I sit on an empty bench In a city that has bared itself to me Paint is peeling off Recently spruced up community halls The makeover is laughable The road rollers are parked in a corner
I wrap my arms around this half-baked reparation Intimacy with the city’s quirks Gives me warmth In ways I keep seeking from relationships
Asphalt, gravel and soil Will start churning around as the day starts…
Memories of an ancient road repair The sounds disturbed a grandma With feverish delirium What could a grandpa do? For roads had to be flattened and smoothened
There was the prettiest girl I met every summer Floral dresses Dimples that dented her visage For me to park kisses there
I strain to recall her name… A first love Fading somewhere Into the night’s oblivion
Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites of repute like ‘Mad Swirl’, ‘Grey Sparrow Journal’, ‘The Piker Press’, ‘Dissident Voice’, ‘Borderless journal’, ‘Madras Courier’, ‘Outlook’ etc. She has featured in literary journals like ‘Fine Lines’ and anthologies like ‘Harbinger Asylum’, ‘Kali Project: ‘But You Don’t Look Sick’ etc. Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-cinema’ and Daily Eye. Her debut collection of poems ‘Mannequin Of Our Times’ was published in February 2023.The book has been awarded The Panorama International Book Award 2023.
I want to tell the same story over and over I want to tell the same story over and over again tell the same story
over and over over and over again
again
the same story
poem
khlebnikov sing me a song khlebnikov sing me a song khlebnikov sing me a song
khlebnikov
KHLEBNIKOV!
sing a me a song ?????????
Bo-beh-o-bi Veh-eh-o-mi Pi-eh-eh-o Li-eh-eh-ey
Gzi-gzi-gzeh-o
poem
there is somebody knocking on my door
who’s knocking on my door
there is somebody knocking on my door
look yoko ono is making a tuna sandwich
Poem
for Sterling Hayden
I don’t think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself
since the day I did that thing.
After he named names.
I know
It’s may not be the best poem you have read
Well, if I had named names
What might I have arisen to
poem
the law the law the law the law
the ass
Grant: After about 3/4 years absence I have returned to writing. Before the five years I had many poems and short stories published online and as hard copy. I have had six books published, only 4 I will talk about: Open Fragments, Bus Stop Bus Stop (a collection of stories based on my experience of transcontinental bus travel), Blues For A Mustang (A collection of poems) and The Life And Lies Of Calamity Jane (a novella) do not reflect the previous work.
Today’s poems are a very reductive. They reflect more of the micro theatre pieces I began during the time of COVID. In the micro theatre pieces the object or the gesture was the event. In today’s poems the words are the event. Each word and/or line can be connected as pieces of shards by the reader or each line and/or word can be seen and interpreted as is.
I attempt to reduce to the necessary words, but often I inject (my kind of) humour, with zags that bounce out of nowhere.
Grant Guy is a Winnipeg, Canada, theatremaker and poet. He has 6 books published and his poems and satories have been published internationally online and as hard copy. He was the 2004 recipient of the Manitoba Arts Council’s Award of Distinction and the 2015 Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Difference Reward.
The lush maize in the farm, Like the celebrating cheer-leaders, Are waving their green heads in jubilation, Not bothering when they would wither.
The canaries in the horizon, Like a rejoicing kite at its flight, Are chirping ditties of prime life, Not musing on the approaching winter.
Have they, rejoicing at present, Lost anything? But why am I, reflecting on our short lives, Losing my present?
Bimal Kishore Shrivastwa, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of English at Post Graduate Campus Tribhuvan University, Biratnagar, Nepal. An anthology of his poems is published from Litlight Publication, Pakistan. Other poems from Mr. Shrivastwa are published from Bangladesh, USA, India, and Nepal. Besides teaching, Mr. Shrivastwa loves promoting anything creative.
Jack wears sunglasses to ogle the young man’s dimples reddening under bolder and bolder quips of the older man’s flirts to see the smile he admires while Matt pouts, “I have dimples too,” and Jack, “Let me see,” smiles until distracted by baby falling, crying, hugged by mother’s love.
Darkness Safe
Darkness except for a sunshine beam descending to and into my chest as I sit in a wooden chair.
Eyes closed but staring upward, inward through the beam to geese flying across the blue sky to glide and ski upon the lake where heads tuck under wings for darkness safe within a womb.
Old Moment
I kneel to check my car tire’s pressure, but the tire gauge is old, and no longer works. What’s with that?! Tools are supposed to work forever, and I have a tool that doesn’t work! Bah!
The tires frown in deflated anticipation so I decide to squirt air in all of them until I can buy a new tire gauge and check them properly. As I try to stand my legs rebel and quiver like a pond rippling after a stone thrown in its gut. “Great. Here I am a capable woman checking my own tire pressure with a tire gauge that doesn’t work and I can’t stand up! Shit!”
I’ll die out here. A petrified woman statue kneeling on the pavement parking lot. An obstacle bigger than a speed bump for other drivers to swear at. I am a turtle upside down on its shell. My legs kick the air. I struggle to right myself. I want to lie down and let the summer sun suck the life out of me — a dried worm rusting on the sidewalk. I should have gone to the tire store. I could have kept my old tire gauge. I could have kept my young legs.
Designated Driver
The man thinks his car deserves two parking spaces in the crowded lot or he can’t back up well and uses the white line as a middle guide backwards.
I want to park so close to his car door that he can’t get in, and he’d have to wait until I chose to show up and exclaim, “Oh, my! I’m so sorry. I knew I could squeeze in here. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Or I’d like to see if he’d open the passenger door and crawl over the seat and console to plop his body behind the wheel; all the time calling the driver next door an asshole and bastard even as he reads the note under his windshield wiper repeating his asshole and bastard designation.
Opens to Darkness
The door opens to darkness. If I step through, will I fall for eternity annoyed by my screaming and wishing for death and silence?
The door opens to darkness. I want to step through to the blank dream of imagination quivering for my offerings.
The door opens to darkness. A nightmare haunted house spotlit by scenes barred between my fingers covering my eyes wanting to see but not see.
The door opens to darkness. A snake pit writhes just passed the strip of light once at the threshold before the door slams shut.
Diane Webster’s work has appeared in “El Portal,” “North Dakota Quarterly,” “New English Review” and other literary magazines. She had a micro-chap published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, and one of her poems was nominated for Best of the Net.
In summer days, in the middle of a paddy field a mango tree among all other trees It’s only leafy green which grows taller protecting shade seekers.
Like Buddha’s Pipal tree this mango tree – an epitome of peace where birdsong is a trance.
After school three boys gather under it as usual to fulfil their desires-
They dip unripe mango slices in burning hot chutney with Pantras*, offer it to farm workers, quench their thirst with tube water fresh, cool and satisfying.
They have no fears nor do they ever shed tears as they have all they need air, water, food and shade.
*Pantras is a Tharu dialect for Acmella Olerace
Kuma Raj Subedi, MA / MTESL, is a lecturer and an Australian poet. His numerous creations have been published on various platforms: online and in print, such as Misty Mountain Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Sahitya Post, Scarlet Dragonfly, Aksharang, The Gorkha Times, Of Nepalese Clay, The Indian Periodical, Nepalnamcha, Poetishes, The Offline Thinker, Setopati, Poeticia, The Rising Junkiri, Sahitya Sangraha, The Writer’s Cafe etc. He often writes about issues such as women’s suffering, memories, religion, nature, migration, love and culture. He is also a member of the poetry reading groups Friendly Streets Poets and TramsEnd Poets in South Australia.
a long walk home on a less sunny day harmattan haze the paper boat sail into the wind
one-way ticket in the mail mass burial of all the emotions with no funeral
Christina Chin is a painter and haiku poet from Malaysia. She is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, California. She is 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest and 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals, multilingual journals, and anthologies, including Japan’s prestigious monthly Haikukai Magazine.
Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian creative artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Hood Communists and in print anthologies. Christina Chin and he have co-published Pouring Light on the Hills (2022).
My friend tells me she wants a dog. But not a puppy. No. An adult dog. Seven years old. Maybe eight. Housetrained. Leash trained. Low energy. A lap dog. A companion. That’s what she wants. She needs. Companionship. A lonely little dog. To keep her company. Yes. Loneliness. That she knows. She’s been lonely far too long.
Panic Attack
My friend tells me she wants a dog. But in her group. You know. On Facebook. Chihuahua Lovers. That group. Today. It’s dental issues. Chihuahuas tend to have them. That’s what they say. Like losing teeth. All of them. Not a problem. I say. I take her to PetSmart. Show her dental treats. For tartar, plaque, gums, teeth. Okay then. She says. No worries.
Laura Stamps is the author of 51 novels, novellas, short story collections, and poetry books, including Dog Dazed (Kittyfeather Press, 2022), The Good Dog (Prolific Pulse Press 2023), and Addicted to Dog Magazines (Impspired, 2023). Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations.
You can find more of Laura’s work here on Ink Pantry
Eternal Father Bless our Land, This Land of Hope and Glory, guts and gut-wrenching stories May we be free not cheapened or weakened as we seek a life of seeds and flowers Keep us free from evil powers Be our light through countless hours Surround us like oceans do ships Give stability to all who make and made the trip From island to island Guard us with thy mighty hand Clasp hearts like the hands of our Grandparents and parents aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings We know your smile is more than stars winking, sunny days, and undisturbed rest On choppy seas we did and will not fret Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set; God, who made us mighty, make us mightier yet, Out of many one people, all are blessed to bless Out of many one people, all are blessed to bless God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet. Vision set like moulds and starting blocks as your will renders To our leaders, great defender Grant true wisdom from above May Justice, truth be ours forever, Jamaica, land we love, Jamaica and the land called home
Adrian McKenzie is a poet from Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
