Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Shorter Poems of Akbar Barakzai

Translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch

Akbar Barakzai
Unfinished Song

Mankind is a beautiful song,
A song unfinished as of yet

Heart and soul of the sacred earth
to conscience it gives voice 

It’s each word and each rhyme
like flowers soft and sublime

A heavenly wine in Nature's cup
like morning breeze it does chime

Someday 'twill touch its finest note
‘twill survive the tides of time

Bestowed by the Mother Nature
A blossom that lasts forever


Not Forever

The rule of chains and fetters
Will last only for today not forever
The age of tyranny and oppression
Will last only for today not forever
All these wealth and riches will liquidate soon
This loot, pillage and plunder
Will last only for today not forever


Motherland

Even if like a wasteland
it’s all burnt and blazed,
Motherland is but motherland.
I crave not for the land of the sun
and its flowing rivers of light,
Even if it's dark like a dungeon
Motherland is but motherland.

The Anguished Sigh 

The restless sigh! 
Lay trapped in my collapsed chest 
May you become a little songbird 
And in every sad heart find yourself a nest 


Distracted Youth

O, you, the distracted youth!
Why you lament on the shore
Go ahead and embrace the tides
Wherein lies life’s lore

Akbar Barakzai was born in Shikarpur, Sindh in 1939. He is ranked amongst the proponents of modern Balochi literature. His poetry reflects the objective realities of life. Love for motherland, peace and prosperity and dignity of a man are the recurrent themes of his poetry. His love for human dignity transcends all geographical and cultural frontiers. Barakzai is not a prolific poet. In a literary career which spans over half a century, Barakzai has brought out just two anthologies of poetry, Who can Kill the Sun and The Lamps of Heads, but his poetry has depth and reaches out to human hearts with its profundity. Last year, Barakzai rejected the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) award, quoting  the oppressive policies meted out to his region by the government as the reason.

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. Fazal Baloch has the translation rights to Barakzai’s works and is in the process of bringing them out as a book.

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Categories
Poetry

Indulgence in Silence

By Anasuya Bhar

Woman Reading a Book by Edgar Degas circa 1879. Courtesy: Creative commons
Indulgence 

Confidences, quiet whisperings
My books talk to me
I talk to myself
In endearing tones
Pampering my desires
My little secrets.
My small pleasures
Crowd around me
My sorrows nestle close
There is a smell of togetherness
That could, perhaps, be equalled
To a fond embrace, familiar
Now stowed away into the 
Deeper channels of my mind.
There are places, which 
Give me warmth
There are colours, which
Remind me of moods
There are fragrances, which
Remind me of moments that are memorable. 

     
In Silence

Poetry speaks to her in silence
In absolute silence,
When, even the noises, 
That clutter and clog 
Her senses, and her mind, 
Are all quiet, and ready to listen 
Like the faithful student, all obedient.
Poetry then, speaks to her --
Unburdening, one by one, 
All her disquiet.
Its music, the starkness of plain truth 
Appeal to her, in solitude. 
Poetry speaks to her in silence.

  Dr. Anasuya Bhar is an academic teaching English literature in St. Paul’s Cathedral Mission College, Kolkata, India. She would also want to be known as a poet.

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Categories
Poetry

The Weather was Indoors with All the Best Deceptions 

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Courtesy: Creative Commons
The Weather was Indoors with All the Best Deceptions 

 
The first time I rolled into a Fritz Lang movie, I was stringing up those balls the professionals would later use for tennis and resilient acts of lust. Cold calling butt-less chap ladders out of their unassuming altitude. The weather was indoors with all the best deceptions, pinching shadows right on the fibbery. No goose for fleshy gander, it was a real shindig of blossoming malcontents. All those close-ups and no evidence of anything. A man can try himself out of boredom while the lucky 13 of the alphabet is off stoking foolish superstitions into brand new sprawlings. And my iron hull for plasticine yogis. Borders and 80-year-old women refusing to change. I was chuffed to be in hiding. Not a screen writers' guild pen in sight, a flotsam time to be alive. Huzzah! Huzzah! Warn Lady Chatterley's bedroom Lilliputians. I'm sorry, Blefuscu is Romanian, as though Swift wasn't even trying. Like all those jubilant car wreck cymbals that want to announce the end of everything.

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

Christmas Cheer

By Malachi Edwin Vethamani

Courtesy: Creative Commons
Christmas Cheer

The familiar sounds of carols 
and hymns are distant 
as are the smells of 
curries and freshly baked cookies. 

Boyhood memories warm the spirit
but the passing of the years
missing loved ones
brings a chill to the heart. 

The present so varied
and so unfamiliar 
of the once held dear
Christmas joy. 

A chef is roasting the turkey.
A waiter is pouring my wine.
Text messages are streaming in 
but give little Christmas cheer.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani is a poet and writer. His poetry publications include: Life Happens (Maya Press, 2017) and Complicated Lives (Maya Press, 2016). His edited volume of poems entitled Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems (Maya Press, 2017) won the Best Book prize in the English Language category for the Malaysian Best Book Award 2020 organised by the Malaysian Publishers Association. His latest publication is an edited volume of poems entitled Malaysian Millennial Voices (Maya Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in various literary journals. He is Founding Editor of Men Matters Online Journal.

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Categories
Poetry

The Leopard & the Skylark

Written in Korean & translated to English by Ilwha Choi

Long Continuous Battle 
 
I have been battling for a long time.
There live two wild animals in my mind.
One skylark flying high with blue wings,
The other black leopard roaring with sharp teeth.
 
When the skylark finishes its song, the black leopard begins to roar.
When the leopard finishes its roaring, the skylark sings merrily in the sky.

I love the skylark, also I believe in the black leopard.
The world does not change though the bird sings merry songs
and the wild beast roars for a long time.

There is no other way but to love in order to forgive forever.
Departing forever is another way to love.

The black leopard on the Earth and the lark in the sky,
I am choked by their faithfulness.
There live two faithful animals in my inner world.

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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Categories
Poetry

Poetry of Pain

By Harsimran Kaur

The Last Time I Saw You Alive Was on St. Valentine's Day

Red.
Beneath the couch, mattress, table, kitchen slab, the Shakespeare guide. 
Irksome lads on a sudden Sunday evening.
Debris. Tired walls of the restaurant.
Dome-inspired heart shapes,
Hollow cards, kisses, hugs, chocolates.

Pink.
Skin to skin, flesh to flesh,
Scattered dreams. A dinner for two. Falling apart.
The last time I saw you alive was on St. Valentine’s Day,
The day of love. Love?

Harsimran Kaur is an author of The Best I Can Do Is to Write My Heart Out, I am Perfectly Imperfect, and Clementines on My Poetry Table. 

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Categories
Poetry

The Imaginary Menagerie

By Rhys Hughes

Satyr & Centaur
Cockatrice
Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE IMAGINARY MENAGERIE

1. 
A banshee on a rooftop
can wail all night
when the mists swirl thickly.
A whale on a rooftop
ought to get down quickly.

2. 
A cockatrice is not very nice,
in fact some say it's a curse
when it struts around in the nude.
But when it is wearing socks
I'll say it's even worse.

3. 
Medusa and a French writer:
as opposites they are polar.
They are pleased to dine on cheese
but only Gorgon Zola.

4. 
Part man, part horse,
the centaur trots around the race course
shooting arrows at the hats
worn by all the toffs
in the crowd who watch
but with insufficient force
to knock them off.

5. 
The vampire with sore gums
bites only sorghum
but he likes to reminisce
about the throats and biscuits
of priests in the seminary.
Fangs for the memory!

6. 
The simurgh is a beautiful bird
rarely kept as a pet
because few people can afford her.
Among our feathered friends
she ranks highest in the pecking order.

7. 
What has been written
about the minotaur
is true enough from feet to neck
but don't believe the text in full:
the remainder is a lot of bull.

8. 
There is a squonk who weeps all night
on the roof of my tropical bathroom.
The tears that drip through bamboo shoots
are always gloomy, fat and sour
but in them I prefer to shower.

9. 
The hydra is a kind of snake
with many heads
who for the sake of better relations
with all the nations
of humanity
decided to get an education
and began with trigonometry.
Now he's a mythical snake
with many headaches.

10. 
A phoenix has no politics
but knows a trick or two.
Perched in a bowl of cake mix
and bursting into flames
it may bake that cake for you.

11. 
A Cyclops with a telescope
can stare at distant pears,
the planet Mars as well,
but a cyclops with binoculars
has no hope in hell.

12. 
A hippogriff on the edge of a cliff
can safely leap into the void and soar
but a hippopotamus or hypocrite
would splatter on the canyon floor.

13.
The wealth of an elf
and the security of an Elf
in our world's fairyland sector
are important considerations
for an 'Elf & Safety' inspector.

14. 
There's a manticore
behind a door
inside the betting shop
but that door is a jar
and the stopper in the top
prevents it getting out.

15. 
Although his wings are extended
the dragon wears trousers
recently mended
for courtesy's sake
because the damsel in distress
turned out to be
a knight in a dress
with an awkward curtsy.
Yes, the Dragon wears trousers
but he's flying low.

16. 
The leprechaun has worn
out his shoes
and torn his green cap
and sits on the lawn,
bottles of booze in his lap,
until the break of dawn.

17. 
The satyr is a goat man
who chases river nymphs
in a boat with leers: his plan
is to catch them in a net
but he hasn't got any yet.
He is wet behind the ears.

18. 
A Wyvern is a kind of dragon
with only two legs: the front ones
and both of those are frail.
That's why his tail
tends to drag on the ground
while he is toing and froing
and running around
to see what fun things we are doing.

19. 
The Titan
wants to bite on
the biggest sandwich in creation
but no doubt
his mastication
will meet negation
when all the filling falls out.

20.
The happy harpy
plays the flute too loudly
or so the other Harpies claim.
The unhappy Harpy
plays a lute too sadly
to attain musical fame.
Later they will beat
their wings against the ceiling
to express their mutual feeling:
distrust, dislike and irritation.

21. 
Triffids are insipid
when added to salad
but they are always in a hurry
to jump into curry.
Who can say why? Not I.

22. 
I knew a ghoul
who was nobody's fool.
He enrolled in a university
adjacent to a cemetery.
Corpus Christi College
extended his knowledge
that corpses are tasty.

23. 
There's a yeti
in the freezer
and we don't know
how he got there.
Extracting him with tweezers
seems petty
and unfair, so we won't
dislodge him from his lair
of artificial snow
but leave him unmolested
next to the polar bear.

24. 
Always a risk
to kiss a basilisk
especially if you miss
and kiss the wrong end.

25. 
The mermaid paid with alacrity
her parking fine.
She had tethered her seahorse
to our ship's anchor.
I must descend in a diving suit
to personally thank her.

26. 
With ten long arms
he can do great harm
when he takes over
the submarine factory
by poking big holes in hulls
but the workers in Quality Control
are more afraid the Kraken
boss will simply say, "Sack 'em!"
and that's exactly what he does.

27. 
A unicorn is a horse with a spike
that can eat apples and leap a fence.
But a graph with a spike is evidence
that something isn't right.

28. 
The gnome at home
is worse than a ghost
but an absent Gnome
is a generous host.
How is this possible?

29. 
If the chimera came here
you would surely run away.
The lion part would roar at you,
the snake part would hiss,
and as you beat a hasty retreat
the goat part would bleat
at your receding feet.

30. 
The golem is a man of clay
but who can say
if the potter's wheel made him dizzy?
He never eats or even drinks
while he is busy
unless it's something fizzy.
Triffid
Manticore
Chimera
Courtesy: Creative Commons

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

My Father’s Last Smile

By Pramod Rastogi

Courtesy: Creative Commons
My Father’s Last Smile
 
The rain has returned to the city.
Puddles are forming on the road
And children are running in joy.
Kidding along, I play with them
 
Until I suffer from a coughing fit.
Unsteady, my heart starts flipping
As I sit there amid woeful eyes,
And in the blur could hear sounds afar
 
Of birds singing and me darting
With my father feigning to catch me.
I could see his blurred outlines
Coughing and sitting holding his heart.
 
I was laughing and he smiled at me.
He never talked about his failing health, 
As more and more often he got nailed
To his bed, but his smile was intact.
 
The street was getting busy,
Yet, living with this everlasting memory, 
I walked back to my home infused
With the last smile of my father’s love
Anchored to the silence of my heart.

Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is the 2014 recipient of the SPIE Dennis Gabor Award. He is currently a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar, India.

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Categories
Poetry

Poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

A Moment of Rest

I feel for those
who do not get
a moment of
rest. I have been
in that place so
often I do
not know if rest
will only come
when I am dead.
Those you love who
do not love you
back will put you
deep in your grave
while they keep up
their bad habits.


Rainfall

I take refuge in the falling rain.
It falls only for me.
The raindrops fall on my head.
I find comfort in rainfall.

In the absence of rain, I take joy
in solitude.  I walk
softly and quietly like the dead.
I find comfort in anonymity.

I rely on luck and decent health to 
keep me carrying on.
I hope to remain standing.
I can’t stand for falling.

I find power in the word or words
that save me from a life
I do not intend to live.
I go back to the rain.
 

Do You Really Want to Talk to Me?

Before we get to conversing
and you begin sermonising
you need to know that I have
died for your sins and that
I am followed by the sun.

That means the sun is always
the shadow behind my back.
Do not look into my eyes
because I have the devil in
my eyes and I can take your soul.

Before you begin to speak
take all my words under deep
contemplation and ask yourself
do you really want to talk to me?

I can do anything I want is all
you need to know. I do not want
to see you or to go to court to
talk to some judge about my mind.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal is a Mexican-born author, who resides in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, and Unlikely Stories.

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Categories
Poetry

The Psychologist Said… Lassi Come Home

Poetry by Rhys Hughes

Courtesy: Creative Commons
THE PSYCHOLOGIST SAID

“You have a high IQ,”
declared the psychologist
and I misheard
and thought he said “haiku”
which surprised me very much.
“Where is it?” I cried 
in a panic and he laughed
as he replied, “Inside your head,”
and I clutched my skull
in both hands and tried
to understand how a short and
exquisitely pithy poem
had ended up in there.
Back home I stared
in the mirror but saw
nothing out of place on my face
and no lumps on my skull.
I hope for my sake that
the psychologist was mistaken!

               Japanese pressure
           waiting to burst on paper—
               haiku in my head.


LASSI COME HOME

I had a drink
made from yoghurt and spices
and fruit. So cute
it was! and I loved that
beverage like a brother, but times
were hard and I was poor
and I couldn’t pour
anymore of that delicious liquid
down my throat.
I had to sell it to a wealthy Duke.

Away it went
and I never expected to see it
again until we
both were heaven-sent after our
demise. How unwise
a notion! for this potion was loyal
to me and escaped
it’s aristocratic prison and made
it’s way across the land
back to fill the glass
in my hand.

Come home, Lassi.
Lassi, come home.
Courtesy: Creative Commons

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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