​Bare feet, dirty,
scarred and bloody
chains hang from
wrists and waist
hair grows wild,
lice laden and dirty
skin and bones,
colored in death.
An apple core,
taken from a bed,
a fight or flight,
no question there
time slows down,
noise of boredom
irrelevant gaze
through the stare.
Jovial memories
buried under feces
odors of stench
reek all around him
limbs like sticks,
breath but a wheeze
here in the wrong side,
of this hellish asylum.
 

​In the dead of night,
upon a haunted rise.
Blackbirds serenade
in long shrieking shrills.
A cloaked figure rises,
black and boldly hums
his sonnet to the lonely,
feeding icy crispy mists.
A pouting moon dances,
clouds blow feted kisses,
Coyotes chant to the stars
a sharpness like the blade.
Vibrations move all about
in the muddy ruddy hollow,
sun chases away lost spirits,
disappearing within the light.
Serenading sonnets of joy,
by the creek dance the faeries.
And the Blackbirds shall return
with a Shrill just after twilight.
 

​Shattered heart of an unfulfilled love
the imperiled song devoid of empathy
blistered iced essence wafts at twilight
dodging streetlamps on Second Street
wipe bloody shoes on the back of pants
patiently wait for a soiled dove parade
Lick the shaft after a slice to the throat.
voices in my head mimic a red vulture
moving upstairs through paper dolls
loving the blade as it devours a soul
sharp is the edge of an obsidian knife
stalking lilacs throughout the darkness.
Swirling chimera ends in silent screams
a rancid city dances with sliced echoes.
 

An evening of fire, brimstone and desire;
walking with a torch to the Pulpit of Dark.
Book in hand, followers unite and stand;
preaching torrents by the burning sparks.
Mumbling to the Moon; a diabolical belief;
the devil reaches out to devour the devout.
Breathe into a cauldron, exhale in shadows;
crucible burns long gnarly twisted fingers.
Raise high to your deity; sky or far below.
A dark spirit rises, a tempted Watcher lingers
in an anointed dance of wretched tendencies,
lost within ethereal dreams of moon flowers.
Pity a reddish orb dancing in a velveteen sky;
praise the virtuous ones in their secreted piety.
My skin is ice cold as the clock strikes twelve,
now running away in a mirthless gratification.

​

Mobolaji Olawale is a Nigerian medical doctor who has had works published in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, Afridiaspora, Tuck Magazine and African writer. He worries about his FPL team every weekend. He tweets at @theBolaji

​We were pretty flowers in the summer.
We glowed bright in the sun's glimmer.
We were young lovers, a sonorous tale.
Love was a tree, withstood the gale.
But at the toss of fate's unfair die,
The nightingales sing no more.
In your cries, I hear them howl.
The red dying sun has pulled
Our shadows very far apart.
And now our hearts stand
Like inverted pyramids.
Dreading the balance,
Craving the fall.

​It's hard enough being born on dirty waters,
Being picked erced by the reality of life on the run.
It's hard enough being poor
Having to steal to save your children's lives
-Because no one will borrow you anything-
And getting caught in the process.
It's hard enough being slapped on your back
A slap that might end your life
But being labelled what you're not
Is what really kills you.
A thief. A criminal.
A killer.
You get famous.
Irate people hold meetings in white,
They are desperate to make you a scapegoat.
Tropical politicians paint their lies in your colours.
And you understand why it is so
Even though you never meant for any of this
To happen.
Now, no one will listen to you
Even if you could speak English
And tell them repeatedly
Life is not fair to a female
Anopheles mosquito too. 

They have tutored you a thousand times before
They have told you
You must first come to terms
With the fact that she may say no
And whatever cute stories you have
Of her eyelashes and wet voice
You must time them
In those moments when her eyes retract tears
Like unrotting northern Nigerian tomatoes
In unmaking acquaintance of sorrow
In that period between the last bomb blast and the next
They have told you to plant your seed of love in her heart
In the time between the last uprooting and the next
Because every bomb blast is an uprooting in her heart
And you understand-
It all makes sense
Until you realize
There are no such moments in Borno
And so, you probably will never tell her.
 

​The whiskey is mellow,
and the hammock sways
almost imperceptibly
as a Southerly breeze delivers
me into an oblivious sleep.
I wake to the screams
of a million Mayflies
in their death throes, and
the wind is out of the
Northeast now, siphoning
the heat from my bones.
 A red Sun has scribbled
 its mad manifesto
 across the ugly world
in serpentine shadows:
I will hold you in orbit, and
you will mark the revolutions. 
Squander these days, or don’t –
I will not remember your name.
Infinities will be devoured
by greater infinities.  Immortality
is an abomination – the gift is
this moment, right now.

​I’m in the deep South during the dog days,
and the Sun has not been up long, but the heat
 
 is already like a weight pressing last night's whiskey
 out of my pores.
 
I step into the shadow cast by the cross on top of the steeple,
a swath of darkness cut into the searing light.
 
I’m an outsider here, resented for something Sherman did
more than a hundred years before I was born.
 
Old politics, old money, old hate, and I wonder why
I ever came to this place. 
 
Then I see her - tall and tan, wearing a summer dress
that whispers of the sensuality beneath. 
 
She takes my hand and leads me to the cruel oak pews,
to the brittle pages filled with beautiful words
 
I want to believe, but never could,
and never will.

​He chased an apparition
around The Circus Maximus
of his mind.  It was a shapeshifter,
a lost love, a Rolls-Royce,
it was whatever he believed
happiness might have been
at the moment.
 
He chased it for decades,
for a lifetime, for all he was worth,
until he finally ran it down
and tackled the damned thing.
 
It turned out to be nothing more
than a threadbare flannel shirt
and faded blue jeans stuffed
with yellowed newspaper,
all op-eds and obituaries.
 
“Well, I don’t think that’s fair at all,” he said,
and then he died.

​Invention turned intervention.
Nights of silent screams & slow motion shadows.
This is not a game, she says.
 
Into the treacherous badlands,
playing with money, playing for keeps
until the time someone sets up rules.
 
Driven by the impressive bass line,
you rise to the call & response
like a perfect three-part harmony.
 
Even the Sphinx had an inkling
of the larger meaning behind it all.
You stretch & feign disinterest.
 
Science is an art here, math a simple fraction
of all your promised potential. You break
as though life had a solo to offer.
 
In the repeating chorus,
she begs you to think. 
Think about heartache.
 
You are called from your hiding place
into the heat of a radiating spotlight,
the world of the greater world.
 
The coda repeats & fades.
The backup singers express remorse.
You try to find a verse to save you.

​Driving across bleak trails
in search of the next big blaze,
comes the formulaic realization: 
paradise is a relative concept.
You & your theoretical mandates
hurt & misdirect, implying that
love & truth are atmospheric disturbances,
nothing more. 
Falling into these sad charades,
rhythms of sentiment twisted into forgiveness
& a lone inquiry echoed & unanswered,
it’s a familiar refrain, a reverie,
a static-filled station nearly out of range
& a haunting chorus.
As red taillights guide through this fog
to the ongoing illusion that progress follows,
we hold tight & accelerate,
trusting the unknown. 

Peruse our catalogue of curious mementos, 
shells of shadows, quaint dreams turned to dust,
 
the soft wisp of a turtle’s breath, a pine cone,
a messenger’s abandoned pager, a deer’s tooth,
 
the quiet perfume of an autumn day,
the scent of leaves and ripe apples falling,
 
your favorite sweater from 1980,
the one with the inexplicable white stripe,
 
a chamberlain’s missive to a crier,
a sand bank full of youthful spirit,
 
the confidence of a first seat belt,
the cold heavy pleasure of a bucket
 
weighed down with soapy escapades,
a money-back guarantee for a small mirror,
 
one to show the truths of yesteryear,
tears of misunderstanding, the allure
 
of the neighbor’s freckled smile,
those promises called out without echo
 
lost in the canyons behind the reservoir,
like an approximation at humor. Order now
 
and get the bonus of a trampled heart,
before the personal wall was built,
 
back when love was a feasible concept,
when a million songs still were sung. 
 

​Everything is broken.
Shards of expectation
prove dangerous when
culture surgically removes
familiar notions of native hope.
Barnacles of treacle-laced sentiment
enflame her pretend emotions
to a fevered state, filming the email
to create a stop-motion reminder
of the one time he used that phrase,
evidence of his collateral care,
a magnanimous dispersal of niceties
sent in nonchalant prose.
She wears her hair up,
exudes exotic effortless elegance
& knows what passes for love
in these faraway hallways
collapses under drawn curtains
of passing scrutiny.
She dreams of ancestors
dancing under summer waterfalls,
times when sincere smiles
were the only currency
that ever mattered.
Her mind plays over
desperate exit strategies,
searching for those
that offer respect, freedom from
clown-show anticipation,
this genetic predilection
toward coupling &
this horn of plenty troubles.

​The century of confusion & arrogance
makes things harder to comprehend.
Existence as excuse, undefined,
perpetually misunderstood,
streams on unabated. 
All the while you try
capturing moments,
grasping for epiphany
between lines of
prosaic rhetoric,
trivial pursuits
amidst tragic
stains of terror
crossing the map,
seeking your place
in the pantheon,
a taste at immortality
through marginal wisdom
& a love of language
that echoes & resounds
from a perch removed,
fostering an illusion of safety.
Does the sharing of the story
really matter? The passion
for the universal extends:
extenuate, ostentatious,
battling blank page.
 

This battered virtue cloaked
in the downing sun of its own unease
and so outspoken
yet all I ask of you is why
during these calls you persist
in the suffering

and ask, through these outbursts  
by the pint of wine  
how can I explore the depairanto
of languages spoken as one
oh hearer of tangle tongues.
 
I left you because I counted the numbers
of voices pending to the mood and needs
cribbed behind the mercy of their call.
 
By your term of less held beliefs there is a home
all silent walls call you to bed.  
and the town crier is by all shores’
rattled escapes
following the iguana in a canyon 
escaping a slither of snakes.
 
I know you rang to buy me back and head
towards with this spring of ask but no, I
will not go into your suffocating ways
I will rush to the city of volcanic ash.  
You can read my swamp hand plain  
out of symbols.  
Back to the slimy commando
​lift of muscle and bone.

Soul sleep lost beauty abandoned
waiting for the chorus of harpies
to laugh at our separating bodies
 
just like galley proofs and slaves
hollow heads exploding with the
cupcake girl-gangs worried about their
figures of eight and pieces of wombs
designed for just the two.
 
I am now between serpents audacious
but lanquid after swallowed deciding
between both which fille-perdue I
fall for.
 
Maybe it’s the time for the news 
to entrail them in their moon and black 
so it’s time for the jeopardy blasting
on our roof with Requiem
 
Half forgotten it’s time to feast
I’m between two serpents in the garden
Languid with easy snatches Am I asking
for the snake or its kill?
 
Like a galley slave chained to his bench
I fight wars not my own And that
includes yours.
 
Sweat it out sister she’s
already half forgotten
​slashing in other towns. 

The sun burns a hole through the
sparrow-drab sky filters through
the melting barcode of skewed
greasy blinds .
I gave up on the night when the
pale yellow lights of rush hour
beaters started sliding across the
ceiling and the sound of faulty
plumbing
after a stuttering piss to a repetitive
soundtrack stung with the
hypochondria of sleep lack
that starts in the liver
and works its way up
to the skull.
Shadowboxing with Peter Pan
would be more useful as
running the same dalliance with
you, the past.
Eyes half open, feel like a
plate of glass splintered by a
​speeding truck.
 

I have no fear of your
barbed-wire tongue the
way you played when we
were young.
 
Now you call  when you’re alone so far
apart like bone and stone you make me
shy, you make me whole we can’t
reprise our loving roles.
 
Buttressed by another’s kiss
I close my eyes and think your bliss
You were sharp, your lips were thin
I can’t believe I’ll ever win.
 
You’re a magnet with changing poles
You attract and then repel I want to
think, no let’s scratch that You live alone
So far apart like stone and bone.
The guilt sits hard
 

Born in Mauritius in 1977, Vatsala Radhakeesoon is the author of the poetry books When Solitude Speaks (2013) and Depth of the River ( July 2017).
She is the representative of Immagine and poesia (Italy based literary artistic movement) for Mauritius.
Her works also regularly appear in online literary journals, magazines and blogs such as Setu, Indiana Voice Journal, Dissident Voice , Tuck Magazine , Destiny Poets and others.
Vatsala is currenly self-employed and continues to write poems in English, Kreol, French and Hindi.

​O Music!
You stir the soul
with the naked truth,
You speak directly to heartbeats
by embedding in them
the depth of feelings,
You stimulate the mind
to reflect without bonds
O Music!
You dare,
You care,
You shout,
“Beware!”

O Music!
What would I have been
without you?
Surely aimless,
Certainly zeal-less,
Undoubtedly lost
in darkness
O Music!
Unimaginable is a life
without you,
because every atom
in me feels
that you are in me,
I am in you,

O Music!
Separated we can never be,
Intertwined like two passionate lovers,
we are unadulterated  eternal  oneness.

​Celestial flute
Celestial guitar
through the river-mirror
glance at planet Earth

At workplaces
At home
Everywhere
Stress has cast
its dark spell

Then, Celestial flute
Celestial guitar
in fusion
play some
soothing,
calming
therapeutic
music
plunging human hearts
in some deep
rejoicing relaxation.

​Melodious music
Metrical lyrics
Mystical tune
add up harmoniously
to your heartbeats
among the hits-list
My head on your chest
I’m about to express some
writer’s wit
Some deep, warm thought
but your loving stare
holds my breath
You sing to me
the philosophy of love
a song heard, unheard
amidst life
 juggling with moods

Our lessons learnt
Egos, whims destroyed
Peacefully, wisely
our hearts sing
at the rhythm of maturity
the eternal song
of unfailing sincerity.

Saloni Kaul, author and poet, was first published at the age of ten and has been in print since. As critic and columnist Saloni has enjoyed thirty eight years of being published. Saloni Kaul's first volume, a fifty poem collection was published in the USA in 2009. Subsequent volumes include Universal One and Essentials All. 

​So well and true we hear all that pervades our ears, 

Aural perceptions keen accept music’s subtle dictates 

Sans questions, unconditionally, as o’er the years 

All children have trusted the tellings of adults as mates. 

How easily we welcome nature’s wondrous sound parade, 

A stunning spectrum sprouted from what was lovingly sown; 

From dawn to dusk absorb both twitter and tirade 

Of bird beast wind welded to soundscapes all our own. 

Then all the tunes in mode repeat we love resound, 

The old familiar we soak ourselves in for days wholesale, 

And yet we seek the new, the novel, to astound , 

Each skintingling sensation sparkling quite like ale. 

May you always delight in music’s grand display, 

Be it of nature’s sound sense well or live performance play. 

​The car screeched to a halt to halt the screech ! 

Ensuing argument between two pedestrians, he said. 

All behind halted and screeched stuck each to each 

Like halterneck-drest bloom in flower bed. 

Pedestrians took their screechtime in fuming chorus 

Took those on the warpath severely by the hand, 

For by this time they with more than their own screeches 

With queued squads screeching to halt had to contend canned. 

Comic to onlookers, crucial to those involved, 

As screeching soundscapes are until you’re in their tide caught; 

Those wasting time and time of others convolved, 

As much ado escalates, stern lesson soon are taught. 

Think then, does it pay to lean upon consideration’s legacy, 

To end up rueful as Richard at his own profligacy. 

​Impulsive babbling bursts forth pleasant in sound 

As water without so much as second thought has its say; 

Compulsive blabbering soon raises hedges round, 

The listener walled in, helpless as keen-to-escape prey. 

Celebratory in tone and how it thrills, each feat, 

The clash of cymbals, whipping up drums at bandstand, 

But try your hand at it without order, rhythm and beat 

And see where with your ludicrous attempts you land! 

There’s something in the order and rhythms of nature 

That thundering loud rhythmic rain the senses accept, 

In man’s hands pale repeats become a caricature. 

We throw up our hands at each loud garish precept. 

While moderation’s easy to explain, it’s questions of taste, 

Do get to the bottom of it or life’s a waste. 

​So calm and collected , in thoughts all selected ,
This portrait most alive we slowly paint.
A life lived to its brim is at last exalted
As Mother joins the ranks of those true saints.
Like to a well-crafted work of beauty and solid spectacle
We affix those last-minute finishing touches,
To your humble world of everyday miracles
Is added the concluding recognition that it matches.
Unfazed and undeterred by destiny’s tribulations ,
Having charted the highs and all those lows,
To the face of your world seen in its completion
Eventually we all affix the golden halo.
So calm collected, in thoughts all selected,
Through twists and turns of life, you saw the everlasting way.
All the time as Saint to applaud the skies, the word, the light
And live long happily in bright eternal day.

​Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.

​Lake-effect-snow.  Not familiar
during my Long Island childhood.
‘Upstate’ meant ninety miles north.

Lake Ontario: neither the Sound
nor ocean, and extended family
is four hundred miles away
because of my husband’s job.

Toronto, Canada, my nearest big
city, became a foreign country
post 9-11.

Our offspring call this ‘home’; 
inside myself, even after decades,
I’m displaced. Competition for
most annual snowfall, among
three cities, does little for my want
of spontaneous cultural diversity.

Fewer calendars are chronologically
ahead.  I pretend I’ve accepted these
surroundings as I’ve spent most years
here, but the shell that houses my soul
will eventually be lowered in reddish
soil of Long Island.

I wanted to teach a person
not a course;  how could I
make one aware of what there
is to learn?  I searched
myself, remembering adolescent
yearnings for identity and
independence in a society
that screams compliance.
I felt challenged to reach
the slow, unsure, complicated
student with the same honor
as a bright, secure pupil.
Only the principal screamed
conformity, course topic
not student caring!  Punish,
don't praise was official
edict;  instruct group not
each student.
I struggled but
failed faculty obedience.


©1997 Green's Educational Pub. (Canada)
Reprinted: Spring 2012 Shemom 
reprinted:  fall 2014 East Coast Literary Review

Healthy fingers
kept hurt away; sturdy
nails covered by flaking
pearlized polish tickled
while soothing childhood
fears. Fingers
swollen by persistent
arthritis continued
protection from harm.
Unadorned nails, though
brittle, smoothed my
adult frowning forehead.
Lean with waste of
terminal illness, those
fingers had the slender
feel of a young woman.
I circled them.
Daughter's
digits have no magic;
her breathing disappeared. 


©1995 Skylark
reprinted winter 2011   Shemom
reprinted July 2015 Whispers
​

Eliza Segiet – graduate with a Master's Degree in Philosophy, completed postgraduate studies in Cultural Knowledge, Philosophy, Arts and Literature at Jagiellonian University, as well as Film and Television Production in Lodz.
Torn between poetry and drama. Likes to look into the clouds, but keeps both feet on the ground. Her heart is close to the thought of Schopenhauer: "Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it". 
Translated by Artur Komoter

​Beautiful is the world
painted with the music of the word.
Like
a butterfly passing by,
who for a moment
intoxicates with the colouring of its body,
stopping
the breath of those thirsty for beauty.
Its sensual dance
is freedom of imagination.
 

And the word?
The word can be
the music
that can be heard
when it is quiet,
and yet silent.
 

​In the gardens of silence
the words sound silence.
Those longing, desiring
do not whisper even from afar
It's good that they scream within it.
Maybe it heard them before,
maybe it dreamed about them before?
 

​She painted him with thoughts,
she even felt a touch.
Silky hands
drawing on her lips
the shape of love.
She was with him,
probably
at the end of the earth
pulsating like…
like life.
The earth showered
with salty pearls.
 

At her Dream Beach,
she heard the waves
talking to the waves,
heard him saying:
I'm fine with you.
Did he lie?
Did they lie?
 

It's nothing
that he was just imaginary,
but
still possible.
For her, everything and nothing.
 

​Whirling memories,
going to winter sleep.
Paved leaves
stroking
the grass still green.
 

Pity that on the surface
can only be seen
bare,
swinging branches,
chilled and awaiting –
for the rays of life.
 

Rays –
to the land of awakening:
fields of grain,
smell of meadows
and in the Summer Dream
of memorised faces.
 

And in the summer?
Awakened by the May sun
old oaks and birches,
– like every day –
will be able to look at themselves
in the Green Pond.
 

Frank Eze resides in Owerri, Eastern Nigeria. His work has appeared in Praxis, Gnarled Oak, Antarctica Journal, Brittle Paper, COAL and many other journals of art. He won the 2016 edition of the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize. He strives to give life a meaning through poetry.

​for Aylan Kurdi and other refugees the water rejected
 
a flicker of light
and home became
a fireplace
 
and the ground we played on
grew too hot
peeling the soles
of our tiny feet slowly, slowly
as fingers on epicarp
of tangerines
 
and we listened
for the voices of songbirds
that sing us to sleep
when fatigue eat into our bones greedily
as termite in unpolished wood
and our eyelids grow heavy
as shoulders of labourers bearing blocks
 
and met thunder
the eery guest at crossroads
where our tiny fingers
sought refuge scratching
the hands of peace like
blind banjoists working their banjorines
as men and women nod and toss
a coin or two on sunlit days
and hurry on to catch flighty life
on its tail, at least
 
and the fires won't give up their flames
or the thunders their claps
and our tiny feet won't stand anymore
on our soil, the heat at home
or our ears carry the chaos
the thunder in our air
 
 
​and we cried out--
mother, father, girl, boy--
as chickens locked in
a burning ban
to brothers across the road
to sisters across the river
 
and they heard us
thought our voices euphonious
plunging neck deep
into highlife
 
and we ran away from home
gazelle gaited
limbs heavy grazing ears
to the waters
whose unsteady face beamed
a benign smile
to its mothy guests
spread its arms in embrace
and in the safety
of its watery bosom, tossed
us deep into its belly and cast us
ashore as abandoned dolls
leaving on our tongues
eonian taste of its saline soul
 
 
 

​Internally Displaced Persons Camp, Bukuru, Jos, April, 2016. 
 
I live in the feet of a refugee
in the cold blood-dripping lines
laced like a lonely labyrinth;
 
In the tainted toes maimed
by a mine that made mince meat
of its owner's mama, her blood
a red rain in memory;
 
I live in every step away from home:
rubbles, a red river brimming its bank,
a peerless plantation of bombs,
of blades, of blaring guns;
 
I live in the feet of a refugee
in the fading memories of home
when peace had her limbs unbroken.
 
 
 
 

i
 
morn
 
an african lily bares its soul
gently gently to a nascent sun
shaking off all dew droplets
as it rips apart its calycine robe
like an aphrodisized maiden
 
ii
 
noon
 
and so was beauty born
at the symphony of smiling sun
and bare-breasted lily at its bloom
 
iii
 
even
 
and the sun sets
suddenly seeking shelter
behind blue clouds
 
behold african lily
fall freely from its stalk—wilted,
washed with such mirth melancholic--
landing, blending with the bland-brown:
 
dust.
 
 
 

for Laura Oreva
 
stay, stay a little more
 
do not become the sun
that sets at rising, painting
on the face of the sky
a dark, dark scurvy smile
 
do not die to live the fate
of morning stars passing
as fancies dusting off
the dark with their little lives
 
so stay, stay amaranthine
 
be the candle out in the cold
whose flame flickered
whose tears never dried up
till it weathered the wind
 
live, live a bar of candy
in tongue rolling & melting
& leaving in every heart, taste
of your deathless sweetness

​