Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Ron Pickett

Courtesy: Creative Commons
FALLS
Bodies strewn about the gym floor – 14, 15, 16! Nancy carries on.
I’ve seen bodies falling lately.
Not from great heights, simply disappearing from my field of view.
Missing the chair seat, losing the tenuous balance required to stand up
A little hazy, dizzy, vertigo.
Then the gathering, the collection of those nearest to the fallen person.
To help, to see, to be a part of the action – the crowd.
“911, call 911!”
“Call the front desk, call the Care Center.”
“Did he hit his head?”
“Wow that was loud.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Can he stand up?”
“Leave him alone.”
“The EMT will be here soon.”
“Why did it take so long to give the information to 911?”
 
I’ve seen bodies falling lately.
Old bodies, not limber pliable resilient bodies.
Tipping over backward is the worst – the back of the head impacts the floor.
Concrete is worse, wood not so bad, carpet is best.
Still, it is an aged, shrunken brain in a rigid skull.
A hip is bruised, damaged, cracked.
Recovery time is measured in months - if ever.
The hospital, rehab, have their own horrors.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.
They will want to keep me overnight!
I’ve got things to do tomorrow!
I’m not going!”
 
I've seen bodies falling lately.
I check my balance, shift from side to side.  Feels OKAY I test the horizon; should I sit down?
I bend my knees, I flex, I’m feeling stable, strong, good.
What can I do for him?
What can I do for myself? Let’s get physical, get personal.
Stay strong, stretch, add muscle, do squats, get up from the chair, sit down in the chair, Repeat! Repeat.
Remember the sound of a body impacting the floor -- concrete, wood, carpet.
Stretch, balance, squat, squat, squat.

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

Visiting Mom

By Saranayan BV

Courtesy: Creative Commons
VISITING MOM

When I die and if souls are eternal as they say --
Things such as heaven truly exist,
The first person I would like to meet up there
Is my mom. God listen to me if you are there –

It would be banality if I expect mom to look after me again,
I merely want to thank her for all things she did for me here.
I was to care for her in her late age
And I didn’t.
This gives rise to the desire
To believe in the presence, the timelessness of the soul,
To believe in consciousness as an after-life truth,
To believe in all the inanities born of the lust to live for ever --
Destruction of all that is sane and meets the purpose of logic.

Mom is mom, her concrete efforts to improve 
The standard of my living cannot die,
Either as concept or as proof of having been,
Something that cannot melt, dissolve or be burnt. 

I call upon her, I call upon on her 
As brief of my lost goodness.
There she stands, more like in alter
Hazy and clouded
Not able to see or recognise,
Though the eternal mom has her soul in peace
That I have arrived.

Saranyan BV is poet and short-story writer, now based out of Bangalore. He came into the realm of literature by mistake, but he loves being there. His works have been published in many Indian and Asian journals. He loves the works of Raymond Carver.

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Categories
Poetry

What Colour is the Sun?

By Jonathan Chan

WHAT COLOUR IS THE SUN? 

what colour is the sun? 
      a barren eye can make
           no claim, perhaps a vicarious 
       orange or yellow, so flamed 

at the perch of a day’s 
      beginning or end. then it is
           a pink, sandwiched between 
      blue evening and inky

dusk. we know the sun only
       by its making a colour more
           a colour: leaves gleaming a
       greater green, primroses a

weaker shade of pale, spots
      of cadmium in the bushes, and the glistening 
           of receding snow. rays of light 
      shoot out as a twinkle. tracing 

back the beams to a searing 
      hot white, one sees of the sun
          the grace of its radiance, known
      only by what 
              it reveals.


TYING A TIE

he tightens the tie, taut
around the neck, ready
for the day’s trickle,
damp patches at
the collar, folds
of fabric, tie chosen to
match shirt, belt, glasses,
shoes, some juvenile
compulsion, making sure
its tip falls right over
the buckle. he thumbs
through his father’s
drawer of ties, so many
thin and silky, comically
gaudy, strips of yellow
and baby blue, good
for some pop during
another sullen
meeting. tying a tie
for a dream of
decorum: what was
victorian idyll, what
was comfortably
industrial, what was
a tourniquet
for a wound, what
was a small, defiant
knot for a mercenary.
he wraps a full
windsor around his
neck, unready, unsteady
for the humid, humid
days.

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

Love Poetry by Gayatri Majumdar

Courtesy: Creative Commons
I'M YOURS

If you must,
	consume me in totality 
		leave no trace – 
no fragrance, no rain,
not even whisperings
	among seeds bursting to ground
and shed-music of falling meteors – 
find me that obeisance rest of your red honeysuckle
	agreeing with the sweet daft.
Slay me, if you must,
	for I am yours,
but spare me the brutalities 
of certain birthing, happy endings.


LOVE

As I fall into your arms,
I can hear the distinct click of the jail door 
in a rusty corner of the galaxy.

You, my lover, were impatient for this precise moment
dispersing me to light
the night’s jazz fused with cosmic dust and saxophone. 

You steady your gaze, 
your belief in me unwavering
even as I
howling to moon and street lights,
grapple with my weakening knees
– tremble, unable to pin the ‘pain’.

You, my lover, were certain this would be the precise moment 
when I’d return your gaze – 
broken, wanting all the love your petalled heart can hold
– demanding, dissolving 
into the light-substance of your presence,
this night’s other delights 
twigging, drumming to my heartbeats.

I marvel at the precision of your timing,
just when I thought all that is not there, seems lost;
You appear, materialise
Stuck as you are, in me,
in this garden
of crooked pathways, wayward roots whispering – 
sleep hours of creatures and last sips of tea.

This time I’m certain,
your departure is imminent – you take with you the night’s last melody – 
the seasons will change
as the ethers of your blues ache,
return those lost hours to me . . .

You begin to perfect the tribhanga*,
your flute wafting the stones and trickery. 

*Krishna’s tribhanga (“three parts break”) pose.

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

Poetry from Italy

Poems by Rosy Gallace, translated by Irma Kurti

Rosy Gallace

THE EXPIRED TIME

It wasn’t the highway kilometres

that made us feel distant.

It wasn’t the labour

or the cost of the tolls.

.

It wasn’t even

a round trip on an easy jet.

It was our thoughts

so distant… and… different.

.

Our time has traveled

between parallel lives

chasing each other, never meeting.

.

Our thoughts intertwined

with the days filled with loneliness;

now, they’re here in their nakedness.

.

Our time has expired.

.

For once, without finding any holds,

let’s look at each other through sincere

eyes and beyond words, let us listen

to the rhythms of heart, let’s shake

hands, be real, let’s just be ourselves.

.

IF YOU WERE HERE

I would not feel the unbridgeable void

in these long summer days.

I’d forgive even the chirping of cicadas

that took away the sleep from your nights.

.

I would run to you to find

the answers to my silences.

I would ask you how to live:

get up, get dressed, wash, eat,

keep that pain a secret,

the pain that takes the breath away.

.

I would fly to you on dark days;

I don’t know where else to go.

I’d find relief among those walls

that smelled so much

of lavender and talcum powder.

.

If you were here

I wouldn’t be so lost tonight,

confused and cold. I’d have a smile

and a warm hand, that word you

whispered in a low voice and how

magically everything turned as before.

.

This time I’d take you by the hand,

proudly I’d lead you along the course,

even on that chair you hated so much

despite that, you would be happy with me.

.

I would touch a kiss on the folds

of the forehead while you travel in

your memories in a smile shielded

from the grimace of pain.

.

Rosy Gallace was born in Guardavalle in the province of Catanzaro in Calabria and lives in Rescaldina, Milan. She has published several books of poems which have been translated into English, Romanian and Albanian. She is the creator, organiser, and president of several literary contests and also acts as part of the jury for various literary competitions in Italy.

Irma Kurti is an Albanian poetess, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator. She is a naturalised Italian. She has won numerous literary prizes and awards in Italy and Italian Switzerland. Irma Kurti has published 26 books in Albanian, 17 in Italian, 8 in English and two in French. She is also the translator of 11 books of different authors and of all her books in Italian and English.  

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Categories
Poetry

The Other Side of Summer

By Marianne Tefft

Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE OTHER SIDE OF SUMMER

In the eerie stillness of Labour Day
Where summer never ends
Razed palms cast no shade
Their stalks raise iguanas 
Above the dust-bronze earth
No tropical evening breeze
To cool sunburned shoulders

You load your shore-bound car 
With sand toys and beach blankets 
For summer’s last hurrah
I load mine with saltines sardines
And another case of water
To shove into the pantry beside towels
I pray I will not need to keep the ocean out

You rise with first light
As dawn breeze inflates the sheers
I look to the east but cannot detect sunrise
Beyond the corrugated shutters
Between me and barometric Armageddon
That obliges us to stare unblinking 
Into the eye of every storm

Marianne Tefft is a poet, lyricist, Montessori teacher and voiceover reader in Sint Maarten. Her debut poetry collection is FULL MOON FIRE: Spoken Songs of Love (2022). 

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Sunil Sharma

Courtesy: Creative Commons
IDEAS ARE WINGLESS FLIERS

In the dark times 
Will there also be singing? 
Yes, there will also be singing. 
About the dark times.
 
-- Bertolt Brecht
 
 
A knife slices
organs
 
a bullet
maims
kills.
 
Physicality
can be contained
within the dark dungeons
but barbed walls
cannot imprison
the mind.
 
Assaults
mar the body.
 
Torture, murders,
disappearances
cannot break
the human spirit.
 
Words escape
censors
the SS, Gestapo,
religious zealots
book burnings
book bans
decrees

knife/bomb attacks
and, escaped words
sprout in the wastelands,
 
each word further
cross-pollinates
 
a rich harvest
delivered!
 
Words
can never be decimated
lost
archived
forgotten
 
always come back
as spectral beings
for fresh haunting
of the
totalitarian states.

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Sunil Sharma is an academic and writer with 23 books published—some solo and joint. Edits the online monthly journal Setu. 

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Categories
Poetry

Alone on the Lake

By George Freek

Courtesy: Creative Commons

ALONE ON THE LAKE 
(After Su Dongpo)


Night falls like a curtain,
as a cold wind rustles the reeds
along the shore. 
Dark clouds threaten rain.
The dying stars
barely light my way.
Like a guttering candle,
the moon flickers above me. 
There’s no sign of birds
or of men.
When I fished this lake
with my father I felt secure.
At sixty, cold and alone,
I think of my wife.
I steer my boat
in the direction
I hope will take me home.

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

Autumnal Poems by Michael Burch

Wind in Autumn by Ferdynand Ruszczyc (1870–1936). Courtesy: Creative Commons
COME DOWN
 
Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...
 
and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.
 
Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown far to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.         
 
Come down, or your hearts will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours and spring returns never.
 
 
MAYFLIES
 
These standing stones have stood the test of time
but who are you
               and what are you
                                and why?
As brief as mist, as transient, as pale ...
Inconsequential mayfly!
 
Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?
 
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glow worm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world grind on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?
 
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re everything to me.
 
(Originally published by Clementine Unbound)
 
MY FORTY-NINTH YEAR
 
My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September:
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.
 
My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall:
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere*...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.
 
My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn:
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth ... on and on.

* Dry or withered
Autumn: Painting in Acrylic by Sybil Pretious

Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into fourteen languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers.

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Categories
Poetry

The Invisible Man

By Sutputra Radheye

Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE MAN

he stands like shield as the bullets hit
his body, he jumps inside the house
to save the children stuck in the fire
he climbs the pole to fix the wires
for the bulbs to glow at night
he cleans the drains for the cities
to prevent flooding, he carries the bricks
and builds the house, he farms the land
and commits suicide when he can’t repay
the loan, he drives your motors around
the world, he who is not a millionaire
or a minister, he who struggles everyday
to feed his family, to provide
he is the man no one talks about.


16 AUGUST, 2022

on the request of the government
indians bought flags 
to celebrate seventy-five years
of independence

they put it on their gates
bikes, cars, buses and trucks
some wore tricolour pagris*
while some badges

the next day was different
as those flags were being dumped
on the streets, on the banks
and beaches, polluting the india
they worshiped a day before

*Turbans in Hindi

Sutputra Radheye is a young poet from India. He has published two poetry collections — Worshipping Bodies(Notion Press) and Inqalaab on the Walls (Delhi Poetry Slam). His works are reflective of the society he lives in and tries to capture the marginalised side of the story.

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