Guest Poet

freezing rain using all twelve tones of the scale

– Patrick Sweeney

My eyes fixate on twin deceit
your double speak deafens
silently bruising my reason.

Into the void you rumble past
nothingness remains, yet lingers
choking me on fool’s false gold.

Soulless promises, like inert bones,
vanish into bleached forgery,
neurotic dust begging validity.

Memory skims pallid edges,
saturates all my thorny cares
rendering only faint erasures.

I hide inside love’s rotting shadows
remnants of smooth bargello hues
which once defined my long ago.

No tempera, no colorful pigments
exist without you in my freeze frame.
I am drowning in hollow neutrality.

Without you I lack vibrancy…
Where have all my bright colors gone?
Perhaps jammed into wax crayons?

– Colleen Boueil

masks on faces, hide
truth behind
…unaware

blue, when feeling down
green, with a twinge of envy in a smile
red, when on a cantankerous spree

why hide behind them we wonder, as
we go about our lives, pretending
…unaware

yellow, when filled with cowardice
rainbow, with a message of change
pink, as our hearts sing

masks on faces, wearing
our obscured selves
…unaware

black, when mourning loved ones
white, while celebrating loved ones
grey for anything in-between

only in dreams, our
true disguises unfold, as
our masks fall

yet we are …unaware

– Andrea Damic

A river of discarded beer bottles glistens in the harsh afternoon sunlight as they serenade each other down the murky Mekong Delta.

Steaming bowls of Pho are scattered all over the country like stars in the endless night sky.
Delicate bamboo shoots, strips of tender beef, fat prawns, thin noodles, fat noodles, anise-tasting green leaves, fermented crunchy chili oil, pungent smokey vinegar, white cartilage, grey fish balls, greasy red neon-coloured duck and cloves of garlic floating in the salty broth like magnificent pearls.

The aroma of rancid fish, decaying corpses, harsh fumes from generators and motor bikes, cups of nose-tingling fish sauce, rotting garbage, is all forgotten in an instance with the ice-cold refreshing citrus taste of sugarcane juice.

Awww Bliss!

A river of discarded beer bottles glistens in the harsh afternoon sunlight as they serenade each other down the murky Mekong Delta.

– Luke Ritta

You who have never
crossed the boundaries of
dream teach me to shout from
mountain tops
at the end of the day,
teach me to open my hands
clenched in fists
and do not be gentle
like those
who give kisses to everyone,
without tenderness.
Do not be false,
latent and arrogant,
be yourself all the way,
be the one
who does not leave his heart
in himself
but gives it to beat
in someone else’s chest.
And only then
will I let you
into the caves of my loneliness,
wilderness and silence, too
silent.
I will allow you
to cross the boundaries
of all limitations
and enter my heart of infinity.

– Jasna Gugić

The day I found out that
the woman I loved was with
someone else, I took a cab
home from wherever I was
and sat for three or four
hours on my floor. It’s one
thing not to believe a lie;
it’s another to fully exhume
a truth you’d rather die
from natural causes than
to have beaten into your brain
in manifold ways. When I wake
up each morning, the light
in my kitchen, once warm and
resplendent, is nothing now
if not loud, a toddler shouting
through every room in the gut.

One day, you’ll get too
high and also imagine
that the world you once
wanted is no longer possible.
When that day comes,
tell me about it, (how does
it feel?), if it stings, if when
one day, we meet inside
another life, we can try
again. In March, I told you
that I meant what I said
in that letter and I’d mean
it forever. You got back to me
later, but you weren’t you,
and I was no longer me,
and we were just part
of a picture that was once
part of a garden that was
part of a house that no
one no longer lives in.

– Scott Wordsman

Can we be more delicate,
More intricate,
With this flower that is also a daughter.

Understanding the petal
Of the flower is just the beginning

Unexpectedly, rage has a part
To play as the flower’s worried
Father

Drunk, he beats his daughter
Just as his father beat him.

While he makes her pull –
In turn – her
Flowers, all completely

Out of the ground.
Once the ground is barren

He makes a comment about
“You made your bed of roses, now sleep in it”

He makes her sleep out there on the ground for 12 nights in a row

“I was a flower once upon a time,”
she said

Decades later she is
A very old woman
Knitting by feel, a pair of socks

– Marc Isaac Potter

Further, the trees won’t bloom
or bear fruit

with our conceited hands, we’ve
chopped up the wings of the clouds

there will neither be blood to drip
nor will there be thirst to be quenched
even if you squeeze the breasts.

Henceforth, fire will smoulder
the earth will crack open

and thousands of hands will elongate
from there to throttle our necks.

– Sudhir Kumar Meher

in heaven we are not known or heard
I managed to become a god in my own room

the sky choked
the river drowned

humans are the real gods
gods of death

– Mykyta Ryzhykh

When mornings are veiled with sadness
I ask that you whisper no song
Sell my tears in the hardware
Donate my blood to the crickets
Just leave the door of our bedroom
Slightly open where I could hear
The sun’s footsteps like a burglar
And remember not to water
The sunflowers on my windowpane
Just leave me alone with your shadow

When sadness is veiled with mornings
Drop a hello to a marionette
Listen to the bleeding Stradivarius
As one would hear a sermon
Then walk with a living saint
In our living room and dance
Sculpt me a rainy season soon
The sawdust rippling in my bathtub
And I will forget the mornings
Forget that mornings have no shadows

– April Mae M. Berza