Life is absurd In the world of spinning electrons and quantum states Boredom reproduced with creativity is a way to say who you are silently Opens the new generasion To allow human civilization to function under a masquerade of “normalcy”
Envy
Leave all the viridis madness Green with envy like vegetables Lift off, past the moon wearin’ my truth call me carpet Why so serious
Unknown
This is where the childhood summer memories are Fountain water splashed across the ground under my pink crocs no longer runs
This is where winter strikes first cold, but not quite alone
This is a place for the ones in red to rest til green Strong against light, but weak against water
This is where predictions were made might be slightly certain, as time drifts away
This is where all the burdens were to be unloaded temporary, but hopeful An oasis
This is where I believed in the beauty of unknown turned out to be known, never to be re-unknown
Lauren Kim is a high school student with a fervent love for both poetry and visual art. Her work delves into the intricacies of identity, the nuances of nature, and the emotional currents of teenage life. Through her poems and mixed media artwork, Lauren seeks to capture and convey the beauty in moments of introspection and everyday experiences. When she’s not writing or creating art, she enjoys exploring the outdoors, reading contemporary poetry, and experimenting with new artistic techniques. Lauren’s work has been influenced by her diverse cultural background and her deep connection to the natural world. She aspires to continue growing as an artist and a writer, sharing her unique perspective with others.
A seamstress working from home in the 90s I barely know this wall, so new wood dust drifts to the ground with each chatter from the machine on the other side. I rub my hand on plywood, rough like miners’ calloused fingers.
I creep through to that room at the back of the garage, ironclad with cold, daylight forcing through a window, grazing only walls, cobwebs and bags brimming with hosiery.
Gripping the door handle, I watch— glasses on the bridge of her nose, hands steady in fingerless gloves, breath billowing like clouds of steam— until her red-rimmed eyes meet mine.
Robert Cutillo is a writer who explores dysfunctional relationships, family, childhood, loss, grief, loneliness, bullying, power and work life. His short story Blacksticks blue was recently published at Literally Stories. Robert also recently completed his MA in Creative Writing at the University of Derby. In his dissertation, he explored the negative effects neoliberalism is having on charities and the people they support, drawing on his own experiences of having worked in the sector.
1961 – the wall has been built once sixty-one stars glowed over the native land the East Germany rife with butterflies sparkled in the night the Western Germany full of west wood garlics glinted in the evening the fall of the Berlin Wall was an indulgence then shooting stars fell down at the moonglow the night reveals the policies with the most amazing dreams the dream about roses from 1935 was killed forever by the murkiness of comets that never could be blazing fiercely the night crawled the German Bundestag was light-filled by all kinds of lights of the new wizardry thousands of laws are glistering at the stars-shine the myth of Germany is an ancient legend from the emperor Otto the Great the history is a night rainbow awakened in some dreameries of a dazzling thinker Hitler wants to be forgotten forever and for sempiternity of a night sorcery
(glister –glitter)
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Fully vested in five years At a gallop down the mother lode Of sacredly androgynous momentum
This was the insistence of shown parenting Procedures (thinking therefore ambling) Toward receivership-shape dollops of blue
Sparring from the heart zone To the prickly pear-shaped furry Pet’s domestic best-kept
Sieve-through pours (thoracic left In park) to capture the amen Ities (teased) from scratch
Your back replenishing of pheromone Mid-wintry seizures interruptive of The palace breast inducing seepage
“Keep Tahoe Seductive” Keep the backhoe busy Keep tobacco dry
Your powder or mine In Brackets
As You Were
“My modular home is your modular home,” said he With tongue in checkered Pastiche yielding triple Flutings ribald as blond Bomb bombast versus nocturne
Qualitative braggadocio mentions Center selfhood Where it hurts most In a moving car Far flung from captions overflown
The remedy proposed is merely welding Sadness to the dome (“surely goodness”) Imparting patterned walking Patterned speech And patter by itself
Hell’s briefings linger where we lurk Awhile impeaching history for all its Franking privilege unaccounted for While unaccountably indifferent To generally accepted practices
Remove vermouth from home base While you’re at it, and revoke The privileges afforded an untimely Youth displaying comfort via back brace In the dim moonlight of inner space
Sheila E. Murphy has books forthcoming from Lavender Ink Books, Unlikely Books, and Chax Press. Her most recent title is Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX, 2023). She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Wikipedia page Sheila Murphy.
In the long nights when there is no light and the dark looks like a mass of coal, I eavesdrop on my body: my heartbeats, the nightmares that frighten my sleep.
I don’t know why. I cannot recognize it. The heat invades me like a desert storm, my body is taken from me and the winter and summer are thrown together.
You sleep blissfully next to me, my arms – outstretched, don’t reach you in your dreams. Who knows what exotic lands you explore there? And you ignore my feeble cry for help.
One day you won’t recognize me anymore and a stranger will appear in front of you. I will be less child, more adult, thoughtful. Surely you will have lost my first wrinkles.
You’ll be sorry that you weren’t closer to me to accompany me, holding my hand, to cross together the bridge where a woman grew up and threw her frailties far away.
How do you feel, little child?
Tell me, how do you feel in this world where sorrow knows no boundaries? Your Mom departed too quickly, to where there’s no pain or suffering.
Who will caress you with a gaze and who will put the joy back in your life? Whose eyes will you watch as in a mirror, and who will call you “my son?”
Who will whisper sweet words to you, and where will you find enough love? Have you begun to see the world without colours, entirely in black and white?
Fate abandoned you; you are an orphan. By an evil hand your Mom was taken. Will luck find its way back to you, now that shrouded in fog seems everything?
Your Mom is in heaven, above in the sky. Believe it, until you grow up one day. Fate abandoned you, and now you are only an orphan. Will fate ever come back this way?
The Last Walk
We were walking together, mother; and I couldn’t understand why you said nothing, as in silence, you cried.
I was more confused than you as I asked “Why do you cry?” Your glance was fixed in space, your hand touching mine.
I didn’t know that was our last walk, though you seemed to understand. You were sorry for yourself, for me on the way to leave this world.
You felt sorry—you wouldn’t see me, you wouldn’t hug me anymore, you wouldn’t enjoy those green parks and the kiss of the sun’s rays in the morning.
If I’d known it would be our last walk, I would have kept you in my arms.
Irma Kurtiis an Albanian poet, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator and has been writing since she was a child. She lives in Bergamo, Italy. Kurti has won numerous literary prizes and awards in Italy and Italian Switzerland. In 2020, she became the honorary president of WikiPoesia, the encyclopedia of poetry. She also won the prestigious 2023 Naji Naaman’s literary prize for complete work. Irma Kurti has published 29 books in Albanian, 25 in Italian and 15 in English. She has also translated 20 books by different authors. Her books have been translated and published in 16 countries.
Whispers chirp on the windowsill, gazing at me— unbrushed hair, morning breath.
Two kids with striped tees whisper at the cemented debris, prayers I
suppose? The clouds, too, whisper at one another, pinching cotton skin.
Now I whisper to the mirror, Have a nice day. You should feel the joy.
Just a Little Reminder (inspired by This is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams)
I ate the leftover slice of apple pie that you probably saved for your hungry morning stomach but I couldn’t help my oblivious fingertips from reaching the subtle scent of cinnamon.
I know you would have dreamed about it in your sleep–the taste of mother’s apchima, the taste of mother’s locks of charcoal hair, but I wanted to feel them, too.
I will bake another plate of apple pie for you, for you have me, mother, and everyone you can hug so please forgive me for having your last slice of apple pie.
To My Future Daughter
The world is yours. Even though you couldn’t solve 2+3 in front of your crush, even though you stained your favourite white shirt with ketchup droplets, everyone will love you even more for it. Even your own mother. If you happen to have a little brother, perhaps even a spark of a little sister, let them comb your Barbie’s hair, even if they do smear fingerprints across her sheen. If you have no siblings at all, comb her hair with your best friends. Nothing could hurt more than the turned backs and giggles, other girls shielding their Barbie’s from you. Never be that girl, Daughter. Your lips possess the magic of speech—of sharing and delivering your flower beds and fireworks, even doves circling on top of you, shaping a halo. Don’t worry, your mother will help you knock on others’ doors if you need help. (Your mother had trouble, too.)
Yukyung Katie Kim is a tenth-grade student at Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts. A passionate visual artist and writer, she has a keen interest in poetry and fantastical imagery. In her free time, Yukyung enjoys playing the oboe.
I feel light in a thunderstorm. I electrify your touch through my veins. I’m the greenery around your life that breathes your earth into your lungs. I challenge all your false decisions and doctrines with the glory of my godliness. I’m your syntax, your stoic, your ears, your prize. I walk daylight into your morning breath allow you to breathe. I let the technique of me into your brain cells; from the top tip to the bottom of small baby foot extensions. I’m the banquet hall of all your joys, damnation; your curses, your emotions— and you’re breathing with the wind.
Poet In an Empty Bottle
I’m a poet who drinks only red wine. When inebriated with earthly delusion and desire, I crawl inside this empty bottle of 19 Crimes Red Wine, lone wolf, no rehab needed, just confined.
Here, behind brown tinted glass and a hint of red stain, I can harm no one— body squeezed in so tight, blowing bubbles, hidden, squirming, can’t leap out.
My words echo chamber, reverberating back into my tinnitus ears. I forage for words. Search for novel incentives. But the harvest is pencil-thin the frontal cortex shrinks and turns gray. Come live with me in my dotage. There are few rewards. My old egg-beater brain is clunking out.
I lay here, peace and quiet in prayer. I can hardly breathe in thin air.
I’m a symbol of legacy crumbing stored in formaldehyde. Memories here are likely just puny, weak synapses.
“I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be here when it happens.” Looking out, others looking in at me. Curved glass is a new world intangible dimly defined. I no longer care about cyberspace, uncultivated wild women, the holy grail of matrimony. I likely will never write my first sonnet with angels; I only fantasize about them in dreams.
Quiet in osteoarthritis pain is this poet who only drinks 19 Crimes Red Wine
*Quote by Woody Allen.
April Winds
April winds persist in doing charity work early elbowing right to left their way through these willow trees branches melting reminiscences of winter remnants off my condo roof no snow crystals sprinkle in drops over my balcony deck. Canadian geese wait impatiently for their spring feeding on the oozy ground below. These silent sounds except for the roar of laughter those April winds— geese hear nothing no droppings from the balcony— no seeds.
Down by the Bridge
I’m the magic moment on magic mushrooms $10 a gram, amphetamines, heroin for less. Homeless, happy, Walmart discarded pillow found in a puddle with a reflection, down and dirty in the rain—down by the bridge. Old street-time lover, I found the old bone man we share. I’m in my butt-stink underwear, bra torn apart, pants worn out, and holes in all the wrong places. In the Chicago River, free washing machine. Flipped out on Lucifer’s night-time journey, Night Train Express, bum wine, smooth as sandpaper, 17.5 % alcohol by volume $5.56— my boozer, hobo specialty wrapped in a brown bag. Straight down the hatch, negative memories expire. Daytime job, panhandling, shoplifting, Family Dollar store. Salvation Army as an option. My prayers. I’ve done both. Chicago River sounds, stone, pebble sand, and small dead carp float by. My cardboard bed box is broken down, a mattress of angel fluff, magic mushrooms seep into my stupor— blocking out clicking of street parking meters. I see Jesus passing by on a pontoon boat— down by the river, down by my bridge.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 313 plus YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 46 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 7 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 653 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member of Illinois State Poetry Society.
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I should have learned a craft. A trade. Making or repairing things when they are broken. Doffing my cap on the street for the doctor and the notary. A modest working-class home with a glowing
potbelly stove. Marry the fishmonger’s daughter. Cars don’t want to drive anymore. Just give me a moment. I open the hood and take a look at the engine. Oil. Fat. Tire pressure. Wipe a dipstick
in the crankcase with an old rag. Wood. Screws. Nails. Saw. Plane. Toolbox. Maybe something with electrical engineering. Troubleshooting.
Short circuit. Switches. Click twice and the light will come on again. No, no thanks needed. It was nothing, really. Now it’s too late for all that.
Night on the threshold of east and west
Gently passing over the river the throbbing of two-stroke diesel engines, locomotives drag rumbling goods trains across the bridge and waiting for the painkillers to kick in I listen to secret signals from migrating birds keeping contact high up in the night sky on the threshold between east and west.
Not going to church
A merciful God plunges my world into safe shades of grey, behind this mist is nothing, everything is gone, ditches disappear in grey nothingness, the green of meadows grey, roads
grey, villages, beasts, women. We put off going to church because we can’t find it, the church and the world are gone, we retreat to the safety of the crypt, draw the mist like a warm grey blanket over
our innocent nudity and listen silently to the secret language of our togetherness, eat each other’s flesh and drink our salty nectar, take root in the grey earth and enter into the greyness of our amniotic fluid, grey
as the night and the day that follows it, and the days and grey nights, when unseen planets roam across the sky, grey as the grey days and the grey moon,
grey wool keeps us warm in the thick grey fog, grey grease fuses us in the grey world where nothing is left but our bodies and the all surrounding greyness.
Saturday amateurs
Hoar frost covers bare branches around frosted fields, birds fall from the sky like plagues as we walk across the frozen ground to the white expanse at the edge of our own frozen penalty box.
Snow in January
Barely visible a white blanket covering the land, a single weightless flake swirls earthward, we see snow accumulating into metre-high dunes into which trains run aground, a layer of thick ice on rivers and lakes, professional speed skaters’ thighs, farmers block supermarket distribution centres with their tractors, flashing lights tear up the night. Snow falls in January, spring awaits in the ground, bulbous plants, trees bud, sheep lamb, the newsreader’s voice fades and extinguishes in the cold.
Enno de Witt is a published Dutch author and poet, an artist and musician, webmaster and editor. For him, writing poetry is a sheer necessity, like breathing, sleeping, drinking and eating. His poetry is founded on the bedrock of the classics, Dutch as well as international, and revolves around the Eternal Questions, often using imagery pertaining to his younger years, growing up on the seashore amongst wild heretics.
You can find more of Enno’s work here on Ink Pantry.
She woke for dusting stuff, ducks and owls and robins, a joy of bric-a-brac. And later some chit-chat, pegging the washing line with sensible semaphore.
Once bravado flourished a bucket list of gliders, balloons, parachute jumps, any harum-scarum thrills. The ornamental throng was the end of all that.
Today the bandages unknot and a clarinet glides to a clarity of wings. No longer grounded, she says to feathered friends. They flock above the migraine cumulus of the cul-de-sac. Birds flighting a remedy in blue.
The Wreckers
The sacrament delivers Him, says take, eat this, know sacrifice. There is no bread, no wine, no bliss.
We kneel for them, and us, for hunger bites and biles our bellies, culls our children. Are their deaths our trial?
The darkness rises, the great wave curls, we hear their voices, we hear their call, the darkness rises, the great wave falls.
We gather on the sand, the cove a howl of prayer, our sin is humble need, we breathe the salted air.
Come keeling ship, come closer, crew a childhood of wraith, beguile their sight with candled night, believe in faith.
The wrecking rocks are Him, let guilt be our relief, belief shall bite, our guile will free our womb of grief.
The darkness rises, the great wave curls, we hear the crew, we hear their call, the darkness rises, the great wave falls.
Vaquero
No cause to hurry ahead, so let’s bide awhile here he said. The horse heard and sort of understood.
The distance forging in red, like a blacksmith, then the sky cooling to night. The moon silvered over the horse.
Across the mesa, the wind scissored around the rock. Don’t chew on things that are eatin’ you, the voices said.
Phil Wood was born in Wales. He worked in statistics, education, shipping, and a biscuit factory. He enjoys painting, chess, and learning German. His writing can be found in various places, including : Byways (Arachne Press Anthology), Klecksograph, Black Nore Review, Fevers of the Mind, The Ink Pantry.
You can find more of Phil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Orange groves in Israel… my grandparents donated trees for every special occasion, circumcisions, birthdays, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, when Kennedy became president, the moon landing
You’ll visit one day say shalom to your forest of fruit
And they bought Israeli bonds at the Bank of America on Irving St. whenever they could accumulate 25 or 50 dollars
Redeem them for college no car, nothing frivolous
Citrus and scholarship recipe for a meaningful life Jews have a long tradition with fruit and words and long arguments over their meaning and importance
When my Aunt Sylvia left one shul to join another because one excluded and not the other it might be said it was over oranges a symbol of a more inclusive community where segments make a whole where the sweetness of humanity is ascribed in its words
This poem this is part of a chapbook collection due for future release by Finishing Line Press. Check out their website for further details.
Barry Vitcov lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife and exceptionally brilliant standard poodle.He has had three books published by Finishing Line Press, a collection of poetry, “Where I Live Some of the Time” in February 2021; a collection of short stories, “The Wilbur Stories & More” in June 2022; and a chapbook collection of poems “Structures” in May 2024. FLP will be publishing his novella “The Boy with Six Fingers” in February 2025.
