Categories
Stories

Visions by Fabiana Elisa Martínez

Fabiana Elisa Martínez

“And suddenly, among all those people I didn’t know, I had this strange feeling, this implausible realisation that I was seeing him for the first time. Handsome, confident, articulate in a language I still cannot follow with grace. And I felt this pang inside, you know, as if a naughty elf inside me were swaying my heart with a rope. How can I see my husband for the first time after having been married to him for almost eight years?”

Rosalia remained silent, observing for some speculating seconds the little square of tablet that Rita had brought for their tea.

“Your husband is exactly like this sweet, darling, which, by the way, is delicious. I need the recipe before you leave.”

“Like tablet?” Rita inclined her head to the right in the exact same way her daughter did when she heard anything worth clarification. “My grandmother Cochrane would be very honoured to know you like her Scottish tablet so much. I cannot make anybody eat it at home. Henry says it’s too sweet and Maggie too sticky.”

“Well…,” Rosalia sighed, “for me it’s perfect, and I am sure nobody in this office will say no to this morsel of Heaven. It reminds me of a dulce de leche candy my detestable mother-in-law used to make in Buenos Aires for Christmas. As you can see, even her perfect evilness was imperfect.”

Rita smiled again and rejoiced at the fact that she could come to visit her older friend at the Castelo de San Jorge with the express purpose of selfishly collecting smiles like Maggie used to collect peacock feathers in the garden before she started going to kindergarten. Rosalia’s office was a new environment for their meetings now. A step up on the podium of a friendship that had begun outside the Castelo box office under a narrow eave on a humid stone bench. Rita loved to breathe in the peace of the office, with its austere decor and dark wooden cabinets that had once cherished the delicate porcelain of Portuguese queens and now held Rosalia’s dictionaries alongside maps, brochures, and tourist forms for all those who came to witness the royal luxury of ancient times.

“So, do you mean that this feeling of seeing Henry again for the first time at the bank’s banquet is sweet like my grandmother’s tablet?”

“Not exactly. When I saw those brownish cubes on the plate, I was convinced that it would be difficult for me to bite into them. You know, my weak teeth and all that. But then I bit into one of them, and it melted on my tongue. And I felt this torrent of pleasure bursting in my mouth. I think what happened to you on Saturday is that you saw Henry like random people usually see him. You heard a far echo of the vision you had of him when you fell in love.”

Rita’s inner elf jumped from her heart to her face to make her frown and purse her lips at the same time.

“But sadly,” Rosalia continued, “you already know that what you saw is an act. The source of your confusion and your loneliness. You love a vision in a dream, a beautiful piece of candy in a perfect window shop that gets further and further away as you get closer.”

A soft knock at the door interrupted the old woman’s thought and let Rita take a sip of tea to conceal her disillusionment. Rosalia took the documents that Victor brought, turned to her side desk, and placed one of the pages in her sturdy IBM Selectric. She adjusted the corners of the paper as if she were folding a handkerchief for the ghost of one of the queens that had inhabited the Castelo centuries ago. Rosalia’s eyes were fixed on the rectangular screen of her typewriter as she turned toward Rita and pronounced in perfect French, “Trompe-l’oil…. trompe-l’oil[1] people I call them. What you see is never what you get. The man I married and later divorced, so many decades ago, was like that. Sometimes, out of the blue, I remember how elegant and self-confident he seemed to be, and still, after all this time, that elf you mentioned still plays tricks with my heart and its cords. Do you know the legend of the two Greek painters of ancient times?”

Rita looked up from her cup and raised her left red-haired eyebrow as an invitation.

“There was a competition to declare the most realistic painter in the land. Zeuxis and Parrhasius presented their art. The grapes that Zeuxis had painted were so impossibly real that birds flew into them and crushed their beaks and heads on the purple spheres. They died a cruel death, believing they were tasting the sweetest pulps and the bitterest seeds. Zeuxis, sure of his triumph, asked his opponent where his painting was. Parrhasius walked him in front of the curtain that hid his work. ‘Draw this cloth and you will see it,’ he said humbly. But Zeuxis’ eager hand trampled on the folds of a fake, perfect drapery made of shades, hues, and light. Parrhasius won not only the prize but the admiration of his enemy.”

Rita inclined her head to the left. “I’m sorry for the birds.”

“That’s why I don’t tell this story much. My granddaughter has a phobia of birds that decide to fly stubbornly in the wrong direction. I’m afraid I instilled that in her with this tale.”

Rita picked up a brown crumb from her saucer. “If only I could draw aside the curtain Henry places between himself, Maggie, and me. I’m a good wife. I don’t know what else to do.” Rita dropped the crumb and killed an imminent sob with the tip of her finger.

“You are like the candid birds, my child. You are hurt but strong. Cannot you see?   You’re making sweets with the salt of tears, pure visions of love with the threads of deceit.”

[1] Deceive the eye… deceive the eye

Fabiana Elisa Martínez authored the collections 12 Random Words and Conquered by Fog. Other works of hers have been published in literary publications on five continents.

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Categories
Poetry

Yearning for Spring in Autumn

By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Art by Frederic Edwin Church(1826–1900). From Public Domian
I WANT SPRING
 
As autumn begins
I want spring.
I don’t want winter.
I don’t want summer.
I want spring.
 
I am straying from 
the current
season. I want to
go away to spring.
 
Carry me off through
all the bers, September,
October, November,
and December. 
 
Take me away from
the rys, January and
February. I do not
need to make any
resolutions on the
year’s first day. I do not
need Valentine’s Day.
 
I want spring.
I want spring
all in bloom.


WHEN AUTUMN COMES
 
My hands are full 
living in solitude.
I love a little less
when I feel destroyed.
 
I feel anti-social
when autumn comes.
This is just a phase
I have stretched out.
 
I inaugurated sadness.
I curse the owl
that predicts my fate.
It does not like me.
 
I will love again.
I feel it in my skin.
I know it sounds absurd.
But I will love again.
 

IN THE SHADOW OF NIGHT 
 
Stumbling in the shadow of night
where the scarcity of light bleeds
over what could not be seen. It
could be a monster or fiend or friend.
 
It is easy for me to pretend what 
is not there. I don’t really know if
anyone is asking. What if it was me
who is slower than most? I am not
 
some great thief who comes out
at night. I am not brave enough to
fight the monster or the fiend. I
could face my friend with a smile.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in Los Angeles.He has been published in Blue Collar Review, Borderless Journal, Chiron Review, Kendra SteinerEditions, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His most recent poems have appeared in Four FeathersPress.

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Categories
Slices from Life

Embracing the Earth and Sky…

By Prithvijeet Sinha

Saadat Ali Khan’s tomb. Photo Courtesy: Prithvijeet Sinha

In Lucknow, there’s a peculiar yet quintessential fascination with preserving the dead, ensuring that monuments to revere them are not only easy on the eyes but also constructed with a certain soulfulness. The sublime, inevitable poetry of mortality is hence the reason why multiple Imambaras and Maqbaras (resting places and tombs) eulogise the architects of a region that led the charge by invigorating secularism, architecture and employment to the masses.

The stunning Saadat Ali Khan tomb testifies to all these features with poignant grace till this present era. Built by Ghazi-ud-Din Haider, the crowned King of Awadh in the early years of the 19th century in memory of his father, the eponymous Nawab Wazir of Awadh, Saadat Ali Khan, it was a palace of refined craftsmanship that took on the sombre hues of remembrance and eternal memory by being rebuilt as a tomb. Such is the fervour of familial legacies. Those eternal memories of wives and children now rest in the vaults that have been preserved in the inner chamber of the structure in its rear end.

On his part, Ghazi-ud-Din Haider (1769-1827) was a man of poise and taste. But he was also operating at a time when colonial powers were shareholders of Awadh as much as any other part of the country. Being a ruler may have been as much a nominal position for him as it was for his father, Yameen-ud Daula Saadat Ali Khan II Bahadur (1752 – 1814). But they both walked on common ground as they ensured that administrative duties fuelled by colonial interests didn’t usurp the spirit of their homeland. Lucknow was much more to Ghazi-ud-Din Haider and his father than just a city. Hence, their architectural aesthetics came into play to build a monumental legacy. If father Saadat Ali Khan was the mind who gave Lucknow a large number of memorable monuments between the city’s fabled Kaiserbagh and Dilkusha corridor then son Ghazi was no flash in the pan himself. The majestic Chattar Manzil, the quietly captivating Vilayati Bagh (built in memory of his beloved English wife Mary Short/ Padshah Begum) and the impressive Shah Najaf Imambara (modelled after the holy Shia site of Najaf in Iran) are all beholden to his vision. They all occupy pivotal central areas of the city today and are a visitors’ delight. He was also the pioneer behind a printing press, employing English and local scholars who were versed in multiple languages and enriched his court with the compilation of an extensive Persian dictionary.

Saadat Ali Khan’s Tomb extends his legacy, it’s a stunning architectural design of a palace turned resting place for dearly departed retaining Lucknow’s exquisite stamp. The magnificent dome, arches, unbridled calligraphy of designs, decorative motifs and the pillars echo with two hundred years and more of all that the structure represents. The distinctive wash of yellow, brown and sometimes bleached lemon in the building are all captivating to discerning eyes. Under this dome and the parapets, one walks in circles and picks up the nuances of beauty that surround it. Chief among them being huge windows framed with nets, galloping squirrels and various potted plants covering the expanse.

Even more wonderful is the tomb of Mursheer Zadi, Saadat Ali Khan’s beloved wife, that stands parallel to his tomb. With its similarly constructed structure and darker tones, the confluence of dome, spires, parapets, inner chamber and decorative motifs become breathtaking. If the morning reveals these structures as enchanting dual partners, afternoons suffuse them with a time-honoured glow while the evenings bathe them with shades of devotion to this cityscape.

Visitors people the verandahs that surround it. At the Saadat Ali Khan Tomb and Garden, we relive the permanence of smiling flowers, the majestic architecture and the surreal power of its mystique. It’s a structure that seems to literally rise out of the earth and court the sky in reverence to both. We, in turn, understand its juxtapositions of mortality and muted grandeur as die-hard Lucknawis.

Photo Courtesy: Prithvijeet Sinha

As scaffolds populate the tombs and restoration work ensures more renewed glint for its overall structure in the new year as also for its neighbouring Chattar Manzil, this site becomes the classical storyteller it has always been. Its saga is continuous, eternal. Its haunting understories are as soaked in legends and myths as is the wonderful city of Lucknow. The dead don’t just rest in peace here, they converse in whispers that become the wind and birdcalls.

Photo Courtesy: Prithvijeet Sinha

Prithvijeet Sinha  is an MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self-publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy’s Panorama. Besides that, his works have been published in several journals and anthologies. 

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Categories
Poetry

Sieve by John Valentine

The Daughters of Danaus by Fernand Sabatté (1874-1940). From Public Domain 
SIEVE 

(The Danaids were the fifty daughters of King Danaus who murdered their husbands, the fifty sons of his brother Aegyptus, on their wedding night. Only Hypermnestra spared her husband whom she loved. As punishment for their crime, the other Danaids were condemned to an eternal torment in the Underworld: endlessly carrying water in a leaking vessel.)



These things you call experiences, are they separate
leaves who do not know

their neighbors in bloom and bare? Or rather notes 
in grand symphonies, 

seasons in the House of Being? They rise and ring.
And you, water carrier, you who

press them in the book of memory, hoping to
hold them forever, page by page, 

why is your pail so hard? Through wind and rain 
and gossamer glide, do you know

the mind of emptiness? The more you try to catch
the world the more

you fail. Buddha is the sieve you seek. Flowing
and flowing, everything 

fills you, again and again. You have nothing to lose 
but yourself.

John Valentine is a retired teacher living in Savannah, GA.

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Categories
Excerpt

Dreiser, Melville: Birds of a Feather

Title: Theodore Dreiser — The Giant

Author: Wayne F. Burke

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) reached apotheosis of his literary endeavour with his 1925 publication An American Tragedy. In the following twenty years, until completion of the The Bulwark in 1946, nothing he wrote remotely equaled the power of the tragedy. His opus plus Sister Carrie has become a classic—so too Jennie Gerhardt to a less heralded extent. Some of Dreiser’s short stories, such as “Nigger Jeff”, “St. Columba and the River”, and “The Lost Phoebe”, could stand on their own in any American or world anthology. Due to its narrative thrust and other attributes (powerful romance), The Financier was and is the best of Dreiser’s ‘Trilogy of Desire’ (including The Titan and The Stoic). The first three-quarters of the autobiography Dawn made for compelling reading, as did all of the essays in Twelve Men. The Bulwark was and is a minor classic, truncated but yanking at heart strings as adamantly if not for as long as any of Dreiser novels. Newspaper Days, the second volume of his autobiography is a baggy and verbose twin of the heavily, and unfortunately edited, A Traveler at Forty.

“The last great American writer of Melvillean dimensions,” Jerome Loving wrote of Dreiser. Dimensionality and similarity is each writer’s search to uncover and understand the phenomenon of existence. It’s a spiritual quest, though neither men have any sectarian belief (Melville nominally Unitarian). What is and to whom does the “oversoul” of Emersonian transcendentalism belong? To Dreiser, the grand protagonist life itself suggests a something else: God or gods perhaps, behind the display of natural phenomenon. Hs opus suggests that God or gods, or the “Creative Force,” used humankind for his, her, its own purpose; a purpose hidden from humankind’s limited understanding; also theorising possibilities of additional God or gods in the background making use of, let us say, “primary” God or gods, for a like inscrutable purpose.

In his last years Dreiser looked through a microscope for clues to the phenomenality of being—to unravel mysteries of life. Switching gears mid-career, he became an explorer of consciousness who preferred the company of scientists to that of literary brethren (to the detriment of his art, I must add).

 In Dawn, Dreiser theorised that humankind was an invention—a schemed-out machine, useful to a larger something. This theory marked his turn from an early mechanistic belief in universal proceedings to consideration of an oversoul, or creative intelligence, behind or causative to universal phenomenon.

But what “soul”? What cause? What intelligence? Ahab[1] tried to tear the veil that covered the quondam source; tried to expose the phenomenon of so-called “reality,” but being only a man, and mortal, failed—dying in the process. What is the symbolism of the great whale’s whiteness but a concealing veil thrown over appearances? Melville’s scientifically, scrupulously dismantled his leviathan part by part, yielding naught as to mysteries of origins and unquantifiable organic processes, while Dreiser wandered over the same dry speculative desert (as Hawthorne noted) too honest to be or do otherwise.

 Dreiser had his own mystic creed; refusing to conform to any formal doctrine—his views in later years influenced by Quakerism, Hinduism, and Christian Science (which his wife “Jug,” and his character Eugene Witla of The Genius came under spell of). In Newspaper Days, and in a sour mood, he wrote, “Religion! What a mockery! Why pray? Of whom to ask? The one who loaded the dice at the start?” Elsewhere in that same book—and in a better mood—he wrote, “There is a sower somewhere. Is it planet, gas, element, fire? It gardens and sows—what is its plan, and why?”

 Like many ex-parochial students, Dreiser had a profound dislike of Catholicism and her rituals. A dislike engendered, in Dreiser’s case, by scorn of an ineffectual father, John Paul Dreiser. In Dawn, Dreiser wrote of Catholics with ossified brains who rejected natural emotion as sinful; who spent inordinate amounts of time on their knees praying to an immense and inscrutable something which cared not for their adoration or supplication.

He denied sectarian pretense to divine authority and wrote about how little there was to the Christ legend aside from artistic spectacle. Ritual and churchly dogma infuriated him—particularly angered by the priest who at first denied Dreiser’s mother burial in the sacred grove because she was a lapsed Catholic.

Dreiser despised religion in the form of Catholicism as much as he came to despise oligarchy—though early in his career celebrated the power of the oligarch in the character of Frank Cowperwood, of the ‘The Trilogy of Desire’, apotheosis of laissez faire capitalism run amuck.

 Will Dreiser’s work survive the muddle of brave new world exigencies? I hope so. The slow relentless and inexorable pace of his stories, with their accumulation of details, are or seem anathema to the cyborg-screed of flash fiction sound bites in the blogosphere, but the stories he told—all having to do with vagaries of the human heart—though perhaps out of vogue, will never not be relevant to the human oh so human condition.

[1] From Melville’s Moby Dick

About the Book:

Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, is an explication, exegesis, of the fiction of Dreiser plus much of his nonfiction. Included are synopses of each title. Between considerations of the work is a biography of the writer. (Note: Dreiser could be, in his work, pedantic and humourless: this study is neither.)

About the Author:

Wayne F. Burke writes both poetry and prose. He is author of 12 published poetry collections–most recently Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne? Hog Press, 2025; two works of fiction–most recently No Tab For Sully, a novella, Alien Buddha Press, 2025; and six works of nonfiction–including Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, Cyberwit,net., publisher, 2025. He lives in Vermont (USA).

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Categories
Poetry

Five Short Poems by Munir Momin

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

From Public Domain 
ENCHANTED

As I watched --
She wrapped the rainbow round her finger,
and drifted away -- slowly, ever so slowly.
Yet 
The Heavens saw nothing.

EVENING 

The wind wanders, 
seeking the fragrance of your musk:
My heart and a fading leaf are carried along.

SPRING

The poor larks that returned this year
peck at the scent of your bosom,
still drifting through the footprints
along the path of yesteryear.

JUNGLE

Such terror stirs within,
none dare to face themselves.
The road runs deep with fear—
no one walks it alone.  

THE WAIT

Shall I open a window?
Will you come—or the moon?

Munir Momin is a contemporary Balochi poet widely cherished for his sublime art of poetry. Meticulously crafted images, linguistic finesse and profound aesthetic sense have earned him a distinguished place in Balochi literature. His poetry speaks through images, more than words. Momin’s poetry flows far beyond the reach of any ideology or socio-political movement. Nevertheless, he is not ignorant of the stark realities of life. The immenseness of his imagination and his mastery over the language rescues his poetry from becoming the part of any mundane narrative. So far Munir has published seven collections of his poetry and an anthology of short stories. His poetry has been translated into Urdu, English and Persian.  He also edits a literary journal called Gidár.

Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated many Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters and in the form of books and anthologies. Fazal Baloch has the translation rights to Munir Momin’s works. 

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Categories
Slices from Life

The Final Voyage

Narrative by Meredith Stephens

I stretched the boat hook as far as I could towards the mooring buoy, but it slid beneath the bow.

“Go back!” I shouted to Alex back at the helm, but my voice was carried away in the wind.

I pointed at the buoy under the net, and Alex reversed. The waves were dancing in front of me and the buoy would not stay in place long enough for me to reach it. On the second attempt, I forced all of my attention on the rope attached to the buoy, and tried to pull it aboard. It was much too heavy so I screamed for Alex to come, and he raced from behind, pulled the buoy up and secured it to the bow.

How would I alight into the dinghy in these waves? Alex lowered it into the water and it lunged towards the stern and back in succession. I doubted I would be able to board in these conditions.

“How about if I move the dinghy to the side of the boat and you enter via a ladder?”

“Worth a try!” I answered.

Alex brought the dinghy to the side of the boat and slung a ladder made of strong fabric overboard. I gingerly stepped down but once I glanced at the water raging beneath me, I lost confidence and gave up.

“I think I had better hop in from the stern after all,” I told Alex.

He moved the dinghy back to the stern. As I walked towards it, I slipped and fell on my thigh. There was no time to feel sorry for myself, so I picked myself up and continued heading for the dinghy. It lunged back and forth in the waves.

“Now!” commanded Alex.

I placed one foot in the centre of the dinghy to centre myself and then sat down on the bench. As hard as it was for me it was not hard for Haru, my border collie. I called her in and tapped the dinghy behind me because I knew she was hard of hearing. She leapt behind me with alacrity. It was so much easier for her to board the dinghy, not least because of her four legs.

Alex was locking the door back on the boat. The dinghy kept lunging toward the stern, and I was scared of getting knocked off when it hit the stern. I screamed as hard as I could.

“Okay!” replied Alex and hopped in behind me. Then he turned on the engine and headed for the shore, except that the shore was unrecognisable. Instead of a sandy beach, there were rocks.

Alex headed for the most promising spot. “Hop out!” commanded Alex, and I disembarked one leg after the other and headed to climb over the rocks. As usual, Haru leapt out and ran ashore.

I thought I was clear of the rocks and the menacing water, when Alex called out to me.

“Take my backpack! The laptops are in here. They can’t get wet. I realised then that we should have put them into the dry bag.”

I walked over the slippery rocks and strained to grasp the shoulder straps of the backpack. Once they were in my hands I returned to shore over the rocks, ready for the trek up to the holiday house.

I was so longing for the warmth of the fireplace and the view of the setting sun over the bay. I walked effortlessly up the hill, with Haru trotting happily beside me. The shelter and glow of the house was just as I had imagined. It was worth the hardship of getting there.

That night the winds continued to build, but it was pleasurable to hear them passing over the house as we enjoyed the safety and warmth of being inside.

Around one in the morning, the whole house shuddered when hit by a particularly strong gust, which was violent enough to briefly wake Alex.

No sooner was it light that I heard Alex enter the room. He must have been out before the wee hours.

“The boat has drifted to shore. I had a bad feeling and got up early to check the position of the boat. From the cliffs I could see that the mast was too close to the shore. Then my fears were confirmed when I saw that it had been blown ashore.”

Dragged moorings. Photo Courtesy: Alan Noble

“Didn’t the mooring hold?” I asked.

“Evidently not. I’m going to check it out now. Want to come?”

I agreed, and we drove out to the cliff with Haru in the back seat. Once at the cliff, I remained in the car because I couldn’t face the gale-force winds that were now gusting to forty knots. Meanwhile, Alex, in his wetsuit, walked down the dirt road towards the beach, entered the water, and pulled himself aboard. I kept my eyes focused on him until I saw his figure exit the boat, swim ashore, and walk up the track back toward me.

“It’s finished. There’s nothing we can do, beyond salvage.”

Alex’s boat of sixteen years and our home away from home for the last five years was no more. In years past, we had circumnavigated Tasmania, sailed to New Caledonia and back, and across the Great Australian Bight to sail north on the Indian Ocean. Exiting a marina and heading towards the waves was a symbol of leaving our troubles behind and anticipation of adventure. I could no longer take this adventure for granted.

Alex reached out to Thompson’s Marine Salvage, and they arrived at the bay within two hours. The plan was to attach one end of a heavy rope to a tractor at the top of the cliff, and the other end to the boat, and drag it onto the sand to save it from smashing on the rocks.

Alex again donned his wetsuit, descended the cliffs, and swam to the boat. I sheltered from the wind in the car at the top of the cliffs with Haru. Then I thought that I should walk towards the boat in case there was anything I could do. Just as I reached the shore, a young man in a wetsuit approached me.

Haru observing from inside the car. Photo Courtesy: Meredith Stephens

“Watch out for the rope. We’re ready to begin!”

It was too late. The operation had started, and the rope was heading towards me, as the tractor started to try and haul the boat to the shore.

“Jump!” the young man urged.

I’m glad the young man thought this was a possibility, but I haven’t jumped for years. My days of jumping are decades behind me. Unable to jump, I met the full force of the rope and was knocked on my back. My head hit some rocks. I uttered an expletive “sh..!” which I reserve for extreme situations. I lay there for seconds before slowly getting back to my feet. My head was aching from the blow and my whole being was in shock. I gave up on rendering assistance and walked slowly back to the car. There I sheltered from the wind until Alex eventually returned to the boat.

“The operation has failed. The boat is still stuck on the rocks,” he explained.

Late in the day, a twenty-ton excavator arrived on the scene. I spent the day bent over holding a rubbish bag, picking up rubble from the boat. Haru trotted around me enjoying being freed from the confines of the house. The excavator approached the boat like a giant menacing dinosaur. I grabbed Haru by the collar and removed myself to a distant spot on the other side of the boat. I could not face another industrial accident. The hand of the excavator grappled the mast and moved it to a safe spot on the rocks. I watched the dinosaur make its retreat back to the road while I maintained a hold on Haru’s collar.

The following day a second twenty-ton excavator descended onto the beach. The first excavator lifted the stern while the second lifted the bow. Slowly, the airborne boat was moved off the rocks and onto land. I was invited to view it, but I couldn’t face seeing the destruction of our home. That evening, I ventured out to the paddock where the boat now rested high and dry, like a beached whale. Amongst the devastation, I retrieved the remains of my dressing gown, which had somehow become entangled in the bow.

Over the next few days, I continued to return to the beach to extract boat rubble from the shore and pull up items of clothing and bedding from the sand. Alex drove down to the beach in his off-road vehicle, and we loaded up the tray with bags of rubble. Different items washed ashore each day.

Salvaged shoes. Photo Courtesy: Alan Nobel

The bump on my head continued to heal, only feeling pain when touched. The bruises on my legs changed colour as they too healed. And eventually the bay would heal too. We continued daily beach clean-ups. Seven odd shoes were salvaged, an odd snorkel fin, and odd gloves. Two months later the other fin washed up, but none of the missing shoes ever made an appearance. We continued to fill our off-road vehicle, and rubbish bags, with debris. Our beloved nautical home sat out of place in a paddock awaiting salvage. We came away with a renewed appreciation and respect for the destructive power of the ever-changing sea, but it would take more than a broken boat to diminish our desire to sail again. For now, our sailing adventures were on hold, but once we had the opportunity, we would again return to the sea. This would not be our final voyage.

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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.

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Categories
Poetry

Three Poems by George Freek

Fom Public Domain 
ANOTHER AUTUMN DIES 

The sun is an orange,
fallen from an invisible tree,
as an avalanche of leaves
also falls to the earth. 
I hope when it comes,
Death will come so easily. 
Leaves feel no pain, 
but do they sigh when they die,
gazing at the ground,
which will be their final home.
No one grieves, 
and time means nothing to leaves,
or to the sun or the stars,
but it means a lot to me.  
A sudden wind blows clouds
toward the moon, as distant
as our dreams are from June,
and where is September?
It was swept aside,
even as I was writing this poem,
so I missed it,
but it departed far too soon.



AT WEST LAKE CEMETERY

The sky observes the graves
on this lonely hillside,
without concern,
as if they were metaphors
in an obscure poem. 
The bodies buried there
are now harmless.
Were they always that,
and how much did they suffer,
before they arrived here?
Death reduces our lives
to insignificance,
just as our emotions, 
have no effect on what will be,
and if I offered a prayer
for these dead souls
it would only
mean something to me.


SPRING SONATA FOR THE DEAD

Flowers rise from the earth,
and buds appear on boughs.
Cicadas can be heard,
though where they’re at,
no one ever seems to know.
Along the riverbank,
the ice has broken,
and the sun is shining,
in honor of this new season.
Squirrels frolic in the grass
happy to be alive.
When I place fresh flowers,
on your grave,
I know the world will survive
and life will still thrive,
but I feel no joy.
You are no longer alive.
And the stars are blind,
when they look down,
as another dark night arrives.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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Categories
Stories

Steps of Conscience

A Tamil story by S Ramakrishnan, translated by B.Chandramouli

From Public Domain


That town had fewer than a hundred homes. Children playing in the street looked at them curiously when they alighted from the car. Kandasamy called one boy and asked him where Venangulam was. That boy asked him mockingly, “Do you want to do a penance in the Venangulam pond?” and pointed him towards the south.

His wife, their only daughter, and the astrologer who had brought them to perform the penance got out of the car. The astrologer tightened his loose dhoti and said, “This is a powerful pond, Sir; all your ‘dosha[1]’s would wash away.”

Kandasamy nodded and started walking towards the south.

Kandasamy had been suffering for over ten years with a skin disease; he had suffered an unexpected loss in his business. There were problems in his daughter’s in-laws home as well. As if these were not enough, he lost an old lawsuit he had been fighting in court. He felt as though the snake in the Snakes and Ladders game had brought him down. He visited many temples, performed pujas[2] and penances; nothing had worked. Only then did an astrologer tell him about Venangulam and the story of the king of Venangulam himself, who had dipped in that pond to get rid of his doshas. Kandasamy felt a sense of hope and agreed to visit Venangulam.

It was a small village with red tile roofs and somewhat broad streets. However, the people had nearly deserted it; some houses were locked up. When they went to Venangulam, they found it to be dry; the steps were dusty. There were four idols on the four sides of the pond.

Doubtful if that was Venangulam, he asked a person splitting logs nearby, “Is this the pond for penance?” That person nodded yes and continued his work.

Kandasamy stood on the dried-up pond’s steps and waited for his wife and daughter.

He wondered if they had come there not knowing that the pond had dried up; he felt angry thinking, “Didn’t the astrologer inquire about this even?”

The astrologer, Kandasamy’s wife and daughter, came near Venangulam.

The pond was full of torn clothes, dried leaves, and plastic waste. Kandasamy said to the astrologer, “There’s no water in this pond.”

The astrologer said,” It had been dry for several years. You get down, imagine that there is water, and sprinkle water on your head.”

“How can I bathe without water?” asked Kandasamy angrily.

“Can you see the sins you have committed with your eyes? But doesn’t the mind feel them? Similar to that, this pond contains invisible water; if you feel that and have a bath, your sins will wash away. Belief is everything, isn’t it?”

Kandasamy descended the steps of the dry pond. Though the pond appeared to have only ten or twenty steps, as he descended, the steps seemed to keep going down forever. Kandasamy kept on descending the steps alone. He did not know how long he had been descending, but when he looked up, it appeared as though he had descended into an abyss. He had not yet reached the bottom of the pond. The steps still kept descending.

He got confused, thinking, “What kind of magic is this? How did this small pond become so huge?” Various thoughts crowded his mind. He thought of how he had deceived his elder brother when they ran a joint business, and how he had cheated money entrusted to him. All these past sins returned as memories.

How can a person who deceived his own brother not fail in life? Suddenly, his elder brother’s face flashed in his mind. In that minute, the thought that until then, he had been pretending as though he had committed no mistakes bothered him. Kandasamy felt that one’s mistakes become weightless when hidden, but once you start realising them, they feel heavy.

Kandasamy realised he was descending the steps of his conscience.

He felt that to relieve himself of his sin, he must return the money he had cheated from his elder brother to his brother’s family. No sooner had this thought occurred to him than he felt a sudden wetness on his feet. The step beneath him seemed to be underwater. He pretended to bend down and sprinkle the water from the pond onto his head.

When his wife asked him loudly, “What are you thinking, standing on the steps?” he came to his senses.

Thinking, “Have I not gone to the depth of the pond? Was it all in my imagination?” He looked closely at the pond. He saw only dried steps and a pond without water.

He realised that the pond awakened the conscience and made you understand the crimes you have committed. It was indeed a magical pond.

He pretended as though he had had a bath and came out of the pond.

The astrologer said, “Think of something in your mind and throw coins into the pond.”

He took coins from his pocket and threw them into the pond, thinking that he would pay back the amount due to the family of his elder brother.

The idols’ eyes in the pond seemed to smile at him mockingly.

From Public Domain

[1] Sins, bad luck.

[2] Prayers

S. Ramakrishnan is a writer from Tamil Nadu, India. He is a full-time writer who has been active over the last 27 years in diverse areas of Tamil literature like short stories, novels, plays, children’s literature and translations. He has written and published 9 novels, 20 collections of short stories, 3 plays, 21 books for children, 3 books of translation, 24 collections of articles, 10 books on world cinema, 16 books on world literature including seven of his lectures, 3 books on Indian history, 3 on painting and 4 edited volumes including a Reader on his own works. He also has 2 collections of interviews to his credit. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2018 in the Tamil language category for his novel Sanjaaram.

Dr.B. Chandramouli is a retired Physician. He has published several translations. He has translted Jack Londen’s novel, White Fang and Somerset Maugham’s Razor’s edge (2024) to English and various English translations of Tamil fiction and non-fiction.

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Categories
Poetry

Nature Poems by Ron Pickett

Hummong bird: From Public Domain 
THE OLD PELICAN

There’s a black phoebe on the feeder this morning,
She’s chasing other birds away.
Black top knot and glossy black bib,
Small, territorial, aggressive.
And we saw a pelican on the split rail fence

Doves in the dust, a dry bath for feathers and insects
Cooing sounds echo around the neighbourhood.
They whistle-fly a few wing beats,
Then they duck under the shrubs.
They will be back this evening
The big owl has been silent lately,
He will return soon.
We saw an old pelican on a fence rail.

Humming birds hover and dart,
Sampling the nectar, pollen on its beak.
The old pelican is too far from the coast.
There’s a seagull on the streetlamp,
Looking for the beach
And five wild turkeys scatter as we pass.
Hawks pose on the treetops, surveying their domain
Crows and sparrows are everywhere 
The old pelican rests before flying west, home.

THE BLUE AGAVE

They have been there.
The Blue Agaves: lush and strong with long hard thorns.
Today I noticed them, for the first time.
The way they reproduce.
Like a hen with chicks,
The baby Agaves are surrounding their mother plant.
Their pointed thorns are ominous, protective.
How can a plant act like a bird?
How can a bird act like a plant?
Like chicks with a hen;
Like an Agave with spikes.
The shelter works.
We’ll use it twice.

Blue Agave. From Public domain

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator. His 90-plus articles have appeared in various publications. He has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away With It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, 60 Odd Short Stories, and Empaths. Ron has had his poems published in Scarlet Leaf, Borderless Journal, and other periodicals. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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