Month: May 2023

Piraeus – prose poem by Gabriela Marie Milton & more news on Literary Revelations

Piraeus by Gabriela Marie Milton

Tongues of white and blue licking the remnants of the old wall. Piraeus, the breeze marries us in its arms, smell of bittersweet oranges, salt, and strong coffee on your chest. The insanity of a lemon phyllo tart grabs at my lips. A nude sea struggles to stay awake.

The same taverna with its small tables, white chairs, and red wild roses crawling on its outside walls. The blue awnings move in the breeze like humongous lungs on a respirator. Three indifferent octopuses dry under the sun.   

My train of thought entangles on the rims of your open shirt, somewhere between your curly black hair tied in a ponytail and this insane phyllo tart that still grabs at my lips.  It’s something about the ruins of the old wall. The Melian Dialogue, “the strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.” *

Lord, this is not Melos. Athens lost the war, and I did not think about the Melian Dialogue. I thought about La salle d’attente, Maurice and his box with pills, one of them supposedly filled with poison. Nicholas had to choose.**

Mind games. The other side of Greece.

Where are the three octopuses? Where did they go? The sea is still here: nude, languorous, beautiful. It resurrects the breeze. A pale dizziness falls from the sky. Between my fingers white sand and the frenzy of your kisses. Beauty is danger. Love, please unbutton your shirt more.

The phyllo tart jumps at me, giggles, and turns itself into a blue chocolate box, tied with a golden bow which reads Leonidas, Maitre Chocolatier, 1913.

Oh, don’t make me choose sweet love. Don’t make me choose.

*Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, (431–404 BC)

* *Reference to The Magus by John Fowles, (1965).

Featured image by Gabriela Marie Milton – Piraeus, Greece.

Literary Revelations – Updates

Please go to our Literary Revelations Journal to read the latest updates. We are thrilled to let you know that our publishing house has signed new publication agreements for this calendar year. We are fully booked. We look forward to showcasing more outstanding poetry. We work diligently to bring our poets to a #1 Amazon bestselling place in Amazon Hot New Releases [poetry categories] – place where they deserve to be. We do not guarantee that will happen but we will work hard with you to try to achieve this goal. More updates coming soon.

We are also open for art submission.

To know more about us please read our About section:

“We expect work that dazzles the intellect, and delights the soul; work that makes feelings blossom into symphonies of love, beauty, and sorrow. Interpret the silence. Find the place where love was born, and tears are entombed. Be the voice of prophets. Be the soft whisper of Sakura.”

A reminder that both books we published until now have become #1 Amazon bestselling books in Amazon Hot New Releases [various categories]. Congratulations again to all contributors to our anthology Hidden in Childhood and to Swan Gill on his book, Love, Stars and Paradigms.

Our #1 Amazon bestselling books

Please click on the images to go to Amazon.com

Have a beautiful season everyone.

Gabriela Marie Milton
2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee
Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:

Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology (ed.), Literary Revelations, 2023
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020

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RE-CREATE AND CELEBRATE: 7 Steps to turn your Dreams into Reality, A Teaching Memoir and Workbook by Cindy Georgakas – advanced review by Gabriela Marie Milton

RE-CREATE AND CELEBRATE: 7 Steps to turn your Dreams into Reality, A Teaching Memoir and Workbook by Cindy Georgakas is a book structured around 7 sections: – Finding The True You, Finding Your Purpose, Finding Your Want and Why, Plan of Action— Attainable Steps, Processing Feelings, Loving Yourself, Falling off the Wagon, Burnout and an Aftermath entitled Celebrate!

The book is mostly a self-help book, peppered with autobiographical notes and beautiful poetry at the end of every chapter. It provides the reader with the means to overcome obstacles and turn dreams into reality. With her unique take on self-improvement, Cindy sheds light on a human journey that will help readers unlock the power inside and celebrate themselves.

The act of trying to improve our lives becomes a journey of self- discovery. The answers are inside of us, always have been, and, according to Cindy – the magic happens when we heed the call to put ourselves front and center in our lives. Through inspiring stories, practical advice, and poetry, readers will be able to find a new sense of self-love and appreciation for themselves. Cindy’s honesty allows her to connect with the reader at a deeper level.

As a memoir, the book is a testament to the power of positivity in our lives. There is wisdom and there is vulnerability sharing. There is resilience, hope, and healing. The readers find inspiring moments that could change their way of looking at life, and exercises they can practice themselves such as answers to the perennial question, “Who are you?” Have you ever tried to answer that question?

In short, Cindy Georgakas’ excellent book helps you to take ownership of your life and opens the gates toward a better you.

Gabriela Marie Milton
2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee
Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:

Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology (ed.), Literary Revelations, 2023
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020

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Two poems by Gabriela Marie Milton translated into Greek by Vasiliki Petroudi – poetry

My Dear Readers,

In everyone’s life there are unforgettable moments filled with magic and light on which our names are engraved forever. I lived one of these moments when Vasiliki Petroudi sent me two of my poems she translated into Greek.

Vasiliki Petroudi lives in Greece. Greece is the land where the ancients took every characteristic of the human soul and intellect and made it into a god. A land where we are not assisting to a simple typonomy of name-place. We are assisting to an associative relationship between us and the projection of us into gods; a projection that for the ancients constituted reality. They embedded it into their daily lives; into weddings and funerals, into the cooking of the meals and into mathematical equations.

Every look at the Parthenon transforms the group image of gods into individual psychology. Our beginning and our end are born at the intersection of the Greek interpretations of notions such as eros, beauty, power, and introspection. Look into a mirror and you will see Greece even if you’ve never visited it.

My favorite novelist – Lawrence Durrell – once wrote:

Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder—the discovery of yourself.

Vasiliki Petroudi is a wonderful Greek poet who, among other things, translates poetry from English into Greek. She is working on an incredible project that Literary Revelations will present in June. Until then you can read more about Vasiliki HERE.

I am humbled beyond words that Vasiliki translated two of my English poems into Greek. These translations are part of the project she is working on.

Vasiliki, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Below you can find my English poems and Vasiliki’s translations.

Samos, perhaps Crete by Gabriela Marie Milton

[included in Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020]

on the barren shore
you play your mandolin
I conjugate “to leave” in the voice of trees
the air reverberates expressions of old gods
the space changes its mind
maybe it is Samos, perhaps it is just Crete
traces of death, glimpses of the future
your thoughts are cut in marble
scratches turn to yellow
delineations, conquerors of islands
the shore melts in the waters
your eyes tell prophesies
the time changes its mind
perhaps it was just Samos, maybe it was Crete
the dying mandolin, the smell of ripened olives
an unmade wooden bed
solemnity, delirium
the names of I,
You
We

The Easter of Roses by Gabriela Marie Milton

[included in Women: Splendor and Sorrow I: Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021]

my love
you know that spring will come
peaches will grow on one side of the moon
injured lambs will scream on the other
taste of strawberries
my hair freshly cut
possessed by new ghosts will look for each other
steps on the asphalt heard from cafes
the baptism of rain and thin yellow candles
a verse from Seferis hangs on your lips
the Easter of Roses with its cold morning showers
never to sin your hands nailed in white marble
the rode of your anchor
my love
it’s spring
it’s me
free your hands from the marble

Traslations by Vasiliki Petroudi

Gabriela Marie Milton
2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee
Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:

Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology (ed.), Literary Revelations, 2023
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020

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