Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

History by Snehaprava Das

From Public Domain 
HISTORY

Stuck in an absurd divide,
Between truth and half-truth,
I am a mirror capturing the contours 
Of the days that were then.
Faces shift on the page of glass,
Blurry, painted and plain.

Overlapping faces of
Civilisations rise and fall  
To their broken glory.
Cities, fortresses, landscapes
Along the meandering length of time,
Crawl to meet the end of a story.

Faces wearing triumphs of battles won
On bloody fields, that were once
Sprawls of flowing green, smile  
Under a starry fragrance.

Faces crumpled at war-cries, 
At sirens screaming,
At loud laments ripping apart
The ecstatic valleys of spring,
Faces baffled at the uncanny chants in  
The ruins, caves and dens,
And the whispers of yesterdays' ghosts 
Echo in silence.

Cradling a bundle of unborn days 
And untold tales inside,
I sit like a stoic saint waiting to see,
The other faces that will float into 
My page of glass.

What is that incorrigible legacy
Time will pass to me?
I wait to discover my digital face
Muraled on the rocks of another planet
Smiling at me happily.

Snehaprava Das is an academic, translator and writer. She has multiple translations, three collections of stories and five anthologies of poetry to her credit. She has been published in Indian Literature, Oxford University Press, Speaking Tiger Books, Penguin and Black Eagle Books.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by John Swain

John Swain
ABOVE THE ORATORY 

The wheatfields lean like a sundial over the river,
sun bronzes the walking staff rafted at my shoulder,
the wind flowers flax for your dress in the sun.

Glimpsing the jasper hill, we contemplate a palace
beyond ascent,
the roof lanterns above the oratory dome,
we burn thoughts like myrrh, the fragrant smoke horses,
the sky sings to the earth with the meadowlark.

I recite the codex pouring from your mirrored eye-stone,
we read the light in silence awed by the light you table.

John Swain lives in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France.  His most recent chapbook, The Daymark, was published by the Origami Poems Project.

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Categories
Poetry

Fragments by Karim Dashti

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

Karim Dashti (1939-1984) is a prominent Balochi poet. What sets Karim apart from other modern Balochi poets is his skeptical and somewhat nihilistic approach that are implied in his ghazals. Abruptnessis one of the main characteristics of his tone—hardly any Balochi poet employs such abruptness, especially when dealing with themes related to divinity. Most of Karim’s verses enshrine deep philosophical reflections on existence and are rich with emotional intensity. These ghazal-couplets1 have been taken from Dil Zareet Bolan published by Balochi Academy, Quetta, in 2009.

(1)
To the Lord’s throne 
No grievances I ever bear, 
For, never seek a Master 
Who lends you no ear. 

(2)
Of God’s fierce wrath 
Every preacher warns me --
Would that there were some Gods 
Who promised peace and harmony. 

(3)
He commands— 
All unfolds by His decree, 
Then why must we carry 
The weight of sins, endlessly? 

(4)
They say all have a Master 
In this vast domain, 
Where is my Lord 
For I’m bound in chains? 

(5)
Behold, even in death, 
Karim’s grandeur prevails.
Even in the depth of the grave, 
His majesty never pales. 

(6)
Forgive me, the tale was long indeed, 
And I was eager to leave. 
Had I known how the end would unfold, 
For life, I’d not have endured such grief!

(7)
Life has tormented me, O Karim, 
What the hell is this, after all? 
If it’s love, let it unfold; 
If it’s wrath, let it fall. 

(8)
The houris, the wine, and the Tuba— 
For none a thought I ever bear. 
In a humble hut, I find my peace— 
O, do not banish me from there.


(9)
With her each stride, 
A lively melody unfolds,
Sangeen is God’s eternally melodious flute. 

(10)
Deprived of your sight, 
I left the world in grief. 
Now don’t hurry to my grave with a trailing veil.
  1. The translation has not retained the couplet format. ↩︎

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 Karim Dashti’s works. 

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Categories
Poetry

Watch You Walk

By Laila Brahmbhatt

WATCH YOU WALK 

I watch you walk
the street we once shared.
You toss away a paper
the one I gave you,
scribbled with your silly jokes.
It’s been a long day
with thoughts about you.
I must sleep
so I can think some more.
When I think of you,
I don’t miss you.
I miss our laughter.
I’m still laughing
at those jokes.
But you can’t hear me.
To hear,
one must be awake

Laila Brahmbhatt, a Kashmiri/Jharkhand-rooted writer and Senior Immigration Consultant in New York, has published haiku and haibun in several international journals, including Cold Moon Journal and Failed Haiku.

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Categories
Poetry

Rain and You

By Shamim Akhtar

RAIN AND YOU 

On the glass pane of frozen desires,
little droplets of rain start to gather in playful haste.
Briefly they linger, dance, and knock into one another,
then fall carelessly down in eternal ecstasy.
From behind a closed window, quietly I stand and watch —
I don’t mind getting drenched in memories for a while

Dr. Shamim Akhtar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management at ICFAI University, Mizoram. A researcher, writer, and a passionate poet explores themes of memory, longing, and the human condition. His work reflects a blend of lyrical sensitivity and deep introspection.

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Categories
Poetry

The Rain Was Laughing Sideways

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Rain-Auvers, Painting by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). From Public Domain 
THE RAIN WAS LAUGHING SIDEWAYS(2) 

Looking down into the box,
back on everything,
back through
that wonderful maze
of things.

And it seems
that the rain was laughing 
sideways.

Pernicious alligators
climbing up out of
New York bathrooms.

Though I have never been
the way of that buxom bridge.

Not once across the fancied millennia.

It's more of a faraway thing.
The teeming thunderous clap.

An inner drive
to ceremonial drums,
can you see it?

Back through 
through the alluvial plain
with a walking stick
of hungry crows.

To stand over dirty shave water
with that new face.

To smile 
like a king
of many well-kissed 
things.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. 

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Categories
Poetry

Mist of the Hills

By Amarthya Chandar

Amarthya Chandar
MIST OF THE HILLS

Tonight, I'll go into the mist
For there is no rain
And I'll feel the cold sting
While I wait for you.
You come like a flash of light
That goes away faster than it came.
I know it's a dream,
For I cannot find you anymore.
I'd give up tomorrow for a moment
If it had but you in it.
I don't want the world to see me,
For I fear the tears that rush
From voids that do not fill.
Now come on horseback
Take my sorrows away with the wind.
Drown them or ride them away.
I'll keep the calm you leave me.
Ride into the tide already,
For I know it's a dream
And the mist awaits me.

Amarthya Chandar is a wildlife biologist with a lifelong passion for poetry, who finds the fusion of environmental elements with everyday feelings and emotions enthralling.

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Categories
Poetry

Race Against Time

By Tracy Lee Duffy

If I am you and you are me,
Something Seuss may have rhymed, and Rogers 
tried to share in time,
the grass is never greener. The right shoe
doesn’t fit the left foot. Distressed,
non-blessed, oppressed.
If you are me, I am you.
That I was shot down in Kharkiv,
that person was you sitting here free, or reverse
wading in an ocean on fire
in Hawaii. Then that person was here
warm, sipping tea. Pleased. Appeased.
If I am you and you are me.
If my house stays, your house goes; if your house stays,
my house goes. My cancer grows, your cancer remits;
my cancer rescinds your cancer relit. Your child is well,
my child is lost; your child falls down my child is found.
A circle profound. My money causes you harm, your
harm cost me money; your money buys me time, my time
causes you loss. Your indignation steals my value, my
value shames your worth. I curse. You swear. I dare you
you dare me. It’s not turning out to be -- We. Us.
I am not you. You are not me. A common ground then. 
Jesus. Democracy. Then who made all those damn guns
and bombs and Anthrax and coronavirus? And egos
that ban books, hide history and rule others’ bodies. You
were never me. I was never you, or she/her, they/them.
And on and on and on it goes. It must stop
on common ground, for you, for me. Peacefully.

Tracy Lee Duffy’s poetry expresses emotion from life experience and observation through career, marriage and motherhood. She has been published in journals, online and recently in the Poets for Peace Anthology.

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Categories
Poetry

Twm Siôn Cati Cave by Rhys Hughes

Photo Courtesy: Rhys Hughes
Ogof
Twm Siôn Cati
  Cave
  is the place
  the outlaw graced
with his face
and the remainder of
  his ruffianly presence when
  he was hiding
  from the drab forces of Law
  and Order.

Ogof is the Welsh word for Cave,
a word never heard
over the border in England,
and Twm Siôn Cati
is hardly known outside his native
land. I understand
why: he is obscure and there’s no
use being in great
haste to fashion poems about him.

He was a Robin Hood character, I
guess you can say.
If you trudge the wrong way on the
road between
Rhandirmwyn and Soar y Mynydd
you might even
end up as his involuntary guest and
be forced to relax on his stone sofa
while staring down
the barrel of his old flintlock pistol.

He might whistle
through his teeth a merry tune,
but no melodies later
than the 17th Century.
  Twm Siôn Cati
  never listened to the music
  of Erik Satie
  or Debussy or Shostakovich.
How could he?
and how can you expect him to
be familiar with their melodies
  if it’s true he lived
  so long ago in a damp cave?

You have slipped
  back through time
and that’s the reason
  if not the rhyme
for the mess you find yourself in
now: wave farewell
to modern comforts,
be resigned to a tougher life and
  I think you’ll find
  solace in the challenge.

Unlike Robin Hood,
Twm Siôn Cati never did
and never would
rob the rich to give to the poor.
  He robbed the rich
  and the poor as well to give
  to himself,
but needless to say, 
on any given day he preferred
  wealthy victims.

Enjoy
your stay in
Ogof
Twm Siôn Cati
  Cave.
Be brave: the scenery is
wonderful,
there are blackberries in
early autumn,
  the colourful rocks,
  odd as socks
  glisten in the rain.

You ought to remain sane
if you accept
your fate: no pain, no gain:
  no coin to toss,
  no loss.
Twm Siôn Cati has adopted
you as his heir,
you must prepare to follow
  in his footsteps
  and become a troglodyte,
  a night bandit plaguing
the heights of
the region: he planned it this
way all along.

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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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Gautham Pradeep

Gautham Pradeep
GOTAMA 

Shadows vanish
under his watch,
seedlings sprout 
in the autumn sun,
munching on unattended grass,
a cow converses 
with the ants.

The silent hills open paths 
to a different plane,
where one finds his space to smile.
When the monsoon hits west,
she awakens from her long slumber.

Mountains show beautiful avenues.
Snow is replaced by shallow dunes.
Rain fills the world.
Man traces his existence.

Gautham Pradeep was born in Kerala, India. He is now pursuing an MBBS. He tries to explore the existential dilemmas of the present generation through his poetry.

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