UFO Museum: Roswell, NM


Breaking in was nothing,

For one of my talents,

Ditto for lifting the device I needed

From its glass case without tripping the alarm;

Installing and testing it was a matter of moments.

I was ready to go;

I'd miss Darlene, she'd been good to me:

A loving wife, willing participant

In what must have seemed, at times,

Bizarre activities, but she'd get over it,

And I couldn't give her the children

She so desperately needed,


I needed to get back to my other family,

My other wife

Raising a horde of sprouts on her own,

And I was so tired of the lies:

An only child of fictitious parents

Killed in a “car” crash,

Born and raised in “the Midwest,”

A retired airline pilot.

My only real fear,

That my wife had remarried,

And her husband had, of course, eaten our young,

So I'm on my way back to Aldebaran,

And I really hope that if I have to kill and eat

Her and her lover,

He's not one of my brothers.

Mother

I get it when it's full of flowers scent
I can't find a single scent
I can't distinguish my mother
From a thousand tosser

Mercy is a river, my pure-hearted mother
I have only one value
To be alive for my child
Eat our sorrow day and night

He gave me a white wash
Until adulthood
I will see my child's happiness 
Give us a lifetime.

GIFT FROM GOD

 

Love is a gift from God

thank Maya by writing about Me.

You have no love for God, but call upon it, imagine that it is there, and pray for the Divine Vision.

That sublime love is hidden in holy books and in people whose mouths kiss the word of God and do not deviate from the path of devotion. Don't trust Maya men when you read love poems,

that's not love, that's lust.

Yesterday someone wrote about the only love,

 today you are the only love

tomorrow some other woman will be the only love.

It is a lie hidden in beautiful words.

Don't believe Maya's illusion

Don't look for love where it doesn't exist.

Pray to Maya with all your heart for protection.

Call Me.

I am Your gift, reveal me and

 keep me secret.

 

I FEEL YOU

 

Every raindrop is your inhale

and exhale

in the heavenly symphony

I listen to the beat of your heart.

Through the touch of the rain I feel you.

 

 

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 is also a member of the Poetry club "Area Felix" in Serbia.

Seeing Desperate Lives

The photos make me feel a hundred years old:

Schoolroom made rubble, skeletal steel frames

of desks somehow standing, withstanding the blast;

exhausted fireman sitting in the living room

of a burning house, admitting defeat; woman

with concerned face dappled by sun through leaves

of her yard's beautiful trees leaving her village house,

one forearm holding a fluffy white kitten, its face

buried in her shoulder.



They are desperate, and I tire of mainlining

their anxiety, so I look up from the phone

into my rearview, at the sun-scorched asphalt --

the road beyond my yard's tree cover

is molten with summer sun.  I wheeled in

and looked up Ukraine, like I do at least once a day,

and it makes me feel a hundred years old.  So,

I do the only thing I can think of to forget:

step out of my pick-up, take shoes off toe to heel,

pull off socks, walk my pine straw and oak leaf drive

onto the sizzle heat of road, and its sudden tactile feel

in the flesh of my feet consumes me.



And I am here, now, away from war, and soon

I am young again, walking barefoot

the hot paved parking lot to the state park spring

that began a river in Florida, that mine

and two other families caravanned to in summers,

the hours of swimming, the picnics in a blanket of grass

by sedges, herbs, and wildflowers at river's edge.

Until -- the burn's ministry becomes too much,

and I walk back onto the cool of pine straw, open

the truck door for the phone, look again

at the places I will never go to anymore.



After Russia invaded, I talked with my Iraq vet friend

David who told me of two acquaintances

who went into Ukraine to rescue the in-laws

of one of them, native Ukrainians, and I said

I could no longer handle war psychologically:

my mind hearing the ominous thump

of helicopter rotors, distant artillery, pounding

"danger close" seconds later, high flying planes,

birds of prey dropping dots of bombs that ride

gravity's slipstream to earth, plowing earthquakes

that reverberate, spit heat and flame

against everything natural.



He tells me of the healing power of yoga,

how he's started yoga teacher training.

Next time we talk, I'll have to tell of walking

a hot street.  I look again at one of the photos.

I'm well removed now, twice, through the lens

of the camera, through the lens of the phone,

but I remember the pain of watching starving dogs

being shot by laughing Iraqi soldiers, and I wonder

where the woman will take her cat.




Year 2, Ukraine



It was last year that the shelling first disturbed

the deep time of an old village, hub for farmers

and beekeepers



Now tanks roll into the square again, one crushing

the stone walls of a central fountain, old coins

fall with the water from its heavy treads



In the corner of the square, from the alley by

the Armenian church, a shadow strides, moves

into the square



Pacing here and there erratically, palm to temple,

this walking wound gathering breath to force insults

in growing gasps



This man whose family was killed in last year's shelling

The Polish radio says his government is winning,

at 10:00 and 5:00 daily



He thinks the war has already gone on forever  Bitterly,

he thinks the war has already killed him  A soldier shouts

"Khokhol!" in the language of bears



Waving him closer from the height of his round, iron hatch,

the soldier points a pistol  This dead man loads his mouth

with more insults and rushes forward



Into the loop of everlasting war  In the sky's drizzle on his face

are tears that were once salty seas




Prayer for a Savior




Come for your gentle people

who shudder in this darkness



bring your sovereign brightness

unbreakable shield of goodness



let misfortune, famine, disease,

war, become faraway sounds



make them gray at the temples,

let them fade away



give us a spell of warm sun, soft

winds, clear rain over green valleys



we know death is stronger than

suffering -- may you open its horizon



of strength in this living season and

forgive our fragile clay, wounded



hearts, that for heaven's peace

can't wait.

A US Army combat veteran, Steven Croft lives happily on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia on a property lush with vegetation and home to various species of birds and animals. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, The Five-Two, Misfit Magazine, Eunoia Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Synchronized Chaos, and other places, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

April

 

April has long fingerprints on the window

The girl climbs up to the soft cheekbones

Across furrows touched by life

It is morning and freedom smells at the top visible to the inner stumbling

Enchanting flowers will bloom from the fingers,

and smells flow instead of blood

But despite the joy of the will,

her body doesn't recognize the arms that hug her.

 

 

Emina Đelilović-Kevrić (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) 

After studying the b/h/s (bosnian/croatian/serbian) language and literature at the Philoshopical Faculty in Zenica she got her master's degree on the subject "Memory construction in the South Slavic interlinear community: typical models of the war camp experience in literature“. She is the author of the poetry collection "This time without history“ and the short stories collection "Erased lives."

Her collection of poems "My son and I“ is awarded by the Publishing Foundation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021. In 2022 she won the second place in the international literature competition "Isnam Taljić“. She is the winner of the second award for the best short story of the regional literature competition "Zija Dizdarević“ 2022, and she won the first place on international literature competition "Nastavi priču“ in 2023. She won a third place on the international poetry competition "Ossi di Seppia“ in Italy.

 

Gen X

Maybe we weren’t resourceful. Maybe we were just confused.
Maybe we lost our way. Maybe we lost our shoes
in a pond with a surface like a screen without words or songs
from the future disconnected walking barefoot down the long
screen to the future which doesn’t have a phone
or a bookstore or a workplace and is leaking like snow cone
purple across the tile. We follow cracks from lock to key
through the back screen door. To be safe you touch the tree
growing upwards towards the moon and on up towards the light
pollution that blurs what’s happened. Together with what might.