Ghosts by Gabriela Marie Milton #flash fiction #short prose #poetic prose

Edvard Munch, Weeping Nude, Public Domain

Ghosts by Gabriela Marie Milton

I spend most of my time in the house. I rarely write anymore. I remember what you once said, I believe you were quoting: Culture has become a demonstration of nothingness. It moves with a terrifying speed in direct proportionality with our appetite for fame.

Three times a year fleshy, peachy roses are still being delivered. They have my name on. It happens mid-day, at the exact time when I take sedatives before immersing myself in a bath infused with scented Dead Sea Salt. Dried flowers float in the water. They stain my skin. They make me think summer by our lake: scents of blue irises; somnolent movements of algae.

Nights are cruel. No nightingales. Tree branches hit the master suite’s windows even when the air is soft like the breath of a new baby. Half-naked, lying on the sofa I think Wuthering Heights. Catherine’s ghost knocking on the window. In the dark, Lockwood pushing his hand through the glass. Her cold hand. Her voice. She wants to get in.

Inscriptions: Catherine Heathcliff; Catherine Linton…

I kneel and scratch your name under the frame of every bedroom window. I wait.

The windows start rattling. I pick the middle one. I push my hand through the glass. Pain. The warmth of my blood. The ferocity of wounds. Voices coming from the gooseberry bushes.

You.

Come in my love […]

Gabriela Marie Milton
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings

image: Lilith with a Snake, John Collier, public domain

Thank you to Juan for publishing my poem/poetic prose Rien Que Pour Toi in Gobblers / Masticadores.

[The poem is also included in my poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose].

Rien Que Pour Toi – poem/poetic prose

… He was fascinated by the purple of my makeup and the yellows of my cobra, who used to erect the upper portion of her body to greet him every time he visited…

Please continue reading HERE.

Updates

The winners of the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose will be announced on NOVEMBER 16.

Soon I will launch several initiatives to help our literary community strive more.

Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA. MasticadoresUSA community is growing: beautiful poems and fantastic interactions.

Please follow me on Twitter HERE.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

My book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is out!

My Dear Readers,

My book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is out!

I am deeply grateful to my followers who have supported me. My gratitude to my publisher, Brian Geiger – Vita Brevis Press – for accepting my manuscript and making my dream come true.

Book marketing is exceedingly difficult for me because I write under a penname. As I pointed out in an interview when I publish: “There are no gettings together, no signing of books in bookstores, no flowers, no friends to buy a bunch of your books and start writing reviews.”

Yet I have you, my WP and my social media friends. You make my writing journey beautiful. You make my soul blossom with joy.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

From the back cover:

“Woman is a triumphant collection of poetry. Milton explores with sincerity and great craft the many faces of identity and womanhood. This is the sort of poetry collection that will resonate with any reader.”

writes Brian Geiger, editor of Vita Brevis Press

You can order the e-book and the paperback in the link below.

I am also grateful to Brian for featuring me on Vita Brevis Poet Spotlight a place where, if you wish, you can learn more about my publications, my awards, and you can read my most recent interview.

From the Spotlight:

An Interview with Gabriela Marie Milton

Gabriela Marie Milton is a poet of condition rather than profession. I wrote as much in the foreword to her collection of poetry, Passions, referring to the great Robert Graves’ suggestion that the art of poetry isn’t so much learned as it is lived. This is the first thing readers of Milton’s work will realize; this is poetry with soul.

What’s the Purpose of Poetry?

Gabriela Marie Milton: “My first impulse is to answer the creation of meanings. That which is not directly expressed impacts us differently than a simple narration. A table of contents informs us. It speaks to our reason. A poem takes us to the plans of our inner and outer worlds that lie beyond reasoning, such as for instance the oneiric plan.

“Of course, great poetry was written during the Enlightenment period: a period characterized by the celebration of reason.

You can read more below.

Poet Spotlight: Gabriela Marie Milton

Thank you.
Love.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

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?

MasticadoresUSA update

Please welcome our first guest from New Zeeland: a marvelous poetess Rachel. Read Rachel’s poem Invitation to inspiration here.

Do not forget to follow MasticadoresUSA.

Thank you
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

image: kasiaczernik/Pixabay

Hallucinations by Gabriela Marie Milton

I suspect I am subject to hallucinations. I see a woman wrapped in a Cashmere checkered shawl talking to a dead person. The metaphors she uses are stolen, and her heavy makeup reminds me vaguely of a harlequin. Perhaps the shawl projected its sick personality into her, or perhaps she regressed to an infantile state under my very eyes.

She looks like a lacerated doll attached to one of Cuixar’s canvases.

Did you talk? Are you here?

My love, yesterday I read your poems. Your spellbound words reclaimed my very existence. Letters fell into my cupped palms. From the mirror the contour of your body – textured like ripened mangoes under a third eclipse of the moon – entered my world. Your words adapted to my lips. They absorbed the piano’s euphoria with its marvelous rhythmicity. Our happiness became imperative like the birth of a child at 39 weeks.

Today I am back – albeit sedated – inside the ambivalence of my own introspections swinging from one site to another like the Kirby Cove swing above the Pacific Ocean.

I do not see the woman anymore, but I can still see the dead person. The throbbing pain of Cuixar’s paintings and your absence become unbearable.

When I do not cry myself to death, I pretend you are here.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

MasticadoresUSA Update

A new beautiful poem is now up at MasticadoresUSA.

Read Two Hearts by Phil Perkins here.

Do not forget to follow MasticadoresUSA.

Do you want to submit? Please read the editorial announcement here.
Thank you
Gabriela

In times of fortune and misfortune I am always at the mercy of silence. Perhaps because I was born on an island where seldom does anything happen.

Yesterday the water and the light invaded my tongue’s buds, and I was forced to look at myself upside down. I could see the splendor of a naked butterfly ready to mate. Do you know for how long do two butterflies stay together? Sixteen hours. The exact time we spent together in the silence of the island.

Suspended in the between times neither of us moved. No cosmic sacrifice happened. No driving force was brought to life. No blood interfered between …. please continue reading at MasticadoresUSA.

My book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings featured in San Francisco Book Review and Manhattan Book Review.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

The sky rains on my spring the sweet scents of your autumn.

A luxurious paralysis flows through my veins.

My lips nestle in the plenitude of your dreams with their multiple interpretations.

I am so in love with you that I will accept hell provided you are part of it.

My book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings featured in San Francisco Book Review and Manhattan Book Review.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Motto
I get drunk on love, charity, and passion. These are my professions.

I walk into the three days we spent together.

On the first day, a nude silence wraps around my lips. Shortly after I can hear the noise of wine poured into glasses.
The hour to get drunk on love has come.
I touch your skin and another you is born.
Birds invade the sky.
A banquet of candles floods the streets.
A white thread ties my blood vessels at the exact moment when a religious procession walks by.

On the second day, drunk on charity, my sights descend upon the earth.
The dirty hands of the woman…
Please continue reading WP here

[This poem will be included in my upcoming poetry collection: Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose]

My poetry collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings is available on Amazon here .
Passions featured in San Francisco Book Review
Passions featured in Manhattan Book Review.

Thank you!
Love.
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

I can see the woman who assumes things. Every night she picks the flowers that I throw on the road: withered lilies of the valley. She wants to be me. She wants my blood. She does not know I rearranged the bell-shaped whites so no one else can breathe their sweet scents. No one else can be me. No one else can make you, you.

The woman puts the withered flowers in her bag.

A new moon rises over her left shoulder. Bad luck.

I shiver.

I rush to protect her.

I stumble.

Before he died my father said:

If you try to do justice to the wicked, you will forget to do justice to the virtuous. And if you forget to do justice to the virtuous you only work for yourself. That is the biggest sin of all.

I have to think again.

My poetry collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings is available on Amazon here .
Passions featured in San Francisco Book Review
Passions featured in Manhattan Book Review.
image: Sandratsky Dmitriy; Shutterstock; [link]

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Motto
I get drunk on love, charity, and passion. These are my professions.

I walk into the three days we spent together.

On the second day, drunk on charity, my sights descend upon the earth.
The dirty hands of the woman who owns wells touch my skin.
I hear your voice.
I will not counsel her or belittle her desires.
All she will do is sell her fake dreams in the corner of an empty street for her entire life.
I forbid you.
By punishing her you would have ruined the very thing you set out to safeguard: our love.

On the third day, stars melt in our palms like soft grapes in winepresses.
The intimations of you and I, with their smell and softness of grass and late autumn roses, invade the room.
A convulsive joy impregnates your eyes.
Words have no pigments and no form. Their register sinks in gravity, shiny coil by shiny coil, musical key by musical key, sleepy touch by sleepy touch.
The perfection of the afternoon’s poplars blesses the air.
Possessed by passions, under the wing of a bird, we died three days ago.