LarimeeBuddy Holly’s glasses frame your blue agate eyes today’s oil paint hid way below the cringing chewed, edges of your nails your curls more Van Gogh then Holly-- a knife painter. Waves froth your crown finger-pushed shoulder-brushed strands behind each ear – a handlebar mustache tickles-kisses. Nights sees your Cheshire grin at coffee houses – acoustic tones rise as you bounce me on your knee once, you framed me in sepia—nude mused, you flamed. Where are you now Lothario, artist and sage? In Seattle reborn on a canvas stretcher or strumming on a stage? YOLO |
Hongri Yuan, born in China in 1962, is a poet and philosopher interested particularly in creation. Representative works include Platinum City, The City of Gold , Golden Paradise , Gold Sun and Golden Giant. His poetry has been more widely published in the UK, USA ,India ,New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. Poems translated by Manu Mangattu Assistant Professor, Department of English St George College Aruvithura, Indiaa |
The Nectar Song
And cast it into the interstellar sea of heavens.
My giant city of ancient times exists till date
Where my golden smile still blossoms forth.
The giant words flash about in Space
Sprinkling the nectar song from my memory.
Lo! It helps you grow massive wings
To return to the forlorn Paradise of Gods;
The same that has been overlooked a thousand years
The eternal kingdom of heaven which knows no years!
The Future Kingdom of Giants
As I bid goodbye to this world,
I know there exists in the scrapbook of heaven
A gorgeous image of mine that often smiles to me in dreams;
That my olden words are engraved on primeval stones,
Yes! The apocalypse from the gods of heaven and earth!
I shall then be a future giant, to have carved
The platinum city of giants in the future Kingdom of giants.
An Outer Wonderland
Their roots took shape in the body of the earth;
Their domes bathed in the music of sun and stars.
To the black loneness in my bones I listened;
I saw the ancient flowers from paradise.
A giant from mountains gave me an embroidered mirror,
Which mirrored a layered outer wonderland.
A Picture Scroll of the Kingdom of Heaven
And make a return to the city of giant
The garden of the sky will float ethereal flowers of gold to you;
From a ladder that gyrates to a lofty palace over mountain-tops
The prehistoric king of giants shall give you
A picture scroll of the kingdom of heaven.
The Starry Outer Paradise
Learn you shall that the world is just a window;
That the kingdoms of soul are everywhere;
You will find the invisible kingdom of gold in the desert,
Hear the intoxicating nectar-like music from heaven
That death is but a Madadayo dance of smoke
To return to the starry outer paradise on heaven’s vault.
Anticipating Jamaica
of trains crossing jungle islands
in the island nights.
I am nursing at the breast of sky
that hangs through the window,
a sea wind a hundred miles
from the sea.
I passed a couple walking
and heard cool jazz blowing tunes
crazy, blind, and wild.
In some other part of life, I was.
Now, I am.
This is a melody it hurts to play.
I watch a child nursing his dull head
on his mother’s teats.
Away and far these scenes are played.
Away and far.
I saw a child
playing on the street.
He kicked a rock
and watched it skip away.
He ran towards it
on naked, tiny feet,
as the shadows changed
from morning into day.
The trees waved to the rock,
while the wind danced with the leaves.
I leaned against a tree
and watched him run.
The summer turned to autumn,
as a mother grieves.
And the trees, the rock,
myself and the boy were one.
Memoir
Watching you
was like passing through
a dream.
The smoke blew
and a thousand hands
reached to shape it.
Dreams, smoke.
All are real.
You moved as if
the dream were chasing you.
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and dozens of other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. |
On the Walls of the Old Fort
to make the dream of a war complete.
Toy guns shaped of fallen oak limbs
and popping sounds from the mouths of babes.
Distant images of boys and girls at play
on a battlefield once of crimson rivers.
Pondering the last days of a scorching summer
an aged visitor leans upon a curvy stick.
Scanning an endless panorama eyes closed
the old warrior recalls confused memories.
Summer dresses, sandals with flowery giggles
and the surprise of a gentle fall in blades of grass.
Stumbling with a deathly thump into a muddy pool
surrounded by the darkness of many a running mate.
Still on the prairie, the flaneur feels a teasing breeze as
tears explode upon the face where once peace had a home.
Child again, child at last, innocent of a genderless youth
cries for the hours of ecstasy on the tragedies
still echoing within the walls of the old fort.
Going Home
a frail fist asks for the chance to another life
She moans in sounds of incomprehensible confusion
keeping the alien warmth at bay as she can.
It is the final line of a terminal affront
arched back she resists the pleas for clemency.
The fertile land must remain barren once again
soft as the vast ocean, so distant from the snowy peaks.
Bruised knuckles soon will withdraw in defeat
bathed in the red nectar of devastated dreams.
Little eyes wet with the chagrin of his destiny
he slips back into the endless sleep outside his time.
Safe
there she aims to make a home safe to the flesh
a ghost in the dark corridors of a willed oblivion.
Within, lies the immense wealth of a bequeathed heart
speaking in tongues only the divine can fathom
she creates impenetrable cyphers in the air.
Not a whisper nor a resounding cry will slow her pace
as the waves of her floating form fade with her surroundings
she flees carefree into the secure dimension of her desires.
Soon beyond the sharp walls of the somber fortress
the adventure must continue as she recites her vows
to be, unaltered in her new estate, alone with her words.
The Fall of a Lifetime
braving elements sought after
daring death to come on its frigid chariot
in a long coat he ventured out as if a ghost.
Under the icy rains of solid blue
hoping for the embrace of a last instant
braced within the rags of misery
a tremble seemed to resonate through the city walls.
Caressing streets of purplish asphalt
the surface was as satin to the innocent touch
he stopped to fathom the most mysterious scape
comforted for now in a welcoming truce.
the atmosphere was warm with stony daggers
to open a crevasse before his uneasy gait
a flash of light blinded the wanderer
who continued uncertain a step forward.
Destiny awaited on the traitorous path
a steamy edge under the weary passenger
for him to disappear as he collapsed into the glow
a gaping welcome to the fortress so long unattainable.
The city returned to its common fury
its mouth satiated once again yet unaware
that the lone wonderer was safe
in the arms of his own fancy.
The Old Place
now buried under cartoons.
How sad it is
to know of the genius gone.
In the cemeteries
I hear many of the famed ones,
rolling and tossing in their ground.
The old city is no more
but a pile of rusty memories
reaped by wars and riots
and the latest obscenities.
It is no more, and they weep,
as I find their ghosts with each step.
The old city has gone,
and only the carcasses
of a glory frozen in another time
corpse of what once was,
only that remains.
But make no mistake,
If the old city is gone,
as I walk its streets today
I am surrounded by
the ghosts of those
who sired our time.
Today, as they mourn an old friend,
we must apologize for humanity
to the lost, the forgotten,
for having let you down.
Now we know why
Papa you could no longer bear it!
Papa, you could have sired Paris.
Requiem for the Sang-tus,
(A tribute to Seamus Heaney)
It was a skull marked “a Dong-hak rebel’s head”,
Which pierced my whole psyche, just like a thorn,
To stand there petrified, an image filling my head:
Vox Populi Vox Dei called them to Ugeum Hill,
Where, mowed down, like grass, before machine-guns,
They baptized the altar with a bloody spill,
A sacrifice offered up by as many true-blue sons.
Like a birth-mark I carry the red stain of 1894,
Which I’m not ashamed of but now proud,
With my roots having soaked up what they shed theirs for.
My silence is also for crying out loud,
As are tears but running deep and still, so
May them be, undisturbed, the eternal peace allowed.
*Note: Sang-tu was a traditional hair-knot coiffure for the Korean men during the Joseon dynasty era (1392-1897).
Billy-doo’s Journey
For whom there was not much possible to do
Other than just stick with your “savage”
Kind the most “human” way you could manage.
Pardon my sacrilege of comparing to Enoch’s Journey,
Their invitation on the wings of the wheels within a wheel
To those skyscrapers that made your tropical head reel,
Whose good-will ended up in an earthly misery.
Unlike you, I have never lost my appetite
Enough to die, existing nonetheless
On what I believe in and hold on to tight,
Like a sweet lie in a world hopeless
Nor can I imagine how our science
Must have jolted your primitive little mind,
Though more pains my sane conscience
What’s been done by our civilized kind
Against those others kindly termed “inferior”
That would converge into a bloodbath of carnage
Under the banner of expanding civilization’s frontier
With the advantage of technological knowledge
What else on this planet could you have done rather
Than just settle for your terrestrial existence,
As dream up a Jacob’s Ladder
Is all I can do across the celestial distance,
When I feel like a child abducted
To where he doesn’t belong but has to belong,
Or a lone star-travelling soul stranded
In this middle of somewhere home-sick so long?
More and more often, Billy-doo, I walk with you,
Among our kind who believe they are “superior,”
Yet myself more humble than miserable unlike you
For I, primitively but proudly, believe in the Power Excelsior.
Cynthia Pitman is a retired high school English teacher. She has had poetry published in Vita Brevis, Leaves of Ink, Amethyst Review, Postcard Poems and Prose, Right Hand Pointing, Ekphrastic Review, Literary Yard, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Three Line Poetry, Third Wednesday, and Mused. Her first book, The White Room, is forthcoming. |
Walk With Me
Hold me close as we stand
barefoot on the fire.
Then fall back to this world with me,
where we will walk on the water
of the stone cold stream
that runs through
our darkling dreams.
We will feel the steam rise
as we take muted steps
through its mist.
We will call this love.
Telling Secrets
and lean in close.
This bleak and dismal world
should not hear what passions
flutter between us.
There is no place here
for our ephemeral words
with their opaque wings
spread wide to hide them,
just for a while, from the light.
Whisper,
and let our love take flight.
Fallen Angels
we would fly to the snow-capped
mountaintops on the other side
of creation. Frozen, we would pose,
as still as statues.
We would be gods.
The whole of the world
would look to us in wonder.
But our wings are gone now,
falling victim to the pose.
Now we shuffle down the pavement,
heads down,
stepping carefully
to avoid the world’s spittle.
The Shape of Shadows
create a sharp backdrop
for the curves on the sheer drapes
that overlay them.
These curves, in turn,
soften the straightness behind them,
a symbiotic bond.
The sunlight carries mixed messages
to the dull wooden floor.
It reflects the shadows of the two
as only one --
a joined essence,
a united entity,
a single path.
Struggle to follow this single path.
Travel the straightness in this dual shadow,
and it will lead you to the Sacred.
Travel its companion,
the curves in the shadow,
and it will lead you to the Profane.
Both are promised by the pluralism
of the symbiotic shadow.
Travel their consummation,
however, and the one shadow
fades and dissolves the shades.
There is no single path
formed by two.
The promise is false,
the bond untrue.
Hallucination
like angel food cake.
Faces zoom in and zoom out
from the ceiling corner.
Sunlight slices the blinds
shading the sun in the window below.
It hones the flat slats
and sharpens the shadows.
Words are too fast
and then too slow,
too loud
and then too muffled.
The air turns to a viscous liquid.
The faces undulate,
zoom in and zoom out,
fast and slow.
Voices mumble,
barely heard,
not understood.
The light desaturates the vision.
All is strange.
All is new.
A single face zooms in
and stares straight ahead,
wide-eyed and weeping.
Its mouth opens and from it flows
black lava onto a white choir robe.
Alisa Kanti began writing her poems on her phone. Sitting in a bar, in a waiting room, in an airport, on a bus, even walking down the street, wherever she could, she responded to this urgent desire to put her feelings into words. She used her mobile phone to translate the internal struggle that almost everyone endures in their life in order to find balance. It’s filled with love, need, desire, loss, pain, and hunger for life. It’s about the difficulty of forgetting, and grappling with the intensity of emotion. Like an origami, her words are folded, turning an empty page Into a song. After the success of her first poetry book You Touched Me Deeply, Alisa Kanti continued, more intensely than ever, her walk through the liquid landscape of emotions, that we should not forget and that we should not ignore. Transforming those feelings into words, words become poems, like butterflies walking on our lips. Books: “You Touched Me Deeply” (sold out), February 2019 “Butterflies on my lips” , August 2019 Links: Website: www.alisakanti.com Instagram: alisakanti Contact: kantialisa@gmail.com |
Scream
Without a sound,
In the middle
Of nowhere.
My lungs
Without air,
Embracing my soul.
Blindly looking
Into the valley of silence.
Hope
Into my universe
Just when it had learned
To brighten without
Sun or moon.
When my desire
Finally understood
What it meant to be alone.
However, my thoughts
Never learned.
Unconditional believers,
Like a mother who believes
In the goodness of her son,
Knowing he just killed someone.
Falling in love again
I listened.
Observing you,
With all my senses.
Reading you,
With my thoughts.
Drawing your
Feelings.
Savouring the unknown.
Suffering from amnesia,
I repeat my text
Over and over again.
While speaking,
I forget,
Word after word.
I should forget you,
But for some reason,
I can’t.
Half closed
I knocked politely.
He didn’t hear me.
I insisted ,although my hand hesitated.
He looked at me, but still didn’t stand up.
His body was just there, sitting on the chair as if he were attached to the earth.
His gaze was lost, beyond me.
This image stayed etched on my memory. In these 10 seconds, the past and the future merged together.
It was as if the whole room was telling me that it
would be better to turn around and leave.
But I didn’t, attracted to the unknown.
I was lost in an endless edge fare beyond me.
And I loved, before loving.
Near the End
by the window to get
comfy in, nursing coffee
or sips of cool water,
whiling away the days,
examining ever-changing
skies, treetops bending
in breezes or a plane's
contrail ribboning the heights.
Not much to ask for, really,
unless you consider the odds
against it, in this wilderness
we call living. Still, it's only
a chair by the window, just
a chair by the window.
Ghost
hunched over, intense,
office-bound. Familiar
to me I must admit.
Yes, I'm sure I know
him from a long
time ago, maybe Santa
Cruz or Moab, his name
on the tip of my tongue.
But that guy moved
with the wind, rumbling
down a new road on
a whim, not caring where
it went. I remember him
now as clear as day,
as if he were me.
Gifts and Givers, Disappeared
of gratitude shine brightest.
But in such generous light, gems
offered cry out for acclamations.
Love and comfort tendered,
touch and tenderness delivered,
casually overlooked in the giving,
brushed aside in the rush of time.
So on this rocky road, what is
owed is painfully clear but too
late to convey for the givers are
gone and the gifts disappeared,
Wherever We Go
The bone of existence beaten down
by the tiny fists of men, beating
the dirt, beating the bleeding dirt.
2.
He stood in a field staring up at
the night sky, thinking about Mars
and how they’re planning
to colonize it—have settlements
of humans living in glass-domed
structures—like ants in an ant farm--
and he wondered, how long before
the first fist forms and a hard blow
is struck, before red jealousy,
the heart-rattle for power or some
ancient tribal voices shake
the manufactured air,
screaming for war. It will happen
as surely as the sun will shine
for another billion years
before heating up and sizzling away
all life on Earth. Wherever we go,
we’ll drag it with us, that leaden
darkness of violence, spreading across
the solar system—wherever we go,
the bone of existence being beaten down.
Categories
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ADDEY VATERS
ADRIANNA ZAPATA
ALAN BERGER
ALISA KANTI
ARIA LIGI
BARBARA GAIL MONTERO
BETSEY CULLEN
BOBBY Z
BRENDON BOOTH-JONES
BRIANNA RICOTTA
BRITTANY SABATINO
CHRISTOPHER BARNES
COLEMAN BOMAR
CYNTHIA PITMAN
DANNY P. BARBARE
DARRELL LINDSEY
DAVID E. HOWERTON
DEBORAH GUZZI
ELLEN CHIA
FABRICE POUSSIN
HONGRI YUAN
IRMA COWTHERN
JOHN L. STANIZZI
JOHN TOIVONEN
JONATHAN DOUGLAS DOWDLE
KEITH BURKHOLDER
KEN ALLAN DRONSFIELD
KIHYEON LEE
KRISTINA KRUMOVA
K SHESHU BABU
LEE DUNN
LOIS GREENE STONE
MARYGRACE DEPP
MICHAEL MAUL
MUKUND GNANADESIKAN
NGOZI OLIVIA OSUOHA
NOFEL
PAT DORAN
PAT ST. PIERRE
PAUL LOJESKI
RABBI STEVEN LEBOW
REHANUL HOQUE
REX CHILCOTE
SALONI KAUL
SHAZIA ALI
SHUBHANKIT KHOLIA
SUSAN KAHIL