I leaned over the cliff, expecting Poseidon to break through the waves and flood the sky with aquamarine and gold.
What I found was a sea of rotting kelp beds stretching past the horizon. His underwater forests were just a memory decaying on the surface of the ocean.
The sulfuric air was still. There wasn’t even a ripple under the dead canopy. I imagined myself walking clear across toward the setting sun.
I watched the sun go down on that cliff, but I didn’t lose hope that something magical would happen.
I’ll never forget how bright the moon was when the Loch Ness emerged from Poseidon’s memory like a mountain.
Elissa Capelle Vaughn
Elissa Capelle Vaughn is a multi-genre writer who fuses poetry, micro-fiction, and fantasy. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from San Francisco State University and works in marketing as a copywriter and content writer.
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A beautiful literary light passed on February 22, 2021. He inspired a love for books, poetry, and art. Ferlinghetti strove to create a social environment where people could gather and discuss their passion for poetry, books, and the arts. And he succeeded when he founded City Lights. He’s an inspiration to me and what Eve Poetry Magazine represents. I encourage you to read further about Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I’ve linked each of the passages to their sources.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, distinguished American poet, artist and founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers in San Francisco, died February 22. He was 101 years old. In a tribute, City Lights noted that Ferlinghetti “was instrumental in democratizing American literature by creating (with Peter D. Martin) the country’s first all-paperback bookstore in 1953, jumpstarting a movement to make diverse and inexpensive quality books widely available. He envisioned the bookstore as a ‘Literary Meeting Place,’ where writers and readers could congregate to share ideas about poetry, fiction, politics, and the arts. Two years later, in 1955, he launched City Lights Publishers with the objective of stirring an ‘international dissident ferment.’ [His own Pictures of the Gone World] was the first volume of the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, which proved to be a seminal force in shaping American poetry.”
In 1955, Ferlinghetti launched City Lights Publishers with the Pocket Poets Series, extending his concept of a cultural meeting place to a larger arena. His aim was to present fresh and accessible poetry from around the world in order to create “an international, dissident ferment.” The series began in 1955 with his own Pictures of the Gone World; translations by Kenneth Rexroth and poetry by Kenneth Patchen, Marie Ponsot, Allen Ginsberg, and Denise Levertov were soon added to the list.
From: A Biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti on citylights.com
I went into the kitchen escaping from the deadly silence that follows a catastrophe. With my mom weeping in a shady corner of a locked room and my father sternly reflecting over his life on the balcony, no food was cooked that night. I began to search amid the scattered paraphernalia of the kitchen when luckily I found a stale chapati in the casserole. Succumbing to the material exigency of my body, I went ahead to extract a course out of a crumb.
The torn pieces of the ‘whole’ chapati, bit by bit, settled the wavering acceptance of my family’s rupture that had been simmering in me. Liberating my saturated tear ducts while chopping onions, I deceived myself and the desolate kitchen walls into believing the falsity of my tears.
Flowing into the task of dicing tomatoes, my tears coalesced with their pulp and freshness, bled into the pleasant memories of my once happy family. I kindled the flame to the frying pan, waited for the oil to heat, and finally released the shredded onions in it. Their frenzied splash was no less than a rebellion, silenced with time that shrouded their pain in a golden robe.
Sorted vegetables, basic spices, and a stale chapati were the ingredients of my art, a recipe borne out of grief and hunger.
Adapting to the engulfing isolation of my room, I strived to eat. Every bite initiated fresh tears, loaded with anguish and amazement to trickle down my drooping cheeks. The unreasonable guilt of being hungry on a day, symbolic of my family’s failure ached my heart. My parent’s infidelity was a sword stained with the murder of my jovial childhood, abandoning a dispirited teenager, uncertain of her actions in this wildly unsettled world.
The simple yet so appealing flavours of the dish evoked an impulsive response of awe in my heart, which made me wonder if it is loss that makes us cherish the simple pleasures of life.
With no reaching hands, no affectionate cajolings, without a smile, slowly and with difficulty, I struggled to finish the food that night.
Food, though a requirement, appeals to the senses and invokes the warm memories of love, happiness, care, intimacy, and sometimes, grief. To me, the memories of food were the unconditional love of my grandmother poured every summer in a mango milkshake jar, the school friendship kindled by the sharing of my special pasta, the blueberry pancakes that sweetened the air on my first date. Those cute fights with my mother when she promised but did not make my favourite dish and my father’s affection boxed in an ice cream tub until the day my parents sanctioned their divorce and all those beautiful memories faded into the painful one of a stale chapati.
Muskan Sharma
I am Muskan, from India an undergrad student majoring in literature. I am an avid reader and a writer.
I feel strongly for the things around and do not shy away from voicing my opinions. Apart from literature my interests lie in music, drawing and calligraphy.
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You wear chaste tennis whites modest skirt hemmed at your knees front-buttoned short sleeved blousy shirt white socks and canvas shoes for the clay court unusual attire for a date we sit on a double wicker chair on the Golf Shop porch next to the Coca Cola dispenser. At the record hop for teen guests of the Waumbek you slow dance with me a golf course employee keeping greens press tight as a lady’s deer-skin leather golfing glove. Eighteen, reddish brunette hair cut above your shoulders, skin blossoming rose after the day’s trials, 40-love point set match the model for the Coca Cola ad campaign on the back cover of Life magazine 1963. When you kiss you relax your tongue gently traces the outline of my lips in your mouth I glimpse life’s distance moonlight reflects off the Presidential peaks snow furtively glows above the tree line Reverend Tuckerman’s glacial ravine skiers in July race slalom flags and rocks hay mowed meadows grass hills roll out of Jefferson Intervale the Waumbek golf course pours liquid in the evening over the near landscape dew settles on the whipped bentgrass moles in silence hollow out their dark worlds at whisker length beneath ancestors in the cemetery call me from coffins in granitic ground near the 1913 Episcopal stone church a cool Sunday morning you pray bow your head as now to rest upon my neck. You are the girl I cannot see falling for me twist my life in poetry I hear you fondle my rhymes recite my lines in whisper magically in my ancestors’ lyrical Irish brogue play the Mountain House tennis circuit two weeks here more contests Balsams, Mount Washington, Mountain View you hold my hand until your mother drives you away from the portico where porters load your luggage your blue-black tote of stringed tennis racquets in your car trunk.
Let go you reappear
alarms clog the gutters worry taps the window death coughs at the door
in dilapidated memory I am not free.
Ron Tobey
Ron Tobey lives in West Virginia, where he and his wife raise cattle and keep goats and horses. He is an imagist poet, grounding experiences and moods in concrete descriptives, including haiku, storytelling, and recorded poetry, and in filmic interpretation. He occasionally uses the pseudonym, Turin Shroudedindoubt, for literary and artistic work.
He has published in several dozen digital and print literary magazines, including Truly U Review, Prometheus Dreaming, Broadkill Review, Cabinet of Heed, Atticus Review, and The Light Ekphrastic. His video poetry may be viewed at vimeo.com/userturin, recorded poems at soundcloud.com/turin-s.
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
You were a bipolar mess and I was covered in the low-road dust of aimless men but as you sobbed into my chest I found tangled iridescent threads of heaven coiled into your brown hair and together we gathered them into a generous blanket of shimmering lace to veil and comfort our tumultuous hearts
Lie to Meby Arwyn Vincent
We know where this is going . . .
so before Time’s groping hands take us into its cold embrace and we fall into the dust of old dreams just (for the love of God!) kiss my careless lips and lie to me (please lie to me) tell me our souls will unite as afterglow in the dreams of young lovers
Radiant Gift by Arwyn Vincent
I love the mornings when it’s like the sun leans over the earth just for me and lends me its waking radiance its slow dancing glow of new morning light to restore my heart from desolate night
Arwyn Vincent
I am an American author and typewriter enthusiast from the Northeast. My poetry is a remix of my experiences, observations, and imagination.
I gather these fragments and braid them together to explore my favorite subjects: love and heartbreak. I try to keep it simple.
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
When poison drips from their gaping lips, you may feel that all you possess is a river.
My dear, you carry the antidote in your veins, so whatever lies they may feed you know that they serve no purpose here in yourself.
When A Man Criesby August Jackson
Tell me, darling. How does a gentle snowfall inspire a raging avalanche as exquisitely as you do? How does such an unmovable presence, such an untouchable peace become so frigid and gorgeously undone? Help me to make sense of these contradictions. How, my love? How do you make weakness look so strong?
August Jackson
August Jackson is a passionate poet and aspiring author from Florida. With a love for soul sharing, she is currently working on her debut collection of poetry while pursuing a bachelor of arts degree in Georgia.
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
I listen to the whispers of One who filled spaces with words and birthed light out of nowhere
Warped time and space to terraform homes for all kinds of life
Spoke autobiography into biospheres that leave us with a million thousand words behind our irises
And from mountain tops to ocean floors all nature roars in volumes speaking of its Lion King
I’m listening to the whispers and they tell me, “He can reform you too”
“Rebrand you with the mission He gave your ancestors and we hope you’ll let Him speak through you too”
Gabriel Angrand
I am Gabriel Angrand, a Haitian American pastor’s kid who started writing poetry in the 4th grade! I feel like I’ve always written poems like mirrors because poetry became a powerful way to reflect on my emotions and my faith.
Just like me, I hope you can see yourself in my poetry and come away from it learning something new. I have a second book coming out this year, so follow me on Instagram to stay up-to-date!
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
Crazy and not minding what is, after all, only a word. Further down is the street queen wearing her usual wedding dress. It always looks new & her hair is just so, immaculate Geri-curls framing a face wizened as an infant’s with the whisper of a smirk.
She’s wearing that now as prowling tom cats in sailor suits, as souvenir-laden tourists, the immigrants to come, the immigrants of old, hold an inner Ellis Island, hold a home port or know not knowing a home to lose.
I am on this ship banishing all thoughts of selfishness for that, to us, may be just a walk to some junk shop. What is forgiveness to some junk on high seas, some multi-tiered wedding cake about to pull anchor?
I think of love, the fall hard and fast, yet kept under a hat. I think also of its potential ascension and these waves, words in a diary writing, wiping themselves out. Here, all is entirely possible & nothing is.
Now the horizon is a moving night city, a great lit-windowed bus, and I, feeling all this, believe death may come as a shrug. The calm then will be neither indifferent or cold, just another area to open & say “hello there” to, gladly perhaps, or a bit reserved, with respect, expectations kept in check entirely.
Perhaps this finally is the time of humanity’s going, as so many in the past, thought of their own age. Perhaps this is the dawn of another time’s birth pangs & it is all always about voyaging. Order. Restoration. Some here. Some there, with chaos a constant fringe.
“I know. I’ve a few ideas,” the crazy street queen says, handing me her wedding dress.
Stephen Mead
Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s, he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have kept various day jobs for the Health Insurance.
Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations, and allies predominantly before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
The window shows me Everything. I give it nothing, But a reflection. Half present— Wrapped into what I was born To be by some other man. By Some other lady who said, “call me love”. I thought we had to earn what we get, so Tell me how to live. I can ease your dying By force. With my arms Let them knot till the pain pops In my brain. On a slab they will Unfold each lobe to find The word that killed me_______.
I will not die by suicide, but by my own hands Slowly disappearing, like the wet stain on this glass Blocking the front yard. I am in Every snowflake inevitably forming Into a storm. I am the one Melting, hydrating the corners Nobody thought to mark With a name_____________
Sailing by John Mungiello
She told me they Told her she Was too boyish. I told her they Told me I was too Much of a pussy To be a Boy, when they looked At me, brow up. Lips hung. Not understanding The woman who lived inside my only belly.
A suffragette picketing to Break out. How they hated her Growing larger than the man I was told to become By a smaller man. By smaller men who Spit on green lawns. Turning grass to piss. Covering windows in egg, cream and yolk. A hard on. Wee-wee-wee, all The way home.
How they love it when I wear black. Hair slicked back. Crown Of sharp molasses. The shine traps an image Of the boy I was before I saw the mirror. Before I had to pretend my hairline Wasn’t sailing past the horizon. Rising before disappearing Under sun. Fading Behind an ocean And tell me what happens Once it’s all gone and what Will they make me do? Grow a beard To balance the disappearance; Wear a bandanna, printed With stripes that preach The new religion of Patriot. Or, plug the spot with Hair from my ass.
If none of those, maybe they will Tell me to button my tie As tight as they who made Me say to my Self, goodbye. No. I’m not keen on choking. Not keen on resting Until the kicking in my stomach stops From welcoming my baby girl into a Home not shaped like another’s shadow. I’ll build my own. Casted from sunlight. Made for him. Made for her. A roofless room With a crib to grow from. With a bed to rest in. With arms to hold and Breasts to nourish.
For now, she will keep kicking And I will shrug her off By calling her “just gas.” I brought the conversation back To the present and ended by Telling her to build her own Boat. calling herself captain of Her own body sailing along Her own shore, holding one finger out Toward the clearing asking the sky if it hurts To be out in the open and it will answer Inevitably, “Never.”
John Mungiello
John Mungiello is the author of Streamlining Oblivion, available on amazon. His poems have appeared in Lucky Jefferson Magazine, CapsuleStories Magazine, and PSPOETS.
Currently, he is working on a new book of poems. He works as a high school art and special education teacher and lives in Riverdale, New Jersey with his wife, Laura.
Find him on Instagram: @jmungiello and Twitter: @jmungielloart
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
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