KODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still Camera
Tammy Higgins was published in ‘Amulet’, ‘Atlantic Pacific Press ‘Conceit’ ‘Iconoclast’ ‘The International Library of Poetry and Photography’, ‘Noble House’ ‘Out in the Mountains ‘Ultimate Writer ‘Samhain Secrets of Irish Horse Anthologies’ ‘2019 Best New Emerging Poets of New Hampshire, ‘Trajectory’ and won a contest sponsored by ‘The Oak’ magazine, ‘Barbaric Yawp’. Was included in the US/THEM Wolfsinger Productions ‘Second Wind’, ‘Dear Loneliness Project linktr.ee/dear loneliness, the longest letter to fight loneliness, 290 meters, three football fields or almost 1,000 sheets of A4 paper. Also had three photos in The Connected World 2020 Los Angeles Center of Photography & photo Submission in ‘Urban & Health 360, Art Impact International, The Porta Potte.’ Also a photo was published in Typehouse, Carolina Muse and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Tammy Higgins is 57 years old and was born and raised in Northern New York and lives in Southern New Hampshire. She has MS, Diabetes Type 2, and fibro, loves the outdoors, wildlife, writing, photography, dining out, nature and gardening, gaming online, slow cookers, and learning to play my Washburn electric guitar. She listens to heavy metal and loves cats and weed.
***
red bones boiled in night porridge
my grandmother coughed every time bypassing the cemetery which does not exist
an inconspicuous shadow hangs on the wall of our high-rise building
birds peck at this shadow from hunger
crumbs of pigeon bread here stick to the asphalt
every grocery store in our area is going bankrupt
even the cats here don’t dare to leave a dead mouse without eating its flesh to the
end
glue for eyes and fingers in the form of world history falls on the eyelashes with
crumbs of hunger
https://thegorkogazette.com/2024/03/07/poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh/
***
the sky is so vain that the rain ends
a stranger with the face of death gives a dead kitten
dead kitten nibbles milky evening
and its dark around after the airstrike
https://thegorkogazette.com/2024/03/07/poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh/
***
moonless night sensors
couple in love in blood and happiness
pleasure of the flesh develops into a play of shadows
the iron doors of the bedroom are bashfully silent
light bulbs don’t light for some unknown reason
only something inside the bellies warms the whole bedroom
https://thegorkogazette.com/2024/03/07/poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh/
***
hungry children racing
with pigeons run to the yard
bread of tears and water of bodies –
in that order
little sons die each
time trying to
resurrect
even snakes share
their apples with the
starving
https://thegorkogazette.com/2024/03/07/poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh/
***
broom of glances
forgive me for love
I will never forbid you
to die alone again
https://thegorkogazette.com/2024/03/07/poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh/
***
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
https://thegravityofthething.com/untitled-poem-mykyta-ryzhykh-2/
***
The bush is devoid of all berries
Autumn is now stripping off the leaves too
The future is uncertain
https://boatsagainstthecurrent.org/poetry/3-poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh
***
By dying like the first time you teach me to feel sorry for you
A cry torn off by the wind is carried away leaving a silent emptiness
I don’t know how to feel sorry for you because you are indifferent to my regrets
Death is just a surprise box that you finally gave me
This is your first gift to me
This is the last gift
https://boatsagainstthecurrent.org/poetry/3-poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh
***
I grab the tree but its branches don't care
I'm walking through the cemetery looking for life
I cry about the living because the
dead are indifferent to everything
I don't find anyone alive anywhere in this world
Only photographs on graves speak to me of love
https://boatsagainstthecurrent.org/poetry/3-poems-by-mykyta-ryzhykh
Trapped in the Blinding Contrails
a star has jetted down the sky,
drowning me in its blinding contrails,
my legs flail in their search for footholds,
but they sky holds none.
weathered scrolls with evanescent words map my cavernous world,
ruling out the life my heart considers a cocoon.
i seem to be lost on this winding path,
despite the plethora of hands pushing me forward.
being myself isn’t an option when my life
is a totality of my predecessors’.
my struggles in the contrails are measured by perfectionist eyes.
let me out of the sky, find me somewhere beneath the earth.
i wish to be a lone ‘one’ and not just a product of one and one,
i wish not my life to be thrown into the mausoleum of my predecessors’.
and while I stay adrift in the skies tonight, i try not to drown my successor
in the blinding contrails i leave behind.
What Father Calls Language
I come from a corner of the world
where you have to clip the wings of your words with scissors
so they don’t fly from your throat
into your audience’s brain through the wrong hole.
Father says I don’t have to move my lips
before the words ooze into my listener’s brain
because language isn’t what I speak or write,
it is that which revolves in my head.
unsaid. unheard.
When it Climaxes…
my eyes widen, the cornea stretches,
the brown pupils growing rounder and larger,
multiplying the proximity between the eyelids.
my lungs call for air but air seems to stop moving
at the vestibules of my nose.
the airs on every part of me arise like soldiers
responding to the call of duty.
my right hand, despite being shackled by my wristwatch,
flails freely in the air, the popcorn in the captivity
of its fingers roll backwards, finding the way out,
while the left one grasping the popcorn cup remains immobile in the air.
my legs are caged in my canvas shoes,
rooted to a spot like the iroko.
a piece of popcorn awaiting its fate
-- to be crunched to death by the ruthless molars
and drowned in the sea of saliva that flows down my belly --
drops back into the cup, followed by
a drop of saliva that my tongue catches mid-air.
my eyes dart left & right, front & back,
searching through the myriad of faces that swarm around me,
for whoever might have seen me drool.
but none! everyone else suffers this fate.
my eyes fly back to the huge wall before me
where the pictures move, move & move again.
that’s a huge plot twist, i must confess.
When Love Beckons
follow with your head and not your heart,
cause the heart is a fool that makes too many mistakes
that put your poor head in trouble,
and let it resound through the chambers of your ventricle
that love is but blind,
so keep your eyes open,
as you traverse the realm of love,
so you don’t crash into the disaster that shatters your heart.
His poems / haiku / short stories / pastiches have appeared in several journals and collections.
He manages “Leisure Spot“, a bilingual blog where he posts literary gems, reviews and translations.
“Uno o l’altro verso tante direzioni comunque”, the original Italian version of the poem published here, won second place in a literary contest on “the new places of contemporaneity” in 2015 and was published on the website of the poetry zine “Versante Ripido” (“Steep Versant”).
I Suck Love
The spring walks around me
The flowers spread fragrance
The birds adorn each other
The gentle breeze changes time
The mountain sings the song of love
The fountain touches the gypsy girl
The river kisses the waves of the sea
The memories take place in the flute
The cowboy tends the sound of whisperings
The moon dances in the eyes of dream
The stars fly here and there
I suck love from the cup of Nature
And what is about you?
consumed with death
they say i talk about
death too much
that all this doom is
not good for my soul
that makes me laugh
my life has been
consumed with
death since i was
four years old
imagine understanding
the concept fully before
ever going to kindergarten
don't get me wrong
i love love
love women, especially
the ones that love me
i would do anything to be
consumed by that but i am
not a lucky soul
i know my number will be
pulled soon enough
i don't have the money to live
like tomorrow doesn't exist
if that changes, oh boy
i might finally know what life
is like living by the seat of
your pants
----------------------------------------------------------------
cigarettes and cheap booze
fell asleep last night to
nina simone singing in
my ear
calling me a white devil
and making me laugh
under the piano in some
bar in paris
cigarettes and cheap
booze in the air
longing for the days
twenty years before
i was born
only for the music
though
i have no use for the
caveman thoughts in
humans
give me some chaos
of jazz and my animal
feels the only comfort
it finds possible
-------------------------------------------------------------
in early march
three dead after a tornado
hits indian lake in early
march
imagine that
a bunch of idiots that
don't believe in climate
change get hit by a
massive tornado, but
not in the summer
my empathy is getting
harder to find
--------------------------------------------------------------
across from the bathroom
sitting across from
the bathroom in the
waiting room here
at the hospital
if i was a junkie
or if i was in rehab
for being one
i can imagine this
could be quite the
test
for me, i'm just
hoping i don't
have the need
to take a shit
the waiting room
is getting crowded
-------------------------------------------------------------
for a rainy night
the old songs of leonard cohen certainly
set the mood for a rainy night
she had the longest legs you had ever
seen on a woman
fishnets, she must have read the poems
she would dangle her foot up against
my knee, hitting it playfully from
time to time
i whispered in her ear, as seductively as i could,
that if she kept this up, she was going to get
in trouble
right then, her husband called her name
from the kitchen
i laughed
she came back and handed me a glass of scotch,
whispered in my ear that she wasn't wearing
any panties
i licked my lips and took a sip, playfully placed
my hand on her thigh and started to slowly
investigate
she was telling the truth
i put that finger in my mouth and told her
she tasted like the morning dew
we slipped out into another room
and started to kiss
her husband found us right before all
the good shit started to happen
he asked me to leave before
he found the shotgun
i took the scotch with me
J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know better. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Black Coffee Review, The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Forty Days of SadnessPsalm 16:1-3
1 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”
During the past forty days, I experienced the loss of a friend, and not for the first time. I knew of children in my community whom we had lost at an early age. Jesus was my friend, and I talked and prayed, knowing he was there for me. In my early childhood, I had come to know Jesus. We talked, and in my innocent child's spirit, Jesus was alive.
During Lent all was going to change. He was to be taken to the Cross to die. I was an altar boy during that period. I witnessed Christ's suffering and death at the Stations of the Cross. His death was real to me at that time. My friends who had passed didn't come back to me. Serving each Station of the Cross Friday night for forty days brought sadness within me. I knew how this was going to end. Jesus was marched to Calvary to die.
Each Friday during that time was a reliving of his suffering on his way to the Cross leading up to the black Friday when he died. The whole forty days were darkness for me, not just during the Friday evening service but throughout the week.
I spent time in the church praying as the candle flames flickered. There was a realization that my friend Jesus wasn't there to share my life. Easter Sunday was so far away without my true friend Jesus.
I knew Jesus was real because there was always a feeling of comfort when I talked with Him and felt him beside me. My foster Mother talked about how Jesus was alive to her. I, too, felt that Jesus was alive. She was convinced of Jesus' presence. Those good Fridays were indeed challenging because we remembered the end of Jesus' life. I knew that on Easter I would get new clothes to wear to church for the celebration of Jesus' return.
Come Easter Sunday there was a feeling of having my friend come back to me. On Easter, when I talked and prayed, it brought me great comfort and peace.
