The Voices Project - POETRY LIBRARY

Aunt Ella Downsizing~ By John Grey

4/22/2021

She can’t help feeling sad
as she closes the door on those empty rooms,
leaves the house for the final time.

She knows how addicts feel
when they go cold turkey,
not daring to look back.
She’s starting a new life
but the highs aren’t guaranteed.

She grew up in that house.
People died all around her
but her life held firm,
set down stakeholders
from knitted tea-cozies
to photographs on mantels.
Yes, these things are coming with her.
But without that sense of belonging,
they’re merely trifles,
as welcome in her new place
as they would be in a trash can.

Her new abode is smaller of course,
It’s an apartment.
It looks to her like a prison
with so many men and women her age
locked in their modest cells.
There’s a rec room on the first floor
where they all can get to know each other
over cups of tea and canasta.

But, in her cramped quarters,
she’ll hardly even know herself.
It’ll be strangers meeting strangers,
all regretting how strange that is.

Author Bio:
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, “Leaves On Pages” is available through Amazon.

Inspiration~ By Rich Glinnen

4/21/2021

Her mother and I hope
There’s a crack in her
Humor’s foundation,
So that the spotted things
Teetering on top
Will one day topple
And squeeze from her
And those nearer
Laughter, as if by
An unseen hand
Unveiling
The novel structure
Built by our daughter.

Author Bio:
Best of the Net nominee, Rich Glinnen, enjoys bowling, and eating his daughter’s cheeks at his home in Bayside, NY. His work can be read in various print and online journals, as well as on his Tumblr and Instagram pages. His wife calls him Ho-ho.

Taste of Wits~ By Daniel Ezeokeke

4/16/2021

Kings measure true greatness with the barometer of servitude.

Is greatness grandiose poses, facial embellishments, facade of betterments and semblances of perfections or put-ons eulogized on unctuous streets of the media? Well!

Is greatness digital cowries, unseen bucks, stacked in bags of Louis Vuittons, or coins stored up in foul potbellies of avaricious gourmands? Maybe.

Is it then Midas touch, or the grey monuments of fame buried in cemeteries of ghosts who sold their soul for a denarii during the great depression? Hmm!

It's nub can only be seen in the nucleus of servitude, that sparkle which lightens darkened hope, the sprite that invokes fumes, incense of joy in languid hearts. Lo! the scent of strength oozing from a bevy of ants.

Author Bio:
Daniel Ezeokeke is a writer from the ancient city of Anambra State, Nigeria. He sees poetry as a means of escapism from a society undergoing decay and degradation. He is currently a graduate from a Nigerian university and loves philosophy, Jewish literature, and history.

Masters of Our Universe~ By Cynthia DiTiberio

4/15/2021

We were masters of our universe
until we weren’t.
And one tiny virus slammed our world to a standstill.

Two cruise ships marooned out at sea,
empty like our calendars and classrooms,
playgrounds and theatres,
hallowed out husks,
far from what they were intended to be.

When we dare make plans
we worry they will be the one decision
that sends us to our grave.

When will we be free of the fear
and be masters once again?

Or is the time for mastery over?
Were we never really masters to begin with?

We cling to the belief
that one day we will once again
enjoy a social life,
board a plane,
go to a bar and dance,
in a sweaty mass of humanity.

A hug.
A handshake.
The ability to see another person
and not be terrified of what they carry
in the invisible particles of their life force.

We took it all for granted
but would give anything
to have it back.

Two ships marooned.
A billion people lost at sea,
waiting for land to appear on the horizon.

Author Bio:
Cynthia DiTiberio is a writer and collaborator who has worked in the book business for the past eighteen years. Books were her first love and remain her favorite thing in the world. She worked as an editor at a division of HarperCollins for nine years before becoming a ghostwriter. She has just started writing on her own after collaborating on eleven books over the last eight years. With two elementary aged children at home, she sometimes finds the brevity of poetry to be the kind of writing she can handle right now and has found it soothing to put onto the page the strange feelings and emotions of 2020. She was born in St. Louis, went to college in North Carolina, and has called the Bay Area home for the last nineteen years. Highlights of her career include getting to work with Frederick Buechner, having her second collaboration optioned by Reese Witherspoon and New Line Cinema, and being featured on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle at the age of twenty-seven for her work launching a new line of Christian fiction.

Homeward~ By Gary Carter

4/14/2021

within this tumbledown house
leaning but still standing after decades
there are signs of lives
remnants of nail holes in chipped plaster
where important things graced the walls
dents in door frames visible still under
thickened layers of stain & paint
hinting of games or quarrels or rearranging
a room or even solemn scrape of a coffin

dissecting down through
each remnant of paint & paper
like rings in the stump of a tree
reveals colors of life at this time or that
from sky blue of a baby’s corner
to roses a grandmother’s final view
from bright hints of happiness
to gray reminders of hard times

waved glass blurred by time & grime
distorts distance renders it surreal
as if this place floats in space
released from earth & time & memory

surely there are spirits here
within walls trapped by windows & doors
some quiet with memories of good times
others seething with anger or lust
some lost some hoping to be found
some not caring at all

I’ll sleep here tonight
one last time
wait again for creak of a closing door
a dim glow from another room
cold brush of fingers against my cheek
or a tumble down to dark

Author Bio:
Gary Carter believes that pushing words around until they perhaps make sense seems to make sense, even as the real world seems to make less sense. But he’s been dirtying paper, as Carl Sandburg described the poetic act, since childhood, so it’s too late to stop now. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in such eclectic outlets as Nashville Review, Deep South Magazine, Steel Toe Review, Dead Mule, Real South, Delta Poetry Review and Read Short Fiction. Forthcoming is a collection of short fiction entitled Kicking Dante’s Ass. His novel, Eliot’s Tale, is a reverse-coming-of-age road trip and love story dealing with things done and left undone. He also writes for print and online pubs, and sells a little real estate on the side.

Summer Midnight’s Dream~ By Sam Barbee

3/29/2021

romp at dusk devolves the day
old cairns direct the next step
gels of light for forgotten light.

medicate until the vanishing hour
water from a thirsting well
damp handkerchief for the brow.

key keeping doors closed
hinge that opens doors
last-ditch claims before departure.

lexicon empty of significance
blue ink slashes red eulogy
broom for words’ irate ash.

my body’s sudden rouge
knave’s heart reveals brave face
become the blushing extrovert.

goose-down dreaming
manna to cleanse all weeping
fables dance with trauma.

quick breath offsets suffering
claims will devolve by morning
cure-all for my unnamed ills.

pulse stills lilies-of-the-valley
velvet sleeve silences the bell
bright bouquets, and sleep’s veil.

Author Bio:
Sam Barbee's poems have appeared in Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina, Georgia Journal, Kakalak, and Pembroke Magazine, among others; plus on-line journals Vox Poetica, Sky Island Journal, Courtland Review and The New Verse News.

His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. He was awarded an "Emerging Artist's Grant" from the Winston-Salem Arts Council to publish his first collection Changes of Venue (Mount Olive Press); has been a featured poet on the North Carolina Public Radio Station WFDD; received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem "The Blood Watch"; and is a Pushcart nominee.

Prayer to Saint Anthony~ By Sonya Wohletz

3/25/2021

A silver splinter lodges itself into the membrane of a word where my mother waits
in the dark.
Saint Anthony sits in the far corner of the other dark window, sighing as he checks the time. One flash of starlight crosses centuries of lost items, but he can only think of hunger now.
His salvation is not our concern in this obsidian wind.
An architecture of desire blooms in towers across either side of a quiet realization, striking its many heads hard against a flint sky as if in answer to the question I want to ask
Even if it is a just punishment
A memory has gone missing in its thousand strands of silver,
Fine-tuned to match the weight of my mother’s hand across the surface of every moment
The opal of her palms her white metal fingers cold and thin
Set the broken bones of truth
clatter out demands on keyboard
Grip the bars of a hospital bed.
These same hands with which she selected every shining seed
And strung them all together around the throat of a rising moon,
Joining the thumb and pointer finger together in attitude of blessing
As she clasps the story shut. Now
A dense forgetting rushes out in rivers of dark ink
Somewhere in the valley between my spine and breast,
pooling in the left chamber of an obsidian heart
cloven from the lithic core of grief.
A prayer shudders with earth pulse and unfurls itself in
Seismic longing, lapping at the veins with its forked tongue.
I have tasted the thermal map of memory
Here in between the crease of the dry autumn leaf and the damp rot of older seasons
Where I dig myself into time with one long fingernail.
But there is still this question I must ask:
Tell me, Saint Anthony, where did it go
The holy blood relic --
the handing down --
is it mine?

Author Bio:
Sonya was born as a bat in a golden cave in the Southwest. After dreaming herself into human, she saw that she has opposable thumbs, and has enjoyed using them to write, paint, and make messes. Her work has appeared in Latin American Literary Review, Cholla Needles, La Piccioletta Barca, and others.

The stars are apart~ By Pinky Ho

3/24/2021

in my classroom i see students as stars
my stars sit far apart from each other
not just a social distancing measure
a gap is always here – the achievement gap
the pandemic just exacerbated it further
due to social and economic factors
the advantaged ones achieve a lot better
the disadvantaged ones risk falling behind
to close such a gap i must be a dreamer
at school they sort students into winners or
losers and unrecognized those in failure
isn’t it through failure they grow stronger?
like to the stars in darkness they shine brighter
for some reason the stars are apart up there
some are more recognized than the others
but all never cease to shine with their power
big or small i gaze and gaze my heart cheers
if i believe students are powerful stars
brightly they will shine like never before
bright in their way sparkling now and ever

Author Bio:
Pinky Ho lives and teaches English in Macau. She holds an MEd in Educational Psychology from the University of Macau. As a teacher, she applies the science of Psychology to enhance teaching and learning. Recently, she has started to incorporate ideas from Educational Psychology into poetry writing. Poetry writing is a pastime for her mind. Her poems have previously appeared in Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine.

The Fangs of Terror~ By Vincent Nwabueze

3/23/2021

The veiled young lady walked briskly towards the crowded mall.
Innocent she appeared, with a mien that seem not to hurt a fly.
But carefully hidden under her black gown
Are destructive IEDS powerful to destroy and annihilate a city out of existence.

Men, women, boys, girls, the elderly and infirm
Oblivious of the merchant of death lurking amongst them
Go about their business unperturbed

Suddenly a loud quake rent through the din.
Smoke, smoke here, smoke everywhere
Then yet another boom, loud enough to render someone deaf.
Death has come to dwell amongst the people.

People scattered in different directions.
Mothers, fathers to the east and children to the west
All in desperation to escape the Armageddon.
And live to tell the story of this despicable macabre.

Now as the dust begins to clear.
And the survivalists summon the courage.
To glee at the waste of destruction

Minced meat of human body parts
Abound the length and breadth of the scene of sorrow.
To tell the story of a mindless murder

Woe unto you the harbinger and agent of destruction.
You never created any soul; yes, not even a sigh.
But like a sadist, you derive joy in aborting.
What Orisha [The master of the universe], the heavenly one, has created.

Author Bio:
Vincent Nwabueze studied sociology at university of Abuja, Nigeria.He also holds an LLB degree in Law from Nigerian's National Open University. Vincent Nwabueze began writing while still a college student. He has written a collection of short stories and poems and has been published in The Society Voice Project. He participates in writing competitions. One of his short stories 'The Intelligent Thief' was short listed for the African Writers Awards 2020. Presently, he is working on his debut novel.

Sonnet of Dreams~ By Paweł Markiewicz

3/18/2021

Heavenly sailorling spy out the wan light-sheen of star.
Baffling unearthly time: weird having just thieved by elves.
One of pale mornings longs for some meek fulfillment of night.
Moony and nostalgic chums – comets are upon the skies.

Lonely dreamery – lying just blink-sea, weird above.
Endless nostalgia is being of pang. Hades is fay.
Heavenly moony lure, beings seem dark, Ethics fly off!
Poignant decease has become drab black, comet has picked rain.

The glow, which is deathless, at length in the sadness full bane.
Grim Reaper loves more than You dream – a bit lights of the worms.
Marvel of starlit night: I have found a little of my name.
Starry night – dreamy glow are only in the tender souls.

Sensing the moonlet, demise of cool-blue song will be free.
Your worm bawls after all certainly. Death blubbing like me.

Author Bio:
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.