|
Happy Friday, poetry lovers. Today at SHINE online, we have new poetry by accomplished Irish writer, Edward Lee. Be sure to check out his Bio below, to learn all about his publications. Thank you, Edward, for sharing your poetry with SHINE! Who?There is nothing in me, a man, that entitles me to decide the workings of you, a woman, and your body. Nor is there any entitlement the other way, or any way, for that matter. And yet there seems to be confusion as to the rights and wrongs of undeserved opinions. Who wrote these dyslexic rules and burnt them into law? And who allowed them to do so, as though voices can never be raised in anything but rage? Who? HardSome lives are nothing more than ways to harden a soul for death and what may come after. How hard must death be for lives so hard that many choose to depart before their time, their blood the last thing they give to an indifferent world? To Get Away and Return (Mid-Life) With a crooked stare you set sail for home, across a sea without water, an ocean without a map, until you reached your destination, a few mere feet from the beginning that you left, and yet years having passed.  Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction, and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England, and America, including in The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, The Blue Nib, and Poetry Wales. His poetry collections include A Foetal Heart, Bones Speaking With Hard Tongues, To Touch The Sky And Never Know The Ground Again, and The Heart As Dust Lost In The Wind. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and
Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website is: https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com Poetry lovers, today I have another treat for you here at SHINE, with work by Oregon-based poet, Jack Cooper. Please enjoy two of his evocative free verse poems: "Smoke" and "Outside of Time." Thank you, Jack, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE online series! SmokeI woke up in primal suspension alone with the rising and falling of my breath as if before a great crying out even outside a still quiet moment nothing on the go nothing on the make as if the world were stuck at a crossroads the forest on pause in its bargain with the elements smoke from the fires capturing the light in folds like bread dough before the yeast dies in an explosion of significance Outside of TimeIf the Sun and Moon should ever doubt they'd immediately go out – William Blake I don’t doubt travel into deep space will only happen outside of time like in a dream or an illusion it won’t be real as we think of it but metaconscious a sense of other presences Time ties us to age and decay to linearity to distinctions between then and now and when It keeps us Earthbound rational and full of doubt am I good enough will I succeed will we ever get there I don’t doubt time is an illusion like wishes like fears like art you can do anything you can imagine with it You can take time spend time and give time find time waste time and do time You can be on time and get time off The thing about an illusion is that it becomes all too real given enough time I see her in my mind as if it were today Her smile could take you to the ends of the Earth just the way the moon can  Jack Cooper is the author of the poetry collection Across My Silence (World Audience, Inc., 2007). His poetry has appeared in bosque, ABQ Inprint, Rattle and many other journals. Cooper was the Grand Prize Winner in Crosswinds Poetry Journal’s 2016 poetry contest, and his work has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. His poem, "Elm in Dirt with Bird," has been anthologized in Earth Song, published by T. S. Poetry Press, NY, 2022. In 2023, Eco-Justice Press published his first children’s book, Silly Lily’s Rhyming Adventures in Nature, with artist Greta Gonzalez.
Friends, today I'm so pleased to shine a spotlight on the very cool, LDW who brings us a delight for the imagination through his feast of words. Please enjoy his poems Tales of Elysia, The Night Bleeds Electric, and Ode to a Prizefighter. Thank you, LDW, for sharing your work with SHINE! Tales of Elysia Elysia fumbles but she fights As paper snow pouted from saccharine clouds Levels hedge maze heaven And the rain’s frowning machinery Spills grey ghost fables Through vortex thimbles Prodding grumbling waves into pelted brick Wrapping orchid wine carrageenan Around her silver sailing dance Skirting stealth menace Beneath her war tattooed ship Where glassy sky cutouts Web their slivering rankle The toothy reef dragoons Reaching to stake her briny heart But Elysia’s tiger pride Is bronzed furnace creek fire Throttled and boiled Death Valley kettle hot As she coasts high on rebel stride Heading off with Zen quickened sputter Boundless for sanctity’s palatial mouth Through grim oblivion’s parted seas And tarrying never For what is death’s melted wax kissed fate But instead Elysia dives Into the shark eyed void And beaches upon Sion sands Perfumed by hibiscus claret hands Forever kept in the time emptied hourglass of God. The Night Bleeds Electric The night bleeds electric Spilling neon throbs which halo roving satellites And mausoleum skies blanket plum thumb stars Cocooning amethyst glint in marbled solemnity Their dying fever of infinite flame Fleeced of livewire ember and dulled to charcoal vault shade While the rebel throated wind screams bawdy and nude Through sorrow beaten boulevards And hectic carnevale avenues As her teasing cabaret legs Cut through deaf air like sultry whispers And the wind speaks obscured passages known only to God Whipping her shock of dagger hair Against starless vacancy To frame the frisky and beguiled moon That washes dark earth in his pulsing currents To mirror the cityscape’s blossoming gloom. Ode to a Prizefighter Don’t panic Don’t crumble into a foggy lagoon of tears Don’t shiver under firecracker skies With its tiger roar sonic boom Or be dashed inside From night’s crooked smile And vacant moon You’ve got nerve, my friend You’ve got gutsy punch And electric storm fury That barrels through The razored maze And The needling briars Of brutes and bastards Who want to tank your ship Through the greedy storehouse Of their petty mutinies, So hold on to the wheel And the invisible calm Knowing that the absurdity of life Is all the better For you being in it, And may your transparent heart of glass Blind the dogged scoundrel And flood the malice eyed adders Hungry to bruise your heel, For the self loathing beasts At war with themselves Despise a ravine of purity And may their towers of rabble rousing Babel Plant themselves face first Into the God-smacked realities Of black and blue earth, But don’t write your epitaph Or realign your course, You’ve only touched the simple depths Of a universe of worth Alive in the kindness of your eyes And in the beautified candor of your words, So keep sweating blood If you must But saints preserved Keep pushing on, Wave your die hard flag of no return Because I think you absolutely matter To God To us To art To the world To the neighbouring prisms That reflect the stellar outline Of a diamond pearl That shines That is you So onwards you prizefighter And steady To ready To deaden The calloused nerve That pinched you In its boxing cage, But break down the gates And let the world Hear the resurrected songs Of your valour And make it A revolution Of love, Saturn’s return That dries up the frenzied Scalds of hate, Now onwards Now on!  LDW, in a thumbnail sketch, has been a composer and arranger musically, while fully exploring the joyful and cathartic merits of full-time writing. Poetry is his first love, and the bug bit when he was an adolescent. He has traversed the world and lived in Los Angeles, Portland, and Leeds, UK during his creative pursuits and those experiences pepper through his work. He loves animals, pastoral landscapes, engaging conversation, and taking walks.
Good Monday morning, poetry fans, Today I'm pleased to welcome medical student and emerging writer, Noor Safaa Abdulrazzaq to SHINE online series. Her poem "Messages to the Unknown" is a heartfelt tribute to her uncle. Thank you, Noor Safaa, for sharing your poetry with SHINE! Messages to the UnknownDear Uncle, The clouds visited the ground today, I remembered you as it was foggy, Imagine souls resting in peace among the clouds. As they came down, haven’t you come and visited us? It’s a wish to gather once more even in a dream – To remember how far we went and how old we might seem. We wish you were here somehow – as you once have been. Everything has changed as you left, nothing remained the same. So pale this ground, isn’t it? Days are not going as well as they used to, Everything is frozen, even from the very inside. I heard that the weather predictions said That it rained heavily where you are. Did you really get wet? Or couldn’t the raindrop fall into where you lay? When was the last time you touched the rain? Was it really on your last night? Did your eyes look at it differently? As if they felt they were leaving this land? Did you feel something strange? Telling you your life would fall apart? How did it feel when you closed your eyes? And did you know it was your last time? Did you know you wouldn’t open them again? Did you know that you were leaving this world? Had you felt that this was your last goodbye? Did you hold your kids’ hands so tight? You left this world so fast, So fast without any delay, And everything you left in this world, Is missing you without any doubt. Dear Uncle, I hope you are fine somehow, Living in a better place by now, I hope these messages have found their way, Not faded into the unknown.  Noor Safaa Abdulrazzaq began writing poetry at the age of thirteen, drawing inspiration from personal experiences and the natural world. Currently, she is a medical student balancing between an academic journey and a passion for writing poetry. The sentence that best conveys Noor Safaa's passion for poetry is, “Do not die empty," wanting her words to be felt more than only read, to leave a legacy that is worth being remembered. Noor Safaa has published an E-book titled, My First Verses, in an online library. It is a collection of 19 poems.
SHINE has one last feature for this week...fellow Upstate New York poet, John Sweet. I'm pleased to share three of his fine poems, which bring us a call to the warmth of summer, during this cold February here in the Northeast. Thank you, John, for sharing your work with SHINE! dig up those bones and give ‘em a home strange that it’s a love song this late in the game strange that it’s summer none of us dead but all of us dying, and you believe or you don’t believe you laugh or you cry and, no matter how you play it, the days keep getting shorter the man next door puts his faith in the lies of fools and of cowards. his daughter has run away, his wife has been taught better ways to bleed, has learned how to beg in a voice that no one will ever hear, but i was talking about love i was considering the possibility of the future, i was hoping i might find you there 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 just like jesus christ, with the radio on in sunlight, the shadows that define us in the spaces between houses, between cities, the silence of approaching of departure no reason to be alive, when you got right down to it, but here we are a song of infinite sadness in the morning, and then the drugs that drive it away the promise of more spend all winter contemplating suicide, maybe mine, maybe yours, and then it’s spring and how many years will it take for us to realize that our fears never really go away? what is it in this world that can truly keep us safe from harm? and you will waste your whole life waiting for a better answer than the only one there really is  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 poetry 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 (2023 Cyberwit).
SHINE is pleased to welcome writer Hidayat Adams, today. Hidayat offers a series of poems that take us on a brief journey from the depths of hopelessness to the heights of joy -- because what is poetry, if not an expression of the soul's innermost considerations, put down in words. Thank you, Hidayat, for sharing your poetry with SHINE! A Cry of LoveThis heavy sadness threatens my sanity. Unbearable sorrow at the world’s suffering undermines my faith, shakes the fragile foundations of my belief. Warm tears spill, bring no lasting relief. Anger throttles me, renders me incapable of expressing my outrage, warps the slender thread of hope I cling to. Fear and distress vie with courage and joy. Darkness overpowers the light in my heart, nearly snuffs out the life in my soul, thrusts the radiance further and further, until all I can see is an eternal night of despair. A Shout of JoyHope rises, a Phoenix born and reborn. It survives, thrives; holds despair in scorn. Darkness threatens my soul, bears down mercilessly on my faith, causes me to frown At its audacity to think I will submit. I cry tears of love, fear not to readily admit that love is meant to hurt before bliss wraps my heart in folds of careless Abandon and the joy of wild delight, illuminates my soul with blazing light! Slender though the thread might be, hope and faith will set hurt free. The chambers of my heart eternal shall never be scorched by hate infernal. Inner BattlesScale those towering mountains of despair, Stride boldly through the valleys of fear! What matters it if the path doth loop You back hence? Just never bow nor stoop! Light candles of hope in murky gloom, Let the flowers of faith brightly bloom! Slash despondency to ribbons glorious, Adorn yourself therewith, victorious! Why should tribulations intimidate? Heart and mind you can emancipate Through inner strength, belief pure. Bravely you must all trials endure! Created you’ve been with innate mettle, Banish uncertainty, force doubts to settle.  Hidayat Adams is an English teacher by profession. He is the self-published author of one fantasy novel and four short story anthologies. Hidayat writes poetry on a variety of themes. He's working on a poetry collection in homage to William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience". He's currently writing a children's book as well as a paranormal thriller. Hidayat hopes to become a published author some day soon.
Poetry fans, Today it's my pleasure to shine the spotlight, once again, on introspective poet A.R. Williams. In January of 2024, SHINE online series had the honor of sharing work from A.R.'s collection, A Funeral In the Wild (Kelsay Books). Today, A.R. shares his brand new poems: Virtual Predators, and Seeking Refuge, I Wander Through the Woods. Welcome back, A.R., and thank you for sharing your work with SHINE! Virtual PredatorsIn the blur of blue light, digital poets prowl for algorithmic dominance, like a platoon of glitched foxes masked in avatars spooring for viral prey, desperate to scratch their lines in pixels, all in an effort to be seen. Seeking Refuge, I Wander Through the Woodsas builders frame condominiums across the field. Here, I am summoned deeper into the wild by the distant drilling of a woodpecker, jackhammering a timbered high-rise, crafting a home within his home. If only I could be like him, even for just a night-- sheltered, enwombed within the cleft of an oak. Perhaps then, I could re-emerge, reborn.  A.R. Williams, a poet hailing from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley (USA), earned his PhD from Bangor University in Wales, UK. He has been published in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies, including most recently in The Broken Spine, Eunoia Review, iamb, The Lake, and tiny wren lit. Williams is the author of three poetry collections: A Weathered Ship (Ridge Books, 2025), Funeral in the Wild (Kelsay Books, 2024) and Time in Shenandoah (Bottlecap Press, 2024). He also is the host of East Ridge Review’s Poetry Podcast (Spotify and Apple Podcasts). Connect with him on Twitter (X) and Instagram @arw_poetry.
Poetry lovers, you're in for a treat today with work by a young, yet already accomplished, poet Ethan Poon, who brings us his three evocative poems: The Ginkgo Trees, A Garden Left Behind, and The Bitter Harvest. Thank you, Ethan, for sharing your words with SHINE. Keep writing, keep shining! The Ginkgo Trees my father and I had hung a bird feeder, a gift for a robin who once visited my favorite tree, its bark peeking out, a weathered hue. claws and outstretched hands beckoned me to climb, inviting me to run along their arms, with skin wrinkled by September's kiss. its frail bodies breaking into swords and walking canes, enclosures and projects, each bough swaying to the drums of fate. yellow paint peels off, and the tree still waits for me, still blooming, gazing into my room, begging me to stop dreaming, and – now their slender tops overlook the neighborhood. soldiers built and furnished, and now I pick up the very limbs I had cherished as a child. loading them into the bag with the emerald that litters the pavement, the feeder swings empty in open air, the rusted chain watches as the last branch cradles only the sky A Garden Left BehindA once-faded lantern flickers, lotus petals descending In languid spirals, gentle sighs beneath your breath. I reminisce your story. Your smile lingers — a ghost of sunlit days, The shadowed quiet of your weary eyes, And I lay in them, rocking, As we silently excuse the inevitable. It was your refusal to accept our outstretched hands, A quiet steadfastness, All vaniloquence. I trace over the delicate lines of your life, Folds of memories etched along city streets, Blemishes from your hands once home, Stained red from that cold breeze, drifting down Once walked sidewalks. Your garden was a rarity of the city. I can’t seem to bear holding these vegetables You ever so carefully cared for. The squash, a trophy for my every visit. July’s departure will no longer give me a trophy but a treasure. Twilight draws near, and I sail On the kite you had always spoken of, Trying to reach your Old Man on the Moon, Hoping that I could one day also bear the fruitful mountain Carrying what time could not preserve. The Bitter HarvestThe walls gleamed yellow, The sun before its twilight descent, Embracing the warm yields of my mattress, As dawn's first luminescence softly gleams. Now Sol's fervor wanes, its ardor turned austere-- No longer observing through rose tinted glass, Heavy with pain and the scent of other lives, Settling in the crevice of unforgiving stones, Shielded by the faintness of a tree’s rachis. Traversing these pummeled roads worn sets of conscious trail behind, Cacophonous cars that ring with impatience and disarray, Miniature versions that my imagination conjures, As this intersection becomes my endless sigh, Palms, leathery hide of mango. My baskets brim with nature’s yield, Sun-scorched skin darkened by relentless rays, Tender flesh pierced by dull blades, A pit removed and untended. Pacing these streets, conversing with the Great Wind, Beseeching the Divine for youth's lost joy, For the trading of bare fruit alone sustains neither me nor my parents, Living as a mere possibility. The rising sun ensnares me, binding me in its grasp, Demanding toil until palms bleed, The branding of stones along my punctured heel. Lips moving in silent prayers, My will drowned by the deluge of valiant loss. These cups of poorly picked berries and melons are meaningless. Onlookers stopped in their cars with seedy, beaded eyes, only sparing hope, Sheltered under the sun’s merciless gaze, In grace I hope the roads will lead us somewhere new, A place where the walls might gleam yellow once again, And the fruit of our labor will taste the nectar above. Longing for escape of this stormy seven year current, In the passing of my eleventh birthday.  Ethan Poon's poems explore culture and the everyday experience as metaphors for life. He has been an avid reader of poetry for over eight years and particularly enjoys reading poems about justice. His work aligns with creativity and literary uniqueness. Ethan has won the Congressional Poetry Contest, was published in the Poetry Quarterly Contest, NomadArtX, and is a 2x national winner of the Lincoln Poetry Competition.
Hello again, poetry lovers, Today, I'm pleased to shine a spotlight on award-winning writer, SP SINGH. His poem, "A Misty Morning," offers a gentle reminder to ease into each new day. Thank you, SP, for sharing your words with SHINE! A Misty MorningOn a misty morning, I mourn the loss Of paradise of my solitude, The joy of chill from a gentle breeze, Snatched away by my attitude. The tea loses its heat due to Neglect and goes cold. I burn my thoughts to keep my Heart warm as time rolled With a dread, I feel the wind pace up And the fog thickens hither. I guard the remnants of my treasure To not let them wither. Into the thinning greyness Saunters the night and its mare. The sun comes out in earnest, To repair the dawn’s despair. The light stirs its strings to play A duet with the shadow. The lyrics of the song pour in me And fill my soul with a glow.  SP Singh, an army veteran, is a novelist, short story writer, and painter. His debut novel, Parrot under the Pine Tree was shortlisted for the Best Fiction Award at the Gurgaon Literary Festival and nominated at the Valley of Words Literary Festival in 2018. His short story, “Palak Dil,” won the South Asian Award for Micro Fiction in 2019. He has been a Best of the Net Awards nominee, and his works have featured in many international journals and anthologies, including Penguin Random House SEA, The Seagulls Post, Lit eZine, Phoenix, Rio Grande Poetry Festival, Embark, Compassiviste, and MacKenzie.
Poetry fans, please enjoy a couple of poems by former English teacher and writer, Mark Zastrow. Mark hails from Wisconsin, and offers us two poems: "Accolade Diatribe" and "You-phoria." Thank you, Mark, for sharing your words with SHINE! Accolade Diatribe  You-phoriaWhen the street lights come on, you better be home. Stepping over the threshold never felt so good. No blank spaces on this map of childhood. My offspring loudly announces His generation possesses more intellect than mine. Teen apathy is blank spaces on a map of human happiness. My elderly sociable dog can’t see or hear, Every new room a search for family and finding love. Contentment is never needing a map home. Nightly dose of hot tub – fondly called bubbling – Introvert’s dream, disregarding skin irritation. Contentment is filling in the blank spaces of the human map. I routinely kill flies gathered on workplace wall windows. Why so many in this place of busy-ness? Adult apathy, a perceived blank space lacking joy. Tasked at work to depart – deposit a check for half a million, Silently daring the teller not to react. Map to satisfaction, just very few things indeed were really impossible. I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and Take a chance on being corny. Full points for recklessly embracing happiness.  Mark Zastrow is in awe of abandoned buildings and empty public spaces. After a quarter century as a high school English teacher, he returned to writing amidst a new career as a technical writer, specifically manuals for medical software and hardware. He lives in Janesville, Wisconsin, thinks canned cranberries are gross, and wishes that you were on his trivia team...if he had one.
Poetry Lovers, This week, I'd like to give a warm SHINE welcome to French poet, Thierry Ferrieux, author of the new collection, Darkness and Light, edited by Pierre Turcotte. Today on SHINE, Thierry offers us a love poem to freedom -- a message I'm sure we can all appreciate. Thank you, Thierry, for sharing your words with SHINE International Poetry Series. Freedom, My LoveThe path that leads from Olympus to the underworld Sometimes delivers us from forgetful sleep. Wish to heaven, my angel, that the times are radiant, Because for you my eyes shine, in the colors of the sea. It is the day that shines deep in your heart And the night slips away crimson with brigands. I flee, enchanted, carried away by the momentum, On which life feeds, this infinite happiness. With this transported step, I cross the universe, Where I often waved in vague truths. From now on I hug you, free starry space. I can already sense the delicate perfumes Inviting me to dance to the ballet of the stars. Hey! Freedom, darling! Will you hoist the sails!  Thierry Ferrieux, a former A-level student who studied at the University Paul Valery of Montpellier, France, began writing poetry at the age of 13, and earned Third Prize in a poetry contest with the International Library of Poetry in 1998. Thierry considers that one must look at the world with admiration, full of sensibility and love.
Welcome back, SHINE poetry fans! Here's a bit more love poetry as we approach the Valentine's Day weekend...today from Costa Rican poet, Henry Valerio. Thank you, Henry, for sharing your words with SHINE! (And for those of you ready for a break from all the love & romance, don't worry, there's always more variety on the way at SHINE International Poetry Series -- stay tuned! My Rivers, Our RiversRivers of loneliness crash against the rocks of my own uncertainty, rejecting my dreams of perfect love, and numbing my hope for a complete life. Rivers of search wave the streams of my own anxiety, guiding my mind for a perfect future, and encouraging me for a new rate of movement. Rivers of happiness meet, know, and understand each other’s waters, splashing the harmony our flowing bodies have paddled and making a toast for the light our surfaces will reflect. Rivers of passion swirl to embrace another untimely heart, traveling across our pure crystal-clear waters, and increasing the flow of two unique affluents. Rivers of love wetting everything on both banks, spreading themselves all around, in and out, smiling and feeling, smiling and feeling. Rivers of a shared life moving toward multiple directions, keeping the same pace and rhythm, and holding wrinkled hands for eternity. When You Kiss MeFeet lose strength and balance knees shake with neat emotion stomach feels mild butterflies heart accelerates to the maximum. Hands touch an odd current desire lips land on a warm wet field tongue searches for loops and oops mind dreams of future-tied lives. Lightings fly from you and me connecting the wires to make us one creating a two-sided mirror called eyes on which two souls look at each other. Daily reflection of love and understanding.  Born in Atenas, Costa Rica, 1969, Henry Vinicio Valerio Madriz is a teacher of English, Linguistics, and Literature. Henry has published photographs, poems, and short stories online and in paperback. Publications (in the USA, UK, Canada, India, Philippines, and Pakistan) include: “Strange Fate”, “Loving Shadows”, “Ages”, “My Superheroes”, “Running”, “The Cyrenian”, “My love’s gone on a train”, “Treasure”, “Circumstances”, “The Way Back Home”, “Green Mirrors”, “Who are you?”, “Where have you gone?”, “You’ll find me there”, "Earthly God's Love", “The Day Of The Suicides”, “Waking Evil Up”, “New Hope”, “Mother Earth”, "I'll See You Next Week, Darling", "I've got a flying heart", and “Learned to Enjoy Myself”. Henry's work was Shortlisted in Voice of Peace: 1st Intercontinental Poetry and Short Story Anthology 2021, The League of Poets, “Soldiers’ Death Sentence”. Find him online at: https://www.facebook.com/henry.valerio.58/
Poetry fans, today I'm pleased to shine a spotlight on Chicago-based poet, Erin M. Arnold whose evocative love poetry is perfect for February. She shares Comforter Pantoum, Lips, and the prose poem, Stop Breaking My Heart, and I'll Stop Asking for Reparations (a little something for the broken-hearted out there, during this month of romance!). Thanks, Erin, for sharing your gift of words. Comforter PantoumThere’s a stranger in our bed. When I couldn’t stay, I thought you would save my space but there’s a stranger in our bed. When I couldn’t stay, I thought I heard you say her name. Now there’s a stranger in our bed while you drift off to sleep. I heard you. Say her name, I sigh—she giggles while you drift. Off to sleep, sweet dreams my enemy, I sigh. She giggles. There’s a stranger in our bed. Silly me, thinking I could come back. I thought you would save my space. LipsTrust me when I say this word is right on the tip of my lips. I get so distracted with your fingertips on my lips. Stuttering, sputtering, four letters playing such a trick on my lips. Cyan eyes spilling secrets unwilling to slip from my lips. Pulse pounding on my sleeve, trust me. Love on the tip of my lips. Ever reticent in nightly omission—the sin of my lips. Stop Breaking My Heart and I’ll Stop Seeking ReparationsWhich is a funny way of saying that I only ever expected the truth from you, and when you couldn’t deliver, your righteous indignation left no room for my well-earned disappointment. Which is a funny way of saying that I only ever asked that you keep your mouth for me, and by that I meant your lips, your tongue, your words of affirmation. Which is a funny way of saying that I would never expect you to make it right, you could only ever make it so wrong, but you did it so beautifully. Which is a funny way of saying I miss you, desperately and can only take solace in these words, which remind me that we weren’t perfect even when my memory seems so inclined to deceive me. Which is a funny way of saying I only need to heal now. Which is a funny way of saying I need to go now. Which is a funny thing to say when I can’t gather myself outside of your bed.  Erin M. Arnold is a poet living in the Chicago suburbs. She has an MFA from Lindenwood University and her work is scheduled to appear in Gargoyle Magazine in early 2025. She can be found online at erinmarnoldwrites.com and Instagram @poetwithpostcards.
It's a new week at SHINE online, and after some technical difficulties today, I'm bringing you a late-in-the-day (EST) feature...Richard LeDue, whose stunning poems will break your heart and, maybe?, put it back together again. Thanks, Richard, for sharing your words with SHINE! As Much Failure as Raindrops It's realizing our conversations aren't immortal, and have more in common with footprints made of mud on a kitchen floor, than angel feathers zigzagging poetically between the rain and down from a sky, where the clouds also try their damnedest to mean more, but there's as much failure as raindrops on wet, miserable days, when even the weather forecast couldn't be bothered to tell another lie about a brighter tomorrow. Middle Aged and in the DarkThe sort of tired that only wakes up to prove I'm still alive, and I can't decide anymore about the darkness, if it's the same colour as the inside of my eyelids, (safer closed instead of open), or lights turned off by ten o'clock because eight hours of sleep isn't much of a victory, but it's better than all of our defeats keeping us up for another night. 5 Months and Counting The kisses that never were used to taste like whisky on a Friday night, while all my old love poems a reminder of a youth I allowed to wear dust to camouflage the years gone, and hungover mornings were appropriate as a metaphor for getting older, where empty bottles overflowed with the sort of judgment that shouldn't have been unspoken just so love could convince me I had to quit.  Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. His first chapbook, The Loneliest Age, was published by Keslay Books in 2020,and he is the author of another ten books of poetry. His latest full-length book, Sometimes, It Isn't Much, was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2024, and his latest chapbook, Mourning for the Petals, was self-published online for Kindle in November 2024 as an experiment.
Today's SHINE feature of the day is the accomplished writer, Emecheta Christian. Emecheta shares three love poems for this Friday, perfect for the month of February. Please enjoy The Art of Falling, The Geography of Touch, and Night Swimming. Thank you, Emecheta, for sharing your words with SHINE! The Art of FallingYour mouth shapes my name into something sacred-- a prayer formed of words and borrowed starlight, while evening gardens release their heavy perfume into the air already drunk on exquisiteness. I've spent years studying the structure of desire-- how it builds, beam by beam, in the space between glances-- how it burns slow as olive wood, catching us like old thoughts in its honey-gold embrace. Distance dissolves like sugar on my tongue when you gather me close, your hands reading my skin like a favorite book dog-eared at all the fascinating passages. We are writing our own mythology in the language of linked fingers and shared belief, adding chapters with each slow path of discovery in rooms made holy by the simple act of falling. The Geography of Touch In the path of your collarbones I discover new continents of desire, charting the longitude of breath against latitudes of unexplored islands. Your fingers flow like rivers down the valley of my spine, each vertebra lighting up like lanterns illuminating new paths and revealing riches we've spent lifetimes seeking. The atlas of your skin contains stories written in goosebumps-- topographical memories of every time we've crossed these borders, scaled these heights, drowned in these depths. The morning dew spills across your face like honey on warm bread, and I study the way your love tastes in the dullness of my throat, I am excited to be experiencing this love that was never meant for adventurers. Night Swimming We shed our inhibitions like winter coats in summer, letting them fall soft as moth wings against the dock's weathered planks. The lake holds mysteries in its obsidian depths-- your silhouette rippling silver beneath a pearl-drop moon, water beading like mercury across the contours of your back. I want to see the midnight that clings to your eyelashes, count constellations in the droplets scattered across your skin like a private universe meant only for these hours when the world narrows to the space between your heartbeat and mine.  Emecheta Christian’s work explores themes of self-actualization, belonging, and the complexities of the human experience. His works have appeared in esteemed literary journals and anthologies such as The Potter's Poetry, Indiana Review, Oxford American, Four Way Review, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, and elsewhere. He has been recognized with several awards, including the Iroko Award and The Dorothy Hewett Award. Emecheta's unique voice and evocative imagery have garnered him a growing reputation as a voice of change in the global literary scene.
|
SHINE - International Poetry Series
Click here for submissions and more
From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is SHINE's honor to provide a home for their words with the online Spotlight series as well as SHINE Quarterly. Click on the logo above to learn more. And...keep writing, keep shining!
In poetry, Samantha Terrell, EIC SYLVIA PLATH
Stars Over the Dordogne Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
|
