Hiraa did Masters in English Literature from Department of English, University of the Punjab. She also holds a Masters degree in Education and International Development from UCL Institute of Education, UK. Hiraa wrote her first poem for University of the Punjab’s English Department magazine “Words” and never stopped. Literature is her long term friend and she seeks refuge, advice, insight and delight in books. She is a lecturer in University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan where she teaches courses in literature. Her poems have been published in Eastlit and Sicklit Magazines Museum The galleries stay still, wrapped in silence- thick and shadowy. I walk in reverence Leaning close to hear the hushed tones of our ancestors and others… beckoning through magical stillness with their frozen voices reaching across from centuries. The laughter, the yells, the cries, commands, amalgamating in euphoric hypnosis… flashing vivid images in mind of scenes heard but never seen. Outside- the world awaits, Inside- I live a thousand lives. Space Looking through the window Reflection itself becomes an intruder Sharing space Self evolves into another self With blurred edges, Mystified and out of focus Yet fit within the tangible frame Illusion embraces creation Who am I? Observer or observed? The ‘Seer’ or the ‘Seen’… Of Dust and Rust Days of past have long gone by safely tucked away in the archives of history Ancestral laws shelved in neat rows, Traitors, martyrs, friends and foes, All well placed in chronological order. Silent pages of blood stained history beautifully packed in gilded covers, well within reach yet centuries away. Those faded voices seem distant now, faces and words_ swallowed up in a cloud of dust, they stopped craving for attention, long before we stopped giving it. Old records gradually succumbing to rust, half eaten by gone by years, slowly dying like history.
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Silva Zanoyan Merjanian is a three times Pushcart Prize nominated poet of Armenian descent, who grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. She moved to Geneva, Switzerland for few years before settling in Southern California. She has two volumes of poetry. Uncoil a Night (2013) and Rumor (Cold River Press 2015.) Rumor won Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Fall 2015 in Poetry category. Merjanian is a highly published poet both in US and international magazines and anthologies. Proceeds from her books and speeches are donated to charity. Her poetry reflects a little of what she took with her from each city she lived in. www.silvamerjanian.com
WINNOWING VERSES In the evening the canyon thirst belies damp gaucherie of siren songs. Pine needles twitch on evergreens in anticipation of an interlude’s edge. Light flickering from windows softens prongs of silence as air disrobed slides on nature’s preys. If I touch your pen in these ephemeral moments in the infinite darkness beyond the backyard fence, it will bleed spring’s entailed wounds on reticent stones. You’ll see our faces lost in a glance in rain's reflection breathing longings in a mist of imaginary friends, as we winnow verses catching only inked phrases, the grain lost in the darkness beyond our overstretched wingspan. EIGHT WOMEN RISE Sometimes May arrives like a woman, skirt still wet with April showers tangled at the city’s swollen ankles. The jacaranda throws its purple tantrum and jasmine bold in fragile scent seduces all from damp sidewalk to the sheeple as eight women in me rise. Eight women in me rise, yearning more than Spring warmth. Eight women coil like serpents ‘round a bruised tongue once coy, silent except for screech of eyebrows. Eight women’s knees press to chatter of teeth as love drools under their flower patterned pillows. Eight women love, one like a whore, two like octopus, another like a slave her hair caught in rays of a blue moon. Come Fall, one prefers black cotton against her skin, breath tethered avoiding accidental exhale in dreams. The girl and the woman in fading black, and the one in four inches and fish net with ears pearled, blet on my lips under slathered promises thick and sweet. You see sometimes May arrives like a woman, and like a woman it evolves. SEND US YOUR POEMS, WOW AND DAZZLE US. THEME IS FROGS. I colored frogs in shades of brown, green and gray and a few surprises of fuchsia for creativity and diversity. I gave them names, accessible, relatable, original, universal. I accessorized limbs and rhymed croaks to the breeze stirring the evening leaves. I punctuated the night every hour. I carved the creek water into rhythms harmonized to African healing drums. Between the beats I discussed the art of kissing a prince with frog breath. I even dropped a full moon between my lines. I let Spring rain drizzle softly to scent the air and soften beetles I placed on their tongues (dip fried in an ode to poets’ ache.) My tongue, a pile of white dry pebbles; blood still wet on the poem speckled red, I held dawn hostage and pressed submit. He said while we find this interesting we prefer to read why frogs were colored fuchsia, when green’s the color this Spring. And was that creek in an academic setting? We want your poetry, we want you to wow and dazzle us. I set free a hysterical dawn, fried a metaphor with eggs, a side of bacon and fuchsia frog legs. In other news, a green amphibian infestation on university campuses was blamed on Spring breeding mania. Poets in Fine Arts department hustled home eyes cast downward with no comments. THE BALCONY An ashtray holds evening's grudge balanced on the rail, ashes welter in a breeze snagged in a day’s exhale. The sun has set without notice of another ennui lit, the light's moved on in its orange crinoline, leaving a cat gambling on its ninth life on the parapet. Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. The third of this series Centaurs & Magic is slated for a November release. Her third poetry collection If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications - August 2016) was recently published. Her poetry collection Sing Your Own Song is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Series. take my thistle and thorn on the jagged tooth of time there was but a moment for you and i, and i'm glad to be out of the gilded cage you called love when it was really only lust; my wings could not fly the latitude and longitude of my world when i was with you only the narrow sections of your mind which is without imagination, depth, or love; and you touched all my sacred places without paying the price because i was too love drunk to charge you i am a price you could never afford and never will be able to-- you told me that i had no temper and laughter rang from your lips when i insisted i did so now that you've tasted my petals you can have my thistle and thorn and you cannot say i didn't warn you. immortal flower we all take roads some a pretty shining coin others not so much, and you were one of the latter; forcing me to dive into the wreckage of your broken spirit yet not allowing me to help you in any way loathing me for loving you-- we were like the dogwood tree in my parents yard half living and half dead, and you were death before your time; cold, rigid and unbending unsympathetic to the feelings of others especially me-- i tasted the coldness of your mantle, and still yet i bloomed because i am an eternal flower one whose petals will never die. slain genesis you were my genesis, but not my revelation; my first but not my end, and i know you'd like to think that you were the purest light that resonated in my soul; but you were the deepest darkness before God spoke, and you tried to steal away the light from my heart and soul and eyes; but i am an universe beyond compare could never knock me from the clouds or the sea or earth or fire because i am a wild thing you'd never control-- you were a fallen angel like lucifer believing in yourself and your own power disappointed when your fashioned arrogance and egotism could not solve the issue of your greed, and i'm not sorry that this genesis is over because my world is brighter and grander and more expensive than you could afford; life could not forever dance with death and so i fly free from the gilded cage of your lust disguised as love. the man of many masks the wings of pomegranate clouds lick your sides with profound bitterness that is deeper than the depths of any word you've ever spoken, and sirens have taken up residence in your winter blue eyes; and snow flakes and icicles have overtaken what was once your heart and soul-- you are winter's prince never satisified by anything you cannot claim as yours, and you weren't impressed that i wouldn't die to myself for you; it wasn't enough that i moved away from all those who had loved me and all i had ever known the fact that i couldn't take care of you in all the ways you wanted me to made you colder and distant than any furious moon-- once you insisted i had no temper, but i am a child of the moon; as her daughter i have command over my oceans and i will not wax and wan into oblivion as i usually do will let you see the angry eye of my hurricane before i drown all your hollow hopes and dreams so that you're forced to face the music and take off your thousand masks to see your own diseased face. from rabbit to raven there's so few words to convey everything i felt in the moment that i realized to you i was nothing more than a roach, and so i had to be brave and spread my wings fly into carnelian sunsets full of their warm pink and gold and scarlet light; to take my place with the other ravens and sing my song despite the fact my aching soul wanted nothing more than to sleep a thousand years-- we are but shadows on a gaunt finger of time long past, and i wish i could forget you the way that you've forgotten me without blinking your condescending insincerity and lack of compassion caught me off guard; and it's like i told you once hindsight is twenty twenty there are times i wish i never met you but through this profound agony i found my strength and truths of myself i never would have otherwise-- in the prison of your heart made of ice you taught me things i never wished to know, but i am no longer the rabbit hearted girl you once knew trembling and afraid; i am the battle raven with talons raised no one will hurt me the way you did ever again even you will not harm me now. John Toivonen’s poetry has been published in Norfolk Review, Midwest Review, and Paterson Literary Review. He published his most recent collection of poetry, Song After a Long Campaign, in 2015. Mr. Toivonen is the Editor in chief of Animus & Intellect, a cultural review with offices in Chicago, Illinois, and Lansing, Michigan. He is an attorney who specializes in criminal defense. The Vanishing Monarchs They do not return to us now. They are the vanishing monarchs, the ones found framed in replica homes. They require our attention and knowledge. We stare at the wanton, bastard misplacing that comes with rude abdication. What now, we ask for those still alive descendants who are more than shadows but rarely sing. We see the purple tint cast backdrop for the countenance of ivory and the bush of black, Cossack hair tightly wound to make crowns of curls. We see what would seem to be the burden of dress that is the shell of punctured animals, and the signifying stones in the crown that mark capital and peninsula. Some of the images in oil know their moment of narcolepsy. They are quieted down in attics, hidden anachronism in a coarse age. For the observant, drinking in the image with the eyes passes an ethereal blood that cloud-like bestows the scent of monarchy. This affection must be and is furtive, for suspicion of God's grandeur is enough to indict an unknown signature of time. Whisper of the holy. The all too modern survey the tops of roofs but cannot examine the czars and koenigs within. We have been hiding them for some time now until they break forth from the attic wombs. So many do not see them now, but we know their wealth has become the statesman's scriptures. They slumber in the sleeves of faithful homes and count white moons until they embark. An Officer Remembers the Romanovs I cannot read of the Romanovs but that I should solicit some slight sadness, narrow like a vein pumping slow memory until it reaches the brain. Now I'm done again, outside the landed tapestry haunted by czars and their meager slaughter. Just a few collected prisoners, one-hundred, maybe a few more ate meat and bread for their brand of ideas in those days. Mostly they just raced away on trains, waiting for a war's failure and eruption. They were distant with a czar whose vision said that the sky's great architect gave commands directly to him. The crowns and scepters were shapes molded from the mind of God. The Romanovs sit serenely in pictures caught with the languid aperture of days when the expensive would pose before the box to make instant canvass of their steady reign. Theirs were the last hands that would hold a land that spouted blood too easily. They brought sorcery with its cloaked meditation to a room where everyone must leave until he slowed the pulse to the point that it aligned with the deliberate tick of the watch that he revealed so that the course of blood became perfect as time's steady mimicry. Never again would the insignias signify the nation, speak of the spirit of a monarchy and reverence for God. After the Romanovs only the brute was left, its incisors driven in deep, herds of snakes were a good bet against the mongoose. For four years the agents of deity drove their horses in the hills claiming that the land was still deeded only to God, that snow fell not as punishment but as precondition of the one mind and his reign. What faith fueled the crunch of hooves against snow as the final band of paladins found their numbers too few? This is not the world of my Father, one cried out. Not the nation where I found the constant imprint of the Christ, where the Lady of Constant Purity collected our tears, nurtured our love, and guarded us from overgrown ambition. Man was not made to disrupt all that was set in motion by the Supreme Architect. The face of the world's clock was broken by those who believed they could change the pace of time. I see the faces of the Romanovs, and they capture me like a steady opiate. I return slumber-drunk and serene to the crib where words were first taught, and the Czar protected me. The Sanctuary They find sanctuary where there is that syrup-like sipping of corn on the bourbon tongue, the crisp pitch of rye against the gums, and the rolling moss scotch on the teeth. There is blankness for a time, and then one gives notice of how with 101 proof the flavor of the corn burns a bit brighter, yes it does, and then someone makes a slow, sad rendering of a song, something about Ireland. They are far from Ireland, here in the Great Lakes region, it could be Lansing, Michigan, or some city outside Chicago. There is not that much difference. They stare like scholars into the drink asking questions of these intricate flavors, finding meter in the mash, breathing bouquet of high-alcohol reservoirs that stun the sense, causing words to drop in a silent hymn to what is better left forgotten. My Grandfather's Cross My grandfather's cross was the fixture sentinel planted above the arch of each door. It threatened into the eye, was not consolation but notice. He believed that the immobile symbol ran off unkind spirits and the people who possessed them. It was the ark of torts to the unwelcome guest. Black around the edges from the dirt that he would rarely find time to wipe clean, the sable corners were reflected cringe of those prodded back to fenced pens where the unclean ate uncooked pork and mingled their hopes with mandrake root. He entered his home with his feet playing the song of thudding, wet boots on the floor meant to remind that these same boots had marched with the Conquistador cross, had stomped on the crumbs of stone idols. My grandfather kept his home secure with the surveillance of the awakened God. The primitive declension of this sign cried like the first wolves in man's home to guard God’s people from the barbaric. My grandfather's cross was meant to menace tax collectors and unworthy salesmen. He made his Eden without those who should race from the range of the tripartite God. Casting Out Witches He made it very clear that they would be casting out witches. All would hold the clarity of crystal when the land had been purged by the curse of talismans and secreted oaths. With the clamor of his invocation resounding like steel sprung in the air he called for the cross and it became omnipresent as it encircled the city. The sky begot great orange crosses that were the burning gas of stars too near and these closed on man until they were the vendetta to the unfaithful. Nicole Surginer is a poet from the small town of Bastrop, Texas. She is inspired to write by her love for nature’s enchantment, a fascination with the power of raw, intense emotion and a desire to create beauty with words. She has been published in Tuck Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Indiana Voice Journal, In Between Hangovers, Your One Phone Call, and Sick Lit Magazine, with pending works in the Contemporary Poets Facebook group anthology, “Dandelion in a vase of roses". Love by Poetry I read the essence of you into the centrum of my being Your words clung there Enticing my hungry heart To feast on the beauty Of your heartbeat bleeds Genuine thoughts painting Brilliance across the page I breath the fragrance Of your prodigious mind Revel in the rhythm Of your spirit’s song As you skillfully strum chords of my passion’s strings I taste the sweet flavor of affinity as I feel the allure of your soul laid honestly bare Void I fight the sickening tilt of a maddened world as I slide recklessly from familiarity’s axis into bizarre lands an eternity from home I wade wildly through fields of half dreams scattered through trails of inverse realities where I have not seen the sun nor moon Time and distance are vague entities Emptiness fills the air in her bitter taste I stumble onward in blind desperation falling between aberrations empty spaces I long to hear the resonance of my hearts voice calling to me through meaninglessness exactly where I left her when I awoke unwitting before my nightmares end For she is the what remains when all is lost Beating wildly with my entire world grasped tightly in her pulsing fist Dirt Road It always was the loveliest road Unaltered by asphalt and paint I relished it’s natural clay-color Sun glistening on shiny rocks Pot holes as road maps Playfully winding a secret path leading where my lover sat awaiting our secret rendezvous Beneath her faithful shade She stood tall, true as time Sheltering us in Auburn charm As we dreamt the day away Drunk on effortless conversation Smooth as my lips on your neck Exploration taking course Warmth the sun has never felt The scent of passion and fresh earth Crunching of leaves beneath me The dancing light in your eyes How my heart skipped a beat When you held my hand I still walk this lovely road To sit beneath this timeless tree I trace my fingers along the ridges Her bark still wears your name Time finds me sitting here alone Holding this bag of empty promises Sparrow Song She is but a single sparrow in the vastness of sky; A speckle in the masses. Worms of the earth, sustenance of life, she carries in her beak. The weight of her planet burdens her wings Yet she is driven Her purpose prevails Nurturer of nests Bearer of beauty She does not falter In the screaming wind Nor the pelting rain She shakes the water from her wings, Warms her feathers in the sun and charms the violet sky in her essence Dauntless in her smallness Shaken In horror I wake shuddering Fear strips the air from my lungs I am jolted from repressions oblivion Desperately, I brace for impact Time races like a speeding train vibrating the earth beneath my feet For just a moment I beg, time to catch my breath My head spins uncontrollably The deafening pounding of my heart! Trembling, I frantically struggle to steady myself Stumbling back through the darkness in my mind Tethered and worn the seams unravel Seeping through the cracks of my sanity, the bitter stagnance of reality rushes in I look upon the ghastly face of my hearts truth Debasish Parashar is a public policy, governance and art & culture enthusiast, singer, lyricist, poet (to some extent)and social journalist based in New Delhi, India. He is a postgraduate in English literature from University of Delhi. He has sung for 'In Search of God' and 'Raag'.His write-up on Majuli has been listed amongst top 100 online #worldheritagesites stories globally in May 2016 by Agilience Authority Index. His literary works have been featured in prestigious Indian and international initiatives like Visual Verse, Entropy, Tuck Magazine(accepted and to be published),Indiana Voice Journal(upcoming October,2016 issue), Muse India, Indian Periodical, The Poet Community, Swarajya, Youthkiawaaz, Duane's PoeTree, Thumb Print Magazine(Accepted),Bordoisila, Spillwords, Scriggler, Sadda haq, Assam Tribune and many more. His works are included in two upcoming international anthologies namely 'Apple Fruits of an Old Oak'(to be published under Kew Gardens Press, New York) and 'Dandelion in a Vase of Roses' (To be published in U.S.A).Follow MrDevParashar@twitter. Of Promises,Markets and Memories 1. Better not try To impress With your sorrows Life has few hollows To be empty 2. Your promises are leaves In a forest deciduous Fertile in fall Otherwise green 3. If memories were governed By demand and supply Market forces I mean All geniuses could be ordinary All histories linear since they are not Meanings can be metaphors. Liberal? She is A vegetarian Wears heavy make-up A believer Religious Speaks rarely in public Does not find all government schemes faulty (May be a nationalist !) Looks cheerful Wears sarees And shiny shawls of her choice Sings Carnatic classical A mother of three by chance She is still liberal. Manikarnika Ghat Along floating ghats And a burning river The morning naked and spread-eagled Like twilight With temples grey like ashes Half-burnt Goldflakes The Ganges and drops of 'Old Monk' Balance teardrops Absorb the world Exhale the same A hydrostatic paradox... The Ganges Mirrors and my reflection Amidst a Chinese package of sunshine Zombie strippers from Somalia And frozen memories I see myself My soul split like Kashmir Craves for the forgotten Then With a silent spasm "Eureka,eureka" The ghat of Manikarnika. Here I come from Palmyra From BTAD From Telangana Here I come from everywhere Everywhere Searching for the lost remains of Gauri To pacify Shiva's rage Here I come to unburden my soul My small boat is not enough To carry the weight of a civilization I want to come again... Here I see old men sitting in inertia Aghoris and necrophilia White clothes and smell of incense burning Just to mock the city of Benaras There I hear Bells toll from a temple far away Oars on water And a tune resonates From the flute of a blind beggar Sitting by a burning pyre "O Majhi re..." (Manikarnika Ghat: one of the many ghats(river bank) in Banaras, associated with Lord Shiva's curse that the place where his dead wife goddess Gauri's earrings fall (Mani-gems,Karnika-ears) will face the burden of funeral pyres burning at every moment of time. BTAD: Bodoland Territorial Area District Aghoris: Mystic saints of a particular sect associated with supra-human powers "O Majhi re...": a popular tune dedicated to boatmen (majhi)) Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles. *** bane rike and roll holy show the dole of a terrible love a terrific and death defying love murderous love burning your boots and your hair it's there; the name of your death under your tongue the monarchy reruns the night over the street Los Angeles over my street LA I run the night the monarchy reruns the night Los Angeles reruns my night Los Angeles in red hope falls rain sweet on the tongue a disaster movie the light redeems the sinner all our bodies shivering in the storm *** it's grand the existential waiting room Sartre's maudlin grumble transferred to LA my hay is sun but my gun n'existe pas . . . C'est moi who cut the tongue out of the star you tumbled around with this old Hollywood festival: mute, he is much funnier. it's grand, a fine excuse the abuse you give me like dessert. I suspect you know how much the pain is worth when compressed into dough *** a fuse is blown inside your eyes when you smile cut me the dollar on your sternum and I'll flush it with life rife with fluid and your eyes burning midnights over every century keeping me hot *** the weight of the dark communes in the deep of your heart knowing you are only your bones and some fragment of your voice caught in a mountain ***
Nearly died once; Maybe it was another time. May be the ghost knew who I was; Was jealous. I too am a jealous ghost, Keeping inside in the dim light, Listening to music. Whose face did I wear, when I was screaming? Was it his, or mine? All those dark hallways and misfits and the terrible knowing story of the lockup. We can recognize each other, After we close our eyes. Mohammad Forouzani (Martin Foroz) is an Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, originally Iranian, but presently living and teaching at university in Oman. His previous publications concern language teaching areas. Regarding literary pieces, he has been writing poems in the past twenty years, and his recent publications include selected poems in the following: Forouzani, M. (2016) Selected poems. In Soudabeh Saeidnia (Ed.). Voice of Monarch Butterflies: Middle Eastern anthology by Ten Poets from Ganges to Nile (pp. 22-33). Forouzani, M. (2016). Two poems. Tuck Magazine (August issue- online). http://tuckmagazine.com/2016/08/11/poetry-478/ Forouzani, M. (2016). Five poems. Raven Cage Ezine (August 3rd issue). http://ravencagezine.blogspot.com/2016/08/raven-cage-issue-3-august.html Forouzani, M. (2016). “Darkness.” The Poet Community. http://www.thepoetcommunity.com/8708/darkness-a-poem-by-mohammad-forouzani-martin-foroz He signs his poems under his pen name Martin Foroz about which he wrote a poem published on his website and which he officially uses in literary communities. http://martinforoz.wordpress.com Mischievous Battles History repeats Trojan horse is replaced The conspiracy theory in place Lives, sold cheap on political base Swords may not enter the flesh But, mental wounds, terror, insecurity are the man's weapons bestowed upon his maturity! The Hunt False piety his prey Flying in the hatred sky with the wings of anxiety, the only falcon of ungodly realm, carrying his madness through medieval darkness! Finding his prey in a wrath temple, he faced a poet, standing there reading about the sun the beauty of love the real divine The hunter, now a prey looking for love & passion Tamed, calmed but ashen Salvation lost Flawed conceptions of morality synonym for religious dogmatism appearing in racism and sexism failed the compassion of humanism pressing concern of global catastrophe requires cooperation as a final remedy Cooperation is the stuff of viable societies Human beings need to remove anxieties Fundamentalism, killer of peaceful relations should be murdered quickly in all the nations otherwise, upcoming collapse of civilization leads to the human history cessation Imprisoned Poem Committing betrayal against majesty of reason result of the heart being in love with treason was the combination of poetry and prison I didn't have paper or pen for a season But I wrote on my heart with no reason The poem lyrically reads in the following way From the path your heart will never stray even if you're imprisoned each 'n every day
Wizardry A magician inborn I’m not ordinary! Involved in sorcery But not of mockery I cast spell on people’s heart Make them fantastical creature, with golden wings and angel’s face a true wizardry in nature incandescent ideas are born when I send a dream to warn after people read me, they’re adorned with love and feel not forlorn I am neither a prophet Nor a philosopher Not even a scientist I am a POET! Anthony Escobedo started writing poetry as an outlet. he is a college student from Phoenix Arizona. follow him on twitter and instagram @anthonyescobedo for more info. He would like to thank Jessica and Jon for giving him the passion for writing he has. "This along with all of his work is dedicated to Jessica DeVoe"
Water. Even as I struggle she pulls me further in, I grow heavier, defiant, and can no longer swim. She bites me on a reef, cuts me from underneath, And the water starts changing colors. I am falling in a thick air I can’t breathe in, But I prefer her to all the others. As the tide tries more, And current does too The odds are stacking no matter what I do. But do I want to be safe? Is that honestly true? Or do I want to drown in this ocean of you? |
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