Category: 2022 – Spring

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Star-crossed Flowers

daffodil muse

Image: © ELLE

Author: ELLE

Oh, to be born a daffodil,
An emerging seed of sundust
Waking from a numbing sleep
Reaching, slowly, the promises of the surface
Gently crackling the thin iced reminiscence of a silent winter.

The silky honey-coloured petals
Gracefully introducing the son of Céphise
To the distant sound of foreseen decay
For Narcissus’ reflection can only last for so long
Under the sky of spring.

*

Oh, to grow under the name of a rose,
Cursed symbol of serendipity;
Bound to hear the countless selfish soliloquies
Premises to dissatisfied infatuation.
Forced to see the solitude glowing in eyes that once knew love.

Does dusk know that dawn exists?
For the rose surely is unaware of the adversity of winter
And the daffodil is ignorant of the pain of thorns
And yet, –

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Worms

Rainy Road

Image: © “Rainy Road” by Aelle (CC BY-NC 2.0.)

Author: Katharina Schwarck

“Worms” is a response to Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie’s ecopoetry that I wrote for a class on ecopoetics in Spring 2020. It is mostly inspired by her poem “The Spider” which struck me because it renders its true value to a spider, a generally strongly disliked being. It addresses the spider’s importance in the animal kingdom and humans’ unjust aversion against the arachnid (Jamie, 175). “Worms” follows the same dynamic of calling out wrongful antipathy and disgust. The piece deals with a young girl who, as opposed to her peers, is not repulsed by the worms but rather considers them her friends, more so than her fellow humans. I chose to play with pronouns; I employ several occurrences of “they” and “she”. On one hand, this opposes the young girl and her peers, from whom she feels distant. On the other hand, “they” is used for both worms and humans, eliminating their difference and bringing them onto the same level. The girl picks up the worms and tries to protect them, while the other children cry of disgust. She is angry. They step on the worms for the sole reason of being greater in size. She calls them out. The fifth stanza of the first visual shape is a reference to WB Yeats’ Chambermaid songs, the first one of which compares a human being to a worm

God’s love has hidden him
Out of all harm,
Pleasure has made him
Weak as a worm. (Yeats, 307)

I have reversed the simile in the last line and made mankind itself the vehicle of the trope. Humans do not become as weak as worms: for their contempt, they become as weak as themselves. The sixth stanza alludes to Goethe’s “Heidenröslein”, a metaphor for rejected love. A young boy espies a red rose on a heath and finds her so beautiful as to break her. The rose stings him in return, in vain, because she remains, however, broken (Goethe, 307). I find this image oh so representative of many plant and animal deaths, be it roses or bees or ants. The defence mechanism does not suffice against humans who are much more sizable than their fellow species. Consequently, humans need to take even more precautions to recognise and sustain other beings. I have juxtaposed the worms and the heathrose by making my poem “shud” the flower’s pain, giving the worms strength and protecting them from heathrose’s fate. The second visual worm takes the poem back from Goethe’s time to modern day. The worms still come out in rain, expecting no harm. In this stanza, a car kills the annelids, which echoes with Jamie’s “Frogs” (Jamie, 133). I have inserted internal rhymes in these lines; “flood”, “up”, “guts”. They contain plosive sounds which highlight the violence of the content dealt with in the stanza. This intention of drawing in one’s mind mirrors human blindness towards ecological or ethical issues. They are unmistakable, and yet, humanity often fails to pay attention to them. In the last stanza of the poem, the young girl is grown up. To mark this change, I have changed the preposition preceding the pronoun “as she” into “when she”. She still sees the worms, her old friends, and when her eyes meet their suffering, she still cries out.


Works cited:
– Goethe, Johann W. v. “Heidenröslein”. Goethe’s Schriften: Achter Band, Georg Johann Göschen, 1789, pp.105-106
– Jamie, Kathleen. Selected Poems, Picador, 2018
– Yeats, William B. “The Chambermaid’s First Song”. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p.307

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Cosmogony of Silence

Zebrafish Blood and Lymphatic Vessels in Blue, Purple, Black, and Green. Galaxy-like image.

Image: © “Zebrafish Blood and Lymphatic Vessels” by Daniel Castranova

Author: Manuel Ferrazzo

           

             I. The Creator

            There.

            Then.

            There was nothing.

            Then there was something.

            The Creator never realised there was nothing before there was something. All these matters and colours scared him. Time was flying by too fast. So the Creator closed his eyes and slept.

            II. The Alchemist

            Aeons came and went, and men started wandering inside Creation. Amongst them was an Alchemist. The Alchemist knew many things but wanted to see the Creator, thinking that there had to be meaning to all of existence.

            Everybody said that the Creator lived at the top of the Mountain, so the Alchemist set forth to find and greet him. So he climbed the Mountain. For three days, he climbed, and, arriving at the top, he only found wind and loneliness. Cursing and screaming, the Alchemist wouldn’t believe there was Nothing where there could have been Something. So he decided that he would create.

            The Alchemist roamed the Earth amongst men and spirits, craving knowledge beyond the comprehension of anybody. He met monsters and beasts and tamed them all. He was growing in power, but he always wanted more. He wanted the Creator’s power, even if he didn’t think He existed.

            III. The Lovers

            The Alchemist met two Lovers, a man and a woman. They had spent their whole lives together, and, despite their age, they still looked very young. They wanted their love to endure and were scared to see all their friends lose their love. So, having heard of the Alchemist, they asked for his help.

            The Alchemist felt blessed by the request of the Lovers to help them, as he could finally use his immense powers to create. He cursed the Lovers with an Eternal Love, but not the way they wanted: the man impregnated the woman, the first to do so. And when the woman gave birth, she died. She was also the first to do so.

            IV. The Liar

            Having lost his wife, the Lover was so full of rage that he did not care for his child, who died quickly after birth. The Alchemist was cast away and seen by all of humankind as a Liar. The Lover chased him to the end of the world and battled him to death. Their battle was so violent that it awakened the Creator, who looked upon Creation and wept.

            V. The Thief

            The tears of the Creator flooded Earth and destroyed most of civilisation. Only the Alchemist and The Lover left, battling in eternity, not even remembering why. One day, once the Creator stopped crying, they saw that the storm was gone, and the Alchemist tricked the Lover into making peace with him.

            Easing up, the Lover let his guard down, so the Alchemist stroke: using a powerful spell, he snatched the Lover’s soul from his body and attached it to his own. He did the same for all the souls roaming on the now-dead Earth, and, seeing that there was nothing left to make him grow more powerful, he retired at the top of the Mountain.

            VI. The Conqueror

            Aeons passed once again, and humanity was born again. Asleep at the top of the Mountain, the Alchemist was disturbed by a warrior calling himself Conqueror. He told the Alchemist he wanted to find the Creator at the top of the Mountain. The Alchemist was amused by this naive warrior and presented himself as the Creator.

            The Demiurge saw this and, for the first time, decided to mingle in the business of mortals.

            VII. The Devil

            The Creator sent the Devil, his agent, down on Earth to bring him the Alchemist. But the Devil had a will of his own and was jealous of the Creator. He wanted all of Creation for himself, to pervert it into what he found beautiful. The Devil, on Earth, found a woman, Eve, and seduced her, promising her Destiny and Meaning to help him in his dark deeds.

            The Devil then visited the court of the Conqueror, who thought the Creator blessed him and offered him Eve. Understanding she had been tricked, she tried to fight back but couldn’t do anything: the Conqueror wanted her for his pleasure.

            VIII. The Rapist

            The Conqueror impregnated her and thrived, invigorated by the woman’s suffering. Eve couldn’t take it anymore, so she killed herself, as it was the only way for her to be free. The Devil, disappointed by her lack of will, extracted the child she had been impregnated with from her womb and placed it in his own until it was ripe.

            IX. The Disintegrator

            The Devil gave birth to the Disintegrator, a child of burning grotesque masses, made of visions of rape, murder and perversion, and let him loose on the Earth. The destruction provoked by the Disintegrator forced the Creator to incarnate himself on Earth to stop him, but humanity feared him and quickly killed him. The Devil laughed as humanity crucified him and, now that the Creator was gone, started the journey to the top of the Mountain to claim the title of Creator to the Alchemist.

            X. The Hanged Man

            Since it was imperfect and perverted, the Disintegrator eventually died once he had destroyed humanity once again. The Devil climbed to the top of the Mountain and found the Alchemist there. The Alchemist was enraged by the Devil’s doing, so they started fighting. The Alchemist, now almost all-powerful, was an equal match for the Devil. They broke each other down and fought until they couldn’t walk. Using a trick, the Devil managed to take the upper hand and murdered the Alchemist. Bleeding out, the Devil then hanged the corpse of the Alchemist to a tree to make it the totem of his victory against the Creator. He then sat down beside the hanged man’s tree, and, listening to the deafening wind, feeling his wounds soothe him, he drifted off into sweet Death.

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Instructions on how to forget me

Author: Mel A. Riverwood

Some people never hear the silence talk.

But to me, it screams, with every tick of the clock,

It says I will die, though I already know,

And tells me someday I won’t feel anymore;

What could that feel like, to not feel?

Do the dead still live?

I know I am young, I should not have such thoughts,

‘Forget, forget,’ they say, ‘forget time and laugh!’

But I feel death, and her hands are so cold;

They freeze all my dreams and everything I long for

And hold in their palms all the fear that I hold.

I wish to see spring and hear birdsong forevermore;

But the taste of the end is ever so near,

So I beg of you, blue and green mother, don’t let me disappear.

How I wish the whole world sang my humble refrain;

I knew not that hope came with such shattering pain.

I would give it all, but my words, just for a little more

Time and to live and live and live and live,

And encore;

Forevermore.

I am selfish and lonely, I am childish and afraid;

I would watch the world fade if it meant that I stayed.

Please, someone tell me, just tell me, where do we go?

Where do we go?

Where do we go?

WHERE DO WE GO?

Where do we go once we feel no more?

What are we then? How do we exist?

Please, someone tell me we have much more than this.

I will always know this fear that steals my thin breath,

But begging time for mercy will not work on death.

So please, remember me, for as long as you can,

But if the world is to forget, then let me fade as I am:

When my ink-stained fingers will be writing no more,

Bury me in a forest and bury me on the shore;

For I cannot die where I cannot hear the sea,

And I cannot live where the blackbirds don’t sing.

But when you inearth me, please keep my hair

And burn it, then scatter it in the air.

So with my body to soil and water, and my locks through fire to wind,

I may finally be everything.

‘What of thy mind?’ you may ask;

‘For her,’ say I, ‘you have no task.

Wake up with the sun and listen to the birds,

Sing with the rivers and read all my words.

Then you will know her, remember her,

And that is all that I long for.’

I still wish I could stay just a little bit longer.

But I feel that my death has started to saunter;

She will take her time, as I will take mine,

As two sides of a coin that will be paid to time.

And when we will meet, I know my fear won’t have faded,

But I’ll kiss my death with all the love I’ll have created.

This is my wish. Farewell, my friend;

I may be years in advance, or this may be the end.

And when you, too, will be stepping in the darkest light,

Come find me “where the dreamers dream and the others go to die.” 1

1 from the song Bye Bye by Low Roar, which has helped a lot in the writing of this poem.

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To A Lost Love

Image: Grimshaw Atkinson, A Moonlit Evening, 1880 ©️ Coleccion Carmen Thyssen

Author: Roxane Kokka

Listen to the dark, fallen leaves as they whisper
In a tremulous chant that I have lost a love
Of which I could not place another soul above.
As in the hollow streets of sorrow I linger,
In the burning ashes of regret I wonder
Of the alternative actions I avoided
And of enigmatic passions I distorted,
Out of fear, out of anguish, out of bitter
Dread of something new. As the thoughts of solitude
Sting my knowledge of that which I could not cherish,
And all my senses, one by one, slowly perish,
I drift in the perpetual silence ensued.

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My Grandma’s Garden

Image: ©️ Patrick Didisheim

Author: Leah Didisheim

The Nature in my grandma’s Garden always amazed me
There is this sense of Family
That you find in the grass, and in the flowers
And in the trees and in the hours

You arrive at the Gate
You hear the rocks crack under the wheels
The trees are still there
The walnuts are still left lifeless on the ground

In the summertime, you do not take the main door
You turn around the House
And smile at the pool on your right

You look at the hole that the tree left
He seems to say « I was the King here once »
And you turn again, and walk up the stairs.

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Landscapes – Guillaume’s poems

Image: ©️ Guillaume Amstutz

Author: Guillaume Amstutz

Rosy Dawn

A blinding light floods the sky
Stretches from the soil to mountain high
Dyes the land in the sweetest tones
Nourishes the leaves, brightens the stones
The droplets that hung in the air
Now shine bright, pink and fair
The world is a prism bathed in light
Reflecting life, banishing night.

The World in Winter

The mountains are like the earth’s teeth
hungering for a dawn after a long, long night
and the frost takes hold in this barren heath
a potter’s field covered in white

The falling flakes are the cold ashes
of a fire that bright burns no more
on the meadow the snow crashes
burying deep the earth’s ardor

Under the rooftops covered in white
a quiet maze of vacant halls
bathed dimly in faint daylight
when in slumber the pale sun falls
and as the wind howls over the world
whittling the trees with its whistling
carving the rocks with runes all twirled
crushing the hopes and their kindling
a bitter cold devours the groves
turning the wood into splinters
while a waning moon rises up above
silent witness of the winter

The Shattered City

An organism of steel and concrete
spreads like a disease, far out into darkness
with skeletons adorning the streets
waiting for light to shine on the nameless

The dying stars flicker only dimly
as the towers are circled by haze
the ghosts are roaming limply
in this collapsed and dusty maze

Under the ground, hopes are buried
old love letters in the streets scattered
and hate letters in the chimneys burned
down to ashes, by winds carried

Broken wings caught in cobwebs
clipped apart by vicious hands
far below, the water ebbs
and crashes on the cliffs and sands

But far above, a faint glimmer
beyond the forest and the hills
a distant hope that still lingers
before diving in the landfills

Nightfall

It expands to the furthest corners
All the sorrows, the joy, the songs it covers
The darkness progresses, and soils, and gathers
But through the tears in its skin, the light shimmers

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Ode to an Oak

The Oak

Image: © Eloïse Wenger

Author: Eloïse Wenger

1.
When the shadows of Evening will descend
The Sky and its colours will fade and turn
Revealing a painting of a new blend
In which the pink and red will start to burn.

2.
Then I will leave my house and close my door.
Passing the gate and the luminous church
I will go to the Forest and explore
the woods of fir, maple, willow and birch.

3.
I will see you waving your leaves at me,
Your trunk rending the Sky and newborn Stars.
“Hello my dearest friend.. Mon cher ami!”
For your vision makes me forget my scars.

4.
You must have been the witness of so much:
The seasons passing, your branches growing
All your memories flow in me at your touch
And your embrace makes me think I am flying

5.
Then I follow the path until I see
The Woods glooming at the top of the Hill,
Lythe Lane stopping in sight of the first tree,
A place where all the people remain still.

6.
There I sit on the Bench[1]. It is written:
“Lest we forget.” Words of a mum. Jenny..
Your son is gone with the flags of Britain.
Where is he now? Here? Or in that country?

7.
There must be the very same Bench out there,
With the words of another mum on it.
The language is difficult to compare,
Not the Loss that they will never admit.

8.
Watching humans condemned to endless grief
I feel my hopes are coming to an end
And at the sight of a first falling leaf
The fear of losing you my dearest friend..

[1] This Bench up Lythe Lane is dedicated to the memory of Richard, the son of Jenny, one of my neighbours, who lost his life in 2010 during his service in the Marines in Afghanistan.

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Andrea’s poems

Author: Andrea Karlmann

Open in silence 

When it came to me,
Bit by bit,
It was a piece.
A fragmented piece.

A series of sounds,
Fragrant and raspy.

Just a mutter
At first.

Then a touch
Of motherly warmth.

Walking into a room

A leaf had landed on the windowsill,
So, I tossed it out.
A strange intrusion.
Just a leaf.
No one was to blame.
Just the wind.

Moved 

Enthused, unready for sense,
Or the redolence of
Affection,
Infused with motion,
Passions set the pendulum in swing,
Turns and turns,
Ambrosia’s ash,
Ebbing, bending and broken.

Away anathema.

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Late Night Wedding Menu Translating

Author: Regan Agrey

For the first time in MUSE, we are publishing a wedding menu! Regan’s message will explain its… creative translations. We had a good laugh reading it and we hope you will too! You will find the French original right below the menu in English.

Regan’s message:
“I don’t know if you’ve ever planned a wedding but if you have then you know that there are a billion different details that you have to think of to make sure everything is ready. Menu translating was at the bottom of my list and I begrudgingly did it last minute, way too late at night, half asleep on my bed with my wife-to-be. Our guests got a kick out of it so I thought that I’d share it with [MUSE].”

MENU

FIRST COURSE

Some kind of Gruyère cheese with some carrots, celery and leek Eggplant saucy thing and some crunchy parmesan love
Vegetable in a soupy Gaspacho
Salad with a bunch of fancy words…basically some sauce and pecans with an eatable flower

***

Rollin’ pasta with ricotta, Popeye’s spinach and the creamiest of cheese
Hearty pasta drowning in safran
Shots of guacamole for everyone, bruschetta, and a buffalo mozzarella ball
Spoon full of balsamic vinaigrette bubbles (quite nice actually!)
The cherriest of tomatoes with the greenest of olives
Chiacchiere “La vita e bella con Rak & Reg”

***

Raspberry sorbet
(with the choice of wildness in the air… alcohol)

MAIN COURSE

Mapley, cinnamony and gingery on top of some beef Seasoned juice…?
Grilled almonds hanging out with some apricot
Potato bake with some kind of french cheese : The reblochon
The whitest asparagus you know vs the greenest and meanest asparagus with special guests carrot and green bean

***

Or replace your meat with
PETA certified, 100% meatless lasagna
(no animals were harmed in the making of this lasagna)

DESSERT

Some fluffed mango and passion fruit relaxing on some coconut
Mom’s crunchiest dark chocolate
Wild berries invaded by Crème brûlée, vanilla style

FOR THE SMALLS

Creamy chicken pasta

***

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

§
§
§
§
§
§

French original:

MENU

ENTRÉES

Terrine de gruyère en mille feuilles aux carottes, céleri et poireaux
Caviar d’aubergine et tuiles de parmesan
Gaspacho aux petits légumes
Salade de jeunes pousses, huile de noisette et vinaigre de xérès
Noix de pécan et orchidée karma

***

Roulé de pâte à la ricotta et épinard, crème de fromage
Coeur de pâte crème de safran
Verrine de guacamole, tartare de tomate, boule de mozzarella buffala
Cuillère de caviar de vinaigre balsamique
Tomates grappes et olives vertes
Chiachéré “La vita e bella con Rak & Reg”

***
Sorbet arrosé
(Framboise / Alcool de framboises sauvages)

PRINCIPAL

Noix de veau de lait au sirop d’érable, cannelle et gingembre
Jus aux épices
Abricot moelleux et amandes grillées
Gratin de pomme de terre au reblochon
Asperge blanche vs asperge verte, accompagnées de carotte fane et de haricots verts

***

Ou remplace ta viande avec
Lasagne aux bons légumes
(aucun animal n’a été blessé pour faire cette lasagne)

DESSERT

Mousse à la mangue sur un lit de noix de coco et fruits de la passion
Croquant au chocolat noir
Mousse fruits rouges incrusté de crème brûlée à la vanille

POUR LES PETITS

Emincé de volaille à la crème, coquillettes au beurre

***

Glace

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The Man in My Stomach

Image: © “Bobby and Betty, circa 1953” by Patrick Q

Author: Emilie 

TW: This text speaks about compulsive eating disorder. If this subject is sensitive to you, dear reader, maybe skip the reading of this text as it is not a shiny depiction of healthy behaviours.

Emptiness. I am full of it. From the very bottom of my toes to the top of my head. It takes so much place that I could throw up. It is devouring me. A hunger that drives me mental. There is no amount of food I could eat that would fill it. This void is always starving. No drink can quench its thirst. No candy bar, no grilled cheese, no leftovers, nothing can satisfy it. 

Although my head wishes so deeply to reject it, my screaming body refuses to. I picture this it as a man, an older man. Not old–old. Old like your best friend’s older brother. The kind of guy that would fuck a minor but would look cool because of it. Not an adult yet, definitely not a child anymore. The kind of person who would make toxic look appealing. Who tells you he loves you when his actions show you the scary opposite. The kind you know will throw you away like trash. The one that makes you stay. Well, that is the man living in my stomach. 

Please, dear reader, do not get me wrong, I hate him. As much as I am able to love. I told you. I am mental. Not in a cruel way. I am not the man in my stomach. I am mental in the medical sense. My therapist says I don’t have a classic eating disorder. Whatever this means, it pleases my pick-me girl self. I emotionally overdose and they drive me hungry. They mostly happen after fighting with my mum. We, my therapist and I, think it is due to my cowardice. Sorry, the proper words are: ‘I am unable to express my limits and emotions in front of my mother because she invalidates them’. Despite the fact that paragraphs could be written about my dear mother, this text concerns the man in my stomach. Let us move on.  

So, I eat. This abyss inside of me needs to be fed. Not just food by the way. He wants more. He craves for people. He wants more than dicks and pussies. His main desire is love. To love and to be loved. So, I dress up nice, wear cute and sometimes revealing clothes, put make-up on and I fall in love. Over and over again. With anyone really. Over and over again. I do realize it is not genuine, but I am attracted to its rush, like moths are enchanted by light. The man in my stomach craves for emotional over-eating. I feed him all the time and, sometimes, when satiated, he is not that bad. When a boy touches my arm a bit too long or when a girl maintains my gaze, the man in my stomach is happy. He gives me chills. He definitely has a type. I have another. He likes broken people. People with traumas, with something shiny that comes from grief or loss. My personal type is composed of talented and passionate people. Mostly artists. And artists are often broken. Consequently, we agree on the kind of people we fancy. He wants to eat them, and I am confused about what I expect of them. To love them? To be loved by them? I am clueless. You are right, dear reader, it is sad. Like really sad. 

My younger self would not be ashamed nor surprised, just disappointed. She was longing for so much more. She had enough dreams to fill thousands of worlds with. She was an artist. An unbroken one still. The kind of artist that you see in children movies. With eyes imbued with curiosity and harmless mischief. She would paint on invisible walls with the imagination that lived in her compassionate heart. All of this to say that, staring at my phone, I feel nothing but the overwhelming presence of emptiness. 

As my tears run over themselves on my cheeks, I feel sad about being sad. I am empty. A living void in autopilot. Maybe if I dared to look inside of me, I could find the trace of a fragile butterfly, sleeping in its delicate cocoon. Maybe it will survive this season of nothingness. Maybe not. It is the hope that may or may not live inside of me. But for now, there’s nothing else in me than the man in my stomach. And Hell. His name is probably Chad. 

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The Limb of Life

Image: ©️ Frederica Petriglieri & Kiljan Paris

Authors: Frederica Petriglieri & Kiljan Paris

Nothingness was eternal. Without pain or pleasure neither anger nor calm. It was the lack of everything, the erring of lost consciousness of those who weren’t aware of their existence.
Floating in infinity among stardust and lights. Carrying the emptiness of the universe.
All souls were one and one soul was all.

How am I supposed to remember our matterless past?
While I’m floating tenderly in Charon’s boat.
Why does my memory of the universe fade away?
For the first time of my ethereal wonderings
I’m forgetting everything.

The darkness starts to weigh over me.
The Acheron! Am I drowning?
Wasn’t I destined to cross it?
Sudden fears grow in my being.

As I’m sinking deeper in unknown matter
Away for my lost embarkation
The fluid is tickling my lips
An instinctive sensation.

The pressure grows and grows
My entire being is surrendered by warmth
The feeling of weight accentuates
Where am I?
I did not cross the stream where everything ends
So has it just started?

All of a sudden my hands grab a soft rope.
I let them go freely along it
But they’re ending touching a moving wall
Is it possible? In all the darkness around, am I in a defined space?
For all I know now I’m trapped and alone.

My consciousness is trembling
The surrounding moves again and again
The wall is forever dancing
I’m trying everything to reassure myself,
When, out of my touch
Something comes directly through my head.
Wonderful hot air, smelly yet irresistible.
The Acheron smells nice!

-No wait!
I’m not in the river anymore
So where does this come from?
Isn’t hell supposed to be filled by flame and toxic gas
And that all the unliving are suffocating for eternity?
So why does all I breathe taste unrealistically familiar?

All flavors flourish within me.
The more I feel, the more I forget.
Senses of deeper knowledge
Are drifting me away from all that I know.

I start to hear my own symphony.
My heartbeat settle the rhythm
While the pond over me is shaking
I thought the underworld bears two rivers
But my ears hears billions
From the depth of darkness
The songs of their endless streams
It is drifting me back to a sense of unity
For all the rivers are joining in one.

The tune is connecting me to everything
To all that is over me. I can feel it.
So why does my rhythm sound different
From all the rivers symphony?
-Am I not alone?

Far distant sounds make the wall trembling
Soft and insistent
Decided yet subtle
As pretty whining in the darkness
-Maybe it’s not that hard in the underworld
It must be the voices from those who successfully passed away.

But I’m still running in circles.
And my cell is getting smaller.
-Has my judgment arrived yet?
Am I a damned soul trapped in itself
Destined to question for eternity?

-LET ME OUT!!
I push the wall and pull the rope with all strength.
The voices answer me back:
“AHHHHHH”
“AMORE CALMATI”

I’ve no clue of what that means but surprised as I am
All the muscles within me freeze.
“HAHAH, GRAZIE”
Who the hell is talking?

To satisfy my curiosity
And also because it was itching me
I open one eye to glimpse beyond the fence.
Soft lights spread in my small nest.
But enough to see the whole of me
My arms, hands, feet and toes.

From darkness comes shadow.
On top of that I’m hearing voices.
I’m starting to be crazy for sure.
I need to act, to move and get out.

I’m taking again the rope with both hands
My feet are pushing in every corner of my prison
I hear the same voice shouting but now I’m not stopping
Voices become louder and louder.
But I continue to push.
I’m banging my head through the wall.

I’m sure it’s moving and I can pass through.
-That’s it! I found a fissure where the light breaks.
Even if I suddenly doubt about following the light at the end of the tunnel.
I know it’s the only way.

It’s as if the wall wanted me out.
Every now and then the tunnel squeezes me and pushes me forward.
“LET’S GO PUSH”
Well I can’t do better and my head is stuck.
“HAHAHA”

I look up again and the light blinds me.
I’m tired, my body aching everywhere and my muscles start to fail on me
“GO GO COME ON”
As I’m fainting, the ground under me collapses.
My lungs are exploding as I’m trying to breathe.

But it hurts, I’m suffocating
Yet the boundaries around me are gone…

I’m floating amongst the giant hands of the underworld
So I did cross the Styx and Acheron after all!
For I’m selfless, defenseless and vulnerable.
In the arms of two titans who sing lullabies.

I know nothing anymore.

Posted on

The Request

Image: ©️ “Ordinary Wooden Spoon” by limecools

Author: Anonymous

Write me a poem about the 
ineptitudes that plague your 
insipid character, that stumbling 
tongue I ceaselessly point out.

Or perhaps about the mild indulgences 
of an ordinary existence you do not
mention, in order to postpone your 
appointment with my reprobative whacks. 

But not about my petulance at the sight 
of you biting a whole, unpeeled apple 
(idolized alarmists have sensed a worm 
and aesthetes will gasp at those caving 
teeth: “so unsightly”). 

Nor about my lifelong sobriety 
quenched by inner quarrels. They 
leak as small fits cracking large 
wooden spoons, or soaring word 
bricks in lieu of dictionaries.

Write me a poem, implored the mother,
without writing it about me.

Posted on

The Song of The Night I Couldn’t Hear

Blurry photograph of an amusement park with a big Ferris Wheel

Image: ©️ H.S

Author: H.S

1 Invited to a party I didn’t want to go to but went anyway because it was a girl who invited me:

Miserable numb dumb and drunk, standing still in a corner, stupid and silent – Drinking. Constantly silently unconsciously shivering for a sex dream. She has to work during the party – volunteering (that is to say she works for free) so of course she has no time for me. She invited me to this party and I know nobody except her so here I am – standing here stupid getting drunk on beer and sex dreams – Such assaulting sadness – the people here are not my style, no – they’re wearing fancy clothes – expensive but no style – A Great Gatsby of a party. She pleads, begs me to go dance and make friends while she works – “Go make friends” she says. And drunk I do! Some new overdue drunkard friends and despite everything they’re nice, cool and love to dance and Arab like me like I prefer. But I get carried away and truly crudely dance till two and then I see her again, but a guy is just all over her, arms around her – around her neck and all – So I confront her about it and really I just misunderstood this mysterious situation and she wasn’t interested in my body like I was in hers so too bad but hey at least I made drunk friends out of it all…

2 Trying to have a good time despite it all:

Rocks and blasted trees are those people! I walk amongst the lepers of the drunken night like Dante in the dark forest, music booming in my ears – I just nicely gently and softly push them aside to go to the toilet and get shoved and almost punched. Another guy interrupts us (me and my new drunk friends) dancing to strictly and stupidly insist I spilled his beer – which might as well be true. I didn’t fight him tonight but almost – I just wanted to have a good night a good girl a good life but now I have to play Jesus amongst brigands.

3 Coming home drunk:

The sad and sorrowful song of the night I couldn’t hear – tinnitus from the terrible tittle-tattle of speakers – the haloed aura of the réverbère, my only protection against misery, the failed night – “at least I tried!” but she didn’t want me so I left, not wanting her either. No cars on the soft sweet saintly concrete – A fox emerges from a garbage can and blesses me with intelligent eyes – He sees me and flees. I walk home, away from that katabatic catastrophe of a city – tortured by the streets, martyred by sidewalks. That night home in drunken fear and trembling I see the fox in my dreams: the fox was the Writer-Director of deranged Thought-Movies Fathered Angeled and Revered in Heaven (Hell).

I wake up weary and write these lines.

Written, Directed, Played, Watched, and Forgotten by H.S

Posted on

Ghazal

Image: © “Abandoned Porch Barn and Windmills 1407 C” by jim.choate59

Author: V. J.

Why do we chase light in the night and dark by day?
What’s sad is that to die suffices a day;

To live it takes eternal seconds of
Mad fight to break the flow of every day.

Some Summer’s late afternoon on the porch
Seems to be like dull or sun or Sunday

The dance of the wind blown out of the leaves
Gives a glimpse of what there was yesterday.

We own everything but what matters most,
We own the light; the night; the dark, but not today.