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:

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 Book Reviews

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)

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:

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

Monday Never Comes – Prose Poem by Gabriela Marie Milton

Prose Poem by Gabriela Marie Milton

With stars in her eyes, the hour of the heart coils around my finger, iridescent scale after iridescent scale like the skin of a green Anaconda. I love you beyond the world of feelings, beyond the minutes of sands, beyond the unintelligible murmurs of night processions.

I can feel your fervor, your fingers unbraiding my hair, the aroma of chocolate kisses, the unforgettable texture of quinces – as you used to say the texture of carne de membrilllo – bitterness sweetened with honey.

The stairs toward the attic squeak under our steps, a few seconds and we are there, fresh lips, bodies glowing under the moonlight. Coming from nowhere an old song invades our skin. The ghosts of the Crescent Park Looff Carousel go mad: “And I’ll dance with you in Vienna.”

The next night, back in the attic, you shirtless, quoting Flaubert: To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. I laugh. Forget about. I sharpen my nails on your back. I disappear in your arms like powdered sugar in the air.

Monday. Sun in your hair, eyes burning with desire, I see you running toward me, crossing the street a moment too soon, perhaps too late. The world flip-flops like a fish in a net. Dark.

No, it’s not Monday. Monday never comes. It’s Sunday. I am the forever Sunday. You smile. Can you hear the song my love? “And I’ll dance with you in Vienna.”

Announcements:

Literary Revelations Journal posted. An English Poet: Eric Daniel Clarke. Please read HERE.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who submitted to the Literary Revelations’ Hidden in Childhood anthology. We are looking forward to more submissions. 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.

Please visit Literary Revelations Publishing House HERE 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

Jazz by Michael Stang #guest post #poetic prose #MasticadoresUSA

Dear Readers,

Here is a fabulous piece written by Michael Stang, editor at Storymaker, an astonishing writer whose work is often curated on Medium.

His piece Jazz is now up at MasticadoresUSA.

“… Doesn’t take much to live. Life takes everything. Rules given to ourselves by ourselves. What we know has cracks we…”

Please read the entire piece here

Relish it.
Meditate at.
Thank you.

Do you want to submit? Find the submission guidelines for MasticadoresUSA here.
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Sweetness #prose poem #poetry #short prose

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is shutterstock_603319382-300x200.jpg — IrenaStar; Shutterstock

Scents of linden trees illuminated by an old oil lamp.
The night is me.
I am the night where love delights dwell.
Shed you skin and come with me where minutes melt like chocolate on the tongue of a child.
You, sweetness from beyond the body, what can one say about you?

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

Passions featured in San Francisco Book Review
Passions featured in Manhattan Book Review.

Thank you.
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

My Poem Fight Published by Kashmir Pen Newspaper #poetry #published poem #prose poem

I am grateful to Mushtaq Bala – the Editor-In-Chief of KASHMIR PEN – for inviting me to publish my work in his newspaper.

Fight

Purple roots cover all trails that go to the foothills.
Veins that the earth pushed to the surface.
I smell lavender.
Your words grow in the breeze like a dough under the whispers of the moon.
For three thousand years, sung by the poets of this land,
the naked shoulder of the mountain reigned in stillness.
The sky made itself invisible into a wooden box where my grandmother kept her rings:
memories of loves that now fit in a small chamber.
The sea and the afternoon’s breaths eclipse the taste of your colors.
The blue that slipped between the same branches of the old poplar tree
stares me in the eyes.
Clouds ossify the fight of the earth against the earth.
Between my palms the body of a thin yellow candle.
I remember walking on a street where children were hungry and had no shoes.
I took my shoes off and wiped my tears with the back of palms.
Under my eyes the skin became red and rough.
I wrote I love you on your left cheek.
I threw all the silver coins I had onto the dust of the street.
They were meant for the dead.
Let them help the living.
I remember your hand caressing the silk of my dress.
I purge all memories except one that belongs to the future.
You and I chanting to the incarnation of love under a tree on the island where I was born.
The island where it is always spring and the earth that does not fight against the earth.
Did I tell you I was born on an island?

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

Fight was published together with If Only … Autumn in the 19, 2020 November edition of KASHMIR PEN.

Poetic Expression by Gabriela Marie Milton

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.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Loneliness #prose poem #poetic prose #short prose

I learned how to master my loneliness.
Madness has become my profession.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Will you vote for me? My poem “If I Say I Love You” runs first for Publication of the Month at Spillwords

My poem, “If I Say I Love You” runs first for Publication of the Month at Spillwords Press NYC.

Will you vote If I Say I Love You by Gabriela M for publication of the month?

Please vote here.

You don’t need a Spillwords account to vote though it is easy to open one. You can vote with your Twitter or your FB account.

I will be delighted to have your vote. However, you should feel free to vote for whomever you think is deserving. All nominees are fantastic writers.

The voting will begin on the 26th of each month at 12:00am Easter Time
The voting will last for 4 Days.

Thank you.
Love
Gabriela

On November 2019 my poem The Breath of Love and Death was voted Publication of the Month at Spillwords.

featured image: Lyudmyla Kharlamova; Shutterstock; [link]

@Gabriela Marie Milton

Spring: a thank you and a poem

I am deeply grateful to Darren C Gilbert, the author of Serpents Underfoot and Adirondack Bear Tales, for being the first to review my book, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, on his blog and on Amazon.

Darren’s review came as a delightful surprise.

“But I never thought I would be reviewing a book of poetry, much less buying one for my own enjoyment. How would this come to pass, you may ask … or, you may not … but I will tell you anyway.” Please read Darren’s review here and follow his site.

Now my new poem [prose poem]: Spring

White.
We drank two lemonades sweetened with honey at the old terrace by the church.
My body arched like a branch under the heaviness of cherry fruit.
I read from a book by Odysseas Elytis.
You smiled and listened.
The skies sighed.
The bells tolled twice.
Flowers silhouetted against my blood.
Wishes blossomed in your sweat.
I anointed your kiss.

Later, in the autumn, you wrote.
“I am in love with you. I do not understand how it happened.”
Neither do I.
I told you: that which is against our will is unjust.
I have no other answer.
Yet.

@Gabriela Marie Milton

If I say I love you #prose poem #flash fiction #short prose

In a flash my mind shows me a thousand streets tormented by loneliness. These streets – once the grand wine-presses of human bodies and cars – are now haunted by sickness and eaten by desolation.

It’s spring. The ocean’s water is warm like a country bread. I can taste it. The crisp crust, the sweetness of grains and earth melt on my tongue.

I miss you and the chestnut tree from that pastel afternoon when we first kissed.

Why did I love you? Of course, you were handsome, but it wasn’t that. I loved you because you could not have been conquered by the tricks with which a woman conquers most men. Why would I even want a man that any women with lipstick and stilettos can have?

I am digressing, am I not?

It’s spring. The water is red. Under the light of its pearls, flowers open like fresh young lips.

I avert my mind from the memory of your arms which tries to drag me inside an abyss of naked love; a love blessed with the force of the mistral and the sensuality of linked fingers under the moonlight.

The earth and the waters are one.

Yet the pain is heavy and filled with fluids like the chest cavity of a dead animal hanging up-side down.

I can see your boat. It’s beautiful.

The world is sick.

If I say I love you will you tell me what I can do to heal it?