Glowing bright in the dark
is the moon the half of the sun!

The sun from the heavenly blue
colour in the midday rose to bear the light
and basks into the other half of the night.

Goodness knows when but God willing
the ancient bird of time once will fly.
Numbering the numberless stars
filling the one halve the half of the sky!

Maybe each star is a shining piece
of one half cut halve that's yet to reunite.
As the cream always rises to the top
and God promised the believers paradise.

Perhaps then without cutting in a fraction, once
paradise is packed with the folks of the good ones
there will be no more partial decimals of the pi!

I wonder then how will it look, a full moon picture?
If then the forever intact paradise lends a mirror
of the ‘immanent feminine’ In Shaa Allah
God willing that will still be my better half!

When, how or where we are born
Matters in which we have no choice… and
Dying is something we do
All alone…
At the appointed time...

In the when and the why of the thing,
We may or may not
Have a voice

But it is these
Hard and Wonder-full
Seconds… Minutes… Hours… Days…
Between
The moment we’re born
And
The moment we die
This accumulation of lessons and experiences
Known as
Life

These are the moments
To make a difference!
To share smiles and tears
To halve our worries
To help shoulder our loads
To make lighter
The Moments of Strife

Don’t give me flowers
When I am dead
Give me my flowers
Now

And don’t be heart-broken
When I leave
If in your heart
When I arrive
There is no smile

Don’t “fall out” or swoon... or
Hug my casket and wail
Rent your clothes... and with ash,
Your head,
Anoint

Because
If you have the chance to be loving
Right now
But do not…

Could be supportive
Right now
But choose to not…

Beloved
You’re missing the point...

I’ve got nothing but love
And will love just as much
And for just as long
As allowed…

So don’t give me flowers when I am dead
Give me my flowers
Now

What better human quality than generosity?
They say sharing is caring, who could disagree?
Sharing bread, sharing bed, sharing deep intimacy
Sharing souls, sharing hearts, sharing vulnerability  

But a world without sharing is a world that stopped caring
Without care, love will fade and cause lack of compassion
Division of humankind, is what causes war of nations
Borders are border line, they impede freedom of roaming  

Don’t you think it’s absurd how people will decide
How much they’ll share with you,
How much they’ll care for you
Depending on where you’re born or you reside

Whilst the truth is that we share - the same entire planet
Borders caused our division - and used us all as puppets
To get richer and be better than those outside our borders
Made us greedy, made us needy to increase our own possessions

Some might think sharing means - losing parts of what is yours
But where true love persists - all that is mine is also yours
Sharing doesn’t halve happiness; you’ll see it multiplies it
Possession is what grows greed and the bad weeds that surround it

glows a rose nearby the dandelion
compete for petunia to grow near her;
in the harsh of daylight, swinging and proud
both,
two sides to the coin, beauty and beast, flower and ****,
as we all do halve.

competition in the garden, in
recreation,
or reproducing, reseeding,
repopulating,  
a woman, sees
in glory the flower.
I wither.
the ****.

You smell like rain
kissing dry earth. Your
magnificent torso rises
over buttocks I want
to sculpt. Your skin is softer
than cocoa butter and I am

lost. In your eyes, I see
stories. In your taste, I forget.
The rhythm of your heartbeat
lulls me to safety. But
will you stay to steep
the tea? Or halve my pills?

Everywhere is mulch and moss.
And fog and despair. But I come
back to the smell of rain.
And wait
for the sun to shine.

The name Manhattan from the word Manna-hata,
as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet,
an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen, meaning Half Moon;
A 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata
twice, on the west and east sides
of the Mauritius River, later named the Hudson;
The word "Manhattan" has been translated
as "the place where we get bows" or
"place for gathering the (wood to make) bows",
from the Munsee dialect of the Lenape language
'manaháhtaan' (where 'manah-' means "gather",
'-aht-' means "bow" and '-aan' is an abstract element used to form verb stems; according to a Munsee tradition recorded in the 19th century,
the island was named so for a grove of hickory
at the lower end that was considered
ideal for the making of bows; Alternative folk
etymologies include "island of many hills",
"the island where we all became intoxicated"
and simply "island", as well as a phrase
descriptive of the whirlpool at Hell's Gate;
clearly indicating the Manhattan Island
has for several hundred generations to this very day
been a popular gathering place for homosexuals;
     "good place to gather wood for bows" indeed

in looking back through the dark eyes
of the mother of the Hebrew minions,
I see Slim Pickins & Andy Divine in
every Western I've ever seen until the
man w/ no name & his Italian cohorts
on the Spanish plains rewrote it all in
a prophetic cast; Norman Rockwell &
Walt Whitman freaking out over the
new poetry ushered in by Ginsberg &
Patti Smith whom Hart Crane wanted
to **** from the grave,  headless ******
walking forested Harlem free of their
conventional way of dress; going native
like the homosexual Leni Lenape

Details of Henry Hudson's birth and early life
are unknown. Some sources have identified a
       Henry Hudson as having been born about
1565, but others date his birth to around 1570;
Other historians assert even less certainty;
Peter C. Mancall, for instance, states that
"Hudson was probably born in the 1560s,"
while Piers Pennington gives no date at all;
Hudson is thought to have spent many years at sea,
beginning as a cabin boy and gradually
    working his way up to ship's captain;
most assuredly homosexual, after a mutiny
aboard the ship Discovery, Hudson & several crewmen
were set adrift in a small open boat,
effectively marooning them in Hudson Bay;
Hudson & those aboard never seen again

WAS it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?
I thought:  "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.
I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water.  I grew wild.
Even accusing Heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.
I dreamed towards break of day,
The cold blown spray in my nostril.
But she that beside me lay
Had watched in bitterer sleep
The marvellous stag of Arthur,
That lofty white stag, leap
From mountain steep to steep.

I halve the flesh for leaf
And regret and retreat
This is Divinity; seize
What words He gives
And you are a Soul
And will never cease
Milky Novae, a ****** reborn
when you end breathing
Genesis, Revelations
Endocrines endocrines.  
Or molecules that sin
Tithe the seed, breede; bleed
Hatred and war
From digesting protein
My body
For the remembrance of me

Stamped, I said; don't you dare let go of my hand.
Until the day my breath and your hair turn silver.
Holding my jugular, I let you watch me undress daily
My love for you was bulletproof, but you're the one who shot me
What you don't know, is you missed the cavity
I romanticised the cocking and pulling nightly, murdering beauty.


I ran away from home, to sleep in a manger
I ran from a man, a man I never knew
Same genes, same jeans. Denim was my choice, and yours.
Rotten, like and old pair. Chromosomes.
I lay on your thick neck
The weight of a field mouse, tiny bones, pulled, curled in the straw, invisible to everyone but you
Your shoes always faced upwards
Walking the line where the barbed wire tore your chest
Your heart was a runway, our family horse, chocks away
Twelve stitches, those same twelve stitches in my mother's neck, at twelve years old,
Twelve years on and it's taking thirteen to heal


I learnt how to pick locks at eight years old,
A lost boy in the body of a girl, skin of a thistle, no ****
Purple and armoured
A chameleon soul, belonging to no one
No compass due north, a ***** needle
She said; 'Baby, you're like cyanide, and I liked you for that.'


I believe in madness
Holding your breath for sixty seconds, because you can
Like a bird flying into a windscreen voluntarily
Throw me into it,
If i'm going, i'm going,
Pull me down harder, bind my ankles to make a tail
Hit me harder, hit me until I find it acceptable to hit back,
No halves, of the halves that halve us in half
I'm all

Don't come knocking at my door
I deserve so much more
Than to be halve loved, halve cared about
Of this I have no doubt

Eye halve A spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marcs four my *****
Miss steaks eye kin not sea.
Eye Strike A key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee four two long
And eye can put the air or write
It is rare lea ever wrong
I halve run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker told me sew

Into the blender-
Pineapple juice, half a carton
Ice, a handful
Coconut cream, a well shaken tin
Bacardi, a goodly dollop

Justine says
I should add half an eggwhite
For the froth
But how the hell do you halve an egg white
So I leave it out.

A few seconds unholy racket
And it’s ready to pour
Into my favourite thick heavy glass
Put the pitcher in the fridge
And take on impulse.
****** good

Brings back a tiled balcony in Puerto Vallarta
A small boy wearing an iguana


Tricia Lambert

Ups and downs
Ups and downs
Ups and downs

We had so many grounds
To not enjoy what we had
We used to be so mad
But now it’s all over
The year should had go slower

We miss what we had
We cry because we are so sad
It’s gone
All the joy and fun

Enjoy what you have
Maybe it will be halve
It will never come back
The life will give you a smack

But there is
Ups and downs
Ups and downs
Ups and downs

We had so many grounds
Now I see what it was
But we couldn’t see it cause
We thought it would last forever
But now I am cleaver

I will love all I have now
I will balance on the life’s bough
I know how it fells to lose
I must be strong like Robinson Crusoe

Enjoy what you have
Maybe it will be halve
It will never come back
The life will give you a smack

But there is
Ups and downs
Ups and downs
Ups and downs

Hours. Back. Tideless extreme. Gaunt. Happy face, good luck, forever ago. A go-go. Breakfast. Preference. Slip stream mock tidal bliss. Humpback seal stardom, infinite provocative immortal. Catches me. In between the teeth. Cool, Mach 3. Sumptuous extravagant human meat, flesh game. The flesh game. Heroes air-freight. Wash cloth. Hot breaths. 'ths' and plastic bag I-280 North ***** and sudatorium.

Pick a pepper.
Cow Palace.
Moth ***** and mouth *****.
Tea bags and sore throats.
Presumptuous candid                                            story-telling anomalies, trite

/masterful caustic limping brick-pedaling life-goers in major metropolis wearing leather sandals, whistling\

Whistling deep cavernous chasm bellowing hollowing, in out in out arithmetic.
        
                                                                                        Sand gathers boulders.

Women gather warmer wethers. The weathered. That ton. One of the asinine                                        

                                                        and aesthete.

Curious. Before
clause. The story god.
                                                        The kick of Achilles

                 and the Satan prance. Bleat of the squeeze.
                                        Course set. Picking up the pieces and going spelunking. French maid syndrome. Wan. Wielding the anatomical dollar of the "this-just-didn't-work" childhood.

                                                                                                Wears gloves. Has colds.

Breaks molds, and reads fortune cookies.

Limps                            lifeless, heavy as a Tuesday and digging its own grave. It owns gray. It

makes
meals
and carries them through broken towns,
over smoky ridges,
helping out and just- helping.

The line wakes it.                                        One traffic light.   Three thousand three hundred lakes.

Steals a cell phone. Goes quiet for days in the forest.

Kills a wild pig. Bares a feral hog.

Opens up a can of sour condensed milk and still makes caramels. The open fire. The children gasping and favoring the brave. The score is limitless.



Hours go by.

                                                        ...    ­                                      ...

                      ­                    ...

                                        ­                                            ...

Mites dig into the skins, and the shins of the subtle. The men come back. The palm fronds make excellent roofs. Raised. Reared. Canned food makes abhorrent constipation forest dwelling; syndrome. And excrement. The crowns carry over.

The bejeweled mid-rim equator

                                                               ­                                                 providence.


Ki­ng and queen.
Prince and princess. Knees bend and over and over. Mirthy trammeled lots. Egg white clouds scurry through towns scurrying through. The bastion wall. A romance connecting. Two lovers. The lot. A burrow in the ground. Short-haired hares: run, jump, skip. Life settles. No one comes back. The skin starts to itch. Gratitude is and is not. Worry steps in. The chimes glow through the rorschach tree tops. Fires and combustion. Great oversized bells. Who hears the ringing?

The canopy overcome with splinters, the eyebrows are furnaces that never spit out the light.

Spectacular plight. Unbelievable nights. Feeling fowl in the palms of another                                                        
                                                                        land where weirs and wilds
and roaring waterfalls
                                                decorated with cowards collecting honey
                                                                                                              combs
through hair-strainers, so brave    soo brave, to brave, to hunter-gatherer
African mission-syndrome types in white long coats and sometimes and dangerously called doctors. Do not stop for lines. Do not stop for lions. Or

                        when stuck in the cauldron of the c t a         & cia

do not weave heavily through traffic, railing divorce into the cellular phone of man        . NO ZHE DOES NOT. NO.

No one eats, anymore.
The pleasure is moved.
The happy have landed.
The girl of my dreams is foretelling, foretold. She climbs into a lunchbox and heads to work. She digs her nails into her skirt and chimes for dinner.

All is sentimental and elementary. No one is everyone. There is something human in the air.

Something cumin in the water. I love in French in English. In Germanic.

I'm in the water. Feet stuck in the mud. Hands flailing, I'm naked contemplating making shark moves, one hand flat-out, vertical, putting on a show for ducks and swallows.

The women return. The girls come back. Catastrophe and the merriment of the seven deadly fellows.

I run around Sue
and move back.                         I come to the coast to see what's the matter. It's blue. A cinder blanketed snow home. An igloo. An ice tale of curiosity, of  

                two cities, twisted cities. Mad dragons and weirder wizards that rear silver and portage the weirs of Elk Grove, thru the elk homes
humming bizarre cantatas, making Raspberry jellish and relishing

inthelast
lightsofthemorning

of an

interruption. The wanton exercise. The carnivorous machismo.
We work out with our quirks out and lead with the flaws. A tailored finite saw. A ringing through the air. Who can hear the ringing?                

Makes the men to swine, to mew muses. And get choosy on cabooses while

saving Moose.

                                                  maybe like Salvatore Dali would have done

He would halve none of it and brim over with it all.
Make cape flight from coastal waters. Riding the thermal winds of

North Africa, Tomato, and Japan;                              

BEARDEDfrogOFprinceGENEALOGYneededTOO     ...  ...  ... ....  .. . . ... ..

To sew buttons. To bring the water from the well. The shrimp from the levy. We all go to war on Sundays. We hate on Tuesdays,





but the women never come with the water.


                         [now you're supposed to ask if they keep it for themselves]

sad-leis         'end nose.'

I can't but we can. You don't and I hate you for it.

I smell you on socks

                                                          ­                          .On pillowcases and bullet casings. I'm hot and hard to handle. I lay down in front of forklifts trying to bulldoze shopping malls. I am too and too sentimental. I have a 25¢ ring from a vending machine. I love it. I love you. I go to the bottom room. Blue carpet. **** carpet. Tilted blinds. I find the moors and the heaven. I put my books and a sweater in a sack and I start moving. No ones ever seen me move like this. It's like I had revolution for breakfast. I sip a small glass of orange juice. Orange colored juice. I'm off like a stereo and walking through and through up into a story. I'm making life easy with my purple crayon. I draw a canyon and a boat too. The boat can't float so I draw myself an ocean, a coastline. I call out for my friends and no one is there, so I draw friends. I draw the seashore, the plateau. I make other ships. I shift in my seat, it's uncomfortable so I make it leather. I write a letter but it flies away with a pigeon. I'm stuck on a peninsula, crying. On the front step of a friend's tenement and I'm sobbing. I'm waiting for the waif and she's not coming. I think her over with coffee all alone in a diner, and eventually I have to leave. I trail like an autumn sun, splashing bits of earth with my tepid light. I plash in the sea and still I'm very alone. I run my fingers through my hair and find a find a crown to make myself king. I'm heir to my own home, but it's not good enough. It never was. I grow curiouser and curiouser. I don't know what to do, I'm without. I'm without use. Eight months on top of six years, on top of the second floor of a third floor building, it's hot, and I'm locked out, I'm fighting off weakness and indecision. I'm starving and I haven't eaten in days. I'm confused and the ******* seems the rite. I've got no one to call and I start swimming. I start swimming in circles. I get verbal. I start crawling and drawling and soon I'm weeping in a brutal drawl. And I can't hear you. And all I have is the coastline and the ocean, a plateau,

a yacht club full of empty vessels. A flotilla of friends but there's


eh                                                            ­                        eve             nobody home.

And I see you. I meet you. I mean to meet you. But I can't. I can't move or be moved. I can't speak or be made to speak. I am gripped by your love and yet wrapped in fear. In the rapture of fear. Its rancor grips me. So I stand up. I'm halved and naked and half naked. In the sea. And I see you.

And I seem you, to me. I seam you to me.

It’s May 18th, 2022. I’m poised, alone, heart pounding, in front of my laptop, waiting for courage, my finger hovering over the return key, like a child hoping the timing of my keystroke will bring me luck.

I took this summer off - which drove my mom absolutely CrAzY. “You CAN’T!” she’d said last month, only to be overruled by my Grandmère. Now I’m home for summer break and tonight she’s flush with exasperation.

“You should have applied for a dean’s fellowship,” she said, her voice rising as she rubs her hands together, as if scrubbing for an operating room procedure, “and a summer research position!” She’s practically twirling with suppressed emotion.

I get why she’s upset. She only goes “deep end” when she's worried about my future. She knows what’s needed to get a medical school slot in 2025 like other moms know their favorite recipe - after all, she’s done this twice before.

Leong’s upstairs, avoiding this family scene. When I described my family expectations as “hustle culture,” to my roommates, they all understood - we’re that much alike.

Step (my stepfather) is trying to de-escalate and calm us (her) down. “Look,” he says, holding up his hands like someone talking down a gunman, “NEXT summer she’ll buckle down, get in more volunteer hours and get a dean’s research fellowship” he says, sliding his eyes to me. I nod “ok” almost imperceptibly. “It’s ok to start grinding sophomore year - that’s what I did.”

OOOO! She turned to him and if looks could ****, he would have exploded like someone in a Tarantino movie.

By some psychic grace my Grandmère chose that moment to call. Step and I fled the den like it were on fire, going our separate ways to halve the chance of being followed.

In my dark room, lit only by the light of my MacBook, a quiver runs through me, and I finally press return. My grades for Spring semester - and Freshman year come up. My eyes water and I relax back against my chair when I see “Dean's List.”

I smile to myself, and slowly, fiercely I clench my fist with a “YESS!" As I postulate my victorious reprieve.

Salina
The Nomad arrived
Cold, windy
Waiting on a ride.

Nine hours later
Waiting like a gator
Lynda arrived,
Train wreck, heart ❤ ache,
The Knight decided to ride.

Belly of the Beast.
The gangstA *** forward,
So all could survive.
Minues to halve,
Hours to days,.
Played, lonely moonless nights,
The Traveler prayed.

And the Yellow Brick Road opened
With the sound of a laugh,
Oz came into being,
When Mona Lisa smiled....

get
this cold
take it inside

feed it
to those
you are traveling

with
through this space.

tell them
love is a glacier

it endures
and is not remembered.

halve
the cold minute.

nurture it
and then set it free.

in
its absence

the warm
will return.

a tiding
a small child

who laughs
at the bitterness

of the
crime you hold.

a song
to be
rehearsed

a
misstep
to be

forgiven.

One day Luke walked to an ice show
But was quickly lost and looked around
He saw a guy who started to mow
Blades ripping the grass being cut down
In terror as it held the ground so tight

Little farther down the road
A beautiful girl was standing there
He asked for help which she bestowed
Sophia felt great with her loving care
As they walked together with the sun so bright

Soon they sat with each other at the ice rink
Luke with his way with words
Made her blush with cheeks so pink
With the sweet songs composed by birds
Their love went to a whole new height

After years of compassionate dating
Sophia began to feel a bit wary
She for too long halve  been waiting
Until finally he got down ready to marry
And she said yes as she started to cry

Later that month at the city hall
Luke and Sophia said their vow
The love they shared stood so tall
As the two would be together forever now
And live their life as each day go by

Soon they had a girl named Lily
Once Luke had to watch her on his behalf
So he acted foolish and silly
Just so he can hear her beautiful laugh
He did everything his mom would apply

A decade later in the midst of the sun
Lily came across a snake during the tour
Luke confronted the snake and won
Afterwards Luke told her he would endure
Anything that would harm her he consign

As Lily and her parents grew older
Sophia goes to the hospital and receives a terrible answer
Lily begins to cry on her dad's shoulder
As she finds out her mom has cancer
Luke calmly tells her everything will be fine

Miraculously Sophia beats the disease
As she fought hard in the long combat
All three of them can live life in ease
They sing in harmony while darkness grew flat
And their love was the most divine

But the sad truth is this was just a dream
As Luke awoke to start the day
He got ready for the ice show theme
This year was dress like a cast away
So he put on his best and now was set

As he walked to the ice show
He started to think it was deja vu
He saw the same guy starting to mow
Grass shredded like his life and dreams spew
Luke was alone and wish he could reset

He sees Sophia but unexpectedly receives a text
Luke checks it as he walks past her
He sits at the ice show uncertain what to do next
And now life for Luke is just a blur
Take every chance at love you get

I thought I’d teach them some looking.  the well’s bucket I was careful to quietly lower.  I meant to halve the rope with my tied legs and arms, to bewilder it with hugging.  I saw myself do it twice before I gave three.  the dark above me seemed jealous of the dark below; my long hair took on a glitter of crickets but would not be led away.  I waited for my name to sound its foreign bid but instead heard only the silently local.  I could see the bucket if I closed my eyes; and it, me, in my puny dress.  when my feet began their sleep they were napped in by circus water.  how cheered I would be for slipping.

yet it was another took audience- I made the junkyard breathless; my fingers already forgetting to stay their swollen proofs.  I called her name with the others, she whose own fingers had cleared the closing of a refrigerator’s door and so would not be found in a lesser hiding place alive and ******* a knuckle.  I strayed to my brother’s punishment for inappropriate play-  a scene with his therapist saying one can’t die from nothing.  there has to be something.  my brother having his hands pinned to his knees for covering his ears.  his therapist wishing he were someone else and someone else him.

livet passerer gennem spejlet
drager parallel
hudløs uærlighed, den halve sandhed
vi skriver uden at tænke os om, hvorfor
tidlig bustur, fastfood-køb; pludseligt indblik i en andens hverdag
forbløffelse er en mærkelig størrelse
en skikkelse personificerer tanken om en andens liv
at føle sig tiltrukket af ideen om, at have kendt dem i en anden sammenhæng
det magiske hvis
bearbejdet, gennemtænkt, finpudsning
et øde ***, drænet for mennesker, lagt øde (ødelagt)
at kultivere kulturarven
ønskebarnets strabadser
et savnet ord

og pludselig sidder du pakket ind i +5 dyner og burde egentlig ikke fryse, men der er så fandens koldt over det hele. laver flere liter te for at få det bedre men hælder kop efter kop ud i vasken, for bare lugten giver dig brækfornemmelser. modern family er ikke så sjovt længere og de eneste sange der får lov at spille færdigt er dem han linkede til dig. hans ******* musiksmag ramte plet hver gang. du kan ikke finde ud af om smerten mellem dine ribben er pga den halve flaske tequila du formådede at hælde ned i går eller om det bare skyldes de ord han sagde og hvor let han havde ved at droppe alt det han selv havde været med til at bygge op. du er ikke sikker på om han lagde mærke til dig da du løb gennem byen med en veninde i hånden og prøvede alt hvad du overhovedet kunne for ikke at lade ham se dig græde. du ved bare at lige nu gør det hele ondt og du tør ikke bevæge dig uden for din dør i frygt for at se dem sammen - han har jo tydeligvis ikke noget problem med at vise hende frem foran dig - end ikke på din egen fødselsdag. tillykke. du sidder i stedet i din dobbeltseng hvor jeres kroppe for første gang kolliderede. og du kan ikke slippe for det uanset hvad du gør. stryger tændstikker, for forhelvede, hvor ville det være let bare at lade det hele brænde væk.
du vil bare væk. jeg vil bare så gerne væk.

Delivering the magic
at the tip of the Moon.
The silken blue half-light
beaming in full!

Ah, let there be a gap
between the one peeled halve
and the unleashing other half.  
The vanished sun will bridge it
far from the unseen pyramydon
shining upon a crescent moon!

It doesn’t have to be in a mo
leave some rooms.
Let it flow to chockablock
over the running brook.

Heading to the up and down ocean
Let the rivers flow in all diversions.
By the way, shorting it to half would do
my half full glass is half full.