Free Verse Revolution:

Below are three excerpts from poems in Issue VII: Tahmina (love & loss). Issue VII is available to download and/or buy here.

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from Dreaming of Tsunamis on the Beach by Shir Ariya

“softly, the great shadow

painted my neck,

my open mouth,

 

swallowing thousands of tiny

screaming heads

on its climb to the clouds.

 

There was nothing but the vast

blanket of death”

 

 

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from Temptress by Emily Mew

“I grow in a language of tenderness:

of gentle rain soft on my leaves, dripping to my roots;

of sun’s golden breath warm against my bark –

I pull its abundant magic through me,

weave it into sweetness filled with seeds

brimming with wisdom

as they drop.

 

Just one bite and she is fallen

further into this garden

of joy”

 

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from How to Survive Your Partner’s Apocalypse by Olivia Snowdrop

“grief has collapsed us like a lung like a truck like a squashed bug and we’re the remnants on the wall. i am not at all prepared for this. i am not at all okay. we spend our day in separate rooms feeling the same thing and testing who will break first who will search the kitchen for food who will use the mirror in the hall and crawl five minutes to the shop and back just for a snack just for a snatched second of joy to hand the other person like happiness can be found in a galaxy ripple.”