Literary genius Sylvia Petter spiritedly walks onto the podium of fame carrying poetry candle-lights

Sylvia Petter is a prolific chronicler and seasoned wordsmith of our times. Her razor-sharp blood rippling verses are characterized by economized diction and mind-tilting word play. Then readers are eased by the precision, simplified verbiage and the mind- box rattling reason within her poetry.   Such artistic traits amount to literary prowess. And Sylvia Petter is a word culture torch bearer deserving a legendary walk through onto the writer’s podium of fame without amount of hesitation, doubt or restraint.  The chronicler, observer, poet and artist in Petter marries humanity, transitions, currency , history, merriment, wonderment, satire lyrical prowess and paradox. Her verses are easy to read but grindingly difficult to digest, readers must be gifted with a profoundly discerning mental eye. TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC takes pride in profiling this great extraordinary literary luminary, multi- award-winning poet and prolific writer   Sylvia Petter. Petter also sits in the Word City Monthly editorial team as the Fiction Editor. She is the author of a prolific novel All the Beautiful Liars. Together We Rise- (Blurb by Mbizo CHIRASHA).

Justitia 

Lady, are you wearing 
L’Air du Temps?

Will you cover the breast 
of discord to pay for a peek 
from under your blindfold?

The sword is heavier than you thought 
when you first took on the job. 
Then, the scales almost balanced; 
you held them in one hand.

Now you need two.

—–

This poem was written when in the US there was a fuss about a statue needing to be covered up. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1788845.stm

Published in 2005 in Cadenza, Offshoots VIII and Ex Tempore.

Spices

In the tang of winter warm 
and summer cool, 
the taste and smell 
of crumbled 
cinnamon, 
the gentle brush 
against the velvet grain, 
his backhand stroke 
of sprinkled golden down 
grazed her nape 
to hold her 
firm and long. 
 
His hand slipped 
guided 
by a finger cool 
and teased 
down 
the heart folds 
of her spine. 
 
She closed her eyes 
and took 
his honeyed strength 
knowing 
she must drown 
in the nutmeg  taste of him. 
 
—- 
Published in 2001 in Ex Tempore and in 2003 at Mind Caviar.  It also appeared online at Fictionaut.

The Tourist Visa

“The North Pole is melting

so where do we go?”

“Why, off to the Jungfrau,

she’s covered in snow.

I’ll call myself Rudi,”

the last reindeer said,

“and we’ll fly down to earth

and just park our sled.”

“But what about visas?

They’re sticklers, I hear.

We can’t say we do chimneys

and spread loads of good cheer.”

“No worries, Santa,

as tourists we’ll go.

You’ll clip your whiskers

and I’ll turn off my glow.”

“But the gifts from the North Pole,

so many, so fine?”

“We’ll get us a laptop

and send them online.

Then we’ll sit in the sun

surrounded by snow

and your beard will grow back

and I’ll turn on my glow.”

And so on the day the North Pole dissipated

Santa and Rudolph to Schweiz relocated.

Third prize in the 3rd Annual Poetry Competition ‘Christmas in Switzerland’ run by Bergli Books, Basel: 

Telco Fair

Uniforms.

Black skirts slit

to thighs.

Ties.

Cellphones stuck

to earlobes.

Eyes

roaming

unseeing

in the buzz,

the cacophony of

business deals

or

at least

the seduction of

neophytes

on the lookout for

gadgets.

My head spins

in the fuzz

of Millennium tools

and I long for

the still of the desert

before it is littered

with the husks

of spent

mobile phones.

Published in 2001 in Ex Tempore, Geneva.

Sylvia Petter  ,Austrian-born Australian now based in Vienna, Austria, after 25 years in the Geneva area where she worked for a UN specialized agency (ITU). Trained as a translator in Vienna and Brussels, she came to Geneva via Helsinki to work at a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. She started writing fiction in the 90s and at 60 got her PhD in Creative Writing at UNSW in Sydney. Her debut novel, All the Beautiful Liars, was published in the UK in March 2020 just before her 71^st birthday which she celebrated with her family in Sydney. During the prolonged lockdown stay there, she revised her second novel, Ambergris. Her short stories have been published widely online and in print and in her collections, The Past Present, Back Burning, Mercury Blobs, and Consuming the Muse – erotic tales, as well as in German in Geflimmer der Vergangenheit. She writes short, long, serious, sexy and fun, and is now working on flash fiction compendia.

Mbizo CHIRASHA( Time of the Poet Republic Curator)   Author of a Letter to the President. co-Authored Whispering Woes of Ganges and Zambezi. Co-Edited Street Voices Poetry Collection (Germany Africa Poetry Anthology). Co- Editor of the Corpses of Unity Anthology.  Associate Editor at  Diasporia(n) online. Chief Editor at Time of the Poet Republic. Founding Editor at WomaWords Literary Press. Publisher at Brave Voices Poetry journal.  Curator at Africa Writers Caravan. UNESCO-RILA Affiliate Artist at University of Glasgow. 2020 Poet in Residence Fictional Café. 2019 African Fellow, IHRAF.ORG. Project Curator and Co-Editor of the Second Name of Earth is Peace (Poetry Voices Against WAR Anthology). Contributing Essayist to Monk Arts and Soul Magazine.  Poetry and writtings appear in  FemAsia Magazine ,Wrath -Bearing Tree, Inksweat andtears journal , One Ghana One Magazine, Ofi Press, World Poetry Almanac, Demer Press , Atunis Galaxy poetry online , IHRAF Publishes , The Poet a Day , Bezine.Com , Sentinel UK, Oxford School of Poetry Pamphlet , Africa Crayons, PulpitMagazine,Poetry Pacific, Zimbolicious , Best New Poets ,Poetry Bulawayo , Gramnet webjournal, Diogen Plus , Poeisis.si , Festival de Poesia Medellin and elsewhere .