Debasis Mukhopadhyay lives and writes in Montreal, Canada. He has a PhD in literary studies from Université Laval, Quebec and poems published in several magazines in the USA & UK including Yellow Chair Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Of/With,Silver Birch Press, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Foliate Oak, Eunoia Review, Snapping Twig, Fragments of Chiaroscuro, Words Surfacing, The Curly Mind, I am not a silent poet, With Painted Words. Follow him at https://debasismukhopadhyay.wordpress.com/ or @dbasis_m on Twitter. Delirium To recall the rustling cracks When on the immaculate snow Her eyes are burning down Lie To foretell a lie My sweet name To attend prayer with a white narcissus in hand Door And all day you are sad Glare around the neck Sighs slam the door Unthinking How old have I become So quiet so bright so sold out so devoured by languor I have forgotten the songs & wings That yesterdays root out unthinking from the needle Now I will wait wanting to tell you about it And you may not know I gave you my hands Waiting town Keeping my head down, I am waiting for you. No beaky words, no breath of oleander that I can shape into the space of my sun-filled cubicle. Inside Alhambra, I see nothing but a bird with no shadows of its timeless wings made of glass. I am fluttering downward inside a waiting town. If you come, talk about children, cut roses, waxy ermines, and perhaps, about the hands that have changed waiting all these years. They once were my root. Can you touch me to serve the moment swarming now in my veins? No stage, footlights are the only solace.
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"Anca-Mihaela Bruma strives to continuously challenge and change the world we live in by means of art, and it is by breaking away from old traditions that she invigorates the art world in pursuit of a new emotional intellect. It is central to her own belief that it is her duty to empower, motivate, inspire, educate and heal. The awakening of the latent gifts we all perhaps unknowingly possess is also central to her quest. In an astute and complex combination of art forms, Anca enhances the essence of poetry, bringing it to another level, creating a higher, more aesthetic literary culture where creativity and logic abide in harmony. This, she succeeds in doing through the symphonic audio-visualizations which have become her distinctive trademark, where visual is visionary, mystical weds mathematical, and lyrical flirts with musical. Although Anca rebelled against formal education as a child, she could not rebel against the artist that was burgeoning within. From an early age she was able to intuitively perceive transformation in all things, and thus she started to nurture an impulsive desire to be somehow part of this transformation. Later, this urge would lead to her pursuing a rigorous program of independent study which would include literature, philosophy, art, and history. It is her belief that through ART she can transform and enhance human consciousness. Anca seeks to restore poetry to public culture by engaging the imagination of her ‘reader-listeners’ in a way that encourages them to use critical analysis of the experiential, performative, and creative vectors which run through her visual poetry. She endeavors to enrich human consciousness or, at the very least, protect intrinsic values from depredation. Where art would at times seem to create opposition to the natural forces of time and morality, Anca helps us make sense of, even come to terms with the oblivion stretching before us. ( by James Cairns, Anca's co-editor, literary advocate ad translator of her poems) The Autumn of Our Spring My autumnal words fell on the sidewalk of Love! You looked like Autumn… I behaved like Spring… I found you when I had lost you In this autumn… of our spring. I re-arranged my rustic colors so Love might gain a new anthem with fluid steps and no numb regrets, forgotten overdue epiphanies, lost stolen rainbows and red echoes with tangerine taste. In this autumn of our spring with its golden trail and acoustic wings the season paints its words as a grand finale while your leaves whisper secrets to the World and a puff of wind lingers our photographic memories as journals left and long forgotten on the path’s end. A stolen cry, a remembered loss of innocence, as my desires hung on Sun’s shoulder, I see a repainted canvas of us with cycled memories on the hills’ canopy. How sensual this autumn is! Spiraling its space… tumbling its distance, prolonged myself by flaming orange leaves. During this autumn of our spring my World turned into a September embrace, October tinted your presence With blossoming hues of green-orange undertones. A dreamy dream… an autumnal fugue, during lost Summer epopee, and I breathed… with November pulse. My soul’s crimson is ambered and rubied And I feel… autumned… I left my cinnamon spice to learn more about your beauty the citrine embers of your eyes under the raindrops, watched the cosmic dance on your skin, a whisper in time, my temple of words still carry a forgotten white procession. And love again… and again… dawns upon my future self with rain scented winds, thrumming my life in your heart… Words still scream the nuances of your disappearances sailing across my punctuated flight… Of so much yearning… I have sharpened more wings… In this autumn of our spring, I will stumble no more behind your voice… as Life cannot be half sung!... A stolen cry… a remembered loss of innocence, and I have learnt how to die… by living!... The Geometry of LOVE Love squared by Love rounding each edge, geometrizing each ends equalizing its alphabets, circling its triangles. Infinitesimally surrounding transitory planes and lanes within our pyramidal silences, giving new lines and directions, intersections of re-constructions compasses and conjunctures within rebellious Mathematics Endless rounded prismatic longings leaving behind the theory of angles rising trigonometry of the hearts forgetting about scientific breaths inside seven circles oscillating harmonies Love squared by Love converting the Word into ART orbiting among infinite number of points till can be found just a line between me and you galactically entangled, universally connected with simplified distraction, amplified seduction sometimes equivalent, sometimes equidistant and the sum of the cosmic Algebra in two hearts. Love squared by Love in perpendicular stars and parallel moons crossing the lines in algorithmic dances and waves of psychedelic sensations, kabbalistic stardust hologram inceptions rhythmic complexities and elastic canvas. Neither perimeters nor cross-sections, neither postulates nor heart formula when I am blue and you are green, answers not to be based on x-y-z coordinates or figure-ing out to be even but ever-being presently present! Love squared by Love applied symmetries and Platonic shapes, an amalgamation of binaries and analogues sometimes with no common denominators, no obtuse views but endless Mandelbrotian spirals where human is able to accept a simple deviation. Love squared by Love embracing your concavity into my convex world, summing up the trigonometry of our cosmic hearts As LOVE tangles between two dots… Love! Not a mundane Geometry! When I found the Love footprints… When I found the Love footprints I recessed… from Life… Ceased my earthy sojourn… I stumbled no more amidst so many lexicons of forgetting… Lost the cryptic utterances of what could, might or should be, the Truth… or False!... I am not seeking the finding as I do not find the seeking… Still… You see yourself outside you, I see you inside myself… When Love footprints were found I stumbled no more between dots, I just breathed one thousand years in one day, and quarters of heavens were built inside my cathartic calibrations… The eyes of a thinker and the feeling of a knower, a hearer of unknown traces, the multiples within simplicity and eternity’s dips of these countless realities. When I found the Love footprints The absence became present, and… I know: I am pre-sent to BE in this everlastingness fate which sounds like a formula. No heart geometrics, no inner alphabets… Simply, a sense of nothingness in your everyness… Future selves or… secret second selves, connecting derivative patterns and mathematical probabilities in a Pythagorean sphere of harmony. Yuan Hongri was born in 1962 in Shandong province Yanzhou District Chinese, folk poet, poetry hermit, specializing in the creation. Representative works include poems 《Platinum City》, 《Gold City》,《Golden Paradise 》、《Gold Sun》. Platinum City Time of the colorful stones ah You paved the road light In the kingdom of a star I found my home I opened a gate of the sun In a city of gold To see a giant of the divine In the Royal Palace of the jewel Read the prehistoric wonders A gorgeous ancient giant book Juan carved gold words A mysterious and strange wonderful story By my eyes I went into a brand new universe. A seat to see the holy Kingdom Before the earth was born It was once the home of human history. The time and space of the crystal shine shine A platinum city stands at the moment A ship drifting leisurely Just like a bird resplendent with variegated coloration I saw a young giant The aura of the body's sparkle Their eyes were bright and bright The party in a crystal Garden They sang happy songs Dance a wonderful dance A pair of tall boys and girls As if to celebrate the grand festival I see a circular edifice High above the city. To make a white light. High ground to fly into the quiet space A body of platinum edifice Constitute a beautiful pattern The whole city is a circle Arranged into a fine structure I went into a bright hall See a strange instrument Huge screen hanging on the wall Show a golden space A resplendent with variegated coloration of the city Like a piece of colorful crystal stones Those beautiful high-rise buildings Is better than the myth of the world I saw a line of strange letters. On one side of the screen Several young and strong giants Focus to watch the changing images Their look is quiet and peaceful. The light of his eyes In a flash of clothes The next is a whole Their bodies are very tall. Each foot has seven meters high Men and women look dignified Almost no age difference Their skin white as snow Faint flash shine Bright eyes are just like baby And with a strange flame They manipulate the magic of the instrument A picture of the changing space Their language is simple and smooth. As the bell is generally pleasant The bright hall I see Feel a powerful energy Body and mind is full of happiness. And it seems to be a giant. I seem to understand their language. They are exploring the mysteries of the universe. That a city on the planet Lived with their numerous partners They use their mind to manipulate the instrument Can also be used to transfer information Even thousands of miles apart Also free to talk to the heart A line of text on the screen That is the message from afar. The whole universe is their home. They built cities in space They take the space shuttle. You can get to the other space. A moment into a lightning Become a trace in the air I feel a new civilization They have magic eyes They seem to be able to see the future Can enter different time and space Men and women are holy and loving Better than the world's so-called love They don't seem to understand aging Also don't know what call war Time seems not to exist Science is a wonderful art Their happiness comes from the creation of The universe is full of divine love I saw a young giant Opened the door of a platinum A round, magnificent hall A row of men and women was filled with men and women. I saw a crystal stage The center of the hall. A dignified and beautiful girl Playing a huge musical instrument A bunch of golden rays Changing all kinds of wonderful graphics A mysterious and beautiful music Like the Dragon leisurely crowing I've seen a giant giant. Jump out of the dance on the stage. His hands hold huge ball The ball is shining with color paint I saw a group of young girls Wearing a white dress They seemed to fly Like a giant crane The circular hall huge beautiful decoration Like crystal clear and transparent It's like a gem of a full set. Shine a light. I saw a young singer All around the golden flame The sound is strange and beautiful Like singing and chanting is like Their music of joy " Like a lightning change unpredictably It is a planet of the universe In space, a bright light And as a crystal city In the air is magnificent Countless wonderful golden flowers Open up the crystal clear space I saw a picture of a transparent smiling face As if it is a colorful garden The golden light from the sky As a city of gold I walked out of the circular hall. Come to a wide street The smooth pavement is covered with precious stones. Lined with platinum edifice There's no trees here. But they are in full bloom. Rich aroma and sparkling The formation of a garden This is some strange flowers The branches as transparent crystal Flashing all kinds of wonderful color There are a bunch of gold round fruit I saw a huge statue. It was like a spaceship. High standing in the street center A shining star I saw a column of glittering fountain In a huge circle A beautiful statue Depict a holy giant A towering edifice Round the circle. There are some garden villas There is a white steeple I see a wide river Embrace this huge city The bottom flash reflected transparent Jinsha There are many colorful gems The arrangement of tall trees And a long corridor A colorful bird Three five one group on the surface of the water I saw a vast forest The tree swaying a tree of gold The trees towering spires And as some platinum Pavilion I saw some of the giants of the walk Male and female female bodybuilding Or at the water's edge or in the forest Like birds leisurely and carefree Wonderful space as bright as crystal Embrace this platinum City A white and bright ball Flash light in the air It is a huge sun And like a man-made planet The whole city is shining Form a kind of magic A strange speeding train Over the city circle back and forth There seems to be a kind of track in the sky Like a shiny silver curve The seat body white buildings It is a magic maze Huge urban anomaly Could not even hear the sound of the wind I said goodbye to the platinum city. Toward a golden space Stands another city here A huge city of gold The building here is also huge. But it's another beautiful shape The whole city is glittering Gold edifice is as beautiful as the sculpture Here are some other giants. As if from another nation They have great wisdom. Like a golden, holy civilization Teodora Dumitriu was born and lives in Campina, Romania. Passions: children, books and English. Sometimes, she writes. Is There Anybody Out There? (The Scientist) As Time walks down the Hall of Mirrors, Clocks salute (some sing, some sigh, some hail, some hiss, some mourn) – his face and figure mystifyingly elusive: sometimes so starry-eyed.... sometimes so worn… Each Clock shows Time in a unique array of Mirror Minds; inside each Mirror ticks another Heart, another Clock - each figure is a key, a road, an answer; each face a fork, a question-mark, a lock. You never know, you never know which Clock, which Mirror will be the One to tell Time right. How many Suns a flash of passion can light up and feed? How many black holes in a speck of Night? How many deaths a bead of pain can bleed? How many planets spinning on a string of Light? As you walk down the Hall of Clocks and Mirrors, measuring your Being, the seer and the seen remain unknown. Enjoy the wondrousness of seeing. Is There Anybody In There? (The Artist) Let the artist blast the night into billion shards around you. Feel them dart into your heart and bloom. Tend the throbbing trees and fragrant galaxies inside you. Steal a silky planet from the wayward wind of doom. Sense the artist’s anguish carving continents and oceans. Hear the artist’s tears caress the grass. Take the little flower; run your fingers through his silence. Watch him tip his hat and dive inside the looking-glass. IT
You ache and yearn for it, you cry… and suddenly - it’s happening; you don’t know WHY. You shy away from IT…for fear that it would, once unveiled and revealed, disappear. Then you know that it WON’T… like you know that no lightning would bring about freezing, nor closing their eyes would make people stop breathing. It’s massive, striking, raw, intense and sharp as lightning to sense the sizzling dance of depths: ~ the sway ~ the rise ~ the rush ~ the flood ~ ~the whirl ~ the beat ~ to know that trying to unfold and contemplate its magic won’t dismantle – but magnify the miracle of doing the amazing feat… profound and plain and powerful as breathing – one needn’t have IT named, defined, described, explained, enforced or taught to DO it and – crippled, blind or deaf or dumb or agonizing – you won’t (because you simply CAN’T) stop doing IT. Naushena is a poet, an early years teacher and a mother of three. Writing is her passion through which she expresses her feelings and emotions. She has been published in Scarlet Leaf before besides Mothers Always Write, EXPOUND, Boston Literary Magazine and Mamalode's print journal. The Old Child From a feeble suckling With a body resembling a rag doll To a toddler having strength to walk and run With another set of your footprints Along mine to protect me, Hold me from falling I entered adolescence and you Put up with not only my bodily weight But the weight of my tantrums, Frustrations and pressures I poured upon you And you listened like a statue Bearing unconditionally. Then I took my first flight and settled else where Oblivious of you and dad Fully immersed in life of my own, Raising my children. Now as they have taken their flights And I, at the threshold of the last one, Sit alone on my chair And long to behold you, o mother! As you did when I was your baby For this solitary old age is a prison And you, my freedom Take me in your loving arms Singing sweet lullaby So I can take my last flight And be with you forever. *** Acrostic Poem Regret not, don’t feel low Even if you feel thwarted, Jammed or hampered. Find your way to the Exit that will lead you to another path. Take this Challenge and prove your worth. Tactfully use your obstacles as an Incentive to strive for more. One day, you will rise above and No one can reject you then. *** Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Deep Water, Expound, The Muse: India, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including three in 2015). Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto and The Li Bo Poems, both from Flutter Press. Bitter Angel "...when all the angels lost their lives except for one, and he was left wounded, unable to fly…" Raphael Alberti (translated by Mark Strand) Bitter angel with your knife- hilt hand, cigarette dangling as you lean wounded in the doorway of ash and blades, this is an invocation, an opening of my body, a prayer. Here in darkness you have seen clouds become smoke black choking sky. Smoke rises from ovens, escapes from graves and billows from scalded sea. Your eyes can do nothing but burn. They have watched the dead century accumulate skulls, witnessed piles of broken fingers, golden rings and teeth and hair. Your torn wings ache in their absence, your legs broken and heavy in gravity’s unaccustomed pull, dragged down into a suffering shell of flesh and bone, unable to fly. Sleeping Dogs Wind has picked up and white clouds part for the sun. You might have been a dog once, on a day like this, sleeping on a splash of light that puddled round the trunk of a slender oak as warmth penetrated your quiet dream. It was in the backyard of a house almost hidden by a canopy of leaves, a space for dreaming in the sun. All day lilacs rustled overhead offering purple bunches as if their bounty would never fade, a blizzard of petals tumbling to the grass. The House We Forgot Tonight the bricks glow as moonlight trickles through oak. But we just tossed keys onto the muddy lawn as our truck bounced out of town. We were baying to oldies, not caring that our credit was shot. We were looking for Atlanta with a phone and a map. Your mother said this wasn’t a good idea, to drive south in such a wind, face to face with ourselves and the house forgotten, the world not quite green in early spring, but poised to end in gloom or flame or some quieter misery crouched in the future, in shadows where pines bent along the coast and crows above wheat fields pitted the face of sky. Beyond the Tracks A house sits half sunk in weeds, an ocean of grasses nobody wants, a Sargasso Sea of dandelions and crab. Maybe you lived there once, with a unit of your beloved dead. Maybe you sat at the window while crows dotted the empty sky. Faces swam in oil slick puddles, handprints smudged the walls. Voices poured from the kitchen worrying over coffee and soup and handfuls of beans. Radios crackled from an upper floor. Stairs creaked with the weight of ghosts. Windows rattled, trains rumbled by at intervals measured by the absence of noise. They carried freight to a city that burned with desire, one melted down to shells and sand. Tide rushed in and tunnels flooded, subways floated in garbage and rats. It was a town deleted by history, where the dead trudged, following storm clouds and the rains of night. Will You? I will ride a train that stops here, at this beige house with its windows smiling, its pleasant pines bowing, its squirrels chittering over the roof, and its prophetic crows. Without a look back, I will board at 5 a. m., breakfast dancing in my gut, and ride across the desert to mountains bleeding rust red in the sun. Will you travel with me, hands empty as a new page in a writing book? Will you leave the air shaped around a structure charred into shadow and ash? We could carry houses on our backs, small ones into which we could crawl at the first sign of trouble, first hint of gunplay as we bounce into the hungry west, balanced on this river of steel and noise. Wayne F. Burke's poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications, online and in print. His three published poetry collections, all with Bareback Press (barebackpress.com), are WORDS THAT BURN (2013), DICKHEAD (2015), and KNUCKLE SANDWICHES (2016). He lives in the central Vermont area. Kamikaze I stood at the crest of the hill and screamed at Tumbleweed Larson face-down on his Kamikaze Speed Racer Sled but he did not hear and disappeared under the car and the car's right rear tire went up then down and I ran to the roadside where Tumbleweed lay eyes shut face Q-ball white a trickle of blood from his mouth call an ambulance someone said call the cops call a priest “I never even seen him,” the driver said as snow fell thick as a fleece; a door of a house slammed-to like a gun shot “oh his poor mother!” dusk closed in the streetlight dully gleamed like an eye the mother trudged as if on skates bare head and shawl she shouted to her son who did not answer only an ambulance in the distance cried. Host an ocean of clouds above and nickel-sized sun, and on my tongue a host that I try not to bite because it would be the same as biting the body of Christ stuck to the roof of my mouth like plaster of Paris I do not dare touch its a sin and so wait uncomfortable trying not to panic as the thing slowly wilts and the soggy body goes down my throat like a boat over the falls. Hell woke, 6 A.M. and feeling as if I was in Hell and got up out of bed and looked out the window everything was blue I sat in my chair and prayed to whom- ever and fell back asleep and now it is the afternoon and I am still not right in the head. Disgust we shoveled the snow off the old lime kiln road which iced-over and we rode our sleds sixty miles an hour down and out into a street where we took our chances with cars and one day between the time it took me to hike from bottom of the road to top a snow plow had come and gone and left a snow drift that I hit and went air-born like a ski jumper and I landed on my sled but my head out beyond the steering bar and I broke my front teeth off on the road and got up and ran home each icy stinging breath and burst into the warm steamy kitchen and cried: “I broke my teeth!” and my grandmother turned to me concernedly but my sister gave me a look of disgust which I hated her for. Irsa Ruçi is an Albanian Writer, Speechwriter and Lecturer. She was born in Tirana, Albania, in 1990. Her books of poetry include “Trokas mbi ajër (poems and essays), 2008 and Pështjellim (poetry), 2010. She has been published in anthologies: Antologji, 2007; I kërkoj agimit vesën, 2008; Antologji poetike “Kushtuar dashurisë”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Udha”, 2014; Antologji poetike, 2014; “Malli dhe brenga nga distancat”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Qyteti”, 2014; Poeteca, 2015; and her works has appeared in a number of print and online national and international magazines, including Sling Magazine, Issue 5; Ann Arbor Review, Issue 15; Poeteca Magazine, Issue 35; Aquillrelle Anthology, 2015, Aquillrelle Anthology, 2016, Metaphor Magazine Issue 5, The Commonline Journal, Issue 4/22 etc. And Among many awards, she has received the first prize in poetry, in competition "Anthology 2007", as the best poet in Albania. Waiting for light I’ll stand till the dragonflies Be aware that you can’t play with time Without reflecting it in the peaceful times Discretion of night, But the strange side of the day Is lost… Then, I’ll stand a little for my self Till I write all the lines I want Before dragonflies be gone. The cherry tree will blossom Till I end the last poem Written unconsciously Written in absence While I was waiting the birth of dragonflies! I’ll stand till I have wiped out The last tear of sadness In the polluted pond of our consciousness. © Irsa Ruçi (Translated by Silva Daci) Self to oneself In dreams confused in this night’s sleep I got to know you unintentionally Appearing innocently: without the daily masque! I started to spy Sneakily With the other’s compassion That is so merciless Like a war of hyenas Made up devilishly only for attention… You were so beautiful where others are gone Free, Invincible, Almost a character borrowed from fairy tales It was you, Without the creature you carry in your shoulders Every time the world turns in despise Shown with the glory of simplicity Of the poet Who sacrifices himself till becoming one with the lines To give light to the cold earth. But the night put off the candle: and my eyes Got blind Till they turned recognisable, time stole the truth away Beyond the consciousness… The human is frail in front of himself Because the evil only weighs to the self… © Irsa Ruçi (Translated by Silva Daci) The melody in lines The spirit’s melody inside Is the recreation of the human is his art The discreteness of the endless sight Merged in sensations. The wine’s taste like woman’s scent Strong Dazzling Piercing Till the madness of thought (…drink is consumed after you tried the nectar of life in sweetness of ever – ending moments!) Lucid is the deepness of red, like the girlish virginity In that body of dreams Knitted with the strange In the soft lip of a lady bug Who gets drunk by wine drops. They say that the best poems are written When the foolish poets betray their lines For a glass of wine… © Irsa Ruçi (Translated by Silva Daci) Conveyance In the mirror we pretend to see our self Appears the other, like an unaware consciousness That weighs in the tired face Of strange perceptions… Am I what I see, or do I see that image that I’ve been told I am and try to find bridges Between my soul and the world? What if myself to be the other Who after grabs my masque Seeks to appear like me Reflecting the same Thoughts, Attitudes, Delirious imaginations With which I fight the daily monotony… …One day I spied my shadow while conspiring With the reflected shadow of my own shadow And I discovered that I am the society product Which lives with the appearance and hides From the consciousness. … In the mirror we only see our fears! © Irsa Ruçi (Translated by Silva Daci) |
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