David Milley

@davidmilley.com

662 Followers 1665 Following

Long-time married, queer, gay man, retired developer and tech writer, enjoying time with hubby and writing seriously again, mostly verse and memoir. 🏳️‍🌈 No LGB, or any other letter, without the T: 🏳️‍⚧️

Screen capture of partial web page displaying the title "Former Flame Fridays - David Milley," followed by the date, 7/24/26, the pink flame troublemaker firestarter avatar and the publisher's name, Davi, all in white print on a black background. In black type in a white display box appear the first five lines of the poem "Poseidon" by David Milley: "You stride from surf onto the beach. /The waves wash your thighs. Aphrodite, /but hairy, you rise from the sea. You dash, /to join me where a wait by our car.//Hitting hard sand, your feet sink, ... "
Cover of RFD Magazine #206, Summer 2026, "Nature" issue. Detail of "Loutre, Uffita & Coco" my Miscanthus. Three nude, bearded men share an embrace while reclining in a field of grass beside a green woods.
The logo of CrayfishMag, a line drawing of a crayfish with the letters forming the magazine's name wrap around it, appears centered on a light yellow-gray background. The lower half of the background is overlaid with pink stripes in a gentle wave pattern.
The logo for Pulse Nightclub in black and white on a black background, with a white remembrance ribbon floating over it to the upper right. The six colors of the rainbow are arranged as bars beneath the logo.
Screen capture of the banner at the Silly Goose Press web site. The words "Pride Out Loud" appear in white against a rainbow background. Below, the words "Letter from the Editor" and "PDF" appear n white against a purple background.
Image of a printed certificate with the words, "The 8th Annual October Project Poetry Contest 2026, Honorable Mention, David Milley, for the poem "Trefoil." Laurel branches flank the words. The web site name "octoberproject.com" appears at the bottom of the certificate.
A cartoon of a person in a vest and sportcoat, with a third-quarter moon for a head. The reader stands at a microphone on a small stage, reading from a book. Curtains are tied back on either side of the stage and a high stool is set to the side, unused. The name "Fergie'" appears in a banner above the reader and the words "Featured Poets 2025" appear below.
Screen capture of a section of text from the memoir story, "Hospitality," by David Milley: "Hospitality "Rounding the curve on Route 301, the road leading from Orangeburg to Columbia, I spied the Howard Johnson’s as it appeared from behind a stand of pine trees. In 1964, Howard Johnson’s was one of the largest chains of restaurants in the world, dotting more or less every highway in the country. "Dad pulled our huge black Mercury into the paved lot and the five of us trooped inside, Dad leading, then, by age, John Ross, Jane, and me. Mom followed close. A little blonde waitress, smiling, met us near the door and led the way inside. "A tall man I thought I’d seen before shared a booth by the window in front with a pretty woman. She wore a dark blue dress with little pink flowers all over it, and a little gold hat; the man wore a brown suit. I made to wave as the hostess led us past them to the counter, but Mom grabbed my hand. “David, don’t,” she hissed. “Do you want to get them killed?” "Mom rarely hissed. It was her signal that we were under threat. I put down my hand. "I gravely watched the couple in the front booth as we passed. Paying me no mind, they kept on with their quiet chat. I thought I saw Dad give a slight nod in their direction, and the man’s hand may have waved a tiny bit in the middle of a gesture to his companion."
Detail of a public domain LandSat image from U.S. Geologial survey, taken from orbit. It shows the eastern Kamchatka Peninsula extending into the Pacific Ocean. At this resolution the land and ocean appear as abstract swirls of blue and red. The word "Shadowplay" in white lettering appears in the upper part of the image.
Detail of Kreatif Magazine cover image by Hermann Josef Hack. Rough sketches of people and humanoid beings, rendered in pen, pencil, and charcoal styles on a crumpled and uncrumpled sheet of papar, exhibit varying expressions of struggle and rage. A large, blue, fur-covered figure wielding a whip dominates the center of the illustration. Disembodied heads and a red stain cover its torso. More disembodied heads as well as more complete figures fill the surrounding area. One figure appears to wield a pistol. Another, in the foreground, wears a mask. Above the illustration appear the words "Kreatif, Spring 2026."
Cover art by Natalia Loginove for the Spring 2026 issue of Remington Review. Red and blue flowers carpet the foreground; a field of wheat fills the background. Above the wheat butterflies flit. Birds soar among light clouds in the distant sky.
Photograph of a small booklet of poems folded from a sheet of typewriter paper, resting on an unfolded sheet of paper on which the booklet also been printed. The booklet cover is illustrated with a photograph of five small ceramic figures: a fish, a mermaid, a treasure chest, a ship's helm, a manatee, and a seahorse. Above the cover photo, the booklet is titled "Aquarium Set, The Wade Whimsies." The author's name, David Milley, appears beneath the photo.
Photograph of Hawk and Whippoorwill magazine, Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2020. The cover illustration shows seedlings and their root systems in cross section. The magazine stands on a table top in a greenhouse, with a large, round cactus and a Christmas cactus in clay pots behind it.
Photograph of RFD Magazine's magazine cover for Spring 2026. In Jan Ziegler's illustration "maybe everything was different," in somber tones of blue and ping, a dark-haired man facing the viewer wipes tears from his left eye. In the upper left corner appear the letters "RFD" in large, white type, with "Number 205/Spring 2026/$11.95" immediately underneath. The word "Heartbreak" is printed in white across the man's right shoulder in the bottom left corner of the painting.
On a cold, sunny day in Philadephia, a white-bearded man wearing sunglasses and a tan baseball cap holds a flagpole from which an American flag and a Progress Pride flag drape around him.
Front cover of Berkeley Poetry Review issue 55, featuring art by Sophie Yi, composed of abstracted natural images in shades of brown and beige.
Partial image of a book cover for the literary magazine Loch Raven Review, which features a painting by Ruth Leavitt Fallon of two women standing near each other on a beach on a clear day. The woman on the right holds an infant against her chest in a gray cloth sling. The woman on the left holds another child within a sling fashioned from a long, wide, white shawl with its head turned away from the observer, in the direction of the shoreline. The words "Loch Raven Review" appear above the painting.
Photograph of the top portion of the cover for Snowflake Magazine, Anthology IV, containing the magazine title, the ISSN number 2754-5903 and Volume 4 Issue 4. The text appears over a lavender background of flowers, designed and laid out by Mairnan Barton and Matt David.
The cover of a micro-chapbook entitled "Figurines Pulled from Boxes of Tea" by David Milley. A photograph of seven small figurines takes up the center of the image: two gray geese, a white ram, a red crab, a brown raccoon, a green turtle, and, in back a model of the Taj Mahal in yellow. The figurines appear against a blue cloth backdrop and the grouping is reflected below the photograph.
An owl with one eye closed stares intently at the cameral. It's yellow, open eye provides the only color in an otherwise grayscale photograph. Above the owl's head appear the words "Ink & Ember Magazine."
Summer peaches in vivid tones of red and orange pack in rows across the photographic magazine cover. The title "Querencia Press" appears in an ornate font aligned perpendicular to the page. To the right of the title, the issue name, "Summer 2025" appears, and below it, "Edited by Emily Perkovich."
Three people of African extraction, calmly, intently--one is smiling--tie ropes into the shape of a spiderweb, with help from other people outside this detail of a larger illustration. The words "Santa Fe Literary Review, Volume 20, 2025" overlay the picture.
Detail of the cover of Moss Piglet Magazine's June 2025 issue, a painting by Marc Simmons, "Bob in the Garden," of a flower garden in full bloom. A man in blue pants and a light blue floral shirt sits on a stone, holding a white cat with both hands. A turtle swims in a rock-lined pool nearby. The pool is fed by a small green statue of two figures embracing. An empty yellow flowerpot stands on the left edge of the pool. In the foreground are small clumps of various flowers. Behind the pool, a rabbit sits on green lawn. In the background, espaliered trees flower against a wooden fence.
Graphic of red, orange, and green paint stripes over a black rhomboid on a dark blue background, bearing the date 19 June 2025" and the words "Juneteenth Freedom Day."
Photo of crowd at Philadelphia's "No Kings" rally, highighting six large flags held in a line by participants: "Resist," bisexual pride, inclusive LGBTQ+ pride, transgender pride, the 1960s peace symbol, and the American flag.
Detail of the cover of the May 2025 issue of Moss Piglet magazine. The detail shows an illustration of a woman's head, her face thrown back in joy, eye closed, as she sings.
Gray-bearded man wearing a straw hat with a bee veil, a bandana under his hat around his forehead, peers around a small beehive with a cluster of honeybees at the entrance. He raises his bare arm and hand into the air to coax the many bees still flying to join the others in claiming the hive.
The poem "Ignition," written by David Milley, as it appears in The Amphibian Art and Literary Journal, Issue 8. Ignition In the news today, a foolish man died, killed by the homemade blue smoke bomb he'd made to say what he thought would be the fate of the fetus filling his wife's womb. It still seems important, I guess, to some, to decide if every child will be boy or a girl. As if there aren't enough of both to spare, like those are the only choices in the world. Today, Jae turns thirty. Jae unfurls gender, speaks at last their own true name out loud. Free now, Jae dons new garb, looks up, breathes, turns to face the world made new, proud. A shadowed orb spins slowly, suddenly alight. Clouds sunder. A newborn star burns bright.
Close-up photograph of a young tabby cat laying on her back in a bed of ivy, pine needles and oak leaves. She stares at the camera appraisingly and her left paw hovers over her chest, relaxed, but prepared to strike.
Close-up photograph of David Milley with a white beard, wearing a tan ball cap and a green tee-shirt, standing in front of a stone culvert at Whitman's Walk in Laurel Springs, NJ.
Photograph of David Milley and Warren Davy, taken in the late 1980s, standing side-by-side in the side yard of their house.
Close-up photograph of honeybee about to take off from the edge of a pink camellia bloom.