Category Archives: POEMS

aokigahara

deadwood on a silent shore
the crack of daylight on her face
says maybe she won’t want to die
one day

ever unsure
unable to see tomorrow
yonder rot & spore
& chokehold of black trees

the war in her brain
can anything numb the pain
thunderclouds or amnesty
they say the forecast is up to she
dumbly she hangs ‘tween root & limb
awaiting the rain

ever unsure
the marrow’s in the morrow
this is what they say
but hope is a blithe man’s game

deadwood on a silent shore
she doesn’t know how to be
defiled she hangs lightly
for another day

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

the death of ignorance (ecstatic symmetry)

dancing in the ruins of the dead divines
i smelled the earth after the first rain
no more crackle of grass in a lake like glass
near ashimmer with new possibilities

and i lumbered through pain
to free me from the chains

stomping on a skull in its ruined crown
i heard the sound of its gnashing teeth
a lesser antilles of emptied homilies
near ashameless with inert fragilities

and i forged through pain
to free me from the chains

flaming through the deep of waters parted
i roared the defiance of an open tomb
saved two of each kind of all souls to find
near asundered with reassembled symmetries

and i frolicked through pain
to free me from the chains

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

GUEST POST // Sign of the Times (A Haiku) by Maria Michaela

Neck hurts, aching back
Getting older? Yes, I am
Still, glad for the chance

by MARIA MICHAELA
© All rights reserved 2023

one year, six days

three girlfriends chatting in a mall café
sip coffee, pick at cake with small forks
first girl says that she slept fully clothed
but now she sleeps in her pajamas
second girl says she sleeps in her best lingerie
the set she was keeping for a ‘special case’
and the third one says that she sleeps naked
so rescuers will pay attention and save her first
and they giggle, and they go on to discuss
which lipstick shades are trendy this spring

meanwhile the tired rescuers go home, in silence
today they were saving human lives

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2023

men are from mars, women are from peni—

he blabbed something like
her hair had phallic nature
in broken english
and boy was she offended!
she just had epilation

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022