Wrapping up the series, I wanted to share with you an original song I wrote about the greatest lost I’ve ever experienced. About a decade ago I was pregnant and in a dangerous divorce. In order to protect my child I placed her for adoption in the arms of a loving family. Over the years I have had thousands of emotions coursing through me regarding this, each one powerful, most of them painful, but also filled with love and gratefulness. When I feel these waves, I take it in, embrace its force, and then let it go out with the tide. This song is a moment in that wave, and is dedicated to my daughter who I love with all that I am.
Lyrics:
I’m usually known that I have a thing or three to say
I’ll weave you a picture and then again in crochet
I don’t shy from expression
And I run from oppression
So, I don’t know why I’m acting this way
But you’re the only thing
Where silence is my reverency
Still I wish I wasn’t weak
And I could find something to speak
Chorus:
And I keep thinking
I’m gonna find the words
The ones that you deserve
Perfect as you
But every time I try to find them
I seem to be denied them
Perfectly out of view
I am lost
In a fog
Of missing you
So, silence will have to do
The goal was always for me to stand in front of you
I’d take every hit and carry it all so you wouldn’t have to
Never mistake short poems for lack of might! Anannya Dasgupta’s short poetry is filled with the depth of complex emotions, and full story telling.
After Mary Oliver’s Uses of Sorrow
Used-up sorrow has no fresh edges but a blunt, gnawed up everyday surface. Darkness leeched out of its gift wrap is indistinguishable from this winter’s gloom. The only gift that there is – between bushfires and homelessness – is that the whole world has become our home in pain.
The Most Perfect Love
After the most perfect love came and went, I am as a page before a poem and after.
Poet:
Dr. Anannya Dasgupta Director, Centre for Writing & Pedagogy Associate Professor, Literature and Arts Krea University, Andhra Pradesh
Anannya Dasgupta is a poet and visual artist. She is the author of the book of poems Between Sure Places (2015)
Listen today to this bittersweet song from Acoustic Librarian. A song that embraces the timeless loss of a relationship.
I saw you dancing across the room; I smiled, but you did not see. Last month I would have been by your side; Now both of us are free.
When I’m alone, thing about you, Some memories are hard to forget. Time spent with you, the touch of your hand, A parting I did not expect.
You said it’s over between us, A dream, an illusion I’d thought would last. Now when I see you, everything’s changed, But it’s hard to let go of the past.
Often I wonder what went wrong; Was one of us to blame? Did what we had end far too soon, Or is this just part of the game?
Sometimes I wish I’d never known you; Missing you now is still hard to bear. Being together I took for granted; Now I’m all too aware.
Now at parties I’m with other people; Maybe you’re there, but I don’t look around. Still at times, loneliness haunts me, Even as part of a crowd.
Did our parting hurt you at all? Was I so easy for you to forget? Now I see you with someone else; And it’s too late for regrets.
Artist:
Acoustic Librarian is a songwriter, open mic performer and technology librarian. He lives in Orange County, California with his wife and their two cats.
Follow:
Follow him on Instagram, @AcousticLibrarian or Twitter, @AcousticLBR
Martina Rimbaldo’s enchantingly sorrowful poetry and photography fills you with many emotions. Her work makes the haunting of such emotions a beauty to behold.
Graveyard for never sent letters
One afternoon when the late summer smelled more like autumn,
she came to her room and took the pen, in order to make his wish come true.
She wrote a few lines on a heart – shaped paper . Lock of her hair, ring, and two photographs she placed inside the envelope, but feelings change ,she and him are not the same.
Now she thinks of letting go, where will her letter go ?
Still hidden in the drawer,
away from curious eyes .
Still the question : “What shall i do with it? “ Hovers around her mind as a vulture around the dying prey .
Burn it , throw it , send it …she doesn’t know , it is just that painful.
There should be a graveyard for never send letters,
I have heard, she maybe found its final resting place: „Museum of Broken relationships’ ‘.
Above the letter, now a showpiece left behind underneath the plexiglass ,one may read the sign :
“It was never a relationship, just an online thing ,it was not meant to be . I am sorry if we were stronger maybe …but still…it is not a guarantee…“.
Now she attempts to be strong , but tears betray her every time she finds herself alone, she attempts to be free she still holds on …..to thee… And she wishes silly things like ,to have a giant Teddy Bear, the ones she owns are not large enough, to pretend, to imitate the human shape.
She just does not want an empty bed …of loneliness…She needs a hug ,somebody who will warm up her freezing heart and body…
She has been alone for too long, but does anyone care at all…….??? 😦
black pearls
I guess some can not pass trought the darkness
Without the darkness glues herself on to them
They drag her around like the treasure chest filled with black pearls
If the chest is opened they end up on their neck
Suffocation becomes their end
For them pearls are precious friends
But all they bring is death …
Luna Lacrimosa
lunar silver rug is on the floor
her lifetime is here no more
river of tears hits the piano keys
creates a heartfelt melody
her life was taken so violently
she can’t find the open door
Earthbound by this place
still enslaved can’t escape
dark hides her cry
harm is done cant be undone
church bell chime midnight
drawes her last breath
drifted away
cant see why the stranger to her eye made her die
he was too blind to see his belief was a lie
dark hides her cry
harm is done cant be undone
heatspell brought her hell
summer waves please erase that few days
her faith is sealed forever
follows her to the final resting place
what have they done
blood on psychedelic neon starlights was her own
his cold-blooded eyes stare at her no more
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is a stillborn
Never took his first breath
Never opened his eyes
Never spoke a word
Never got a chance
Gave up at the start
Defeated by death
15 TEARS
white corridors hide the secrets once stored in your mind
as the only silent wittiness who saw it all
from Alfa to Omega
White marble slabs broke down
under the heavy steps of the angry ones
could not stop the pain
nothing was ever the same
Tell me who is to blame?
oh how sad it is
oh how they miss
even after all this years
fear still sleeps near
finding the sane reason in the senseless crime
is the hardest task
so we should not ask
WHY?
so many words left unspoken
from the lives that were taken
13 teardrops
13 blood-drops
falling down to feed the roses on 13 graves
but where are the 2 more who lost themselves
what happened to their souls
torments us all
Lord do you know how to mend our hearts
from all the brokenness
Please tell me you saved them all
that no one was lost in the infamous lake of fire
I’m offering you my strong embrace
to protect you, to save you from yourself
oh if only i could ….
oh if only i could stop you now ….
once and for all…
Artist:
Martina Rimbaldo is a 30 year old woman who lives and works in Croatia . She always wears a pen and a notebook in her purse in the case of a sudden inspiration in order to write it down . Her work is published in Nightingale &
Sparrow, Oddball Magazine, The sage cigarette magazine, Spillwords com .Thruly you, TheStreet Light press, Six word stories, Poems, and Poezija noći websites, and her artwork is published at weekly blog of Royal Rose Magazine, her photographs are published in Bleached Butterfly and Anti heroin chic. Loves to paint abstract paintings, read religious books, watch horror as well as old movies with Audrey Hepburn, Sharon Tate, Brigitte Bardot who happens to share her birth date and (over)thinks specially about death, what some people find morbid but not her, it is a part of life too. Her goal is to be a good person.
What a special tribute this poetry is by Frogg Corpse that was written for his brother. The expression of internal struggle while handling such a great loss is truly a powerful testament of complete and genuine love.
Eulogies in Quicksand
by: Frogg Corpse
For what I’ve grown to know
Numbness towards my end
All these wars inside,
Tearing my dreaming head
Quaking rites find comfort
Second guessing in the sand,
Separate the folly,
Of what makes us meet again;
Changing words of scripture
Writing our eulogies,
Hero I need you now
More for them, than it is for me,
I am counting down the time,
For what emotion has in store
I would wish it all away
To hear your final words.
In memory of Jeremy Robertson
My brother who took his own life.
April 25, 1976 – June 22, 2020
Poet:
Frogg Corpse is a poet, vocalist, and actor from Louisville Kentucky. Frogg’s poetry has been published by Artifact Nouveau, Cajun Mutt Press, Necro Magazine, and Louisville’s LEO Weekly. Frogg has performed poetry readings on the Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio w/ host Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram. As well as Bar Poetry, and Easton Book Festival’s Open-Mic: Halloween Edition. He has also read his work numerous times on Poetry Super Highway w/ Rick Lupert. Frogg has performed Live at Gonzofest during 2014-2016 which is a Louisville festival that honors writer, native, and journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Frogg has also been a contestant in 2020 for a Poetry Slam hosted by spoken word artist Suli Breaks.
Abiodun Peter Ekundayo fills our day with serene poetry. Take some time to read his beautiful work below:
Letter to a Traveller
I remembered scaling the fence of your house just to see you bathe with the pail on your head.
Through the walls of your house have I called
You to play with the stones on your roof as my emissary,
Whistling with the calls of your name behind my damp palms, and the shy knock on your door, requesting to see you.
Do you remember?
I came again tonight,
Under the rolling eye of the sky
Like a stagnant water set free,
To play under the rain like we do always.
I walked through the passage that boils like the brain of a lunatic,
Only to see it
Flowing like the blood of a new-born.
I whispered again tonight,
Through the knob of your door
With my flip-flop orchestrating my gait.
I called Papa ,
He told me you went on a journey,
To a place far away from home, through the Seven Junctures.
I asked Mama ,
She said you’ve danced well to the tune of the Sacred soil and you’ve been invited for a festival that might last forever.
I asked Bingo ,
He barked and looked at the sky, I looked too .
I saw the moon in its half, sailing on the sea of fluffy clouds and,
The Stars , charging the chagrin along with the tempest of clouds .
I searched your room, perhaps, you dropped a letter to tell your destination.
I rummaged,to get
nothing but the silence of a labyrinth
Spiced with seductive lime that garnished my eyes. You left without telling me.
Dear friend, come back soon ,
To tell me the stories of the Seven Junctures
And the festival of your ancestors.
Poet:
Abiodun Peter EKUNDAYO is an undergraduate student of the Federal University Oye Ekiti. A poet and an award winning essayist who was born and raised in Lagos. An indigene of Ogun State, Obafemi Owode Local Government Area. He loves fantasising and musing the moon ; he could also fit in for an actor. He plays football with passion and enjoys company of his friends likewise tranquility and music.
Meg Smith takes the memories of her loved one and holds it as a continuous gift. Her poem is a touching expression of the immense amount of love and goodness that stays even though there has been loss.
Laughing Bones
In memory of Lawrence Carradini
We share a joke before sleep.
I confess my lives
that stir in a dark well,
and we will still laugh.
I pray to his innocence.
I am the only one waking.
I light every candle for him.
I pray for us in our sleep,
where everything waxes whole.
Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer living in Lowell, Mass.
In addition to Ponder Savant, her writing has appeared recently in The Cafe Review, Trouvaille Review, The Horror Zine, Dark Dossier, Sirens Call, and many more.
Her poetry books, Dear Deepest Ghost, This Scarlet Dancing, Night’s Island and Pretty Green Thorns, and her short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor, have been published by Emu Books. They are available on Amazon.
Follow:
She welcomes visits at megsmithwriter.com, on Twitter @MegSmith_Writer, and Facebook.com/megsmithwriter.
In captivating rawness, Mike L. Nichols expresses his experience of losing his mother. His words pull you into an understanding of the loss of oneself within such grief.
Escort Service
I didn’t expect a weathered man my age wearing a Stetson hat, one thumb hooked in the pocket of filthy jeans, to come drifting from behind the rusted yellow dumpster in the back-alley of the Blue Moon Gentlemen’s Club. My grandfather, who drank himself to death twenty-five years before my birth, escorting me to the next plane when the bullet torpedoes quick through my whiskey soaked brain.
Who makes these assignments, some cherubic bureaucratic being? Probably not God. He’d have bigger things to see to, what with tsunami’s and hurricanes washing people away. Unattended toddlers tipping into irrigation canals. But it could be He purposely picks who the escort will be just for a laugh at the look on the new ghost’s face when a stranger floats into view. Why wouldn’t God have a sense of humor too? He must get bored, telling the same old jokes to the angelic host.
“A pirate stumps into a bar . . .”
As it was, I couldn’t stand by and watch Mom waste away, age two decades overnight and die after the last round of chemo was several months behind. Instead, I stood on the other side of her bedroom door while she sank, awash in a private sea of pain meds. Maybe she didn’t show at the Blue Moon out of resentment for all those days I hid doggy-paddling through bottles, drifting off on a stone pipe’s smoke. Leaving her before she could leave me.
Proximate C.O.D.
I followed the simple set of instructions promising power over death while offering nothing for the alternative. No means to cork the shuddering grief at graveside.
Dehydration’s the danger. If I can just plunge the nutrients and some water into her throat every 2 – 3 hours there’s cause to be hopeful. Life doesn’t feel like an illusion when I’m wiping the shit from her ass again.
Random stars twinkle coyly at me while I wait for some sympathetic or sagacious presence to shout back from the blackness that’s swallowing me.
Magic Number
The threshold of sunsets looms at 17,782. Against my will, I circle toward it. When I cross over, how can she be my mother any longer? Her death will be renewed. Her existence growing cobweb thin. In perpetuity younger than me. To be a child older than your mother must violate some rule.
I was driving yellow trucks across the carpet when I heard her hymn coming from the ironing room and for a moment I was frightened, believing an angel was singing. Drawn by the sound I stood and scuffed my feet across the carpet toward it. Fear of silencing her song held me peering in at the threshold.
I wasn’t listening whenever it was that I crossed the verge into adulthood. I missed the moment. I vaguely believed some secret knowledge would have been instantly imparted. An understanding greater than a child’s. A defining equation, maybe 16 – 48.7 > 17,782
When they cart away my coffin will all things be equal?
Poet:
Mike L. Nichols is a graduate of Idaho State University and a recipient of the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize. He lives and writes in Eastern Idaho. Look for his poetry in Rogue Agent, Tattoo Highway, Ink&Nebula, Plainsongs Magazine, and elsewhere.
December is upon us! We have Patricia Walsh carrying us through the beginning of this month with rich poetry to savor. Look below to sink your teeth into it!
Marble Rolling
Marble rolling along the floor, perfected Punctured preferences following suit, Walking in a heightened show, laid on thick Crying on bilateral shoulders an obvious trait, Called-upon to dusk the husk of a tired unison.
The creeping expense, poisoning the back pocket The high moral ground awaits its garden Showed with wanton recollection rebelled Cutting the alcohol with some sensical traits Toxic association swollen in a hard-won smile.
Raging against closing time, manners forthcoming Never holding a flashbulb to the ready-made, Caught on high, too fall to sunder, Access some arias till the recidivist squeaks Tinctured through inclusion of another’s aside.
Scarred as needed, read from the bottom This technological product behoves it’s gait. Not permitting this mistake, willed as a wanted Penny dropping into the well of softened need, The necessary blood siphoned through suffering.
Coffee dropped down to you, courteous, satisfying Wishing for the other side of the bar, clothed In the cloths of heaven, this easier time, Gone into pursuit of rarefied blood The darkened whistle unheard, as if wanted.
Trapped Nerve
Needing a seat like any other, price already paid. The acrostic beginnings burgeon on well The rancid oasis beats to the sound of the converse People wanting less to do with whole numbers.
Wanting more food, expenditure allowing Watered-down prizegiving strip-lighted away A turnover of friends meet and greet over snacks Burnt and activated a fad contrived.
Watching over rainfall, the height of fear, Aware of what is done, guilty in paperback, Mourning simple losses as if life depended Intercepted through sunlight, stranglehold overdone.
Ripped clothing over wealth, perennial fashion What is not understood is recycled by the book, Popularity in mid-road crushed in bed More useless the better, impressing the singular,
The criminal proceeding, high-wire jewellery Watched through competition, fingers in pies, Aggravated eyelashes a pulchritudinous mess, Fed rubbish through the gills a slotted burn,
Scruffy out of love, criminal affection aside, Fed every sort of theory at the going rate Persecution laughably easy, turned into affability Not seen or sought for, ever again,
Detransition
No mannerly dichotomy can save us now Karmafied baby dykes renege on form, The mangy dog stands guard, for free, Suited and booted, surveying the detectives This luxury goes forth to asuage the few,
Ample brains being cooked, fed upon, The unrequited feast dangles to oblivion, Selecting broken hearts to disintegrate The disinnocent going fast and easy with the times,
Streamlined blood, eating with another purpose Reflexive sorrow bends back all supreme Asked-for littering too glorious for some, Sized against airstrikes on another country Remaining in the news, God-feared like that,
Arrested improvement, go home and go to bed, Intrusive conversation relaxed and enjoyed Layered with accusations on how it was done, Rattled into invalidity into seats being taken,
The overly serious disposition, dispatched home. Finding massacres where the room does lie Novelty dye jobs erupt the binary position The better to offend, audition to high heaven Seeing to burn-out the disciplinary station
Corrugated Walls
Glorified sweetness comes home to squawk, The proper exits go through over written joy, Exhuming sadness that goes through publication Heard through corrugated walls, watching the money.
Giving glances a break, glossing over guidelines The blighted handwriting matched for its colour The ascertained corners run through your hair The holy vocals singing hallelujah gone through.
The foreigners speaking native tongues Gone home to suburbia, spectating where needed, Writing at a loss to weaken the fingers, No longer a typecast that determines the weight.
These defunct riches, faltered beyond recognition, Advertising the divorce on a solemn counter Clockwise, working perfume on tenterhooks Elusive maturity stands its own guard.
This disgusting currency, spent out of glory, Going through motions to fall once again, Priced out of the market by the entertainment The tin being needed again to be returned.
Needed to cry, whatever reason should suffice The dismantled lover stalls the merry dance, Hibernating from the scars of useless fashion Relating to, hardening the thin walls of guidance.
Poet:
Patricia Walsh was born in the parish of Burnfort, Co Cork,and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; Narrator International; Trouvaille Review; Strukturrus; Seventh Quarry; Vox Galvia; The Quarryman; Brickplight, The Literatus, and Otherwise Engaged. She has already published a chapbook, titled Continuity Errors in 2010, and a novel, The Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014. A further collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication in early 2021. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and is a regular attendee at the O Bheal poetry night in Cork city.
