Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Asad Latif

Courtesy: Creative Commons
TARINI

As the Intercity
takes a bend
a six-year-old runs
to a carriage's end.
Sixty-five years
have left me here.
"Where are you going?"
she asks.
"Oldcastle," I say.
"On this Newcastle train?"

She laughs
her way back
to the front.
Ballerina of a
swaying stage,
two minutes later
she's fetched
a colouring book
with parrots and
trees waiting to
be painted
in all the
hues
known
to light
or shade
before
this evening
is finally dead.

"How old are you?"
she demands.
"Guess."
"Eleven."
"Yes."

Infant balladeer
of my laughing age,
let's get serious.
Your name
carries mortals
across the rivers
of life and rage.
Here and now
Sing, sing and sing
of the seasons
winging their
way back in
to me
on a long
Australian evening
that abhors
any thought
of summer dying.

A station
approaches.
"Sweetie, come,"
her mother calls.

Oh no
Tarini.
Don't go away.
Can't you stay
to send me
on my way?
I wish
you'd see,
the traveller
receding in me.
When this train
comes to rest
won't your
eyes lift my feet
from platform
to concourse
and then
to the street
overhead?
Won't you see
my breath 
never break
its promise
to my knees
to rise in respect
to the nearness
of the new?
Won't you see
an old man
bowing
to the storm
in you?

Tarini
stay
or return.
Tarini
shape
my passing
into form.

 Asad Latif is a Singapore-based journalist. He can be contacted at badiarghat@borderlesssg1

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Categories
Poetry

Blooming and How!

By Alpana

Saying 'womb to tomb' is injustice
to all that transpires in between.
Crying, burping and running around like a monkey.
In fact, telling how a monkey sounds
Because the baby is blooming,
not like a flower
but like a rainbow,
not limited to just seven hues
but acing a colourful feat
up in the sky,
in full prime.
A view for sore eyes.
A babble for parched soul,
and a movement for a still transient life.
The baby is blooming,
chasing flies unabashedly,
gyrating to grandma's prayers playfully,
calling birdies of all shapes
and waving to cows every now and then.
Because the baby is blooming.
more than what her mother imagined,
better than what her father planned.
My baby.

Alpana teaches in a government college of Gurugram, Haryana. She can either be found gyrating to her toddler’s jingles or googling nutrition loaded baby recipes, her favourite pastime these days.

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Categories
Poetry

You Tree

Poetry by Gayatri Majumdar

Courtesy: Creative Commons
YOU TREE

You tree
when everything else dissolves the rain – 
traffic lights flash in my eye
watering fences, madness and chanting.
I stone, defenceless.
You are tree to me – 
gentle reminder: this is human love.
small change – something unlike bliss – 
I’m breathless, 
                      but alive
as much as a human can be.
I confess I asked for this – oh,
so many times over,
the sour-curb side of the mouth,
the pickling of the heart,
the moon’s slow-curl down the spine
unlike death – 
                    the rigor mortis setting in.
You green about me 
– my fingers and hair – toes rooting,
                     you remain unmoved.
I asked for this?
You are the tree in me
struggling, uncertain amidst the trouble of unfear – 
that definitive light falling in your Neptunian eye …
		this hypothermia
preserves me.
I am ready to sink lower than this;
slow-grounding, 
                   tasty bites for the night’s merry-makers.

Gayatri Majumdar, the founder of The Brown Critique(1995–2015), has authored six books. She co-founded ‘Pondicherry Poets’ and curates numerous poetry/music events. Gayatri is associated with Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry

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Categories
Poetry

At Teotihuacan

By Jonathan Chan

Teotihuacan. Courtesy: Creative Commons
AT TEOTIHUACAN 

giving shape to a world
at the boundary of light and darkness,
the cosmic pillars begin to tremble. 
one pyramid held up to the sun,
the other help up to the moon,
synchrony with the loom of mountains
harmony of sealed stone. 
at one end, the feathered serpent.
at the other, the lithe jaguar. 
grand avenue paved for the apex
of ritual, the witness of blood
and obsidian, before the whiplash
of light that almost since then has
recalled atomic fire. pure propulsion 
dissolving flesh, gods of rainwater, 
of falling water engulfed by the silt
of the lake. the trampling of a power
that builds, unbuilds, and builds
again. day in, day out, the crawling
on dead hands, the loosening of
clay, the carving of divinity in black
stone, language smothered, nestled
in the heart of another. roses tumble
down a garment: no longer a serpent,
a jaguar, but the serene face of 
a maiden, a new mother to all. 
roses sprout in the tropics. the
pyramids have borne this sun 
setting on one empire and 
the next, the coalition and crumble
of militias, the youngblood crying 
from the soil beneath, and always
the tremors, the tremors. an eye
beholds the sun through 
an obsidian disc. a perpetual light.
a single orange spot.

Jonathan Chan is a writer and editor of poems and essays. He is the author of the poetry collection, going home (Landmark, 2022). His writing can be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.

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Categories
Poetry

Poems on Clouds & Seas

By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Courtesy: Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
CLOUD MONSTERS

Moon tussles with cloud monsters.
Its shine is halfway showing.
Work traffic is like those cloud monsters.
A half hour drive turns into an hour.

I find an exit and use the streets.
The red lights are not the best
of colours when you are in a hurry.
Green lights are your best friend
when you are running late, tell that
to the cloud monster traffic.

I see green lights for blocks and
no one is moving. I should have
stayed home and declared this a
vacation day and just slept in.

That half-moon light is something
to behold still. It is getting clear
with the sun coming up as well
and the traffic dies down enough
that you just might not be late
to work or a dollar short this time.
The cloud monsters disappear like
a puff of smoke into the abyss.

SHIFT SHAPE CLOUDS

There goes the lasso 
and there goes the headless
horse and the rider is hanging
on for dear life as the clouds
shift their shapes in the sky.

There goes the seahorse
out of its element unless
its sea is the blue horizon
and its white puffiness
will brace its shape shift fall.

There goes the head of the
headless horse and its rider
with its cowboy hat not far
behind, the rest of the horse
is just a round shaped cloud now.

Down below I lift my arms
to the sky and shuffle my feet.
I do a little rain dance but
I just do not have the magic
or power to make it happen.

OPEN THE SEA

Open the sea,
there is agony deep below,
the essence of a shipwreck
that has lost its very soul.

Open the sky,
there is a mourner in space
with a powerful sob
dropping waves of cold rain.

When the warm light
withdraws from the sky, the sun sleeps,
as the night lights appear
for the lost to find their way.

Ready to die,
life’s infirm angels and devils
give time one last breath, and
admonish it for how it betrays.

Born in Mexico, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. His poetry has been published by Blue Collar Review, Borderless Journal, Escape Into Life, KendraSteiner Editions, Mad Swirl, SETU, and Unlikely Stories.

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Categories
Poetry

Kinematic by Jim Bellamy

KINEMATIC 

(after W.H Auden's 'Funeral Blues'/'Stop all the Clocks')


     Prune down the angels to the wick
Snuff out all candles, unbake all bread
Spoil all trenches with a slick
Ferry the living to the dead

   Where blows a lover, deal
A fatal flaw to all that call
Mar all saviours with a weal
Slash the cinema seats and stalls.

  They were the shivers of the silver screen
Where their blood flows, the curtain thralls
Retire all vision to the dumb
For now no good may come of all.

  Lash the usherette to the sedge
Unravel torches down the hill:
Crash the armies through pithead
Mess the crowd till life lies still

   Where crows a regime's alms,
Dash the lights and kill the spiels
Where glows a face of calm,
Gnash each drama round the keels.

  They were all we owned
Where they lie dead, there may be none
Embalm the filmic gods with bones
For now all love is done.
WH Auden(1907-1973). The poem, Funeral Blues, by WH Auden was also a part of the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.

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Categories
Poetry

She was

A nonsense poem by Rhys Hughes

Courtesy: Creative Commons

She was
a tremendous bowl of soup
with spaghetti
in a loop floating on top.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

She was
the elbow of an aardvark
loose in a park
in the dark after teatime.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

She was
many things and nothing
and rarely sang
when jumping on trampolines
but in dreams
she wouldn’t stop and the noise
was worse than
the hopping of amplified fleas
but she sustained
no damage at all to her knees.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

She was
the square root of minus one
and many buns
were fed to the elephants
of her equations.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

And if you like treacle
high up a steeple
but can’t stomach custard
because of the fuss made
in striving to contrive
a rhyme in good time
please make her acquaintance
without any pretence
and give my regards
when she turns into mustard
in the setting sun.

She was
a rapscallion and dandy
with a quaint
modus operandi
who rode on a stallion
named Disco Medallion.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

She was
a fruitcake lost in a lake
and I am a boat
with a sail for a coat
but I never intend to fish
her confectionary wish
out of the deeps
and send it for keeps
to the bakery zoo
where you know who
lives in a cage in a rage.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

She was
a clash of logical cymbals
festooning the
sides of roomy thimbles.
I don’t know why
this should be but it was.

And
maybe because
I can’t say how or why
anything should be
and neither can she
we are bewildered together
in inclement weather
and only a feather
floats between
scenes.

She was
the last verse of this poem
folded neatly
and kept in a jeroboam.
I think I know why
this should be but it wasn’t.

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

A Matter of Priorities

By George Freek

A MATTER OF PRIORITIES 
(After Mei Yao Chen, 1002-1060)
 
Things that once mattered
Now matter to me
less than a bowl of rice.
Stars like insects
spin across the sky,
but do they even exist?
Sparrows hop from branch 
to branch with a purpose.
They don’t care
if the stars are there.
They’re looking for
something to eat.
In a rain-soaked street, 
people rush by, 
terribly concerned 
with the mud on their feet.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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Categories
Poetry

The Crack in the Pavement

By Ron Pickett

Courtesy: Creative Commons
Thump, whirr, snap.
Wow, that was quite a ride!
I guess I’ll stay here for a while.
It’s not like I have a choice.
I fell, don’t know from where exactly. 
Then I rolled along the ground until
I dropped into this crack in the pavement.
You don’t know me – people call me a weed seed. And no, I’m not that kind of weed.
I don’t much like it – weed seed sounds bland, boring, dull.
I’m NOT! I’m not boring. Just wait! Plant seed maybe?
I’ll stay here in this crack for a while, don’t have a choice.
I’m waiting for rain; that’s all it takes.
Then you’ll see. That’s all that it takes.
Rocks, Concrete, hard dirt, trees, grass, anything!
Just wait ‘til it rains, then I’m outta here!
Not really outta here, but zoom, I’m alive and growing like a, well, a weed. 
What kind of plant will I be? Couldn’t see what I dropped from.
Don’t know, could be a ground hugger – ground cover – that would be okay.
Could be milkweed; that white goo might be fun.
Could be a dandelion: Dandy? Lion that’s me!
Could be mustard; you get a lot of kids, seeds that is, to spread around.
I like those weeds, make that plants with sharp spikes, and purple flowers.
I could be a thistle, all those flying seeds, and spikes, perfect. 
Or a nettle, a stinging nettle, that would show them!
Here comes one of those pesky humans. 
Whoops he’s looking right at me! Whoo-Hoo, he’s gone; guess I’m too small to be seen.
Thing about being a weed seed is that if it doesn’t rain, no big deal.
I can wait for months, years even, then face it, I’m sure not alone. 
I know a guy, says he’s a Darwinian gardener; lets the fittest survive.
Beautiful yard. He’s a great friend to us weeds. 
Keep an eye out for me after it rains, after I sprout; you’ll be surprised!
Beautiful leaves, gorgeous flowers, unsurpassed tenacity, and a lust for life.
But you have to look carefully, and it’s okay to pull us – we’ve got millions of relatives!

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

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Categories
Poetry

A Woman I Used to Call ‘Mother’

By Davis Varghese

A tiny wombling, me, caressed by lullabies,
silvern pink, much like
the hue of my venous playpen and
nine full moons later, her cry and my wail greeted us both.
 
Dollops of pearl stringed words laced
sometimes with blue plums of joy or
pimentos of makeshift anger dropped from
those rose petal lips. Nurtured me, flattered me,
 
for two hundred full moons, straight.
 
For the next seven hundred months, 
we made joy, we made play, we made life.
We were one, one were we.
 
Until, one after-night,
the dark embrace of a white angel in
an indigo mood and emerald tinged wings that
covered half the earth, sent her on a journey.
 
Floating in infinity.
Comatose. Serene. Flawless.
 
A tiny wombling, me, unfortunate, forlorn,
was left holding
a pretty picture and fragrant memories of
 
A woman I used to call 'Mother'.

Davis Varghese is an IT professional and a globally wandering one. Otherwise, he moonlights with novels and poetry whenever inspiration gives him a chance. A few detective fictions later, which have been translated and published by ‘Manorama Books’ as novels, his experiments with poetry have found a home in ‘The SquawkBack’ and ‘Indian Review’.

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