Answer Me This, America
 

Took the wife 
to a pancake house
the other day. 
National franchise
good food 
fine reputation.
 
Skipped the pancakes
had bacon, eggs,
hash browns, toast
and coffee.
Wife went fancy,
had an omelette.
 
Grabbed the check
because the busboy 
started clearing 
the table early.
A young dervish
new to the job
swirling his cloth
for minimum wage.
 
Bothered me 
to realize he'd work
three hours and a skosh
to pay for the same 
breakfast, more
if he left a tip.
 
Reminded me 
something’s wrong
with our great nation,
how we do business.
Have both ears open.
Hoping for an answer.
 
 

 
                           A Great Time for a Climb
 

That’s a very big tree
and a boy scout could climb it
with all the right gear.
 
But it’s a condominium, too.
You would disturb families.
Blue Jays don’t feature
 
interruptions when they
have young in the nest.
They put up with
 
squirrels scampering
across the branches.
Robins have young too 
 
but they have no interest
in seeds or nuts and 
no one else likes worms.
 
Sparrows chatter away 
and raise a ruckus since
they have young also.
 
Why not wait until fall
when the young leave the tree.
Fall's a great time for a climb.
 
 

 
             Remembering a War We Tend to Forget
 

I will never forget him
but I can’t remember his name
it’s been so long ago.
Maybe I never knew it. 
 
But I think of him on days
America celebrates its veterans--
Memorial Day, July 4th,
Veterans Day, D-Day.
The wars are all remembered 
but not so much this one.
 
He was Billy's big brother
and more than 60 years ago
Billy and the rest of us
were in 8th grade watching
him climb a ladder
and hammer a hoop 
on the roof of a garage
so we could play ball
while he went to Korea. 
 
I saw him again when he 
came back from Korea.
He was walking in circles 
in the family’s backyard 
smoking Pall Malls,
one after another, talking 
to no one we could see.
 
We were practicing at 
the hoop he nailed up 
before he went to Korea.
We were seniors
in high school then 
and had to be ready. 
We practiced all summer
for the season ahead.
 
 
 
 
                                  A Man and a Dog
 

A reporter asked Wilbur once
if there were any advantages
to being deaf and Wilbur
 
used sign language to say
not that he could think of
except you miss all the gossip
 
and that’s a good thing
if you live alone in a trailer camp
in a small town in Oklahoma
 
but it’s not a good thing
when a tornado comes through
and everyone else hears it
 
at midnight and gets out alive
but they forget to wake you
and you go up with the tornado 
 
along with a dog 
you can’t hear barking,
two small stars in the sky.
 
 
 
                              An Old Friend in a Box
 
​
I found an old friend
in a cardboard box
in the basement
where I left him
forty years ago.
 
His body was intact
but he never had a heart
which is why I left him
with drafts of other 
poems published 
long ago on paper 
in little magazines
decades before 
computers appeared.
 
The poems were born 
on a Royal typewriter
with carbon paper
serving as midwife.
He was the only one
I didn't sent out
but didn’t have 
the heart to abort. 
 
I took him upstairs
to see if my skills
as a surgeon 
had developed.
Maybe I could give him
a heart on my iMac. 
So far so good.
He’s not perfect
but he’s wriggling.
If he doesn’t reject 
his new heart
I’ll let you know
how he turns out.
 
 

 

 Michael Marrotti is an author from Pittsburgh using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy. His primary goal is to help other people. He considers poetry to be a form of philanthropy. When he's not writing, he's volunteering at the Light Of Life homeless shelter on a weekly basis. If you appreciate the man's work, please check out his blog:www.thoughtsofapoeticmind.blogspot.com for his latest poetry and short stories.

                           My mother

the metaphor
always did
the wrong thing
But to this day
will dispute the
accusation
 
She taught me
devotion
through the
perpetuity
of devoured
vodka bottles
 
She taught me
perseverance
by waking up
hungover each
morning and
conquering
it by noon
 
She taught me
nothing lasts
forever by
leaving my dad
and the many
men after him
 
She taught me
catharsis
by feeding me Xanax
once I could no
longer except her
self obsessed
psychotic behavior
 
She taught me
how to prioritize
when she took
me trick or treating
then turned around
a half of block down
to continue her drinking
 
My mother
the metaphor
taught me all
the wrong things
My form of rebellion
is to do the opposite
 
Bad examples can be
just as beneficial
as good ones
Thanks, mom
I'm a better person
because of it
 
 
 
 

​Teodora Dumitriu was born and lives in Campina, Romania. Passions: children, books and English. Sometimes, she writes. 

 
​
One


 
Frozen answers in her eyes, burning questions in her ear:
Memories of myths unfathomed flower far and wither near.
Ages swim in streams so fast, seconds drawn in dreams so slow
As the painter paints the painting, shrinking shyly in its glow.
 
Nothing’s lost and nothing’s gained,
Nothing’s bought and nothing’s sold
As the hourglass keeps counting
Memories of tales untold.
 
Every piece is in its place now, but the puzzle’s upside down:
Rocks grow thoughts and trees feed clouds and fires breathe and rivers climb.
 
Nothing’s missing from the wholeness of a mystery self-birthed
But the hand that, having painted, left the hourglass unturned.
 
Time has died and there’s no mirror for the beauty to behold
Her own magic, her own story never young and never old.
And the picture-perfect portrait hangs alone in pitch black skies.
No more questions, no more answers. No more tales and no more lies.
No more eyes to see the tear slowly dripping from HER  eyes.
 


 
Someone Else
 


I can remember dashing through the desert, in the heat –
But burning sand grains blistered someone else’s feet.
 
I can remember having tugged and torn all strings –
But, to take off, I needed someone else’s wings.
 
I can remember having held all planets in my palm –
But it was bound to someone else’s arm.
The smoothness of their graceful shape still lingers –
But felt and strokes by someone else’s fingers.
 
I can remember having played the music of the spheres –
But it was meant for someone else’s ears.
 
Whenever thorns and shadows would yeast within my head
The starving thoughts come through breaking someone else’s bread.
All weary words that drizzled through my teeth in bitter drips
Were sipped and shaped and sweetened by someone else’s lips.
 
Whatever misty, distant shore my eyes can’t see
Somebody else would turn into a fleet of dreams
 and sail to me.

E. Martin Pedersen, a San Franciscan, has lived in eastern Sicily for over 35 years. He teaches English at the local university. His poetry has appeared in Verse-Virtual, Literary Yard, Ink Sweat & Tears, and others. Martin is a 2011 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

​                                The Sun Knows I'm a Fool
 
I wait for the sun to call the role
And pass the mail at breakfast
I need a word from Dearest-John
So I can face certain death.
 
Tie me to the chain gang
Let me work the roads
My balloon will fly alone
As only you should know.
 
Drink a cup of liquor
Poison to my meat
Drink a cup of laughter
Till I stop to breathe.
 
If magic had been my major
I'd deliver you to me
But today the sun is saying
You snipped my thread, I’m free.
 

                   Watching Through a Hole in the Fence
 
What does he want
What gives him joy?
Where is he focused?
What does he fear?
 
I want to help you
Not everyone improves
I’m a skilled artist
Doing what I do.
 
A hole in the fence
I’m not at the prom
When I say, I love you
Be aware I’m wrong.
 
Watching the big game
But not joining in
I might get fondled
Might commit sin.
 
To play
The game
That way.
 
 

​                                     The Sacrifice
 
The sacrifice –
You laughed
I laughed along
With you and your brother
We all laughed
In foreign countries
On the telephone
In our cars.
 
I don’t know
What it took
For you to make
It all so easy
So spontaneous
What you lost
What you gave up
For the gift
The healing
Your laughter.
 

Pranab Ghosh is a journalist, writer, poet, translator and blogger. He writes a blog “Existential Problems”. He graduated from Scottish Church College, Kolkata, with Honours in English. He did his masters in Journalism from Calcutta University. He has worked for such media houses as HT Media Ltd, Eenadu India etc. He has written for Slant News, an US news portal and such publications as The Statesman, Economic Times, Ei Samay. At present he writes for Business India. Currently he is also working as a research writer and Editor at Pratichi India Trust. His translation of a Bengali Short story was published in the US webzine Transcendent Zero Press. He has also written for such literary e-zines as Tuck Magazine, Literature Studio Review etc. He has coauthored a book of poems, titled Air & Age. He has to his credit a translation of a book of Bengali short stories titled Shantiramer Cha, authored by Bitan Chakraborty. The title of the English translation is Bougainvillea and Other Stories. He is
married and lives in Kolkata with wife, daughter and mother.

                                          Soul Searching


​You sit with your eyes closed
You feel your soul transported beyond the void
 
You sit with your eyes closed
You feel your soul touching your
super conscious self.
 
You sit with your eyes closed
Your soul searches your life within.
 
You sit with your eyes close
Your soul touches your life within.
 
You sit with your eyes closed
You feel in unison with your soul.
 
You sit with your eyes closed
Eternal light engulfs
your soul, your mind, your body.
 
Will you sing a hymn now
With your eyes closed?
 

                                  Awaiting the Union


As you lie burning
in a faraway land,
away from the people
you once knew,
revelation dawns on
you like a white light
that you and your
supreme being is yet
to unite. The worldly
pangs apart, you aspire
for the union.
Alone you contemplate
of the supreme soul
and creation flows. 
 

                                          The Journey


The mother of all creation
handholds you and guides
you through your journey within.
As you sit still and contemplate
you race through the creation,
crimson red, beyond the
azure sky. The voids rush
at you but you are not shaken
as you know you have
to travel beyond it,
your faith the energy to
move on. Beyond the
creation, beyond the void
your journey ends and
you are engulfed by
the eternal light.
You are illuminated.
 

                                        Lord’s Abode


In the diffused light
of the morning,
when the workmen
go to the mill,
I see you following
them in shabby dress,
much like what they
have worn. You reside
in the hutments
they stay in.
In their work you
come alive and through
their work they pay
you obeisance
unknowingly though.
 
When did you leave
the temple to stay
In their hutments
I know not, as I look
for you in vain
in your official abode
amidst burning incense
sticks and flowers.
 
To you I dedicate
my words, my work.

 
                                  On a Rainy Evening


The first shower has
kissed the dusty roads.
As you walk down the
muddied streets
you see the rain-bathed
trees greener than before.
 
The city is at peace
with the scorching
summer sun going
beneath the gray clouds.
In the pale light
Of the evening you see
the lone soldier with
his killing machine
slung by his shoulder
walk by. You fail to
Understand his presence.
 
In the pale evening light
as you remember your love
you fail to understand
why wars are wedged,
why man kills man.
 
In the pale light of the evening
you want to forget and forgive.
 
 

Chrissie Morris Brady  has been published by Mad Swirl, Plum Tree Books, Writing For Peace, Bournemouth Borough Council (UK) and Brian Wrixon Books as well as several anthologies. She now lives on the south coast of England after having lived in Los Angeles for many years, where she gained her degree from USC and worked with recovering addicts.

                                     Fall in Springtime
 

Falling through memories of my life as they pass my eyes
Screaming out my soul and loud my heart cries
Words that forecast my demise cannot not be taken back
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
The sun has come at last to play with shadows and light
That give texture to our days, no longer long the night
Darkness is beng chased away, see the darling buds of May
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
Look now around regard the blooms that herald life, not decay
Birds are nesting ready for life in the eggs they lay
Not no renewed life ahead for me this year
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
Embracing life won't cease though strength is dimmed
Tending garden will be still my love, colours riot untrimmed
My soul weeps to know I might not see fruit born
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
Flowers that jostle for attention, blooms both bright and subtle
Will outlive my journey on this earth, travels I would glad redouble
Trees will grow and bear their fruit which may I live to taste
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
I will continue to shine as the sun, glow like the moon and stars
My smile will still embrace the world it will never stray far
From my lips, though sadness may occasion my eyes to tears
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you?
 
Love will be my gift to those who walk my way wherever it leads
My heart will still hold close those I treasure and need
Still yearn for love's secrets shared, the bond unsaid
Tell me friend, does Fall in Springtime frighten you
 

 
                                   The Sun Cries
 

 
A Princess is born to wealth, comfort,
ease and privilege. Just down the road
a child dies of injuries from his mother.
Six thousand miles away, a child dies of
starvation, her cousin maimed by a bomb,
their mothers raped to death.
Journeys are made across an unkind sea.
In the bright blue sky, the sun cries.
 


                             One Thousand Cranes


Make a wish, Japan.
Make your paper cranes.
Broken bridges, fallen homes,
Lights are out, don't let hope die.
Was it cranes
That placed you on the ring of fire?
Two shakings in two days
as the earth fights itself.
You must weep, Japan.
Then set about folding
one thousand cranes.

​

She is a poet, teacher, editor, writer born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States.
And she is the first woman who wrote poetry for children in Iraq.
She is leading poetic feminist movement in the holy city of Najaf.
She got a master's degree in Arabic literature, and published sixteen collections of poetry in Arabic: Being a Girl, and a visit to the Museum of the shadows, five titles for my sea-friendly, although the later poems to the mother, Gardenia perfume, and a collection of poems for children, The Guardian dreams. It includes its Arabic prose Hazinia or lack of joy cells and freckles water (short story). ........Etc
Translated poems to (English, Turkmen, Bosevih, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain and Albania) and has received awards from the linguists and translators Arab Society (AWB) and the Festival of creativity Najafi for 2012, as well as Naziq God Award angels, Al Mu'tamar Prize for Poetry, and the award short story of the martyr mihrab and institution. It is on the boards of Baniqya member, quarterly in Najaf. Rivers Echo (Echo Mesopotamia); Iraqis in Najaf and writers association. Iraqi Union and is a member of the literary women, and Sinonu (ie Swift) Association in Denmark, the Society of Poets beyond borders, and poets of the global community.
Her poems and her stories published in different  American magazines Such as  : (Philadelphia poets 22), (Harbinger Asylum ), (Brooklyn Rail april2016), (Screaminmamas),(The Galway Review)and (Words without Borders)
d.fh88@yahoo.com
​

                                A Southerner
                                                           By Faleeha Hassan


Oh I forgot.
The war that left us for two seconds
Yes, only two seconds, I forgot to throw a stone after it
- As my mother said-
So it returned with all its might
and swallowed us whole
A southerner
Of shyness and apples
Wars grilled me on their fires
No
I don’t fear the beautiful face of war
The letters make me a liar
And paper whiteness mocks my words
…
I am southerner 
Sadness grinds me to make the scents of sorrows
And jaded by windowsills of houses where birds don’t visit
I ask
When will my heart mature?
…
I am southerner 
I sleep little
And dream between one heartbeat and another
That a branch leans over
And asks: who will replace the art of spying by revealing identity?
 
A southerner
I know the meaning of similes in politics
And the pungencies of onions
They both evoke my tears.
 
 
                                                                        Translated by Dikra Ridha
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wanda Waterman is a Canadian poet, blogger, spoken word artist, cultural journalist, and digital nomad. Her poems and articles have been published in Descant, Skylight, The Talking Leaves, Our Times, Tigertail, Pandora's Box, and Pottersfield Portfolio, Coastal Life, The New Internationalist, and This Magazine. She's performed her poems at 100,000 Poets For Change  and Nuit Blanche in Montreal. She was born in Maine, grew up in Nova Scotia, and now calls Montreal home. She's temporarily residing in Tunisia where she's working on a book-length series of prose poems inspired by the peoples of North Africa.

                        Clouds of Paris
 
​
I'm passing through the cloud columns on my way to you. They’re close enough to be cotton-candy real, not so close as to be mist, and they gather around me like angels, their towering figures dancing as gently as foam on a wave.
 
Look down: Paris is a massive circuit board— the dancing cloud angels look down and laugh.
 
When we speak French I forget that you’re Arab and I’m Anglo, because together you and I are always French— it’s how our not-French friends all see us. It was in a broken French that you and I met and forged une sympathie, in broken French both lost our heads (ce beau folie).
 
We should be laughing with these angels, laughing at the circuit board that gave us broken French, laughing at Marois, laughing, floating in the sky: Hahaha— we stole your tongue, celestial city, hijacked it for our love, our art, and took it down our own sweet road. Like the gypsies you lock out, we are beautiful and so beautifully utter broken the sounds you crafted, laughing and dancing with angels.
 

Abu Sufian – who is also known as The Silent Poet – was born in 1989 in Comilla, Bangladesh. He is a poet, journalist, scriptwriter and social worker whose writings have appeared in many national and international publications that include newspaper, magazine, books and literary journals. Sufian currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and he can be reached at his official Facebook poetry page named The Silent Poet (facebook.com/Sufian.Author). He has got his poems published at journals such as Criterion, Literary Voyage, The Literary Herald, Clairvoyance among others. He contributed as one of the ten poets in the recently published poetry anthology, Voice of Monarch Butterflies.
 

                            Cancer Can’t
 

Cancer can take away fleshes
And bones and mortal life.
It can never win over the hearts,
And love that resides in it.
Hearts beat on and on,
Spreading love for centuries.

Love can survive death,
While cancer can't.

 
                                           Life Survives
 

Be it frosty winter,
Be it the hottest summer—burning,
Be the darkest place—the coldest ocean's floor,
Be it the windy desert—lifeless,
 
Life finds a way out,
Life evolves towards immortality,
Life searches God,
Life finds a meaning of life itself...
 


                                 Great Brexit
 

You are great! Greater than Great Britain!
You colonized lands after lands
You migrated to foreign lands
Without visas, without permission.
 
You ruled, ‘civilized’ as illegal immigrants
For centuries.
And now you’re troubled by immigrants,
You want to cruelly divorce your friends,
Cause something you hate now,
something you loved once:
TO MIGRATE FOREIGN LANDS ILLEGALLY.
 
 
 
                            Your Footprint
 

There are many who left footprints
in my heart.
Not many survived, some faded away,
some will remain forever.
 
And your footprint touched my heart
deep down at the core.
Your signs will be immortal,
as long as my consciousness is alive,
as long as the universe continues to exist.
 
 
 
                         The Stranger Beloved
 
​
I fell down, deep inside, at the core of your heart,
I can hear the heart-beatings,
Sense the emotions and touch the unsaid words hidden in.
Having known your secrets—the unshared memories,
I cried with the tears of yours, and smiled with your smiles.
 
I fell in your heart, without knowing you,
Without seeing you, hearing you or being heard,
I fell in you before I met you,
Before looking into your eyes—the dark ones with white clouds.
                                                                                          
Was it the Noor of your face,
Or the radiant glow,
Or the insatiable fragrance of you,
Or the innocence of your heart,
That pulled me to you like gravity;
like a magnet attaches iron towards it,
Like a night that covers the world with darkness,
Like a moon that shines the darkest night with its glow.
 
Never did I felt like this,
As if heart is mine and love is yours,
As if soul is mine and life is yours,
As if eyes are mine, sights and dreams are yours,
As if ears are mine, sounds are yours,
As if nose is mine, fragrance is yours,
As if mind is mine, memories are yours,
As if I belong to you; as if I am no more me,
As if I have become you.
 
What you say in silence comes to me,
I can hear the calling of your eyes–mysterious.
Hands invite more vaguely,
One welcomes, while the other rejects.
 
Close to me you are, but untouchable,
It is your heart that I can touch without consent.
This is beyond your power to stop me,
Cause I whisper in your heart without noise,
In silence–the language of God.

​

Yuan Hongri was born in 1962 in Shandong province Yanzhou District China, folk poet, philosopher, specializing in the creation. Representative works include poem  Platinum City, Gold City, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun, Golden Giant.

 
 
                                 Sweet Interstellar Above


The Time has come to blossom and flourish
In my garden the stars will gather
Each star is a singer
From a mysterious country.
The giant from the City of Platinum
Shall bring a bunch of stone-necklace
This then is a song of the soul
On the stylish sweet interstellar above.
 

 
                         The Prehistoric Golden State


Wish my smile were a golden armour.
May the Sun’s golden mirror guard your chest.
In the music of hundreds of millions of stars
Let your dreams sweeten like the wine of dawn.
The gods in heaven, the guardian of your soul
Out of the book of the giant bestow upon you a day
When Mountains bow to greet you, and,
A golden country, in ancient epoch, the ocean confers.
 
 
                                      Distant Heaven


Often I have a foretaste of the future city of the giant.
The young giants in platinum Villas
The young giants in and out of the great mansion in platinum
And I'm one of them
In the body the sacred flame burns
On the head flickers the signs of zodiac
And the Diamond eyes glimpse the distant kingdom of heaven!
 
                                                                    Poems translated by Manu Mangattu
                                                                    Assistant Professor, Department of English
                                                                    St George’s College Aruvithura, India