Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

There's been a UXO sighting in the green scrub of Laos - One sleek aged cylinder, otherwordly, Ghostling low where the birds hop, Tickling pinkie toes and feet Clean off their hinges. Though they sky-fell a million years ago They patiently wait to beam up children, Offer their gamble to the farmer's crop, And lop, and lop, and lop. And they say "take care" because they know Their world of fractured soil, Where your life could become ashes - still - After every other soul's gone home. by Emily Keverne

As it settles The brilliant darkness Of your passing Masks each particle, Point sharp, end of a needle, Spliced in half, small. As if weightless Through time I hurtle, hearing Whispers, stammered breaths, That dreadful, collective Mournful slide into silence. As once removed, The whole world Comes at me through fog, Opaque forms shimmering, Fizzing, dissolving, retreating, As was often your way. And the dust Of that final touch, Marks the moment When all passed from dark to light, Caught on tips of fingers, lips, Crown, heart and proof of life. As if in six months, April Fool’s Day Trick of the mind, I can bring your Songs, stories, smiles Back from mere chalk and have them become Clay in my hands. by Paul Taylor-McCartney

She kissed me like a tender touch of the rainy wind and vanished like the moon behind a dark curtain of clouds her love was just a dream like the dying sunset kissing the evening skies then she vanished like the wind romancing the sea waves in the immaculate beauty of the romantic night. Her love is just like the moonbeam kissing the elegant sea waves smiling from a distance as the seagulls sing a new anthem of love from eternity to eternity. by Gideon Cecil

Your rod hung In lonely air, Extending further and Further. A seagull flew into it; Snapped it straight in Half. I thought you'd pursue Another hobby.  You sat upon freezing Pebbles, Weeping salt water. by Ellie Sparks

                                         Flames whisper;            “You deserve this.” A quiet burn. Tasting soul's flesh, searing the mind Into silence. Like fire pulsing In dark veins underground, It burns for years. Feeding  On fossilised memories Of bygone eras. But time wins,  As it always does. Flames become embers, Glowing with promise  Of release. In the cool ash  Of the past, There is nothing left to burn. The future forms- Amongst the grey motes, The future forms- And it bursts forth,  Soaring            Into the sky                            ...

Orion, born of Euryale and Poseidon, Could walk on waves to islands far But a single sting stole his breath.  Now his muscles are made of brightest star. Fair Merope still loves the man Who dared to attack Oenopion’s scion, Still loves Orion Even though now he does the heavens span.  If only Zeus had refused to lift The hunter to cerulean skies. If only he had refused the gift And Helios had not healed his eyes.  If only loyal Cedalion had not guided the beast To the oracle that bade him to uttermost east, He would not stand for all to see, Shining bright for eternity. by Sarah Mills

I return to school a growed up man, And stand in halls where words were thick. I’m seeking Paul, who gobs in the hair Of girls he craves affection from. But he’s not here. Instead, he scaffolds, drinks, and tries Women with whistles, not phlegm. I look for Claire, who keeps to herself; Who cries at lunch on toilet seats. But she’s not here. She’s trying to stay happy for the man Who gave her kids and took the rest. I search for myself, who tries to learn; Who ruins books by using them As paper shields instead of swords; Who spends time running from others Instead of finding himself. But he’s not here either. He’s back at school again, hoping To find what he lost. by Harry Husbands

At the base of a wind-fallen cedar, roots lifted into the damp air, a small pond ripples softly, dappled by this afternoon's sifting sunlight. Listen , you whisper, leaning close. Listen to the world turning . In the time before we stood beneath this breathing canopy, in the time before I knew your voice, I didn't know how to hear this. The trill of the waxwing which tumbles down, so many gold coins, I could not then count among my riches. Nor the hollow fall into water of the tiny wood frog, now only two eyes like bubbles in the muddy pool. And those songs, the ones you sing under your breath, without thought, as we step carefully among the ferns. It's a blessing, you murmur on the faint movement of air. Listen . by  Anne Britting Oleson

Today is the second thousandth time I must attempt to forget, but instead I will build you a temple On the wallpaper of an aging soul. Don’t go coughing again in the middle Of a night when all sleeps, travel to Dreamlands, neighborhoods so far away Don’t you dare scream again at the boy. You knew how to smile once, yesterday still I saw you laugh with a stranger and his lettuce A world yours, where no one was welcome But pain, scars, punches never held back. I want to make you laugh, long to see you Smile behind, within, and outside all that skin No matter the deep grooves and dried up pores You must believe that you too deserve it a little. You hold it to yourself like it’s yours to keep Don’t you know you are not allowed And the universe demands you share it all For you too can only earn from borrowed time. by Fabrice Poussain

Your fingers on my neck, a touch so light as to be hard to notice when not fresh from the shower. How your beautiful fingerprints feel more intimate than any others on my skin. I catch your hand, bring your palm to my lips. It tastes of raspberries and northern lights. Your head on my chest, my blood in your ears beats a tattoo of infinite commitment, boots on a dusty trail that heads into a sunset that never seems to quite slip into dark. by Robert Beveridge

I gave up my giant, towering trees outside Chicago and traded them for scrub and krummholz humbled at the Colorado tree line. The blinding sun of Denver is a psychotropic drug in its own right but better; there are no side effects in breathing brightness. I’ve found joyful hours and long minutes of friendship but every moment that passes is a moment lost, an instant to be mourned so I’ll never, ever, ever be happy but here I can celebrate even the few grey days— when the simple act of shaving my legs leads to nothing more than thoughts of shaving my legs. by Richard King Perkins II

Yours is a loveliness not just in lips and cheekbones but in that gentle fundamental some call the soul but I refer to as the watch dog making sure your eyes see the right people, your hands touch where the appropriate response awaits and your heart only falls in places where it will not be broken. Yours is a loveliness for which no explanation is needed unless you hear it first from me.  by John Grey

My desires are golden butterflies that I trap in the cobwebs of my wisdom. My desires, blossom, ripen, swell, explode. The seasons of my heart, raspberry crests on the tips of my breasts My desires, sailors sailing to the magical cave, in the depths of the rippling of the waves of my legs. The singing of the sirens pulls and calls to drop in and dive down to deep and depth explore. My desires Wings that tickle with soft whispering tongues My velvet-silk skin Butterflies have a brief life Raspberries rot Sailors drown Skin, grows old. by P. E. Cuberos

since i've been learning to contort my tongue into a foreign dialect 
language has deepened its meaning. 
i have to relearn how to say 'i love you'. and i am driving a stick shift convertible in the rain i’ve driven wordless into a world rich with description. ‘i love you’, sounds so much less beautiful when you're unsure of the pronunciation. without words to express my unknowing i trip on the gilded road leading to expression and i must teach myself the nuances of a smile placed on ‘love’, the emphasis on ‘you’, the stutter on ‘i’. this freshness forces me into illiteracy and i am prepared only with an inexperienced, naive vocabulary. stuck in the guidebook of mutilations so extremely different from the comfort of phonetic syllables. who ever heard of someone reading a manual on how to say, ‘i love you’ i love you is a feeling not an instruction and this new version of affection ...

Where did that word come from? I’ve asked this of myself many times -- the word that just slipped out, unbidden as an expletive you haven’t used in years – but now, this word you’ve never used in a poem before has hopped aboard the rolling poem and, strangely, adds a pleasing ride and comfort and sound that was not there. And when the final word falls into place in the poem’s last line with the sound of a latch on a closing gate, only then can you ask yourself where it came from and marvel, as you’ve often done, over the fuzziness of origins, and especially, that the word arrived at all. by Glen Sorestad

There is a light at the end Of the Garden; garish red and Beaming back at me, solemnly I leave the last slivers of Summer: assuming it will come Around again. The glare catches me, promises A second chance, so I follow it Past the covered limbs and cracked Plastics until, I think, a voice Rumbled deep through the serene air Dull and plain: ‘No time this is to kill You live here, you are complicit; Undo your thousand deaths and leave This desecrated space before the Wind blows in a last cash injection. No time this is, no time’ What does it mean? The light is Too close to go back now, bright, Splendid it casts its gaze on a Child covered in black paint under The tree. A dull sigh, a quick glance; The golden clock is telling me –  I have time to kill by Stephen Durkan

Your image before me has traveled through time intact, yet your eyes see me here, in my now, your future yet to be. You are speaking to me with a stare telescoping beyond eons, and I hear you, your thoughts, hopes, ideals, genius and sorrow fully blown. Reach out your hand, reach through the film that separates us, touch your barrier to  dissipate my radius, and our frontier will be inhabited and haunted all at once. by Charlotte Ozment A note on the image: This is the oldest known intentional photographic self-portrait of a person (Robert Cornelius, 1839) and the photograph that inspired this poem.

Cell by cell the baby made herself, the cells Made cells. That is to say The baby is made largely of milk. Lying in her father's arms, the little seed eyes Moving, trying to see, smiling for us To see, she will make a household To her need of these rooms - Sara, little seed, Little violent, diligent seed. Come let us look at the world Glittering: this seed will speak, Max, words! There will be no other words in the world But those our children speak. What will she make of a world Do you suppose, Max, of which she is made. by George Oppen (Poem taken from this  article about U.S. poet Nick Flynn .)  I particularly enjoy this quote by Flynn on writing prose and poetry: “The way I write I don’t see much distinction between the two, although prose seems more suited to daylight, and poetry to night. I try to cook both down to something essential—by the end hopefully some balance between mystery and clarity remains.”