submit my poems to journals (monthly)

on submissions, I see; I sent poems out in January, February, & March-April (2 sets), & then nothing till tonight. I just sent three Colombia poems to a UK-based journal that has a current call out for narrative pieces. That catches me up through May, then.

I have my eye on a few other journals that are new to me. Maybe tomorrow evening I can get two other submissions together so as to be up to date on this.

In my dream I see people. Their are people, who are walking off a plank. In my dream, I am scared, yet I am not afraid to do a thing. I step off of the plank and take a dive into the water, as those two seconds of falling, everything I had ever done, said or could remember, suddanly came back to me. As I land into the water, and dunk my head up, all I can see is the world, and all that the world can see is me. As I wonder how I got to this point in my life? How in the night I end up where I am. Why a plank, and not a pool perhaps? But clear to my thoughts, I let my soul run free; give it up, to the others, and let them rip it apart. I know that this is not what the correct answer would be, but it is what I have to do. As I let my mind wander, to what I was thinking, I now think of my life, and all the mistakes that I have made so far. I knew just at that moment exactly, that clearing my soul, and letting my mind drift away to all of those stress-full things that just were not necessary, was the right thing to do. I let the remains of my soul clear, as I await a new one. One that is stonger, smarter, and safer. This time as I take my last dunk, I step out of the water to take a walk through the forest. As I take a walk through the forest, I think of my new soul, and the experience of clearing the old. I finally decide that once a year on this very day would become soul clearing day, the day of starting fresh, and new. Suddenly I awake to the birds chirping in the sky. I get up from my bed carefully to go do what I had just experienced in my dream. So alive and full of nature it was almost like I had experienced it just that night. I smile to myself, and say I have made the right choice so I shall begin.

It is sad when only silence will suffice but too weak for silence one settles for words’ shapes and clods.

Maybe it is music I am missing, that gives me this sense of form-induced inadequacy.

Such a lucky, evening, really: I am told I pronounce “Angela” like a native Spaniard, and what else does one need but to correctly utter the names of angels, so what does it matter if I do not understand a word. Cloaked in a good pronunciation I will proceed and to hell with knowing which only makes me wish I had not.
ha-HA!

I looked back to check, & sure enough, having assumed that poem (the one just accepted by an online magazine) had been rejected, a month or two ago I entered it, along with two others, in another journal’s contest. Notification of winners will not come until late October, & in the meantime this editor has decided she wants to publish it.

A bird in the hand etc., right? So I’m saying yes to the editor who wants it now. I think the odds are pretty small that this particular poem would end up being chosen by the contest judge.

I will let the contest folks know, but there’s really no rush with that. I think. Poets/story writers, has this ever come up for you before?

The other first for me here is that I have revised the poem’s order a bit since I submitted it to the online journal, & I cut out the final stanza. Just now I sent the editor the new version; I hope she’s cool with the changes.

The editor who I thought had rejected my three poems when the new issue of her mag was posted without any response to my submission . . . just wrote to me asking to publish one of my very favorite, newer Colombia poems! Yay!

Which is not quite a culturally appropriate interjection, given that this is a U.S.-based journal, but I’m absolutely delighted. E-mail notification that just arrived:

Dear RuthG,
We at XXXX are pleased to publish “Soap is political” in our spring/international issue.
Meanwhile, please e-mail us a postal address where we can send your contributor’s copy, which should reach you by mid-May.
Poetry Editor

This is a journal that’s new to me, & this is a much-loved Colombia poem that I’ve been shopping around for a while.

Yay! yay! yay!

Words are not important,it is your eyes which talk,
let them talk and i will understand what you want to say.
words are not important,we have created them.
God has given us eyes; the eyes to talk,
they tell better what your heart says,
let them talk and i will understand what is in your heart.

words are not important,they are the mask over our feelings,
and i d’nt want you with the mask, i want you as you are.
So, open your eyes look at me….
plz look at me….
i will understand wat’s there in your heart
i can see the sun breaking down between two clouds
and a vision of you standing out in the crowd….

some time i feel i know all about others,
but after some time i feel i am in strange
in all conditions,

Love is a life, which can take us forward everytime,
i will love you until my last breadth.
b always mine and d’nt let my love fall behind,
just d’nt love another b’coz i will die without you for ever….

you d’nt know how much i love you,but one time will come you will realise how much did i loved you….
So, my heart promise me that you will love me forever.
i promise you that i will love you for ever and always share my secrets with you…..

So, baby d’nt let my love fall behind
just tell me that you will always be mine