"BEST ENTRIES" chosen in a recent April Monthly Visual Arts/Poetry Prompt Challenge, the poetry of DANNY BEST and SHWETA SAHAI. " HAVE FAITH " Yet another setback to have to deal with, after several others already. Life can seem so very frustrating and so completely unfair. If only I had someone to help me I thought, someone to direct me as I'd so often prayed for. Someone to guide me so I'd get everything right the first time.

It would really make my life so much easier and help to encourage me to keep trying even harder "if only" (I'd kept whispering to myself) while nuzzling my sleepy head down into my pillow. " MY GUARDIAN ANGEL " I stumbled upon my Guardian Angel
last night
she was veiled in the faint golden shadows
of a dancing quavering candlelight
and I could hear her whispering softly
everything will be alright
sleep tight... sleep tight
everything will be alright
then I beheld a bright wide sweeping flash
blinked hard
and watched her calmly take flight
yeah
I had stumbled upon my Guardian Angel
last night
and
everything is alright ... everything is alright.

© DANNY BEST
(Sandman the Dreamer) "A WOMAN, AN ANGEL"
(Using the literary device of Anadiplosis) A woman, born a human
Humans changed the human
Changed her into an angel
An angel carved in stone.

The stone was very beautiful
Beautiful to touch and see
She could not see what happened
What happened to the human.

The human became a woman
The woman became a stone
A stone angel in life
A stone which was born a human
A human changed to woman.

© SHWETA SAHAI The first image in the slideshow is a Paintography overlay by Carl Scharwath, who gave ILA Magazine permission to use in April's monthly visual/poetry prompt challenge and offered by our Facebook Group. The overlay consists of three images: one painting and two photographs. Carl's model is poet Lorna Datario from Hong Kong. Their recent collaboration was published (along with two other works of art) in Spirit Fire Review.

The second image is of Poet Danny Best and his unique style of "colorful" writing of his Short Story-to-Poem:
"Have Faith" and "Guardian Angel"