A poem is a thought of flowers near frost, dangling stiff, bitten by the vampire teeth of late fall, hanging desolate near dusk from a pot on a patio porch a yellow light bulb beaming conspicuously outward over-chilled yellow green glazed grass. Snow now, the Aster deep purple, falls last.
A Migrant’s Empty Cup
This quiet Sonoran Desert. The sun is going down, touching my burnt cow leather skin for the last time, with death-piercing final touching. There is no water in this migrant’s cup. Ideate the power, the image of my soul. The only mystery that remains. Decamp me from this lasting hell. Hear that Turkey Vulture cry, carrion flesh mine— My intelligence was once vital now lapses into last fantasies of red blood-covered in guilt scenarios. My stolen Niki sneakers from Salvation Army, Chicago, multi-colours— traveled multi-states. So many meaningless miles. Ashamed, I bloat, decompose bones to stone. Memories: Venezuela, Chicago, New Mexico, California, and Arizona.
Night- time Glitter
I have seen through the nighttime glitter of wild women, the ways of their words, the deception of their actions, the slang of foolishness, toned down monetary voices. Chop suey, 24-hour restaurants finish the nights.
Those late-night bars, cosmetic faces, early morning kitty calls. Touching the males on the high thigh plain places as a starter plan, chopped through the thicket hairy brush, of privacy reflected on my journey briefly and thrust straight forward, mask of fools, no jewelry simple smile, subterfuge face of a clown. A night journeyman working in the trade.
Lady Melissa, all those who fell flat before you praising your prayers, my joys. They follow fool’s gold, the folly. The lack of worth in the secret cave. I have grown fond of the closed-in tunnels where darkness resides, moisture drips, and cave walls drop in. Our minds, those minds, their minds, are catalysts.
I’m no longer the private collector of midnight trash. No trophy, man of lady undies, tucked jacket pockets on my way out.
I no longer see closed mine shafts, dreams of clouds, those deceptive prospectors, gray beards, gray hair, ageing, lonely, and poor. Drop into an undeclared cave of poetic wonder only to find iron pyrite. Come join me, ex-lovers. The rivers of my mind leave the gold panning behind. Torch my guts open again with Valentine’s Day. Confectioner’s sugar celebrates the night.
Hunter of Deep, Calinda
You, Calinda, of wood and metal, are an oyster pearl of the Greek sea. You are a drunken disco dancer of beauty with charms around your neck. You are a solo storyteller on the platform of ocean waves. Your stained imprint leaves crossword puzzles on the performance of strangers. You only show your dynamic hula-hoop movements— shapes, curves, when fishing boats pass by. Calinda, you took your sensuous sex nature, barbed, cemented in the skin of sailors’ testicles. Then comes the morning purge. Your salted tongue wedged in the wounds of every victim. Then you wonder why, wonder why again. In half silence, you cry.
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart Prize nominations and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 336-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication.
His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence “Citta’ Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis” XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, “If I Were Young Again.” Remember to consider Michael Lee Johnson for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
“Hey, Steve!” Brad hailed him from halfway down the steps of the college library. “Man, you look hacked off. Sharon still holding out on you?”
That was what Brad would inevitably think of. “No, nothing like that. But damn right I’m hacked off. Wahlgren’s latest assignment, I just can’t seem to get a handle on it. Why do we have to study all this historical garbage, anyway?”
Brad adjusted his glasses, as if to see Steve better. “Guess you need to know how political institutions developed in the past before you can understand modern ones.”
“Yeah, maybe. But this French Revolution stuff! Even they’ve moved on from there. They stopped guillotining people years ago, and this Macron character seems a pretty smooth operator.”
“Maybe we haven’t anything to learn from the French. Then again, maybe we have.”
Damn Brad, always sitting on the fence. “How are you making out with this?”
“Slow, but it’s coming along. And it’s worth a lot of marks, so I need to give it my best shot. Hey, tell you what, as a friend.” Brad held out a notebook. “Here’s a good reference, it’s in there –” he indicated over his shoulder “– up on the third floor. From 1965, but it’ll give you a start.”
Steve copied the reference down. “How d’you find this?”
“From Dismal Denise, no less.”
“Didn’t know you were such buddies.”
“Nah, heard her talking to Katrina and Elle about how she’s nearly pulled the assignment together. She’s got smarts, even if she is the shape of a basketball.”
Steve laughed and shoulder-punched Brad. “Well, thanks, man. Do the same for you, one of these days.”
Brad was right, this was a key assignment, an overview of European political systems between 1775 and 1850. And with a lot more Ds and Cs than As and Bs, he couldn’t afford to screw this one up. No time like the present. He climbed the library steps, took the elevator to the third floor.
#
After an hour and a half, he was mainly aware of the depth of his ignorance. Luckily, the author had avoided quoting sources in foreign languages, but it was still hard going. He needed some more ideas. Brad might help, but he was no smarter than him, just a tad more conscientious. His class paper wouldn’t shake the Earth either. He had to find something better.
Recalling Dismal Denise Durocher’s name brought her image into his mind. Brad’s comment was a tad unfair, even though – short, plump and owlish behind thick spectacles – she wasn’t anyone’s idea of a sex symbol.
So she’d almost completed the assignment. He knew it would be good; she was one of the two top students on the course. But why on earth would she want to help him when he’d scarcely given her the time of day?
Desperate situations called for desperate remedies, though. That evening, he spruced himself up and hit the student hangouts.
At the third one, he found her sitting on the edge of a group, a glass of Coke before her, smiling nervously at the general joshing that passed for conversation. He took a seat near her¸ nodded and smiled. She smiled back, and he slid to within easy talking distance.
The obvious topic of conversation was their course, and their talk flowed smoothly. She was smart and well-informed, and what she had to say was surprisingly interesting. Maybe she was making an effort; she wouldn’t often get the chance to spend time with one of the jocks. They turned away from the group, forming a tête-à-tête.
Their conversation shifted toward the personal, and he became aware of her eyes, vibrant blue behind her lenses, focused tightly on his. Her hair, dusky blonde – previously, he’d have called it mousy – shone palely under the subdued lighting. Her teeth when she smiled, and she smiled often, were even and pristine white, her lips full and pink. Her shape – how did the word voluptuous spring into his mind? Surreptitiously, he checked his phone, astonished to find it was after ten-thirty.
“I’d better be going, Steve,” she said. “You know what tomorrow’s schedule’s like.”
His mouth turned down in disappointment, and she noticed. “But –” she hesitated, casting her eyes down “– if you like, you could walk me back to the dorm.”
When they were out of view of the others, he took her hand. She moved close, and he put his arm around her waist. The outcome of the evening was certain, and his groin tingled at the thought of sex with Desirable Denise.
Her room, clean and tidy except for the litter of books and papers on her desk, was as anonymous as any other on campus. She drew the shades, turned and stepped toward him. He bent his head, and their mouths met in a full kiss.
Then their hands were everywhere, releasing buttons and zips and hooks until they stood naked. Tentatively, she touched his erection, drawing in a sharp breath. “Oh, you’re so big! Please be gentle.”
It probably wasn’t her first time, because she didn’t cry out with pain when he entered her. Wide-eyed and smiling beneath him, she was beautiful, and he cursed himself for not noticing that earlier. All too soon his passion surged and overflowed, and he collapsed panting across her generous body.
“Oh, my God!” she breathed. “That was great. How was it for you?”
“Awesome.” He’d never spoken a truer word.
They lay in silence. Presently her breathing became soft and regular, a slight trill signaling that she’d fallen asleep.
Her papers are on her desk. Among them, no doubt, was the class paper she’d nearly finished. If he was quick and quiet…
Moving cautiously in the near-darkness, he located a sheaf of typescript. He carried it and his cellphone to the bathroom cubicle. The first words he read told him he’d picked the right thing.
Photographing the sheets was the work of less than a minute, and not even a click of the shutter to disturb her. He re-stacked the pages and returned them to her desk.
Denise stirred, murmuring “Steve?”, her voice clogged with sleep. He turned to her, and she stretched out her arms, lacing them around his neck as he bent over her. The sight of her ripe breasts spilling from the covers did the rest.
“I’d better go now,” he said afterward. Her moue of disappointment made him add, “I’ll see you after classes tomorrow.” That would give him time to invent an excuse. Brad and the other guys would rib him mercilessly if they found out he was dating D.D.
#
Which excuse he duly gave, pangs of conscience stinging him as he lied to the trusting girl he’d seduced under false pretenses. Her face crumpled, her “Oh!” of dismay cut short by a sob. She turned away abruptly and hurried off, head down. Crimson-faced at his duplicity, he fled the scene too.
In his room, he checked the images on his phone. Exactly what he wanted: clear, concise with some nice turns of phrase. Written from a French perspective, but old Wahlgren would like that. He’d need to alter it a little: change the sequence, simplify the language, rewrite the opening and conclusion, maybe introduce a few grammatical errors. He pulled his laptop close and set about transcribing.
The work involved in revising the paper brought home to him what he’d had to have done to write a decent one from scratch. Was he really cut out for this course? But any other major would be at least as hard going. He submitted his work a day before the deadline, confident he’d get a B; an A was wishful thinking.
#
A week later, a message popped up on his phone; the Dean of Faculty wished to see him. Probably a routine matter, though it seemed no one else in his class had been called.
He found not only the Dean, but Dr. Wahlgren, and a woman he didn’t know. She wasn’t introduced to him.
The Dean led off. “Mr. Canfield, you’re probably wondering why I called you here. Dr. Wahlgren will explain.”
Wahlgren cleared his throat, spoke in his familiar reedy voice. “I read your recent class paper with interest, Mr. Canfield. I certainly wasn’t aware you were so fluent in French.”
“Ah…” He couldn’t think of anything to say. What the hell was Wahlgren talking about?
“Oh, please don’t insult our intelligence by pretending surprise. Your paper is at least seventy-five percent plagiarized from a standard French text on the subject. The language is difficult, as French academic work often is. So I give you credit for linguistic skills, if not for originality, or honesty.” His voice became severe, “However, we’re not here to exchange pleasantries. No doubt the Dean has something to add.”
The Dean’s sonorous tones pronounced sentence. “Plagiarism is, as you know, one of the worst academic crimes. In plain terms, it is theft of ideas. Yours is among the most blatant cases imaginable. When Dr. Wahlgren reported the matter, I felt obliged to inform the Board of Regents, who will meet later this afternoon to decide whether you should be permitted to continue studying at this institution. I personally think it very unlikely that you will. Have you anything to say in your defense?”
“N-no, sir,” he croaked.
“In that case, you may go.”
#
He stumbled out, almost tripping on the carpet. A maelstrom of disconnected thoughts swirled through his mind as he threaded his way across campus, gradually settling into one question; how had Dismal Denise expected to get away with copying her paper from a French textbook?
Brad intercepted him as he crossed the lawn in front of the cafeteria. “Bad luck, Steve. See you scored an F. I scraped a C. Only one A, and guess who? Starts with ‘D’.”
He didn’t want to hear this. But what was going on, for Christ’s sake? How come Wahlgren didn’t pick her work as plagiarism too?
He took refuge in the library, in a corner he hoped would be unfrequented. But after a while, the student he least wanted to see appeared. He might have guessed she’d still be studying at this hour.
He made an effort to be polite. “H-hi, Denise. Congratulations on your A.”
Her clear blue eyes penetrated him like laser beams; her tone of voice bore six inches of frost. “Thank you. It helps if you do the work yourself.”
“Er…”
“The grapevine here is very efficient, especially for juicy morsels like a student plagiarizing a major assignment. Then, it didn’t take much to work out how you got hold of my notes on that chapter of Maillot’s book. I read French pretty well, so it’s easy for me to type up what I wanted as I translate. My real paper was on my PC. And you were unlucky that Wahlgren knows French, too.”
She allowed her face to display a trace of a smile. “If you’d asked me in good faith, I would have helped you, but instead you decided to play a trick – no, two tricks – on me. Not very clever ones, though. I suppose I should be angry, but I just had to laugh when I heard.”
She shifted the book she carried to her other hand. “Goodbye, Steven. I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you around here again.”
Chris Morey was born at Cowes, Isle of Wight, England and educated at University College London. He has done a wide range of jobs and community projects. He’s widely-travelled, and enjoys performance art and reading. He has been writing creatively since 2015.
I press my forehead against the cold oval of the airplane window, hoping the glass can numb what’s burning inside me. My business trip is cut short, though that’s not the headline. The real headline came in an email from a friend: Your fiancé cheated on you with your best friend. Three years gone in a single sentence.
I fight back the tears. If I let them out, they’ll come in torrents. I beg the universe for invisibility. No eye contact. No small talk. Just let me sit here in my wrinkled business suit, the uniform of a life I no longer recognize.
Then I hear it, the thud of a body dropping into the seat beside me. A young guy sits, close to my age, jeans worn thin and a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt. He stretches like he owns the row. The scent of patchouli and weed rides in with him.
I force my eyes back to the window. The red-eye Southwest flight to San Francisco, with a stop in Denver, is half-empty, yet he chooses my row. Why? Why can’t I be allowed to sink alone? The cabin lights dim for takeoff, and I pray for his presence to dissolve so I can drown in my private wreckage without a witness.
“Hey,” he says, casual, like we’re two old friends bumping into each other at a bar. “Red-eyes are brutal, huh?”
I nod without turning, eyes fixed on the glittering runway lights. If I open my mouth, it’ll all come out in a rush, three wasted years, a diamond ring, and my best friend’s laughter entwined with his. Not here. Not now. Not with this retro hippie wedged next to me.
He doesn’t take the hint. “Headed home or headed away?”
My hand clamps the armrest. The words that form in my mind are sharp, bitter: Away, damn it. Away from betrayal, away from the knife still twisting in my back.
But what slips out is softer. “Home.”
He studies me, and I feel the subtle shift when someone sees your pain you’ve fought to bury. My chest tightens. I want to scream at him to look away, to stop recognizing me in ways that even my closest friends have missed.
“Rough day?” he asks.
One traitorous tear slides down. I swipe it fast, angry with myself.
“Please,” I whisper, not even knowing what I mean—please stop, please stay quiet, or please save me.
He exhales as if the wall between us has cracked just enough. “I’ve had a rough day too,” he admits. “My girlfriend gave me an ultimatum. Leave the theater, get a real job, or she’s out. I love her, but… the routine life? It’ll kill me.”
I turn then, really look at him. His eyes are searching, weary, as lost as mine. Tears blur my vision, and suddenly I’m spilling everything: the betrayal, the phone call, the wreckage of what I thought my life was going to be. The words tumble out in a shameful cascade, because I can’t hold them anymore.
He takes my hand, his thumb brushing the back of it smoothing away the jagged feelings. He doesn’t offer advice. He just… gets it. I don’t know how, but he does.
My mascara is streaking like war paint, my makeup smeared from the crying I swore I wouldn’t do in public. Then he leans over, voice pitched just loud enough to carry. “Two rejected souls ending up on the same flight. Kinda poetic, right? Like the universe looked at the seating chart and thought, ‘Hmm, row 14 could use some heartbreak.’ If love is turbulence, at least we can fasten our seatbelts and ride it out together.”
Something in me bursts open. I laugh. Not a controlled giggle. A full-bodied, belly-shaking roar that echoes off the cabin walls. My tears of grief flip into tears of hilarity, pouring down my face until I look like a melted wax figure.
He joins me matching my rhythm. Our duet grows so loud the flight attendants hustle over, trying to hush us with stern faces, until we repeat the line. One claps a hand over her mouth, snorts, and then she’s gone too, wheezing with laughter.
A man across the aisle chuckles. A woman in the row ahead throws her head back and howls. Someone in the back yells, “Tell it again!” and suddenly the whole plane is vibrating with laughter rolling from row to row like a wave.
For the first time today, my chest doesn’t feel caved in. As strangers laugh with us, I realize that heartbreak doesn’t have to be solitary. Sometimes row 14 turns into a comedy club at 30,000 feet.
After a few minutes, the uproar dwindles into a hum of sighs and sniffles. The stranger and I collapse into our seats, drained, a shared blanket hiding our conspiratorial closeness.
I turn to him, ready to whisper a thank you, but the words dissolve. Instead, my lips find his, a full, desperate kiss that tastes of grief and relief. He returns it in spades, full and passionate. When I pull back, his face is streaked with my mascara, a tragicomic canvas, like a sad clown on furlough from the circus.
I flip my compact mirror open for him. He tries to keep a straight face, but a strangled squeak escapes, and the ridiculousness nearly undoes us both. We bury ourselves under the airline blanket, stealing touches.
Then Denver. The moment ends.
We gather our carry-ons in silence. At the gate, our next flights beckon, different gates, different cities, different lives. We check the screens and without words, we both know.
Together we turn, walk out of the terminal into the freezing Denver winter.
We take our tickets from our pockets and tear them into confetti. Pieces flutter in the breeze, a farewell to destinations that no longer matter.
We don’t even know each other’s names. We know everything we need to.
Specters in the Womb
Voices are pulling me apart. They chatter, shriek, moan. Sometimes they’re mine. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they sound like teeth grinding inside my skull.
My boyfriend says I’m crazy. One second I’m kissing him, the next I’m shoving him away because I feel hands, tiny, cold ones gripping my shoulders. In class I try to focus on equations, but my pencil scrawls circles, spirals, and jagged claws. I don’t remember drawing them.
At night, I wake up drenched, stomach churning, gagging like something is crawling up my spine. Once, in the bathroom mirror, I thought I saw movement ripple under my skin, just beneath my ribs. Something alive.
I tell myself it’s anxiety, but the voices won’t stop. They tell me my mother failed us. That she let us die. That she picked me and abandoned us. I can’t figure out who this us is.
Sometimes I see my mother cooking dinner and imagine stabbing her. The thought doesn’t feel like mine; it feels like someone else’s.
My body is unraveling. I yank out my hair until bald patches appear. I dig my nails into my arms until crescents of blood appear. Sometimes I find bruises I don’t remember making. I dream of teeth gnawing inside my belly. When I wake, I’m sore, like I’ve been bitten from the inside.
Then I found the scans in a folder on my mother’s desk
Three hazy orbs floating together in the first ultrasound. In the second only me, I read the neat medical term above the second: Vanishing Triplets. Completely reabsorbed into the third one.
Only I survived.
Every day, I feel less myself. My moods shift, my thoughts twist, my flesh writhes. They didn’t vanish. They’re still here. Inside. Growing.
Sometimes, when I press my hand to my stomach, something presses back.
I ask my mother to take me to a psychiatrist. She doesn’t hesitate. The next afternoon, after school, we’re ushered into Dr. Berne’s office. It smells faintly of lemon cleaner, but underneath, I swear I catch rot.
“What brings you both here?” Dr. Berne asks, folding his hands neatly.
“My daughter seems nervous all the time,” my mother says. “It’s getting worse. She’s picking at her body and frankly, I’m scared.”
Dr. Berne turns toward me, head tilted, probing. “What is going on, Devina?”
Inside, the scoffing begins. Don’t tell her. Don’t you dare. She thinks pills will drown us out. She thinks a clipboard will banish us.
I force myself to answer. “I have these compulsions to pick at my body. I want them to stop.”
Liar, they hiss. You don’t want them gone. You want to dig deeper. Peel yourself raw. Let us out.
Dr. Berne smiles, the sort of smile meant to reassure. To me, it looks like a mask pulled too tight. “I’m fairly certain your daughter has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” she tells my mother. “We’ll give her the MMPI to confirm, but I’m confident it will bear out my preliminary diagnosis.”
Diagnosis, the voices snarl. She thinks he’s named us. That old fart has no idea who we are.
Dr. Berne scribbles a prescription. “Lexapro,” she says. “It will help. And I recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with a psychologist. That will teach her how to manage the compulsions.”
My mother nods, relieved. She clutches the prescription like it’s holy writ.
Inside me, the specters laugh. Lexapro? Therapy? Foolish woman. Does she not understand? We are not compulsions. We are not symptoms. We are flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. We live in your marrow, in your heart, and in your brain. No pill will evict us. Let them try, Devina. Let them think they’re saving you. All the while, we grow stronger.
I smile faintly, the way a good patient should. Inside, I hear the monsters whisper: You’ll never get rid of us. We were here first.
The next day my mother drives me to the psychologist, Dr. Hay. His office smells like peppermint tea and old books. He smiles as if warmth could stitch me back together.
He begins gently. “I’d like to gather an extensive history, Devina.”
I nod, but I don’t answer alone. The vanished ones stir. Tell him what he wants to hear. Feed him scraps.
So I lie. I talk about nervousness, about worries that don’t matter. And the voices fill in the rest. Yes, doctor, she’s obsessed with her body. Yes, she fears blemishes and imperfections. That’s all it is. Nothing more sinister.
Dr. Hay jots notes, satisfied. “We can work together to rearrange your thoughts into more productive ones. When you catch yourself thinking something destructive, you replace it.”
Replace us? the voices hiss. We’re not walls to be papered over. We are the foundation.
He continues, unaware. “I’ll give you affirmations to practice during the day, statements about strength, safety, self-worth.”
Say them, Devina, they taunt. Say “I’m whole” while we hollow you out. Say “I am safe” while we gnaw you. His words are made of tissue paper.
Dr. Hay places a book in my hands. “I want you to keep a journal. Write down the compulsions, the thoughts, the progress.”
Yes, the voices croon. Write us into your diary. Chronicle our growth. Every word you pen is another thread binding you to us. We’ll dictate. We’ll carve our truths into your hand until you bleed.
I nod politely, pretending to agree. Dr. Hay beams, believing he’s given me tools to fight back.
But when I leave, the vanished ones whisper in triumph: His affirmations will rot in your mouth. Therapy is not a cure. It’s a cradle that we rock as we grow stronger.
They are growing powerful inside me, not whispers anymore but commands. I freeze at street corners, three paths pulling me in different directions. Friends peel away, angry at my unpredictability. My boyfriend leaves, sick of my moods. I fall in with the stoner crowd, always eager for a recruit willing to buy drugs and sink into rebellion. I drink. I drug. I let strangers touch me in ways I don’t want, because the screaming inside quiets when I drown myself in chaos. But it never lasts.
At home, I play dutiful daughter. My parents don’t deserve the monster I’ve become, so I keep my mask polished. I tell Dr. Hay the affirmations are working. I tell him that the journaling helps. I tell Dr. Berne I feel calmer. She nods, reassured in her belief in therapy. But inside, the two laugh. They sneer at my lies because they know the truth: they are no longer passengers. They are pilots.
Every day, I feel them swallowing me piece by piece. My laughter isn’t mine, my thoughts aren’t mine, my skin isn’t mine. I can’t tell where I end and they begin.
On a Saturday night, when my parents go to a movie, I make my decision. I write a suicide note, kind, composed, and full of lies. I tell them I can’t live with OCD. I tell them what wonderful parents they’ve been. I don’t mention the specters inside me. I don’t want them blamed for birthing me.
Then I take my father’s gun from the back of his closet. I sit on the edge of my bed. The barrel feels cold against my temple. I brace myself to pull the trigger.
That’s when the tug-of-war begins.
My hand jerks away from my head, then snaps back. I grip the gun tighter, then my own fingers pry at my wrist. It feels like invisible hands are wrestling for control of my body. I think of that old movie I watched with my parents, Dr. Strangelove. The scientist in the wheelchair who fought his own arm as it shot up in Nazi salutes, his body betraying him. That’s me now. Only it isn’t funny. It isn’t satire. It’s war.
I’m yanked left, right, gun swinging wildly, tears streaming down my face. My arm slams against my own ribs, then rises again, the muzzle shaking before my eye. My fingers twitch, tightening, loosening, tightening again. Two voices in my head scream they don’t want to die again.
I don’t know who won the wrestling match when everything goes dark.
Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories to help readers harness their resilience to aid them on their healing journey. He has been published in a variety of professional journals and literary fiction in over twenty-five magazines. His psychology books include Shattered Innocence and the Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the Borderline and The Art of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a Portland Newspaper, AskDr.Neil.
You can find more of Neil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
When the poet loves the moon becomes pregnant with the autumn pollen the stars laugh with Pitagora’s theorem the sun receives rays of love tsunami become the poet’s words Lora is immersed in the block of salt. When the poet sings adorns the world with the smell of love he gives the mountains Beethoven’s symphony the rivers are enjoying Mrika’s* work the sea of poet’s feelings and Lora falls asleep on the wedding stone a living metaphor in infinite verses
(*Mrika is the first opera in the Albanian language)
METAMORPHOSIS (Lora of New York)
Lora asked me to imitate Odysseus, not to listen sirens of the deep, nor the poet’s erotic verses in the rocky waves of the sea.
In New York he studied Pythagoras, the language of mimicry read the unspoken word wrote it in saltiness, where life is a dream and the dream becomes life.
The epic words underwent a metamorphosis, the seagulls danced over our heads, deep sea conception shivers run through, air in New York I missed the thrill of life.
LORA FROM PRISHTINA
The Goddess descends into memories Lora took into her arms the blessed silence an eye she gave to love a song to the sun to evil she gave the smile her lips enchanted me embracing the dream of the poet…
Again with Lora of Prishtina we often meet on the boulevard looking at the shadows of the rocks beauty walks courageous in love as the meteor of words rain with arrows in sight her lips put ash on my tongue where the unspoken word slopes the missing halt during the white sleep Lora of Prishtina – gives a song to the sun.
Lan Qyqalla, Republic of Kosova,graduated from the Faculty of Philology, specializing in Albanian Language and Literature, at the University of Prishtina in the Republic of Kosovo. He is currently a professor of Albanian language at a secondary school. His literary and critical writings have appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, radio and television platforms, and digital media. His work has been translated and published in multiple languages, including English, Romanian, French, Turkish, Arabic, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Hindi, Spanish, Korean…..
He has published more than 19 literary works to date—including poetry, short stories, and plays—in Albanian, French, Romanian, English, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish, Polish, and German. He has received several national and international literary awards and has been featured in numerous global anthologies of poetry and fiction.
Rabelais languished on the other side of the rive, pryingly eyeing the bottle of wine in my hands, which had swung by now, for the cyclist leaned against me as he wanted to go past me past the cycle track past the pedestrian pathway and brushed against my elbow giving me a sharp pain in the muscle. Before I knew Baudelaire had transformed to blood, and I had stuck the cyclist clean with a blow of the bottle of wine, with the resulting catastrophe, that he fell with a bang from the cycle and a fount appeared from his forehead, with the bang, as red as a cyclist’s wine spouting on the yellow sand next to him.
Quickly, I fled for I did not want to pay a fine for crossing the pedestrian lights when the lights were green, anyway what could I have told the gentleman, a gentleman who was vulnerable and floundering, after having picked up the fight himself. To his credit, he did not want to pick up a fight, and to my credit, I did not stay there to inflict more injuries or to provide him succour, for I figured out the Hôtel de Ville was just around the corner, and he could have cycled to it, if he wished, hopefully with the mask on, for whether or not he was dying with profusion of blood from his forehead, one should not infect one’s fellow beings with coronavirus.
I had nothing to say, but to my credit, I did not wear the mask on. I was now the perpetrator, or in law I would be taken as such, though I had not provoked the fight, and I had still the good sense to leave the white strings of the mask in the pocket, because on principle I would not cover my face on the public sphere, even though by principle I had just shattered the forehead of a fellow citizen with a bottle of wine because he brushed against me with a cycle and threatened to go past me on the pedestrian pathway. He was technically wrong, but the punishment I inflicted on him was a little too much, anyway after the French had suffered so much hearing Macron say again and again: ‘Je compte sur vous…’.
I walked gingerly, I never fled. I did not cover my mouth (with a mask). I only looked at the dome of the Hôtel de Ville and wondered if I should step in in the Intercontinental Hotel lodged in the premises, and have a drink at the reception bar, to calm my nerves. I did nothing like it. I walked through the whole breadth of the city, with a bottle of wine in my hands, not scared of anything, not regretful of anything, though always wondering if I had killed a man?
I wondered, though I figured out I was exaggerating, and I meant to cross the mountain towards a park and have my bottle of wine in pique-nique in reflection of what had passed today, and perhaps tabulate it to Meursault’s act in Camus’ L’étranger, when a police car intercepted me. So far I had forgotten about the police, I thought it was a matter between men, anyway the police still worked during coronavirus? They hushed me into a car, and I got situated next to a pert brunette who started flirting with me:
‘It is your first time?’
‘Huh? ’
‘Yours?’
‘First time’
‘And yours?’
‘Ah I have had many…picked up in cars, I mean’
‘You used your arme?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The arme?’
‘My arme?’
‘The arme I mean, the bottle, the arme par destination as they called it in legal terminology… ’
‘I had to, I had no choice’
‘You do it often…’
‘Yes, but with first timers, it is rare…’
The girl addressed me as such, and by now I had been put under a mask by the police, handcuffed behind my back and taken to a police station. At the police station, they did not interrogate me. They released my handcuffs, allowed me to have a coffee and made me sit on a chair. For the first time, I was grateful for the mask for as I was led from the car to the police-station, a distance of barely 10 metres, the organic pork ham shop owner where I bought my morning filet and the organic steak-shop lunchhouse where I had my daily supper, and the (not) organic bar where I picked up many girls and watched horses jumping over the hurdles next to the PMU.
Inside, I was sitting under a fan, or I was not sitting under a fan, but I still had the reflection of the crimson-green eyes of the pert brunette, who was sitting not far from me, and smiling, and stroking her hair. Maybe she has an attraction for dangerous things?
The head man, who was a bald man, reminiscent of Eric Ciotti, came after a phone call. They did not put me in the lock-up till then. They told me later it was the bottle of wine which helped them identify me, without that it would have been searching for a blade of grass in a stack of hay. The bald man came with the telephone and told me he had had a conversation with the gentleman who was offended, and he had decided to let me go.
‘Let me go,’ was strange terminology, as if I was a lover which had stuck to him for too long or a pet one grows too fond of. They found out that I had no criminal antecedents, and that I was a Professeur in a local school entrusted with the job of professing morals to the local populace, in the form of young children who would be tomorrow’s Frenchmen.
Anyway, I had taken a leaf out of Camus’ booklet. They placed the bottle of wine in front of me on the floor:
‘At least, let us hope…it is a good bottle of wine’, the bald man said, looking at me with a smile, and suddenly very respectful.
‘Non, Monsieur….in that case, j’aurais pas risqué…the bottle I mean’ I do not know where that bit of repartee came from and they all boomed in laughter in the police cell.
I showed them the mark on my elbow to claim that the attack was not unprovoked, and they seemed satisfied, and I rubbed my elbows and Roland Cassard (C.R.) walked into another day under the sun in France, Free France, under the planes and the election posters of the various parties standing up on billboards on two sides of the footpath.
Before the age of 26, Arjun Razdan was writing useless journalistic pieces for uncerebral Indian magazines and unintelligible academic pieces for useless English universities, but it is in the Great Republic that the truth dawned upon him. By the power of the tannins of Bordeaux wine, by the whiff of Frenchwomen’s chignons, by the haunting senteur of a French so-si-so-on (saucisson), he transformed into a writer, and he has not left ever since. This Kashmiri prose-maker has seen 12 works of his appear in 15 literary magazines in eight countries around the world, guided by the pen and wit of Farzdan, his friend and mentor.
What Happens Under the Dinner Table, Remains Under the Dinner Table…, Mediterranean Poetry, May 25 2025, Gothenburg, Sweden Arjun Razdan | Mediterranean Poetry
Cherwell Attack Claimed by Al-Ghustachye, Superpresent Magazine, Summer 2025 Issue, Houston, Texas (TX), United States
Kadek holds a photograph of his children. “My son laughs like this,” he says, pointing at two small faces in sunlight. He smiles; I nod. Frances leans in. The camera clicks.
Breakfast over. Kadek removes our plates. Napkin swans perch beside our forks. He reminds us which dishes are gluten-free. We fumble, slosh some coffee, laugh. Kadek laughs too, softly, like our clumsiness is part of the ritual.
Lunch arrives: fresh fish and chips. Kadek sets it on our plates. “Day of Silence in Bali,” he says. He can’t go home, must stay here and work. I watch him.
Afternoon: Frances and I attempt watercolour. The sea keeps moving faster than we can paint. Kadek lounges on his bunk, switching languages with a visiting crew member. He whispers a story about palm trees. I listen. The story fades.
Evening. We play backgammon. Godzilla stomps across the board, displacing a stray napkin. We laugh. Kadek grins. Frances nudges me. “I know it’s his job, but he seems to enjoy this.”
He folds another napkin swan, rubs my stomach for luck, shakes my hand, formal but kind, as if I were his grandfather. The sun gone, coffee cooling. A napkin swan tilts in the fading light. Frances laughs at something. Kadek watches. I sip the last of my drink. I knock the spoon onto the carpet. Kadek scoops it up instantly. No words. No judgment.
The napkin swan leans into the fading light.
DAY 40: WHEN THE FURNITURE STARTS WALKING
The wind tips loungers into prayer shapes. My towel flings itself from the chair, then sulks in the corner, sensing what’s coming.
Corridor prints tilt and blink like witnesses. In my cabin, dresses sway from ceiling hooks, bracing for impact.
The pool water sloshes, a captive pacing a cell, trying to pass for calm.
At breakfast, a woman sits opposite in an orange lifejacket, face pale above the foam collar. My fork grinds at eggs on a dull white plate. I pretend to chew. What would we taste if we admitted fear?
Someone laughs too loud behind me.
No one mentions the sea hasn’t finished with us yet.
The ship’s band tunes up like the storm never happened. Their instruments strain to stitch the day back together with melody alone.
Upstairs, the map shows a single speck adrift in indifferent blue, between the storm we survived and whatever waits ahead.
The crew move as if nothing happened, their nerves untested.
I take notes on how to stay calm when the furniture starts walking and my own body goes with it.
DAY 56: DRAGONS, SPARKS AND HOTEL GLOSS
Four days from Woolloomooloo, the watercolour gang hunched over palettes, summoning light across the harbour.
I keep thinking of that finger wharf, standing like a star on its red carpet, timber gleaming with new purpose insisting on attention.
You could smell the grant money, heritage pounds built into its beams, rusted gears displayed like relics, determined to be admired.
Frances paints beside me, sure as morning tide. Her brushstrokes are declarations, mine stammer out excuses.
I tell myself I’m exploring, mostly thinking about what the wharf looked like and how not to mess it up.
At school I painted dragons, blood and fire smeared on paper, while the teacher welded sparks next door, deaf behind his visor.
Now I’m painting wet-on-wet, sun bleeding into water, colours colliding, spilling. The rebooted wharf sighs, posing in its hotel gloss.
Ten minutes and I’m done. It looks okay, not great. The wharf rolls its eyes like a teacher convinced I’m not trying hard enough.
DAY 66: INTERRUPTION
Another thing I like about this ship is the Promenade Deck, my stage for a windswept epic, gazing out like some untroubled romantic hero.
The ocean is disappointing flat, repetitive, fading at the edges. The wind won’t let me hold the moment, it keeps barging in, yanking my shirt like a hawker demanding attention. I laugh at how seriously he takes himself.
I stagger down the deck like a paper bag all drift and crumple cornered by wind muttering nonsense about God and the tides.
Just when I’m ready to give up and go back inside the wind eases doesn’t apologise.
I stop walking let the silence catch up. The sea flattens its waves the wind hesitates.
The air softens like someone almost saying they don’t believe in love any more but still want to keep holding hands.
DAY 76: GREEN CATHEDRAL
The air is thick like sweat on a tenor sax. The language won’t be English but something between bebop and birdsong, a rhythm Miles might have hummed if he’d been raised by rainforests.
Our guide, in linen shirt and dark glasses, snaps her fingers; the forest responds: branches sway in five-four time, roots laying down basslines beneath our uncertain feet. We follow her deeper, into a green cathedral where vines scribble chord changes no one has written down.
Her voice drifts between verses, low contralto bending the air: Bohemian Rhapsody, not the Queen version, but the one Coltrane meant to play and lost before morning. It sounds like pollen, memory soaked in brass, and for a moment the canopy sways in tune.
Then the sky cracks: not thunder, but a hi-hat flung sideways. Rain falls with intention, each drop a note without permission, each rivulet a solo breaking off the beat. We’re not drenched. We’re tuned to a key we never knew we carried, our bones humming the harmony.
We are what’s played: reed, string, snare, silence. The breath before the downbeat, the mistake that becomes the miracle. Even silence holds us like the last phrase of a ballad, unresolved and better for it.
DAY 90: WHAT THE FLYING FISH FORGOT TO TELL US
On deck, coffee gone lukewarm. I can’t tell if that’s comfort or regret,
half-warm, the temperature of indecision.
Then bright bodies break the surface, not fleeing the water, just escaping it,
silver commas the sea forgot to erase.
Bodies hurled against gravity, each a flicker of resistance.
For a second the deck breathes with them. So do I.
Then the sea closes.
I hold my cup, its chill settling into my hands,
everything solid undone by motion, by what briefly chooses air.
Rodney Wood is retired, lives in Farnborough. After a world cruise he wrote a poem a day for each of the 102 nights. He’s been published in various magazines and co-hosts an open mic in Woking. He blog at https://rodneywood.co.uk/
Fearful of cars going both ways on Storrow Drive with chill wind blowing my hair around, my lost nerves are already in an accident scene where I’m the one laid out on the road while the pale-faced driver of an SUV screams out – “It wasn’t my fault!” “Sorry guy,” I try to say. My body burns with desire and my brain survives on impulse. My way forward is often the path of an oncoming vehicle. I pride myself on paying the ultimate price,
CHIRP CHIRP
The male crickets are rubbing their legs together to make a chirping sound. Females are attracted by this. It’s also a warning to other males. Stay away.
As the sun sets, the air is dense with the noise of macho posturing.
Later the clubs open. Humans take it inside.
SEPTEMBER MAN
The September sky is tilted toward you.
It longs for you to reach out and embrace its low hung wonders
Grey clouds, flecks of blue, he’s almost a man.
He is a man. And older than you.
But his eyes, when they break through, are on your tangent, your feminine refraction. They tease with humility and love.
You grab his shoulders, pull yourself up.
Forget the humble sky. The elevation is enormous.
IF FOOD BE THE FOOD OF LOVE
There is a solution to everything. Is not marriage an amiable resolution?
We get plenty on the table and we eat it. Okay so that’s a fatuous example.
But we’re showered with love aren’t we? At least, love tweaked to allow
for the personalities involved. And our bellies are full.
Our closets are stuffed with clothes for all occasions. And the gunfire is not for us.
Floodwaters look elsewhere. So do the repo man. And the investigative reporter.
We live this protected life. Everything we need is close at hand.
And we’re well-fed. Did I already say that? Bills get paid. Bed linen is changed.
And we have more than enough commodities. More than more than enough food.
The bad things that happen to other people don’t get a look-in at our house.
Not that we’re permanently happy. But if we’re not, there’s always something in the fridge.
DESERT VISION
Through the fires of sun, a form, half-human, half-haze, emerges from the vanishing point of vision, but can’t quite come together for your squinting eyes.
For all it gives the appearance of approach, every step forward is countermanded by the obstinacy of great distance.
You’re sure it really does want to be with you, but, in searing heat, time freezes, distance unravels, shapes never quite come true.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Flights.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
God sighed and said to himself “I’m bored alone”… And so with a smile he created the planets so round, to play billiards with the universe, to have a game zone. Moreover, the Milky Way stretched like a stick abound. But somehow, it was dark and then the comets appeared, the stars, like fireflies of time, like glow fuzz, scattered in the infinity with just one swipe. Beautiful, but still very quiet somehow it was. And a handful of bright stardust occurred in stripes to mix with God breath and a little heavenly ointment. In addition, intelligent beings he designed, And all kinds of creatures – flying, sitting, floating… Then here the green world appeared asigned. And some loop and special hidden code God put in every DNA and molecule. And he had fun when the whole thing brought, Performed in the sense of secret, veiled in mystic rules. Life folded like the waves of the sea, pleated tone. Finally, a holy gift God gave to the beings: He gave them a fantasy so that they would not be alone.
Keep the flight
And what if we are all different? And in the same time all the same? And why we keep same referents And we go further to blame?
And let keep that great difference! And let us keep further the game! We all need being our own reference, And live our flights with no frames!
Creation day
The day when God made the Oceans, The moment when Goddess had touches the Sea, There were some extraordinaire motions, And planet Earth has appeared as free As the love of the God to her majesty Goddess-Queen…
Dessy Tsvetkova (born 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria), has worked as a reporter for Darik Radio, newspapers Woman, News, Women Kingdom and has published poetry in Mother Tongue speech, Literary Academy and Flame and Sea magazines.
In Tennessee, the shadows of the southern wooden structures stalled off the narrow highway and came to an abrupt end. Lost in the deep eyes of forest green, closing in on night. From the top of a Yellow Poplar tree scares me looking down at the hillbilly stills. Moonshine and moonlight illuminate the fire stills. Moonshine murders of the past, dead bodies hidden behind blue walls. Mobs lie in Chicago, bullet marks on the right side lie dormant through plaster. This confirms my belief that Jesus only works part-time. Let me look at this mirage picture photo album. One more time— find the turnips in the still.
Steel Bars a Single Sheet
I’m Steely Dan Seymour Butts, South America, trust me on that. I can’t pull up my sheet inside these steel bars anymore. 25 to life. No man is God in the cold or the clouds. Isolated poets grab words anywhere they can find them in newspaper clippings, ripped-out Bible verses are a sin. No one pities people like me in prison. Spiders hang from my cell ceiling— dance the jitterbug, “In the Mood.” Jigger bug fleas on my unpainted cement floors. My butt is toilet paper brown, flush. Toxic thoughts grind on my aging face, body, and declining health. In this dream, I reach for a hacksaw that is not there. End this night & so many more suffer in just a snore.
Breadcrumbs for Starving Birds
Smiling across the ravine, snow-cloaked footbridge. Prickly ropes slick with ice, snow-clad boards, pepper sprinkled with raccoon tracks, virgin markers, a fresh first trail. Across and safe, I toss yellow breadcrumbs onto white snow for starving birds.
In the Sun, They All-Pass
In the bright sun in the early morning Gordon Lightfoot sings. When everything comes back, to shadow thin, thunderclaps— and drips of rain. The coffee pot is perking again. Even though Gordon has passed. I experience a mix of life. A blender of the plurality of singulars mounting movie moving frames all returning to memory and mind. The echoes of insanity, a whisper schizophrenic, Poe’s haunting verses. The romances of Leonard Cohen are hidden in foreign hotel rooms, lost keys, forgotten scenarios and forgotten places. All silence skedaddles away from death stolen those leftover tears of a lifetime— now expired on earth— seek through pain abstains.
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart Prize nominations and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 336-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication.
His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence “Citta’ Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis” XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, “If I Were Young Again.” Remember to consider Michael Lee Johnson for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination 🙂
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
