Tag Archives: POETRY

Soul Ink Teaser Tuesday

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Poetry

Date to be Published: June 23, 2024

 

 

Poetry; a unique and beautiful way to express feelings and ideas. Weaving
words into perfect poetic prose, these authors remind you of your childhood,
bring comfort from the hardships of life, fiercely spur emotions, and tell
tales of old. All lovers of poetry will find a favorite here!

Featuring poems by Rhiannon Bird, Luke Dylan Ramsey, Ron Perovich, M. Kelly
Peach, John Grey, Michael J. Corrigan, K.J. Watson, Jonathan Reddoch,
Vanessa Bane, Stephen Schwei, Daniel Anaya, Dana Trick, Cara Hartley,
Douglas Allen Gohl, Samuel Samba, Monica Kakkar, Rizwan Akhtar, Emma
Laurent, Ebuka Stephen, and J.E. Feldman.

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Excerpts

 

A Brief Ode to an Unseen Eclipse

Though we were not in the path of totality

Partial eclipse sighting was possibility

Overcast as it was, it was not meant to be.

Clouds thick and heavy

Obscuring the sun.

 

Butterfly

many sing your praise

while your numbers grow smaller

precious butterfly

 

Charcoal

I inflame your fire

giving you warmth you desire

fundamental fuel

 

Dear Author

Dear Author,

Thank you for the submission of your story for our anthology.

Your story has good bones.

For us to consider publishing the piece, you must make it more innovative
by changing the characters to amorphous blobs with no discernible age,
ethnicity, nationality, sex, or size.

Within the confines of ten thousand words, we also insist on more
descriptive descriptions of the futuristic setting while not getting lost in
describing the futuristic setting but rather concentrating on compelling
character development between the amorphous blobs.

Further, we insist upon inclusion of an enemies to lovers trope.

Yours truly,

The Publisher

 

a wintry shower

dusting of snow on the trees

as spring awakens

 

Elm

I sit in my house listening to house music at 6:23 AM.

The skies are gray and the birds have not yet started stirring

In the ugly Siberian elm outside my window.

My father hated these trees with their rough bark and leaves.

He despised their haggard appearance,

Lamenting the downfall of their handsomer cousins, the American elm.

I remember seeing technicians cutting off branches of trees

Spraying them with paint, sometimes felling the whole thing

In order to stop the spread of Dutch elm disease.

I hope my father would be pleased to know

About the efforts made to save the trees he loved

So future generations can appreciate them

As he always did.

Outside my window, an ugly Siberian elm is a dwelling place for beautiful
birds.

 

For my father

31 May 1936 – 28 November 2010

 

Ornery Owl logo

Ornery Owl is a wise old bird who seeks the truth behind the lies. She uses
her observations to heal the wounded soul. In essence, she is the spirit of
an odd little bird whose wings were clipped at a young age. She is at once a
whimsical manifestation of poetic expression and a fierce protector of those
targeted for derision by an angry and unsympathetic world. Depending on how
you perceive her, she can be either a goddamned delight or your worst
nightmare.

 

Follow Ornery Owl (AKA Cara Hartley)

Cara H and Ornery Owl Amazon Author Page

C. L. Hart Newsletter

(C. L. Hart is my fantasy, horror, and sweet romance author pen
name.)

Naughty Netherworld Press Start Page

 

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The Dove That Didn’t Return Virtual Book Tour

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Poetry

Date Published: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Holy Cow! Press

 

 

A poet and female commander in the Israeli Defense Forces creates an
original perspective from the war-torn front lines of the Middle East
conflict.

The Dove That Didn’t Return tackles the canon of war poetry, an
almost exclusively male-penned body of poems. In the book, biblical stories,
verses, and fragments are rewritten through the eyes of a female lieutenant
in the Israeli Army. It is a contemporary poetics on the revelations of war
from an Israeli perspective never before told—a woman, and a soldier
at that.

This debut full-length collection follows upon the publication of her
critically acclaimed chapbook, Between Sanctity and Sand, from Finishing
Line Press.

 

The Dove That Didn't Return tablet

EXCERPT 

BETWEEN SANCTITY AND SAND

 

The first time I shot an M-16

it was the heat of summer in the Negev.

Gas-operated with a rotating bolt, five-point-fifty-

six caliber, with nineteen bullets a box. 

I could shoot like an angel.

 I could hit a running target 

at six-hundred-fifty meters. 

I hummed to myself as I shot, 

I was eighteen. 

The retama flower of my hair-bun drawn back tight 

blooming, sprouting open with every green round.

 

 

About the Author

Yael S. Hacohen

Yael S. Hacohen earned a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. She has received
research/teaching fellowships from Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan
University. She has an MFA in Poetry from New York University, where she was
an
NYU Veterans Workshop Fellow, International Editor at Washington Square
Literary
Review, and Editor-in-Chief at Nine Lines Literary Review. Her work has
been featured or is forthcoming in The Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The
Missouri Review, Bellevue Literary Review, LIT, Prairie Schooner, New York
Quarterly Magazine, Colorado Review, and many more.
Hacohen published her chapbook Between Sanctity and Sand with Finishing
Line Press in 2021. Hacohen served as a lieutenant in the 162nd Armored
Division of the Israeli Defense Forces. She lives with her family in Tel
Aviv, Israel.

 

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The Dove That Didn’t Return Blitz

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The Dove That Didn't Return cover

Poetry

Date Published: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Holy Cow! Press

 

 

A poet and female commander in the Israeli Defense Forces creates an
original perspective from the war-torn front lines of the Middle East
conflict.

The Dove That Didn’t Return tackles the canon of war poetry, an
almost exclusively male-penned body of poems. In the book, biblical stories,
verses, and fragments are rewritten through the eyes of a female lieutenant
in the Israeli Army. It is a contemporary poetics on the revelations of war
from an Israeli perspective never before told—a woman, and a soldier
at that.

This debut full-length collection follows upon the publication of her
critically acclaimed chapbook, Between Sanctity and Sand, from Finishing
Line Press.

 

About the Author

Yael S. Hacohen

Yael S. Hacohen earned a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. She has received
research/teaching fellowships from Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan
University. She has an MFA in Poetry from New York University, where she was
an
NYU Veterans Workshop Fellow, International Editor at Washington Square
Literary
Review, and Editor-in-Chief at Nine Lines Literary Review. Her work has
been featured or is forthcoming in The Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The
Missouri Review, Bellevue Literary Review, LIT, Prairie Schooner, New York
Quarterly Magazine, Colorado Review, and many more.
Hacohen published her chapbook Between Sanctity and Sand with Finishing
Line Press in 2021. Hacohen served as a lieutenant in the 162nd Armored
Division of the Israeli Defense Forces. She lives with her family in Tel
Aviv, Israel.

 

Purchase Link

Amazon

 

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The Body Virtual Book Tour

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Poems and Stories

Poetry, Women

Date Published: Jan 31, 2024

Publisher: Bookbaby

 

 

How do you stitch yourself back together after trauma, loss, grief,
heartbreak? By inviting what is broken to become what is breathtaking. THE
BODY is a collection of poems and short stories written in lyrical prose
during the hardest moments of the author’s life. This collection explores
themes of love, loss, grief, seduction, creativity, consciousness, female
empowerment, post- traumatic expansion, and the collective human experience.
Because when words are not enough, art is the container that holds what the
body cannot. And as the heart breaks open, the soul can be set free.

The Body tablet

EXCERPT

The Surfers

It was a hot day–the last of many, and the sun beat mercilessly upon the sea. For days, the sea grew smaller, and the meek little fish clung to each other in pregnant fear as the salt crystallized upon the shores. At last, the final drop of sanctuary vanished, and they gulped stringent air into their feeble lungs.

“How refreshing!” the ray cried, even as the tears evaporated on his cheeks.

“Yes, quite lovely out here,” echoed the sturgeon, as his body convulsed through the pain.

The minnows grew legs and walked upon the desert, as the virgin flesh on their feet burned away. “But why?” they chorused, and the older ones shushed them, already forgetting the coolness of the deep.

The light unveiled their scaliness; more pungent grew their smells, and they became ashamed.

“The catfish,” they whispered, “is fishier than we.” And so, with vacant faces, they killed him. At night, they used his body as a pyre and huddled around his warmth, the smell of blood titillating foul, dark places unknown. In the morning, they wept, missing the hearty sound of his laughter.

The carp drew away from the safety of the bed. Wandering into the forest, he found the carcass of a turtle. Discovering the armor fit just fine, he carried the shell on his back, admiring the newness of his fortitude. “I’m a turtle!” he cried, and a crowd of hungry crows swooped in, searching for a reptilian snack.

They tossed him in his newfound shell, jeering and shrieking wildly as he begged them to understand. They pulled his scales off one-by-one and, satisfied, abandoned their carefree game.

Blind and naked, he lay dying, whispering to indifferent trees, “I was just pretending.”

 

Two whales, longing for home, found solace in a puddle while commiserating grief began a tango of obsession.

Her love for him was a toxic obesity–seeking only to consume–and finally satiated, pulled away, repulsed at the smell of leftovers.

He slithered through the mud of validation and became, once more, a shadow of himself. His sweet words whispered, “I hate you,” but she was just a vessel, floundering to tame the wild boar of his self-derision.

The moment was brief. These two were destined to dance, as always. His hatred denied and delighted her; her contagion nearly nourished his void. And the bitter dancers fell into the fullness of plastic arms, wondering who’s to blame.

A darkness settled. Coldness brought conception–the first of many children born into a strange land, and they smothered the small ones with hopefulness and poisoned their brothers with desperate expectation.

Still, the starfish was silent. Years ago, he saw them there–hungry and hopeless–crying for affection and turning on each other with the slightest kiss. On the breeze, he murmured, “Swim,” in dyspeptic disillusionment, and the waves of remembrance crested in the wombs of their consciousness.

The swordfish joined the starfish, jealous to his cause. “Swim,” he echoed, nodding, and the sounds of distant surf grew louder as they tumbled, chanting down the dunes.

“Swim how?” the old ones cackled.

And, softer still, he insisted, sweetly, “…swim.”

One-by-one, they joined them, practicing their strokes for promises to come, and the proud mocked their buoyancy. Blood was spilled upon the sand to affirm the worthiness of the few. Some surfed because of loneliness–others, to assuage a perpetration, but the motives lost their meaning.

 

What remained was hope among the wasteland. And one day, though none of them believed it, the rains did come–washing them in violent promises and destroying their emptiness with the beauty of change. The ones who survived would forget the names and the morals of their tales, but forever remember the pain of what it felt like to breathe.

 

About the Author

Holly Anne Mitchell

Artist. Two-time TEDx talker. Singer-Songwriter. Entrepreneur.
Novelist-Playwright. Ghostwriter. Mental Health Advocate. A no-holds barred
journey of transformation and recovery from PTSD, Holly’s story is a raw and
honest testament to the power of creative resilience. Forged from the
heartache of personal trauma, she’s spun her pain into a wealth of creative
prowess, shattering societal norms, and challenging the idea of ‘spiritual
bypassing.’

Holly’s lyrical prose combines self-hypnosis with carefully crafted
wordsmithing to ignite the senses and the soul through their musical
cadence. Holly wrote, produced, and starred in her debut musical BLOOD
SUPPLY: A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE LOVE STORY premiering in Los Angeles January
2023 to stellar reviews. She releases music under the artist name HOLLY
HOLLOWS and resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Contact Links

Website

Instagram: @hollyanne_mitchell

Youtube: @hollyannemitchell

Tiktok @hollyanne.mitchell

 

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Passages to Eternity Blitz

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Philosophic meditations in poetic form on the meaning of eternity for 72
famous persons

 

Poetry

Date Published: January 15, 2024

 

 

As a philosopher once surmised: talent hits a target no one else can hit.
Genius, he insisted, hits a target no one else can see.
The greatest artists
and thinkers are the greatest seers. They do not imagine … only and
merely. They study the facts, they think the facts, they feel the facts,
until the facts, the acts of faith, the articles of invention, dissolve in
the naked light of the hitherto unseen, until fact, faith, and invention
fall away like Halloween masks, like swaddling clothes; and then, leaving
behind the tricks and the treats, they teach us what to hallow: the
nakedness of a newborn joy, perpetually born anew, a joy that can never die,
because it never quite knows, but never fails to enjoy, how early it already
is, and how young it was always going to be.

All thinking, carried far enough, ends in paradox: trying to think the
unthinkable
. All feeling, carried far enough, ends in paradox: trying to
feel the unfeelable
. But one can feel the unthinkable, and think the
unfeelable. To do so is to think with one’s feelings and to feel with one’s
thoughts. Then, and only then, is it possible to hit a target that no one
else can see. To experience deeply (profoundly and creatively) is to think
with your feelings and to feel with your thoughts. And there’s a first and
last to every thought, to every feeling. To think the first, to feel the
first, as if it were the last, and to do so intensely is to know
nothingness, to experience death. Yes, this is paradox. To think the last,
to feel the last, as if it were the first, and to do so intensely is to
experience life, a life that never ends, precisely because – like a
box without sides – it is without beginnings and without ends. Yes,
this is paradox too.

This book continues the conspiracy of significance, the dialectic of
nowhere and now here, that began with The History of Eternity. Read this
sequel, Passages to Eternity, and follow, if you will, the destiny of this
paradox as it unfolds in the lives of 72 historic individuals, including
Rilke, Peirce, Aeschylus, Pythagoras, Wordsworth, Ibsen, Santayana, Wilde,
St. Teresa, Melville, Whitman, Beethoven, Godel, Michelangelo, Leibniz,
Thucydides, Ovid, Empedocles, Mann, Plato, Borges, St. James, Baudelaire,
Bradley, Arendt, Auden, Maistre, T.S. Eliot, Democritus, Bruegel, Unamuno,
Flaubert, Girard, Calvino, Holderlin, William James, Tacitus, Jaspers, St.
Paul, Pater, Anaximander, Solzhenitsyn, Nicholas of Cusa, Picasso, Joyce,
Berlioz, Marcus Aurelius, Tolstoy, Rose, Kant, Tennessee Williams, Amos,
Crane, Toynbee, Wharton, Hegel, Cavafy, Schmitt, Celan, Shankara,
Heisenberg, Gibbon, Luther, Frost, Anaxagoras, Nabokov, Adorno, Conrad,
Naipaul, Euripides, Ramanuja and many others.

About the Author

Mr. James E. Winder

Mr. James E. Winder was born on June 16, 1953, in Athens, Tennessee, and
graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1975 with a B.A. in
philosophy and literature. He earned an M.A. in philosophy from Purdue
University in 1980.

James Winder spent the lion’s share of his career as a mid-level
manager and intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA),
where he retired in 2013 after 30 years of service. At NSA, Mr.
Winder’s most noteworthy assignment was in 1991-1992, when he served
as Assistant Director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board (PFIAB). During that time, he co-authored a report for President
George H.W. Bush on intelligence lessons learned during the first Gulf War
and provided extensive research and documentation on a wide range of other
matters of great interest to the PFIAB board members. In a special
commendation, then Acting PFIAB Chairman, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, cited Mr.
Winder for his “expert advice to the President of the United
States” and for his “extremely incisive and timely contributions
on some very complex issues.”

During three decades at NSA, Mr. Winder produced three classified,
book-length studies, most notably including a comprehensive report on an
important topic, which won NSA’s annual Cryptologic Literature Award.
In addition, he wrote a wide variety of other in-depth reports on Soviet
intelligence, terrorism, and technical threats to U.S.
telecommunications.

Mr. Winder is also the author of The History of Eternity, a series of
philosophic meditations in poetic form, which is, according to Mr. Winder,
the cryptic story of his life and the lives of many others. There is –
in the history of philosophy and literature – no other work that is
akin to it in nature and scope.

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