Tag: Canadian

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Slices from Life

The Rule of Maximum Tolerance?

By Jun A. Alindogan

From Public Domain

In the Philippines, ‘maximum tolerance’ refers to peacekeepers practicing a high level of restraint during public gatherings to ensure safety and maintain peace, while law enforcement implements action against violent demonstrators and shows tolerance towards those who are peaceful. Essentially, it means tolerating an individual’s capacity for patience, endurance, and long-suffering in the face of behavioral challenges.

Until now, I have maintained a close relationship with an orphaned nephew of a colleague of mine. Our bond grew stronger when he moved to our church shelter from a nearby mountainous town to live with his uncle. I have always empathised with him, as my family also provided care for fatherless children. The purpose of his relocation was to enable him to complete his college education. He eventually graduated with a degree in computer science from an institution that claims to have an Asian focus, despite lacking a physical campus during the Covid-19 pandemic. Understandably, he struggled to find employment. He returned home to stay with his aunt’s family, patiently waiting for an opportunity to secure a job, which proved to be challenging.

During his studies, we would occasionally meet for meals to discuss the work on his paper requirements before graduation and plan his group thesis. When the pandemic hit, our conversations shifted online, but his willingness to seek my assistance remained strong, and I gladly supported him.

His first job involved selling organic powdered coffee imported from Malaysia at an office in the heart of Quezon City. When the Covid-19 virus spiked, all the company’s employees had to work from home. However, there were times when they were asked to come to the office despite the significant health risk.

My friend refused to do so, which was quite reasonable as he lived with his elderly aunt and uncle. As a result, he was reprimanded and issued a memo for unauthorised leave of absence. I had to help him draft a letter in response to the memo. This situation challenged him to assert his rights as an employee as not every human resource policy is beneficial. At times, companies will test your threshold of tolerance to the limit which is not necessarily wrong. Upon repeated emails that we sent to the HR department, he was finally given his last paycheck months after his resignation.

His next job was as a management trainee for a Canadian-based coffee shop in a mall chain. Coffee shops and fast-food stores often hire college graduates from any field to fill staffing gaps caused by high employee turnover, even if their majors are unrelated to the food industry. Unfortunately, he did not pass the probationary period because he said he was verbally mistreated by the store manager over work principles and practices.

His initial job application at a global fast-food chain was unsuccessful, as he did not receive an interview. He ended up taking a part-time online job at a small pharmaceutical company to earn money for his expenses. After a year of waiting, he was finally invited for a management interview at the same fast-food chain in a city near his hometown. He got the job.

He has been working for the global fast-food chain for over two years now and enjoys his role as a specialist manager due to his interest in computing and ordering items. However, the local store management has not been supportive in terms of taking care of their team. For example, when he had a high-grade fever while working, he was not allowed to go home until the next shift manager arrived, in the midst of a heavy, rainy evening. There was even an instance where he had to attend a management meeting at another store after his graveyard shift.

On a particular rest day after his graveyard shift, he was instructed to attend management classes in a southern city for three days, without being given additional days off to offset his attendance during his rest day. Another schedule required him to report at 2pm after working a graveyard shift. At times, he was also instructed to go to other stores to manage, without any fare allowances. All these cases are documented online. The goal is for the team to hit the sales target at whatever cost and without offering any additional incentives. Even when he had toe-surgery and had to go on sick leave, he was still expected to work from home regarding stock orders. The global fast food chain’s work-life balance policy is only superficial.

Maximum tolerance does not mean to allow individuals, communities, and corporations to exploit us to unimaginable levels, where our self-worth is solely dependent on our output. Outstanding results should be based on a holistic approach that recognises everyone’s basic humanity. Resignation prevails simply because individuals are not allowed to exercise and enjoy their humanness in any circumstances. This should not be the case.

This scenario is not only limited to corporations, but also to religious institutions. In the church that I regularly attend, the resident minister encourages members to be involved in various programs, as leadership should not be dependent on a single individual but on the collective efforts of everyone. However, in doing so, he expects every member to participate in a series of activities all day on Sundays. Sundays, or any Sabbath day, should be a day of spiritual and physical refreshment and renewal. However, with the onslaught of day-long programmes each Sunday, the maximum tolerance of members is tested to the point where most skip events instead of feeling encouraged, as the minister makes them feel guilty. Saying ‘n’o is not a sin of omission.

I look forward to a time when it will be common for business enterprises and social institutions to implement appropriate mechanisms that help individuals to be more human, rather than just robots mindlessly following instructions.

Manuel A. Alindogan, Jr. or Jun A. Alindogan is the Academic Director of the Expanded Alternative Learning Program of Empowered East, a Rizal-province based NGO in the Philippines and is also the founder of Speechsmart Online that specialises in English test preparation courses. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines (FWGP).

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Categories
Poetry

Conjuring Windows

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

From Public Domain 
CONJURING WINDOWS 

The parried birds escape the sky
and the splintering sun illumines the stained-glass windows
of the church, breathing richness into all:
busied heart, tasked hands, a man of unknown guides,
come to things with eyes of marvelous child's zeal,
for those colours that haunt as ghosts 
once did, brilliant blues and chasing yellows.

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 Lothlorien Poetry Journal. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

A Sip of a Fermented Hope

By Ahmad Al-Khatat

Karen Warner Fine Arts: From Public Domain 
A SIP OF FERMENTED HOPE

I wish my mental health were a language
that the world could understand and respect.
I investigate the clouds and the lake up north,
I feel I, somehow, belong between them.

On the other side of the world, I see myself
in the sobbing misplaced children from countries
like my own, where we question our humanity
as if we are the only ones alive while others live joyfully.

My parents were always against my way
of drinking liquor until I end up drunk and aggressive.
Who cares about me anymore? I only hold a sip
of a fermented hope, where I dance and sing alone.

If she ever comes back, tell her he’s not interested
to walk with her or to give her what she wishes.
My depression has conquered me. Congratulations, sorrows!
I am now the man banned from falling in love again.

I cannot say I did not miss staring at women near me.
I cannot say I did not feel some healing in my wounds.
I cannot say I did not enjoy speaking to a woman like you.
I wish to know that I am truly yours, but if not,

let me fall asleep with a bullet…

Ahmad Al-Khatat is an Iraqi Canadian poet and writer. His poetry has been translated into other languages and his work has been published in print and online magazines abroad. He resides in Montreal.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

Losing the Light

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

From Public Domain 
LOSING THE LIGHT 

The humming Coke machine, and I have lost the light.
The driving rains outside, and a most terrible truth.
The swelling of wet cardboard and that whoosh of darting high beams by the curb.
And tucked inside the asbestos house, I watch ceiling particles come to rest on the floor tile. 
Leaning back in a chair made to brave its own hind legs.
A coke from the machine beside me, half-flat and half-finished.
The mistrustful eyes of the shop proprietor all over me.
I want to tell him the succubus train left her kisses three stations ago,
but he wouldn't understand.  I want to keep him apprised of any sudden menu changes.
I want him to know of that Russian who made X-rays into records
and smuggled them to the masses.  Paid the hospitals for the discards,
and handmade them into bootlegs of all the best banned American music.
I want to show him all the strange patterns on the soles of my shoes,
but the gophers of the earth have dug holes throughout my body.
A tiny troll with purple hair, taped to the back of the register.
And $1.50 slices of lukewarm pizza 
under glass.
From Public Domain

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 Lothlorien Poetry Journal

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Editorial

“Imagine all the people/Living life in peace”

God of War by Paul Klee (1879-1940)
The sky weeps blood, the earth cannot contain
The sorrow of the young ones we've slain.
How now do dead kids laugh while stricken by red rain?

— from Stricken by Red Rain: Poems by Jim Bellamy

When there is war
And peace is gone
Where is their home?
Where do they belong?

— from Poems on Migrants by Kajoli Krishnan

Poetry, prose — all art forms — gather our emotions into concentrates that distil perhaps the finest in human emotions. They touch hearts across borders and gather us all with the commonality of feelings. We no longer care for borders drawn by divisive human constructs but find ourselves connecting despite distances. Strangers or enemies can feel the same emotions. Enemies are mostly created to guard walls made by those who want to keep us in boxes, making it easier to manage the masses. It is from these mass of civilians that soldiers are drawn, and from the same crowds, we can find the victims who die in bomb blasts. And yet, we — the masses — fight. For whom, for what and why? A hundred or more years ago, we had poets writing against wars and violence…they still do. Have we learnt nothing from the past, nothing from history — except to repeat ourselves in cycles? By now, war should have become redundant and deadly weapons out of date artefacts instead of threats that are still used to annihilate cities, humans, homes and ravage the Earth. Our major concerns should have evolved to working on social equity, peace, human welfare and climate change.

One of the people who had expressed deep concern for social equity and peace through his films and writings was Satyajit Ray. This issue has an essay that reflects how he used art to concretise his ideas by Dolly Narang, a gallery owner who brought Ray’s handiworks to limelight. The essay includes the maestro’s note in which he admits he considered himself a filmmaker and a writer but never an artist. But Ray had even invented typefaces! Artist Paritosh Sen’s introduction to Ray’s art has been included to add to the impact of Narang’s essay. Another person who consolidates photography and films to do pathbreaking work and tell stories on compelling issues like climate change and helping the differently-abled is Vijay S Jodha. Ratnottama Sengupta has interviewed this upcoming artiste.

Reflecting the themes of welfare and conflict, Prithvijeet Sinha’s essay takes us to a monument in Lucknow that had been built for love but fell victim to war. Some conflicts are personal like the ones of Odbayar Dorj who finds acceptance not in her hometown in Mongolia but in the city, she calls home now. Jun A. Alindogan from Manila explores social media in action whereas Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to her home in Jakarta to celebrate the Chinese New Year! Farouk Gulsara looks into the likely impact of genetic engineering in a world already ripped by violence and Devraj Singh Kalsi muses on his source of inspiration, his writing desk. Meredith Stephens tells the touching story of a mother’s concern for her child in Australia and Suzanne Kamata exhibits the same concern as she travels to Happy Village in Japan to meet her differently-abled daughter and her friends.

As these real-life narratives weave commonalities of human emotions, so do fictive stories. Some reflect the need for change. Fiona Sinclair writes a layered story set in London on how lived experiences define differences in human perspectives while Parnika Shirwaikar explores the need to learn to accept changes set in her part of the universe. Spandan Upadhyay explores the spirit of the city of Kolkata as a migrant with a focus on social equity. Both Paul Mirabile and Naramsetti Umamaheswararao write stories around childhood, one set in Europe and the other in Asia.

As prose weaves humanity together, so does poetry. We have poems from Jim Bellamy and Kajoli Krishnan both reflecting the impact of war and senseless violence on common humanity. Ryan Quinn Flanagan introduces us to Canadian bears in his poetry while Snigdha Agrawal makes us laugh with her lines about dogs and hatching Easter eggs! We have a wide range of poems from Snehprava Das, George Freek, Niranjan Aditya, Christine Belandres, Ajeeti S, Ron Pickett, Stuart McFarlane, Arthur Neong and Elizabeth Anne Pereira. Rhys Hughes concludes his series of photo poems with the one in this issue — especially showcasing how far a vivid imagination can twist reality with a British postman ‘carrying’ sweets from India! His column, laced with humour too, showcases in verse Lafcadio Hearn, a bridge between the East and West from more than a hundred years ago, a man who was born in Greece, worked in America and moved to Japan to even adopt a Japanese name.

Just as Hearn bridged cultures, translations help us discover how similarly all of us think despite distances in time and space. Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s concerns about climate change and melting icecaps does just that! Professor Fakrul Alam’s translation of Nazrul’s lyrics from Bengali on women and on the commonality of human faith also make us wonder if ideas froze despite time moving on. Tagore’s poem titled Asha (hope) tends to make us introspect on the very idea of hope – just as we do now. At a more personal level, a contemporary poem reflecting on the concept of identity by Munir Momin has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. From Korean, Ihlwah Choi translates his own poem about losing the self in a crowd. We start a new column on translated Odia poetry from this month. The first one features the exquisite poetry of Bipin Nayak translated by Snehprava Das. Huge thanks to Bhaskar Parichha for bringing this whole project to fruition.

Parichha has also drawn bridges in reviews by bringing to us the memoirs of a man of mixed heritage, A Stranger in Three Worlds: The Memoirs of Aubrey Menen. Andreas Giesbert from Germany has reviewed Rhys Hughes’ The Devil’s Halo and Somdatta Mandal has discussed Arundhathi Nath’s translation, The Phantom’s Howl: Classic Tales of Ghosts and Hauntings from Bengal. Our book excerpts this time feature Devabrata Das’s One More Story About Climbing a Hill: Stories from Assam, translated by multiple translators from Assamese and Ryan Quinn Flangan’s new book, Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife, definitely poems worth mulling over with a toss of humour.

Do pause by our contents page for this issue and enjoy the reads. We are ever grateful to our ever-growing evergreen readership some of whom have started sharing their fabulous narratives with us. Thanks to all our readers and contributors. Huge thanks to our wonderful team without whose efforts we could not have curated such valuable content and thanks specially to Sohana Manzoor for her art. Thank you all for making a whiff of an idea a reality!

Let’s hope for peace, love and sanity!

Best wishes,

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Click here to access the contents page for the May 2025 Issue

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Categories
Excerpt

Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife by Ryan Quinn Flangan

Cover art by Shona Flanagan

Title: Ghosting My Way into the Afterlife

Author: Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Publisher: Nightcap Press

Coffee Bean

Coffee bean on the floor
split down the middle like surgical
ward incisions,
who put you all the way down there, friend,
as if starting a long climb from 
the foot of a volcano?
You should feel lucky in many ways 
to have escaped the grind,
your humming dark roast brethren 
were not so lucky.
Now, the house smells kind as candy.
Stained lip of a personalised mug.
Coffee bean on the floor
I will pull up my socks, 
kick you under the fridge
so we can both go into hiding.

(First appeared in BlogNostics)
 
You gotta be rich to die there

The rich and famous don’t even croak the same as us.
They have their own place.
The Motion Picture & Television Country House
and Hospital.

With plenty of generous donors.
George Clooney is one.
You gotta be rich to die there.

I guess the celebs see the others at the end
and figure it prudent to kick a little cash
that way for when it is their turn.

They have a stipulation that you have to 
have worked “actively” in the film and entertainment 
industry for at least two decades.

Then you get to be special.
Die with original Picasso’s adorning
the halls.

I’d imagine their bedpans are solid gold.
But Death being what it is, they never stay
that way for long


(First appeared in Terror House Magazine) 

Marcel Duchamp’s Snow Shovel

Last time I checked 
they didn’t get a lot of snow in Israel,
but they have Marcel Duchamp’s
snow shovel there
with an inscription that reads:
Prelude to a Broken Arm, 1915.
I think ole Marcel would have 
quite a good laugh
if he knew his snow shovel
was stored in the Holy Land.
Seems like the kind of thing
you may want to store up
in these more arctic of 
temperaments.
I have two snow shovels 
and the Holy Land isn’t
asking for either.

(First appeared in Poetic Musings)

About the Book: This is a collection of recent poems by Ryan Quinn Flangan. He writes  on daily lives of people with a fresh pen and a soupçon of humour. 

About the Author: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author who lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as: The New York Quarterly, Rusty Truck, Borderless Journal, Evergreen Review, Red Fez, Horror Sleaze Trash and The Blue Collar Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

First of the Season by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

From Public Domain 

Stabs of natural light
and the bears are woken 
from winter.

Bony yearlings
on their own now.

Ambling down the street
with a laboured 
chuffing.

Pulling down the early buds
of berry bushes,
looking for an easy meal.

Early risers, the first of the season.

The ones
out at the dump
live right beside the humans.

They are seasoned, more conditioned.

There is a loaded shotgun 
in the back of the bulldozer
if there are any issues. 

But there is seldom anything.
Old dryers broken down to scrap.

The long winter 
has everyone stunted.

Our fleet-footed fox
brought to lumber.

The birds
in the songless
trees.
From Public Domain

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 Lothlorien Poetry Journal. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Dirt Magicians by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

From Public Domain
DIRT MAGICIANS

I go outside.
Bounding back into childhood.
Split melon in hand with infernal separation.

The fatherless sun above
rips dancing cornea from my eyes.

While the garden lice under rocks
ball up like dirt magicians.

And the balance girls walk the curb,
arms extended.

Trying not to fall off.

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 Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

When I write a Poem About You

By Ahmad Al-Khatat

From Public Domain 
When I write a poem about you,
I imagine us together—
Two roses with green leaves,
You, a spark, an eternal inspiration.

My heart dissolves rapidly
On the papers of my homeland.
You are the pain I recognise,
The ink for my pens, the colour of my pencils.

Lovers erase their agonies with ease,
But my imagination is no fleeting illusion.
You are the brightness on every canvas,
My poem, the brush; my homeland, the water.

Small clouds of cigarette smoke rise above.
I respond to the locked doors of Montreal.
Baghdad throws me a bouquet of wildflowers,
As my pen trembles with nervous hands.

You are the day that will always smile upon me—
A laugh from you, a kiss from your lips, a privilege.
I admire you in the moment you ask me to pause,
To stop running into the night, swallowing poison.

Ahmad Al-Khatat is an Iraqi Canadian writer. His work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2024 by Mad Swirl and Best of the Net 2019. His poetry has been translated into other languages and his work has been published in print and online magazines. He resides in Montreal, Canada, with his spouse.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

‘Brand Loyalty…’ by Ryan Quinn Flangan

‘Brand loyalty, loyalty to the brand is paramount’

It starts early, like learning to walk or sucking that soother into milked oblivion.
As soon as the senses have been developed and primed:
‘brand loyalty, loyalty to the brand is paramount,’ 
say it with me as though we are trapped in an Orwellian elevator
counting the floors we are told are rushing by, but never witness.
And what stays with us is always the invasive species,
latching on, building appetites and limits, destroying potential.
Replacing creator with consumer, what a slippery little eel of a trick!
Slogans instead of sentiments truly felt, products and their placement. 
Armies of jingle writers and focus groups that dwarf any once 
great Napoleonic offering. Revenue streams no longer those idyllic 
little fishing holes your grandfather took you to on weekends, in secret.
When the sun across your neck and arms and legs felt like 
a strengthened reprieve. And what bounced off the water was some 
marvellous simple truth revealed, if only for a moment and to you, 
who by chance, was born again.

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 Lothlorien Poetry Journal. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International