Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

I am a Woman & Covid 19: An Intruder

By Pravat Kumar Padhy

I am a Woman

the stones stack

one above another

in deep silence

void mingles with the wind

rumbling into the emptiness

****        ****      ****

dark patches

of the colour of the skin

he screams aloud 

as if moon with its lost shine

hides behind the dense cloud

****        ****      ****

she fears to call

the wave by which name

layers over layers

she drags her footmarks

as the rain follows the rain

****        ****      ****

memory 

still frightens her

every evening

tears mingle

with her bereaved sea

****    ****    ****
wiping tears

gently from her face

with a needle of hope

she threads the pain in between

reading  life, like an anthology of poem

****    ****    ****

she reminisces

about events long gone by

floating leaves

gather patches  of shadow

mixed with receding sunshine

*****        *****      *****

holding the breeze

near the liberty square

she wishes

the sculpture to proclaim

her expression of tender pray

****     ****     ****

like an adrift tree

often she got bled and burnt

the woman of justice 

holds the beam balance,

the cover page of Social science

Note: These five-line poems are excerpts from the manuscript, “I am a Woman”

Covid-19: An Intruder

stillness

like a deep forest…

invisible invaders

axe everyone, like trees

falling silently into sleep

****    ****    ****

all around

beyond the border

a tremor of panic

swollen eyes turn

into craters of stormy rain

****    ****    ****

since sunrise

he has been breathing hard  

a stone even feels

the pain of suffering

as he strides towards his last evening

****    ****      ****

his last word

mingles with void…

we scream aloud

as the storm blows away

all the petals of our hope

****    ****    ****

aliens, if any,

might be wondering

about the planet

deep shadow of silence

eclipses under the trembling fear

****    ****    ****

dawn to dust

a long walk to the cemetery…

the last line

in the book of condolence

reads curse of the cruel Covid-19

****    ****    ****

seed of hope

lies under the soil

to sprout

wish for mankind to witness

the garden of flower and fragrance

Pravat Kumar Padhy has obtained his Masters of Science and Technology and a Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, ISM Dhanbad. His literary work is cited in Interviews with Indian Writing in English, Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, History of Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. His poems received many awards and commendations including the Editors’ Choice Award at Writers Guild of India, Asian American Poetry, Poetbay, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, UNESCO International Year Award of Water Co-operation and others. His tanka, ‘I mingle’ is featured in the “Kudo Resource Guide”, University of California, Berkeley. His poem, “How Beautiful” is included in the Undergraduate English Curriculum at the university level.

Categories
Poetry

Katsaridaphobia/Gospel According to Cockroaches

By Aditya Shankar

1

And the insect haters, repellent sprayers, broom

wielders will eventually reside beneath soil:

the second life. The hand that swats thy loved

ones will lie defenseless. Time of cockroaches

and oppressed shall arrive.

2

Soil will erode like the layers of sandwich. The

one who seeks will traverse its depth. The one

who licks the world shall know and conquer.

3

Our itchy legs shall crawl and penetrate the fire

in the flesh and the temptation of the wood coffin.

4

He who comes digging for forefathers and lost

cities shall tremble at our conquest and return to

house of darkness, referred hereafter as hell.

5

Punish them with your touch. Tease them

with your shadow. Crawl in their nightmares.

Appear as rarely as God among sinners.

6

And when you take an avatar, infest his cup-

board and attic with the thousand children you

beget. Fear shall have no face.

7

The army of your lineage shall be the

messenger of colour. Fire, soil, and life beneath

shall have your shade.

8

Eat the sleep of men and women from whose

country, the messenger never returns.

9

Bore holes in their books and clothes. Plough their

notions until they turn into roads that lead nowhere.

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.

Categories
Poetry

Praying Mantis

By Orbindu Ganga

Painted in a shade 
Rested in her cave,
Silent enough to be staid
To be camouflaged
With the leaves,
Whirling from the obtuse
To touch the straight angle,
She echoes the form
In the way, she looks,
She creeps like a humanoid
To trigger the strive for higher form,
She drafts her movement
Like a saint for everybody’s well-being,
Seeing with a vision in two
To hear them mumble in one,
She was created 
To whisper in the ambiance,
Ingrained with gratitude
To seek the showers of blessings,
From the almighty 
With folded hands to him,
The human opened their eyes
To get intrigued to see the visual.
She stood still 
For as long she could,
Making her the cynosure
For rest to admire,
Showing all the species
The power of prayer,
The mantis is the prophet
Praying for all the species.

Orbindu Ganga is a post-graduate in science and the first recipient of Dr. Mitra Augustine gold medal for academic excellence. He worked in financial, banking and publishing domains, proving his finesse as a Soft Skills Trainer and Content Account Manager (Client Relationship Manager). Orbindu Ganga is a multilingual poet, author, critic, content writer, sketch artist, researcher, and spiritual healer. His poems have been published in many international publications and anthologies. He has published two research papers in poetry. His painting and article have been published in a spiritual journal – Awakening. He has authored the book “SAUDADE.”

Categories
Poetry

Virus, Unanswered Questions and more…

By Manu Dash

Virus The ocean is now equipped to endorse swimming. It’s time to endure the ineluctable annual trip. The sky mirrors the swashbuckling journey; Someone waiting for you at the end of the shore. Lights will be clouded when you move avoiding the lighthouse; Use your instinct always before the lullaby disowns its source. Darkness and sea-storms area package, inclusive of Olive Ridley. Ignorance will one day fall like baby teeth. Leading the life of a peacenik is a terrible act. Have you taken the cutlass with you? Not necessary that you should use all the things you have; Throw in everything during the missionary position. Avoid sand dunes which are nothing but Homeric nods. An Unanswered Question The little boy asked his mother, ‘Who made our village river?’ Mother raised her face from The homework and answered, ‘God’. ‘Has he made our village too?’ ‘Yes’ said she. ‘Why the inequality in making Buildings, roads, and facilities?’ ‘Ask these questions with God When you grow older,’ Mother laughed. The following year, the boy met God When his school bus plunged into the river. But no one knew if he raised the question Before God. Obituary for an Artist Did he outwalk The barrage of dreams? The shadow of helplessness grows taller Day after day; Death snatched the singsong soul With half the morning stroll Unfinished under The pregnant sky. A rain of tears damp The virtual wall; The rosary of marigolds Appears like spent bullets; And the gun salute by the state Sinks in the arms of darkness. What’s there in the body Without the soul; What’s there in the soul Without the body? You are thirdfourthfifthsixth May be in this week alone. Unfinished lines and incomplete brush strokes Play with the washerman’s canine; Experience the anguish of eternal waiting. No one will bother to blame fragile memory And wait for the echoing rhetoric. Advice to an Osteoporosis Man Who Loves to Run After dismantling the long night Let’s stop running now. It smells like a joss stick. Fog captures the road ahead. I’ll never know Whose tender hands made these shoes That chime and kiss our asphalt road of life. May I donate to you my ancient history Burdened with false pride and a whine That may bring numinosity to the soul? Let’s turn back now. The days go ahead in their spendthrift way Before you pray a silent prayer Where no prayer-flag is in sight. You may drink the newspapers Brimming with the retching of time.

(with permission taken from A Brief History of Silence, Dhauli Books 2019)

Manu Dash (1956) is a poet, editor, translator, publisher and curator of the annual Odisha Art & Literature Festival. He has published 25 books in Odia and English. While in college, he joined the “Anam Writers’ Movement” — an anti-establishment movement in Odia literature — shortly before the imposition of Emergency in India in 1975. He is the founder of Dhauli Books, which won the prestigious “Publishing Next Industry Award for the Best Printed Book of the Year in Indian Languages” in 2018.

Categories
Poetry

The Birds in These Strange Times and more…

By Matthew James Friday

The Birds in These Strange Times A pair of kites have come for the lake now the airport is closed, buoyed by empty skies, rustling wooded hills, lacey waters. My wife shows me trees on the lake’s whispering edge where cormorants gather, roosting in the trees like paused pterodactyls. An adult swallow giddy with its suddenes, rolling in the early April air, the very first migrant recoiled by a changed climate. Back to Blue Imprisoned in caution, the cases rising, fear abundant, school closed, classes cancelled. All online now. I watch a documentary about Miles Davis. I have always struggled with Jazz, berated the lack of melody, felt lost amongst the jostling notes. But following his story, the craft from the chaos, the passion in tone I choose to try again. Back to Blue starts, and notes sound as alarming as the online coverage but the jingling chords, the blasts of trumpet suddenly sounds peace while the world tears. Balance From the balcony I watch a cat watching a squirrel leaping from one tree to another, change its mind, return and scuttle up and down branches, a slither of fast fur perfectly balanced, death either side of sure claws. The squatting cat tilts its head as the squirrel becomes branch, then pads off to draw its own line.

In Rooms, Therefore We Are

The rooms we build define us, shape us, create and consume us.

To function as a modern human is to be in a room: offices, classrooms, waiting rooms, shops, bedrooms, gardens, cafés, libraries, trains, airplanes, theatres, cinemas and stadiums.

Alone or confessing, on holiday, marrying, working or transgressing. Watching or waiting, dancing, defecating or contemplating.

Our own heads are a skeletal room we stare out of; thoughts, ideas and words bouncing around the bony walls. Billions pray to be safely ushered into the everlasting room beyond these rooms, to be reunited with those who were once in our rooms.

The number of rooms make all the difference between a slum resident and a billionaire, freedom and imprisonment; rooms that can be built from waste material or secreted into yachts; rooms that only the most valiant warriors can ascend to while others descend to the deepest unreachable rooms.

To feel free, we leap over the walls to the open, roomless countryside, though we return to rooms at night or make them using tents. We stare deeply and longingly into the blinking night sky, wondering if there are rooms on other planets like our planet, which is one giant, spinning room, moving through an ever-expanding room.

Even the atom itself is a kind of theoretical room, built mainly of nothing, of potentially something through which hums the moments of energy that we use to build up all the matter around us.

         Perhaps we love rooms because that is where we began, in our mother’s warm interior room; safe from everything outside and other. Perhaps it is the safety of this dark, nourishing room that is the shadow between every room thereafter.

As children we build pretend rooms, hide in them from the monsters that sneak into our rooms, that lurk in their own dark spaces in the corners.

As adults we spend days rushing in and out rooms. Now, confined to our rooms in fear of that which knows no walls, we are more thankful than ever for the walls. We stare at each other from balconies and buildings, all afraid in our rooms and wondering when the doors will open again.


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).
Website:      http://matthewfriday.weebly.com

Categories
Poetry

Lockdown dilemmas

By Gauri Dixit

Lockdown Dilemmas The blades rotate at a constant speed My eyes etch a pattern on the thick layer of dust 'The fan will not clean itself' The mind says 'It will too See the tiny dust particles floating in the air?' Says the eye The onions have been lying in the terrace for six days now Day one and day two were supposed to dry the wet onions It rained on day three and four The onions are out for drying again And they will dry on their own There's no pain I go through the memories scattered around Picking each, cleaning, dusting, compartmentalizing, organizing Halfway through I see you Much larger than any compartment I have at my disposal And too small to be locked

Gauri Dixit when not busy working in her office, is busy being a traveller, climbing mountains, capturing the voice of a solitary flower blossoming from a rock or the bird sitting on a hanging branch, sometimes  the setting sun or the  sea  in her camera as well as in the words she weaves. Her poems speak in a voice which is unique, cold and direct .  She  has been a Reuel Prize awardee. Her first book, ‘In My Skin, I Find Freedom’, has poems on varied subjects with a common thread of a sceptical questioning mind of a free woman.

Categories
Poetry

Poetry from Nepal: Eyes and tears

Poetry by Sangita Swechcha, translated by Jayant Sharma

Dr Sangita Swechcha
Over the rim of the eyes
welled weary the tears,                                        
asking the eyes—
“Should I trickle or not?”
The poor couple turn oculus in utter surprise,
respond in a staggering and gruelling shape—
“How do you yearn to roll down?”
The tears sob at the oddity of the question
and reply in a state of being offended and distressed—
“If you’re embarrassed to show up in open,
I shall glide my way inside.
If you are in solitude otherwise,
I shall spill out in a surge.”
How wise the tears are—full of empathy!
To save the eyes from being abashed
they are ready to repress their outburst.
And to loosen up the eyes
they are all set to gush out
from creeks across the cheeks.
The eyes, meanwhile, are silent;
their heart already hard as stone.
And so retort—
“I get fused easily
even after countless fragmentation
only to be never fragmented again.”
Thus is the difference—
between the eyes and the tears.
The eyes are fixed
But the tears get dismembered many times only to be shattered again.
Hence—
The tears that once dropped off inadvertently in despair
have started asking for permission nowadays
before making their way out.
And the eyes that were inept in giving consent before
have started giving permission these days.
Thus is this alchemy between the eyes and the tears—
The tears ask—
“Should I trickle or not?”
And the eyes respond—
“How do you yearn to roll down?”

Dr. Sangita Swechcha has been an ardent lover of literature from an early age. She has published a novel ‘Pakhalieko Siudo’ (Washed Vermillion) and co-authored a collection of short stories ‘Asahamati ka Pailaharu’ (Hoofmark of Discord) before the collection ‘Gulafsanga ko Prem’ (The Rose: An Unusual Love Story). Her second novel is under publication and her short story collection is being translated into English. She has many short stories and poems published in various journals and online portals including Radio Nepal, Nepal Television, Global Literature in Library Initiative (GLLI) – USA based site and Your2Read, a London based venture dedicated to short story genre.    Email: sangyshrestha@hotmail.com , Website: www.sangitaswechcha.com.


Jayant Sharma is the publisher and editor of an English literary magazine Sathi which promotes Nepali literature through English translations and the founder of translateNEPAL which is an initiative to represent Nepal to the global literary scene. As a writer and translator, Jayant also contributes to major national dailies and South-Asian journals regarding arts, literature, and culture. 

Categories
Poetry

The Moment and more…

By Dustin Pickering

The Moment Before I met you, my life was full of joy. Before I met you, my life was full of fear. The day I met you was fearful and joyful, a joyous unbinding from merciless wounds. Fear thrust into my heart to unearth joy. I rejoiced in seeing you, and love you. You are my heart, and you are satisfied with love. You are satiated with my companionship. What we become together depends so much on Being: Being is continuity of action, and love must be forever. promising darkness words in violation of strict premises glory or face times diluted in fear pretense tightens the mask a failure of childhood buried beside insolence your mind lays unaddressed who opened the door to chaos feelings flayed in the open dreams and reflections against promising darkness Empty Longing I don't exist: that helpless look of duty is empty longings, friend. If your angel only cast one lumbering breath to hunt holiness, he will blind the livid temper to its egging impulses. Heed this prayer, o wicked deliverance, if kisses are tied to innocence.

Dustin Pickering is the founder of Transcendent Zero Press and editor-in-chief of Harbinger Asylum. He has authored several poetry collections, a short story collection, and a novella. He is a Pushcart nominee and was a finalist in Adelaide Literary Journal’s short story contest in 2018. He is a former contributor to Huffington Post. 

Categories
Poetry

Happening and more…

By Vasile Baghiu

Happening Yesterday, I met poetry on the stony Loch Long shore, near Ardpeaton. The place was empty, and I think she felt very well as she was: ignored, neglected, abandoned among the wood pieces and dry sea wracks. Though I had suspected for some time she was not just the kind of a thing written on a paper sheet, it was at that moment I viewed the truth. The waves looked like real sea; the breeze, kingfishers, the insistent wind bringing clouds, by heaps, carrying them further away, like in a movie shown with high speed, yet other details, not very easy to be described - all made me recognize her from the distance. I had my camera close at hand, so I took many photos thinking to impress my friends later, as I knew they would not believe my story. In the evening, when the images were downloaded, nothing could be seen on the monitor. I resigned then to sadness and insight, and I confine myself to write here. Still I am sure I really met poetry yesterday. Under Wave It is as if I were ill sometimes, feverish, lonely, abroad. I do not share myself between me and my own person. The world swishes inside; and the heart, agreeing secretly with the brain, makes waves to show I am still alive. Despite the smile, I am not on the wave -- quite under it. Maybe I am in vacation and try to take advantage of the good weather. Striving to be at least a part of what I will never be, I dare not venture too deep but splash a bit with the oars here, where I suppose the shore is nearby helping me feel safe. I Do Not Write Today I do not write. I wish I could live a bit more than I do in normal circumstances. I put aside all the pencils and papers, close the computer and come into the midday sun. I do not write, so I go for a walk, and think of the things concerning me closely these days: the life at home, and the new British poetry at “Bloodaxe” I spent all the last evening. This morning I sent e-mails to two persons who do not get along very well, hoping they would make up when seeing they have a mutual friend in me. Wordsworth was right: long and solitary walks are good for inspiration, but today I do not write. I feel good, but I would not pretend this comfortable feeling will infiltrate my writing too, in case tomorrow I begin the story again. I get a bit more distant from myself so that I can see me better. A fit of laughter seizes me. Today I do not write.

(First appeared in the volume Cât de departe a mers/ How Far Have I Gone, 2008)

Vasile Baghiu (b. 1965) is a Romanian writer, author of eight books of poetry, a collection of short stories and three novels published in his country. He has been awarded a few writers-in-residence grants, in Germany, Austria, Scotland and Switzerland. Some of his works have appeared in translation in magazines and anthologies such as Penmen Review, Magma Poetry, Southern Ocean Review, The Orange Room Review, Stellar Showcase Journal, L.A. Melange, Poetry Can, Banipal, Cordite Poetry Review, The Aalitra Review, Bordertown. Co-author of the poetry collection Transatlantic Crossings: The Constant Language of Poetry, (TJMF Publishing, USA, 2006). Vasile had in the past diverse work experiences as a nurse, including a sanatorium. A psychologist and a teacher now, married, he has a daughter and a son. He currently is working simultaneously on a new novel, a new collection of poems and a non-fiction book.

Categories
Poetry

Fear in Times of Corona

By Amit Shankar Saha

 Fear in Times of Corona

Wish Fulfilment

Today when you read your poems and I am far away

the rains will bend their direction to mourn the distance,

the lights will sit heavy on the evening of remembrance,

a lake in Kashmir will abruptly freeze in sorrow,

a mirage in Kutch will waylay a traveler for water,

memory will weave a flower patterned chintz curtain,

the dreams of the curtain will cover the world like a storm,

a poet will squeeze the universe in his palms and say,

“Today when you read your poems and I am far away

I wish the words that escape your lips come all my way.”

Quarantined Night

Fear of your inexistence surrounds me at night like muggers in a dark lane. Fear that hoods my head, covers my eyes, pummels my chest, kicks my gut. Fear that leaves me bruised with no one to accuse in a dark lane of the night. This night I quarantine the night in the madhouse of viral nightmares between pillows of sleep and death. This night isolated from all other nights of quarantined darkness reminds of one who died distanced. This night the dead poet awakes from Rome's Protestant Cemetery, breaks the distended curfew of death. This night I too break the curfew and in my viral thoughts visit you to write my name in water. This night that brings a latent promise and footsteps of familiar delight is the madhouse of saddest sighs.

Amit Shankar Saha is an award-winning poet and short story writer. He has won the Poiesis Award,, Wordweavers Prize, Nissim International Runner-up Prize. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the co-founder of Rhythm Divine Poets and Assistant Secretary of Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library. His poems are in Best Indian Poetry Anthology 2018 and he has read at Sahitya Akademi. His collections of poems are titled “Balconies of Time” and “Fugitive Words”. He has a PhD in English from Calcutta University and teaches in the English Department of Seacom Skills University.