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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Poetry

Ahma*

By Ashley Tan

You were;

An unorthodox tree of life

birthed dimly before the blizzards borne by winter

fully flourished by the first blush of spring,

the rings on your rutted stump encircling the core of heritage

 

You were;

 

A maze of the universe’s deepest ambiguities

contained within the blues of your windows,

with piercing inner onyxes that mirrored the bleakest

shells of humanity raining from perdition overturned

 

You were;

 

A perfectly marred canvas of the ages

an adroit architect who’d carefully crafted,

an intrinsic labyrinth of peregrinations on your palms

which hold a century’s worth of the wars of our past

 

You were;

 

A voluminous library yearning to divulge the world’s secrets

yet inaccessibly barred by the barriers bred by my tongue,

failed by memory and hardened by circumstance

now a forgotten dialect left bereft and unsung

 

But in spirit

 

You are;

 

A fierce warrior hound braving the fleeting seasons,

ceaselessly straddling the fragile line between

impermanence and

 

Eternity.

 

*”Ahma” is Hokkien (Chinese dialect) for “grandmother”.

 

 

Ashley hails from a small sunny island proudly known as the Little Red Dot and holds an uncanny penchant for all-things pink. One day, she hopes to dominate the world in a princess dress and sparkly tiara – because who ever forbade warriors from dressing in style too?

Facebook asked “what’s on your mind?”

By Laura Enright

 

 

Once I read online

that poetry is becoming more popular

to tweet

even if you must write

in txt spk

this stanza shows you 140 characters

(it doesn’t get you very far)

the internet is bad, boys & girls

always giving you something to compare yourself to

or reminding you of what you had

or someone you wish you had back

but what seems to drive people craziest is

messenger

Seen 12.23pm

k…

idc

my friend said once that one of the toughest things

about her breakup was

having to log out of her ex-boyfriend’s

Netflix account

lucky her.

thanks for sharing.

sometimes Google writes poems for me

if I type in the first few words

I wonder if

we smile in our coffins

I wonder if

anyone misses me

I wonder if

I’m wasting my time

 

 

Laura Enright is a twenty-one- year-old writer from Limerick, Ireland studying BA Creative Writing with English & Irish in NUI Galway, specialising in poetry. She was one of the first people in Ireland to receive an arts fellowship for her writing. She has won numerous national awards for her poetry. So far in 2017, her poetry has been published by Picaroon Poetry, Hidden Channel zine and The Galway Review.

 

Crying As A Performance Art

By Logan February

it is best to practice in front of a mirror
do not clear your throat or wipe your eyes
maintain the tremor in your voice
when you say

I am here to create the ocean for you

it is best if you do not say your name
because no one will remember it
there is no use in wasting your allotted time
they came to see you crash like a wave

it is best if you crash like a wave

it is best if you refuse medicine
maintain the tremor in your voice
when you say

I came here to show you how I play
the swallowed thing

it is best if your audition is not about you
make it about borders or whales or climate change
anything but heartache is fine
it is best if you are fine

if you pretend to be fine
this is show business so let it all go
don’t take it so personally

it is best if someone else deserves you
after you learn to part your own seas

 

Logan February is a happy-ish Nigerian owl who likes pizza & typewriters & memes. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vagabond City, Glass, Figroot, and more. His book, Yellow Soul (April Gloaming Publishing) & a currently untitled chapbook (Indolent Books) are forthcoming in 2017. Say hello on Instagram & Twitter @loganfebruary.

Inferno

By Riya Yadav

/ɪnˈfəːnəʊ/

Noun

1a very intense and uncontrolled fire 2A place or condition suggestive of hell, especially with respect to human suffering or death

 

It is the desire to be set free, from the raging fire

of emotions that confine her as she struggles to conform.

She is limited by the tether of the social expectations.

 

It is the guilt that is carried in her purse, for letting

the family friend who tried to touch her walk free.

How many charred and tainted childhoods is she responsible for?

 

It is the fear that restricts her breath, in the smoky haze

face pressed against the musty seat of the old caravan.

The road to her school, her freedom, is broken.

 

It is the sorrow that hits, when her hand lays flat

on an emptied womb carrying the embers of a female life.

Her stretch marks are the battle scars from the war she lost.

 

It is the anger that emerges when realization dawns, she is

trapped in a society that feeds on her flaws and insecurities.

They ignite the illusion that women are not worthy, the weaker sex.

 

It is the paranoia that knocks on lonely nights, searing her mind

as every blaring horn becomes a sinister laugh.

Her knuckles turn white as they grip the keys a little tighter.

 

It is the strength of the raging inferno, a reflection of

the flames that try to silence her spirit seen in her eyes.

She will burn your bones to the ashes she rises from.

 

 

Riya Yadav has just entered her junior year of high school, and has written for a few anthologies and student magazines before. Apart from writing and reading, she enjoys watching romcoms with her six-year-old German Shepherd.

 

Girls

By Sidney Wollmuth

Her hair has this grace to it

Sweet tea and big white porches

I want to tuck it behind her ear

Just to see if I’d hear rain.

 

 

Sidney Wollmuth is seventeen years old. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and she edits for Polyphony H.S.

 

 

Guilt

By Molly Rose Strugatz

 

your father’s wrinkled old

hands

wake you from crinkled cold hospital gown guilt dream

hospital, hands

hazardous, head

cold

but big blue bed

warm.

you try

to be good, and you read your parents

poetry, but

they think your poems are dirty and

they are

most of the time.

but sometimes,

when you write one down, you feel

so

clean.

 

Molly Rose Strugatz is an author and artist from Brooklyn, New York.  A recent graduate from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, her work has been published in Le Petite Press’ Eat/Ate, The Review Review, Troubadour, Antinomies, Pilot Press, and others. She’s appeared on Creative Converse Radio 1190 and exhibited poems at Teen Art Gallery. Visit her at mollyrosestrugatz.com.

 

 

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