Without black tea, his mornings never start. The newspaper should be upon his bed; Not finding it will make his eyes all red. As if examining a piece of art, He reads each page. Loud oohs such as 'My heart!', 'Another swindle!', or 'So many dead!', Are heard as if the earth's weight’s on his head. Harrumphing, he jumps to the Cultures part. A pensioner today, back in those days, He was a banker. Now, he saunters, plays Carom with me, or spends the noontimes planting Camellias —- a work he finds enchanting. At times, he sits before some dusty files, Puts on the glasses, thumbs through them, and smiles.
Shamik Banerjee resides in Assam with his parents. Some of his recent works will appear in York Literary Review, Willow Review, Thimble Lit and Modern Reformation — to name a few.
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One fine morning, I sit on the river bank. I stand on the river bank. I sit. And stand again. But I do not open my hands, For the fear of this wind. I'm sorry if I fumble, I'm not used to this. This is not a poem of joy, Or exhilarating remembrance. This is a poem of non-presence. I see these lanes, monuments, Crevices, just like my father told me. He would tell me of How he would come here, Stroll with friends and weave stories. He never left this city except when His mother passed away in the village. The world stays unaffected, While everything inside you Falls apart, ruptures Like broken skin Before it bleeds. But you can’t Bring it to your face Or they will ask what happened, And you won’t know Where to start, He said. If I look ahead, I will see the clouds, Watching over the river and me, And a boatman throwing his net In the green water. But I don't look anywhere, Instead, I hold my hands open, And let the wind gust over me. The wind disburdens me of my father's ashes, And leaves me heavier than before.
CANVAS
offer me your blood I will dab my fingers and paint your dreams
on the canvas Hungry for a piece of art Hungry like a lonely wolf
in search of its prey. the canvas enjoys the foreplay
of the coloured fingers. you are to me what art is to a canvas.
THE MATCH
I gave you the match. The stick. The kerosene. And you light it. Make it a torch. A mashaal*. And you set fire to the bridge between us. With each charred piece falling, Our memories fall too. The smoke blurs your apparition, I’m burning too. Alive. But you can’t see me.
*mashaal: a torch made by wrapping a piece of cloth on a wooden stick, pouring some flammable oil on it.
Kumar Sawan was born and brought up in Lucknow. He is a Ph.D. scholar in theDepartment of English and Modern European Languages, at Lucknow University. His works have been published in Rhetorica: A Literary Journal of Arts, Contemporary Literary Review India, SPL Journal, Literary Horizon, Creative Saplings, and the Teesta Review.
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Last week my name was Renfield Familiar to a cruel Muse who Visited according to his whim I scurried about in service To a master all-powerful Desperate for redemption For the key to sanity The key to unlock the poem
Yesterday my name was Ahab Searching the global seas For the Great White Word To start or finish a poem I paced my pitching desk In weather fair and foul But did not strike the words With my inked harpoon
Today my name is Vlad And my rage knows no Earthly bounds as I wait For the red blood of life To seep through my veins And into my maddened brain To create the words and lines And the cursed verses
Tomorrow my name will be Pablo And I will once again believe That I can be prolific In thought and deed Boldly setting pen to page With heart and soul Interred in every word Of a passionate poem
Gregg Norman lives in Manitoba, Canada. His work has been accepted by various international poetry publications in Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, and Serbia.
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SHADOWLANDS (Inspired by the global solar eclipse on April 8th, 2024)
Tomorrow the shadowlands will have their edict up in the sky with the whole world's prior knowledge.
The Sun and The Moon -- those two fastidious and ever at loggerheads to mark their showy turns -- will indulge in their sibling rivalry of ages.
It will be a sight.
The earth will be omnipresent, pooling resources for this compromise between two arch-rivals, pulling in a tie as the final verdict.
It will all be over before we know it.
EXPEDITION
There is a halt in the expedition.
From not so far away, a decaying skeleton shrieks, its bones gradually ground to a paste.
Sordidly, the remnants of privation now feebly agitate for all of us.
A blood-soaked spray emerges from a songwriter's torso.
The day has commenced. Rain clouds cry tears of blood today.
Prithvijeet Sinha, is a resident of the cultural epicenter of Lucknow. He has published poetry, musings on the city, cinema in anthologies and journals of national and international repertoire as well as a blog. His life-force resides in writing, in the art of self-expression.
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When the sun goes down And the light goes out, I can walk the lonely streets Thinking about ways To deal with pressure, Waiting for the dawn to crack. I can shout. But, instead, I write. I paint. I sing. I dance. And I write. Again. I pour my heart out When I write. My body screams words And my pen screeches. I let it go, Let it flow. Some things hurt only when You hold onto them. Death is peaceful. It is the effort to prevent it That hurts, isn't it? Sometimes, There's so much to say. But my mouth? It chooses to remain shut. No why, how or what. The pen and the paper empower me. They are my safe haven Amidst the battle within, Companions through Thick and thin. They are the retreat for my inner recluse. Nowhere can I find more peace. Nowhere.
Anushka Chaudhary is an undergrad student in University of Delhi. She is also an ardent reader, who enjoys romance and crime thrillers at her leisure. She likes to travel.
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The cars line the street like curbed turtles spuddling with inertia, sketchy bellhop flies working the door in teams.
And the don has left the family. Breaking your heart was easy, hardly a crime of note.
Watching those lost auburn curls drop down past your shoulders with a theatre curtain fini.
To an angel’s dancing calm we go, to places unseen, early glories: silt songs of the whaling deep.
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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A POEM Like a mat, we laid out the night, And birds adorned the jungle around their feet, Heart —- an ocean, and within the ocean, Each tide wore shackles around their feet.
A POEM
Everyday, Time slips through my hands, Like millet grains. Would that you were a bird, You'd be my guest!
A SCENE
Crystalline shards Of shattered smiles, Once they pierce the eyes, The world, like a teardrop, Seeks an escape Towards the lap.
A POEM
Just an evening, From the seasons of your eyes, Let my heart Soar for a moment, With the birds of silence.
STARS If one night, Suddenly, Stars scatter across my eyes, I’ll cast my eyes at your lap, And spread the sky, Upon the earth.
WAITING
With the same pace and rhythm, They sail ahead -- Yet the moon reaches the shore, Long before the boats.
MELODIES AT DAWN
“Is there someone, each night who comes, Sprinkling on the city's somnolent birds, The colourful melodies of her words?”
“What secrets do I hold? What sights I’ve seen? In the ambiance, a beauty sifted through, Casting a strange, enchanting sheen, Painting hues on voices, wings and silence.”
WORLD
In a bottle, Carved from your beauty I’ve preserved for me A lush green moment of spring -- A nest, In the nest, A sweet birdsong. A window, Every morning it opens To a melodious overture of sea-waves And a cold, bright moment of solitude -- Like a tear drop, The size of a tiny pearl, Sustaining you, me and my God.
Munir Momin is a contemporary Balochi poet widely cherished for his sublime art of poetry. Meticulously crafted images, linguistic finesse and profound aesthetic sense have earned him a distinguished place in Balochi literature. His poetry speaks through images, more than words. Momin’s poetry flows far beyond the reach of any ideology or socio-political movement. Nevertheless, he is not ignorant of the stark realities of life. The immenseness of his imagination and his mastery over the language rescues his poetry from becoming the part of any mundane narrative. So far Munir has published seven collections of his poetry and an anthology of short stories. His poetry has been translated into Urdu, English and Persian. He also edits a literary journal called Gidár.
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.
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Ratcheting of seizure-moves Across the doomy dancefloor
Blips and beats burning in our starry dynamos laced through our spun-glass flow
The universal retina gored, flash-frozen whores descending the staircase of timespace In a race to join the bottom feeders
We are fissures of men, vending bad medicine The gaps in our gene-spliced minds morphing together in synesthetic waves
Grouped together in caves we scrawl our appalling mysteries on the wall
Staking the mythic beast with arrows of microplastic disease
Plato came a-calling and called our ways appalling, a pall on the earth that gave us birth
A shock to the systems of a downed saucer we rock on our haunches reaping the raw holiday of decay
Driving our play beyond the body map deep time elapses as a stellar footprint carving snowed in angels on the tombs of the atomic race
Alex S. Johnson is an anthologist, editor, journalist, teacher, author and publisher (Darkest Wine Media). His books include The Junk Merchants: A Literary Tribute to William S. Burroughs and We Are Gregor: A Disability Rights Anthology (forthcoming from Nocturnicorn Books).
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Your love is like the surface of still water Untouched, a mirror reflecting The brightest of stars, those of Your eyes that gaze in silent curiosity As ripples ride along your body, And as rosy droplets penetrate Your surface — stillness, explodes Supernovas, incontestable There is no more silence but cacophony As droplets continue to slam unto you Until your love becomes fistfuls Of shattered memory dust and Your peace becomes An eternal disturbance
Ivan Ling is an Editor at Sunway University Press and has published several poems, book reviews, and, recently, a journal article under Creative Flight.
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Oh, my beloved, Come back once again And see the scars on my Sobbing heart. You left us desolate With intense agony. Oh, my beloved, come again And see my raven heart, Mourning in separation, Mourning from dawn to dusk. Oh, my beloved, come As a raindrop and soothe my mind That got lost in your thoughts, With these flames of love And the patience of madness That you have forged in my soul. Spring comes and flowers blossom, And I think about you. My eyes still looking for you, My heart still wandering in despair. I search for you here in autumn and winter, In the depth of the river, But cannot find you anywhere... You vanished just like that...? Still, I remember that day... When you left us alone with miseries. Oh, my beloved, come... Come once again to these fields of daffodils... Oh, my beloved, I have forgotten a chapter. This reminds me of your fiction. Everything is the same except you. Nothing has changed Except for broken memories. The time we spent together Was it neither yours nor mine? Vacant... and washed seashores of a distant dream...?
Ahmad Rayees is a freelance poet and writer from Kashmir valley.
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Borderless 