Vita Brevis Anthology, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, is out. My poem On Sacrifice and Meaning is included

I am thrilled my poem On Sacrifice and Meaning was included in Vita Brevis Anthology: Sight & Swept Away. Congratulations to the editor – Brain Geiger – and to my fellow poets who are published in this anthology.

On Sacrifice and Meaning by Gabriela Marie Milton
(snippets)

Because I love you, I learned the meaning of sacrifice.
…..

It is autumn; an autumn that came too soon and whose suicidal breath brought dust and diseases.  
The lamb will be born in the spring.
…….

I try to advance but the liquid silver pulls me back.
I cut its hands with a knife.
Every cut fulfills the dreams of the knife; my dreams are still in the waiting room.
…..

I rub my cheeks with rosemary and wrap my body in the alphabet of love.  
On my lips the unspoken words shine. 
How beautiful they make me look.

I restore the degradation of our myth to its rightful fecundity.
The sacrifice becomes a festival, and the festival turns into creation.  

I do not feed on things. I feed on ….

Announcement from the editor:

Day #2 Update

If you missed yesterday’s anthology announcement, you can find it here. Today, your poetry ranked as the #2 bestseller in the new release poetry anthology category!

I can’t thank the Vita Brevis community enough. This type of performance is what keeps Vita Brevis reading-fee free. Thanks for making poetry publication accessible to everyone, and for keeping this little publication running.

And congratulations on almost becoming bestselling poets — let’s get up to #1!

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

@Gabriela Marie Milton

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

Liliya Kulianionak; Shutterstock

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.

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

My Poem Dark Love up at Vita Brevis #poem #poetry #published

My poem Dark Love is now up at Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine.

green, you smell with your tongue
your thoughts pollinate mine
your fingers endanger the sailors
a water which opens its lips and drinks them
ah, hour of man
when did you become the hour of horrors?
a book cover reads: Dictionary of Superstitions
I see the girl who tears out…

continue reading with WP here.
or
at Vita Brevis Press here.

Thank you.
Love.
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

featured image: Dmytro Vietrov; Shutterstock; [link]

My poem “in this pink summer of Jaipur” published by Indian Periodical, and a new review of my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings

little-2192347_1920

in this pink summer of Jaipur
dressed in silk and in monsoonal dances 
choked by smoke
forgotten by lovers
the nuances in which you speak my name sound hollow
and the little girl

who has only a grain of rice
continue reading here

Thank you again to everyone who bought my book, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, available on Amazon here.  The book has been a bestseller under Poetry About Love for quite a while including yesterday and the day before yesterday.

The following is another review, one among many, done on an online book club by another reviewer whom I do not know.

Excerpt:

This is a mesmerizing collections of poems, ranging from love poems and writings in form of prose poems. This book brings back old memories, it re-ignites the long gone fire of love within the reader. It has an amazing effect on the reader as one reads the poems, one by one….With an excellent lovely language and lavish imagination, Gabriela ignites a fantastic mind full of emotions….I rate this book 4 out 4 stars. It makes me want to write poems. It is an inspiration, an entertainment and a lively way of educating and reigniting your fire of love. I quote a line in one of the poems,” we desperately want to love, to possess each other, caught in a perpetual rush to justify our existence.” It really makes sense and will make sense till the end of time...”

Inspiring reviewers, people who I do not know, and people who I know, is an honor.

You can read the entire review here.

Thank you.
Love.
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

who are you? #published poem #Wolff Poetry Literary Magazine

My Dear Readers,

My poem “who are you?” published by Wolff Poetry Literary Magazine.

who are you?
which gale winds have blown you here?
which fallen saint showed you the way?
besieged by you, old loves abandoned in dark cemeteries
lament like choirs in my Hellenistic Greece
virgin thighs ferment inside your blood
scared azaleas tremble on my pillows…
continue reading here 

@short-prose-fiction