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Today's poet of SHINE, is Donna Burke Esgro. Donna's poems Sanctuary, Keeper, and Mother's Day are full of substance and imagery. With lines and phrases like, "my heart chiming in its own dome of ribs / among the still echoes of lost prayers" (from Sanctuary), these poems are sure to please. Thank you, Donna, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE! Sanctuary I step from the fierce desert light into darkness rough cold stone the airy vault of the ceiling not a sound except my heart chiming in its own dome of ribs among the still echoes of lost prayers incense, wax, and rotting wood a scattering of votive candles the dead in the tangled graveyard the muddy river moving slowly north the silence of the bell tower the holy water of tears somewhere far away a bomb drops from the sky a child enfolds herself like a chrysalis wine turns to blood I am blind until slowly out of cavernous shadows an angel appears first just a glimmer of gold a fluttering a wing then a carved hand lifted in blessing Keeper what toy key unlocks the timbre of my soul tonight opens it like a music box rain’s metronome against the glass melancholy blue lightning’s fever dream and the runaway train of thunder theremin wind, dervish candles or the murmuring oak tree who fell in love with an iron spike fence speared to her crone heart, they are one see how she holds the shivering birds the tiny ones who lift their beaks in tremulous calls close against her scarred breast calls me to cling to her hair and branches blowing, safe within her sinewy arms for she knows that I am hollow boned too, singing into the wind Mother's Day The brightly colored bath pearls in a cut glass jar were a gift for our mother coins counted out on the kitchen table crayoned cards I thought they were more beautiful than anything I had ever seen bubbles of stained glass each holding a promise of luxury that would never be realized At first because they were too lovely out of place on the chipped tile counter or there was never enough time for something so fanciful But after a while it was because we didn’t see them gleaming softly out of the corner of our eyes like we stopped seeing each other growing up in this house that knew little of pleasure The quicksand pill bottles of our mother our silent father’s feral cats and we children playing frisbee in the street in a fog so dense we weren’t sure which way was the way home  Donna Burke Esgro was born in the City of Angels and has been on a quest for her wings ever since. When she thought of poets, she thought of William Blake, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson - lofty souls, while she was just a girl, writing in little spiral notebooks that were, for her, like paper anchors. She wrote to figure out what it was that she knew was urgent but that she couldn’t find the words to say out loud, or maybe it has always been a way to find the wings she’s still searching for. Her most recent works can be found in the international anthology of eco-poetry, Flora/Fauna, VOICEBOX Project, Door Is A Jar Literary Journal, Clepsydra Literary Magazine, and Persephone Literary Journal. She is overjoyed to have been nominated this year for the 2025 Pushcart Prize.
SHINE fans, thanks for stopping by to read today's spotlighted poet -- Lars Love Philipson. Lars is a Swedish writer whose evocative poems have a metaphysical flavor. Please enjoy "Afterview" and "Tremors." Thank you, Lars, for honoring SHINE with your very first publish in English -- wishing you much future success! Afterview I lived my life in fragments, the important bits like distant planets separated by wasted time and effort and no matter how fine a scope you use, can you see me as I was pulverized into particles spread out among extinguished stars? Tremors a pain too large is being suffered by some body left in a ditch you drive away on morphine fumes crying blindly through the night but the pain, unruly, never done, suffered, finds its way back in angry notes plastered all over your house by the crazy neighbor on the cul-de-sac you read without understanding yet feeling every word as tremors through the walls  Lars Love Philipson is a disabled writer, translator, and musician. He lives in Örebro, Sweden, with a chihuahua and seventeen drafts of a debut novel. This is his first publication in English.
Welcome back to SHINE, where today we are celebrating the work of American poet/writer, K Weber. Please enjoy two brand new poems by K, noting her lovely use of imagery. Learn more in her Bio, below. Thank you, K, for sharing your work with SHINE! Warmth The light misery of treacle- thick humidity lasts an hour before I am a pool. I have pulled myself into the lukewarm wet with torn feet and handfuls of hot, sandy pebbles. The muggy water laps my knees and sun strokes my entire back. I have come here with not much more than a towel and a sandwich. I stand on this desultory beach, wind-soaked, as though I always lived a life as someone tan in summer’s distressed clothes with dampest hair. I crave a moment alone to put my flowering lips inside a conch’s glassy ear to tell it I want to kiss your ceramic petal. Versus That breeze brought wistfulness. But I snatched the floor, up-end, like tornado’s work. There was a little rain shower, too, but I bawled my eyes raw and red until they quenched my best shirt. A hot afternoon yielded sweat and sunburn but I seared myself, steely, with a simple glance in an unforgiving mirror. Snow fell. I threw myself down and breathed a visceral cool. I refused to melt.  K Weber is an Ohio-based writer, and the author of eleven free poetry eBooks. She obtained her Creative Writing BA from Miami University in 1999. K writes independently and collaboratively, having created poems from 800+ words (& more!) donated by over 350 people since 2018. K has poems featured in publications such as Stone Circle Review, Stanza Cannon, Writer’s Digest, Exacting Clam, and 3 Elements Review. Her photography/digital collages appear in literary journals including Barren Magazine, HNDL Magazine and The Hooghly Review. She has enjoyed writing music-related recommendations and poems for Memoir Mixtapes over the years as well. Much of K's work (free in PDF with some offering an audiobook format) and her publishing credits are on her website: kweberandherwords.com. Find her on Instagram @midwesternskirt!
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SHINE - International Poetry Series
Curated by Samantha Terrell
From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is my honor to provide a home for their words through SHINE Poetry Series.
NOW IN PRINT!
Stars Over the Dordogne
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