home / a seed that is birthed where ants fly and dance / i painted my eye with a mirror / to see the fuel of this hell / and any child in my home / became the portrait of an unknown water / you whispered / and cried into my ears. / but, i know this story / is another beast. / colours shine again / with the cries of the sun / and another day is buried / in the womb of every night. i wasn’t born to stay / with my feet / dancing on this ember / in this boring home / where my name is eaten/ by the name of death. / do you think a squirrel can die / when a farmer sing a bird? what my soul sees / doesn’t exist in this world / and dosn’t even have a name to be called / or a face and the theory of drought. / i came to this home / with the autumn breeze / & wind of deserts / that tastes sweetly bitter with lies / blood / tears / and any thing i shall call pain. / i entered this home / wearing a pale cloud / and rain on the soil that runs away / from the touch of my skin.

Mubarak Said TPC XII is the 3rd runner-up of the poetry category of the 2022 Bill Ward Prize for Emerging Writers. His works are forthcoming and published in many literary magazines national and international as imspired magazine, World Voices Magazine, Icefloe Press, Literary Yard, Beatnik Cowboy, Piker Press Magazine, Teen Literary Journal, ILA magazine, Icreatives review, The Yellow House Magazine,  Pine Cone Review, Synchronized Chaos, Susa Africa, Madswirl Magazine, Applied Worldwide, Opinion Nigeria, Today Post, Daily Trust, Daily Companion and elsewhere.

Again, The Blue Moon | Anne Iverson

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Image: Haylee Booth

again, the blue moon

If you need to move past the past
and have it absent in the present

then ride on the big blue bulge
of the blue moon

wafting cross
the great lake of sky

find absolution in stars
hand pick them

peel back their skin
taste of heaven’s fruit.

Anne Iverson is a writer and artist.  She is the author of  five poetry collections: Come Now to the Window by the Laurel Poetry Collective, Definite Space and Art Lessons by Holy Cow! Press; Mouth of Summer and No Feeling is Final by Kelsay Books. She is a graduate of both the MALS and the MFA programs at Hamline University. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of journals and venues including six features on Writer’s Almanac.  Her poem “Plenitude” was set to a choral arrangement by composer Kurt Knecht. She is also the author and illustrator of two children’s books.  As a visual artist, she enjoys the integrated relationship between the visual image and the written image.  Her art work has been featured in several art exhibits as well as in a permanent installation at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital.  She is currently working on her sixth collection of poetry, a book of children’s verse, and a collection of personal essays.

The Fertile Tree | Diana Kurniawan

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Image: Joshua Cotten

The Fertile Tree

On barren land at the corner

—————————of a long constant highway 

The Good Samaritan guards 

–————————-a tree of sparse green leaves

A most desired nesting point 

————————— for the American finch across

this homeland of Colorado

– ————————–A mother of homeless avian

The unmarried tree stands tall

————- – — – —–despite the dry gritty street

Finches flock to this virgin mother

————————- the kindling of all avian children

As the single woman without

———————– – –true love nor a loving partner

The tree reminds of the strength

————————- of women with dignified values

Preserving those around her life

—————- – – – —-with a fecund heart and soulful tears

Valor of hopeful spirit undefeated 

———- ——— —– Spiritual Mother of all children forever

Diana Kurniawan is a poet and writer based in Berthoud, Colorado. With by lines from Denver Life Magazine and Longmont Times Call for non-fiction journalistic pieces, she also previously served as Community Journalist for Denver Voice, a newspaper for the homeless. Recent publications include Twenty Bellows and Sortes Magazine for fiction and Ridgeline Review of Eastern New Mexico University and RawLit for her poetry in Spring 2023.

An Abandoned Dance | Chandrama Deshmukh

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Image: Jeremey Thomas

An Abandoned Dance

We have directions
Of a lost map
That leads nowhere
A miraged universe
An omnipresent pause.

Someone once told me
You are your own prison
And since then
I see birds everywhere
Sleep-walking
Chasing delusions 
Shrinking into coherence.

I tore my map 
wrote poems on it
And made paper-boats
That glow in moonlight

Now
My existence whirls
In an abandoned dance
And the ink-stained wings
Are drawing 
Their own astral map.

Chandrama Deshmukh is an author, poet, playwright, theatre artist, storyteller, screenplay writer and performance artist. She has four books of poems published. A Teaspoon Of Stars and Moonlit Monochrome in English and two books in her mother-tongue Marathi. Chandrama has done close to 100 poetry performances in Bangalore and continues to play her role in giving this art-form the appreciation it deserves. To Chandrama, poetry is the streak of silver lining amidst the chaos of life. The moon is her muse.

Breaking | Lucas Zulu

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Image: Daniele Levis Pelusi

Breaking

For your curiosity sake
I wasn’t hatched a flightless korhaan
surely I was destined for the blue skies
like a bird of ancient thorn trees
Sorry, I can’t live in the cage of your fears
and still be fed your unfounded fears
or wait to be traumatized by your fears
Like a baby bird in the nest
muffled up in comfort
and sheathed in cozy feathers
shielded from trying hard
show me a partridge
that scratches for another
Slowly, I break out of this chrysalis
a butterfly daring to unfold its wings
like a red-crested bustard
plunging into the Kalahari red dunes
I rise above a dust storm
that swiftly dries up your wet courage  

Lucas Zulu is an award-winning poet, his poem has been published in many local and international literary journals. He lives in Kwa-Quqa, eMalahleni, Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.

Hands | Jessica Mehta

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Image: Jorge Lopez

Hands

The delight I take in watching my hands
age—endless. They are my grandmother’s
ridged veins, branches I thought long
gone to mill-dust. Slowly, dorsals
become paper, a crinkling of tissue
crepe marking birthdays. So, Doctor, tell me
again how Restylane will plump
them back to beauty. Make them youthful, dewy
again. Erase my years, the dogged
ones of clawing in & digging up, out,
free. Doctor, explain once
more how “hands don’t lie”—
you think I don’t know that? These hands
speak everything, flutter just truths.
They say, These lines
are wages earned, liver spots bonuses
clocked, tendons popped
with wisdom. In these hands are carried
the entirety of me: my cells cupped
by my mother, her mother, the whole
trail-weary tribe from Oklahoma and Cherokee
rose roads back. Doctor, you want
to rewind these hands with yours?
I handle my own unraveling,
shaking arthritic thumbs and all.

Jessica Mehta is a multi-award-winning poet and author of the Oregon Book Award finalist collection “When We Talk of Stolen Sisters.” As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, space, place, and ancestry in post-colonial “America” informs much of their work. You can learn more at www.thischerokeerose.com.

my ghost considers music | Ashley Howell Bunn

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Image: Christina Deravedisian

my ghost considers music

now so often twinkling between the walls of my home
—————–moving and stopping abruptly, a dance and fall

when embodied i almost didn’t notice
——————how it changed the vibration in the air ——poetry moves the tide of emotion
=======================================================-this, i noticed

===========–for my body was water —— adherent

but spirit
spirit

is this other element without ground or liquid or oxygen or heat
——————spirit is
but ether
ether ———————is my best bet
———-as i let my ghost consider what moves through me

there are notes like cold rain, sleet in early spring
——————and campfires in late summer
cool autumn mornings with golden aspen coins

——————and there is heartbreak, the thought of him leaving
my father’s hand softening ———– the strands loose from her braided hair

something about flowers —–and how long they last

Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has previously appeared in The Colorado Sun, Twenty Bellows, patchwork litmag, Mulberry Literary, Tiny Spoon, Champagne Room Journal and others. She is an experienced yoga guide trained in a variety of styles. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing. She leads somatic writing workshops and writes a monthly Yoga, Tarot, and Astrology column for Writual.They are a founding member of The Tejon Collective, an inclusive creative space in Denver, CO.

a worm | Yuu Ikeda

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Image: Ivan Ivanovič

a worm

lethargic hope
is limping in the bottom
of my mind,
like a worm is creeping
on the floor.
it never allows me
to give up on everything.
it leads me to dawn
again and again.

Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan based poet. She loves writing, reading novels, western art, and sugary coffee.She writes poetry on her website: https://poetryandcoffeedays.wordpress.com/. Her latest poetry collection “A Knife She Holds” was published from Newcomer Press. Her Twitter and Instagram : @yuunnnn77