SHARMILA SEYYID

THREE POEMS

poems written by Sharmila Seyyid and translated by Gita Supramaniam

"I Am Composing a Song"

I am composing a song
I am writing these lyrics to tell the world
Why this contrarian path I tread.
This is my testimony.

I am a fallen woman, they say,
A prostitute...

One can be a slave of love
But to talk about sex is wrong
Bearing a child is alright, they say,
But to talk about the orifice from
Where the child comes is wrong...

Ultimately –
To state it unequivocally
The death sentence has been pronounced on me.

But till the last millisecond
Before my head is severed from my shoulders
I will live.

This is my body
My make-up
My jewellery
My clothes
My foot-wear
My odour
My language
My religion
My love
This house where I live
This road I walk on
This book I read
All these
Will remain mine
And will be what I want
Only thus will I live!

Till the last millisecond
I will live.

"Incompatible"

They were talking about my body,
My body, that lies there
Where I had cast it away.

They don’t accept me as one of them
Because they do not want to accept that I too
Can have solid views and not budge from them.
The night and the moon do not attract me, I'm not like them,
They are angry with me because I refuse
To be subjected to their black magic
And dwell in caves of inky darkness,
And become a genie - corked inside a bottle.

They do not accept
My determination to not let their strictures
Make me stray from my chosen path.
I want to confront them face to face
When they challenge me and ask,
How will you grow without any sustenance,
Without any help from the world outside you?

Those who have seen my magic wings are amazed.
My simple and plain words
Encircle them like an endless snake;
Unable to free themselves, they struggle
And stumble...

I again reinvent myself,
An even sharper me I see.
There my body still lies
There, where I cast it off.
Once more, I curb my intense urge
To embrace my body again,
Because...
Because I do not wish to become
A genie corked inside a bottle...

"That Ancient Village"

In those sandy lanes
Lined dense with Portia trees,
In those bright houses from where
Light spills out and spreads,
In the evenings filled with the fragrance of incense-sticks,
In the sound of the muezzin’s call
And in the sound of the foot-steps of the early morning
There, that ancient village still exists.

There, where I was not loved,
Where my pleas were never given ear to,
Where I was made to shed copious tears,
There, that ancient village
Still continues to exist.

Oh Eravur, my land, my soil,
Remind me again of the evidence that I left behind.
The palm-fronds I swung on,
The papaya leaves I used against the drizzling skies
The areca nut palm-spathes we pulled along as chariots
The fragrance of the fresh ginger growing under the banana trees
The flavour of the juicy Willard mangoes running between the fingers
The aroma of the jackfruit pulp that pervades the entire street
Alas! How great is my loss!

My beloved village
I was not tired of you
I did not move away.
When the time for harvesting comes
This crazy state will change
The time will come when you will again
Weave the cloth that’s mine by right.

There is nothing more to be said
For, my footwear I’ve left behind,
There, to stay
For eternity!

Read our full feature on Artist Protection Fund recipient Sharmila Seyyid ➔

ROHAN BUETTEL

Clearing out My Mother’s Home

The gift not given joins others
at the bottom of the cupboard,
gradually accumulating,
awaiting the right time
to be brought out, the ideal present
for birthday, christening, Christmas.
The bunnykins bowl languishes,
mother rabbit washing bunny kids
in a large tub. Some out, some in,
some trying to escape, all the playful fun
of bath time, water and suds.
Bunnies scamper round the rim.
The bowl perfectly new
in a cupboard full of things unused,
bought in anticipation
of a grandchild never delivered,
still awaiting the right occasion
in a house now being emptied.
How do we value the gift not given?

Rohan Buettel is an Australian poet who lives in Canberra and whose haiku and longer poetry appear in a range of Australian and international journals.

TERRY JUDE MILLER

Art

“You’d think it was a giant
with a vague face
a face you recognize
but can’t really describe”

- Naomi Shihab Nye

it’s like a little parasite
that you don’t mind

so parasite might not be the right word
maybe symbiote

that’s one of the things it does
makes you think one thing

that leads to another thing
and soon the meadow is full

of flowers—all of them talking
at one time—writing their ideas

on petals—flinging their words
in the air—saying look—look—look

and you look and you smile and you cry
and you grieve and you grow nostalgic

that’s why you love your little symbiote
even when it wakes you at 2AM

to whisper something beautiful
in your ear

Terry Jude Miller is a Pushcart-nominated poet from Houston. His works have been published in numerous anthologies.

Twitter: @PoetTerryMiller
IG: TexasPoet
Website: https://terryjudemiller.com

ERIN OLDS

While You Were Away

I’d leave the lights on each night you weren’t home,
even in the bedroom,
so they wouldn’t think I was there alone.

I slept with a pillow over my eyes.
Well, sleep is a weird word to describe what I did when
I’d leave the lights on. Each night you weren’t home,

small noises scared me. I’d drown them
with the TV blaring downstairs, deadening the air
so I wouldn’t think. I was there alone

and sometimes I got cozy in a cold shower, afraid
of the air outside waiting to wrap around wet skin. And after,
I’d leave the lights on each night. You weren’t home,

and I would think, safe is a pretty term, a feeling to dream of.
I slipped a ring on my finger, though it wasn’t love,
so they wouldn’t think I was there alone.

I struggled out of blankets, packed my clothes, wrote this poem,
left. And double locked the door.
I’d leave the lights on the night you came home
so you would think I was still there. Alone.

Erin Olds is from Cleveland, Ohio, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of South Florida.

WILL NEUENFELDT

She Has Notifications Silenced

One purple crescent
sent into sky
where my blue cloud
wafts above, alone,
aware it’s been seen
yet lingers to be heard.
Rain clicks from fingers
before droplets dry
to admire characters
we typed across night
and the stories they
tell twinkle white.
Through the window
drafts of our last chat
whisper in stereo
and lull me to dream
to awake in overcast.
I reply with more
blue into the heavens
so another afternoon
of bubbly clouds scroll by.

Will Neuenfeldt studied English at Gustavus Adolphus College, and his poems are published in Capsule Stories, Months to Years, and Red Flag Poetry. He currently lives in Cottage Grove, MN. IG: @wjnpoem

ZOE ANTOINE-PAUL

Ode to Boy in Nightclub

All I want is to keep you,
but you are still on the dance floor
and New York City feels like coming down.

An ephemeral march between

pitch black

and too much morning.

You are also there:

blotting memory;

your persistent luster,

strobe lights laced through your skin

flickering

red
green
bright white.

You blur
into Broadway traffic and

I am alone
in Brooklyn again.

[the last call]

3-train sparking past
as the clock strikes 12.

Zoe Antoine-Paul writes about the city, the beauty in the mundane, and everyday internal turmoil. IG: @space.junkie13

LINDAANN LOSCHIAVO

Boardwalk Soda Fountain Shop

My bare feet warmed to burning from the sand,
I’d wave to you, obscured by boardwalk crowds.

Did you greet everyone the same as me?

I watched as you’d extend a palm beneath
A ripe banana, tenderly, as if
To ask permission. Or you’d let me tuck
Wildflowers into cleavage held aloft,
Slick, sweaty, suntan oiled, flecked with sand crumbs.

You like it dirty — even though your hands
Are spotless when you mix strawberry shakes.

You’re wondering how sugar hits my lips,
Eye my reflection showing that pale crack,
Tanned flesh that’s poured inside blue fitted jeans.

Now you’re hunched over the cracked countertop,
Sweeping a butterknife across burnt toast.
“I’m just so hungry. I’ll eat anything!”

Your words and steady gaze have made me blush.
I drop five dollars in your jar and leave
Without my shake because I’m staying here
Two more weeks and imagining how we
Will taste right after, mixed in with the dark.

LindaAnn LoSchiavo: Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a four time nominee for The Pushcart Prize, has also been nominated for Best of the Net, the Rhysling Award, and Dwarf Stars. Elgin Award winner, "A Route Obscure and Lonely," "Women Who Were Warned,” Firecracker Award, Quill and Ink, and IPPY Award nominee. Messengers of the Macabre [co-written with David Davies], Apprenticed to the Night [Beacon Books, 2023], and Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide [Ukiyoto Publishing, 2023] are her latest poetry titles. In 2023, her poetry placed as a finalist in Thirty West Publishing's "Fresh Start Contest" and in the 8th annual Stephen DiBiase contest.

LindaAnn Literary: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHm1NZIlTZybLTFA44wwdfg https://messengersofthemacabre.com/

socials: @Mae_Westside

TRAVIS STEPHENS

Raised by Wolves

my mother is dying
breathing labored, forced
to seek a cool den
the damp earth a refuge
a hole.
We wait nearby, my brothers
who won’t look me in the eye
each watching the wall,
who will be next?
A glance away
let the loud
snarl murderous thoughts
while we others
carry the grudge.

I shiver, understand as always
my teeth rotted and dull.
Even my father, that son of a bitch,
kept his bite until the end.
I was always ignored
last to marrow
filching bits from
other’s old kills.
earn your keep.

We are a large litter
six males, one female.
My wife, baby girl,
always the cute one,
marveled at my brothers
“you have the same eyes,
and the nieces too”.

I’d like to believe
the next generation
is tamer, a little more wag
a little less bite.
But I have seen the way
their own young
start at noises, regard
new puppies with more
than affection.
I have begun to eye small houses.
I don’t need much;
a bowl, a patch of sunlight
& dirt walls closing in.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. web: zolothstephenswriters.com

CAT DIXON

After the Relapse

Hopefully by the time you read this, I’ll be over the state line, miles away with luggage in the backseat. My scent will linger on that carrot pillow, on the couch, on your sweater I left on the chair. You’ll wonder how I escaped—by boat? By plane? By the orange hot air balloon in the distance? This car is registered to my father. He had me keep it in case I needed it. The magic of the highway—the speeders and slow drivers, the texters and wanderers—never allows a moment of rest. Each flashing headlight is a train crossing and each passed exit is a mirage. There’s no interruption to the race. I wish I had music to pass the hours, but this car wasn’t made for CDs or tapes—only Bluetooth, and I chucked my phone after I cracked its screen. I’ll be going 90 with a cyclone in my hair—nothing to drown out the wind except hope, but that hummingbird has eaten out my chest. By this hour, you’re in the shower—water or tears? The magic of the bathroom is how it’s sacred with its growth of mildew, its coarse hairball clogging under the feet, out of sight, out of reach, its enticing medicine cabinet filled with bottles of remedies to ailments you’ve never suffered. Recovery is a long road, they say, and I wish you easy speedbumps, but I won’t be there to retrace your steps, to clean up the mess, to opine about current events or how you react to stressors. Hopefully by the time you open this letter, I’ll be almost to Kansas—beautiful Dorothy with her red shoes, innocent girl in blue. I wanted a dog, but never got one—my father said I had an allergy. Was it true or just an excuse? Perhaps I’ll never know. I will never know the zaftig bosom of a mother during a fever, incessant nag, the body swap, the unconditional love. We both lacked what we both lacked—both pulled into a whirlpool, a tornado, while everyone stood by and laughed or rubbernecked. Up ahead the cars will slow down for an accident. The firetruck, coppers, tow truck will spin their lights. Perhaps help is only a call away. Whenever a lonely addict calls for help, she ends up ambushed, pinned to a bed, silenced, guests only allowed if they called ahead. Heads turn to survey the wreckage, a blue sedan versus a white van. The airbags deploy. Unfortunately, we were born without those. Nothing to cushion the crash—our heads greeting the dash, our ribs cracked, our fists against the metal. No jaws of life, no one qualified to perform the necessary measures. The nursery zoetrope kept the gulls in endless flight—even the illusion of movement, of relationship, of time reversal trapped us, enamored us with those wings. Let me fly! We cried reaching up. Let me fly! We once whispered into the empty rooms of our youth. Maybe by the time you read this, my car will have broken down. Maybe my quest will never end. There’s an untapped vein under these words, an arm unbruised, a magic not yet cursed. Take this letter, roll it up—a new kaleidoscope for you to peruse.

Cat Dixon (she/her) is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review and the author of six poetry collections and chapbooks.

MATTHEW ELLIS

French Impressionists

I long to wrap myself in the canvases of the French impressionists
Let Sisley and Monet hold me as I weep

I’ll plunge into the Loing or the Seine itself,
into ultramarine and cobalt blue
I’ll wade into the waters of Giverny,
lie amongst the water lilies
madder red and cadmium yellow against emerald, violet waters

I’ll hide in Eragny with Pissarro
in the blossoms of orchards,
white to peach,
blending into the viridian ‘round poplar trees sparkling with autumn hues

Matthew Ellis (he/him) spends his time teaching yoga and following creative pursuits in music and writing. You can follow him on Instagram (@matthewellismusic3) or visit his website (www.MatthewEllisMusic.com).

YVONNE MORRIS

No Reason to Get Up but Get Up

I’ve been reading the pretty, suicidal poets—
hallowed and hollowed, richly bred for pain—
Anne and Sylvia shared a New York taxi in the rain,
discussed therapy and where they’d left their latest lipstick stains.

On a Sunday in January, I can’t leave the gas running freely
in the kitchen, I’ve only got cats as hungry as fleas—
in the garage, four wheels await escape from a dusty TV.

You see, I’m in awe of those women whose fine hands loaded
their pockets with stones, who staggered in the sun,
whose blue veins were exposed
because I’m only green willow, vine and shoot—alive.

No taste in my mouth compares to the sweetness of berries.
My heart doesn’t break with a thought, an awareness,
as fatal as some fairytales would end.

I’ll pick up some ice cream instead.
So I struggle into my jacket and out the door,
choosing to leave regrets—like the bed—unmade,
slipping by the black dog that drags its chain.

"No Reason to Get Up but Get Up" was published previously in Mother Was a Sweater Girl (The Heartland Review Press, 2016) and The Lake (Sept. 2019)

Yvonne Morris's poetry and fiction have been published in a variety of journals and zines. Her current chapbook is Busy Being Eve (Bass Clef Books, 2022).

THOMAS OSATCHOFF

Seeing It

stacking boxes again
this realization the burning
bush this moment this you me
tried tiny bathroom
on the second level
looking out the barred square window
at someone in the empty green lot
lighting a fire like one minute
to make it betweenesses

Thomas Osatchoff, together with family, is building a self-sustaining home near a waterfall. Recent work has appeared in New Note Poetry, Letters Journal, L=Y=R=A, Red Coyote, Thin Air, and elsewhere

ELEANOR CLAIRE

I Lied When I Said That I Missed You

what I meant was that I miss
myself; I miss my youth and the way
that each day somehow stretched out
to hold unending time – or did it unfold
so slowly because each second felt
drenched in cruciation, unmoored and
delicate, I was always so close to the
edge, flirting with the ravine beneath me
and I was always waiting to claim
my inevitable end; perhaps I do not
miss the pain itself, but the way
each moment felt sacred, like I
could taste my own desperation, like
I needed some sudden shock to rewire
my breaking body

and yes, I have come to love this
peace I now hold, but sometimes
I wish I could return to those days,
all flashing lights and thunderstorms,
my chest breaking open with each
sunrise, fists for hands and a mouth
full of broken glass, and sometimes
I want to relive that burning,
that eternal fury, I wish
I could dig my nails in, hold
viciously onto that girl so fervently
chasing her own destruction

and yes, I love this life that I have
built, slow mornings and love that keeps
me warm, but a thrum beneath my
breastbone may always sing
for the chaos that I learned to call
home, for that eternal yearning
for something, anything to burn
away that restless energy
that waits in my bones, curdling
and rotting until I am only
caffeine and consequences, crossed
out letters to my own self
and it feels as if breaking this
tie is like losing the last strand
I have to my own mind, to
being nineteen and reckless, afraid
of everything and nothing all at
once, and I never want to
let her go

I do not know
how to tell you that when I say
I miss you, what I mean is that
I miss myself

Eleanor Claire is a writer and artist from South Florida who has been previously published in Verity La, The Cape Rock, In Parenthesis, Paragon Journal, Plainsongs Magazine, and others. IG: @e.escalatedquickly, @eliot_ekphrastic

SANDRA KOLANKIEWICZ

She Wolfs

In my sister’s current job, she pours her
love down the drain. She asks questions, is told
lies, smiles back. She regularly distributes
to the unappreciative who just
expect, kinder than I who think at least
thank you is due. In foreign countries, she
buys cans of tuna to feed the stray cats,
though the women bang their pot lids at her.
She waves to them, smiles even in her sleep,
never learned to cook, lost her hair in
menopause, uses a cane for mushroom
hunting even when on wet days the tip
sinks in with the weight of her limp till she’s
bound to fall on the soft ground, lying in
wet leaves and giggling like a girl. We had
the same parents, but she favors neither,
someone’s crazy aunt, the one that’s really
adopted. Hand me a jar of that stuff
you’re always eating, I say, which she does,
right away. To me it tastes bad. She wolfs.

Sandra Kolankiewicz is the author of Even the Cracks, Turning Inside Out, Lost in Transitions, and The Way You Will Go.

ANNA IDELEVICH

Horizon Saber

The saber is melting in spite of January with raindrops over the grass.
A solid horizon hung like a fish, driving me crazy.
Cold in December, dry up, but flared up with the fire of love,
dancing bud catches the rain and knows that there is no death.
It melts with moisture on the tongue and the gums are his bed.
Probably there is no beach, probably there is only one blizzard in my head. Probably it’s time for me to sleep, but whispers that there is no death,
still sings the words again, wiping his nose first:
Everything you do, makes me crazy ’bout you.
Nothing that tenderness hangs, I’m only here until seven.
Everything you do, makes me crazy ‘bout you.
I am a molten sapphire, a souvenir not found.

Anna Idelevich: Anna’s poems were featured in Louisville Review, BlazeVOX, The Racket, New Contrast, Zoetic Press, and Shoreline of Infinity among others.

LAINE DERR

Buttons I Keep

I still have
glimpses of her –
mouth wiped
on a soiled sleeve,
snow falling
on a February day,
trees etched
on a blouse of blue

buttons
I keep
like a lost
eye – a jar
next to a jar
filled w/ white.

Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Phillips Collection, ZYZZYVA, Portland Review, Chapter House, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Laine lives in a landscape, free and quiet.

KORY VANCE

Today

we grow old between two bosoms like vines
climbing through crumbling bricks
and mortar to salt the earth
with rubble

i wrote that when i was twenty
or maybe twenty-one

they were the first good lines i ever composed;
the rest of the poem
sucked

today, i am twenty-nine,
alone, and living
in a van

today, i tried to impress strange women on
tinder with facts about
hummingbirds

it did not work

today, i am unemployed for the sake of bitter rest, sat at
a bar drinking my savings, considering the chattering
through my spine that might happen
if i place a blue lily in someone's
hair, the woman who is still
my secret

today i am very aware of how vulnerable
my wafer heart has become
to falling in love

this time, i should not
run

as i have done so many times across state lines
or over oceans in search of gold
from a different
dandelion

but i still see the rubble with a crystal ball eye
i do remember a childhood
fighting back the vines
from green beans

today, i wonder about a life lived alone hovering
on aladdin’s flying carpet
just watching, just
watching

as the little humans clean their water, and cure the illnesses,
and find love, and reduce carbon, and eliminate
borders, and tell the truth, and stop death,
and then the sun
still flares

our god can’t stop it and my gin and tonic
disintegrates the paper straw

and mom and dad are still so sad
that i drink alcohol

Kory Vance is a poet and his career can be followed on Instagram @strength_and_poetry.

DANIEL NEWELL

Two Poems

BLACKBERRY PICKING

When I remember my mother happy
I go back to her emerging from brambles,
a loaded bucket keeping her from dancing.
How she’d get into it, thumbs and fingers
purpled from berries that also stained
the cutoff milk jug she carried. Handing me
a used ice cream tub, lugging their dark weight.
Some were sour, not ready for the trip.
But the big sweet ones in hot cobbler
with vanilla ice cream melting over an evening
at the bottom of summer. I'm getting ahead of her.
And her scratched shins and hands. Sweaty legs. Sneaking
over the old Battlefield where the best patches were
without competition. Picking half a day of illegal berries.
Dodging the park ranger, dropping in waist-high grass
when his truck would pass, lying belly-down on the stained
shirtfront she’d sometimes flipped up as a makeshift basket.

RODGEY POEM

I hope I get the news late
when you die. That I live a while
more with the thought of you
alive. Maybe the paper misses it,
or you're missing for days
and for all we know, you might
return in a week from the woods
hungry and filthy, crawling with stories.

SHYLA SHEHAN

To Whom or What or Where

It’s been low tide
for a while, the beach
parched. Seagulls search
for salvation from starvation
and move on.

The sky is endless—
immeasurably clear.
I cast my questions out to sea
and marvel at the whole, lonely
Milky Way.

"To Whom or What or Where" was previously published in Local Honey | Midwest

JACK PHILLIPS

Two Poems

LUNA’S WOLF AT THE DOOR

It takes a couple of weeks to pass through the sun/moon door begins to open on the Solstice and full swung on the first full moon, Janus/Jana male/goddess Dianus/Diana Sun/Moon two-face deity of the past

and the future and the present belongs to Luna (as Diana also called) known to the First Nations as variously She-bear and Mama Wolf attended by juncos – full moon on belly new moon on back pinky-beak dipped in daybreak –

she rounds the year through a deciduous door opens to a meadow through which we too shall pass swing open our hearts full-mooned ripened/stripped laid naked to wrap

ourselves in coyote-light, the closest we come to a wolf or bear when the Moon-she comes six days into January.

SPILLOVER POEMS

Blue

As with all creatures the flow of my veins carries a measure of tears in the flat hand of night but in this light the daybreak wears the skin of my dreams and holds me, not without her own sadnesses but in this light she reveals a softer shade of blue, liquid orange spilling over and through me.

Weight

The moon in heat plays with mating foxes and when they call it a night she throws cinders mostly ashen juncos flinty titmouses pyrite chickadees and cardinal sparks, finches. Passions fall on this maiden dawn when gravity proves an earthly lust the lyric physics of desire, pinkish lingua on paper in ink, the weight of devotion on snow.

Shadow

Canopies draw skylines then veins then a web then sutras stitch the thin waters of my eyes and the rest of me. Write bird-songs in the snow a thumb for a crow a pinky a chickadee frog-song in mud come spring. Be known by these woods one flesh among many make shadows with the same sun lay lyrics on the land.

Curve

While we sleep the earth rounds herself round having spun a morning verses slip into view. We wake on the curve – night trails into birdsong belly to dawn, saucering wanderers tuck and curl, mustering sun rolls over edges as pulls the westering moon, souls take the shape of daybreak bent in the middle and a little on the ends.

Seep

In-breaking wildness or other sort of poetic rupture makes a lesion some seek to heal (keep the savage at bay) but this stomate makes real the passage of breath. In this spring-fed belly blood-bound bone of bones gristle and grist the animal gush of our being gurgles a sylvan seep to write a lune, a crescent-shaped suture to hold the wound open.

Swamp

Autumn bleeds into Solstice the way poetry soaks before the ripple but comes as wordless breath that vanishes on composing. Morning swamp-to saunter taking pause on recumbent ash soft awash in pondish laughter, bull-rushes murmur rose hips so tangy to the tongue, the first word.

Nuthatch

Even on this sharp dawn eleven days into the solar year a thousand eyes shine images creaturely windows into waking being. We can deny our true bodyselves but here in cold wildnesses not so, stirring earth into bluey-black comes orange her original skin and ours.

Mud

The daughters of Atlas escape Orion in chase and to the west the crescent cup fills with leaking daybreaks, at dawn spills claytonia fairy-spuds and fawn-lilies asters in the meadow moonseed by the creek, a galaxy on the belly of a toad, map of heaven in mud.