My Dead Relatives
Myrna Nieves

All my loved ones are gone

Those who inhabited my distant town

How I miss

Moment of glance
An enigmatic smile
That contagious laugh
The hand gently placed on a hip
The nodding head
The moment of empath
When I felt loved and accepted

My relatives

Pulsing of life that
Exploded in an instant
Then fade away
Twinkling, flickering
In the air of the times

I will join them one day
I will cross the veil
Between palm trees and flamboyance
I will hang them if they want me to
Or will watch them from afar

Now their memory
And sometimes a shadow passing by, gentle touch, tiny sounds

It’s what I share with them

They left a trace in my days
An unfathomable beauty
A slight sadness

My dead relatives

In effable testimonies
Of the love that permeates
Existence

(She is a writer, editor, and educator, born in Puerto Rico,
recipient of the Literary Award of the PEN Club of
Puerto Rico. )

Kimchi Stew Story

Stewed kimchi is mouth-watering;
Koreans love the stew, a bit morphed 
version of kimchi, pickled cabbage;
packed with such antioxidants as garlic,
ginger, onion, red cayenne pepper,
anchovies, oysters, etc., it is even more 
delicious when eaten with white steamed rice.

The smell of kimchi stew fills the air
far above the Peninsular, reaching up
to heaven, they say, they can smell it
even in the passing airplane. 
But who cares? The Peninsulans love it,
as the lover's fancy perfume.  

©Byung A. Fallgren

Lament
Rainer Maria Rike

Oh! All things are long and far.
A light is shining but the distant star
From which it still comes to me has been dead
A thousand years...in the dim phantom boat
That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
A clock just struck within some house remote
Which house? --I long to still my beating heart.
Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray...
Of all the stars there must be far away
A single star which exists apart.
And I believe that I should know the one
Which has alone endured and which alone
Like white city that all space commands 
At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.


Rainer Maria Rika was born on December 4, 1875,
in Prague. He authored numerous works in prose and
poetry. He died on December 29, 1926. 

On the Same Hill

We pursue
The same dream,
Complying with the laws,
Purple and yellow
On the same Hill.

I remember 
How I got here,
Just as others do;
Some are here by the wind;
Desperate waves,
Baffling the concerned.

We avoid 
Making more tears;
Find the right solution,
To put everything
In order and 
Embracing all.

This first appeared in Talking River Review, 
Issue 48, Spring 2020.

©Byung A. Fallgren

Untitled
Lance Henson

Here is a place where nothing can die
Darkness that lives beneath the leaves

We bring our nights there without knowing
We bring our fear there before the signing begins
We bring our silent names there hoping we are forgiven

We bring our hands there scented of a river
We bring our prayers that hide and watch us
The landscape where we have held the loose feathers
Of a fallen bird

And awakened in the land of the unseen
Herse in the place where nothing can die... 

Lance Henson is a poet, teacher, and cultural activist. 
 A member of the Cheyenne Nation of Oklahoma, Henson 
has authored numerous poetry collections, he lives in 
Bologna Italy.