GAS Featured Poet: Miriam Sagan

 

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the mother/daughter creative team Maternal Mitochondria (with Isabel Winson-Sagan) in venues ranging from RV parks to galleries. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement.

Hypochondria

Beneath my ribs 

inside the bone cage 

a terrarium of topsoil 

oak root and branches 

imitate networks, veins, arteries.

Inside me 

serrated fingered leaves fall 

but not till spring 

acorns ping 

forests house truffles, caterpillars,

gall wasps 

devour the humous 

that once was me.

Birds nest, fledgelings 

fly out of my mouth 

in augury.

Whatever I’ve called myself

doesn’t matter 

any more.

Containment

The small cell 

with one window and 

one long boring tattered 

paperback, 

but no chocolate or coffee, 

is like a well-apportioned grave: 

bed, sink, toilet 

although only the living 

need these.

So what’s the point?

I’ve set the scene 

but without action, 

plot points, or denouement.

In this way 

it is not only like a coffin

but freedom. 

GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

 

Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio, teaches English for Clark State College, and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous national and international journals. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website .

The Wishing Star

 

it streaked across the sky one night,

just above the red glow of her cigarette,

she made a wish; she made a thousand

                                                                        wishes

that her trailer wouldn’t tilt to the left,

that her double shifts at the diner

would bring in enough tips to pay rent,

that her mother wouldn’t drink herself

                                                                        to death

she didn’t really believe in stars

or Santa Clause or the tooth fairy,

just wasn’t raised on foolishness,

always looking behind bushes and

                                                                        bruises

but there was something about that star,

the way it left a lingering dust tail,

that made her think maybe, just this once,

something in the cosmic universe might

                                                                        listen

My Dog Will Get Me

 

when I slowly rise from the bed,

each joint creaking

like a scarcely-oiled tin man;

he’ll lift his silken head

from his place on the duvet,

knowing it will take me

a few more minutes to walk

toward the kitchen cupboards

to make my tea and his breakfast;

when I stay in my tattered nighty

until midday, his kind brown eyes

will not judge, not even with my hair

yet uncombed, my teeth unbrushed;

we’ll putter around the garden,

looking for ripe tomatoes,

the only veggie I can still pick

without throwing my back out of kilter;

we’ll doze in the recliner after lunch

probably in the middle of a game show;

when I awake, I’ll search for my glasses,

and he’ll wait patiently, ears perked

for my shout of glee when I find them

atop my head; he’ll understand when

I’m out of dog biscuits and milk

and wag his tail when I promise

he can tag along to the grocer tomorrow;

should I grow melancholy, he’ll place

his paw on my arm and sigh in solidarity.

 

GAS Featured Poet: Mukut Borpujari

Mukut Borpujari is a graduate in English Literature and hold a Masters in Computer Application (MCA) from G.G. University, Bilashpur, CG. Based in Guwahati, Assam, INDIA, he has a plethora of poems published in top journals including The Canyon Voices Literary Magazine of the Arizona State University. He was also longlisted in this year's Erbacce-prize for poetry 2024. An active member of the Greenpeace Movement, he has a deep-rooted conviction about nature and the natural world. Apart from being an avid reader, his other hobbies include Computers & internet, and Driving. 

Facebook, Instagram, X

The Rebel 

With a flagrant disregard for existing social norms, 

something’s brewing in the anvil of thought. 

Wild rhododendrons and bougainvilleas running 

along the wall, 

as we denounce the barriers of casteism and marginalization. 

No to the elite. 

No to centuries of limiting beliefs and traditions, 

their insistence—the shackles of our own minds. 

At midnight, 

in the waning light of the stars in the sky, 

the silhouette of our necks interlocked like flamingos. 

I miss you. I never even met you: 

let us take a deep dive into our imaginations, 

until we find the right imagery and metaphors 

we can discuss—dissect; 

not for ego’s sake, but for love. 

GAS Featured Poet: Vidya Hariharan

 Vidya Hariharan is a manic reader and traveller. In her spare time, she wrestles with crossword puzzles. Some of her work can be found on Poem Hunter, Setu, Poetry Superhighway, Muse India’s Your Space, Glomag, Café Dissensus, Borderless, Poems India, Pan Haiku Review, Contemporary Haiku Online and Under the Basho. Her poems Beauty and Open Heart Surgery have been selected as Editor’s Pick for July and September 2024 respectively.  She also won the Editor’s Choice Award for her haiku from Under the Basho in 2024.

Breakdown

It hits you in the middle of the road,

Mid-step, in broad daylight, cars

Whizzing by, honking angrily.

You force your reluctant feet 

To move out of the way,

With blurry eyes you watch 

As pedestrians push past you.

Nothing sinks in, in your current state.

Someone warned you this would happen,

The tears will flow, the grief will come,

When you least expect it, striking deadly

Like a punch in the gut, debilitating.

 

Can I sit here and weep by the streetlamp,

Rest my weighty head on the lap of night

With my back against the smooth metal

And let my pent-up tears run and wet my neck?

Oh, I forgot to bring a handkerchief this morning.

Didn’t foresee a breakdown in the evening.

 

His face was turned to the wall, away from me

When he breathed his last. did he reject me?

Why did we argue? I am an impatient bitch.

Unaware of my moans and splutters I weep 

Into my cupped hands, with pale fingers 

Pressing my eyes, my forehead pleated with grief.

Remembrance

Cooking scents fill the air,

Father is at it again,

Loaded counters gleam, 

The kitchen is off limits, 

But grandkids sneak out

With icing on their chin,

Moms gather in the garden

Share their tales of old,

Dads sort the Christmas tree

Sharing in the camaraderie,

While Mother smiles on

From her picture on the mantel.

GAS Featured Poet: Ma Yongbo

Ma Yongbo was born in 1964,Ph.D,representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry,and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry.He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 7 poetry collections.He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over half a million copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.

Line by line retranslation of Ashbery 

Waiting makes time democratic, you just said so

Then a white horse ran by, repeatedly running back and forth

Like a messenger passing straight through various rooms from the front door

Out through the back door, I waited like this for twenty-seven years.

Initially it was the honey of distortion brewed in the rooms distorted in your convex mirror

And that gesture was both an invitation and a refusal

Unfolding for me a moment that fluctuated incessantly

A crack that exists, the circulation of water in the ocean

A ring formed by a self-devouring serpent in motion 

In between is the void filled with power

This mirror of others reflects oneself at the same time

Allows all the images of leaves stacked in the depths of the mirror to remain

Like a demon in a bottle floating on an infinitely transparent surface

Longing for the light of your face, symbolic stones

They only stop temporarily in order to focus

Forming some kind of meaning, then they are quickly swept away

By the randomness of a hasty retrospective flood

This is more like a dream that a person struggles with but still cannot wake from

Maybe he doesn't really want to wake up

Finding himself in an uninhabited street

In the silence just as the last bus leaves

In the steam, the taillights flicker dimly

This is a climate without scenery, it is something nameless

Moving, appearing and disappearing, erasing some, and then adding some from the void

Adding something, originally the messenger and the message were one

How to receive the infinite return of the Möbius strip

What you have experienced, you know nothing about

And poetry is an understanding of this pain, and also a forgetting

Whether the reward is a reed flute, or separation of body and head

It will all enter a distilled space

Like bees living in the nest of the sun

And these, whether they are enough for me

Pretending that nothing happened, continue to sing

This may be the barbarian plundering in Rome

Defined safe zone, several temples scattered on hills

Let us continue with determination

Tell others the symbolism, and show the mystery to ourselves

GAS Featured Poet: Irma Kurti

 

IRMA KURTI is an Albanian poet, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator and has been writing since she was a child. She is a naturalized Italian and lives in Bergamo, Italy. In 2020, she became the honorary president of WikiPoesia, the encyclopedia of poetry. In 2023 she was awarded a Career Award from the Universum Academy Switzerland. She also won the prestigious 2023 Naji Naaman's literary prize for complete work. Irma Kurti has published 30 books in Albanian, 26 in Italian, 16 in English, and two in French. She has also translated 22 books by different authors. Her books have been translated and published in 17 countries.

The immense summer sky

 

I was waiting for a sweet word that night

that would’ve filled my soul with light

while above us just like a field of fireflies 

expanded the infinite summer sky.

 

I was just waiting for a caress like a soft

wave of the sea two steps away from us,

but you simply spoke and I was surely lost 

in a labyrinth of episodes from your past.

 

Your voice trembled and mingled with

the waves; in fragments it came to me as 

all my illusions vanished. It was enough 

just to live the magic of that moment.

 

 My love prevailed in the atmosphere; it

was filled with scents, manifold sounds,

close and elusive. I felt so happy, drunk,

your words wrapped in light—a distant

lighthouse in a dark and remote harbor.

 

Days have passed, turning into months,

the skies have changed and become

leaden and gray. The clouds announce

the tempests, but I still have above me

that immense summer sky like a field—

boundless and unattainable—of fireflies.

 

 

GAS Featured Poet: Duane Anderson

 

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, NE.  He has had poems published in Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, and several other publications. He is the author of ‘On the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk,’ ‘The Blood Drives: One Pint Down,’ and ‘Conquer the Mountains,’ and ‘Family Portraits.’

In the Eyes of a Glass

I am one of your companions,
holding what you pour into me,
tasting each treasured fluid 
as it is placed inside of me,

not caring if I am filled with water,
milk out of a gallon jug,
beer out of a bottle
pop out of a can.

Fill me with the drink of your choice,
then drink from me 
what you have trusted me to protect,
whether you sip me, gulp me, chug me,

and what once filled one belly 
disappears into the belly of another.
I am one always patiently waiting
for the next round of liquid refreshments.

A toast to you my friend,
a toast to me.
Let’s celebrate
as our lips touch each other in friendship.

GAS Featured Poet: Michael Lee Johnson

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart Prize nominations and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 330-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication. He is a proud member of the Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/. His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence "Citta' Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis" XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, "If I Were Young Again." 

 

In My Will

 

In my will, there will be a pinball machine.

A renovated jukebox from American Pickers,

a cable TV show. For the taverns, bars, 

and basements of fun seekers for those

who long to be free and ferocious.

I no longer fear death.

Empty vodka bottle by my bed.

A dusty Bible underlined

Jesus’ messages 

in red.