THE SKY SALUTES
To those who patiently listen behind the stutter
To those who smile at an untended feeling hidden in a tantrum
To those who see the chance of fire in the rub of two stones
Lighting up pathways in a dark forest
The sky salutes
To those who nod at words spoken from a distant alley
To those who shake hands with the person and not their credentials
To those who drag the sun amidst a hundred clouds
Sparking a hope on the solemn face of Earth
The sky salutes
The sky salutes by embracing them in a bright-yellow hug
And by sprinkling confetti around the moon
The sky celebrates them floating orange petals at their sun-set
And covering their heads with eternity
The sky simply salutes
Shailja Sharma is a mental health provider and a multilingual author. Apart from scholarly publication, her literary writings have been nationally/internationally published.
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King Asoka with his queens. Sanchi. 3rd Century BC. Courtesy: Creative Commons
ASANDHIMITRA
I am the wife
of his perfect years,
the most favoured,
I have evidenced
that which others were
fortunate not to view.
His nights were sorrowful,
remorse preoccupied
his dreams,
100,000 put to death
and 150,000 deported.
His head was a never-ceasing
battlefield, he asked for
measures to undo a war,
that was long waging
since Kalinga !
How could one unmake deaths ?
He turned a Buddha-Bhikshu
and preached.
It was erroneous to kill an ant,
his subjects heeded
and dispersed.
Many more Asokas
will burn in sleep,
and many more Asandhimitras
will lose sleep.
I am Asandhimitra,
Agramahisi to
Asoka the Great.
*Agramahisi – chief queen.
Asoka the Great was an Indian Emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, after the war of Kalinga he was aggrieved over the bloodshed and vowed never to fight again. He patronized Buddhism during his reign.
Mini Babu is working as Associate Professor of English with the Dept. of Collegiate Education,Govt. of Kerala. Her poems have been featured in anthologies, journals and magazines. Her collections of poems are Kaleidoscope (2020), Shorelines (2021) and Memory Cells (2022).
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THE COLOUR OF TIME
Every tree colours with their own colour.
Chestnut trees have their own tint.
Oak trees revel in their unique hues.
When I was young, was my colour quite green?
My first love seemed like a magnolia.
My job, where I worked all my life,
My native village -- a variety of flowers, cicadas
and the crust of overcooked rice – each were distinct in their colouration.
Becoming old ripens one's own nature.
The passion of red roses transform to autumn colours,
The farmers assume the colour of earth on autumnal mornings
and a poet’s character matures.
Love and hatred, meeting and departing,
Sweet temptation and bitter betrayal,
and the dialects like the barley buds of old playmates
are all turning to the colour of the early winter.
Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time, When Our Love will Flourish, The Colour of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.
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THIS GREY MORNING
This grey morning
I get to study the ceiling bemused
Hoping the long-awaited repair
Has stemmed the active leak at last
I do not have to scan the terrible clouds
Praying what rains from the grim sky
Will not drown me and my daughter today
This grey morning
I get to pause Saturday’s Long Read
Set my warm cup in its saucer
And push up from my table
Heeding the scraping of my hungry dog at the door
I do not have to raise a broken chair from the rubble
Against those who want the putrid scraps
I have made my own
This grey morning
I get to wallow in bed
Nursing my broken heart
I do not have to lie on frozen earth
Hands pressed to my chest
Sticky and red
Bravely sighing this is how love ends
Marianne Tefft, born in the U.S. and raised in Canada, is a poet, lyricist, teacher and voiceover artist on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. Her first poetry collection, Full Moon Fire, is slated to appear in Summer 2022.
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SUN POEM
I have suffused myself in poetry
as a lizard basks, soaking up sun,
scales nakedly glinting; its glorious light
he understands—when it comes, it comes.
A flood of light leaches down to his bones,
his feral eye blinks—bold, curious, bright.
Now night and soon winter lie brooding, damp, chilling;
here shadows foretell the great darkness ahead.
Yet he stretches in rapture, his hot blood thrilling,
simple yet fierce on his hard stone bed,
his tongue flicking rhythms,
the sun—throbbing, spilling.
POPPY
(“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse (1923-2014)“The Second Coming”)
It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.
The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .
Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.
The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.
Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!
Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.
You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no opiate for the heart.
Claude Monet’s The Poppy Field near Argenteuil (1873). Courtesy: Creative Commons
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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NOW
When will it be?
The white bird says now,
the backyard sleepers, eaters,
say now
and the souls that left
and the souls that arrived
are deep in the immediacy
of an overpowering change
that will guide the current into the sea,
a coral reef barrier prosperity
a summer like a summer never
before -- blessed, pulsing with an infant
eternal song, glorifying the dissolving shapes,
the empty spaces now made complimentary,
now made into a rippling harmony singing.
When will it be?
It is, says the voice.
Close your eyes. Open them
and see.
INHERITANCE
The end is almost here,
rises like a blessing
like a storm, demanding
my commitment,
to go inside, hide and pray.
The end overthrows
the engrained pattern, arrests
the spread of illness and holds
the future like a tiny turtle in an egg,
struggling out of its shell.
The end is an escape route, a mind
losing consciousness, asking to be caught
before the body lands on unpolished
concrete floors, deprived of a buffer, asking
for a soft act of grace, holding, a reminder
that love exists even under the executioner’s hood.
The end is happening like forgiveness happens,
a miracle stronger than duty and grief,
strongest of all efforts --
a clean slate, consolidating
each action, blanketing over
every direction
to and away from home.
REFORMATION
I am tackling my circumstances
void of myth or the fallacy
of wishes.
I am trying to see straight even
if I must murder my own liberty,
harpoon my freedom and go under.
I am not sure what capacity I am asked
to carry. I see the escape road but I cannot
take the road if it leaves my loved ones
in jeopardy -- parachute strings cut, plane
door open at high altitude.
So I must go back, bend over, pick up sticks, stones,
ache all over, unable to sleep or find a resting position
without pain. Unless
the gift of mercy comes, soon, today,
supplies unload, compassion arrives and strips me
of this brutal incremental starvation and I can
stand as I stand today,
unencumbered by the load, unashamed
of my joy -- no void of debt and doom
slicing through my budding strength.
If the gift comes it will come as grace,
undeserved but a fact of God’s great glory,
my house will be furnished and the way forward
will be cleared, blessed, at last and finally
certain.
Allison Grayhurst has more than 1300 poems published in over 500 journals, and 25 poetry books. She lives in Toronto.
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IN DECEMBER
(Inspired by Du Fu, Tang Dynasty Poet)
The trees and the clouds
sway easily in the wind.
But beyond my vision,
stars are dying.
The sky is a lonely grave.
In the mirror, my face
looks rough. I need a shave.
With the winter snow,
the birds have vanished to
wherever they go.
Will I be here when
they come again?
Such thoughts go better
with wine, if at all.
I look out my window,
watching snow as it falls.
settling quietly like a pall.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Did I miss it?
No, I was there – I loved it!
Stuff was there when you wanted it.
Shelves were full and that was normal.
Workers were there when they promised.
Fuel was cheap – and available.
Solar was growing and getting cheaper.
I know it now I missed it then.
Stocks were up, dips were for buying.
401k and IRA were fat and getting fatter.
New stuff kept coming. I want some.
News was flat and boring and predictable.
And that was good.
Trump was starting to fade.
Was the election really rigged?
I never knew.
There were too many people.
The virus helped – but not enough.
Demands were blatant and excessive.
Work was optional. For idiots.
Stupidity became normal, praised even.
History is irrelevant – We will do it differently.
Free is a right
Free is a minimum.
Is it all downhill from here?
Will Hudson have a chance to live in a Golden Age?
Will shelves ever be filled?
Will energy ever be cheap?
Will the world become available to me again?
Will the idiots win? – They are now.
Did the Golden Age just end?
Can it ever return?
The optimist becomes a pessimist
AGAIN -- STILL -- NO -- IT’S NOT FUNNY
6000 new cases in California yesterday,
Again.
The COVID curve is beautiful – now – now that it’s bent down,
Again.
I forgot my mask yesterday,
Again.
I thought it was a fixed part of my leaving the house check-off list,
Again.
I must wear a mask – even exercising!
Again.
I have natural immunity – that’s what we call having had COVID19,
Still.
I resist,
Again
It doesn’t matter,
Still.
We hear orders and mandates - pontifications, because they can!
Still.
They aren’t wearing masks!
Again.
I check the statistics and the curve is down,
Still!
Have we learned anything?
No!
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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PANDEMIC PANIC
Pandemic panic.
Influenza bonanza.
I make a mask from an old shoe
and wear it out.
Is this what I am
required to do? I suppose so.
The smell is worse
than the curse
of the virus. I feel like a badly
sung note in an old
song, but one irony
is certain and it cheers me up:
Zorro also
wore his mask wrong
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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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REMEMBERING NOT TO CALL(A villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)
The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.
Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.
And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.
That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.
And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.
No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.
LOVE UNFOLDED LIKE A FLOWER
Love unfolded
like a flower;
Pale petals pinked and blushed to see the sky.
I came to know you
and to trust you
in moments lost to springtime slipping by.
Then love burst outward,
leaping skyward,
and untamed blossoms danced against the wind.
All I wanted
was to hold you;
though passion tempted once, we never sinned.
Now love's gay petals
fade and wither,
and winter beckons, whispering a lie.
We were friends,
but friendships end . . .
yes, friendships end and even roses die.
MELTING
(for Beth)
Entirely, as spring consumes the snow,
the thought of you consumes me: I am found
in rivulets, dissolved to what I know
of former winters’ passions. Underground,
perhaps one slender icicle remains
of what I was before, in some dark cave—
a stalactite, long calcified, now drains
to sodden pools whose milky liquid laves
the colder rock, thus washing something clean
that never saw the light, that never knew
the crust could break above, that light could stream:
so luminous,
so bright,
so beautiful . . .
I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed,
and all because you smiled on me, and warmed.
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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Borderless 