Blog Archives - The Voices Project

When You’re Born with a Female Body~ By Elizabeth “Liz” Enochs

1/31/2023

The thing no one tells you when you’re born with a female body is how often that body is likely to absorb the violence of men and boys, and I don’t just mean in the obvious ways. I don’t just mean your body may be assaulted or abused, perhaps many times. What I mean is: you may find your body holding secrets, like the one about the boy knocking you down during backyard baseball and then screaming at you for making him do it. Like the one about your uncle, pastor, coach, friend, boyfriend, husband. What I mean is: you may find your body on your parents’ porch, pinned against house siding by a young man you thought you had a crush on, begging for mercy, apologizing profusely for some perceived insult, praying to be set free before your dad and brother — visible through the window, sharing a laugh near the dining room table where a rifle sits mid-cleaning — look your way and come running. What I mean is: you may find your body being pushed down repeatedly by your boyfriend — in the presence of another man, his best friend — and even then your body won’t cry for salvation, she won’t ask Best Friend to do what he eventually does, won’t ask him to shove your boyfriend’s body so hard the wall receiving him shivers. What I mean is, this is the thing no one tells you about being born with a female body: when home is the body of a girl, a woman, home is often standing between boys and men, arms outstretched, bracing for impact.

Author Bio:
Elizabeth “Liz” Enochs is a queer writer from southeast Missouri. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English, Liz spent most of her twenties working as a journalist, essayist, and occasional travel writer. Now, she writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in her spare time. Liz has been writing since the day her mother gave her a blank notebook and told her to fill it up with stories. Liz’s cup runneth over with delightful femmes and coffee and cats. More often than not, you'll find her in the woods. You can check out Liz’s writings on her website: http://elizabethenochs.com/.

in the bewitched aviary~ By Pawel Markiewicz

1/26/2023

In the bewitched aviary.
The sonnet according to Mr. Shakespeare

Helots muse about moony Golden Fleece of the condor.
Drudges think of the dreamy eternal dew of the hen.
Philosophers ponder on winged fantasy of the crow.
Kings ruminate on a picturesque gold of the jay.

Priests contemplate the dreamed, soft, meek weird of the woodpecker.
Masters daydream about nice marvelous songs of the tern.
Soothsayers dream of fulfilled gold of the yellowhammer.
Knights philosophize about poetic dawn of the wren.

Hoplites fantasize about a red sky of the sparrow.
Athletes describe the most tender treasure-charm of the snipe.
Gods remember an enchanted, dear temple of the seagull.
Goddesses recall fairytale-like heroes of the kite.

Poets commemorate the elves-like heaven of the owl.
Bards reflect on most amazing dreamery of the rook.

soothsayer – fortuneteller

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 poem.

Memories are Crimson-Coloured, Reality is Grey~ Marzia Rahman

1/25/2023

You were singing a lullaby. Lying in the front yard, I looked up; a shooting star swished by, and I made a wish.

We were fighting; you said everything would be fine, and I almost believed you until I saw the scars and the broken vases, and I turned into a teenaged rebel, once again.

Holding your wrinkly hand, I said, in another life, in another world, I’d like to reverse our roles: I’d be your mother, you’d be my daughter. I’d raise a strong girl who would have a voice of her own, a job and a life worth living.

Smiling vaguely, you murmured what if we get only one shot at life.

Author Bio:
Marzia Rahman is a Bangladeshi writer and translator. Her flashes have appeared in 101 Words, Postcard Shorts, Five of the Fifth, The Voices Project, Fewerthan500.com, WordCity Literary Journal, Red Fern Review, Dribble Drabble Review, Paragraph Planet, Six Sentences, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Potato Soup Journal, Borderless Journal, The Antonym, Flash Fiction Festival Four and Writing Places Anthology UK. Her novella-in-flash If Dreams had wings and Houses were built on clouds was longlisted in the Bath Novella in Flash Award Competition in 2022.

A Better Way Through~ By Marie Turco

1/24/2023

“Don’t never go to sleep on the
world, girl. Whiles you sleeping
the world scrambles on. Keep
yo’ eyes open all the time.”
Sonia Sanchez

The world is on fire
And we have sand and smoke in our eyes
And toxic particles in our lungs
People keep searching for quicker,
More powerful ways to kill each other
And then themselves

Our elders—the poets and peacemakers
The justice fighters and artists
The visionaries
And martyrs
Are with us still
We still have their shoulders
Upon which to stand
To make our way through this

It is why we know there is
Still a different way through
There is a better way through

They made those paths with their
Bare hands, with their
Marching feet, with their
Refusals to move out of the way
With their very lives

It is why we still search their words
Their wisdom, look to their actions
We put our feet in their boot marks
Which will never disappear

We know there is a different way through
There is a better way through

Author Bio:
Marie is a poet, writer, and playwright. She taught herself needle felting and is learning to play the Djembe drum. Her poetry and writing has been published in various places, such as Rebelle Society, The Mighty, Untitled, and others. Her poems were made into a play, “The Sanity Trials,” in 2018 by The Bridge-PHL, a Philadelphia theater company.

Marie is a vocal advocate for disability rights. She was a clinical social worker/psychotherapist for 30 years. She is from Philadelphia, and currently lives in an RV in the high desert of Santa Fe, NM. Her main inspirations are fighting against mental health and disability discrimination, the Almighty, Social Justice, and her faithful angel-service dog, Maya. Marie’s next writing projects may include creative nonfiction/memoir writing, as well as publishing a book of poetry.

The Destruction~ By Rebecca M. Ross

1/19/2023

It's still hours
to Poughkeepsie
by foot
Human rights-neglected cities
invisible by car
lie fragmented on the side of the road
where poverty shames, claims
blameless victims

A square-jawed man with an attitude
steals pages from an art exhibit
on the loading dock
of an abandoned
turn of the century
textile factory
A basket maker offers me
a half-priced deal to relieve her of her wares
so she can continue, hands free
The history of Wonder Woman
is arranged on a table
covered in black, collared in lace–
those Powers can't save us now

Lady Justice comes out,
face fallen, disturbed
Bricks crumble from buildings
as the temperature changes
whole cities shake, seeds fail to germinate
flowers wilt
strong trees die
Her eyes glisten tears

It's not Us, it's Them

Author Bio:
Rebecca M. Ross is originally from Brooklyn but currently lives, hikes, and teaches in New York’s Hudson Valley. Rebecca’s writing has been published in Live Nude Poems, The Metaworker, Last Leaves, Uppagus, Whimsical Poet, Streetcake Magazine, The Westchester Review, Soul-Lit, and Peeking Cat. She has poetry forthcoming or published in Pif Magazine. Rebecca has a BFA in creative writing and an MA in English from Brooklyn College. She also has a well-developed soft spot in her heart for dad jokes and clever puns.

January 19th, 2023

1/19/2023

Roslyn Street~ By Shelley Nutting

1/18/2023

Roslyn Street

and heat

that rose
in waves,
mingled
with chords of REM
floating
outwards and upwards
into the Sydney sky

and you and I

shuffling on the rooftop
in mockery of dance
a lager fuelled sweetness,
intoxicated love

afterwards we perched
legs
dangling
from the open window
watching the nights drama
unfold
below us

cast ever changing

story the same...

Author Bio:
Shelley Nutting resides in England where she is a wife mother and community nurse. She has been writing poetry all her life but has only recently begun to share it. The strength of women at the heart of family is a recurring theme in her writing.

The Man Who Was The Land~ By John Grey

1/17/2023

This place was his portrait,
this man unembarrassed to pose for it.
This is what he cleared and furrowed,
as he struggled hard against the glacial tide.
This is the land he brought to life
despite thieving neighbors, swindling banks.
He was tough, sometimes callous and cruel,
uncomfortable around women,
but he always brought in the barley.
A lot of blood spilled here, a lot of oats sowed,
by that a bent-backed Millet figure,
a grandfather creased deep by sun,
down through the sweat of years –
now a ghost, a vacuum,
a character from an unread novel,
as each ownership thereafter
flutters in the weeds,
from the retreating dam
to the rusting machines
with harrowed hands like his
now soft as his heart
when he married.
Everything life required is done with,
and his spirit didn’t rise too far.
Don’t know if it’s lack of respect
as I roam these parched fields.
my thoughts good enough to be poems
but my industry anemic.
Time is a funeral parlor around here,
and all the coffins are full.
No more farmers in the family
but the land doesn’t look worried.
It’s been diced up.
It’s been taken apart.
Heritage is up to archaeologists now.
But look at my fingers.
Look at the land.
This rubble of rotting grain -
his descendants, my family.

Author Bio:
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.

Once~ By Tom Squitieri

1/12/2023

There was a perfect August evening once
Once
I have stopped wondering if there will be another

Those of us who are not strangers to the true reality wait. And wait. Gaze for a beam to pull distinctly
into happiness
Again

Many good, lingering reasons why the realities
stop people in their tracks.
Forget to lead with their smell
let their mind wander in hopeful imagination.
Not for a specialist extraordinaire, blessed to travel
the world and learn
tips and secrets.
A vast menu, always being creative,
unbridled in the belief that what goes into the mouth
should taste divine and explode all your senses.

My ocean was sky calm on the way home
Clouds timid
Framing rest, restoration
The sun knows when to blind and cause pause
Before the coruscate
Then all light is yours.

It is good, always, to plant something new.
It stays behind, alive or dormant, enriching forever.
Even when no one knows. Even if just red high tops.

Go ahead and enjoy the peeking from the white shirt, knowing its ruse.
Enjoy my words, despite not really knowing me; wonder how my touch will be,
to probe how curious you are.
exciting for me to think this, as I write.
that for a few moments you tell me, show me, ask me.

each time talks,
more words insist on
going to you.
the moon is quiet now, waiting for me to begin
my song to you.
so I sit and smile at the beauty here and what it grows
As Venus gives me a quick wink

The plenilune chuckles as so many
gasp in awe of its brightness and brilliance.
It is fine to vouchsafe, to
divert true intentions.
Its codicil’s secrets wait and wonder
In a hidden clearing
when the world will find its ballet truth.
As I remember, smile faintly and deeply, at the pas de deux

If it ever will

at night when we battle to sleep,
remember to look on the edges for the paths to tomorrow
To the glorious smell of wet tomato plants
Symphonic thump of a happy tail

It was pure heaven. Pure happiness. I looked and knew right away
With no doubt at all.
it was the moment.
Now just crossing things off the list, as caliginous time marks. Hang up the jump rope.

There was a perfect August evening once.
Once.

Author Bio:
Tom Squitieri is a three-time winner of the Overseas Press Club and White House Correspondents' Association awards for work as a war correspondent. He is blessed to have his poetry appear in several publications, books and anthologies, the art exhibition Color: Story2020/2021, and the film "Fate's Shadow: The Whole Story," where he shared the Los Angeles Motion Picture Festival "Grand Jury Prize Gold for Monologues & Poetry." He writes most of his poetry while parallel parking or walking his dogs, Topsie and Batman.

Hanging with KC~ By Chris Daly

1/11/2023

Take a beautiful tone
tunefully pitched
mix with cold-souled
domineering mother
who favored the brother
who could do no wrong

take the sadness required in
the light melody,
something that has to be
set up & then gotten out of
the way of
mix with dead stick
religion, working mouth
politically shut, at the
cost of only your own past,
what is the reward except
subtraction of self?

take a balance of the small
angles of a line, no need to
oversell, time it, get rid
of it, sometimes with a little
growl, mix with arrangement by
mommie’s little soldier
of death and life,
outworker of work,
upon whom bestow
the recognition, as
noted, cutter of the
never-ending deals,
enabler of deniability,
who in his own way
added into the pisser and
glory of it all, did set
something up and got out
of the way.

take the clarity of light
through crystal upon
grains of Blakean sand,
sighing into eternity along
the show biz strand, teeth
slightly angled inward, tough
pro of lightness,
mix with the no-mindfulness
life and those worldly
competencies, slightly
beyond the deliberately
cruel home.

maybe the qualities of stunningness
in a middle range
was just not blended with
courage or freedom of
imagination, maybe there
was a deal with the devil
down on a safe corner.

take refinement of vibration,
mix with not standing for
anything on the side
except a tricky prez,
despite loyalties the man
got you with his remedies,
you might have been a warhol
factory girl except for
the talent part.

Author Bio:
Author resides West Coast, USA. He would like to thank the editors for considering his poem about one of his favorite voices, "HANGING WITH KC".