Damaged

by Roselyn Perez (reposted)

Those pieces which remain unshattered,

Gleam with a brilliance that dazzles the eye,

But, saddens the Heart, eats the spirit,

Like the firelight that must slowly die,

Even as its passion burns,

 

Yet this broken thing, this bird with one working wing,

Seeks to soar, smash through the latched door,

As one of fate’s many battered children,

It’s compromised, but not quite lost,

 

Every scar a point of pride,

A high mark on the test of time,

Dark horse’s universe in its prime,

Still waiting for the truth to shine through,

Life, imperfect, avant garde.

 

Roselyn Perez is the fifth of six children, all girls.  Two of her sisters, as well as herself have lived with retinitis pigmentosa all of their lives.  She is 25 years old, resides in Southern California, and is studying creative writing at CSUN.  Her poems have been featured in Eclipse, Literary Journal, Think Journal, and Magnets and ladders.

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Wind Chimes

by Nancy Scott

Bells perched upon near air. 

Time’s whim of tinsel

floating seconds between

roaring trucks and

summer’s windows-open car bass.

Harmonies of brass

almost breathe melodies remembered.

Measures mark place

and somewhere tuned beyond place

never needing more than one octave.

Each person thinks

but rarely mentions

that only he hears

and only she appreciates

the extra push

before rounding the corner.

 

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet.  Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.

The Spark

by Mani G. Iyer

You waited for the perfect spark

an excruciatingly long time, when

the only fire,

like the moon, waxed

from the smoldering embers

stoked by the breath of

love, hope and therapy,

before waning, out of habit.

 

It was perhaps, the longing of

your unfinished work

with your daughter,

your unfulfilled immigrant dreams,

wanting to feel the cool soil of

the garden you lovingly tended,

the surprises on the road ahead,

waiting to ambush you, that 

made an obstinate warrior of you.

 

You have now received an alien spark

on its capricious journey to

an incandescent inferno,

through which light, you can

rediscover yourself,

through which heat, you can

rekindle relationships,

through which soul, you can

be you again.

 

Mani G. Iyer was born and raised in Bombay, India and has lived in the United States since 1985.  He is deaf-blind due to Usher Syndrome.  He became deaf by the age of 4, night-blind by the age of 12, and now has very little usable vision.  Mani has just been awarded a writing fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center this coming September.

Legally Blind

by Coriel O’Shea Gaffney

In darkness my eyes find their true expression.

I underachieve, giddy.

 

Days demand I expend my curiosity confirming

the accuracy of each story I’ve deduced.

Night composes my truth:

humble world, easy breath.

 

I’ve spent my life projecting expectation

into forests of ponytails and desire into ponds of thumbs;

performing, daily, reverse-alchemy: deer to stick,

man to sign-post, turtle to rock, mouse to glove, water bug

to paper ball, spider to dust bunny, rainbow to wisp of hair.

Killing what breathes in favor of what fits.

 

Precision is not my native tongue, nor speed.

I squeeze my stomach to my spine

and try to memorize the lane as she loses interest.

A New Penn Truck going an even 60 m.p.h. beckons.

I ride her rattling certainty for an hour.

A cavalier driver frowns.

Obtuse if disciplined, all of us

stages of waning light.

 

Coriel O’Shea Gaffney is legally blind in her right eye since childhood (and was, for a time, legally blind in both eyes) as a result of Toxoplasmosis. She received her MFA from The City College of New York where she is also an Adjunct Lecturer.  She has been a featured poet for the Turnstyle, Earshot!, Bushwick, Franklin Park Literary Series, the louderARTS Project, to name a few.  As a member of the feminist collaborative 500Genders, she has been featured at the Bowery Poetry Club, Stain Bar, and Perch Café. Publications include: Lyre, Lyre, Union Station, Scapegoat Review, Promethean and more. Coriel was the recipient of the Jerome Lowell Dejur Award in Poetry and the CCNY Teacher-Writer Award.