Poetry

#finalpoems / [?]

Here

I cannot live here.
Either my heart is in the past
or my mind is set on the future.
Even my body shakes and jitters
in between dimensions.

Here is where the happiness lies,
but happiness is not tangible.
So I keep racing towards the next best thing
I can pick up and fill me.

But nothing fills me,
and there is an incinerator
where my stomach should be.

And each newfound passion I race towards
starts off as a beautiful, warm fire
that quickly turns to ash.

Ashes of former loves,
jobs of the resigned,
empty homes with no occupants.
Here lies the soot of all my dreams,
burnt to a crisp before they were achieved.

Gabrielle Buckner is a tiny mountain mama and avid writer based out of Lakewood, Colorado. When she is not a nice pup, Buckner spends her free time reading, traveling, and trying to see over all the tall folks at concerts.

#finalpoems / [?]

Our ship was the rental apartment you never fully settle

into, learning to move in the dark around
its flaws: the low bruising

ceilings, the hollow walls, the after-
taste of recycled air. In the beginning, what did we know

of confinement? Evicted from our only home, we grew
hanging gardens in the air shaft, neo-meat

in the replicator, grew nosy about our neighbours’
water consumption. Erase purchasing

power and private schools, the only
social stratification left is views

of unshielded skies. It’s hard to avoid
the biblical in this flying coffin. 1000 mainly

strangers cramped in a donut town orbiting
the engine. The first death was an accident, a lost

child unstrapped in acceleration bled
out into boxed air. We mourned

with stricter curfews and a new kind
of funeral rite for the unburiable dead.

Nisa Malli is a writer and researcher, born in Winnipeg and currently living in Toronto. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre and Artscape Gibraltar Point. Her first chapbook, Remitting, is forthcoming from Baseline Press in Fall 2019.

#finalpoems / [?]

Bury Me in Westminster Abbey

Bury me in Westminster Abbey,
Lay me in Westminster Abbey,
No great work I put in;
No heroic work I put in;
I feel a bang of pain,
I feel a refrain from gain
O heal me, my Lord!
And stick my name on board.
I cried and cried like a lamp
In the last stage of burning,
Yet the world remained untouched!
Like the publishers of big houses,
Big were mine dreams some day
Small art they now,
No mine I wish, no bee line of followers,
I wish, nor those who wish autographs.
All I need a little house,
And a smiling face of her,
Who cares for all those
Sufferings, all those agonies;
Let the world blow their trumpet,
Let not them publish my pen,
Let not them nominate me for Nobel,
For noble is my thought.
And I pen for her, who
Cares for my feelings,
For my mourning,
I shall cry no more,
No more will I groan,
No more shall I shed
The dew on grass blade;
I shall live a life of Lords; a cord
No more can chain me
As I chained all my morrows
And I celebrate these moments
As this soul evaporates they say
‘He is no more’,
So fulfill this last desire:
Burry me in Westminster Abbey;
Lay me in Westminster Abbey…!

Ziaul Moid Khan, a native of a green countryside named Johri in North India, writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry with equal love and ease. His writing has recently featured in Onion River Review (April 2019), The Criterion (Feb. 2019), Foliate Oak Literary Magazine (Feb. 2019), The Coachella Review‘s blog (Feb. 2019), KAIROS Literary Magazine (Dec. 2018), and Blue Lake Review (Nov. 2018). He teaches English at Gudha International School, Junjhunu, Rajasthan. Zia edits his school magazine Sunshine. He likes to spend his spare time with his beautiful receptionist-wife, Khushboo Khan, and cute two-year-old son, Brahamand. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zia.m.khan.9

#finalpoems / [?]

Fleeting Testament

At least let me make my will in peace.
Dead real estate over-worked, over-priced,
Help yourself freely to all my prickly shards,
Or folds of my wrinkles still unplumbed.
Though freely offered, will you ever take,
The fragments of fragrance that floral joy gave?
If tangible, substantial, is all that you want,

Out-dated gadgets that I didn’t use,
To dear, squabbling heirs, I bequeath.
Unbought paint, that layered not my skin,
Fake smiles, or lashes that never got to bat,
If my stingy views you so despise,
With months spent moaning on your precious loss,
Why complain now? ’coz you can well afford,

Greased fast food vouchers I chose to forgo,
Discreet high heels bought, but decided not to wear.
Tempting lottery pools I chose to ignore,
All justified complaints didn’t bother to make,
All cheeky cars that couldn’t cut across,
All fake sugary smiles I didn’t point out
Petals of my memories to whom can I leave?

Gratuitously Gracious

All I resisted, bits of sugared grease,
Sterile smiles, were to coldness sacrificed.
Take your first pickings of misfortune’s cards,
Tunes in icy showers that were not hummed.
Trail after tears; get trapped in latticed lake?
Embark on experience, that was secluded cave,
My memory’s phantom you’ll have to haunt.

Stirred with regret, blues’ bitter juice,
Sipped with a petal of love’s lost wreath.
All the lost grease when my ego got thin.
Scraped by despair, my favourite door-mat.
My material peelings why fight to reprise,
Gleefully given to those with no sauce.
Why degrade granny when you fly abroad?

Flashy fake critics I preferred not to pare.
News sheets I didn’t iron, or fold just so.
Free perfume samples couldn’t bother to take,
All folks I didn’t tell how much they were a bore.
Wily women didn’t rebuff with make-up dross,
All strolls I didn’t take or walkabouts,
Mid dripping seconds that fall through time’s sieve.

Of Indian origin, Sultana Raza has a Master’s degree in English Literature. Her articles (on art, film, and humanitarian issues) have appeared in Flick Feast (UK), PopOptique (USA), Beyond Bree (an American MENSA newsletter), the Peter Roe Series (Tolkien Society UK), apertura, ensemble, Le Jeudi, Wort.lu, and paperjam in English and French. Raza’s poems have appeared in London Grip (UK), Literary Gazette (USA), Caduceus (Ed. Yale University, USA), Muse India, The New Verse News, and Catch and Release (Columbia’s online journal). Her fiction has received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train. Heaven’s Gate is due to be published in Entropy. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sultana.raza.7

#finalpoems / [?]

An Idea

I never planned for the end.

It came anyway.

And perhaps because I was not responsive, it came three times:
  .  Fire.
  .  Mudslide.
  .  Divorce.
And swiftly carried away all I had, loved, knew. But left me. . . to do what? With what?

Are these the stages of grief, and am I mourning myself; already gone yet still here?

I never planned for the end.
  .  It will come anyway.

  .  When it does, put my ashes in the sea: return me to Start: Water. Motion. Breathless. An idea.

Christina Gessler holds a PhD in American history. She specializes in the private writings of 19^th century American women, which mostly means she can read faded handwriting in a crumbling diary and piece together the story of a life that once was. Her poems have been published in Arrowheads, and Spectrum.

#finalpoems / [?]

LAST WORDS

i have a question

do you believe in god?

where is my clock?

LSD 100 micrograms I.M.

i got lost.

why that’s the last thing i’ll do!

consummatum est

fuck it
didn’t want to go
to heaven anyway

je me’en vais chercher
un grand peut-etre

it’s very beautiful
over there

tomorrow
i shall no longer be here

all for her

Euginia Tan is a Singaporean writer who writes poetry, creative non-fiction and plays. She enjoys cross-pollinating art into multidisciplinary platforms and reviving stories. Contact her at eugtan@hotmail.com.

#finalpoems / [?]

downfalls

we love the downfall.

we sail a thousand islands, knowing
our ships are capable of being swallowed by the ocean.
some of us see the lighthouse,
some of us die seeing the lighthouse.

we fly to the stars, knowing
our rockets are capable of being abandoned by gravity.
some of us reach the moon,
some of us die with the sun.

we give pieces of ourselves to others, knowing
our hearts are capable of being broken by everyone.
some of us receive happiness,
some of us die despite happiness.

we are doomed to love downfalls,
but maybe we love the climb to the brink
more than the freefall.

Benita J Rosalind is a creative soul based in New York from Jakarta, Indonesia. She penned her first poem in December 2015 and now, shares her work with her small but dear to heart audience at @GirlCriesWolf on Instagram. Her collection of creative work can be viewed at her website: http://benitajrosalind.com.

#finalpoems / [?]

Out of the Corner

Out of the corner of my eye,
a demi-moon, a butterfly;
and yet, an empty sky.

A bumblebee, a little lie,
a passing cloud, a dream gone by;
an empty sky.

Into silence, every sigh;
no more you, no more I.
Now, an empty sky.

Fran Shaw, Ph.D. is a university professor and an award-winning author whose books include Notes on The Next Attention, Writing My Yoga: Poems for Presence, 50 Ways to Help You Write, and Lord Have Murphy: Waking Up in the Spiritual Marketplace. For more information and excerpts, go to www.franshawbooks.com.

#finalpoems / [?]

the last tenderness

before my body blooms
from the earth
before our stardust
finally goes home

won’t you
lay with me awhile?

Katie Simpson is a writer and photographer based in San Francisco. Her work has been featured or coming out soon in Quiet Lightning, HitRecord’s Body Book, and Eastern Iowa Review. When not writing, she loves travelling and people watching. You can find her online at: https://twitter.com/honest_creative.

#finalpoems / [?]

Brother

I want my words to pierce your skin
because they never left an impression on you.
I want you to see the madness within me and know
that you had some part in this.
Did you honestly think that I would be undamaged by your cruelty?
I want to blame you,
blame you for not being able to find love
for not having self-worth.
God, I want to hurt you the way you hurt me.

It’s impossible.
You never will be hurt by me.
I love you.
I hate myself because I love you.
I wish I could just let it be, but you are my brother.
The person who should have always been there.
But you wouldn’t forget the time I lied.
Wouldn’t forgive my childhood transgressions.
You made yourself into what you are and took part in my own formation.
Our relationship summed up in a picture.

You, standing above me,
me, unhappy on the ground.
You, a golf club in your hand raised high above your head,
me, nearly crying because
everything comes so easy to you and I stumble into failure.
I want to blame you. I can’t.

Kate R: Living and exploring in Missouri, USA I spend my free time writing, exploring with my friends, and playing Bocce Ball with my family. I recently had a near death experience which left me wanting more out of life and spurred me to get my work out there. This is my first publication and I look forward to many more.

#finalpoems / [?]

The Wetness of My Pillow

Every time others began the chitchat, the piss race between kids,
Gracefully I put a smile as if I had any idea.
Ohhh –I had them, fully in flesh and bones, walking and talking,
But not existing for me –in my world.
Feeling of an unending need. There they were in chock-full of quietness,
Standing as a wall against me. Don´t stare at me, see me –the still cries don´t bother,
I am used to that.
Nights pass by and my pillow is still not dry.
Enough, I say, and I question whether they will ever transform into
My innermost delusions.
Holes in my bones, aching every time I run towards…
HOLD MY HAND, AND WALK BY ME.
–NO!
You´re alone by yourself.
Safety net I never had, the fish I was in the vast ocean of absence,
Swimming against the mainstream school of fish. No doubt I ever grow to be like others,
Full with memories happy enough for me but not for them.
Never allowing myself to show the emerald blood flows through my heart,
Keep wrapping itself in the gauze of denial, dripping continuously to my pillow.
Longing of any memory fills my sad void, and like a small child who wets the bed,
I will wet my pillow tonight, chasing them in my dreams, waiting for a time they need me
Just like I did and still do.

27 year old Yenigün Batu was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Everything started with her telling a made up story to her sister, Yazgülü why she was not allowed to play with Yenigün ́s toys. From then on, the storyteller awakened in Yenigün. She created stories throughout her whole life but she was not able to share them with anyone for a long time. This is an opportunity she starves for a really long time. Last year, she obtained a Master ́s Degree in English and American Studies. Her thesis deals with the role of fate and gods in A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. She has interests not only in literature and culture but also in philosophy and theology. Currently, she is searching for an answer to her existence and chasing her Muse.

#finalpoems / [?]

I love you.
You are the One.

Margarita Serafimova was shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2017, Summer Literary Seminars 2018 Poetry Contest, and the University Centre Grimsby International Literary Prize 2018; long-listed for the Erbacce Press Poetry Prize 2018 and the Red Wheelbarrow 2018 Prize, and nominated for Best of the Net 2018. She has three collections in Bulgarian. Her work appears in Agenda Poetry, London Grip, Trafika Europe, European Literature Network, The Journal, A-Minor, Waxwing, Orbis, Nixes Mate, StepAway, Ink, Sweat and Tears, HeadStuff, Minor Literatures, Writing Disorder, Birds We Piled Loosely, Orbis, Chronogram, Noble/ Gas, Origins, miller’s pond, Obra/ Artifact, Blue Mountain Review, Califragile, TAYO, Shot Glass, Opiate, Poetic Diversity, Pure Slush, Harbinger Asylum, Punch, Tuck, Ginosko, etc. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/MargaritaISerafimova/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel.

#finalpoems / [?]

Gay

I’m as gay as cranberries, apples and limes
Fresh fruit like peaches in the check-out line
Pink lemonade and pecans and cheese
Fresh pineapples loaded with seeds

Roses and mildew and cows in the field
Gerbils and oxen and the summer yield
Apricots, lemons, blueberries, figs
Hubcaps and lightpoles and music and twigs

Dimly lit beer gardens where we dine
Where patrons smoke and caterpillars climb
Where icy lakes freeze with violet snow
And bicyclists sing wherever they go

The reaper with his sickle
The count eating a pickle
The castle in the hills
Telephones, books, windowsills

Octagon houses swaddled in night
Big leaping rainbows across the bight
And sheep and mist and herbs and shrooms
Bones rattling in sealed tombs

Courage and fear and voluptuousness
Going to sleep, giving a kiss
Running a race all the way to the moon
Dying in droves, shining the spoon

Opening your heart to a friend who cares
Stomping bugs that leap through the air
Cities with lots of bright lights
Visions of paradise on hot summer nights

Friends and music and beer and clothes
Finches and hewels and eagles and crows
Pink and black and purple between
Taking a hike, eating a bean

The seasons as they turn and shrink
Early-risers begging for a drink
Goats with five eyes and oceans with feelings
Hallowed thurifiers and dirty dealings

Cocaine posing as salt
Natural disasters, the San Andreas Fault
Quantum theory, the girl with the pen
All of the numbers—even ten

Life behind my eyes, fading and gone
Ocean breezes and singing along
The winding road, crooked and free
And all the branches on all the trees.

Alex Witonsky is a writer from Smithtown, New York. You can find a story of his at GravelMag.com. He likes mushrooms especially.

#finalpoems / [?]

Tuning

Every time I step on that
old floor you half-way fixed,
my big toe finds the bent nail
not quite hammered in
And I think of cursing you
but of course I don’t.
Can’t take the bad karma
at this stage of life.

So I smile
remembering your moxie
and your half-baked skills
and the family you have to support
and I think I’ll put a rug there,
to cover the hazard, but I don’t.
Can’t find one to spare.

And I think of my half-baked compassion
and how I’ll get from here to anywhere
and I think of my first hero
Bodhi Dharma, crossing continents
to carry a message of import,
waiting years to be heard,
then saying, there’s nowhere to go.

“To dwell in the three realms
is to dwell in a burning house.
To have a body is to suffer.”
To step on a bent nail barely counts
unless it helps me remember
what really matters. We’re here, then not.

quote from The Zen Teachings of Bodhi Dharma, translated by Red Pine, p 5.

Mary Newell lives in the lower Hudson Valley. Her chapbook, TILT/ HOVER/ VEER is forthcoming from Codhill Press in January 2019. Her poems were published in BlazeVox, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, Spoon River Poetry Review, Hopper Literary Magazine, Earth’s Daughters, Written River, About Place, etc. She has also written reviews and essays, including “Shades of Melancholy: Darker Moods in Dickinson’s Poetry” in Melancholia: Hinge as Innominate Limina, by Will Alexander, Heller Levinson, and Mary Newell. Dr. Newell (MA Columbia, BA Berkeley) received a doctorate from Fordham University in American Literature and the Environment. She has taught literature and writing at Fordham University, West Point, and other colleges. Website: https://manitoulive.wixsite.com/maryn

#finalpoems / [?]

we were told an end was never really an end.
that time is an infinite line whose wingspan embraces before and after and everything in between.
i always walked this line like a tightrope,
hopeful
but
never really quite certain of where i’d end up.

death skinned her knee on the sidewalk today.
i gave her some antiseptic and a bandage.
i asked her what she was doing in my neighborhood. she said she’s taking people home.
she said mother earth is in hospice.
it’s better this way.

death knocked on my door.
she’d bled through the first bandage.
i gave her another.
i asked her if it will hurt.
she said we would not feel.
she said our bodies will know what to do.
she said our eyes will close to this lifetime and open again in another.

death sat down at my kitchen table.
i poured her a cup of tea.
i asked her where we will go
and what will we become.
she said we will transcend into omniscience.
that our existence will be everything and nothing all at once.
she said we will be liberated of earthly limitations.
that we’d dissolve into the sands of time and exist behind the barricades of an hourglass.
she said once the sands have run through
and after our souls have become weary
that we would be scattered into the sky
swaddled in darkness and
christened by light.

hannah whalen was born in a small town in sacramento, california in august of 1999. in her spare time she enjoys writing poetry and prose pieces, creating art, thrifting and up-cycling clothing, spending time with friends and family and playing with animals. she is currently in her second year at portland state university pursuing a degree in social sciences.

#finalpoems / [?]

Contemporaries

I am at this moment a fly in amber honey slow in the hot car
humidity as breathing through mittens
or clenched fists
or arms held high to protect
or burying your face in your pillow each night
counting slowly to seven

inhale one two three four exhale count to eight.

As a child I pressed my hands to the space between eyelid and temple when faced with something frightening, blinders.

When they bulldozed it all to the ground I sat facing it and cried.
Mine and Danny’s names scratched into the concrete at the base and now that’s all that’s left of that life: the nursery gone, the house, the home, the neighbor boy who hid in tall grasses crashed his car on the road I drive daily.

Our flag has garroted itself in the breeze and now from the pole at the edge of our garage only the red and white are visible; in a moment I’ll leave the car lift it from its mount wind the tail over and complete the task that’s started, brace to fold it shut before even a corner dips to touch the ground.

Jill Bergantz Carley is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet living in rural Northern California.  Her work is forthcoming from OPOSSUM, Silver Needle Press, Collective Unrest, and elsewhere this spring.  She lives online at jillbergantzcarley.com.