The Penitent Magdalen, Georges de la Tour, Public Domain
A New Poem
(excerpt from my poem You Night to be published in January in an new anthology).
I found the rivers where fish were born & nightingales sang. You night, how beautiful you are crowned with black poppies. Tell me something after I die & let me blossom on the Hill of Slane #starve-d for love. Eyes see no clouds. You night. #vss365#poempic.twitter.com/Car3cQTtOd
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton featured in Portland Book Review
In Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose, author and poet Gabriela Marie Milton takes the reader on a deeply personal journey across the globe and into her heart. The verses delve into themes ranging from love to loss to feminism, all of them clearly inspired by the author’s own experiences. The palpable emotion and unique turns of phrase ensure that this will be a book that will stay with you long after you set it down…
In “The Six O’clock Café,” Milton’s prose takes a turn toward the fictional, combining poetry, magical realism, and mystery to tell a short, impactful story. Once again, loss takes center stage in a highly creative way.
This collection of poetry and poetic prose will be a hit with fans of contemporary poetry looking for something that doesn’t hold back from sharing its innermost emotions and for those who enjoy creative word play.
Samos, perhaps Crete – a poem from my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings
Samos, perhaps Crete
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
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings was published by Vita Brevis Press in 2020. It is available on Amazonhere.
Updates:
Please do not forget to visit MasticadoresUsa. I have so many beautiful pieces up. Subscribe and follow us.
At the end of the month I will announce the new project I am working on – a project that will hopefully feature numerous poets from our literary community. Please stay tuned for more news.
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson – reviewed by Gabriela Marie Milton
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson is the manifesto of an extremely intelligent, and talented, woman unafraid to explore her past and her inner and outer worlds. Ingrid’s poetry soars to the sky when the seasons change. It dwells in the most secret corners of the soul when dark moments knock on the door.
Ingrid has written 40 beautiful poems. 40 beautiful poems in which one comes face to face with yearnings to change the world, biographical notes, questions about the birth of the universe, pain, and love. Ingrid’s poems weave splendidly the ontological and the epistemological plans to create art. What, and how, come together in an unbelievable journey into the life of a woman in which children go to school and birthdays need to be celebrated.
Oh, and how the landscape plays a role in her beautiful poetry. Italy, England, Spain are not only used for decorative purposes. In Ingrid’s poetry they become intricate parts of the author’s soul.
The space and the time are perceived through intimate prisms. There is North and South, and there is the sea, with its majesty. There is a certain November sky with its colors. There are dancing ice queens and solstices of the heart. There are striking lines like: “I am the song unsung/the life unlived.”
One can almost hear the opening villanelle with her up and down tonalities. It sounds like the song of a nightingale.
The book will be released next month when Ingrid turns 40. Here are a thousand cheers for this stunning volume of poetry and for its author – a woman who knows how to ask questions about the real meaning of life. A woman who does not mince words and does not submit to stereotypes.
Read 40 POEMS AT 40. It’s a fabulous book. You will not be disappointed.
Publication date: February 11, 2022. The book will be available for pre-order before the publication date. You can find Ingrid’s work here.
I learned how to read in the mint forest under a pale October moon. My eyes, blueberries mama gathered in her wicker basket. The unassuaged yearnings of a golden autumn spread under my skin. I found the rivers where fish were born, and nightingales sang. I thought to myself: you, night, how beautiful you are crowned with black poppies and nursing ancient lovers at your chest. A boat sailed straight through my heart. The earth stretched its arms to pick up stars. Then a war started. A bat-eyed wind blew, and the earth turned toward itself. And I thought to myself: you night, how painful you are. Tell me something after I die and before tomorrow’s departure. Let me wear twelve sage leaves on my lips. Let my body blossom on the Hill of Slane when the breath of sleep rises from the empty crypt. You night, how wise you are.
The Anthology
From the publisher:
“From a shaft of sunlight warming the kitchen floor to a lush forest by Walden pond, what is it about experiencing nature that pleases and fulfills us? In the third volume of the Vita Brevis Poetry Anthology, established and emerging poets from around the world show what nature means to them. This is nature poetry at its most precise and moving, continuing the long tradition of Transcendentalism, deciphering ourselves and the world that sustains us — with art.”
Vita Brevis Anthology
Announcements
There is exciting news published in MasticadoresUsa. Please visit the site Here. Like and follow to support our literary community.
On a different note, this month I will features two poetry collections published or to be published by two of your fellow poets. Please stay tuned for more news.
Claude Monet, Sunset-on-the-seine-at-lavacourt-winter-effect, considered in the Public Domain in the United States
A Twitter Poem
Winter sunsets. Scarcity of orange. Pale blues. Concentrated scents of saffron & roses. I crave sweetness. In one of the upstairs bedrooms the child’s toys #shift places. When I do not cry myself to death, I pretend you are here. Love. My love. #vss365#poem#twitterpoempic.twitter.com/XGNYx9B8hf
I plan to create a newsletter to help our literary community better understand the role of social media in our creative endeavors. At the same time – depending on what you want to showcase – the newsletter will help you understand what social media platform is best for you, and what strategies you should employ to advance your goals and get your work widely noticed.
To that end:
No anecdotal stories will be used. Data will come strictly from rigorous academic research done in Schools of Communications across the world. That ensures the credibility of the conclusions presented to you.
The newsletter will be published once every two months.
You will have the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter on my blog in February 2022.
First issue will come out in March 2022.
I will provide you with more information at the end of January 2022.
Other Announcements
Please do not forget to like and follow the work of our wonderful poets who write for MasticadoresUsa.
Congratulations to those who entered the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose and won Honorable Mentions. I am most grateful for your contribution. The beauty of your poems filled me with joy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
The authors, their sites, and their poetry:
Honorable Mentions – Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose [in no particular order]
Joni Caggiano, inspired by The child to be, You Were The Best of Us
Daylilies and lavender fall from a sky of bright eyes, in the silhouette of a boat, under a quarter moon. Born on the month of the ram with your right fist on your pink cheek. I was twenty, and you were my gift from God and my second love. My milk came like a white river on the third day. Red, your color, dwelling within the passion where fire seared black, my white peasant dress. Burning away the smell of gardenias and honeysuckle, a miracle fashioned within our fervidness. Meeting your father in an arid desert on foreign sand, oh, how I was craving dreams, escape, and freedom. He was to be my savior, but he was only a man. Like the red coral of the sea, our child was the best of him and me.
Cindy Georgakas, Inspired by Self-Indulgence, Chance Meeting
We sat at the coffee shop and chatted, eyes riveted drinking in the rose hips of winter in February, where children run in the snow. We escape from hardships and cold. Electricity between us like thunder of the night. Steam escaping… sent shivers up my spine. Different silhouettes in denseness, yin and yang. worlds apart, but one species. We scan each other; Small-town country to city slicker. Voices echoed, through the caravan of the room. A chance meeting, where tight spaces took distance away. Mountains etched with grooves on either side, sandwiched between the icicle cafe, where bodies collide. Cupid piercing the heart. Sweetness found wrapped In foil like the chocolate waiting at our chairs. We sigh, our coffee cold. Country song on the radio singing “Live like you were dying”
Jeff Flesch, inspired by and…love… and… love… is seen.
is not the end this story may commence like petals on a flowers recompense
and… as love breaks the moon in two I’m reminded of you tranquility among stormy seas the key
you… me….
and… the dreams cast far out into the wild we idly stand by regarding each other for a while
then… what is distant can be seen shapes and figures cut from trees earthly figures caught in a blissful underwater scene as
hope… becomes something familiar caressing the tree tops with delicate fingers made from years of turmoiled laughter transfigured into something adjoined to the hereafter
and… love… is seen.
Karima Hoisan, inspired by Sahara, The Stars of Wadi Rum
After the devoured lamb licking our fingers clean 2 million stars of Wadi Rum pulling our eyes up to the sky You hooked my little pinkie with yours as we lay in the sand hearing the adolescent boy playing the Oud until he made us cry.
Purple mountains pink sand, fake feet fights laughing undercover we muffled our laughter with your sleeve. No-one has the right to be this happy
All I need is you.
Your profile, a Persian princess framed in embers from a dying fire…. My honored one, I trace your nose with my feather, wrap the blanket tighter, those gelid desert nights. are swirling swirling.
“Tomorrow I’ll buy the best gold to adorn us. You always laugh when I am serious. I’m really serious!”
Some masks with silver tooling and hanging coins, We’ll tinkle and impress next time we buy bread, but tonight…. I just need you alone. Cling to me, we are a shipwrecked life raft for each other on this rolling sea of sand.
* * * * * *
“The caves are so beautiful in morning light “Come sleep up above with us” “You’ll miss it all”
Beneath the golden wattle We meet again to read poetry The spring wind pays us a visit I pick yellow out of your tawny locks and brush them off your lips with a kiss Your freckles bloom like pansies
Announcements
The poems of all other finalists will be featured immediately after the New Year.
Thank you once again for entering the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose.
A new literary initiative will be announced after Thanksgiving.
The Judges have spoken. Here are the winners of the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose. Congratulations to those who won prizes and to those who won Honorable Mentions. Your poems are fabulous. I am beyond grateful you entered the contest. In my heart you are all winners. Thank you!
This post features only the poems of the winners.
My Friday post will feature the poems of those who received Honorable Mentions.
The Winners of The Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose are:
First Place Virginia Mateias
Second Place Ingrid Wilson Eric Daniel Clarke
Third place D. Wallace Peach Timothy Price
Honorable Mentions [in no particular order]
Joni Caggiano Cindy Georgakas Jeff Flesch Karima Hoisan Carrie Yang
The Poems of the Winners:
Virginia Mateias, Crystals from the absurd [Inspired by Moonlight love]
I couldn’t see the dawn. The bed was too far away from the sky. Fallen angels had covered the window with forlorn crystals absurdly beautiful. Out of them our own feelings were watching us askance.
The air was talking to me somewhere: Wait, he’ll be coming! But, you see, your arm locked me in like an arch and I fell asleep to the earth’s heavy core.
I couldn’t see the dawn. In the murky moonlight fallen angels crystallized in silence are keeping vigil. Only the razor-smile of the Seller of Time taunts me from crystals. It is always midnight now.
Ingrid Wilson, Event Horizon [Inspired by You in Other Life]
The moon and I trade glances beneath the light of ages reflections of our phases, we traverse boundaries of shadow the birth and death of stars adorns our voyage my course uncharted on a shoreless sea.
She is the sand-dollar storyteller of sirens and undertows hidden caves beneath blooms of coral, troves of stolen gold a moon-faced child unblemished by the salt of tears she weaves tales of faithfulness sung to the sea’s rhythmic strum.
A seductress, she trades in the caress of madness and liquid kisses when a timorous heart flares and passion burns by torchlight skin and wings consumed, I surrender to the mariner’s lure drown in the tide’s curling crush and gull’s lonesome cry.
She is the gibbous years, molding castles of compromise sand towers dripping through faults in cupped hands I comb the half-moon beach for luminous abalone craft a chime of common jingle shells, all that I find.
She is the windborne balloon of my daughter’s dream awakening a boy fishes upon the crescent of her smile sea-smoothed glass tumbles at their feet for sorting, for choosing for all my devotion, iron ships founder like paper-sailed toys.
She whispers a harmony of waxing and waning an old crone’s serenade in her waves’ refrain when sea thrift and violets yield petals to sheer bluffs she chants from the conch cupped to my ear:
You are the nautilus spinning outward eternal feminine on a string of pearls iridescent ’til the sun succumbs to midnight deep when a silken wind sweeps over lunar dunes erasing your footprints rolls you into darkness eclipsed.
Timothy Price, One Side Sacred The Other Side Profane [inspired by Between Sacred and Profane]
Quicksilver shimmers, dances — it’s mesmerizing, mad Stealthily slithered made its way slowly to the bay Dumped in fact for many years A disease so mysterious, unexplained One side sacred. The other side profane
Shoulders bare in her bath of darkened waters stilled Quicksilver’s spawn crippled lies in darkness no free will Mother cuddles her loved, her badly damaged daughter A mystery in her mother’s arms distorted from the pain Industry is sacred, her life made profane
A man of vision documented, published all the strife For his efforts he was beaten to within inches of his life Trying to enlighten the world he gave up his sight He died for the cause, was his martyrdom in vain? Jobs are sacred, his life’s end profane
Thousands fell from Quicksilver’s seeds inside their mothers’ wombs Those children grew up oh so numb, fell blinded, deaf and dumb Ostracized, outcasts convulsing from their awful curse It was “cat dance fever” so many said that made them go insane Society is Sacred. Their lives were profane
Announcements:
To all winners: please send your PayPal accounts to shortprose12@gmail.com. Vita Brevis Press will disburse the prizes from my royalties no later than the end of the week.
The selection of the winners was a very difficult task. My deepest thanks to the judges.
Please remember to help our literary community and buy a book or two. If you do so please save this post and leave in the comment area the Amazon link of the book(s) you bought.
The Honorable Mention poems will post on Friday. Please read my Friday post. The poetry of those who received Honorable Mentions is also stunning.
Next Tuesday I will announce another initiative to help our community strive more.
… 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…
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose in Manhattan Book Review
In Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Gabriela Milton, presents an assorted collection that’s intended to invigorate the soul and speak to the depths of human understanding. She delineates her views on feminism, misogyny, passion, hate, spirituality, winning, and losing; while the most salient topic is love…
Milton’s poetic artistry is bold and beautiful, deep and confounding. It’s laced with gorgeous symbolism and imagery. For example, in “Love Numbers”, she writes, “We laid in the grass, shadows of poppies playing on our faces with the same rhythmicity of the waves on tranquil days.” In “Who Am I”, she notes, “I delight in the waves like a gazelle in the grasslands” and later states, “My mind spreads its wings.” Due to her gift in this area, college literature professors may find her work worthy of analysis and use. It is rich with an assortment of literary greats: personification; simile; and metaphor, just to name a few…
Overall, this collection is noteworthy in its uniqueness and eloquence. Many will likely savor the journey it invites them to travel and will gain insight into the powerful impact of poetry and prose on its connoisseurs.
Holding Your Hand – poem included in Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
I walk through the future holding your hand Barefoot I pray to a God whose name I don’t know The rain washes our hearts engraved in the wood The child is the flower of tears and of sweet blood It’s not love that we want It’s the resurrection of dead The breaths that the sea kills with her looks Your hands and the sin we will never commit The room that we rented is empty and cold You know that I came You feel that I left I hear your voice Black coffee waits for the sunrise of us And the future runs in the past
You can get my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose on Amazon
Updates
Thank you again to those who enter the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. I hope to announce the winners at the end of October.
Help our literary community strive. Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA.
image: Gabriela Marie Milton, somewhere in Southern Europe
Poem
open the window let me feel the #wind which blew when I was born open you palms let me eat the fruits of the soil which fed me first open your heart let me breathe the poetry of the sunsets when roses sleep & church bells toll over the land where I was born#vss365#poetrypic.twitter.com/Nxc1TXNhFa
