Yeti
Tell me again that nothing’s there,
that never was
At all, except in places where
things slip, or pause,
Yet register, on some high ridge
where something moves
And then is gone. As though a bridge
of snow should lose
Its grip, and drop away, but leave
a shadow where
Such vanishing might still deceive
in that thin air.
Jared Carter’s most recent collection, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia. His Darkened Rooms of Summer: New and Selected Poems, with an introduction by Ted Kooser, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014. A recipient of several literary awards and fellowships, Carter is from the state of Indiana in the U.S.
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Summer peaked early
Beginning of April, it had sprung,
Too warm for comfort or sweat.
The flower arrangements came
And after sometime, overflowed,
The priest spoke about the celebration of life.
No cry, no sobs, no one wept,
They waited for a call from the undertaker,
The pit takes long in the seething heat, he’d said.
The choir boys look out of windows.
Mourners chide ceiling fans for being slow,
Bouquets would take a while before dropping dead.
Everyone imagined with shudder,
The day they would lie, with poignance
Hands crossed in front.
Out of the icebox, laid in bed of flowers
Mom saw all this, no longer cool, her soul
Impatient -- is it done? The resting place.
Saranyan BV is poet and short-story writer, now based out of Bangalore. He came into the realm of literature by mistake, but he loves being there. His works have been published in many Indian and Asian journals. He loves the works of Raymond Carver.
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Before my Curtain is Drawn
Do not shed tears when I am gone.
Give me a moment now, before my curtain is drawn.
Stay with me for a while,
Sit silently by my side.
Take my hands in your hands,
Let me rest on your shoulder.
Talk to me with your sweetest words.
Smile at me with your eyes, twinkling stars.
Let me listen to your whispering heart,
Engraved will remain these moments.
If you cry, when I am gone with
My life’s curtain already drawn,
What meaning would it hold for me?
How will I know that you cared for me?
How will I tell you what you meant to me?
Let these moments of love be an eternity.
Come sit beside me and love me now.
If you love me, then make me this vow:
You won’t cry when I am gone,
For you will never be alone.
I will be with you -- very near,
Wiping away all your tears.
Do not shed tears when I am gone.
Give me a moment now, before my curtain is drawn.
Tasneem Hossain is a multilingual poet, columnist, op-edcolumnist and training consultant. She is the Director of Continuing Education Centre, Bangladesh.
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The Cherry Tree
We pick cherries from a tree in Unterback*.
A silent local watches us, arms on hips,
but there’s no fence, just wild grass.
We pluck the cherries in bloody handfuls,
warning each other about staining juice,
giddy with the Biblical bounty. So many
clusters of fruit when you look up at the sky,
red-shifting to purple stars. We only take
a tiny portion of what the tree tempts.
The rest if left to hang too high, rot,
or be gathered by the lucky locals,
if they can take their hands off their hips.
*Unterback is in Switzerland The Cuckoo Stopped Singing
Early July and I am stunned
by the emptiness of the air.
I suddenly miss his bell ringing,
reminder that nature persists
despite our best efforts. He started
in early May, that unmistakable
nursery rhyme song postering
in the tree-dressed stage of our
Montagnola apartment block.
He sang me back to boyhood,
to Epsom Common woods,
where cuckoos were a distant
promise of fleeting residency,
the temporary in the seasons,
calling a partner in crime to lay
an egg patterned with our nature,
displacing the righteous, leaving
open mouths, always hungry.
Rightly secretive these tricksters,
afraid to be uncloaked, the confidence
scam revealed. I caught a glimpse
in late May as he bolted past, fleeing
to other haunts where I hear him:
the High Alps, the lips of Italian lakes,
the confusions of teenage heat.
He seems loudest in lazy mid-
summer evenings of exposed moons,
nostalgic pangs even before leaving.
Later in summer, I am saddened by
the need to wait until another April.
Dreams of Lake Como
I dream of your ripples on the lakeshore,
ripples of golden waves over golden rocks.
Like an Arthurian knight, I am drawn
to your waters and hear the Lady chanting
in Italian, grail promises of healing, cleansing
siren drawing me into your turquoise depths.
Fish flit at your hem, some big and unhurried.
In some dreams the lake hazes with mist.
Your mountains become rumours, your far
shore a blur and your ballad takes me back
to childhood: playing in moorland rivers
and coastal rock pools. Time is upturned
in your glacial heart. The waves giggle over
rocks and sadness in the polished stones.
In other dreams you dress in your jewels:
orange and cream roofed villages piercing
tiny ears of land, the isthmus hand of Bellagio
dressed in lace strips, steep pearl-topped
mountain crows. This is something beyond art,
rounder than tabled intentions, deeper
than stone worship. What do you think of me?
Lucky atoms as near to nothing as can be,
an organic moment of punctuation in time’s
long sentences. Your eroded indifference is all
the more beautiful. My prayers are answered
in reflection. Long after I am gone, you will still
be Lake Como, but for these dreamy moments,
we drink wine from the same earthen Grail
Matthew James Friday has had poems published in numerous international magazines and journals, including, recently: All the Sins (UK), The Blue Nib (Ireland), Acta Victoriana (Canada), and Into the Void (Canada). The mini-chapbooks All the Ways to Love, Waters of Oregon and The Words Unsaid were published by the Origami Poems Project (USA).
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Akbar Barakzai was born in Shikarpur, Sindh in 1939. 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 managed to bring out just two anthologies of his poems, 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.
Waiting for Godot
Arise! O friends from this deep slumber
Godot will not, will never show up
Godot is the prophet of slumberous wakefulness
He's a messenger with a black scripture to misguide
the ignorant, halfwits and simpletons
O friends and pals! In your hearts and mind
and in every bone and vein of your body
The poison of slumberous wakefulness
Sprouted into toxic mushrooms
Pray tell me why do you want to waste yourselves
Why do you want to rob your mind of wisdom and reason
O friends! Much desired is the dark tunnel of death
Than the curse of slumberous consciousness
Either sleep eternally like a rock
Or like the sea stay awake for evermore
Either imbibe the poisonous chalice of death
Or reap the treasured harvest of life
The poison of slumberous wakefulness is evermore feared
Than the murderer's deadly sword
The murderer's sword puts an instant end to life
Liberates one from all worries and woes
The curse of slumberous wakefulness
Neither lets you die in peace
Nor breathe in life's gentle breeze
Dear friends and comrades rest assured
Godot will not, will never show up
Setting our eyes on Godot's trail
We shall surely lose our vision
And the wealth of wisdom
We shall squander away forever
Arise my pals and companions
Pray cast off the snare of death
Liberate yourselves
From this slumberous consciousness
Set your brilliant minds free
From the fetters of indolence
For the hope of a mirthful spring
Together with your mates
Gulp down the potent liquor of death
O friends and comrades!
Betray not yourselves any more
Godot will not, will never show up
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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Solus
Is being in solus
Spotting the droplet
That doesn’t flow over?
While forlorn,
He is not seen.
While forlorn,
It seems
He is another.
A multitude.
In absentia.
At times,
The tiny chirping bird
That sheds music
Seems to be
Singing his heart.
He turns out to be
So unlike him,
So full of him.
He turns out to
Be exactly that.
Is being in solus
Spotting the droplet
That doesn’t flow over?
Sujith Kumar is a poet and editor. He has served as the executive editor of Omega: Indian Journal of Science and Religion and also as the sub-editor of the magazines, Madhyamam and Ezhuthu.
Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet, flash fiction author, and translator. His work has appeared in international journals and anthologies of repute and translated into Malayalam and Arabic. Books: After Seeing (2006), Party Poopers (2014), and XXL (Dhauli Books, 2018). He lives in Bangalore, India.
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Pigeons, Us & God
In the hall
pigeons
stare down at
us as we
chant and sing
devotional songs.
Are they
wondering
if it is really
necessary to be so
loud to be
devoted?
Isn’t God just
around the next
corner of our
hearts?
That Day
That day there was
much to be
said.
Not a word was
spoken.
Eyes Looked at
each other and
much love was
exchanged.
Exploration
I sent a part of
myself very far away
to explore and chart
unknown territories of
my mind.
RJ Kaimal has more than 2000 poems on the AllPoetry.com site. His writings are featured by The Classical Poets of New York, Storyhouse.org, & Poetrysoup. He lives in Bangalore, India.
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Amour
Search for vacant spaces in your beloved’s eyes.
No, you won’t find those easily.
Like the young ones under a hen’s wings,
she hides her emptiness beneath her eyelids,
which never forgets how you kissed the eyebrows, once upon a time.
If you look deeply into the wells of her resonating laughter,
you can draw waters of bare desires and deferred passions.
You are never blamed for the act, neither is she guilty of it --
being blank, is not sinful.
It lies like an open wound, gaping at the skies,
eclipsed by the penetrating sun.
Kiss the hollowness gently,
but never try to step in.
Please watch the barrenness from afar,
do not barge inside, nor scar her privacy,
with your sharp tongue.
For if you do,
she may let you in,
but you will always be the unwelcomed thief,
who’d robbed her of the last inch of the planet,
which she had painfully reserved for herself.
Dr. Nithya Mariam John is a teacher, poet , editor, translator and critic with three published collections of poetry and an anthology. Her works have appeared in Kendra Sahitya Akademi’s Journal of Indian Literature, Malayalam Literature Survey, Muse India, Indian Ruminations and Samyukta Poetry. She podcast eight episodes titled ‘Torn Pages of a Diary’ during the pandemic year 2020. She blogs atMizhi (nmjs.in). email : nithyamariam@gmail.com
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Of Gasping and Grasping
I saw a cross in the sky
was that Jesus Christ or pollution
I think it’s starting to tear
all the fabric of autumn has loosened
You scried the depths of the pool
came up wild-eyed with spells of reflection
It’s like the birth of a prayer
breathing, bleeding, and begging the question
Headlight Fever
I wasted all my venom
too early
now I’m a stuffed koala
bathing in the sun
baking eucalyptus
laughing at the world
spin round and round
You told me every flash point
needs flint
to spark
now my hair is on fire
rip off the covers
rest in the ash of your laurels
waiting for the lesson
to burn at will
Scattered Ages
Snapshots of mood & emotion
The mouth of death
and its inevitable yawn
Plagues throughout time
our emergent rise from the muck & mud
My ancestors didn’t starve in the cold
before passing on their swagger
and neither should I
succumb to a sin not my own
nor suffer the karma
that’s been cleansed from my soul
I caught 18 falling leaves this autumn
each one blessed with a wish still to make
Every yesterday failed to dig my grave
tomorrow remains a promise of the wind
Scott Thomas Outlar lives and writes in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. His podcast, Songs of Selah, airs weekly on 17Numa Radio and features interviews with contemporary poets, artists, musicians, and health advocates. More about Outlar’s work can be found at 17Numa.com.
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Green Grin
At the foot of the hill,
where the sunflowers beamed,
there lived a tortoise called Green Grin.
Every Sunday, it wore its grey ‘Sprint’ shoes
and yellow ‘Alien’ hat;
It ran around the steady elegant playground
and when the summer breeze caressed the young tree leaves,
it would somersault as if touching a lower pink cloud.
The grey grumpy mice sighed,
The red crested birds flapped their wings;
Then, everyone unanimously exclaimed,
“Indeed it’s peculiar, that creature!
Green Grin , the only tortoise who can run!
Green Grin the finest sportstortoise who spreads cheer
in the whole tropical land!”
Splash
By the river reflecting golden shimmery dots
and fine green lines,
I often meet Splash, the grey mouse.
Its eyes are deep, philosophical;
Its ears unusually pink and big.
It often tells me of some Mathematical tales –
Some narration of how the Plus and Multiplication signs
are results of simple rotation;
Some legends of how the Minus and Division signs
hold the same horizontal stem.
Amidst the hectic routine,
when some dark clouds hover over my island,
it’s indeed refreshing to chat with Splash,
the grey mouse who constantly cherishes numbers.
Vatsala Radhakeesoon is an author/poet and artist from Mauritius. She has had numerous poetry books published and she is currently working on her flash fiction/short stories book. She considers poetry as her first love and visual art as a healer in all circumstances. Vatsala Radhakeesoon currently lives at Rose-Hill, Mauritius and is a freelance literary translator and an interview editor of Asian Signature journal.
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Borderless 