Valiant Scribe
A literary hub giving voice to the voiceless by retelling the human experience

Until then, I long for my father to find rest, to fly away on the wings of a dove,* which is perhaps masquerading as a crow...

They killed a man whose words still echo forgiveness in the spaces under the Walnut Street Bridge, even the unspoken ones they know not...

I wanted to leave this earth, join you and your son. You wanted nothing of it. Sent angels to rip up my passport, keep me in the country.

An adjective people throw around when feeling energetic or unfocused. A joke for most is a reality for me.

The last time I passed by the house it was derelict and overgrown, regressing to an Irish-style wilderness.

I walked where Passenger trains Carried lives and Their once warm, Now cold, dreams And I was part of Each life, now gone To ether and mist

as we kickboard our lives across imaginary lines our hearts tied up in plastic bags drifting out to sea.

I am expatriate, my motherland, the one that birthed and then betrayed me, no longer my home. No songs of redemption, no longer

Her writing became bolder. In the long, lonely hours alone, she ruminated over the fate of those captured.

The forest never sleeps and also cries for redemption, the soul of the Amazon, the trees of life-giving air.

Meth, opioids, other street drugs claim a spot on the pavement, offering communion with the concrete, the dark like a stern overlord,

I’m sorry.  I didn’t recognize you, in the soiled coat and blue jeans, shuffling along the subway station, praying for money from heaven.

“If there is no God, what is left?” he interrogated himself.  He stood motionless in a warm, dry wind, felt himself falling into an eternity

shallow breathing - high piercing sirens screech in the streets - crouching shoulders - whispers - fences keeping enemies of the state in -

The clouds above you form as the moon rises, you try to give them a sense of purpose, you know that the messenger with the bad news won’t...

My home in Syria, loud bangs I hear, my hands on my ears, mama say bombs fall from the sky, she grab me down the stairs like she is the wind

To my brother and surrogate thank you for gifting me life to see the light in my unborn son's eyes,

The siren startles with its high-pitched fever, late summer night, sending folks scrambling down side streets or indoors. Cops are either...

And in the undisturbed brick and limestone, everything quietly waiting for the nocturnal, the gutters to run clear,

My parents decided not to give my brother a funeral. I guess they didn’t want to talk about his death. I know I didn’t. Instead, we had a...