poetry month

Softening, Out-of-Focus Romance, & Love Extinguished: Three “Ghost Line” Poems.

In March of 2009, the poet Rachel McKibbens introduced the poetry community to the concept of the “ghost line”. McKibbens defines the ghost line as “an inspiring line or image that becomes the unseen first line of a poem”.

The poet Ollie Schminkey provided their readers with a poetry prompt on April 9, 2025.

The prompt is as follows:

Use a line of a lyric from a song you have been listening to as a ghost line.

i: softening

Before they exhume our bodies
from this cold hard earth,
I will make a subtle plea,
begging you to quiet that nest
you have woven in your skull.
(Silence the birds or hornets or whomever
comes to roost
in the twigs and branches there.)

Before they dig our bodies
from this cemetery ground,
I will make a hushed demand.
Relax your body beside me.
Your skeleton is crafted of exquisite granite,
but I remember when it was bone.
Soften, my love,
and be still.

ii: out-of-focus romance

This twig and branch nest sculpture is home
to a part of me I have never named.
Creatures who blur the edges of memory
when a lover is involved.
(It’s not that I don’t remember –
it just becomes out-of-focus
like a dream.)

This is what happens when you have been raised
on tawdry romances and inescapable dreams.

*Photos via Yaroslav Shuraev, Daria Liudnaya, & Natalia Naitkevich.*

iii: love extinguished

These wraiths might not catch breath
as they dance along cobblestone,
but, so long as I am here
with you, my love,
none of the rest matters.

I have diaries scrawled with messages
of love,
dedicated to the creatures
who have blurred the edges
of my memories.

Yet I watch the apparitions
and know the truth.
I have you, and you have me.
(We are here among tombstones,
and love like ours cannot be extinguished.)

Isabelle Palerma

Nostomania: a Poem

“A deep longing for home — not just as a place, but as a feeling.”

This rampant desire seizes a deep part of me
like breath
(nearly as important as the inhalation/exhalation
my lungs have been known to practice daily).

I have searched for belonging in places,
in persons unfamiliar as though the answers
would simply arrive.
I grew up in a house that was beautiful,
but I felt like I was sleeping in hotel paper.

I have sought something deeper
than the flimsy doilies and brocade curtains.
Something I could place more value in
than porcelain dolls purchased for me
(without a single consideration
into my interests, my passions).

I have wished for something that birthday candles
could not even begin
to scratch the surface of.

If I told you,
perhaps you’d laugh.
An orphan does not have a family,
you would remind me,
as I introduce you to my mother and father,
my brothers and their wives,
the grandmothers and grandfathers,
all the cousins and aunts and uncles.
Poverty does not look like all of this.

(Then,
why did I feel so empty?)

Homelessness does not come
when you have shelter,
a roof over your head.

(But then, explain why
I only found a home
when I found someone who loves me
unconditionally.)

Isabelle Palerma

Eluxoroma: a Follow-up Poem to Lypophrenia

“A term invented by author Gregory Venvonis to describe the devotion to positive spiritual growth amid underlying darkness.”

Though the glimmer might be eradicated
(from time to time),
it is always capable of shining again.
Though it can be hard to see when cloaked
in midnight,
your mind is capable of fabricating untruths
like a ruthless politician or an adversary.

(It’s why we tried to give the enemy
a name –
to make him easier to talk about
then just an abstract concept.)

But the boulder that buries itself
on top of you,
smothering your breathing
and swallowing your light,
is also capable of eroding.

It might feel like centuries have passed you
by,
but just know –
after every winter, we see flowers blossom.

You, too, will blossom again.
I will resurrect from this darkness
and discover my light from within.
(Even if I have to excavate my soul
like some damned archeological dig.)

It’s too easy to surrender,
but we’ll fight through the frost,
push past the sparrows’ wings that beat
furiously
against our bones,
and surmount our devils.

(The ones we have named
and even the anonymous ones
who prefer to cower in the darkest places
inside us.)

Isabelle Palerma

Lypophrenia: a Poem

“A feeling best described as sorrow that has no clear cause.”

We thought by giving him a name,
it couldn’t break me so badly,
but the agony still extinguishes the illumination
within my irises, within my pupils,
within my soul.
There is a darkness deeper than I care to admit,
but I cannot hide from forever.
(My fire has not ignited in days,
yet I cannot hide in bed
and relinquish myself to the shadows
completely.)

I swore to myself
I would not drown in thoughts such as these,
but sometimes,
the devastations are greater than I can control.

It sometimes feels as though
I am caught in a riptide,
the ocean current pulling me away
from everyone who loves me
until all they are is a speck of sand,
a memory.

(My honesty is raw,
my words are plain.
I usually hide behind an ornate metaphor
crafted carefully and I tread with caution –
not to overstep the boundary lines.)

I have picked up the pen several times,
but the ink well is dry
and my thoughts crystallize
like honey thickening as it cools.
Nothing makes sense when the demons
take the reins
& I try to swallow the bile down.

I try to offer a courageous smile,
but I feel weak and collapsing
is the only option I have sometimes.

Don’t judge me for the anguish I carry.
Each one is a sparrow beating its wings
inside my chest,
desperate to be released but finding a home
buried deep in my rib cage
alongside that dimly burning crystal
that is a barely beating heart.

(I cannot swallow
for all the feathers that have climbed
from my chest to my throat,
from my throat to the wet insides of my mouth.)

So, instead, with this inexplicable sadness,
I lie here,
my heart – my sparrows – knocking against my chest
(an unspoken tragedy bearing down on me).

Isabelle Palerma

Image via freepik.com

Poet Spotlight On: Carol Goldstone Majola

Carol Majola is a trained ECD educator, business management student, self proclaimed poet and author, and aspiring entrepreneur. She is passionate about community building and helping youth tackle social ills affecting them. Majola is advocate for issues such as bullying, GBV, and substance abuse. She believes that her purpose is healing and that words written or spoken are powerful to break but also heal and she found healing in poetry. To Carol, the two most powerful things are Love and words.

When did you start writing poetry?

I fell in love with poetry when we were learning about the history of our country when we were in school, when whites and blacks were separated during the apartheid era. And I fell in love with how expressive the writers of the “struggle” were and how they used the art to cope with their pain and loss, to communicate their feelings more eloquently. But it was when I lost my father at the age of nine, that I wrote my first poem.

What are your favorite words?

I am a lover so my favourite word is “love”.

My name “Carol” because it means “a joyful song”. I feel it explains why I love music so much.

Do you have a particular style of poetry you write? Have you ever experimented with form poetry? What were the results?

I do not think I have a particular style of writing my poetry, although most of my poems are in a similar structure. They are more expressive than rhythmic though.

I love words and playing around with words and therefore experimenting with form poetry was inevitable. My first exposure to poetry was form and studying poetry. With my work, I feel that form gave it more structure and allowed me to experiment with my rhyme scheme. Although the consideration of my lines and stanzas made it seem limiting in how I could express in depth, it did teach me careful consideration of my word choice.

April is Global Poetry Writing Month. Who are some of your favorite poets from around the world?

One of my memorable olden day favourite poet together with the likes of Charles Causley, would be a South African Poet by the name of “KEORAPETSE WILLIAM KGOSITSILE” who was not only a poet but a social and political activist who lived in Exile in the US in 1962. I love how he encouraged interest in Africa, African poetry and the practice of poetry as a performance art. Origins and Santamaria are some of my favorite works by him.

Maya Angelou has always been my favorite, as well as Rudy Francisco. I have my recent favourites who I have experienced through social media – Yaw Osafo (KINGYAW FROM GHANA) residing in the states and Hafsat Abdullahi (HAVFY FROM NIGERIA)…such powerful young poets.

A Conjugal Suicide

Floating, barely breathing
beneath the waters,
In a bottomless ocean.
Drowning, for I sold myself
at the price of trust
I recklessly handed over.
Sun rays cast between my fears,
Water covering my stream of tears,
My wails muffled in the deep,
Not even those shoring at sea
Can see me, nor my weeps hear.
I am dazed swimming in agony,
In a sea a path to which I built
With brick and mortar with which
I tried to build my home
That now lies desolate and forgone.

– Carol Goldstone Majola