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Lysz Flo
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the poet
AfroCaribbean Latine polyglot Lysz Flo is an indie author, podcast host and member of The Estuary Collective. She won the Ignyte Award for Creative Non-Fiction in 2024, was a Voodoonauts Summer Fellow in 2020, a Grubstreet Instructor in 2024, and an Obsidian Black Listening Fellow in 2022. A creative educator since 2020 – with a writing workshop series in MOCA NOMI – Lysz is the author of poetry novel Soliloquy of an Ice Queen. Her poems can be found in FIYAH, The Hellebore, Lolwe and Strange Horizons, amongst other places, and she's done various multimedia projects with O, Miami.
the poems
a sestina of the grief
that lives in yearning
how do I greet the grief in yearning
the hoping for something to happen
dreams of hands held in a sea of stars
are we a constellation of impossibilities
to be poet & ocean—sleeping in a desert
a lover lost in a chase of majestic echoes
a majestic chase | a lover lost in echoes
I am greeted by the grief in yearning
to be an ocean—a poet asleep | a desert
absorbed in hoping for something to happen
is my desire a constellation of impossibilities
dreams of hands held | a sea of stars
hands dream to be held in a sea of stars
love lost in a chasm of magic echoes
my grief constellation of impossibilities
greet how I remain in yearning
the grief of hoping for a constellation to happen
to be poet & ocean—forced to be desert
to be poet & ocean—yearning in a desert
dreams of hands deserted in a sea of stars
hoping for something to happen
lost | a lover | a chase | met magnanimous echoes
how do I agree there is grief in yearning
are we a constellation & impossibilities
we are a constellation of impossibilities
to be a sleeping poet & ocean dried to a desert
how does the morning greet grief ‘s yearning
a sea | of dreams of hands held in stars
a lover majestically lost in the echoes
& hoping for something to happen
hoping for some one to happen
are we a constellation of impossibilities
already lost loving majestic echoes
cursed to be poet & ocean—emptying in a desert
dimming dreams of hands held in dying stars
how do we greet grief in all this yearning
in how I greet grief in my yearning
haunted by dreams holding hands in a sea of stars
as a poet & voracious ocean—slumbering in a desert
Over the rice
there has been
laughter
there is
love
there is
a rice going cold right now
watching an argument
rice been here
wild
a few feet tall
watching
the world go by
the sound of births
the people fight
the feeling of being seasoned in tears
the observer of many histories
Rice been
& as we become
there is rice right now
holding the mold of a child’s fist
& shaking in a plate with an adult’s
rice been
feeding us
through sorrows
through deserts
food
& heat alike
rice has stood
with us
in the
rain
now replace rice
with a name
& see
how much love
rice has given
Glimmers
I woke up and the sky was the bluest of bluest of blues.
No cloud—just sun and blue | on shuffle—black like you starts playing and I already know that love is in the suns beams coming through the window.
My bestie calls me early and I worry—but they say—have a good day friend. Thank you for loving me. & maybe the world isn’t healing but I am. I am. I am.
I woke up and the sky was the bluest of bluest of blues.
And I get a random cash app for this meal I was craving—just when I was down to my last few dollars and cents. The sun follows me down the road. Soledad and I drive down to my favorite spot. & they already know my order.
I woke up and the sky was the bluest of bluest of blues.
My crush mentions to me mangoes. Looking for a way to fill the space between time and perhaps mutual possibility. Or maybe its two Haitians talking about Mangoes.
Mangoes were gifted to me after pining for weeks. Big melon sized—golden currency mangoes. And I know ‘I am loved by somebody.’
I woke up and the sky was the bluest of bluest of blues.
I have been enclosed from these glimmers. Trapped within my own silence. Calling myself away from home. Frequency waning. But today the sky is the bluest of bluest of blues. And love came with me in a bag with mangoes.
This is the closest I get to a kiss and embrace—my hands balancing this overflowing bag. Of golden offerings of joy. A gift. An unknowing answered prayer.
I woke up and the sky was the bluest of bluest of blues.
My crush compliments me and I am glowing could be the mangoes or could be the compliment. I have forgotten to embody the sun, but apparently everyone can see my beams through the virtual windows. I have been the bluest of bluest of blues. But today I am golden, and sun, and love. I am glimmering in hope. Black like you starts to play and I. Look forward to the possibilities. Of crushes or moreso blooms.
No clouds but precise vision & windows—the love.
The joy, glimmers
Publishing credits
All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb