Autumn with you – Poem by Gabriela Marie Milton

A summer with raspberry lips
born from the bones of the sea and the feathers of winds
on September 20th Pessoa left Lisbon
the autumn brought dead perfumes
and poisoned the crickets with black tongues of fumes

I linger in empty railroad stations
where trains never stop anymore
you, my love,
slept for years on wet cobblestones
the ring on your finger
and under your head
a Stradivarius courting suicidal moons

Delirious I am for I can hear voices
I can see snakes dance on polished parket
dead leaves grow from my arteries like sunrises from seas
I lick from my lips the last pieces of corn
remember, my love, I am the one
who knows where nightingales are born.

Please do not forget that Literary Revelations will publish in December a fabulous book called Greenlandos by Virginia Witch. Please read more here and stay tuned for more news.

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

On Winning and Hate

The afternoon smelled of brick; the wall I used to scratch with the knees and the nails on my way to the sea.

My blood stained my socks and fed the roots of the orange tree mama planted one spring before my seventh birthday. Soon after, the tree grew blood oranges.

I used to dream I would reach the port before crickets would serenade the white cement between the bricks, and the evening wind would sew the wounds from the face of the wall.

I needed a God to lead me to the sea. In Mama’s stories, there were too many Gods leading souls to heaven. I did not want to go to heaven. I wanted to go to the sea.

I used to fail. I did not understand what failure is. The next afternoon, little ducks embroidered on the rim of my blue dress, I would start climbing the wall again.

One day I thought I would get to the port and run straight into the sea.

Little did I know that day came when I first looked into your eyes. The sea inside your eyes like laundry left to dry on a wire. Long red poles floundered left and right like the wings of a moribund bird. The body of a boat eroded by salt, and by the kisses of the women of your past agonized in green and blue.

The sea inside your eyes: on the right your love for me, and on the left, your hate for the world.

Did I say your love for me? You see, over time, I had to reconsider that formulation. Your feelings resembled more a never-ending animal magnetism than love.

Let me make one thing clear. No one person is sufficient to drive all demons from another one. You can think Goethe’s elective affinities if you wish. I cannot save you from you. You need to help me. I can carry this conversation into the night and win.

Ah, winning! The day I understood I can win, I stepped into hell.

That day was the day I lost my innocence and with that the paradise. Since then, my blood has never stained my socks anymore. The orange tree has never grown red-fleshed oranges, and Mama stopped telling stories.

featured image: Gabriela Marie Milton, Greece.

Included in my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow

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

I am deeply grateful to the Italian poet Flavio Almerighi – a poet whose work I admire – for translating my poem French Symbolism into Italian and for the feature in Gioielli Rubati 257.

French Symbolism in English

It’s still July mon amour
hot sands and old lovers torment my dreams
the waters are frantic
the flowers are dying
smell of fresh tombs and heavy perfumes.

Whispering tongues of burned summers
wrap around a verse from Rimbaud
A Season in Hell and another in heaven
tell me my bones and my blood
breathe only for you.

A Chinoise cup falls on the floor
the cats too lazy to move or to purr
my bras are too tight
the kisses too cool
your decadence
runs my past tense in gerund.

Translated in Italian by Flavio Almerighi

Simbolismo francese

È ancora luglio mon amour
sabbie calde e vecchi amanti tormentano i miei sogni
le acque sono frenetiche
i fiori stanno morendo
odorano di tombe fresche e profumi pesanti.

Lingue sussurrate di estati bruciate
avvolgono un verso di Rimbaud
Una stagione all’inferno e un’altra in paradiso
dimmi che le mie ossa e il mio sangue
respirano solo per te….

…

Read further HERE. Gioielli Rubati 257 features several other wonderful poets.

A quick reminder: Literary Revelations will release Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh in late July/early August. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Thank you everyone.

Featured art: Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Sleeping Cat, Public Domain

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

French Symbolism – poem

It’s still July mon amour
hot sands and old lovers torment my dreams
the waters are frantic
the flowers are dying
smell of fresh tombs and heavy perfumes.

Whispering tongues of burned summers
wrap around a verse from Rimbaud
A Season in Hell and another in heaven
tell me my bones and my blood
breathe only for you.

A Chinoise cup falls on the floor
the cats too lazy to move or to purr
my bras are too tight
the kisses too cool
your decadence
runs my past tense in gerund.

Featured Image: Edmond Aman-Jean, Woman with the Blue Vase, Public Domain.

Updates on Literary Revelations

Literary Revelations will release Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh end of July/beginning of August. Please stay tuned for more news.

You can read the advanced praise for this wonderful collection HERE.

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

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. Late July/early August my publishing house Literary Revelations will release a superb book of haiku and senyru co-authored by C.X. Turner and James Welsh and entitled Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems.

I am thrilled to share with you two beautiful poems from the book and the advanced praise we received. I hope you enyoy reading them.

Advanced Praise

“Back in my art teacher days, I used to remind students when they were having difficulties that art was fundamentally an act of play. This artistic playfulness is just what we find in Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems. Turner and Welsh dive deep into their subjects. Exploring every angle and defining every tint and shade along the way. With both broad brushstrokes and intimate details, these two poets paint the beautiful experience of their haiku worlds.”

Bryan Rickert
Editor: Failed Haiku Journal of Senryu
President: The Haiku Society of America

“In one breath tender and poignant, in the next stark and arresting, this collection of short poems is a journey of discovery through an evocative series of moments in nature. It is an exploration of that yearning to glean meaning from the chaotic lives we all lead.

There is a deftness to the poems in this selection, a lightness of touch that beckons the reader inside, leading them gently to the deep meditations and thoughts waiting behind the words.”

Joe Woodhouse
Editor: Wales Haiku Journal

“Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems, the stunning new collection by C.X. Turner and James Welsh, is a must-have for your shelves. These thought-provoking haiku and senryu left me breathless.”

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Editor, Cold Moon Journal and Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry)

Poems

I look out to sea
and see an ancient story
told in shades of blue

unsure of direction
I float my dreams
downstream

Please stay tuned for more news.

Literary Revelations Spanish Feature

Read Here

Building Sandcastles – Front Cover Reveal

Click Here

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

Waltz – poem

I waltz into an empty ballroom
yesterday the ghost of Maja haunted Goya in the streets
hungry demons haunted you
effervescence, the molecules of those who’ll never be,
a door gets slammed
a key gets turned
the breath of earth is choked
initiation
I buried our wedding bands
inside the mist of that which never is
I snow on you white flowers from the one forbidden tree
I jump like a wild lynx
I look for prey
you make pianos sneeze old rhapsodies
stop
it is too late to understand
who’s me

featured image – Goya, La Maja Vestida, Public Domain

Literary Revelations is getting ready to publish a new poetry collection Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh.

You can read the advanced praise for Building Sandcastles from the President of the Haiku Society of America Bryan Rickert HERE.

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

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

Explore

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

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:

Follow me on Twitter

Tweets by shortprose1

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:

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

From my translation project on Facebook two wonderful poems by @shortprose1 I want to thank Gabriela from the bottom of my heart for trusting her amazing verses to me
I wish you all a beautiful new month🤍@shortprose1 #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetrytwitter #translation pic.twitter.com/ZX19A56jid
— Vasiliki Petroudi (@VPetroudi) May 1, 2023