January 2025
On the reading horizon...
December 2024
Cover 'White River Falls' from web
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At Belknap Hot Springs
This evening in the hot springs pool
murmurs of English, Russian, Spanish
spool up into the steam shifting shapes
of every animal imaginable, goddesses,
the winks and wishes of my wandering
mind, billowing into blurry nothingness
above the pool where frustrated stars
try to be seen between the glad steam
and the constellation of electric lights
streaming the fence that separates us
from the McKenzie river, the ceaseless,
force that pounds the evenings unseen.
I float and think it all a dream, a dream.
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Matthew James Friday © 2024
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M
atthew James Friday is a British born writer and teacher. He has had many poems published in US and international journals. His first chapbook ‘The Residents’ was published by Finishing Line Press in summer 2024. His second chapbook ‘The Be-All and the End-All’ was published by Bottlecap Press in autumn 2024. He has published numerous micro-chapbooks with the Origami Poems Project. Matthew is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. Visit his website at
http://matthewfriday.weebly.com
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Cover from ‘Free Crescent Moon Photos'
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Simplicity
Contentment is
laying in an unkempt bed,
and both of you are aware
that the other one is smiling,
even though no words
have left your ‘loved-up’ lips
for quite some time.
And you want
to tell her this, in one big gush,
but instead, decide
to say it a little later.
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Paul Tristram © 2024
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Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and flash fiction published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet. His novel Crazy Like Emotion, short story collection Kicking Back Drunk 'Round The Candletree Graves and full length poetry collection The Dark Side Of British Poetry are published by Close To The Bone Publishing.
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Cover: 'Shell Mosaic' by author
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Mosaico I
- Cartagena
In this midnight hour,
what is that I hear on the
gusting wind? Is it
the shuffle of heavy palm
leaves or a blustering rain?
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Lorraine Caputo © 2024
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Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 500 journals on six continents; and 24 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Santa Marta Ayres (Origami Poems Project, 2024). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
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Cover: Pottery by Kim Ingram
soft edges
expand and contract
butterfly count
cascade hops a comma punctuates
backyard dweller
I’m friendly with
question marks
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Jeff Ingram © 2024
Jeff Ingram teaches creative writing at two local colleges and works on his organic garden. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Kim. Most recently, he has two pieces forthcoming in The Mamba: Africa Haiku Network, as well as pieces published in recent issues of Modern Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, Trash Panda, and Wales Haiku Journal.
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November 2024
Cover Art by Lauri Burke
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In a Clear Vase
Water balms the lilies in a clear vase
like the turn of a white star,
sun scatters through linen curtains,
the light inscribes
your rest in jessamine,
sun colors the bird at your wrist.
We praise with the sky as your shade
all the day, white flowers of light
climb the iron stair railing.
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John Swain © 2024
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John Swain is living in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France and has published two collections of poetry, Ring the Sycamore Sky, and Under the Mountain Born. His most recent chapbook, From the Roof Terrace, was published in a bilingual edition. Additional information may be found at www.john-swain.com
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Cover image supplied by poet
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Aglow
I love you like
our hair is on fire
our feet to the flame,
boiling in oil—roiling,
racing to the finish, ignited
rockets expending fuel
until nothing is left
but charred
after-burn,
our smoldering bodies
extinguished—
done
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Annette Gagliardi © 2024
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Annette Gagliardi's most recent chapbook, Caffeinated was publised in October through Swedish publisher, The Island of Wak-Wak. Her work has been in over forty anthologies and in a few online and in-print magazines. Visit Amazon for a list of her other publications. This is her fourth Origami Poems microchap collection.
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Cover Photo by Nancy J. Rubin
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Ripe
Today I want the softness to prevail,
to be weighed down with softness,
persimmons begging to fall, to be
locust snacks, squirrel food / to be plucked.
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Diane Tokaji © 2024
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Diana Tokaji is a performance artist (London, SF, and Capital Fringe Festival award-winner) and the author of two books: SIX WOMEN IN A CELL, winner of the Best Indie Book Award for Nonfiction, 2021; and SURVIVING ASSAULT – Words that Rock & Quiet & Tell the Truth. (Next Generation Indie Book Finalist).
Awarded the Sonia Sanchez-Langston Hughes Poetry Prize judged by Richard Blanco in 2020, her essays and poems are found in The Quarry, Bellevue Literary Review, Tiferet, Author, The New Guard (2019 poetry finalist), Solstice Literary Magazine (2022 essay finalist), Bourgeon Literary, The Mid-Atlantic Review, Frontier Poetry (2024 tanka award-winner), and in parenting rags, humor anthologies, feminist presses, and a bus in Virginia that displays her 2023 winning poem. Forthcoming are her collections: “BOOK OF ESSAYS BEFORE I DIE,” and “SPOKE: Poems of Squid, Cellmates, Love. Diana is a Certified Yoga Therapist supporting female survivors of assault and trauma.
She values the accessibility and beauty of the Origami Micro-chapbooks more than ever at this time. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Cover from web selected by author
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Wait
All that breathes
in the womb of dawn:
the snail at the end of a slow wet trail,
the soft bloom of the rose,
the music of the maroon dragonfly,
all the birds of the sky,
part the silk curtains of time,
wait for the birth
of the kind sun,
so they can, once again,
be wide awake.
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Preeth Ganapathy © 2024
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Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in several magazines such as Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press and various other journals. Her microchaps 'A Single Moment' and 'Purple' - have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature.
