Category: Poetry
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Emptiness
Sarah Alam New Delhi, India Illustration by Sarah Alam Today I feel just emptiness I am numb more or less, I can’t believe you are gone forever, Will this agony end ever? Your face shines before my eyes, I couldn’t even say goodbye, I never knew those words would be last, Each memory I…
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Medical and literary coupling
Stephen Finn South Africa (To be read aloud, with gusto and with a strong beat) Collage created by Hektoen staff. Images from left to right. Top row: Portrait of Rabelais, circa 1820. By Louis-François Durrans. From the Rabelais Museum, via Wikimedia; Anton Chekhov, via Wikimedia. Center: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash Bottom…
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Normal head shape and size
Ateret Haselkorn Bay Area, California, United States Photo by Karen Arnold. Source My son is flying a rainbow Kite. The streamers frame The beach like a wedding canopy. He runs. His three-year old legs Don’t know the meaning of “stroll.” I recollect, years ago, the prenatal ultrasound. The border of his skull, The tiniest…
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Parental grief
Ellen Zhang Boston, Massachusetts, United States Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels We didn’t know the ending because this was us back then. Sometimes wanting is not enough. When the oncologist spoke. While you started to cry only because your mother did. As we cradled you gently. Beyond the singularity of such moments. There…
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Compassion
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States Formed and found in the human soul lies the wellspring of compassion. Seeing yourself in the other, the other in yourself is the essence of compassion. Selfless caring without condition for the unfortunate ones without voice, feeling the pain of another, accepting without judgment is compassion. Caring for…
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Solitude
Donna PuccianiWheaton, Illinois, United States You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley . . . —American Folk Song We learn to be alonefor months when microscopicmurder floats in the airlike so much smoke. We learn to fearthe passing strangerwhose only misdeedis walking two large dogson our shared sidewalk,their communal breathexploding in lethal stardust. We learn…
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Pink and yellow
Govind Krishnan Durham, North Carolina, United States The Magpie by Claude Monet. 1868 – 1869. Musée d’Orsay. Via Wikimedia I am wearing pink, I have a rosy glow My breaths are even, measured, slow The doctors come and go. Come and go. Come and go. But sometimes they mutter, their heads bowed low. And…
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Hope quarantined
Prasad Iyer Singapore Poet’s statement: This fictional poem expresses the feelings of a migrant separated from his family during the COVID pandemic. Photo by Logan Fisher on Unsplash Quarantine forceth divorced souls Distanced families and broken wholes Shards of thoughts, impaling my core Locked down borders’ hearts a sore Shallow slumber,…