A Prayer
What can you say
to a dear friend
who is fighting for life,
gasping for breath?
Open your eyes-
the tender
mango leaves,
have begun to sprout.
There’s a ruckus outside
the window, the babblers
you watched over daily,
are scrambling for grain.
Let the love
your gurgling laughter
spread, the faith
that kept you busy
on cold nights,
the beauty of your
giving freely,
gather --
to weave a magic blanket
to protect and heal you.
Clouds
Every cloud holds a story,
in its nameless form
and its formless cape.
One edges out the sun,
jutting on its way
and dabs its cheeks
with pink splotches.
Another blazes a trail,
of gold dust and flushes
in borrowed beauty
for half-a-second.
One stands like an anime,
poised for eternity.
There’s an in-between god,
who rides a tiger
and pours rain callously
on a cold, feverish city.
The posthumous rain
will splash on, till
the burning fever wrath
evaporates like a dream,
when the folds of the cloud
unfurl and let
the clear sky be.
Geetha Ravichandran lives in Mumbai. When she is not working, she watches the sky and the sea. In the past year, her poems have been published in Borderless, Setumag and included in a couple of anthologies published by Hawakal.
For you, I would be those spaces between the words-- empty and forgotten
For some, I would be those backgrounds disguised in an attire of white.
Look for me and if I am imperceptible to your eyes,
read the dialect of silence within the interiors of its voidness.
Recite the eclogues that's encrypted in it.
Unravel the dots and labyrinthine patterns concealed behind its flowing cape.
Drown into the stillness it beholds.
Read the tales it enfolds.
You may find meaning
to the words that it accompanies.
Count down the cerulean pearls
of hidden emotions lingering
in its pristine white sea.
For if there had been no spaces,
Then those words would have been mere bodies -- dead and buried.
If you see this,
Stare at those spaces for one last time
And you will see me,
like a tangerine sun that creeps
into the hazy sky
chanting triolets
of the deepest of desires!
Geethu V Nandakumar, is a post-graduate student of English language and literature. A writer by passion, her writings chronicle harsh realities of human life and multitude of thoughts that often unfurl into a world of hope, new understanding and transformation.
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ORANGE
Holy scent
of after rain,
the sigh of breezes
in the canopy,
flowers unbowed
by gilded rainbow,
brisk tanager
chirps crimson in the mist.
Such birthright. Such bequest.
Fervour of daylight,
silky sheen of utter midday,
luminous dawn,
crisp with heaven's air,
twilight,
the second wind of fire.
Night falls.
I eat an orange,
cut in quarters,
slices of the sun.
THE TRAUMA THAT REMAINS
You’re terrified of fire.
I can see it in your eyes.
A roaring hearth before you.
You struggle to tamp it down with tears.
Your mother and sister
perished in a blaze,
caused by a faulty electric wire.
You were staying with friends at the time.
You’re also afraid of staying with friends.
You need to leave, go home to your empty apartment.
There’s no one there in need of saving.
At least, not until you get there.
THIS IS MY WORLD
The lake below the town
is a blue haze
in which two mute swans
glide back and forth like yellow-beaked sailboats.
The old fishing shack is half-smothered in moss.
An egret is shaking out its wings.
Light fades from the sky.
A chanting chorus of frogs
pulse the edge of day.
You can catch me at home later.
I’ll be listening to jazz.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. His latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon.
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When I travelled to Khajuraho,
I met a child of seven years or so.
He drew our attention to a bad shop.
He told us 'There is a bad shop over there.'
'Let's go to the shop, let's go fast' in Korean.
Some traveller might have taught him these Korean words,
Only for putting the bad shop through trouble.
We went to the other shops avoiding that one,
He kept asking us to go to the bad shop.
But no one followed him to
The bad shop of Khajuraho,
Trying to overcharge only to have bitter experiences.
Though I felt sorry for him,
I did not teach him the correct words.
That hurt me --
Not teaching him 'the good shop' in Korean.
Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.
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BROADCASTING
Giant whispering and coughing machines,
But the Quietus shaped by thieves
Broadcasts from a churchyard sleeved
With coats that serve as muscle:
The wavebands glowing overpower
The rabid storms of chording where
Your child hands clap against the air.
Beautifully devout before a spent
Cascade of money pours from out
A vast resettling of drums. Thence
Begins the mental struggles of arcane
Girls, who may not dance upon a floor
Nor faces inside faces prick music.
Vast Sundays and organ-frowned spaces
Leave dark emptied trees behind
Seas, where sotto voce tames the race
Of gaoled men; and the sureness of
Faith will dive into the bays and quays
Which seem too straight or still-born.
The light of rock attunes to sound
But this noise contests the altar-lit
Grounds of life’s lurch, groomed with
Minds which govern sadness from ground
Teas, but still the coffees of the earth
Grind to dust the magmas of bent birth.
Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied at Oxford University. He has written thousands of poems and won three awards for his poetry. He tends to write in a bit of a fine frenzy. He adores prosody.
Books by Akbar Barakzai in Balochi: Photographs provided by Fazal Baloch
Akbar Barakzai was born in Shikarpur, Sindh in 1938. He is ranked amongst the proponents of modern Balochi literature. His poetry reflects the objective realities of life. Love for motherland, peace and prosperity and dignity of a man are the recurrent themes of his poetry. His love for human dignity transcends all geographical and cultural frontiers. Barakzai is not a prolific poet. In a literary career which spans over half a century, Barakzai has brought out just two anthologies of poetry, Who can Kill the Sun and The Lamps of Heads, but his poetry has depth and reaches out to human hearts with its profundity. Last year, Barakzai rejected the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) award, quoting the oppressive policies meted out to his region by the government as the reason.
The Law of Nature(First Voice)
Come, you the riff-raff evildoer!
Hearken to what I utter
You are my slave
I am your Master
You are homeless
At my feet are forts and palaces
You are homeless
I’m the lord of power and puissance
You are destitute and famished
I am rich and affluent
I am wise and prudent, you are brainless
I am the man of might, you are weak and frail
I'm the owner of large estates and orchards
Irksome is your existence in this world
I’m the master
You are my subject
Of faith and the divine book
Guidance I always seek
You are a wayward heretic
I am pure, you are filth
I am strong, you are meek
Have you ever pondered?
On the law of nature
Always subdued in the world
Are the weak and vulnerable
A shark preys on little herrings
The lion hunts the ibex
Birds and locusts are the falcon’s prey
History bears witness
Always favours the fittest
Throne and crown,
Glory and pride. Discern!
In rebellion
You’ll gather only humiliation
I am powerful, you are powerless
I am the master, you are the subject
(Second Voice)
Granted, you are the master
Proud, rich and affluent
I am miserable and poor,
Pious jurists and clerics
Your companions and cohorts
I am but a sinner and transgressor
True you are the mighty overlord
I'm just a wretched slave
But listen you to me --
I’m also a man, a descendant of Adam
No matter how much you oppress me
I wouldn't accept your law of nature
A pretext of my subjugation
No matter how mighty you are
No matter how weak and frail I am.
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 Barakzai’s works and is in the process of bringing them out as a book.
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First,
be honest even if even
they hate what’s coming
out of your mouth.
It will only do them good.
Second,
give them the space
to fail and to try
And to repeat the process.
No one ever climbed
without falling.
Third,
after a long fight
sit down, next to each other
silently. They will know
you will not leave.
One complimentary advice
the poet knows nothing
about love. You know
better.
Sutputra Radheye is a young poet from India. He has published two poetry collections — Worshipping Bodies (Notion Press) and Inqalaab on the Walls (Delhi Poetry Slam). His works are reflective of the society he lives in and tries to capture the marginalized side of the story.
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She skips
She runs
You chase
You think you'll never catch up
She stops
and as you think you'll catch her
she ducks
and runs away again
You huff
and despair
But we all know
if she stayed
and explained
you'd never try to catch her
in the first place
Ana Marija Meshkova is from North Macedonia. She is one of the founding members of Far Horizons e-magazine and has been published in a few anthologies. She is currently working on her first book.
ONE LAST TIME
The world’s melting before my eyes,
Drowning in the ocean of neglect,
Gasping for air one last time,
Till it freezes to death.
Hear! Hear! Hear them cry,
Those innocent lives,
Trying to hold their pieces together,
In the eye of storm one last time.
When will the dawn break?
Shrouded and invisible in the darkest night they ask,
Clinging together, floating and gasping,
To be seen and saved one last time.
Heena Chauhan teaches English Literature at University of Delhi, India. Also, a research scholar, Heena spends most of her time in reading her favourite authors, cooking and skygazing.
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NOT MY CUP OF TEA
To be chopped
into tiny pieces by the
axes of furious Viking warriors
isn’t really my cup of tea.
To sail a yacht
over the edge of a waterfall
and be smashed
to bits on the rocks below also
isn’t my cup of tea.
Please believe me when I say it.
To fall into the
crater of an active volcano
and plop into the lava
while having a picnic
on the slippery slopes is a thing
one hopes will never
come to pass, ergo it’s not
my cup of tea either.
What else fits into this category?
Ah yes! I recall.
A hot beverage made from
the hand-picked leaves
of a specific bush and consumed
in a porcelain drinking vessel
that belongs to you…
It’s just not my cup of tea.
NO REFLECTION
If the sun shines through a window
onto the mirror in your room
but fails to deflect from the glass
and bathe you in mellow warmth
that’s no reflection on you,
my friend! It’s no reflection on you.
If the moon glows on a silent lake
and the luminous lake silvers
the skins of friends and relations
but leaves you in a dismal shadow
that’s no reflection on you,
my friend! It’s no reflection on you.
If the stars sparkle the frosty brows
of sleeping cows in a meadow
but these sparkling cows reserve
the astral gleam all for themselves
that’s moo reflection on you,
my friend! It’s moo reflection on you.
FORGETFULNESS
Once I had a memory like an elephant.
Now I have a memory like a goldfish.
That’s what time does to a man.
But what animals can be found between
these two extremes?
I must have had a memory like a mule
at one point, and like a squirrel
too, a snake and a fox,
a giraffe and a panda (full of thoughts of
bamboo), even a baboon.
But I don’t remember…
I just swim around and around inside the
bowl of my head
instead.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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Borderless 