The HyperTexts

Bob Zisk: Unleashed

This is a recurring column in which Bob Zisk publishes poems by poets who appeal to him, and will no doubt appeal to many readers as well.

June 2026:

Six poems by Angela Segredaki ...

Angela Segredaki holds a CW degree from Oxford University and loves poetry, flowers, and people. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, The Ekphrastic Review, New Lyre, Amsterdam Quarterly, Mouthful of Salt, The Adelaide Literary Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Dawntreader, Snakeskin and elsewhere. She’s currently collaborating with the American poet Julia Denton on a joint poetry collection.

"Since I first read poetry by Angela Segredaki a couple years ago, I have been a fan. I first knew her as an accomplished writer of formal verse. But these poems which Angela recently sent me  show that her range of expression is not confined to accentual-syllabic verse. I hope that both regular readers of THT and visitors will appreciate these very readable free verse poems as much as I do." (Bob Zisk, May 25, 2026)

Gina asks for an ice cream to feed a pigeon

flowers and freshness
painted clouds float on a blue tablecloth
where Gina just finished her ice cream.
her dress, the chair, streaks everywhere
a shared spill of sweetness.

she speaks to a pigeon, unafraid
of fingertips or open hands
loneliness is not their tongue
it pecks at little weeds, seeking seeds
and they both belong to where they stand

playing the game of being, ignoring
regrets and guilt streaks. she speaks
like white jasmine, telling truths
I’ve forgotten, while the pigeon
nods with understanding.

Gina then takes my hand and asks
in freshly grown words
for an ice cream for her bird-friend
making me wonder, how I missed 
the moment the bird said yes



Wooden Dolls’ Houses

dolls’ houses
those wooden houses
that we used to play in when
we were      little
in one room we put a bed
where our dolls dreamt
and loved dearly.
in
another room, they would sit together, together, together
and talk through the night.

wooden dolls’ houses
full of childhood dreams

wooden    people
wooden hearts
in one room

themselves

there are no other rooms



Beneath

To my soulmate Lies Nijdam

I lick my wounds in the dark
store sweetness like sunlight
keep the old spell of return.

Nothing above ground bears witness
yet every hill is swollen
the trees stripped bare
their stillness listens.

I unearth Demeter
a year that would not turn
a hand beside her
an incantation—stay
in the bruised light

Or me 
after the divorce
and the women circling close
when my life slipped its roots.

We walked like that
across days that feigned emptiness

I went low
and listened

They stayed.

Love
uprooted
goes dark
sweetens

one day 
unannounced

green,


Inheritance

A sharp sound rang upon the ground
lost in leaves
and settling shadows.
Deep in the night, my home was still
a moon moth perched
upon the sill.

The echo lingered, stirred the trees
a hush uncoiled
through ivy greens.
The wind, the clouds, the breath of frost
whispered gently
'Think what you’ve lost.’

I turned, but no one called my name
only silence 
only cold.
When all at once, I knew what broke
a button slipped from
this old coat.

The woollen coat I had on
started showing
frayed and worn.
A second button gone, not missed
the shoulders sagged 
the torn threads hissed.

The skin I wore was never mine 
a borrowed gift
I could not shed.
And as the moonbeams softly swarmed
I thought I felt
my mother’s arm.

This vagabond, too wide, too worn
held warmth I never 
claimed before.
And in the daybreak as light grew
I bore its weight and walked on
through.


Threshold, with a Horse in the Distance

Look, I thought what we built would love us enough
to take us back. The way sometimes a body forgives
a back you’ve burdened past bearing
a heart you’ve asked and asked too much.

There were days so warm I could feel my bones relaxing
like oars lifted from the water. We called that happiness:
the slow clicking of engines in the dark. 
We carried plastic bags full of fruit
apologies hanging in closets beside last year’s coats.

No villain, just the hungry habit of more:
more light, more miles, more everything. Our love
wanted to grow past its edges, like wisteria until
the fence remembers it has ribs.

I keep thinking about the first glacier between us
how it kept dripping; a language of patience
I didn’t understand. I was young enough to think
weight meant forever.

You took my hand. Your hand was weather then;
April, not August. Later the heat came
and made itself ordinary. Not all at once. Like anger:
quiet, then claiming your voice.
We conjugated it. We got fluent.

We had crossed the line where canopy becomes cinder.
The forest inside us knew before we did.
The day you broke a plate and laughed.
The day I cried in the produce aisle
without a name for it.

Meanwhile the world kept tilting toward its thick fever
and so did I. Not punishment; just the body saying enough
and the window opening.

The horse in the distance keeps running
unhaltered. The world swells beyond its limits
fissured, still leafing in the broken places.
The light is already doing its foolish, faithful thing
across the face of the water.



Mrs Prometheus

She does not remember
when the sentence was passed
only that each morning
is fastened to her.

The alarm cleaves the dark.
A small hand finds her sleeve.
Milk warms. Shoes are found.
The day begins before she does

at the sink, at the bus stop
in the fluorescent glare of the office.
It returns,
not myth
but the same precise taking:
the quiet subtraction
of what she might have been.

Still, she stands.

In meetings where her voice
is taken, repackaged, returned
with a different name.
In corridors where her body
is measured before her words arrive.
In numbers that tilt
slightly away from her.

Evening:
she gathers what remains of herself
from the margins of the day.

A voice sparked
bright as flame.
Hands, reaching.

Here,

the theft undone.
Fire passed quietly
in stories half-told.

It is not grand.
But it persists

through exhaustion
through small violences
no one records
through the long arithmetic
of being diminished
and continuing.

Tomorrow, it will come again.
And again
she will rise into it.
Not untouched.
Not unmarked.
Still carrying heat
kept alive
enough to warm 
the next pair of hands.

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