Corsica 

France valued you at a price, and Genoa prospered from your sale.

Your isle of beauty took France’s lustful glances, as Genoa for gain, sold her costly Cabochon.

Your beautiful bay and dramatic cliffs caused so much contention for your dowry.

Palombaggia’s white sands are lovers’ basking points, where dreams and many fantasies come to fruition.

Rocky coves, diverse plains and mountainous interiors attract every romantic adventurer seeking your atmospheric and fragrant scrubland.

You are the pearl between Italy and France!

The very beautiful bride between, guarded jealously by France’s over-protective all seeing eye.

Bonaparte first inhaled you at infancy! 

On Saint Helena’s very distant bland shores, he nostalgically christened you his childhood paradise.

In his depths of longing, he craved and craved for your fragrant earth, like one who craved for his departed Josephine!

Joseph C Ogbonna is a widely published poet, former high school teacher and an amateur historian. Some of his many works have been published in Spillwords Press, North of Oxford, Waxpoetry Magazine, Borderless magazine, Micromance magazine, PoetryXhunger and in at least two dozen anthologies. He is also an Amazon International best selling co-author.

Good morning with good wishes

By

Manik Chakraborty. 

Good morning with good wishes

The colorful morning light,

Let the earth rise with laughter again

Let the blackness be erased.

Flowers will bloom with the song of birds

Bees will run,

Flying in confusion

They will steal the honey from the flowers

The wind will blow, the sky will be colored

With the murmur of the river,

Nature will laugh again

With the song of the fisherman

The Loss Of Words

He kept them once,

in the lining of his coat,

folded like letters never sent,

warm from the friction of thought.

They used to come easy,

like rain that knew his name,

each drop a confession

he could hold without trembling.

Now they rot in the corners

half-formed,

chewed down to bone,

their meanings siphoned off

by something with a quieter hunger.

He trades syllables for silence,

line by line,

until even his voice forgets

how to reach him.

There is a page

always a page

waiting like a witness

that will not intervene.

And somewhere beneath the ruin,

a single word claws upward,

bloated, unrecognizable,

begging to be written

before it dies again.

Windmills

The wind

keeps trying to explain itself

to the same crooked blades

and they nod

like they understand

but all they really do

is turn

grinding the sky

into smaller pieces

until evening

falls apart quietly

behind them

The Affair I Never Had

I remember her
like a place
I never went

a street
with all the lights on
and no one home

we passed once—
or maybe we didn’t

but something in me
kept waving

like a curtain
caught in a window
that was never opened

and even now
there’s a silence
I visit sometimes

where she almost speaks

and I almost answer

Leon Drake is a Toronto based poet whose work has been published in print and online. He lets his writing speak for him. For art is the best side of us.

In the quiet of my restless mind,

Dreams awaken, undefined.

Like shadows dancing on the wall,

They rise, they fade, they softly call.

I walk alone, yet feel no fear,

For hope itself is always near.

A fragile light within my soul,

Reminds me I am still whole.

Though nights are long and skies are grey,

My dreams refuse to drift away.

They whisper gently, calm and deep:

“You were not born to simply sleep.”

The Owl

                                             Between the intermission of sunlight and shadow is the eccentric owl,
              A paradoxical symbol perched on its prairie horse at the mythological rodeo,
                        Adorned with a grim grimace and stoic gaze,
                                     Embracing and embodying wisdom,  knowledge and intellectuality conceived and perceived as 

                                   teachers or seers, per nocturnal personality,
                       Especially due to their supernatural reportage with Greek goddess Athena, in Greek Mythology Athena, the Goddess of

                                                    Wisdom, was embodied by an owl, 

                              said to have sat on her blind side to help her see the truth better, underworld harbinger of medieval spirit literature,
 they are also embodiments of death,  darkness, mystery, and
Tragedy frequently showcased in Shakespeare’s literature, notably Julius Caesar,  

                                             as omens of death or calamity,
possessing dualistic qualities of wisdom and warning hence be weary of their company that 

                                                        proffer a complex tapestry of celebratory elasticity and foreboding fraternity…
They can also be romantic allusions symbolizing solitude and introspection much like  pensive poetic bards

                                                 conjuring up missiled missives as lymphatic literary marmalades…  

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–

Whispers from the Heart 

I wish to touch—just once—

your words, 

your melodies,

and all that is miraculous.

I wish to listen—just once—

with my whole consciousness,

to the heartbeat of every single letter 

you utter. 

And if you have no objection,

I wish to lift upon my fingertip

that single drop of the universe

lingering upon your lips. 

Then, if you choose to erase 

my blooming world,

I will vanish without a trace—

like the sunshine of the night… 

Those Who Depart 

Those who depart— 

do they truly dissolve into darkness, 

becoming utterly devoid of light?

Those who depart never return, 

yet they leave behind their pen, 

resting beside the throes of death.

Tucked away in the hem of a tattered 

sheet, they conceal all the strange 

wonders of their lives.

They move a little further ahead, 

even though there remains nothing left 

to look back upon.

Those who depart—in some other world, 

they fill the naked, blank 

expanse of white paper… 

Yatti sadeli 

Poet 

Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi of Qatar.

I have the opportunity to review a powerful work that portrays women as a quiet but unstoppable force. This poem is from my friend, the talented and respected poet Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi of Qatar.

The poem

By Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi:

She Who Walks with Light

She moves with time, yet time cannot hold her.  

Through dust and doubt, she gathers her strength.  

From pain, she shapes resilience.  

From hope, she kindles fire.  

She honors yesterday  

And rises stronger from every fall.  

She does not wait for the dawn—  

She carries the light within  

And creates tomorrow  

With every brave step. 

****

Poetry Review: 

“She Who Walks with Light” 

Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi of Qatar.

Review 

By Yatti Sadeli

⚘️This poem is a portrait of a woman as a quiet but unstoppable force. 

In 10 lines, the poet successfully encapsulates an inner journey from wound to fire, from falling to creating tomorrow. 

The title “She Who Walks with Light” can be read two ways: she walks with the light, or she walks as the light. 

The line “carries the light within” emphasizes the latter. The light is not borrowed from the dawn; it is innate, which she chooses to keep burning. 

Conclusion “She Who Walks with Light” is a short, powerful poem. It doesn’t lament the darkness, it doesn’t glorify the wound, it doesn’t wait for a savior. It notes: a woman who makes peace with her fall and chooses to light herself will always be one step ahead of time. 

Each line feels like an affirmation that can be taped to a mirror—not to be read once, but to be remembered whenever doubts arise.