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The process of this tattoo-makingrequires a steady hand, unshaking,so a continuous line can be laiddown by the needle’s glass blade. Precisely like a surgeon’s scalpel,but above the skin,this moving line will beginalmost feeling palpable of the practitioner’s art:she, who draws from imaginationand an experienced hearta unique creation. The brown dyeContinue Reading

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They keep doves in the palace & release themCeremoniously each sunset to mark the workOf women greeting husbands return from warThey light candles to hide the scent of sweatIn the red bedchambers while children watchMaids turndown sheets warmed w/ stonesFrom the garden where their mothers weepSilently mid prayer let usContinue Reading

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In the sandy haze, the pyramids riselike apparitions. There is nothing elsevisible in this land of sand and rockand rubble. They have spent a long time acclimating to the harsh conditions.It’s hot and dry and gets unbearable,but still they patiently impose their presence,having prolonged the inevitable. They challenge us toContinue Reading

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Remember that words have power when spunThe way they turn spider silk into tapestriesRemember your enemies laugh themselvesOnto the floor for the same reasons as youRemember the sound of my voice as I rockedEach of you to sleep during the rainstormsIf I cannot see you off to be married doContinue Reading

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How to get familiar with infinity . . .A camel ride into the Saharato stargaze a wide open desert sky? The astronomer Carl Sagan once saidstars outnumbered grains of sand on beaches—so I rode a camel from Merzouga out into oceanic dunes of sandand sat there after sunset for theContinue Reading

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a masculine marmaladeour feline bathesbetween his toesmore assiduouslythan anyone we knowclaws flexingto and frolike translucent crescent moonscored by conquered bloodthe rasping strokeof his scouring tonguea ferocity pristineas raindrops or water hoseamong the wieldedyielding thornsof this bucephalus-headed rose. My name is Aletha Irby and I have been writing poetry for overContinue Reading

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I got wine drunk in the Holiday Inn Notre Damewith a view of the Eiffel Towerput on Brahms Symphony #1 in C Minor and was back in my British History classroomon an August night in 1982on the second floor of Alumni Recitation Hall working out ways to includeEnglish Beat andContinue Reading

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Stay close to any sounds thatmake you glad to be alive. Hafiz through the morningstill silenced by darknessyour sudden eruptionallegroarpeggioappoggiaturajoyful enoughto resurrect icarusto enjoin him nidicolousto soar forth once againairborne on wingéd rhapsodyoh songbirdyou remind usthat we can never flytoo close to the sunand i too risefledged by your warblingwhichContinue Reading

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It is an old story of disfunction.While I see the beauty of a crowthat has an ugly voicebut a wonderful wing spreadundulating shadows in the sky,controlling the sun’s lightfalling to earth,its feathers holding the air,you see only a bird. Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in Poetry Quarterly,Continue Reading

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Hello, Helen.Helen Harlot, Helen Home-Wrecker, Helen Whore. Most beautiful woman in the world, hatched from a swan’s egg, product of yet another rape perpetrated by your divine slut of a father, the “omnipotent” thunderer. His many bedfellows tell a different story.In all the myths, you are glittering, resplendent. And always,Continue Reading