where is the sky from
where are the drops of silence from
where are the freckles of the mirror from
where are the human silhouettes of the scream from
where are the silent indignations of the apple wind from
where are the woollen night milky lips of the cemetery from
under my iron blanket-eyelid

cycle of return
grass sings
glass hurts
bones crunch
ears shrink
leaves cry
hands pray
bush rises
and forest opens autumn rain

the birds’ needles go to sleep
in the cherry tree and they wake up
on the branches of falling leaves

the look opened the night cries
so the pupils meet another dead suicide

my hands dream
of dying
as a hydrangea

sleep
can’t sleep
quiet
don’t keep quiet
speak
lips are dry
drink
river is dry
eat
stomach burst
die
it’s too late the cemetery is asleep

Mykyta Ryzhykh has been nominated for Pushcart Prize. Published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News.

Rus Khomutoff is a neo surrealist language poet from Brooklyn.

You can find more of Rus’ work here on Ink Pantry.

May:

• Nuanced woo sleeves the trees absolutely,
  limbs, trembling arabesques, re-enacting
  their valedictive wave-shrug to April.
• Constellations of light-green stars allay
  the grey disposition: blazed artifice
  erasing rafts of winter entropy.
• Feathered seraphim inhabit the grove’s
  ethereal umbrella (abstention
  from fussy havoc not optional), daft
  sanctuary for the ephemeral.

Great Blue Heron

Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

—Mary Oliver, ‘October’

Busy inhabiting my world—
blazing car, radio blather,
coffee buzz that wouldn’t last—

I somehow caught a left-hand glimpse,
so quick I didn’t see you flinch,
yet so outstanding, you could’ve been

a plastic cousin to the prank flamingos
that another morning
enthralled my neighbour’s lawn.

Stark still, ankle-deep
in that transitory water,
only the one side, one-eyed,

wide as disbelief, you looked
just like you looked, posed
in the Natural History Museum,

1963: for again,
all those slender angles,
the spear of your bill,

that deathless intensity
marking your stick-form way, only
now in a mid-May puddle poised

between the intersecting rushes
eastbound, 196, southbound, 31.
And you, still doing

what you’ve never known
you do, still finding your life
wherever you find yourself—

while I, still fixated as always
on finding myself,
as if that were to find a life,

saw again how wildly
I am alive—
how I always want to know it.

When the Water and Sand Dance

When the water and sand dance, whence (whence?)
their music? What is that music? What sense, what
composition surfs itself in? Yes, the water—its
bazillion droplets, the mini-jetsam line it etches.
Yes, the sand—its gazillion granules, the sponging
gauze-and-muslin of them. But what but mind
imagines there’s music? Perhaps the end of your
century also hauled along its ton of sadness
as did mine. And perhaps the years have
finally worn it down to barely nothing of your
day-to-day. The sun and shadows play
again their fetching fine effects. The moon
and birds and even dying leaves relieve
your smallest residue of gloom. But
mind—must it remember anyway? And
is it therefore grateful, more than
happy in that moment, to cue its
private music, then tune your needy
ear to every measure when
the water and the sand dance?

Walking the Beach, We Show Our Ignorance about Stars, Constellations

before mentioning the dead ones
mixed in,
the snuffed ones,
how they’ve guided the race, we figure,
since long before the faintest flicker
of a first-hand myth;
but dead, even then,
and now, this side of infinitude,
this side, let’s say, of
Gilgamesh, how
the discerning words
of the long gone
still illumine our forever
primitive way.

Gazpacho for the Soul

How much better it is
to carry wood to the fire
than to moan about your life.

—Jane Kenyon

How much better even
to muster a quick sample
of what is better:

*

Finding the old apples
scattered out back for the deer
vanished while you slept.

*

Leaving the lit tree up
well past New Year—a new
who-cares tradition.

*

Not only seeing
but hearing your granddaughter’s
Instagram giggling.

*

Road-tripping to Chicago,
those skyscrapers arising
over the Ryan.

*

Doing burger Thursday
at the What Not, stressed-out
Will for your server.

*

Reading at 3 A. M.
with your reassuring spouse,
who can’t sleep either.

*

Cycling the back roads
south of the new house, turning
west toward the lakeshore.

*

Counting out haiku
with your deep-brown-eyed daughter:
re-frig-er-a-tor!

*

Switching from notebook
to computer, suspecting
a poem’s in sight.

*

Beating your fetching wife
to the punch: Happy ‘Leventh
Anniversary!

*

Having the silly luxury
to reckon a best order
for all that’s better.

True North

The lone crow on the lone pole
where the weathervane used to whirl
insinuates my need for misdirection.

He is an arrow of skittish attention,
of scant intention: the cock and hop,
the flick and caw toward anything

on the wind. Now angling east, now
south by southwest, he designates
with beak then disagreeing tail feathers,

with a lean-to and a shoulder scrunch,
with an attitude from his beady black eye—
as if he were ever the one to judge.

And once he’s spun like a pin on a binnacle
past all points of some madcap inner compass—
once the clouds have bowed to push on

and the grasses have waved their gratefulness—
he unfurls the shifty sails of his wings,
and the breeze relieves him of his post.

D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching university writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan, USA. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his work has appeared internationally in a wide variety of anthologies and journals.

You can find more of James’ work here on Ink Pantry.

The Worlds in Your Words

There’s a world in the word “I”,
which is you,
a universe whizzing with activity,
a wild ride no one will ever afford lifetime admission to

There’s a world in the word “forgot”,
which is us… or me.
Our shared yesterdays reduced to stacks of files
shredded to make room in a limitless cabinet.

“I changed my mind.”
A silent truth unspoken
that would have been such a sweet sentence
to hear you sound out.

Self-Absorption

Self-absorption
sits on top of the senses,
cutting circulation off to clear thoughts.
Delusion straddles a reliable horse ridden rugged,
strains four legs forward toward dreams, things—
wants.

Stomps his hooves,
tosses the head.
Neighs, blows, snorts—
for food, for rest—
but is spurred to speed up.

Self-absorption—
Me, me, I, I on the mind,
the thoughts it thinks—
thoughts so loud they drown out
the heat, the sweat on the brow,
the pet horse’s needs.

Drags his hooves,
hangs the head.
Not a neigh, blow or snort
for food, for rest it needs—
just digging, skin-scraping spurs shrieking for speed.

Outside self-absorption,
the mind boiling over with “Me”s and “I”s—
the faithful horse dies.
Now, two legs untrained,
find loneliness on an isolated plain.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael Roque discovered his love for poetry and prose amid friends on the bleachers of Pasadena City College. Now he currently lives outside of the US and is being inspired by the world around him. His poems have been published by literary Magazines like Aurora Quarterly, Veridian Review, and Cascade Journal. 

Everyone remembers the forest
leads to ruin
the world needs space
to be related to nature

Even though we are unmarried
hope still lies
in the sheath of fate
woven into threads of colour

Powerful axe swing
the tree falls and the fruit from it
causing global warming
due to human negligence

It is important that someone warms up
while humanity suffers
glaciers are also melting
accordingly, nature does not tolerate carelessness

Lots of floods and tears
in baby fat which
every day he just wants
real play and fun

Glaciers when they melt
general unrest is created
because panic reigns
in people and the world

So let’s take care of the trees
because every day is special
and let’s protect nature
she is everything to us

NEMOJTE SJECI DRVECA

Svi se sjecaju šume
vodi u propast
svijetu je potreban prostor
biti u vezi sa prirodom

Iako smo neoženjeni
nada i dalje leži
u korica sudbine
utkana u niti u boji

Snažan zamah sjekirom
drvo pada i plod sa njega
izaziva globalno zagrevanje
zbog ljudskog nemara

Bitno je da se neko zagreje
dok covecanstvo pati
gleceri se takode tope
shodno tome, priroda ne podnosi nemar

Puno poplava i suza
u bebinoj masti koja
svaki dan samo želi
prava igra i zabava

Gleceri kada se tope
stvara se opšti nemir
jer vlada panika
u ljudima i svijetu

Pa hajde da se pobrinemo za drvece
jer svaki dan je poseban
i cuvajmo prirodu
ona nam je sve

Maid Corbic, from Tuzla, is 24 years old. In his spare time he writes poetry that is repeatedly praised as well as rewarded. He also selflessly helps others around him, and he is moderator of the World Literature Forum WLFPH (World Literature Forum Peace and Humanity) for humanity and peace in the world. He is the world number 44 poet and 5 in the Balkans. He has over 10K of successes on Facebook.

The Empty Forest

Your reflection is gone.
Mine is all that’s left
in these waters.

Your voice isn’t here either.
The woods are full of bird song,
a rustle or two in the brushes,
but nothing human.

In the house,
you’re merely missing.

But here,
in the forest,
you’re never coming back.

The grander the scale,
the greater your absence.

Her Seventieth

If lives grew vertical,
she’d be at

the highest point.
The burning candles

would celebrate this milestone
as if she were Hillary and Norgay

conquering Everest.
But a life’s ascent

is as brief as a prayer,
slopes downward for a time

before dipping precariously.
So she looks up

at the years lived already
and down at those to come.

She’s less Sir Edmund
and Tenzing

and more Florence Hillary
and Maureen Norgay.

Those two both have trouble
going up and down stairs.

He’s the Champion of the World

He’s shy they say
but I believe that’s just focus.
He ran a great race today.
His new book is in the stores
and garnering rave reviews.
And what of his concerto.
Or the flex of his upper-arm muscles.
And to think, a CEO at his age.
A leader in touch-downs,
a mountain climber par excellence.

He’s never been married.
But the task at hand is a wife.
Run, write, compose, work out,
rise to the top of the business world,
then catch the ball in fluid motion,
while pegging your way up Everest.
What’s not to love.

He gets anxious when he stops like this.
What if the world goes on without him?
The price for dalliance
is living like the rest of us.
Marge is just about to introduce him
to her daughter Sarah.
He nervously shakes hands.
Their eyes lock.
He’s doomed to lose his titles.

Sitting by the Pool, Watching the Swimmer

Twilight sets in but she’s still doing laps of the pool.
What was once smooth and blue is now vague and shadowy.
She’s pulling herself through water, kicking
her feet like flippers to double down on her intent.
Every afternoon, it’s thirty times up and back,
which is about a hundred swims in my reckoning
but just the one long marathon to her.
She conquers something that, to my mind,
is not in need of conquering.
But, then again, she writes no poetry.
And nor does she see the need.
She’s streamlined, perfectly built for gliding through water.
I’m romantic, contemplative, easily distracted from the real world.
I’d likely drown if I applied this elsewhere.

A Year of Solitude

Who said it would be okay?
And I will know it when the time comes?
And where it lands it will stick?
And maybe it is here already?

Was it the sound of her footsteps?
Or waves lapping the shore?
Or the creaking of these floors?
Or the fluttering green leaves
of my backyard oasis?

Meanwhile,
there’s all this stuff I’ve been writing,
the pen, the paper, the overhead lamp,
the desk, the coffee,
in hope that the work, once completed,
will be an answer
to all or any of these questions.

But now, there’s me on one side,
the unknown on the other.
There’s what I know now
and the mystery of what I will become.

I’m home. It’s quiet.
Outside ploughs the soil with rain.
Dark clouds match it with headlights.
Blue curtains keep me separated.
Creation is the perfect foil to this weather.
And so is holding out
for the next thought that comes to mind.
Too bad, they’re getting harder and harder to think.

Yet what I hunger for doesn’t change.
That much life has taught me.
And, with each lesson, it gets worse.
For I’m all alone and marking my own papers.

The Usual

I often wonder
where I would be without the predictability,
so much more common than randomness,
as every scene feels like the one
I always come across
whether it’s children playing in the park
or a sale sign in a furniture store window.

Your “good morning” is like reading
the same page of as book that I read
yesterday and the day before.
And the taste of every vegetable on the tongue
never varies whether it’s boring spinach
or crunchy and invigorating raw carrots.

Yes, people fall from cliffs.
Or they win lotteries.
They’re shot in a case of mistaken identity.
Or they’re spotted by an agent,
turned into a movie star.

But mostly everyone who enters a room
leaves that room unchanged.
Each footstep is a continuation
and a preview of footsteps to come.
The words we say, we’ve spoken before.
The face in the mirror is unsurprised
by the face looking into it.

With so much sameness to back me up,
I feel secure
when odd things happen.
Like when I pause for a moment
when a car nearly hits me.
I can return to where it doesn’t.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The Art of Leaving

Yes, some of us will never leave
the lane, smell of urine, bound
by bricks with smeared bloody handprints.
We will run behind your vehicle
leaving the place, watch it go holding
the last lamppost, and if we meet again
you have run a circle, you belong
to the ones who fail to don
the art of leaving. We shall nod, two
circles that should not have formed
the Venn Diagram. My child will
tug my hand, and you will become
another poster of a missing person
torn away by happenstance.

Hold Your Breath To See If You Are Alive

The late descent of the drop of rain
startles the beetle. One whole day
has dried away, and still leaf has been
holding the last spell. Sometimes you
hold your breath as long as you can.
For no reason. When you exhale no gale
stirs up the yard. The junked out coaches
shiver as if a new fixture is scheduled for them.

The Dilemma After The Game Night

Last night your team lost
to your team,
and you cannot celebrate
because it is unsafe.

Your new country now smells
of stale beers, and its streets
paved with plastic thin aluminium
reflect the sudden sun, and
wring out a groan.

Your old country echoes stale cheers,
and breakfast conversation
keeps the alive. People discuss
which players will leave
and join the country where you pretend
to mourn.

Golden Prohibition

My hand on your thigh
and yours on mine
draw a sign we have seen
on every prohibition.

No parking here. I know.
No swimming. No loud noise.
No littering.

Perhaps ours end a long fight.
Perhaps open a tired conversation
that will birth shattered mirrors.
Tonight, oh tonight, they’re ‘No War’.
We hold each other ‘s thumbs
and let the rest of our fingers wing
into deep azure.

Kushal Poddar is the author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ and ‘How To Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch’ has nine books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a four-year-old, illustrator, and an editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe.

You can find more of Kushal’s work here on Ink Pantry.