Virginie Colline
Inky Milk
I'm lying on that beach
Frozen to the heart
What am I to do
In this sand this quick
In this night this dark?
The sea is crying over spilt milk
Black silk and sweet lactescence
Wave after wave
Song after song
Languid poems are rolling on the shore
A whisper, a caress and nothing more.
Illustration by HengkiKoentjoro (with his kind permission)
❦
Twenty one stories, top of the world
We stand in the wind bathed in ocean’s perfume
Our demons hush in awe of tonight:
The electric lights below are like fireflies
Beneath God’s blanket – that vast velvet dome –
neon lights shine like stars in a paved galaxy
A reflection of the divine on earthly pond
A picture-perfect stranger twenty one floors down
All the city, from our celestial height, seems
harmless and sweet (distant sirens become like buzzingbees)
But a faint whisper in the wind otherwise begged:
The world dances on the shards of porcelain dreams
Presses its feet down on the bent backs of tired men
The young and the old alike seek the embrace
of corners to cry, their prayers offered with sighs
Lift the veil from this city of fireflies
(Our demons hush in awe of tonight)
❦
❦
Katrina A. Madarang
21st Floor
Twenty one stories, top of the world
We stand in the wind bathed in ocean’s perfume
Our demons hush in awe of tonight:
The electric lights below are like fireflies
Beneath God’s blanket – that vast velvet dome –
neon lights shine like stars in a paved galaxy
A reflection of the divine on earthly pond
A picture-perfect stranger twenty one floors down
All the city, from our celestial height, seems
harmless and sweet (distant sirens become like buzzingbees)
But a faint whisper in the wind otherwise begged:
The world dances on the shards of porcelain dreams
Presses its feet down on the bent backs of tired men
The young and the old alike seek the embrace
of corners to cry, their prayers offered with sighs
Lift the veil from this city of fireflies
(Our demons hush in awe of tonight)
❦
