Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton and an Update on Haiku for Soulmates

Poetic prose by Gabriela Marie Milton

I remember the call from Brussels like a wound that never quite closed. Your voice trembled.

“Jacques ignored us the entire evening,” you said.

“The only thing he talked about was you. He seemed… obsessed. With everything about you.”

The line went dead.

I stood there, breath caught somewhere between my chest and my throat, and then I walked—no, I fled—to the closet.

My fingers found the white dress before my eyes did. I pulled it out like it had been waiting for me, like it knew. The fabric slipped through my hands, soft and familiar, still carrying that scent—Hypnotic Poison. His perfume. His gift. His presence.

Something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the scissors.

The first cut was hesitant.

The sound—sharp, final—echoed louder than it should have. Then came another. And another. Faster now. The blades tore through silk and memory alike, each slice a refusal, a protest, a scream I couldn’t voice.

Gabriela Marie Milton

Updates on Haiku for Soulmates

To those of you who submitted to Haiku for Soulmates:

Please be patient. Due to the overwhelming response we have received, we are diligently navigating through the selection process. Rest assured, we will notify everyone via email regarding your acceptance status. To ensure you don’t miss a moment of this exhilarating journey, please follow Literary Revelations for timely updates!

Thank you

Gabriela Marie Milton
Author, Editor in Chief, Founder.

Please follow me on IG @gabriela_marie_milton and ob X @shortprose1

My books (Only English)

#1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis)
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)|
#1 Amazon bestseller, Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony and Power in Japanese Art – co-authored with Hikari (Literary Revelation)

Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books.
Please read other reviews here:

Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton in Portland Book Review
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton in Manhattan Book Review
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings in San Francisco by Gabriela Marie Milton in San Francisco Book Review
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings by Gabriela Marie Milton In Manhattan B

Basque Lore – Witch (Sorginak)-Short Prose – Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton

Amaia moved as if the earth itself exhaled her name. The cup before her shimmered with fern, salt, and a shard of the sea’s first bone—the one that once wrapped around her ankles like a lover unwilling to let go. She broke the root of a tree between her fingers, and the scent of sap rose, thick and sweet as memory.

Her dress slipped from her shoulders, pooling at her feet like dusk surrendering to night. Naked, she began to dance—slowly at first, then with the rhythm of wind through stone, of rivers through veins. The air bent toward her, the mountains listening. Mist gathered around her skin, luminous and alive, her hair trailing down her thighs like spilled ink.

We were children, hidden beneath the bed, breathless. Through the slats, we saw her summon the world back to itself—one movement, one whisper, one trembling note at a time.

Reminder

Please do not forget that in November Literary Revelations will bring you a splendid art album (7X10) by Hikari and Gabriela Marie Milton.

Title, Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony, and Power in Japanese Art

Authors, Hikari: Paintings and Tanka.

Gabriela Marie Milton: Haiku

To those of you who are my friends here, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your likes, comments, and support. Love you.

My books (Only English)
#1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis)
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)

Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books.
Please read other reviews here:

From Woman: Splendor and Sorrow – Who Am I?, a poetic prose by Gabriela Marie Milton

POETIC PROSE BY GABRIELA MARIE MILTON

John William Waterhouse – public domain

Who Am I? published first by Shabd Aaweg and republished in my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose.

For five times in twenty-four hours, I face in the direction of the sea.

The first time the morning star floats above the water as innocent as the breast of a young girl. Soon the sun will try to catch her naked and burn her skin. She will escape. Pigeons will carry her across the sea. She will melt into yellow waters. Her last rays will fall in my lap like feathers.

I will rejoice.

The second time, divorced from her night bed, the light disperses itself on the shore. I can see myself washing clothes in the sea. My hair is tied in a ponytail. I am barefoot, and my dress is rolled up. The skin of my lips is cracked. I bleed. The clothes I wash smell cedar and spices. The shadow of a seagull positions itself on my forehead. The sea reflects the twelve signs of the zodiac. I can see no relationship between my destiny and that which I do. I am scared.

At noon, the sun kneads the waters with rapture. Shells shed pearls on the shore. My own rational thought leaves my body. I delight in the waves like a gazelle in the grasslands. I feel the movement of the water on my skin. Its cyclical quality sends me into a state of ecstasy. No, it is not the ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Ávila. It is something similar to a soporific trance. I am dead, and I am alive at the same time. I come from the sea. I return to the sea.

In the afternoon, my rational self awakens. My mind spreads its wings. I get preoccupied with verbs. I set one triangle in the normal position, and I invert the other one. I bind them together. I make myself a dress from pieces of paper inscribed with old symbols. Oh, femininity! You are the goddess of vines, the mother earth, the chalice, the blood, the fertility of the womb. I mull over these desperate efforts to equalize the feminine with the masculine. There is nothing in these symbols that points to the intellect of a woman.

In the evening, the sky stretches itself from blue to dark violet. The silk of the gloves hugs my fingers. I feed my iguana with cookies soaked in champagne. She hisses at me. I open a package of silk stockings. The door opens by itself. You step in. I stare at you. You are in by your own volition. One kiss and you borrow my tears. One touch, and I borrow your pain. A passage rite. I keep a coffin adorned with lilies in my bedroom. I sleep besides death like Sarah Bernhardt.

Did you hear that noise? A rosary fell from the Spanish chest.

The wind slips between the petals of a rose and opens it.

Who am I? If I knew, I would tell you.

Did you say you love me? The twenty-four hours are up. Nobody is facing in the direction of the sea anymore.

There is no me.

NEWS

Now, more news about Literary Revelations and Tranquility: An Anthology of Haiku.

As I write, Tranquility is currently the #1 top release in the US and the most gifted book in Japan.

Literary Revelations is deeply grateful to everyone who bought the book. That helped us to donate to several charities.

You can get the book here:

Literary Revelations and Victoria Onofrei of Bloomsbury Radio (Victoria in Verse Show), UK, will organize a Poetry Festival on Sunday, May 18, 2025 – 5pm London time. The festival will take place via Zoom.

All contributors will be invited, as well as, those who are not contributors but bought the book.

I will come back very soon with more details. Please follow us at Literary Revelations https://literaryrevelations.com/, @gabriela_marie_milton and @lr_publishers.

Thank you,

My books (Only English)
#1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis)
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)

Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books.
Please read other reviews here:

Christina Schwarz, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “Drowning Ruth.”

On Winning and Hate by Gabriela Marie Milton – poetic prose – short prose -prose poem

The afternoon smelled of brick; I used to scratch the wall with my knees and 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 the day would come when I would first look into your eyes. The sea inside your eyes is 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.

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 of 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, paradise. Since then, my blood has never stained my socks. The orange tree has never grown red-fleshed oranges, and Mama stopped telling stories.

featured image: Gabriela Marie Milton, Greece.

My books (Only English)
#1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis)
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)

Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books.
Please read other reviews here:

Christina Schwarz, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “Drowning Ruth.”

“With lush language and lavish imagery, Gabriela Marie Milton. evokes a fantastic world ripe with emotion.”
Christina Schwartz

Edited Collections:
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Hidden in Childhood (Literary Revelations)
#1 Amazon bestseller,Petals of Haiku (Literary Revelations)
#1 Amazon Bestseller, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (EIF)

Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton. Happy Solstice!

Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton

Come with me where fish are born and horizons melt like chocolate on the tongue of a child.

Waters.

I want to remark that the italic text above has been used by two writers after being posted on this blog. My advise: Be you!

Please do not forget to check out Literary Revelations‘ #1 Amazon bestseller in Haiku and Japanese Poetry, Petals of Haiku: An Anthology. This superb collection features the work of over 160 talented poets. The art on the cover by award-winning painter Hikari sets the tone for what awaits inside – a world where words dance off the page and into your heart. The background photo by award-winning Japanese photographer Naoki Kimura adds another layer of beauty to this already exquisite collection.

The book together with Hikari’s painting of the cover will be displayed in the Treasure House of the Rinsenji Temple, Japan,

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

On Winning and Hate By Gabriela Marie Milton #poetic prose #short prose

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:

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

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:

Neurosis by Gabriela Marie Milton – poem – poetic prose

Neurosis

I suspect I suffer from an acute crisis of half-bloomed neurosis. My past emotions do not fully interfere with my current experiences. The converse is true too. No sophistry added. How boring.

I work my magic. I jump in the water dressed in black lingerie made from Calais laces and Lyon silks. I can feel the waves pounding my body while my mind drowns in the ambiguity of the French Nouveau Roman standing mid-way between modernism and post-modernism like a drunken sunset that cannot distinguish between yellow and orange.

The foliage of the sea turns burgundy. Your fingers contour my face.

Oh, you.

I forget that my favorite poet is Arthur Rimbaud with his “A thousand Dreams within me softly burn” and “I shed more tears than God could ever have required.” All I remember is that once I wrote: “I’ve never existed outside of your obsession with me and my interpretations of you.”

There is something about these interpretations that make you burst in cascades of laughter and art your love for me with lust.

One morning, left by my pillow, I found your reply written on a large index card: “I had to bury your existence inside my obsessions. If not, your love could not have been fully stabilized. You above anyone else know that an absolute correspondence in love does not exist. Love is a mathematical singularity.”

From my #1 Amazon bestselling book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis Press, 2021)

Reminder

Please remember to visit Literary Revelations site for new posts and updates on the upcoming poetry book Love, Stars, and Paradigms by Swarn Gill.

Thank you.

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

Life Collage – Poem by Gabriela Marie Milton – Updates on Literary Revelations

Life Collage by Gabriela Marie Milton

I experienced mama’s death before she died.

I hate the order of things with its self-indulgent predictability.

The airport – the point of departures and returns – smell of food and disinfectant. Gray overtones.

This world would be a better place if we were more interested in others’ creations than in their personal lives.

I used to run away from home when I was a child. Every rose tore my soul. I picked up the pieces and wrapped the sick and the hungry with them. What’s left of my soul?

When my second novel came out, you said, “What a splendid tribute to your master.” I asked, “Who’s my master?” “Patrick Modiano.” I thought, “Who on earth is Patrick Modiano?” Yet I understood. The past. My obsession with the past. I went out and ordered every book Modiano has written.

I have nothing to say anymore.

featured image: Rising Moon, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Updates on Literary Revelations

Literary Revelations Journal posted. Please read:

From Science to Poetry: Swarn Gill

Feature of the Week: The Tides of Change by Dr. Linda Best

I am deeply grateful to everyone who submitted to the Literary Revelations’ Hidden in Childhood anthology. You will hear from me soon. For those who still want to submit please remember that our deadline is January 3, 2023. We plan to release the anthology at the end of January.

Please read the Guidelines for Submission HERE. Do not submit before reading.

Visit Literary Revelations Publishing House HERE follow and subscribe.

Thank you.

Gabriela Marie Milton
Pushcart Prize Nominee
Award Winning Author
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
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

Who was he? By Gabriela Marie Milton – poetic prose published in Free Verse Revolution Issue II (hermes) #short prose #literature

My piece Who was he? published in Free Verse Revolution Issue II. You can download the entire issue here.

Who was he? by Gabriela Marie Milton

I met him in the mist of that unusual summer when mama looked more beautiful than ever, and pears grew as big as squashes. Their golden and juicy fragrance hung on my lips even after the touches of the evening wind were gone.

He stood by the fence in his winged hat and his weird sandals, a tricky smile on his face, and a lyre on his hand. I knew whose symbols those were, so I laughed. I figured out he was trying to drag me into some weird play.

When he spoke, his voice pierced my entire body. I felt like a butterfly, pinned, and labeled, and then fixed with a nail on the bottom of an insect box.

“We are getting married tonight.”

Something in his voice denoted an unmistakable hunger to overcome mortality. Who was he? His pale fingers touched the chords of the lyre. The sky started to rain the fragrance of the pears and white petals on us. One of them fell on my left shoulder. When I tried to touch it, it vanished.

He moved toward me and pressed his lips on mine. My eyes closed. I shivered. I felt dragged into a deceptive rootlessness. I could not remember where I was. When I opened my eyes, he was gone.

Under the olive tree on the wooden table there was a basket filled with pears. I touched one of them. It was made of paper. By the basket someone inscribed the words: “That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one.”

I froze. Those were words attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.

Who was he and where did he go?