Blog Archives

May 30~ HIRAM LAREW

5/30/2025

Today on SHINE, we have one last installment for this special "book features" week. A champion of poetry and social justice issues, SHINE is honored to promote Dr. Hiram Larew! Hiram brings us samples of his work from This Much Very, published earlier this year by Alien Buddha Press. As a special treat, Hiram has included audio links for these poems (simply click on each title below to listen). Thank you, Hiram, for being part of the SHINE international poetry community!

Wheat Dust
(first published by River Road Poetry Anthology)

Only thing I can think of as bad off as me
Is harvest.
Yes it’s as flat as my face
And just about as friendly as a dead rock.
Try making anything out of this wheat dust
If you will.

Someone said just yesterday that my eyes look bad.
Well of course they do from no water.

Crows could tell you as much.
They’re not dumb.
No rain and they’re gone.
They’ve got good sense.
Fact is they flew off months ago
When the going was good,
When I was still sleeping on the old box springs
For the love of pete
But not anymore.

Let me say again about what a joy it is
To be sleeping flat on the floor.
Right down there with the mice and their musties.

I tell you if I didn’t have Jimmy
I’d leave too.

Damn I would.

Something will happen.

Drenched
(first published by Juste Literary)

You are god-soaked --
    a hay dream that
    drenches the prairies and that
    all haloes pour through

You are hope atmospheric and
    raw storms inviting that
    overwhelm echoes and mighty

Or vast hallows and
    flood fields that
    rush holy forward
    with you

Yes you are a torch-trumpeted cloud --
    the choicest swoon specter
    that sounds out
    what’s purest of downpours

And whenever you run to cover
    under thundering goodness
    all rakes get tossed love-like
    up in the air

Right Here Right Now

As he was climbing the garden wall
Romeo in all legends
And moonlight
Began to realize deep down and surely
The glorious power of his arms
And so he flew beyond himself
In love
Oh yes he did
Even though he was and still is
Just smoke

And when too
Almost as long ago
One of the most fabled explorers alive
Finally found freshets of water
In the desert
Gurgling like sighs
There must have been a cry in his heart
Yes a love in flight
That can never ever be described in tales gone by
No matter what

So then when
Beyond all discovery
The only daybreak in the world blooms
And flows
Right here right now
On your shoulder
To rise in my arms in a story
Is it any surprise
That even the clouds shake their heads
And say oh no oh no
There are too many wings already

Here's what others are saying about This Much Very...

There is a freedom of spirit in the new poems from Hiram Larew’s This Very Much. Freedom to say the difficult words. Freedom to celebrate joyous moments that only poetry allows entrance to understand. A barren field of wheat dust gives way to a gratitude as sweet as cherries on a branch. Longing and hope find room for their truth in the lines. Love is in there too. It's wonderful poetry!
-Elizabeth Gracen, Editor, Flapper Press

*
...a fascinating interplay of words - brought together as unpredictable partners - in embracing
dances of self-discovery.
-Noel Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul and Mary)

*
There are miracles and magic in the everyday. Sometimes we become aware of them, but even when we don't, they see us. This Much Very is the arterial where analogy meets whimsy; with lines as passersby, unwitting accomplices in an ordinary meet cute under miraculous circumstances.
-Andrea Stuart, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Up.St.ART Annapolis and Poet

Hiram Larew's seventh collection of poems, This Much Very, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2025. His poems have appeared in recent issues of Poetry South, Iowa Review, Poetry Scotland, and Contemporary American Voices, and have been nominated for four national Pushcart awards. During his career, Larew guided US Government food security programs. He’s received support from Arts Councils and Food Banks as well as the United Nations and Feed the Children for his Poetry X Hunger, an initiative that is bringing a world of poets to the anti-hunger cause. In addition, Larew founded the "Voices of Woodlawn," a powerful program of poetry, music, and art that explores America’s tragic history and legacy of slavery. Larew is a Courtesy Faculty at five U. S. universities, is a former member of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Poetry Board, and serves as poetry consultant to WBJC-FM classical radio in Baltimore, Maryland. He lives in Maryland, USA. Learn more at:
www.HiramLarewPoetry.com
www.PoetryXHunger.com

May 28~ A.M. HAYDEN

5/28/2025

Today's installment of "book feature week" here at SHINE, brings us samples of two books by A.M. (Amanda) Hayden, Poet Laureate of Sinclair Community College. The first two poems, below, are from American Saunter, Hayden's debut collection published last year by FlowerSong Press. Following those, is a sampling from Hayden's brand new chapbook How to Tie Tobacco -- now available from Wild Ink Publishing. Thank you, Amanda, for being a part of SHINE international poetry series!

Big Bend National Park, Texas
(from American Saunter by A.M. Hayden)

Ode to a St. Louis Drag Queen
(from American Saunter by A.M. Hayden)

Egg Exchange
(from How to Tie Tobacco by A.M. Hayden)

Caretaker Covenant
(from How to Tie Tobacco by A.M. Hayden)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Big Bend National Park, Willows Wept Review 2023
Caretaker Covenant, Etymology Press, 2024
Egg Exchange, When the River Speaks, 2024

A.M. Hayden's debut collection, American Saunter, released 2024 (FlowerSong Press). Her chapbook, How to Tie Tobacco, and second collection, Old World Wings, will release in 2025 (Wild Ink Publishing). A Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2023 River Heron Editor's Choice Prize winner, she lives with her family and many rescue babies.

May 27~ MELANIE HESS

5/27/2025

Hello poetry fans! For this shortened week, I'm thrilled to feature three talented poets who have graciously shared samples of their latest books/chapbooks for the enjoyment of the SHINE community. First up, an installment of poems from Bread and Bone by the fabulous Melanie Hess. Thank you, Melanie, for being a part of SHINE international poetry community! Melanie's book Bread and Bone is available on Amazon.

As a young girl, Melanie was entranced with William Carlos William’s The Red Wheelbarrow and knew she wanted to write poems. Many notebooks and many years alter, she began writing again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Melanie writes from British Columbia, Canada. Through imagery and detail, her vignettes explore the internal and external landscapes of life and what it means to be human. Her poetry book, Bread and Bone is available on Amazon. On Instagram: @alohamonkey

May 22~ ARSHI MORTUZA

5/22/2025

SHINE poetry fans, I'm thrilled to share the work of Toronto-based poet, Arshi Mortuza, whose three poems, "My Ghost in Exhile" (previously published by Six Sentences), "Lady Macbeth Sees a Psychiatrist," and "Blood Moon," seem a perfect way to round out this short week. SHINE will be on holiday until next Tuesday, May 27th, when we'll be back to feature a few new collections from our growing poetry community. But for now, thank you Arshi, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!

My Ghost in Exhile

My heart is a formerly haunted house,
Recently exorcised.
It took trial and error
To get through to the ghost in me.
The language barrier--
Latin, Aramaic, Arabic.
“Go back to where you came from!”
“You do not belong here!”
“How dare you climb the walls,
Cross the borders
Of this heart?”
She looked back, confused.
Unsure of what she had done
to be so unwanted.
She was my entire essence;
The one who gave life to my body.
Flickered lights out of ecstasy and mania.
Opened creaky doors
for those she wished to know.
And now with my ghost in exile,
I wonder who will take on
the low-paying job
Of pumping blood
for my next cheap thrill.

Lady Macbeth Sees a Psychiatrist

You see, doc,
I dreamt I killed the king,
and the dream felt as real
as plunging a sword through the old man itself.
There seems to be specks of pure evil
in my brain.
Out, damned spots.
I questioned my morality so hard
that it made me wash my hands
until they blistered
and bled.

Blood Moon

She’s been made a spectacle --
That hemorrhaged moon on
A heavy-flow night, who is careful
Not to make a mess of the sky.
It’s getting hard to hide the stains,
Yet she sits there with her head held high.
But the sun would have no problem --
Bleeding all over the sky.
His brazen rays spilling
Like oozing lava --
And we’d all turn a blind eye.

Arshi Mortuza is a Bangladeshi poet and writer based in Toronto. She became a published author through her poetry collection, One Minute Past Midnight and is planning to bring out her second book of poetry by 2025. Arshi can be found on Instagram at @poetessarshi.

May 21~ KEN GIERKE

5/21/2025

SHINE would like to give a warm welcome to American poet Ken Gierke with his poems, "One-Hit Wonder," "Bridge of Sighs," and "Don't Lose Heart," which particularly speaks to me today. Thank you, Ken, for being a part of SHINE!

One-Hit Wonder

They may be one hell of a trio,
but they only have one memorable tune,
a one-hit wonder of angst and pain.

Gallbladder, stoned out of its mind,
lets one rip long enough to send
Pancreas into a shrieking fit.

Not to be outdone, Liver responds
with an infectious laugh
that borders on manic.

It’s clear that Gallbladder has to go
but can’t be cut from the act
until Liver settles down.

So, what’s up with Liver, fear of failure?
Never been mistreated, never been
one drink away from destruction.

But if Gallbladder stays stoned,
destruction is inevitable,
and no one wants to hear that tune.

Bridge of Sighs

A thousand-mile drive to get here
one last time, the last two on gravel.
Another fifty yards up the drive.

A chime weaves through a lone guitar
as Robin Trower plays a forlorn tune.
We walk past sage and weeds that tumble

in the unending wind. Into the house,
emptied, cleaned of any signs of life,
yet I hear a voice, a lament.

No sun will shine, no moonshine
to cleanse this child.

Here by choice, remote, but connected
to the land she loved. Connections
to her family were more tenuous.

A life spent in search of satisfaction,
always over a horizon that betrayed her
with one more of life’s cruel tricks.

She was found in the dead of winter,
collapsed after trudging through drifts
to get inside. And the voice continues.

The wind blows cold
on the soul of this poor child.

The guitar continues, backed by
a drum with a slow, deliberate beat,
that chime weaving in and out, haunting.

Out the door and into that Wyoming wind,
we start the long drive home, her home
receding in the rearview mirror.

Never one to leave that part of her
behind, she may be gone, but
she’ll always be there.

Cold and unforgiving,
this unending bridge of sighs.

Author's Note: the italicized lines in Bridge of Sighs are not lyrics from the Robin Trower song.

Don’t Lose Heart

To the heart of the matter
Have a heart
Know this by heart
Take heart
To your heart’s content
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Whole-heartedly
Straight from the heart
Take it to heart
Heart is normal sized
Follow your heart
Know this with all your heart
Find it in your heart
To your heart’s content
Your heart is in the right place
Keep it close to your heart
Anxiety gnaws at the heart
You may have a change of heart
The heart size is enlarged
Don’t lose heart
You still have a heart

Ken Gierke is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet who writes primarily in free verse and haiku. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in such places as Silver Birch Press, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, and Trailer Park Quarterly, as well as in numerous print anthologies. His poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, Heron Spirit in 2024, have been published by Spartan Press, with Random Riffs forthcoming in 2025. Find him online at: rivrvlogr.com.

May 20~ JOHN DORSEY

5/20/2025

Today, SHINE is honored to turn the spotlight on the prolific and talented, John Dorsey. Be sure to check out John's Bio below. But not before enjoying his poems "Goldfinches in the Kumquat Tree" and "At Barlow's." Thanks, John, for sharing your words with SHINE.

Goldfinches in the Kumquat Tree (for Barry Gifford)

there are neither here
on an ordinary morning
on country roads
where everything appears ordinary
at least twice a day
the garage door shakes
like a crumpled soda can
the sun cowers in fear
a dog searches
for half eaten poems
while a raccoon
sifts through
the garbage
& carries
a torn up
suicide note
into the street.

At Barlow's (For Jeff Taylor)

i sit here thinking of you
while trying to white knuckle
my way through a plate
of scrambled eggs
that taste like burnt rubber
you said that you
had no money
but offered a couch
if i ever needed one
we barely got
to know each other
but when we die
everyone on the internet
was our best friend
kevin laughs
the way
old white people
tend to
before 9 am
& i look out the window
at the morning traffic
that passes us by
these rivers are the tributaries
of the dreams
we drown in
but nobody
tells us that.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival (Spartan Press, 2022), Pocatello Wildflower (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023), and Dead Photographs (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be reached at [email protected].

May 19~ RICHARD STIMAC

5/19/2025

Poetry fans from around the world, welcome back to SHINE where this week I'm pleased to introduce St. Louis (MO) region poet, Richard Stimac, with his poems "Recipe," "White Washing," and "Descansos." I enjoy the cultural descriptions and social justice themes in his work. Richard, thanks for being a part of SHINE!

Recipe

When I knead self-rising bread bleached so bone white
it pales my hands as if I’ve dug in pyre ash for relics of a saint,
I remember my grandma when she smoothed a bed sheet
atop the kitchen table then sprinkled flour across the threads
to keep the dough from sticking as she rolled it sheer as parchment
beneath the weight of the tapered pin my grandpa hand-lathed for her.
I stood beside her. She would pause, smile, place her hands on my face.

The dough smoothed from edge to edge, she cut it into wide strips
that looked like scrolls, then rolled them in upon themselves.
She held the kitchen knife with the handle smoothed and shined
with years of sweat and slid the blade through the folds.
With each slice, thin ribbons, long as tendons tanned as sutures
to bind a sheaf of folio, or a condemned man’s wrists,
fell across her fingers, dusted as they were with her work.

Her winter pride was a watery broth glazed with chicken grease,
a few slivers of carrot so overcooked they dissolved in the spoon,
and the noodles, slight in texture, no body to test against the tooth,
along with black pepper shaken through the plastic grate of a handheld tin.
She set a cup of soup before me when I sat at her kitchen table,
and said, “Take this and eat. It’s all I have to give. I’ll be dead soon.”
She slurped when she ate and wiped her mouth on her housecoat sleeve.

Only years later, when I had learned to read and write and speak well,
did I understand that memory lives in the mouth, as taste, not words.
Histories were written on those sheaves of dough, genealogies, traditions,
yarns spun from the American Midwest, down the Mississippi,
to New Orleans, to Trieste, the bottomland of the Danube, then where?
East? South? To the wheat fields between the Tigris and Euphrates?
The Horn of Africa? Each mouthful gave me a savor of the past.

White Washing

Near to Equality, black men ascended
enshrouded in rock salt from Saline Springs,
Illinois, then an admitted free state.

In hand-drawn river water, they washed off
the whiteness from their skin, picked whiteness from
beneath their nails, blew white snot from their noses,

coughed up what they jokingly called “white lung”
before they fried their cornmeal in fatback
then passed around a new tobacco plug

and swapped tall tales until the hearth fire died.
A station on the Reverse Underground
Railroad, Equality sold more than salt.

So many things can be kept for so long
if you pack them in salt and let them age.
Reconstituted, they return like new.

The state owns Equality’s Old Slave House,
where Lincoln spoke on the second floor. Slave
pens, twelve in all, formed the floor above him.

An odd quiet muffled the great man’s speech.
Many ears longed to be filled with such words.
The home is closed for pending renovation.

Instead, tourists can wander through the Garden
of the Gods, in Shawnee National Forest,
named after a people who once lived there.

Descansos

Along the interstates and county roads,
you see them, make-shift crosses, rudely nailed
slats, painted white, leaning, as if exhausted.

Bouquets of plastic flowers, photographs,
sun-bleached, rain-warped, and plush stuffed animals,
in silence, huddle, like saints beneath the cross

and remind us there’s life after our death.
Others will carry our names in their mouths.
For some, even strangers know where they died.

I’ve never raised a cross on a thin shoulder,
beyond the solid line and rumble strips,
where the grass slopes down to the frontage road,

yet, they move me, these monuments to grief
and love. I wonder what were their names, age,
their favorite food. I never stop to look.

These shrines are meant for us, the passersby,
we who speed headlong to unchosen ends.
They remind us that all loss should be shared.

I keep them with me, interred in the lines
of this poem, words you read, take with you,
words we all hold, til we come to our rest.

Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region. He is on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/richard.stimac.poet

May 16~ HEATHER KAYS

5/16/2025

Welcome back, poetry fans. As we conclude this week's features here at SHINE online series, I'm pleased to put the spotlight on the talented Heather Kays. Please enjoy "Cycles," "Recidivism," and "Contradictions and Contraindications." Thank you, Heather, for sharing your work with SHINE!

Cycle(s)

I. Truth
I was born to the sound of breaking things—bottles, promises, bones.
Learned to read by deciphering bruises and the fine print of threats.
I mistook survival for love and called it home.
My mouth is a blade now, my heart—still a haunted room.
I write because silence buried me, but I came back with a shovel.
II. Fire
I come from fire—burned young, but never turned to ash.
I wore their guilt like armor until it cut deeper than their hands.
They tried to silence me, but I learned to scream in metaphors.
I’ve made a cathedral of my scars and dare anyone to pray here.
You don’t survive this beautifully without becoming at least a little feral.
III. Ghost
I lived in rooms where the walls whispered my name like a warning.
Even my shadow flinched when touched.
I learned to haunt myself before anyone else could.
Grief made a nest in my ribs and called it love.
Now I write in smoke, and sleep beside the echoes.

Recidivism

I used to think
a slammed door meant someone cared enough to stay.
That love had to bruise,
or it wouldn’t leave a mark worth remembering.

The first man I loved
called me difficult with a mouth full of my name.
I kissed him harder.
I thought maybe if I bled enough beauty,
he’d stop spitting broken glass.

I let them come back.
The ones who left.
The ones who lied,
who twisted apologies into puzzles
only I was supposed to solve.

I housed their rage
like it was a stray dog--
thin, twitching,
still deserving of shelter.

I curled against their violence
like it was heat.
Like I didn’t grow up learning
that fists don’t always need to land
to leave you changed.

I memorized the weight of silence
after shouting.
Let it press me down
until I mistook stillness for peace.

Somewhere along the way,
pain stopped being a warning.
It became a liturgy.
Familiar.
Sacred.
A god I didn’t believe in
but kept praying to anyway.

Now,
when someone offers softness,
I flinch.
Not because I don’t want it--
but because I never learned
what to do with gentle hands
that don’t ask for proof
in the form of sacrifice.

Contradictions and Contraindications

I wanted tenderness
but only knew how to chase chaos.
I craved safety
but kept running toward sirens.
Every warning label read like a dare.

He said I was too much
and not enough
in the same breath.
I believed both.
Swallowed every side effect
like sugar on the tongue.
I knew better.
I did it anyway.
Called it chemistry
when it was just adrenaline.
Called it connection
when it was trauma bonding
with better lighting.
I memorized his moods
like drug interactions--
what mixed well,
what might kill me.
Still, I took him
on an empty stomach.
They don’t tell you
what to do
when your poison
is also your cure.
They don’t teach you
how to say no
when every cell
is screaming yes.
I’m learning now
how to read the fine print
on people.
How to stop confusing
need with love.
There are things
I don’t prescribe myself anymore.
Things I won’t take,
no matter how familiar
the high.

Heather Kays is a confessional poet and writer whose work explores trauma, survival, intimacy, and identity. Her poetry has been celebrated for its emotional precision, vivid language, and raw vulnerability. Heather is currently seeking publication for her memoir Pieces of Us and continues to write poems that straddle the line between scars and survival.

May 15~ VIKAS PAI

5/15/2025

Poetry lovers, I'm pleased to shine a spotlight on Vikas Pai, who began writing poetry in 2023. Please enjoy his stirring poem, "Things Left Behind." Thanks, Vikas, for sharing your words with SHINE!

Things Left Behind

In the back of a thrift store, dust drinks light,

old coats slouch like tired ghosts,

a porcelain doll stares with cracked intent,

and time hums in forgotten receipts.

I find a marble in a chipped glass jar,

blue swirls locked in orbit,

a small planet,

spinning quietly with no one left to name it.

As I hold it, something stirs beneath my skin,

a slow unfurling,

like a tentacle rising from memory’s dark sea,

slick with things I buried.

Grief I never called by name.

A hunger that didn’t belong to me.

The echo of a question

no one ever answered.

I wonder how many lives have passed

through this place

how many secrets donated by accident,

how many selves sold for fifty cents.

The marble warms in my palm.

The tentacle tightens gently,

not to harm,

but to remind,

Some things never leave.

They just change shelves.

They just wait

for someone curious enough to look

Vikas Pai is an engineer by profession and started writing poetry in late 2023, while going through severe depression and anxiety of several years. Poetry helped him to recover and find life back from the stage of despair. Currently, Vikas is working on his debut book Life is Beautiful Again, aiming to publish later this year.

May 14~ TRACY DUFFY

5/14/2025

SHINE poetry fans, I'm so pleased to spotlight Tracy (Lee) Duffy today with three evocative poems. Thank you, Tracy, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!

Vows

I don’t know how much longer
I should chase down your heart
And leave my passions in the dust

I don’t know how much longer
I should reflect your challenges
And only view my vision on the glass

I don’t know how much longer
I can nurture your soul
And settle my spirit

I don’t know why I’m placed
A Guardian Angel
When my own wings are clipped

I don’t know why we see
All the tiny fissures
And ignore the gaping crack

It is the whole of alone
The eternity of life
The promise and integrity lifted up

Yahrzeit

I cried a death and cried,
and cried another death and cried,
yet another death I cried
Cried out over this mournful life
As mortal as it gets, I get it
Spirit moving me on
Neighbor casseroles
Dog love
Weeping puffy eyes
Picture shows
Grandchild’s coloring picture
Raking leaves
Lipstick – no mascara
I cry three times in a row
I sob
Cry three times
Work
Clear the snow
Buy a sweater
I start to cry,
I sigh
I sulk
Plant the flowers
Stare at the cross
Smile
I wish to cry
I expect to cry, a single tear
Escapes my heart

Yahrzeit - Yiddish anniversary year of a death. As I searched for meaning to my mom’s early death, there seemed to not be a tradition in my family and culture for such respect and pain.

Tribute Band

Where two or more gather together
stay connected, cover band
Sitting rows of huddled molds
cast out from industry
all retired together
forming a new society
south. Sun, pickle ball, early cocktail
Patterns follow, what was between the two
is here. What was not is still a loss
even basked in sun and shrouded by peers.
Plan from the start the span of life
how necessary to move masses through
the linear descent. Myself a maze of undetermined
avenues, leading dead end to the shore dunes
not cresting. Seeking definition in hoping, and for
winds to wash up a true musician. Sharing
the real value of life, the melody heard and felt clearly
(not a fog of a single desire) but of mine or both.

Tracy Duffy’s poetry reveals firsthand life experience and observation as an art of expression. She has lived in PA, NY and Florida, raised two daughters while writing, and working in cosmetology, management, and medical services. Published in: Bacopa, Writers Alliance of Gainesville; P’AN KU, The BCC Student Literary/Arts Magazine and Tiny Seed Literary Journal; Open Door Magazine Summer 2024, Labyrinth; Anti-Heroin Chic; Passage; The Sandy River Review; The Bluebird Word; The RavensPerch.

May 13~ DR. DEEPAK DEV

5/13/2025

Shining the spotlight, today, on accomplished fiction writer and IT specialist, Dr. Deepak Dev. Please enjoy his poems "Ode to the Code and the Chaos" and "Ode to the Dream Factory." Dr. Dev, thanks for being a part of SHINE!

Ode to the Code and the Chaos

‘For the IT mind, the poet’s soul, the rebel heart’

Keys clatter, sparks ignite,
firewalls guard the silent night.
Errors blink, yet hands don’t shake,
you weave the code, you bend, you break.

Beyond the wires, past the screens,
a poet lingers in machine dreams.
Logic hums, but verses rise,
where algorithms kiss the skies.

Numbers bow to whispered lore,
a rebel’s mind, an artist’s core.
Fixing worlds no one sees,
lost in ones, lost in threes.

Yet poetry slips through the cracks,
where tech and soul never clash.
Between the circuits, fate unwinds,
a warrior heart, a coder’s mind.

Lines of code, like rhymes untold,
shaping worlds both bright and bold.
Every crash, a chance to mold,
a masterpiece in data scrolled.

Not just a builder, not just a guide,
but the keeper of sparks that won’t subside.
Through tangled wires, a world is made,
by restless hands that won’t degrade.

Some build walls, some write tales,
but you do both where logic sails.
A poet of light, a keeper of night,
crafting meaning in pixels bright.

Ode to the Dream Factory

‘Where cinema meets the man who writes his fate’

Roll the reel, let silence play,
where dreams don’t ask, they steal away.
Scripts are torn, but fate is penned,
by hands that twist, by hearts that bend.

Every hero learns to break,
villains cry, and lovers ache.
Yet lights still flicker, stories run,
where midnight fades into the sun.

No cue to cut, no line too steep,
some roles we lose, some wounds run deep.
Yet through each scene, through every take,
you carve the path, you learn to make.

Not just the watcher, nor the lead,
but the hand that writes, the soul that bleeds.
For life is more than dust and time,
it is the tale, the fall, the climb.

A frame may crack, a shot may blur,
yet meaning lingers in what occurs.
No scene is wasted, no word in vain,
all moments stitch into the frame.

The curtains drop, the credits scroll,
but echoes last beyond control.
For stories told in light and pain,
outlive the dust, outshine the rain.

So take the script, reshape the scene,
let life be vast, let fate be keen.
A dream factory where time won’t stay,
but stories live beyond decay.

Dr. Deepak Dev is an IT Advisor , holding a Doctorate and Master’s degree in Information Technology alongside multiple professional certifications. His professional journey has long revolved around precision, systems, and logic. Writing, however, emerged as an unplanned sanctuary. Guided by lived experiences rather than literary tradition, his voice weaves rebellion, loss and resilience into raw, reflective verse. His debut poetry collection, Symphony of the Erased: Verses Resurged & Reclaimed, explores resilience, memory and quiet defiance. It launched globally on March 7, 2025. In parallel, Dr.Dev is also the author of The Algorithm Saga, a speculative fiction series delving into memory, identity and rewritten histories. Book I: The Algorithm of Forgotten Verses is currently in production, with the series of novels already underway.

May 12~ STEVEN FORTUNE

5/12/2025

This week SHINE welcomes Canadian poet Steven Fortune with "Volley," "Backslash," and "A Love Letter from a Failed Generator." Thank you, Steven, for thinking of SHINE international poetry series as a home for your creative work!

Volley

Best not to nominate the rumored
crumbs of my inverted feast
for esoteric soup kitchen adulation.

If security
is hallowed closure, and enclosed
in a tower, then I’m fated to a misaligned
posture of identity
with no pretense of verbal hopscotch
at my interpretive disposal.

I’ll volley back and forth between
cerebral hemispheres
for the entertainment of bemused senses,
when the occupation of an impressionable
mass stutters on anachronism’s dragon teeth,
like a tank confusing virtuous direction
with robotic obstinance.
~
(Dragon Teeth: square pyramidal fortifications first used during WWII to slow down and channel tanks into killing zones.

Backslash

Would you be one
with archetypal time-bomb
seductions underneath
the apple tree
with anyone else but me?

I’m encumbered with
impressions of a light year;
an existence
sealed in a quantity,
inaccessible for its suppressed
math to most.
Coming to your senses
after the fact.

Subtle as a flock of ravens
speckled on a snowbank,
pressure-point intentions
protrude from the pallor
of your discontent;
strength in numbers still
count, even tethered
to the inner voice.

Woebegone, but resolute,
I do my part to whimsically
eviscerate the conquest
narrative on verbal supplements
alone, wondering if it’s
addiction to a masochistic cause,
or resilience in an elegant
and wasted crusade.

You were subject to
umbrella condemnation
for so long;
now my turn is here,
to endure a living
and a language in quotation
marks.

Guilt by association;
the most transcendent sentence
ever spoke.

A Love Letter from a Failed Generator

1.
Inside a crushed orange
meltdown
of aggrieved metaphors:
that was where we met
and made the best
of icy memories.

You were the butane
blue mattress upon which
my bewildered wick of
world weariness
unfurled for protection,
from tomorrow‘s infinite
typhoons of toxicity,
corroding artificial lights
I wafted to, moth-like,
in search of happiness.

2.
Sickened by the cynicism
I could never conquer
without prodding,
the primal wheeze
in my lungs stabbed the air
of my resigned ignition,
like an acid-rain-rusted fork.

Grey flames of erosion
incinerated the dimensions
of my Great Pretender mask:
I was open to the prospect
of a meltdown.

3.
Alas, all-consuming
is the compound
of the grey debt,
it would appear,
yet the parasol of your
embrace stifled my
deficiency of closure like
race-horse blinders.

Simply through your place
in my obstructed vision's show,
I’m made aware of light,
even as I realize I'm out of
candles, and the metaphors
incline me to reach around
until I clutch your heated cage
of night-vision.

Steven Fortune is a poet, playwright, and collage artist from Sydney, Nova Scotia (Canada) and a graduate of Acadia University. He has released five poetry collections to date, edited several works for others, and has also appeared on CBC Radio, while his work has been featured and read on several online programs.

May 5~ KERRY RAWLINSON

5/5/2025

This week I'm pleased to welcome the accomplished Kerry Rawlinson to SHINE, with three poems: Heart-to-Heart With My Younger Self; Stealing Apples; and Punch & Judy. Thank you, Kerry, for being a part of SHINE international poetry series!

Heart-to-Heart With My Younger Self

shine, child, sing!
everything rings new & glorious,
crowned with sunshine; wildly glittering--

   defy the calcifying frown, the sagging
   paunch; the thin gruel of happiness
   now watered down. not yet the drool of
   forgetfulness, the realization of youth’s
   cruel sloughing & the incapacity to care
   or cry.

fly, child, run!
play & laugh & climb, conquering nothing
greater than the bunny-slopes to selfish Fun--

   shun the skin crêpeing, the chronic
   aches, a ghastly withering, the creep
   of cataracts; dithering & shakes; feeble
   regret, the haunted past locked down;
   memory at last meandering as helplessly
   as pee.

flee, child, scatter!
grasp whatever clever cliche forms the latest
handles to grasp the day’s noisy clatter--

   shatter the future-vision you abhor, hunt
   for antidotes to love’s atrophying muscle.
   you: the future star no more, but the tail-
   light of a speeding car, a stained photo;
   or simply the diminishing chink of a
   closing door.

more, child, there’s more – don’t blink! all this
is certain, not far. Fate’s plucked your fiddle--
diminishment is the tune you can’t ignore.

Stealing Apples

Punch & Judy

the grandkids & I make puppets:
playdough faces from imaginations
unfettered; beaks & shnozzes;

hands & paws & claws; bodies of burlap
   & beads, velvet, feathers, tuille
     & rainbow-painted toilet paper

glue-gunned leaves & seeds. we put on
   a production for their mum & dad,
     then I do one for them, not sparing

any metaphors—Big Lessons, tricks & traps
   that lurk like trolls below black bridges
     to ambush innocent foundlings

unawares. then the kids put on their own show
   for the grownups & it’s a marvel of mayhem,
     as real to them as anything lived.

their whack & wail, tenderness & dizzy,
   overwrought hilarity pitches me into my
     default pit. is it insight, allegory, or just

my usual jinx that forces me to view the bruise
   behind the smile? I want them to clue in
     to life’s mundane clichés without being

broken, without killing the baby. and I pray for
   resilience as they wriggle on the twisted cords
     of Overlords who smirk up their toiletroll

sleeves while making us their puppet-things;
   one hand fingered up our pants to make us act
     while another hacks our strings.

Kerry Rawlinson is a mental nomad & bloody-minded optimist who gravitated from sunny Zambian skies to solid Canadian soil. She’s the 2024 recipient of the New Millennium Writings and Princemere Poetry Prizes and has also won awards for flash fiction (Edinburgh Flash Award); art and photo-art (CAGO Online Gallery); and placed in other contests, e.g. Bridport; Room; Foster; Palette; Fish Poetry; National Poetry Society. She’s been internationally published in over 100 literary journals and webzines, eg. The Ex-Puritan; Grain; Pinhole; IceFloe Press Geographies; Filling Station; Rochford St. Review. Kerry's enthralled with the gore, music, brutality & beauty of the world, exploring its edges in her work. She wanders barefoot through dislocation & belonging—and still drinks too much (tea). kerryrawlinson.com

Wheat Dust(first published by River Road Poetry Anthology)

Drenched(first published by Juste Literary)