Poets and artists published in Spectrum Online Edition: Love Lines are invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, January 21st between 3 and 5 pm PST. For more publishing opportunities, go to: http://spectrumpublishing.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Hedy Habra

The Way a Flock of Birds Improvises

                        To Rosemary (1952-1998)

 

 

She marks the calendar every day

now, believes we should live life

as a miracle. 

No one notices the difference

in her chest.

She reminds me, smiling:

"You once said

I was flat as an ironing board."

 

I wonder if we should live love

as a miracle,

when your lover slips into a coat of mail

of indifference,

when his eyes only reflect an inward vision,

when your heartbeat espouses his,

the way healthy people

grow unaware

of their own pulse.

 

Then take every moment,

imperfect as it seems,

its dissonant echo,

transforming it into a score       

the way a flock of birds improvises,

over barbed wires.

  

 

First published by Sulphur Literary Review


 

 

Face à face

            After Flying Blind by Jaclyn Alderete

 

When with eyes closed, I face the mirror of desolation, I see myself

as a dove fluttering in slow motion like a still mirage while I walk the

desert dunes, wondering where I’d last seen the scarce palm trees still

erect by the smothered tents where all the ones I’ve ever loved are

now buried. I search for ashes shrouded in sand, and only see

through half-open lids feathers the color of my hair, lidless eyes

staring at their mirrorless reflection, lips pursed in triangular silence,

and oh, yes, how can I omit those metallic blue shades making us all

one, woman and fowl, in love and loss?

 

 

First published by The Bitter Oleander

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)


 

 

Desert Song

            After The Kiss by Federico Zarco

 

It all started when he set out in his suit and tie, searching for a sand

rose in the desert. Wandering through dream’s thresholds, he hoped

to unearth a treasure that would resist the drought of feelings, each

millenary facet telling of the innumerable ways love can be

immortalized. He must have taken a wrong turn since all he found,

erect like a menhir, was a fossil. Was it the hip of a dinosaur, or

rather a Titan’s, lost from times beyond memory, so smoothed by

the scorching sun that it bore no signs? Looking closely he saw an

open jaw with pointed teeth and a hole where an eye once stared. He

feared he had to return empty handed in time for his date, but

realized with terror that he had no recollection of the path that led

him there.

 

 

First published by Danse Macabre

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

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Alicia Mathias

    for: J.A.F. MY LATE GRANDMOTHER'S  LONG-LOST PEARL returns  to its  setting