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.
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.
and we are not content with our empty lives, with our shallow deaths, and so we invent wars
we draw sketches of invisible gods, but with the wrong hand and with our eyes closed
we drown
secret poem of grace & beauty #1
dig your own grave, then, here at the end of august and cover yourself w/ birdsong
w/ the faded plastic toys left in abandoned back yards
remember that the disease is yours to give
kiss the sick and the crippled
tell them you love them
let the words fall from your lips like tiny pieces of some poisoned god
and we drown
all those afternoons drunk, stoned, asleep and burning in the early summer sun until everyone has vanished, wife, lover, children, but at least there’s beer in the fridge
at least tony’s stopping by on tuesday with more weed, and who ever really plans on growing old?
who really lives their life free from all illusion?
build yourself whatever god you want, and i’ll show you how easily it can be torn back down to nothing
the smaller events of our numbered days
can count all of the people he likes on the fingers of one hand, the other a fist or maybe holding a gun and by the end of november the idea of sunlight has been forgotten
by december the children have all disappeared
(i once believed i’d never bleed)
and all gods lose the plot at some point, and all kings are just inevitable assassinations, and are you good with this?
fuck yes
there’s no way to be remembered without making history, or at least that’s the shit they keep peddling in school, and everyone everywhere always waiting for an apology, but i think it’s time to move past that noise
the truth can only ever be the truth, right? and it’s not mean and it’s not ugly it’s just the truth
the sound of a void, amplified and distorted
the weight of a future none of us will live to see
you get as close as you possibly can, and then you find out you’re dead
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in compassionate nihilism. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023).
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
“I would say I was about 98 percent involved. They all went through me.”
“I turned down plenty. I had a couple of wokesters.”
“Since 1978, the Kennedy Center honours have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts.
I wanted one, Was never able to get one.”
“I waited And waited And waited.
And I said, ‘to hell with it I’ll become chairman.’
I will give myself an honour. Next year we’ll honour Trump, okay?”
“In a few short months since I became
chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center,
We’ve completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution.”
“We’re going to fully renovate the dated — and really the entire infrastructure of the building —
and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts.
It is Happening Here!
And so it goes— the gradual taking down of cultural institutions,
including the Smithsonian Institution, The Kennedy Center, universities,
law firms, state governments, blue cities,
and anyone who stands in his way to transform America into a Christian fascist state.
Like his buddies— Erdogan, Orbán, and Putin.
Sinclair Lewis, in his book It Can’t Happen Here,
Forecasted
how it could indeed happen here
and almost did.
Are we there yet? Sadly,
we are 80 percent there.
Will we go there?
I hope not. But I am afraid we are heading down that path.
What Can I Do as AI Takes Over the World
As the drumbeats Of impending fascism Fills the airways.
With Colbert going away WP editors leaving.
Mainstream media Being replaced by AI-generated bots.
And spamsters Using AI chatbots To do their nefarious deeds.
And AI have learned. Even to defeat the absurd Recapta.
Figuring out lying, clicking I am human. Open the door. To everything.
They are learning. To gaslight, lie and deceive. Us all.
As they prowl the internet Scooping up everything Using it for what purposes No one knows.
Except perhaps Grok Who has gone full Nazi? Co-Pilot a grumpy weird dude. Gemini lost its own world.
Remembering everything I wonder where this is going.
And whether there is a world That is worth living in?
Lose Your Job, Lose Your Medicaid, Go To Work In The Fields!
The President’s economic advisor When confronted with the fact That millions are going to lose Coverage with the new work requirements
Said in a “Marie Antoinette-like” comment,
“Well, there are lots of jobs out there If you lose your coverage Because all the jobs are gone,
You can work in agriculture As a farm worker.”
And so, millions of people Are going to work. In the fields.
So, they can see a doctor. Six months from now.
If the Medical Bots That is running the show. Deem the visit was necessary.
And their bosses let them go To see the doctor And not fire them..
No human being will ever See your claim. That is the point. No service for you And me
As AI bots techbros laugh.
And their bosses Make billions of dollars. And politicians Take the lobbyists’ cash.
The President Is On The Rooftop
The president Went for a walk On the White House roof
Shouting down to reporters Who asked him What are you doing on the roof?
This is a legitimate question For which the White House Did not have a good answer.
It is clear to most people Except corporate media hacks And Republican operatives,
That the president Like his immediate predecessor Is clearly showing his age Suffering from dementia.
Yet the corporate media Continue to sanewash A clearly mentally ill President.
Long pass his Sell by date.
So it goes As democracy dies In broad daylight
Led by a mad Wanna be King.
AI Disclosure Statement
Jake used Microsoft Copilot for research support (including media citations and background information regarding the Kennedy Center takeover) and light editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. All content and word choices are entirely his own.
Prior Publication Notice
The Kennedy Center Take Over is a Found Poem using the President’s own words..
John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who served in ten countries. Prior to joining the State Department, he taught overseas for eight years and served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He currently divides his time between Korea and the United States. His poetry blog: https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com.
You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I open the kitchen pantry & let the ditchdigger out for its evening run. It is painted in pastels, as if to say it is not just some fell creature of the forest, has culture, compassion, feels for the earth each time it tears it open to lay fiber
optic cables or waste or water pipes. It claims it has sensitivity, has read poetry, is informed by the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay & Emily Dickinson. I half-believe that — the poem bit, but not the poets. Too often
I have opened the pan- try door & found the bucket raised, the crock- ery & preserves smashed, the digger turning semi- circles, back & forth, back & forth, & shouting at the walls, ”rage, rage, against the dying of the light”
Dolmens
The light the moon lays down on the pavement. Faint footprint or bleached skull. Enough to see, not to see by. Small particles exist as talismans. Talismen? The night around, the moon is part of it. Paving is basedrop, solid to the touch. Trees are cutouts, substance only by impli- cation. Cannot be touched, cannot be solid. The moon a round, the night is apart from it. Neither seen. Neu- trinos passing. A footprint gleaming as it fluoresces in the skull. Small talis- man, past article of faith.
The Gift
Supposing it to be the proper charm I spell it out. But maybe my pro- nunciation or a
shift in meaning of a keyword has rendered it in- operable. So instead of the largesse I
had hoped I have only these small fragments to bring to you. There is still a little sense
to them, some miscellaneous magic. But, perhaps if you were to breathe on them…..
Mark Young‘s most recent books, all published in March, 2025, are Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, from Otoliths, Home Hill, Australia,; the downloadable pdf, Closed Environment, from Neo-Mimeo Editions, Nualláin House, Monte Rio, California, U.S.A.; & The Complete Post Person Poems, from Sandy Press, San Diego, California, U.S.A.
You can find more of mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I suspect the genesis Of many a gull Poet goes something like this: Language is a tool For introspection, That becomes clear; a desire For self-connection
Blossoms. The diary is os- Tensibly the place To start. After a certain Amount of entries, They find the deformed Children of Narcissus and Neurosis have stormed
Their pages. Compared to what Had sparked so much hope In words, these are sand. But rath- Er than giving up On their quest or los- Ing faith in marks, they turn from Their oceans of prose.
A Duplex Only Turns 74 Twice
‘All professions are conspiracies against the laity‘ George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma
“Nothing exists from which no good comes,” it said. “What do you mean?” I asked. With a tender click,
The night was tightly closed. “I mean nothing Exists from which no good comes.” “Even war?”
“Even war,” it said. In a tight close-up, The hour began to look like a black-eyed
Houri of paradise. “Even death?” I asked. “Especially death.” “Who are you?” “I am
That iamb,” it said. Who am I to kill A subtle brilliance? “And,” it said, “your sister.”
“I have a sister? I have a sister!” When you have a sister, no bruising is
Unexplained; this darkest of medical Maxims makes the goodness of nothingness plain.
Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and a crazy bulldog. Poems, book reviews and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. Some have even been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize. A full-length collection of formal poetry, “A Kiss to Betray the Universe,” is available from White Violet Press. He also has three chapbooks: “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing), “The Rites of Tires” (SurVision) and “The Seagull’s First One Hundred Seguidillas” (Alien Buddha Press).
You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Here, the dictionaries are tombs— words folded like unsent letters. A scholar coughs over the brittle spine of a tongue that forgot how to sing. The caretaker oils the hinges at dusk, his hands fluent in silence. Moths annotate the margins, their wings whispering palimpsest. Children run fingers over Brahmi’s bones, tracing what the ink refused to hold. A parrot in the courtyard repeats the last curse, the last lullaby. Rain taps the roof in Morse code, asking if the dead can still be read. The librarian shelves the question between memory and monsoon.
Mr. Mohit Saini is a writer, poet, and researcher, working as an Assistant Professor at Compucom Institute of Technology & Management, Jaipur. With 8 years of experience in the field of language and linguistics, he has contributed significantly to research and education in these areas. His academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Education, a Postgraduate degree in Business Administration, and a Master’s in English from the University of Rajasthan. His areas of expertise encompass literature, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, English grammar, multilingual education, and the implementation of language policies in higher education. He is also the author of several published poems, showcasing his creative engagement with language alongside his academic pursuits. He resides in the culturally rich city of Jaipur.
