Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

The Eternals 

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Art by Mrinal Kanty Das. Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE ETERNALS

Discomfort is no friend to be called upon fruitless night,  
nor enemy pushed over slanderous blade, 
no cavernous mythical beast you may find on a mahjong table; 
even prison escapes prisoner sometimes. 
 	
Rafters high as angelic asbestos,  
persistent cowlick wetted down by tongue and finger 
so often never yours, my failures collected like stamps, 
mailed off to distant corners. 
 
Odourless resilience, pristine fascinations – 
stiffened embankments of the eternals, the devil-less breath, 
cackled skullduggery in open doorways; 
what I have seen is not enough and what I have lived, too long – 
our final dark friend extolled like sweet shop candies to all. 
 	
And this simple snap of graphite, more plumbago than diamond, 
sheen-less dullard of whoosh whoosh long coats... 
grant this pencil recycled hours; 
if not for mine, then perhaps that deep swelling culvert  
of your many obstructions was never for tears.

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 The Oklahoma Review. 

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Categories
Poetry

The Last Cup of Tea

By Prasanta Kumar B.K.

Yesterday, it was cloudy.
Today, it's my cup of tea.
It's died in me.
You can see
It turned into the desire of the sea.
The desire of the sea just splashed through me.
I sensed the loss without the key.
But, why am I anticipating the next cup of tea?
As if I am not fulfilled. No idea. No key.
I wish this could be my last cup of tea
with no desire to go cloudy.

Prasanta Kumar B.K. is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Sichuan University, China. He holds master’s degrees in both English literature and international relations and diplomacy from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He has been working for Nepal Airlines as a senior officer.

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Categories
Poetry

Extreme Drought or California Dreaming

By Ron Pickett

Courtesy: Creative Commons
EXTREME DROUGHT OR CALIFORNIA DREAMING


There, on the horizon, a cloud.
I watch it as it moves slowly closer.
I think I know clouds, all kinds of clouds.
This cloud moves toward me.
I see it change as it moves, it thins out,
Becomes lighter, less a cloud than a wispy space in the air.
It isn’t a rain cloud, I know that. However much I want it to be.
I’m disappointed. It’s an extreme drought --
 
Just beyond my window is a copse of magnificent gum trees.
The leaves and limbs move in the gentle breeze.
Downwind a spray of fine oil droplets hangs in the air.
It’s what gum trees do – it’s what makes them burn.
It’s the price we pay for fast-growing, softwood trees and their wonderful shade.
I’ve seen them burn and release their glowing embers.
I’ve watched their devastation move like a living, ravenous daemon.
Like a creature unleashed from a Japanese Sci-fi movie.
 
We cover the signs of the drought with green stuff.
It’s Cali and we do that here.
We douse the surface with water we pump from below or bring from 500 miles away
It’s Cali and that’s what we do.
We live in a luxurious, verdant world of green.
We are oblivious to the reality, the drought.
If we can’t see it, it isn’t really happening. It’s Hollywood.
So, there is no drought here, no extreme drought.
 
The lighted sign above the Freeway flashes EXTREME DROUGHT conserve water,
The edges of the freeway are green and lush and need to be mowed.
The sign over the freeway continues to tell us the big lie – Extreme Drought.
How can there be a drought? Everything I see is in denial, part of the deceit.
It’s a scam, a con, the government can’t be trusted.
Look at the Covid vaccines.
I must water my shrubs when I get home.
 
Longest in recorded history – that’s what they say.
Indian tribes moved their dwellings to a new place to follow the water.
We move the water to follow us. As long as there is water to move.
Droughts are always followed by floods, aren’t they?
We will wait for the floods.
El Nino isn’t going to save us this time. His sister is in charge.
One more year? Can we last for one more year?
The green will lose its power to deceive in a few months and then what?
Extreme Drought – conserve water!

PS: The freeway signs have changed!
Don’t drive drunk!

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 Balochi Folk Song

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

Balochistan. Courtesy: Creative Commons
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A LADY AND HER SUITOR

She: Hither come, help me get off the cliff, O white-shawled lad!
He: I’ll, O, red-dressed lass, but what will be the reward, I have?

She: Either my necklace or my bangles, you will have.
He: Of your necklace and bangles, none I ever need!
‘Tis your shapely nose and flowing tresses I seek.

She: Shapely nose and flowing tresses lie beyond your reach
-- I’ll become a wild citron on a lofty tree.
Boy: I’ll become grasshopper and nibble your tender leaves.

She: I’ll become a cumulus and on the valley burst forth.
He: A thirsty deer I’ll become, and drink all the fresh water you pour.

She: I’ll become a sorghum grain and rest on the field.
He: I’ll become a grey dove and hold you in my beak.

She: I’ll become a rabbit, in rosebushes I’ll sleep.
He: I’ll become a shepherd, you with my crook I’ll gently beat.

She: I’ll become a turban that rests on a bride’s head.
He: I’ll play my mouth-harp, and as a reward, you I’ll seek. 

She: I’ll become the helpless daughter of a poor man.
He: I’ll become the grim-reaper, and whisk you off to the heaven.

She: You’ve filled my heart with boundless joy and delight
Hurry to the wedding chamber, I’m your bride.

This folk song was originally featured in Dreen (The Rainbow: A Collection of Folksongs) collected and translated into Urdu by Atta Shad and A. Salam and published by the Balochi Academy Quetta. Fazal Baloch has the rights to the translation in English.

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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Categories
Poetry

Boys Day Out

By Mike Smith

Viaduct on the Waverly Line in the Scottish Borders where the poet composed his lines.  Photo Courtesy: Peter Burgess.
BOYS DAY OUT 

Old men really
hunting viaducts among the trees
they straddle gorges
laze in shallow valleys
keeping still
as if avoiding being seen

We tramp for miles upstream
downstream behind the river bends
their cool stone breathes
sighs of relief

Tunnels would do instead
lurking under ground
bricks tumbling in, their portals caged
(as if they might break for freedom)
old stations, water towers, signal boxes
even a platelayer’s hut
the track bed itself, recognisable across fields

Ruins are ruins, Roman and the rest

Somebody else’s past written in rock
like but not our own
who knows what we might find
among these left-over lives
where no next train arrives

But we are not waiting for signals to change
or rusted points to re-align
though we are on a platform of some kind
a destination in our minds

By this day’s end we shall have caught
some train of thought back down the line of time
imagining journeys we might have made
remembering journeys we might have made
knowing where it all began
but not quite sure how it came to here

Mike Smith lives on the edge of England where he writes occasional plays, poetry, and essays, usually on the short story form in which he writes as Brindley Hallam Dennis. His writing has been published and performed. He blogs at www.Bhdandme.wordpress.com. This poem was composed around Whitrope in July, 2022.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Candice Louisa Daquin

Courtesy: Creative Commons
POTENTIAL PEACE BENEATH THE WAR

Does humanity, as a concept
exist in a vacuum?
Where humble sentience is 
dislocated in the parched throat of self-interest? 
Where does the common man find solace?
Lost moniker describing individuals seeking equity 
in twitching furnace of somnambulist society,
their labour rebuked for birth right or whimsy,
inequality sewn into flimsy lapel, the holes of their shoes
before any nation’s birth is death; for what nationality
does anyone possess? Or own? What land is
ours or yours? What power? What skin? 
What impotent sieve tries to retain enough water before the monsoon shifts? 
Drunk, before any of us knew we could protest
what was never going to be given freely --
that division of us all, made clay, made stalagmite
what are anyone’s true wishes? Who hears? 
When war makers fabricate the mould and send 
into battle, scolded and uncooked, their children?
What does the crowing babe think; when war flies
its planes and machines overhead? Raining red loss 
upon the downtrodden, seeking only, meagre sense of existing --
hardly able to drag their weary bodies to vote
nor contemplate chess pieces above artificial stations.
Perhaps Marx had a point, the silver infusion
of distraction, an ultimate opiate, or
is it just our water-borne natures? If there is such
collective nature? To fight in dust -- swirl until we’re tired
then lay our guns down and pick on each other
with weary, blooded fists. Is anything appeased in our
vain battles or are mere silly devils playing ruined
games on a board where nobody watches?
Save the ember curl of time, reminding all;
Those who do not remember history
are bound, to repeat its grievous wounds. 
Then: Break free mockingbird 
find your own voice, not choked by common
dust, for we are all, for we all can find 
potential peace beneath the war.

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Candice Louisa Daquin is a Psychotherapist and Editor, having worked in Europe, Canada and the USA. Daquins own work is also published widely, she has written five books of poetry, the last published by Finishing Line Press called Pinch the Lock. Her website is www thefeatheredsleep.com

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Categories
Poetry

This Plate of Food

By Gigi Baldovino Gosnell

Courtesy: Creative Commons –
This plate of food
colours my cheeks
with gentle glow 
or bellowing sullenness

It gives me 
a crawling sensation 
with a crabby sting
cradling a cancerous cringe

My gut grumbles
imagining the bruised 
neck of chicken
hotly parboiled

My mouth twists
with epileptic pleasure
on ground patties
oily and Offaly

Deliciousness for the few
A hundred years of agony
forkprints cruelty
on this plate of food

Gigi Baldovino Gosnell has degrees in Psychology and Education. She lectures in Psychology, worked in various NGOs, and the public service in the fields of women empowerment, land reform, social development and local government.

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Categories
Poetry

Lethal Aid

Poetry By Tony Brewer

LETHAL AID

The kind they give you
when there is no cure
Crackers and ginger ale
ice cream and lollipops
When Dad was stage 4
hey, if he wants a double
cheeseburger let him have it
No need for Asian mushroom tea
No need to try to prolong
Just comfort now
that fat and sugar give
So have some missiles
and mines designed to maim
Frag grenades & nerve gas
No need for heroics
diplomacy or handshakes
or hey, let’s let cooler 
heads prevail – no winner
is possible but let’s
keep the upper hand
Say we tried by flipping
the pillow to the dry cool side
Prevent bed sores on the -ridden
but keep them there
in the only room a nurse
is allowed to turn
off the lights and leave

Tony Brewer is a poet, live sound effects artist, and event producer. His most recent book is Pity for Sale (Gasconade Press, 2022). More at tonybrewer71.blogspot.com.

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Categories
Poetry

Iron Maiden Voyage  

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

A Woman’s Head(1958) By Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Courtesy: Creative Commons
IRON MAIDEN VOYAGE

That faded band shirt way 
you wait for your order, 
got your whole life wrapped up  
in condiments  
 
the stark raver behind the cash 
with that falling fire escape of hair, 
on the run from everything but the law; 
it's one smile out the door and some 
butcher block cut up for the diary 
 
and you hear some power slave  
get his number called, 
some chunky oil slick wife beater  
with a fistful of straws instead of dollars 
 
and that ship has sailed  
somewhere in time  Ontario
as the fry hat emo kid slams a tray down 
in front of you -- 
 
that smell of stake ketchup blotted  
over all the tables  
as you search out some sodium spilled  
shanty by the bathroom; 
 	
a parking lot full of rust boxes  
pulled in on the lean,  
steering wheels hot to the touch 
from clutch to column  
under some heavy nowhere sun  
that just won't stop.

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 The Oklahoma Review. 

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Categories
Poetry

The Sentimentalist

By Ramesh Dohan

THE SENTIMENTALIST

Dawn was his greeting time.
Welcome back, he said quietly.
He couldn't believe
what day it was.
He ate lunch in a
glass box, a kind of
winter cafe.
Someone before him
had left a little
Saucer of salt, with a wooden spoon
Like a tiny oar in white sand.

Ramesh Dohan lives in Toronto, Canada with his partner and an exceptionally perfect dog. When he is not writing in his favourite café, he is seen reading, hiking, and travelling the world. 

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