A PURR OF LOVE 

A touch of skin, a soft purr, that makes my heart beat faster, tender caresses. Loving cuddles, your gaze in mine, a deep love, makes me feel that I am unique in the world.

 In your arms, I find my refuge, a safe place, where I can be myself. 

With every caress, with every purr, you make me feel, wow, I love you more and more. 

Nidia Amelia García, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a writer and an active member of Juntos por las Letras (Together for Letters). She has participated in numerous virtual events in Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and elsewhere. She has also contributed to literary anthologies such as “Books of the Immortals” and “Anthology of the 50 Poets of the World 2022.”

HASTEN

Love is silk,
a patient nest within my heart.
My eyes gaze into your face.
Time carves deep canyons
with its chisel.
Tumble-grasses roll on the wind—
your dried strands of hair.
My eyes gaze on,
but the heart does not see.

Hasten after me while the dew is wet.
Do not break your resolve—
hurry, come.
Do not wait till the honeyed spring
that stirs the soul
runs dry, inevitably. 

Valentina Pavlović is a contemporary poet from Belgrade, Serbia. Her poetry explores inner rhythm, shifts in tonality, diverse perspectives, and themes. Her work is recognized for its original approach to form, tone and expression, creating poetry that is intimate, powerful and universally relevant while enabling layered communication with readers.

Love, Beauty, and Death
Mesfakus Salahin
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

Seek love in the sunlight !
Seek love in beauty !
Why do you not seek it in the grave?
One day, the grave shall be our bed.

Seek heaven in the light!
Seek love in heaven!
Why do you not seek it in the darkness?
One day, our final journey shall be into the dark.

Light a torch and seek ecstasy within the hearts of lovers!
Two souls find their reflection in the mirror. 

After the searing heat, only molten darkness remains,
Where a long-drawn sigh awaits.
Who shall open the door upon the path of darkness?
Who shall bathe the gloom in light?
Who shall rouse the slumber within the graveyard—
Where love itself is the ferryman of death?

The fires now dead were once light;
The graves once held a state of waiting; Darkness dwelt within the poet’s soul;
And love lay hidden.

There was a wail within the womb of darkness;
A plea resonated in the ghostly, droning hum; 

Love letters lay lightless for a thousand years; 

The darkness was devoid of beauty.
Yet today, this darkness is radiant;
Today, this very death is desired;
Graveyards are bathed in moonlight; Monstrous insects gnaw at the darkness, illuminating it;
Some humans pick at and devour the beloved corpses—
Alas, what cruelty!

Everyone desires the fragrance of a withered rose;
Even a pebble suffers the agony of death’s sorrow.
No one seeks the beauty of death in the rays of the setting sun,
Yet the starving, waiting at the royal gate, find beauty there;
Amidst poverty, the pure rose stands tall with head held high.
All grievances gather within the paralysis of the realm;
A magical touch drifts forth from the royal mausoleum—
Impure consciousness is cleansed within the bloodless frame.
The sky of an anguished mind becomes clouded with vexation;
Beauty remains trapped in a leaking prison, 

While a grotesque future tolls in silence,

Destructive death effortlessly embraces
The dormant span of life within our souls,
As the funeral procession stretches ever longer.

Is Love a Song Title

It was not only charm,

that made her wishes

become my dreams.

She liked the smell of lilacs

and I wanted to become a painter.

From the instant I asked,

if she were waiting

for the stars to forbid the night to end,

she said, 

“I sympathize with the color blue.”

Then I wanted to become a psychologist.

Is love a song title 

or something you say when 

you move from apprentice to master?

She playfully mocked the things that needed to be awakened in me.

She giggled when it was inappropriate,

whether at the movies or at a party.

A moment later, everyone smiled.

And when she turned to me, 

I noticed a cluster of light freckles on her neck.

I wanted to become a serious Shakespearean actor.

There can be a milky silhouette cameo

sometimes found in a peculiarly smelling antique shop 

that knows all your secrets just by passing it.

And you want to move on but find you are buying it. 

And when home,

you hold it

and stare

and curiously

discover it is not meant to keep.

One day while she was listening to music in the wind 

and making a list of novels to be read

I wanted to place the cameo on her dresser,

but though there was space, 

there was no room.

Decisions come,

either by

profession or discovery.

Keeping the hand over a flame 

or in a pocket.

Like looking into glass brick,

you can see form and color, 

but 

can’t judge distance or depth. 

One day 

I was in a bar with friends

who were applauding all that I despised.

I found my phone and looked at her name,

but I could never make that call.

Like great Art,

all expectations must remain illusions.

She 

became someone who others went to for answers.

Someone greatly loved.

And I,

I looked in many reference books 

to find that definition.

You can find me at bookstores, 

maybe at the theatre

or at a nightspot where I am easy to find 

because I am laughing the loudest.

But you will never find me 

found.

Portrait of a Lady Down River 

Four-fingers-crossed

And two fro-twiddling

Sharp shink type-writer-ing

Down the white river splay

Of the court transcript, haiku

That which five of you

And seven of course jurors’

Monologues, inner

Inside that wooden-seated

Force of travel, you

Gold Coast to Straddy and

18-or-something houses

Later, you

Stitching that

four-fingers-crossed 

And two fro-twiddling

Baby face

From one lane over, 

You, passing up on that

Chance to fly

Further than moving and

More than a hop-skip-and

Jump off the bank and

Into my arms, you, fragile

Back creaking and

Moaning in many mens’ 

Ears red with the truth

Out and

“I don’t blame you for cheating, leaving that alcoholic,”

I say, drugs and double-wide and all

Of the iterations you sung

To me rattle in my handwriting

As your shadow does

Against the wind, you

You may not see me, yet

Hear me through the rustles of

Leaves dished across the

New ground of

Wherever-you-are I’ll look for

You,

Look for you in me

And where your face meets

My father’s, you

Conjoined to me by the

Hip and palm swaying

With that sing-song

Crosshatching, you,

I wonder how your feet

Felt walking

Three-stepped out the door

Because nothing was

Quick enough, you

Jackalope, you

Steam from my mug

And eight shoulders

Crawling up the walls

Outside my crib, you

Stand cooing at my cooing

You, I love and breaking

At the hair strands, you

Graining from my hand in my

Stomach, you, my

Teeth cramping,

You, my forefather

And bejeweled woman

Card, postcard,

Hello, goodbye, and

See you later when I make up with

Him, you,

Where is the correlation

You,

And him,

Both running, correlation,

Maybe,

I’ll run, too, away from me and into

You, the better half, 

You, cream-of-the-crop,

You, a writer and horrible at

Telling me where I come from and who and why is he the way the who he is when you are such a bejeweled woman?
—

Blue Chynoweth, Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, Creative Writing ’27

Pledge of Allegiance

I don’t know when two ears and

One mouth became two

Mouths and one ear, but

I know what came from it

I know the static

I know the nubs

And I know hands and fingers and fingernails and feet, 

Like a memory,

Remembrance

Of the way I dug myself

Into a glossy mix of dirt and water and sand

And how I came out

A silhouette

Of my future purpose, carted by the cold air

Into a world where men are movement

How I came out

From the skin of a plum and pink oil paint and terracotta

Into the grey broiling of cement

As a rotting vibrancy made to prove

My state of being more than an imprint,

More than a balloon-ated looking glass into 

The caveman-slurried sludge of the

Truth—that

I was made by my mother and inside

And not fountain pen on paper

My state

Just then, I am deli meat, bare-knuckled

Out into a polyester flag that rubbed and rubs against me with its

Too slick and

Grained, ingrained into this one, living organism

Where, there! I am

Told that my hair against tree bark

Is a carving stone of moolah

But I pledge my allegiance to the earth

And my mother,

Where my legs kicked out in formation

And platformed against one single patch of hot cinder flesh

So that my soles could grind against the ground

Without any spare, gnawing fat

Yet America

Expects the cash cow–

Blue Chynoweth, Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, Creative Writing ’27

——————————————————————————————————————–

In the Palm of Fate

My love is like water in the hands of fate.

It finds the cracks and flows toward Mother Earth.

It plunges like waterfalls,

those great tears of water

that descend mercifully

to await the Sun and a new awakening,

upward, toward the sky.

Waters that flow and wait for sailboats,

and for sailing with the wind

that helps you breathe deeply,

happy that you are alive,

that you sail together,

while watery enchantments create a rainbow

that fades into the night

and goes to rest.

And I, weary, return to the palm of fate,

alone and without anyone,

with a prayer upon my lips.

Born for the word.

Born for fame.

Born for separation.

I bathe when the Sun gives way to the Moon,

until the riverbed gives way

and I awaken in the falling,

and so it goes,

again and again.

Maja Milojković was born in Zaječar, Serbia. She is the deputy editor at “Sfairos” publishing house in Belgrade, Serbia.  She is the vice-president of the association “Rtanj and Mesečev poetski krug”.  She is the author of two books: “The Circle of the Moon” and “Trees of Desire” She is the editor of the International Anthology “Rtanjski stihopevi” One of the founders of the poetry club “Area Felix” from Zaječar, Serbia and the editor of an international e-magazine for creative literature and culture “Area Felix”.

PMan as the Cause of Destruction

I feel something

 I ponder over it

 Something is approaching

 Something inevitable

 As if a great cataclysm

 That will sweep from the face of the Earth

 Our entire civilization

 A question comes to my mind

 Where will it strike from and why

 Watching people

 And today’s spirit of the times

 I doubt that humanity

 Is prepared for it

 Only a few will survive

 Again a thought troubles me

 After such destruction

 Will people help one another

 Or will they turn into wild beasts

 That will snatch from others

 Their last slice of bread

 This is a question

 That greatly troubles me

 Observing human behavior

 I suspect the latter option

 Today’s human being

 Is a perfidious egoist

 Focused only on himself

 Thinking he knows everything

 And understands this world

 But in reality

 He is a foolish and timid trickster

 Good people

 Are like a needle in a haystack

 I have no idea

 What kind of people they would become

 After such a total cataclysm

 Because of the growing evil among people

 Such an end will not pass us by

 I look with horror

 At humanity slowly collapsing

 Which more and more

 Brings everyone closer

 To total self-destruction

Yet in my heart

 I have great faith and hope

 That people will come to their senses

 And return to the path of truth

 They will cleanse their hearts and consciences

 Love will become the guidepost

 Minds will grow calm

 And hearts will begin to listen to their own voice

 A human being will be there for another human being

 A great return of humanity will come

 To the most important understanding

 Of the essence of humanity

Through their behavior today,

people themselves are calling forth total destruction.