Author: Lion and Lilac
Two Poems|Bruce McRae
Letter From You A letter from you is like a slap on the backside. A letter from you is as rare as chickens singing. Surely the postman has accomplished a great task, affection’s courier, messenger of longings, agent of deliverance. A letter from you is scented and stamped. It’s travelled far. The […]
Three Poems|Ann Privateer
They Say The eyes are the windows Of the soul, my father’s sky blues Captivated me to look and listen My grandfather’s grey blue eyes Taught me to strike the match When he lit his pipe And help fill his wagon with beer bottles My son’s laughing blue eyes keep happy Even in the dimmest […]
See Naples and Die|Allan Lake|Poetry
Catchy slogan, that one. Caught me. I had thought death a mere metaphor or, at worst, result of botched interaction with local mafia but, upon arrival in that beautiful and infamous southern Italian city, developed a small cough. I coughed in the B&B when I should have slept, coughed over cornetti and morning espresso, […]
Two Poems|Aldo Quagliotti
Meta-morphosis I know, amid growing fears, that my future doesn’t translate into peaking, nor into ministerial codes pregnancy doesn’t fall straight into bilateral jurisdiction future is way off-track when you’re modelling your own shape bright-eyed determination coasting the abysmal call of depression I have a perilous affinity with darkness crowding in spreading unsafely […]
What It Means To Get Down With The Devil|Temidayo Jacob|Poetry
My depression is the lower room where God comes to lament and count everything he has lost – including this dark body I call home. In my room, every bulb squirts light on my problems instead of antagonizing my darkness. I did not believe in the existence of Demons until I was asked to pray […]
Survivors|Tolu’ A. Akinyemi|Poetry
Migrants rescued from the Mediterranean and turned away by Italy and Malta have arrived in Spain’s port of Valencia. -BBC News. Dreams carried by the ocean waves, bodies, sinking boats, no life jackets. Lives at the mercy of rescue ships with drunken sailors. Voices echoing sorrow like spring blizzards. Tepid hearts beating fast. Dreams fizzling […]
If You’re Searching|Mariam Odetoro|Poetry
Did i tell you of the Christmas I wiped the floor clean with my tongue for love? Begging it to stay? Or the months after when i rang Faiza every night cussing the doctors for not helping. I swore i had broken my neck, must’ve been why i couldn’t see the sun like everyone else. […]
The Get Together | Aisha Oredola | Fiction
Her fingers searched her blue suede bag slowly until they rested on the familiar object. She let out a sigh and sucked slightly on her bottom lip. The inhaler was there. Relief washed over her. The one time she forgot her inhaler, her panic attack nearly killed her before any asthma triggers. She had heard […]
Finding Peace |Tawfique Soboyejo | Fiction
When Ade lost her husband and her two children in a car crash, life became void and living became meaningless. The moon had far risen into the sky when Ade made up her mind to leave the world. She wrote a suicide note, paid off her debts, and scheduled mails to her friends who stood […]
What We Owe the Craft of Writing
Writing, like swimming, is a practice-oriented pursuit. It is a little difficult to stay afloat, to thoroughly enjoy the tenacity required at the beginning, but if one stays the path, and keeps at it, it does get better.