a literary magazine.
OMENS, PRAYER, THE REASON
OMENS
You said, write a poem about the sea,
of a lazy summer day and the sun.
Read clouds' shapes, their moving
and changing colours.
The whale-like one seems ominous
and it's so dark it makes me shiver.
Is it a portent of the doom to come?
And sea-gulls are disturbed
and louder than usual,
they must have sensed an omen,
but what?
The news said Saharan sand
rained in London,
and I dreamt of a drowned face.
When I think better it was mine.
Please tell me it's all rubbish
and that the sea is our happy charm.
You hold my hand and it's getting cold,
somewhere between the whale-like cloud
and a drowned face, my reflection
froze in your frightened eyes.
PRAYER
Forgotten by old gods
unknown to present-day ones
I pray to a new deity
to your wintry sea eyes.
Words are splashing water drops
a sermon to nothingness.
They profess the fear of eternity
and pray for the forgiveness
of sins done and those to come.
THE REASON
When I dive into your hair
The scent of the sea takes me
To the days when the future
Was part of the present and
The past was sound asleep
In undersea graves of Ephesus.
My face, washed in salt,
Steals the life of olive trees
And I swim towards the shore
With the dead and depths calling me.
Bio:
Petar Penda is a professor of English and American literature and a translator. His translations are published in renowned journals in the USA and the UK. His poetry was published in "A Thin Slice of Anxiety", "Fevers of the Mind", "Lothlorien Poetry Journal", and "Trouvaille Review".