|
Poetry lovers, today on SHINE I'm thrilled to welcome back the talented Scott Thomas Outlar. Scott brings us three new poems: Spilling Through Little Cracks in Consciousness, Water Gymnastics, and Solar Mantelpiece. Thank you, Scott, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE international poetry series! Spilling Through Little Cracks in Consciousness airborne apex parallel and adjacent juxtaposed against the compass cross dead halo center the blades, translucent edged razor (wire) wise into the final blissful abyss trained undercover, stealth maneuver with open blinds and tired comfort we shouted in joy until it turned to exasperation learned about the light before falling in love with shadows integration techniques welcome to your mirror (lover), lover (mirror) Water Gymnastics Ultra sensory, the tingling hinges upon which reality teeters to and fro across rivers of plasma energetic portal, magnetized resonance all the pretty words mumbled and jumbled in ad-hoc spells loosen thy tongue and release the tension of uttered fabric let outward as spider’s cloth a raft of silk in the age of turbulent water In times of mellow indulgence waves of nostalgia are summoned and the sun in his reposing posture grants passage for feminine reflection the edge of neon ashes puncturing through the iron chasm felt but unkindled by light movements in the subtle lines we dig and dart with precision it’s how you construct an orbit fine decorum and paper mâché Solar Mantelpieceas the blade of grass soaking dew in summer groove a hymn was writ in clouds, sky blue half wafer crisp of white haze moon atmospheric pressure coupled with gravity sweaty marsh of humid perceptions floating through winds of gentle degree the sensual overtone of revealed rhythm weeping willow, green overhang crosses, cues, sigils, and albatross as the soft knit hue hinges on the needle’s eye a promise was kept in good repair close to heart, hearth, and home  Scott Thomas Outlar originally hails from Lilburn, Georgia. He now resides and writes in Frederick, Maryland. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in 15 languages. More about Outlar's work can be found at 17Numa.com.
Welcome back, poetry lovers! How about some love and resilience poetry today from Bangladeshi poet, Tasmia Turna? Please enjoy Tasmia's "Between the Pages" and "Where Rescue Ends." Thank you, Tasmia, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series. Between the PagesIn the velvet diary of you and me, lies a quiet ribbon of love-- pages upon pages, dreams written in the margins, coloring someone’s world with whispered fire, tales that soothe, that rise beyond-- whose voice carries the private murmur of becoming, in chapters that turned without us. On days like this, I find only a fragment, a trace-- perhaps a signature, perhaps a lovely lie, or simply, a ribbon in a diary. Where Rescue EndsI bled poetry into a man Who called himself one But couldn’t spell tenderness With his hands. He watched me unravel Under fluorescent hospital lights- Called it fate, I called it forgetting. He said, Love Pressed it on my chest Like a paperweight, Not knowing I was air, not stone. I walked through fire- Not for him, But to find the part of me That never needed rescue, Only recognition. Now, he knocks with prayer, But my silence is my sermon. He wants a meeting- But I’ve already met god And once is enough. Let this be the final stanza Just like walking away – Like forgiveness.  Tasmia Turna is a poet and writer born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She finds joy in creative reading and expression and is dedicated to nourishing a continuous and meaningful engagement with the arts. Her work has been published in Songbitti and the fiction anthology Flashlights. Tasmia's writing often aims to combine insight and inner lyricism. Guided by a deep devotion to language and reflection, she views the world as her dwelling place and literature as expectation. She continues to explore the intersection of art, identity, and meaning through her inventive journey with words. Currently, she is engaged in literary research and creative practice.
Poetry lovers, today we shine a spotlight on Ash Ochoa who formerly wrote under the moniker "Anonymously Hal." Please enjoy "Twice" and "Forget-Me-Nots." Thank you, Ash, for sharing your words with SHINE! Twice I don't want to write pretty words. I don't want to write words that are read once and left to sit politely on a shelf. I don't want to write about the sky and the birds and the flowers that are just too pristine and perfect to be plucked. I want to release the madness from my head. I want my pain, my fears, and my ugliness to exist as words so beautiful that they earn their right to be read twice. Forget-Me-NotsDon't give me a bouquet of pale purple promises, give me something that lasts. Don't let me wilt away as time tries to fade and decay my existence in your mind. Give me a space, a spot, or a spare seat in your memory. Give me a small place where I may sit contently knowing that it's me you still remember.  Ash Ochoa is an artist, writer, and nightshift nurse. She tends to think a little too much in the shower and has way too many hobbies. She called herself 'Anonymously Hal' for seven years until coming out of the metaphorical writer's closet in early 2025. Online at: ao_poetry
It's a new week with a new round of fantastic poets from around the globe, here at SHINE! Today, I'm honored to bring you Lothlorien Poetry Journal's own EIC, Strider Marcus Jones. You can check out Lothlorien right here: https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ Thank you, Strider, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE poetry series! The Door the door between skyfloor topbottom is rankrotten portalbliss or abjectabyss. it contains conversations confrontations, hiding loves two-ings in lost ruins- shuts us inside ourself with or without someone else. we, the un-free, disenfranchised poor have no bowl of more- only pain on the same plain as before, homeless or in shapeless boxes, worked out, hunted, like urban foxes- outlaws on common lands stolen from empty hands. files on us found from gathering sound where mutations abound put troops on the ground. The Dancepull the roof off knock the walls down touch the forest climb those mountains and smell the sea again. watch how life decomposes in death going back to land to reform and be reborn as something and someone else. there's no great secret to it all. no need to overthink it through food and shelter fire and shamens clothes and coupling used to be enough with musicians artists and poets interpreting the dance. then warriors with armies religions with god and minds buying and selling stole the landscape and changed time. smash the windows break down the doors melt the keys rub evil words from their spells and puncture the lungs of their wheels before they kidnap you from bed call you dissident hold you without charge wheel you out on a stretcher from waterboard torture for years without trial in Guantanamo Bay. they are selling the sanctuary we made with our numbers bringing back chains making some of us slaves outside the dance in the five coloured rings making winners and losers holding flags and flames. The Cupa smelted celebration of victory and carnal coronation moulded in dark history- the chalice divine to inhuman crime blessing unjust law and futile war. mine, holds the coffee i pour into me, or sometimes tea when i want to see who are different in the present. upturning the cup and turning it such to read the leaves- a gypsy's lore and ancient blood has always understood- who and what controls the plot, keeps us in the base and dregs looking up, without the legs to climb the slippery clay into dark deceit counterfeit deception and decay. take back how to think, stand at your own sink and wash away this cold custodian, old Eton and Bostonian suited slick affray- of corporate hoodies and big house bullies hunting and shooting laughing and looting, smeared in oils that anoint herding us to the vanishing point.  Strider Marcus Jones is a poet, law graduate, and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x3 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
Friends and poetry lovers, I'm pleased to welcome budding writer Gabrielle Losier to the SHINE community. Gabrielle brings us "I Want to Learn Tact" and "Patience." Thank you, Gabrielle, for sharing your love of words with SHINE international poetry series! I Want to Learn Tact In my twenties, I simply must figure out how to tame that seventeen-year-old me, who struts around in all her brilliant, blinding ignorance, who knows it all and throws herself ahead of me to protect her pride in the unwelcome wake of criticism. and then, how to quiet down that strange and lonely twelve-year-old: flashing a rainbow-neon personality like a flare, a last-ditch effort to be liked, or laughed at, by the beautiful and not-so-lonely ones. Finally, I’ll sit down cross-legged with that five-year-old girl, stuffing herself with words from books, studying to keep up with grown-ups, auditioning for a role she isn’t ready for, but insists, still: understand me; notice me. Forever, I’ll wrangle them all, arms sore and flailing behind my back to hinder them (and, later, several more exhausting sisters of myself that I’ll hate and love). Listen -- It’s my turn to speak, now. and I would prefer we speak with care. Patience often, we just don’t have it in ourselves to flesh out a poem we’ve been holding in our heavy hearts all week, to render the elusive colours of our dreams, to give breath and motion to a perfect form we almost see. inspiration percolates in a dark cauldron, threatens delightfully to spill over-- but doesn’t boil. not yet. patience. the steam will rise (warm, soul-scented) and soften the Earth: each tiny molecule born of our flooded, flickering minds, will drift into her atmosphere, ease her ache, and heal.  Gabrielle Losier is a 24-year-old aspiring poet from Nova Scotia, Canada. She also writes in French (Acadian dialect), her maternal language.
Happy Wednesday, poetry lovers! Today we welcome Denver-based writer, Rachel Turney. Please enjoy her three poems: Subway, Seven Books, and Sleep. Thank you, Rachel, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE international poetry series! Subway I am a pebble Moved by the dark storm of you Just a few inches at a time I am a bird You are a cold wind I cannot fly I am a little chocolate truffle Placed in your mouth I melt away I am the MTA subway map Full of colors and numbers Hidden under the city I am the Oslo Opera House Walk across my white marble Come inside and listen I am the Rocky Mountains The entire range Every pinnacle, every crag, that is me Seven Booksi had a litter of seven books born from my head from my mouth from my vagina from all the places words might hide to be found dug out and put on paper to reunite with the felled tree Sleep i am disassembled like a doll leg and arm pulled out of plastic socket perhaps my head can rest on a pillow separate from my body so one of the two can finally sleep
It's so good to be back, poetry lovers! On this Monday, please enjoy two poems by the accomplished Litsa Dremousis. I especially love the rhythm of "Battlescarred Galactica." Thank you, Litsa, for sharing your words with SHINE International Poetry Series! Battlescarred Galactica He hems and haws and claws at the ground and says he loves me when he clearly does not. But what’s worse than this curse is that after all these years He think the distance between us is only 4000 miles. I remind him that Seattle and Nairobi are 9000 miles apart. He never learned the circumference of the Earth. So why would he know the circumference of my heart? My Brother Owes Me Fifty Bucks My brother owes me fifty bucks and while my entire apartment can fit into his living room, the worst of it is that we used to be best friends and I know those days are gone along with my money.  Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time "20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read". Her essay "After the Fire" was selected as one of the "Most Notable Essays 2011” by Best American Essays, and The Seattle Weekly named her one of "50 Women Who Rock Seattle". She recently left the Washington Post, where she’d been an essayist who wrote extensively about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Her work has also appeared in The Believer, BlackBook, Bookmarks, Esquire, Flash Fiction Magazine, Filter, Hobart, Jezebel, The Literary Underground, The Manifest Station, McSweeney’s, Monkeybicycle, MSN, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Nervous Breakdown, Nylon, The Onion's A.V. Club, The Organ, Paper, Paste, PEN Center USA, Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, The Rumpus, Salon, Slate, Spartan Lit, The Weeklings, several anthologies, myriad other outlets, and on NPR, KUOW, and additional radio programs and podcasts.
Poetry lovers and friends, thanks for stopping by SHINE, where today we welcome Scottish poet Laurie Donaldson with three phenomenal poems: "Torchsong," "The Man I Could Have Been," and "Some Day." Enjoy! And thank you, Laurie, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry community. Torchsong |
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
|
