pleading with nonexistent existentialists
i lay with my mouth agape
red hair used to mould that form into lust
but i do not wish for that kind of pleasure
i wish to be carried away by my own hand
to fall so deep into simple sadness
that my skin dries out
and my lips peel off
and my eyes are found empty
bloodshot with lashes glued together by salt
i imagine a bliss where
light fills every crevice in my teeth
my tongue
the place where my lips used to be
everything that i fear
the glow tugs at my voice
urging me to cry out
pleading with my throat to breathe
i ponder the possibility of death
how blood could splatter not only my skin
but the lives of my beloveds too
so called darlings who see in me hope
who see in me a rope to hold on to
if i tie that rope into a noose
who is to say they will not use it?
who is to say i would not be responsible
so instead
i hold onto the threads of nonexistent existentialists
and hold off from killing my darlings another day.
Oona Haskovec is a writer based in San Francisco, California. He writes about inner worlds and tiny unimportant things. His work has been previously published with Synchronized Chaos, K’in Literary Journal, and Nightjar Literary Magazine.
Moon Without Language
The moon doesn't just shine
Burns the darkness of the night
Fire burns in the eyes
Flowers bloom in the flesh of fire
In the midst of emptiness brings infinite fullness
Build the construction.
Even if everyone disappoints, the moon does not
The emotion of the first letter is in his skandha
Breakfast radiates love
Like the unspoken eye language of a girl Waiting at an open window with a tower in her hair
Or like a long-enveloped rose petal
Lover's hands will be dyed
Or as unknown letters on the pages of the heart.
I touched the body of the naked moon Touched day after day
I saw the mystery of the fingers of the ancient scholars
Shaking, shaking my life line
There is a river of voices in fear
Saw delirium delusion smell of cinnamon From start to finish.
Baby
My friend tells me she wants a dog.
A Chihuahua. Tiny. Six pounds.
Maybe seven. Small enough to
carry. To sit in a car seat. Or a
shopping cart at the store. A little
dog. To hold in her arms. To cuddle.
Like a baby. Sweet baby. Like the
one she tried to have. Tried and
tried. Years ago. But couldn’t.
What Can It Hurt?
My friend tells me she wants a dog.
We go to Barnes & Noble today.
For dog magazines. And a book.
Maybe two. About Chihuahuas.
Even though. Her husband still says
No. To a dog. Any dog. But does
that include magazines? Or books?
I think not. That’s what I tell her.
She agrees. But we don’t tell him.
She Can’t
My friend tells me she wants a dog.
Searches Facebook. For Chihuahua
rescues. Finds them. Likes them.
Follows them. Texts twenty pictures
to me. Today. At least. Maybe more.
Homeless Chihuahuas. All of them.
So, so sad. She wants them. All of
them. You can’t. I say. She knows.
Laura Stamps is the author of 51 novels, novellas, short story collections, and poetry books, including “Dog Dazed” (Kittyfeather Press, 2022), “The Good Dog” (Prolific Pulse Press 2023), and “Addicted to Dog Magazines” (Impspired, 2023). Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. www.LauraStampsFiction.blogspot.com
Heavenly Temples and Towers
I rode a heavenly camel towards a desolate desert, .
a jade bottle poured the sweet dew of the Kingdom of Heaven
and converged a lake of springs that never dry up.
so where the giant trees in prehistoric times grew up.
Their branches and leaves rippled like the garden of phoenixes and birds,
and the song of birds sounded like music,
which made the clouds in the sky to be intoxicated by the time.
And the colorful and transparent grits grew into the huge jewels in the dreams
Even grew into heavenly temples and towers.
3.20.2018
一座一座天国的殿宇楼阁
我骑一匹天国的骆驼来到一座无人的沙漠
一只玉瓶倾泻天国的甘露汇成永不枯竭的泉水之湖
于是生长出史前的巨树枝叶婆娑宛如凤鸟的花园而鸟鸣如乐让时光醉了天空的云朵
而一粒一粒五色透明的沙砾在梦境里长成巨大的宝石长成一座一座天国的殿宇楼阁
2018.3.20
Giant's Yourself in Another Giant City
The gods who delight and smile in your body,
much older than stone and much younger than the morning.
They bestow you with the nectar of the kingdom of heaven,
make your bones becomes much more transparent with each passing day.
So the light of soul wakes up in your head,
then you hear a ballad from an outer world;
In the labyrinth of time you see giant's yourself in another giant city.
3.15.2018
那另一座巨城的巨人的自己
在你体内欢喜微笑的诸神比石头更古老比早晨更年轻
他们赐你天国的甘露让你的骨骼一天比一天透明
于是灵魂之光在头颅里醒来你听到一曲天外的歌谣
在时间的迷宫里你看到了那另一座巨城的巨人的自己
2018.3.15
Prehistoric Myself
When the heaven woke up in my body day after day
and the world began to be hyaline and smiling,
I saw myself fifty thousand years ago
that engraved the poems of shimmering gold in the jade.
The stars were spinning in space and composed the mysterious pictures,
and that giant who travelled by light waved to me joyfully,
made me to be happy and perfectly comfortable,
as if have met prehistoric myself.
3.7.2018
史前的自己
当天堂在我体内一天天醒来而世界开始透明微笑
我看到五万年前的自己在玉石上刻下金光闪烁的诗章
星辰在太空旋转组合出神秘的画图而那乘光而行的巨人
向我欢喜地招手令我陶然若醍醐灌顶仿佛见到了史前的自己
2018.3.7
The Soul is Invisible Muse
Open your eyes of soul and you'll see countless yourself.
No time goes by, as if the sun and the moon never set and rise.
The world is only a book of phantom and the soul is invisible Muse.
Before the words hadn't beent born yet, you have been a giant
from the the kingdom of gold, who know not what is meant by yourself.
3.5.2018
灵魂是隐形的缪斯
睁开你的灵魂之眼你将看到无数个自己
没有时光之飞逝犹如日月从未落下与升起
世界只是一部幻影之书而灵魂是隐形的缪斯
在词语尚未诞生之前你曾是黄金之国的巨人不知何谓自己
2018.3.5
A Flying Saucer of Giants
Day by day the lightning in my body is waking up
and flying to this mortal world that dark night like iron.
Seeking devils's head and make him to be a skeleton of hell and repay a gem time
That python's body will become a golden bridge towards a giant city of tomorrow,
standing out against the sky , like the clouds rising and gathering.
And an interstellar spaceship on my palm like a flying saucer of giants,
that flashing miraculous brightness from an extraterrestrial Galaxy.
4.13.2018
天外之星系的闪烁灵光之巨人之蝶
我体内的闪电正在一天天醒来而飞向这个黑夜如铁的尘世
寻找魔王的头颅让他成为地狱的骷髅而偿还那一枚时间之宝石
那巨蟒的身躯成了一座黄金之桥而通向明日之巨城矗立于天际云蒸霞蔚
而我手掌之上一轮星际之飞船犹如来自天外之星系的闪烁灵光之巨人之蝶
2018.4.13
Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet's Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Acumen, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best known works are Platinum City and Golden Giant. His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization.
Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), is Mr.Yuan Hongi's assiastant and translator.He is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email- 3112362909@qq.com.
Knitting the Heart
I knit your heart
You look as beautiful as my garden flowers
And spread the light in the dark night like the twinkling stars
I hold you on my face
You kiss me and press on the chest
Both the heart glows and flows like the rising sea in the moon
You are my wandering land
I always keep pace with the thought
The heart I like to live on the flowery bed
I enjoy the scent in the starry world.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
29 March, 2023On the Way
I stand before you like a tree
You communicate, laugh and cry
Living in shade
Feel the taste
Talking and whispering always
From the root to the top
From the top to the root
The mutual transportation of water and food
You and me
The shade speaks out breaking the silence
Moving all to face the challenge.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
30 March, 2023
I can call you love
The last pulse of light is stubborn, at regular intervals
I can call you king from the foam of the sun.
or the premature eyes of the moon ...
The minutes before sunrise they are hieroglyphs ...
Is that I am, so vulnerable like the course of the foam that stays or breaks on the shore
I can call you love and kiss your feet or confuse you with a stranger
Don't tempt me with music that encloses the deranged image of the Grail and his train of suicide bombers
Because I am here, Flickering between heaven and earth!
Graciela Noemi Villaverde is an Argentine poet/writer based in Buenos Aires. She has a degree in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry. She has been awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Public Relations of the Hispano-Mundial Union of Writers UHE and World Honorary President of the same institution.
VIOLIN AND ME
In a bed of red silk
you lie silent and wait for me.
My view is on the icicles
which chained the window of my room.
I look trough glass teeth in the distance to pine forest
I breathe air with a set, you are here, but it is as if you are not.
The memory of your sad sounds spoils my soul.
I watch you in the corner by the fireplace,
the dust has covered you, and the warmth spreads the smell of the past.
I hear you in my mind, without touch, and I write a poem about you.
Wrapped in a plaid robe, I sit in an old sofa,
I'm afraid these old hands will touch you so I forget who you are?
That's why I fantasize through a living film as if on the canvas of life,
your sweet sounds and our sadness that we both share;
years have passed and I'm still young in mind with you,
I'm not old... Violino my dear!
THE HOUSE AND YOU
Hang the coat of sorrow in the closet,
the worn sinful heels in the shoebox with other torn footwear,
sheet and anything on the bed that was absorbent
all your sleepless nights bring out into the sunshine of oblivion.
Then he frames his tear in a wooden frame and placed above the fireplace
Let the heat ray set her free then when the time comes.
Enter the children's room and remember yourself so small and carefree.
Take a white cloth and wrap it around yourself in multiple layers of separation,
Let your long hair down to caress your body.
Put a Beatles record in an old record player and sing along, with tambourine
get out of the house you don't own, you created it yourself,
thinking it belonged to you, but it didn't.
You have no home in the world of transience.
Know Him and invoke renunciation and dance to invoke heavenly love.
Bricks dissolve into red dust from dancing,
and you find your peace in the ruins
and you realize only then that it was your house
an iron cage that has an exit.
Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia.
She is a person to whom from an early age, Leonardo da Vinci's statement "Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard" is circulating through the blood.
That's why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them.
As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube.
Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers.
She is the recipient of many international awards.
"Trees of Desire" is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems "Moon Circle".
She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists "Mountain Views" in Montenegro, and she also is a member of the Poetry club "Area Felix" in Serbia.
