The Red Hibiscus: Anthology Vol.19 Preface
“Aeneas’ mother is a star?”
“No; a goddess.”
I said cautiously, “Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia
Quite recently (on March 25–26) Venus aligned with the Sun, which is a pivotal point on her cycle and is known as Venus Cazimi. It is at this stage that Venus will transition from a morning star to an evening star. It will take some time, but eventually we will be able to see Venus shining brightly as a star in our night sky.
Magic apples of immortality, or of death-and-rebirth, are common to most Indo-European mythologies. The apples are usually dispensed by the Goddess/Venus to a man, hero, ancestor, or god. It’s my honor and pleasure to open this edition with a trinity of poems from the Big Apple itself! A resident of New York, Michael O’Donnell is an American writer of poems, screenplays and plays. He has written internationally known films. Fevered Louise especially starts out as a psychospiritual journey of Aeneas with all the evocations of the stormy seas and ends on a purely shamanistic note:
Call that God.
Call it what you will; this is a fever poem,
make of it what you wish.
Make your
fevered wish
come true.
Eve Chilicas has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Three Line Poetry and Tanka Journal. Her boundless, if not oceanic, passion for writing conjures up a magic of its own. Crown Love Flames and A Multiverse Pea brim with a positively leonine brute force of poetic expression and Venusian love of life. Eve is an author of Parnassus Dreams: A Poetry Novel and Supernatural: Sci-Fi Poetry. Please find her work on Amazon:
The moon flickers brightly over the ocean,
the buds of odyssey are in bloom, what will become
of a beautiful kingdom city in ashes? Once a place,
where mystic lovers dreamt amidst an enchantment
of sky and paradise. Is there hope? Parnassus Dreams
is shrouded by mysticism, prophetic imagery, love,
romance and adventurous epicures. From heart break,
to loss, to war and death, to celebrations, Come get lost,
as the poetic narrations live on, from page to page
(Eve Chilicas)
Diana Thoresen,
Palm Cove, Australia
07/04/2021
