Holy Grail
while I was sleeping
the bird of fire tossed
between its wings
my fiery dream—burning
terrors and elegies
I blossomed into violet
flames while my
Self, in silent flight
within my soul,
drank and sang
until dawn.
Santo Grial
mientras yo
dormía el pájaro
de fuego se divertía
entre sus alas mi
sueño ardía —quemó
los miedos, las elegías
florecí violeta en
llamas cuando mi
nombre, con silente vuelo
en mi raíz, hasta
el amanecer
bebió y cantó.
Alchemy
a rainbow
in my bed
naked gold
Alquimia
un arcoíris
en mi cama
desnuda oro
The Waiting
What a sad life!
How sad you are!
under the weather
a prisoner craving
a vision of the rose bloom
go and feel in
the rustle of your branches
a whisper from the icy grin
walking through the cervices
in the mud of your soul
Ah my girl!
in your stillness I behold
the lost spring
open your eyes to
the red silhouettes
in the scattered leaves
learn to dance.
La espera
¡qué triste vida!
¡cuán triste tú!
bajo el matorral
prisionera del ansia por
ver la rosa florecer
ve y palpa el crujir de tus ramas
un susurro de la mueca helada
paseo de grietas en el
barro del alma
¡ah mi niña!
en tu quietud se extravió la primavera
abre tus ojos al
ocre de siluetas
en la hojarasca
aprende a bailar.
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María Del Castillo Sucerquia (Barranquilla, Colombia, 1997) is a poet, literary agent, eastern medicine practitioner (Neijing, Spain), and translator (French, English, Italian, and Greek). She learned languages at the Universidad del Atlántico. She has won the Naji Naaman poetry prize, Creativity prize category (Lebanon, 2022); the Kasi Nazrul Islam Birth Anniversary Award (Bangladesh, 2022); the 2022 Meira Delmar Prize (Meira Delmar Library, Barranquilla, Colombia); the Golden Heart award, granted by the Rahim Karim Karimov International Foundation (Kyrgyzstan, 2022), in recognition of her literary and translation work; and the VII Jorge García Usta Award (PoemaRío International Festival, Pilot Library of the Caribbean), for her book The Silenced Train. She is the director of the magazine Read Carpet Colombia. Her poems have been translated into several languages.
✶
Douglas Cole has published six poetry collections; the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award; and the screenplay The White Field, winner of the Elegant Film Festival’s Best Unproduced Screenplay Award and two-time finalist in the New York Metropolitan Screenwriting Contest. He has been awarded the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by RiverSedge. He has been nominated Six times for a Pushcart and seven times for Best of the Net. He lives and teaches in Seattle, Washington.
✶
Mia Broecke is fifteen years old. Half-Belgian, half-English, she lives in Fourqueux, France. She paints in her free time and her art has previously appeared in the North American Review and Reed Magazine.
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