I Wanted to Love You – poem by Gabriela Marie Milton included in Woman: Splendor and sorrow.

I Wanted to Love You – poem by Gabriela Marie Milton

each word I write cries on the tunes of spring,
a spring that ends in graveyards and in dreams
the night I abandoned you on that bench and left
snows in my mind the syllable of hell
I bought one ticket from a shaman dressed in red
and flew towards the island of nowhere
and now between the mighty heaven and the hell
I love you and I hate you are the same
and I return to find the pardon of the sands
to kiss your dust left on your mother’s hand
I dress in colored ashes and I speak
the language of the prophets with no tongues
on a new bench, I sit alone at funerals
and wait until the sea closes its eyes
to resurrect the ghost of love that you inscribed
on the red bridge between your spring and mine
I wanted to return
I wanted to love you

Explore

Visit Literary Revelations for more poetry and art

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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

The Hour of Sunsets – first published in 2019 by Heretics, Lovers, and Madmen

frontiers of my being
the hour of sunsets has come
with bare hands I drown you in the coldest seas
red lilies burn you in the hidden valley
birds delight on carnal straps
I run barefoot through streets of no return
I knock on doors
a piece of bread
for my entire heart

oh, it’s midnight
I step into the land of fantasies that are not mine
I play with dreams like children play with kites
fires taller than the sky burst from my pregnant heart
nocturnal marigolds crawl on my skin like ants
I interrupt the voice of number Pi
from the clouds
I rain on you, my love, the silence of the prophets without tongues

was that a ray of light?
skyscrapers yawn
destinies melt in the taste of coffee and mistrust
car cough
the day confines me to the sick banality of its own land
my hands, aquatic pillars of forgotten fantasies
wait like thieves on corners of the streets

for yet another night

Featured Image: A gift for me from Tasmania

Reminder

From Literary Revelations: Coming this summer – Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X.Turner and James Welsh

Watch this space for more news and read Literary Revelations Journal.

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

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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:

I am thrilled to let everyone know that Swarn Gill’s new book Love, Stars, and Paradigms released a few hours ago just became #1 Amazon bestseller in the UK, the US, and Canada.

Congratulations to Swarn! My publishing house – Literary Revelations – and I are thrilled. Thank you to those who support and believe in us.

Have a great weekend everyone.

The book is available in all Amazon markets.

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

Dear Readers,

I am thrilled to let you know that Swarn Gill‘s poetry collection Love, Stars, and Paradigms is now live on Amazon. A publication of Literary Revelations, the book speaks about love, social issue, nature and human relations.

Here is the Amazon description I wrote:

Swarn Gill’s poetry collection, Love, Stars, and Paradigms is a must-read for anyone looking for original and stunning poems about love, social, and political issues. Through his work, Gill explores the connection between the natural realm and the human condition with an eye for detail that is both captivating and thought-provoking. Through powerful imagery and vivid language, he paints his own unique perspective on the world around us. Whether it’s about heartache or joy, Gill’s words will touch your soul. Love, Stars, and Paradigms is an unforgettable journey through the beauty of love and the complexities of relationships.

Swarn jokingly telling us why we have to buy his book.

Thank you and have a glorious weekend.

Reason #3 to buy my upcoming book #love #stars and #paradigms #ClimateCrisis @shortprose1 pic.twitter.com/QpExdu8iQu
— Arliden the Bard (@theedemaruh) March 31, 2023

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

My dear readers,

I am thrilled to reveal the full cover design of Love, Stars, and Paradigms by Swarn Gill. This stunning poetry collection will be published by Literary Revelations early April.

The art on the cover belongs to Magdalena Gill.

Follow this space, Literary Revelations and my social media, Twitter @sortprose1 and IG @gabriela_marie_milton, for more updates on the release date.

Please read the preface I wrote and support us.

Thank you!

Foreword

Writing a poetry collection is one thing, but to write one in which every poem shines like the brightest star in the sky is to take the reader to an entirely different level, inside a universe in which words permeate hearts and transform souls. This is where the poems of Swarn Gill take you.

While within the pages of this book each poem stands on its own, one can notice thematic issues resembling circumpolar constellations. Swarn Gill’s poetry concerns itself with perennial matters such as: love, pain, identity, social justice, building a better self, rituals of daily life to name just a few. The depth and beauty in his poems are remarkable. In Lovestruck he writes “I chose to face wrathful clouds/and I saw/such beauty in the maelstrom/and though you struck me hard/ you hardened me like glass/ and in those semi-opaque reflections/ we hold, we sip, we float.”

In Diurnal Dreams winds of liberation from the conventions of a society plagued by commercialism blow, “free me from grey/break me out/of concrete prisons/prostrate me/among the daisies/let emerald butterflies/send me to slumber.”

Love and nature are married in a remarkable way in Under Nature’s Power. It’s not a marriage of convenience. It’s osmosis. Nature leads. “The stars were lecherous/making you lay down/in the cool grass/then the moon/made your invitation/clear as glass/what choice did we have/under cruel skies.”

Hold Still is a poem of substance, simplicity, and beauty with a hint of laissez-faire, “there was also/something I was/looking forward to/no matter…. we are the moment/time vibrates.”

Irene Solà wrote, “The infinite dwells in each of us. Like a window on the top of our heads that we didn’t even know was there,” [Canto jo i la muntanya balla] and she continued claiming that only the poet can open that door and reach the infinite. All you must do to know she was right is to read Swarn Gill’s book Love, Stars, and Paradigms.

Literary Revelations is proud to publish such an unbelievable poetry collection.

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

I am your soul – poem [fragment]

look for me my love

my body shines like lightning

striking down from Mount Olympus

I’m the tremble of each tear

which poor hungry children shed

I’m the prayer of the lonely

the garden where the virgins blush

the mystic bite of occult ecstasies

I’m hidden in the Sistine Chapel

in haunted graveyards at midnight

I’m bursting from the keys of the piano

which plays alone Beethoven’s 5^th

…

Included in my book, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis Press, 2020)

Updates on Literary Revelations

I am thrilled to let you know that Literary Revelations will publish Swarn Gill’s wonderful poetry collection: Love, Stars, and Paradigms. Please read the book’s foreword here: https://literaryrevelations.com/2023/02/28/coming-in-april-love-stars-and-paradigms-a-poetry-collection-by-swarn-gill-foreword/. I hope you enjoy it.

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

Poem – Poetic Prose

You knew where the world began. I will find too. I will drown in the sea where olive trees end, and Rimbaud’s atrocious sunsets start. I will become the forget-me-not of the waters.

Do you remember when there were 14 days in a week, all of them Sundays?

My blood, first thought to be of a certain type. Now classified differently. In the entire world there is only a very small number of people that have the same type of blood as I do. It must be a mistake. Can we start over?

Sweet love don’t cry.

The 15^th day of the week will be the day of mirth. Yellow laughter and photographs stretched from my soul to the ledge of the windows.

Waters.

Forget-me-not.

featured image: Claude Monet – Water Lilies

Reminders

Please do not forget our incredible collection Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology. You can buy it HERE.

Please visit Literary Revelations Website and subscribe. There is a new weekend interview up. You can read it HERE.

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

Dear Readers,

I am delighted to be featured in New York Glamour Magazine the third time. I was asked to first speak about myself and then about the anthology Hidden in Childhood [Literary Revelations, 2023]. I am grateful to everyone who spread the word about this stunning anthology. I am grateful to everyone who bought it. I am proud to have brought together the voices of 150 poets to speak to you in more than 270 poems about the trauma and the joy of childhood. Hidden in Childhood is a stunning and important book. It became a #1 Amazon bestseller for 5 days after its release. Yesterday it recaptured its #1 place for the entire day.

You can get the anthology and read the poetry of those stunning writers HERE.

Apologies if I did not return some of your love. I will visit with you as soon as can. None of you knows that I have an extremely rare autoimmune condition. It is so rare that it’s basically understudied. There is no treatment for it. For years it left me alone. Now, I am going through a flare up. All medical tests were done, and there is no damage to any of my internal tissues. I am ok but I will need time to recover. Please be patient with me and I will visit your sites soon.

Now let’s go back to happier things. I am thrilled I was asked by New York Glamour Magazine to talk about me. However I am beyond delighted I could talk about Hidden in Childhood and your marvelous poetry.

Here are some snippets from the interview:

“Yes, I am an American, but I am also a child of Europe. I have been fascinated, mesmerized, frightened, brought to tears, left speechless by the greatest writers of Europe. I still am. Later, I discovered America’s greatest: Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Faulkner, Hemingway, Miller, Poe. Yet, in my darkest moments – like those rare moments in which I cannot write – only the writings of Lawrence Durrell bring my muse back.”

“Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology is our first publication. It comprises over 150 authors and more than 270 poems. It is available on Amazon and for almost 5 days was the #1 Amazon Hot New Release in Poetry Anthologies. As the editor, curator, and publisher of this book, I am honored and humbled that so many poets entrusted me with their work. The beauty and the power of the poems included in Hidden in Childhood brought me to tears. The poems of the contributors are stunners. As I wrote in the foreword of the book, if you open the pages of this poetry collection, you will be mesmerized by the talent of the contributors, and by the range of stylistic approaches they use to recreate the world of childhood“

Please read the entire interview here:

Gabriela Marie Milton – “Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology.”

Thank you!

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

As of this writing Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology is still running #1 on Amazon New Releases [poetry anthologies]. This is almost the 5th day. I cannot tell you how humbled and delighted I am. The poetry in this volume is fantastic. 150 poets wrote about their childhood. Joy and pain. Tears and smiles.

Today coming from childhood the voice of Vance Walker.

PAST AS PROLOGUE – VANCE WALKER

Under the old oak tree
where they hung our swing
we three would play
till the bell would ring

and we burned our hands
on the fisherman’s rope
and skinned our knees
on the fireman’s pole

In our big tree house
with lights but no water
we three played
two sons and a daughter

Using cherries for blood
our ammunition was mud
squirt guns for rain
It was all just pantomimed pain

And I could hold my breath
much longer than you
under the old oak tree
when it was just us two

Except on that day
on that afternoon
when that rope around your neck
turned your face bright blue

I didn’t know what to do
under that old oak tree
Hang on hold on
I’ll get you free

We had our GI Joes
up to their necks in mud
and flying through the air
and landing with a thud

And I could hold my breath
much longer than you
except on that day
on that afternoon

when you banged to the floor
when I banged down the door
blood, not mud
and your face bright blue

I didn’t know what to do
tears coming down like rain
you in your cherry juice
you and your phone cord noose

Remember when
we had to pantomime pain?

Well it was we three
then it was us two
now it’s just me
me alone

using tears for rain
and I don’t have to pantomime pain.

Vance Walker has been writing poetry since he was a little boy. Recent poetry published: When Smooth-Faced Wooers Woo, in the Wingless Dreamer’s Breath of Love, Poems for Global Poemic, Vita Brevis Press, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. His play, You’ve Got To Keep Mother Alive, was recently performed at Scribe Stages.

Updates:

My deepest apologies for not being able to return your likes. At this point Word Press is working to fix several problems that occurred with this site. I believe I can reply to your comments on my site, but I cannot leave comments or like other sites. I hope this problem gets fixed soon.

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