The navel chuckles, “Don’t ask the colon’s opinion.”
Throughout this chatter
the brain has remained complacent.
“Have fun without me,” it sings
as it flits out an ear.
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Penny Wilkes, MFA served as a science editor, travel and nature writer and columnist. Along with short stories, her features on humour and animal behaviour have appeared in a variety of publications. An award-winning writer and poet, she has published a collection of short stories, Seven Smooth Stones. Her published poetry collections include: Whispers from the Land, In Spite of War, and FlyingLessons. Her Blog on TheWrite Life features life skills, creativity, and writing: http://penjaminswriteway.blogspot.com/
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Paresh Tiwari is a poet, artist and editor. He has been widely published, especially in the sub-genre of Japanese poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared in several publications, including the anthology by Sahitya Akademi, ‘Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians’ released to celebrate 200 years of Indian English Poetry. ‘Raindrops chasing Raindrops’, hissecond haibun collection was awarded the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award in the year 2017. Paresh has co-edited the landmark International Haibun Anthology, Red River Book of Haibun, Vol 1 which was published by Red River Publications in 2019. He is also the serving haibun editor of the online literary magazine Narrow Road.
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I looked at the darkness that slowly grew around me
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Spring suffocated in the gardens.
Flowers died on branches on their own
As the unborn died in the womb of a dead mother.
Faraway a little bird fluttered in pain and agony…
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I sadly captured the hues of autumn…
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The wild wind blew away a heap of dried leaves
And dust swept away dreams of daffodils,
Withering the petals to be embraced by winter.
Naked branches helplessly stretched out their longings towards the sky
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I sat alone looking at the turbulent future in time
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The river saturated into white snowy silence…
And the lonely boat half drowns into that cold aloofness.
Like the half- widows — half-dead, and half-alive
Suspended in life with a trickle of hope and deathly grief
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I sat down on the horizon and looked at the sky.
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It seems the Earth was angry with the sky
Just as the moon was angry with the sun and the stars.
Maybe Nature itself is slowly coming to a halt
Oh God, are you also in pain and despair?
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The countries busily build walls of hatred and tyranny
While little Alan slept endlessly on the shores of the great sea
The angels are whimpering and awakening their dead ones
Remember that no amount of candies can wash away their pain
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I’m still walking through the rubble of the city of hatred —
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Here every soul is thirsty and everybody is hurt in the mayhem.
Here everyone seems to be oppressed and enslaved.
Here everyone seems to be lonely, the rich and the poor.
Here everyone seems to be strangely normal and silently crying…
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I searched like a wailing morning breeze of the mountains.
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Today I know the pitcher of love is broken and dried
Today I am standing here and waiting for you my Prophet!
Bring us the magical verses that will melt our stoned heart.
Sing for us the song of sparrows, the songs of love and peace.
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Sing for us the song of life, song of your eternal gardens……
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Warrior Of Light: A Tribute To My Mother
Mother, Oh mother, you are my guardian angel, epitome of love.
All mothers are precious to their children, she’s the goddess of life
And my mother is my everything , she’s is the light of my eyes
Without her I will not exist, without her I will not sustain
My mother is the most courageous woman of our valley
She’s is the most ferocious , most beautiful angel of this paradise
Like the torrential waters of Jhelum, she went beyond the mountains and valley for truth
She’s is not afraid of anything or anyone when it comes to protect her children
Come soon mother the home is desolated in your absence
Reminiscence of your caring persona , your touch , your smell ,
Again and again resonating the sense of loss and sense of vacuum
Now we are the orphaned lambs of the meadows lost without our shepherd
When will you be back mom , Eid is here Muharram is gone
Years are passing in gloom without you in our life
Our screams are suppressed our pain is been ignored and forgotten
Our prayers, our shrines are vandalised by pellets and bullets
But your voice echoed in us , your shadow loomed around us
Your infinite love and compassion for humanity is our strength mother
You keep the promises of tomorrow , fighting injustice alone in the dark cell
Your persistence your determination is the vast silent Himalayas
Tall as the heavenly seraph slayer of evil, hold us in your encompassing wings
Mother you are my rock, you are my sword and shield
Mother come for once, make me sleep inside your warm “Phiren”
Make me sleep next to your heart, the pot of red embers.
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Rayees Ahmad is a budding writer and poet from Kashmir. He has bachelor’s in mass communication and masters in Peace and Conflict Studies. He hopes to add a new colour to Kashmir and the conflict it faces through his poetry. He has written many poems and articles on the Kashmiri diaspora.
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Gopal Lahiri is a Kolkata- based bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 21 books published 13 in English and 8 in Bengali, including three joint books. His poetry is also published in various anthologies and in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems have been published in 12 countries and translated in 10 languages. He has been invited to several poetry festivals across India.
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In this colony of refugees, history is lived in the unpaved streets lined with open sewers, in the molten iron of the factory spitting out shiny Ambassadors and Contessas, in the stories of old women with sandalwood paste on their forehead, in the muddy cataract-filled eyes of old men dozing off in the winter sun.
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My small grilled window frames a patch of sky and the sloping asbestos roof of the un-plastered house. The girl in a white sari, her eyes luminous with the blue of the sky of her village, searches for home amid shabby concrete rubbles of this colony. She crossed a border too like those who came before her.
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My eyes seek out her loneliness. A Muslim man reminds her of home. In this colony of refugees, history is relived in longing for the wrong man.
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Mosarrap Hossain Khan teaches at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India. He is a founding-editor at Café Dissensus magazine.
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This poem was first published in Peahen Passions (Author’s Press) in 2013
Prof. Dr. Laksmisree Banerjee, a Poet-Professor, a Scholar-Vocalist, has been widely published and anthologised across continents. She is a Sr. Fulbright (USA) and Commonwealth Scholar (UK) and a National Scholar and Gold Medalist of the University of Calcutta. An Ex-Vice Chancellor and University Professor of English and Culture Studies, she has Five Books of Poetry with One Hundred Twenty Research Publications, two Academic Books on Romantic and World Women Poetry, her focal areas of specialization. A Rotarian & Multiple Paul Harris Fellow, she is the Indian Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities. She has lectured and recited her Indian-English Poetry and Vocal Indian Music in premier Universities, Literary Festivals and Conferences across the globe.
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Daf the centaur and his friend Wi-Wi the pink lizard share the same birth-day Each mid-October they unwrap a newly-designed scales-shaped sofa bounce on it drum their Pringles cans then relax sipping strong Cappuccino coffee reading the Libra horoscope through their bluish specs on Witty Sapphire website.
My Friend from Wales
I have a friend who lives in Wales He often says he has a boat-whale I remind him “but it’s only a whale” He emphasizes “Indeed it’s a boat that can perfectly sail.”
The Lady from Hectic City
There was a lady who left Hectic City and went to live in Forest-Greeny But when she felt nostalgic, she called Grizzly, the energetic They both tap-danced till midnight and metamorphosed the crescent moon into a starry kite Thus she won over nostalgia, This lady from Hectic City.
Vatsala Radhakeesoon was born in Mauritius in 1977. She is the author of 8 poetry books including When Solitude Speaks (Ministry of Arts and Culture Mauritius, 2013), Unconditional Thread ( Alien Buddha Press, USA,2019), and Tropical Temporariness(Transcendent Zero Press, USA, 2019). She is one of the representatives of Immagine and Poesia, an Italy based literary movement uniting artists and poets’ works. She has been selected as one of the poets for Guido Gozzano Poetry contest from 2016 to 2019. Vatsala currently lives at Rose-Hill and is a literary translator, interviewer and artist.
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If you do not know poetry beyond high school, all poems are odes. They go O…! Haven’t read any contemporary poetry? Haven’t seen poetry recitals except on primetime tv? All poems still go O…! Do not share your new poem in a circle of school friends or relatives. Even if you do, hear their comment ‘Wow! Awesome! Lovely!’ as ‘grow up to an ode that goes O…’. The retired revolutionary poet glances through your poem and says: not even worth the Z-division league of O Germany, Pale Mother. Not even a shadow of O, We are the Outcasts, reminds the senior postmodern poet. Poems titled Orange, Omelette, Oxygen aren’t quite the O poems, declares the lyric poet who reads O Blush Not So! twice daily. A tired and old O Do Not Love Too Long and his pal O Western Wind confess to a friendly new prose poem: we long to idle in our graves. But alas! Here they are, in ill-fitting attire of teleported primitives, holding centre stage in a bandwagon that fades around the corner. As good as a failed interworking attempt between H.323 and SIP or a brand-new showroom of CRT televisions. A retro hackathon in Fortran, an MMO Pacman event or the B side of an old VHS tape. The street is a river, a carnival of clichés and bygones.
Note:
O Germany, Pale Mother by Bertolt Brecht/O, We are the Outcasts by Charles Bukowski/O Blush Not So! by John Keats/O Do Not Love Too Long by W.B. Yeats/O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
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Aditya Shankar is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated 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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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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Sunil Sharma is Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 21 published books: Seven collections of poetry; three of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, eight joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.
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Borderless 
