Crossing out from the obstacles of life, I return with the sea-lesson.
Here around the womb of grass I hear the roar of mosses.
There is no sky over the locality Only there is that left shadow.
There is sea roaring inside me, Even though to the world, the sun is mostly regarded as a small lamp.
The river is similar As basic necessities.
The sky is not vast, Only the blue umbrella!
The letter of the sea
Often I remember old crew Santiago, While returning young Manoline, Santiago got a big fish in the sea.
But failing to save the fish from shark, returned home with it’s skeleton. Again he was not fade up.
I haven’t been too old Passing the half of life Staying home reserving water I have not yet seen the sea
I’m alive with the dream of a fish Less water, less salt Young Manoline will be back Carrying the letter of the sea.
Princess lycho
Moving from Andaman Trank road Seeing the sun being grey.
Breathing from the shadow of cloud King Zyrak’s daughter Lycho felt pain.
Passing fifty years in a straw house, Keeping the words alive, At last princess Lycho lost in the deep virus sleep.
Keeping in mind that she will never rise Sare words hide themselves In the voice of Andamanian tiger So that they never met with humans.
Now it’s kojagori full moon, Sitting beside the sea, the tigers Count the age of moon with Sare language.
Some butterfly comes With jeru and pujukkor words.
Masudul Hoq (1968) has a PhD in Aesthetics under Professor Hayat Mamud at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a contemporary Bengali poet, short story writer, translator and researcher. His previous published work includes short stories Tamakbari (1999), poems Dhonimoy Palok (2000), Dhadhashil Chaya, translated version is Shadow of Illusion (2005) and Jonmandher Swapna, translated version is Blind Man’s Dream (2010), translated by Kelly J. Copeland. Masudul Hoq also translated T.S. Eliot’s poem, Four Quartets (2012), Allen Ginsburg’s poem, Howl (2018), from English to Bengali. In the late 1990’s for 3 years he worked under a research fellowship at The Bangla Academy. Bangla Academy has published his two research books. At present he is a Professor of Philosophy in a government college, Bangladesh.
In my back garden, admiring the trees, I chilled for a while, considering decking positioned to take advantage of breeze in my back garden.
Cypress shared tang as birds, order-pecking, chattered and quarrelled in various keys: determining rank … then double-checking.
Yet this ruckus part of natural frieze, excited squawks augmenting, not wrecking the mood of plateau: peace which heart pleased in my back garden.
Irish poet and writer, Perry McDaid, lives in Derry. His diverse creative writing – including more than 1000 poems and 300 short stories appears internationally in the like of Anak Sastra; Amsterdam Quarterly; Aurora Wolf Literary Magazine; Red Fez; Brilliant Flash Fiction, Alfie Dog and Bookends Review and his latest novel Pixels, The Cause and the Cloud Cuckoo is available for order online.
You can find more of Perry’s work here on Ink Pantry.
When you feel you need to make a change a big change in your life when you want to make a change but you don’t know what or how what do you do? Just pick something and do it, the Devil laughs. Doesn’t matter what? Change is change. He stops pacing. Let me help you out. Do something big! For example, become celibate or gay or a political activist or a dog breeder or a gun lover or – and this is an interesting idea – stop writing poetry it sucks anyway, take up another hobby instead: golf, gardening, stamp collecting, raise ferrets, play the tuba, anything just do something please! For the love God (and the Devil) and he stomps out of the room shaking his head just like always. Him and his dramatic exits, so predictable.
Breathing
Cold November night I breathe in the chilled air feel it filling my lungs life is a good thing.
Stare up at the moon full and bright throwing shadows from the trees across our front lawn. Stars are out too, Orion the Hunter, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, behind them the vast infinite darkness of the universe and its timelessness.
But not for me. Part of the human condition is living knowing you’ll be dying and you don’t know when and there’s nothing you can do about it except seize the day.
Time is all we have. And strangely, even though I didn’t love it, I’m reminiscing about my life in business, as a “businessman” feeling sad that I’ll never be in business again: imposing in my three-piece suit, my company car, making another sale, closer to hitting my target for the quarter, my bonus for the year.
I take another deep breath the cold air reminding me I’m alive and for some reason the infinity that is the universe is sending me back to when I was a young man, my future timeless and mysterious as the universe itself.
The MRI
giant machine, cold and throbbing peers deep into you through skin muscle bone and sinew perhaps all the way to your soul “next test lasts four minutes” don’t move remain still as a rusted car as images flood by as you try to focus on something other than the heavy stillness drag of time: sex and vacations, dreams, work childhood memories chores to be done books to read humans (you can sense them) are in the background servicing the machine but you can’t hear them or see them for you are within the machine captive helpless a visitor just like outside in reality all the while the machine pulses and throbs trying to peer deeper and deeper to dig out all your secrets and you want to tell it there really isn’t that much to find
Light
So what’s wrong with all these shadows in the hallway splinters of light sneaking under the doors? Do you have to watch TV all damn night haven’t you got more important things to do something, anything learn something earn something a university degree perhaps or some money paint the garage clean the gutters, repair the shutters pull some weeds, call your mother anything.
Do you even know what’s behind those doors in the hallway have you tried to figure it out? Why not grab a flashlight take a look? No, of course not, you’re too busy slumped on the sofa watching TV crime mysteries for Christ’s sake.
What would Dad say about you wasting your time? or Grandma Sadie. What would Thomas More do if he knew or FDR or Caesar, Dante, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Mozart, Ernest Hemingway or Jesus. . . What?
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Brunette Everything’s so complicated when in the beginning all that mattered was this sweet brunette in Language Arts class the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen
Stop I must heed Thoreau simplify my life: stop buying useless crap avoid social media stop controlling everything and make something with my hands
Judge Judy I have a simple life: no drinking, gambling, guns, golf or girlfriends. Only me and the Mrs. of 50 years gardening, shopping, reading, and watching Judge Judy on TV.
The News Nonchalant in reporting horrible things but I can feel how frightening and painful being stabbed or shot must be, reminding me how lucky I am living a simple life
Antidote to Reality I am constructing a chronicle of beauty about my woman in her innocence, her purity her tender simplicities that would dwarf even Juliet’s charms
Micheal Eastbrook and his Muse have this to say…
Part of me wants to leave behind thousands of poems in countless little chapbooks and magazines, infesting every nook and cranny of the Internet, quantity over quality and all that. Another part wants to write only, say, 100 poems, each a masterpiece like Dylan Thomas. And a third part wants to leave nothing behind, except for the smoke lingering in my wake after burning them all leaving people to wonder about the genius they missed, forever searching for any poetic gems that may have survived. But seriously, do I have to write a poem every damn time there’s a space in my day: at the doctor’s office, the airport, the DMV, during the kids’ basketball practice, soccer and softball. Pull out my notebook, push on my glasses, click my pen into action. (I’m old-fashioned, no electronic recording gadgetry for me.) No doubt the literary world will be fine if I simply sit and do nothing other than stare into the space around me. But the Muse, it’s her fault I tell you, she’s always crowding me sticking her nose in my business. For example, the last thing I wanted to do last night was wake up at 3 a.m. turn on the light fumble for my pad and pen but She was there nudging me hissing in my ear ”Come on man move it I got things to say”
Balloons are red, a worldwide affirmation of caution. My eyes are dry though they appear to be running wild. Tears are the ocean bliss I long to float amongst. Turquoise hues of inner peace surround. I see in black and white but the colour of you blue. Limp limbs drift silently with the wind. Your cuddle isn’t temporary. Your warmth ties souls to your healing properties.
Push me away. Pull me back in. Dance beneath the luminosity of a millions stars. Make us sway without human interruption. Erase the land. Allow all irrationalities to dissipate. Capture joy with a bottle and cork. Travel with me through time and galaxy. Kiss me before I go to sleep and you may just become my reality.
Proceed with caution they said. Work twice as hard as your peers they said. Don’t be too different they said. Fit into the category of success they said.
Don’t wear short skirts they said. Don’t shave your head they said. Wear heels they said. Be classy they said. Respect your elders they said.
Always smile even when your hurting they said. Mental illness is all in your mind they said. Don’t get tattoos they said. Your too fat they said. Your too thin they said.
You look ill they said. Eat something they said. Your trying to hard they said. Be subtle they said.
Don’t cross social boundaries they said. Don’t break the rules they said. Don’t be too revealing they said. Be sexy they said.
Don’t talk to much they said. Don’t hold too many opinions they said. Be seen and not heard they said. Why can’t you be more like so and so they said.
You’ve had too much to drink they said. Go to your room they said. Don’t talk about racism they said. Deal with it they said.
Control yourself they said. Why are you crying they said? Pull yourself together they said. Your making a show of yourself they said.
Eclectic mind. Open to the very fibre of another’s truth. Sit with me for a while. Pour your dreams into my minds eye. Grant me the perspective of the creator. The symphony to your goals.
Untie your soul. I am not the prejudice to which you recoil. Allow the sweet birds to sing from the pits of your stomach. Draw a diagram expressing true desires. Be the kite above who has earnt true perspective. Flood the tree’s pages with inked ambition. Eclectic minds think alike. Authentic smiles perpetrate insight for the otherwise unkind.
Find the beauty in cultural difference. The history, the talent and cultural superstition. Personal projection leaves ears firmly shut. Open the mind and close your mouth. Digest the palette of another’s spoon.
Determine knowledge through personal experience. Interact soulfully removing convenience. Believe in what you know. Believe in ceaseless growth. Eclectic be the ear. Eclectic be the nose. Eclectic be words spoken. Free will. Free expression. Opening the eyelids to the beauty that surrounds. An eclectic world.
Cleo Howard is a mixed race woman of Jamaican/English descent, now living in West Yorkshire, prior to being a Cypriot resident for the past year. Cleo is a writer and artist full time, currently writing a first novel based on personal experiences in life thus far. Cleo considers writing as therapy, something of an antidepressant as Cleo is a self-professed mental health survivor, creatively showcasing the distinctive individual phases of recovery through chosen art forms. Cleo is also a tattoo artist.
Life is a molotov cocktail of joy and pain Look into the mirror and feel sane or insane The negative and positive forces at work The way trouble can wipe away a smirk
A marathon life can seem, or a quick sprint Some lives are a novel, others have just a few lines to print How is life treating you some say? That depends on moods or the time of day
The rich can be sad, the poor content Even though one has a ‘Bentley’ the other can’t pay the rent This thing called life that keeps the heart beating New faces and trials we are constantly meeting
Toss the coin, or spin the roulette wheel Ups and downs of life the Ying and Yang feel Still for me life is a blessing, so enjoy your path Even though tough times won’t make you laugh
Be optimistic even when the skies are grey Believe in a ‘higher power’ and give a daily pray The planet we live on is such a beautiful thing Watch the moon and the stars and listen to birds sing
So from the cradle to the grave keep the head high Life is a journey we travel until we die Take risks, be careful explore new life Have children spread your seed with partner or wife
As we all grow old the mind may change Places and people the world seems strange Through it all keep in mind we only have one chance So take life by the hand and have the last dance
memories hourly they spread across uneven eons within a second-hand tapestry of woes naked shame clothes his name and the daily joie de vie turns a sacred screw as viscous iron blood smelts an ancient block of fever’s night
between the eyes it climbs a fence like caged ivy down vena cava lane with Joey Gentile and her weekly digital pacifier
charged with apocryphal bible belt bullshit in the south
rumour consumer ads squirt like fish through an endless stream of consciousness
Heavenly sailorling spy out the wan light-sheen of star. Baffling unearthly time: weird having just thieved by elves. One of pale mornings longs for some meek fulfillment of night. Moony and nostalgic chums – comets are upon the skies.
Lonely dreamery – lying just blink-sea, weird above. Endless nostalgia is being of pang. Hades is fay. Heavenly moony lure, beings seem dark, Ethics fly off! Poignant decease has become drab black, comet has picked rain.
The glow, which is deathless, at length in the sadness full bane. Grim Reaper loves more than you dream – a bit lights on the worms. Marvel of starlit night: I have found a little of my name. Starry night – dreamy glow are only in the tender souls.
Sensing the moonlet, demise of cool-blue song will be free. Your worm bawls after all certainly. Death blubbing like me.
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Poland (Siemiatycze). His English haikus and short poems are published by Ginyu (Tokyo), Atlas Poetica (USA), The Cherita (UK), Tajmahal Review (India) and Better Than Starbucks (USA).
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Begin with bent brow in hands and hands unfolding, hinged doors as wings of the suddenly happy bird, hopeful as Dickinson’s in that opening, in those feathers spreading, encompassing horizons, the visions wide & present, calling to & from the soul. Now even these fallow fields are less depressing, still being of earth, its potential, to just blend with rich compost, keep moist and wait with the clarity of deep breaths taken, released. Hands in rich silt are mere flesh made of water and air, the synthesis of elements, the celestial given physical form. Is this what real unidentified angels actually are everywhere, and the great patterns of their work evident in the ploughed furrows, those waves churned over & up? Humble and holy come other stored examples in the heart and the head. Sample now Grandma’s drawers of saved twisted bread ties, baggies, folded aluminum squares whose crinkles were cleansed, scents smoothed under water to dry amid dishes. The next space which opens fans with cards of gin rummy, fancy suits flat against cushioned table mats ringed with the blue of Grandpa’s cigars. The green glass corners of his ashtray forms a diamond of use graced by the tall frosted gold pillar of beer. A little salt gives the best head, froth whiskers tickling the tongue’s tip refreshed past that entrance of the old gas stove’s aroma amid the dust and lead paint of that sunny lead-in back porch. This is the covenant of how blessings open out from each other, snow-globe contained but macro from the micro producing vistas further and farther. What other extreme unction to ask for than that? What more really to want for ever?
Exacting Revenge (For Louis Enrique Mejia Godoy)
Will indeed be a pleasure, say
some acid burns on each still pus-running knee. (We agree. Can’t wait.) Add these lime-laden eyes remembering that sack & almost asphyxiation in lungs yet too raw for adding their two cents. (Sounds fine.) The will shall have to compensate, one spirit taking prayer
& honing its frantic edge toward the faith of some future soothing every scar which winces with salt. Also
there, in that sphere, distant as peace, the torturers, having lost ground & passed into freedom’s blow, will have no choice
but to live knowing that their vileness failed.
This is my dream anyway, the revenge of a good life handed to everyone descending from repression with hope savored because of all the vaccines poured orange as mercurochrome under the sun’s gold.
Bleeding For Jaco
Electricity gone awry… boundary lines blurring… the jarring of feedback, the blisters of static where, from amps, scabs bleed…
Jaco, who were you? The homeboy made good? The mutt derelict genius?
The usual labels as commentary, tragic speculations all… We cough up explanations to digest brutality & then remember…
Duality looks deeper. Gropes for control: Your callused fingers cut by bass strings, the palm ripped, a gash pouring jazz… Physically too: the bones of your face shattered, having been beaten outside some pub.
Blood is a poignant reference, a vivid metaphor for pain.
But what sabotaged you, Jaco? The ecstasy of an Icarus, with the eyes of the drowned?
The surplus of ground zero conveys abrupt shots: the numbing by lithium, the detox quarantine. Yet life you still attempted, blinking an eye, twitching a toe, & Jaco,
It wasn’t madness that drove you, but bloods’ pure notes. A virtuoso from day one, a whole improvised opus you became,
Jaco,
to rock out, rock out, as a solo
Waves
This one, ten foot slate, a girder unearthed & returning. These others are meniscuses too grey for reflecting the sky sliding on each curve…
Here the post cards are all black ‘n white. If any difference occurs shades blur it in a slap of repeated graceful savagery.
Why be a non-conformist when insanity is all the rage?
Instead, weather tongues, the multitude’s mouth, a basin with teeth gnashing to spit out…
Oh Deus, do you exist, & from such a tough rugged heartland must not wounds be genuinely felt, entered, before healing can spark mercy?
Mama, I’m going in, goat-shaped froth gnawing off despair’s crabgrass. Where are my bones?
Now the pleated sheets form leaves, an excess of light & the coast whitens. In excelsis, purity burns liquid brimstone, the amethyst face, hands, a spirit looks on in tenderness, dispossessing memories, a passage to float from & open upon Baltic cliffs, Gibraltar balustrades—–
The other world, the other world, this must be a birthing place.
The Photographer’s Pupil (For D. Arbus)
A heart on the wind, you’d been opened that exposed, waiting for initiative to take over, give way to instinct. Imperative is clarity utterly unmasked by the camera which hid you. Then the subject’s impact would hit the pit of the stomach. You were a portal from which the real sight blew through.
Vision extender, what you saw was recorded not so much as documentary, but an intuitive view. Does such gentle predatory perception replenish what feeds it? Dimensions transcend the image & shudder forth cut.
How can I tell you your existence did the same? Its traces wash fossil-like from the acid baths. As you develop I grow astonished, senses reeling with what yours’ encapsulated: the freaks & the street people, the transvestites and circus attractions, all horrific & mortal, remarkably so.
Shy nymph, you crept up to them, finally asking permission & then taking command. What a surprise! Their faces freed, all artifice stripped, a psychological truth, now emblem-poignant.
Here I see the proof, their lives passing alibis, affidavits without judgment. Yes, there’s no verdict in the flesh except that it gives. But how did you go with it at your own perilous risk: the last supper of Barbiturates the slit wrist tub?
Now deep & enlivened, I attempt wading through. I find you like a deer caught off guard, no empathy siphoned from your quite earnest pupils. Just so, I am not vacant. I walk from this crypt, its portfolio, & wander susceptibly. You did too, more real in the dark, exploring the dank subway tunnels, their wired tired tribes. The trains lurched & pulsed, such tireless fury ritualized by your gaze.
In those eyes, both of us have known death, have been there & come back. but who taught that, & how does one live with the tie?
Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum.
You can find more of Stephen’s work here on Ink Pantry.
There is nothing great about me. There is nothing I am like a prodigy. I can’t remember many important things, and I don’t know, if you need to help me.
I’ll think I am awesome, but isn’t that just me? I don’t know what I’m amazing at, but I’ll be happy if you approach me.
I’m not great at maths, I don’t have great mental abilities, I’m not that great at science, I’ll never be a prodigy.
I’m no good at singing, I’m not good at playing an instrument either, I’m not even good at walking, and I’ll never be a decent dancer.
My art is stupid, I can’t be great at anything, I can’t process a lot of information, so, I sit there staring at a pixelated screen.
I know that I’m no good at many other things I love, but these thoughts now won’t hurt me, as no one can be perfect and nothing really matters.
I think having higher expectations from anyone should rather not be expected, because having lower will never help you and you end up disappointed.
So, I’ll be me, in my own world, you don’t have anything to say. I have my own power and family to protect me, from you any day.
God in my Perspective
When I was small, I believed in God like everyone else did. I thought the pictures they drew, In real life existed.
And I grew up and learned more, And heard from dad about the world and God. And learned how those people wrote down their thinking, Which led to the people to believe in the lord.
So, I don’t believe in god, The way most people usually do. I don’t believe in ghosts and curses, That could have brought fear upon you.
I believe that the mantras work for some people, Because of their subconscious and placebo, It’s a thing that works when you really believe in something, That makes your wish come true.
Although it still is a mystery, How placebo actually works, to what you desire. Those mantras help you by increasing your knowledge, To get something you always wanted to acquire.
So, I never said I’m an atheist, This is just god in my perspective. Our consciousness and intelligence, To make sense out of almost nonsense, And how we find their reason of being connective.
(in just a small organ inside our skull!)
So, if you do something risky and dangerous, Worshiping god won’t make you protected. If you continue to do that and be stupid, You can’t blame god by being affected and neglected.
Krishti Khandelwal (aged 11) is brilliant in astronomy and astrophysics, you can discuss amazing concept of physics with her, however when at coffee table or with a glass of her favorite mocktail, she loves to pen down her thoughts into words…..Writing has always fascinated Krishti as it was something she always wanted to do. This season (Lockdown) Krishti had created and shared her writing with some of the prominent publishing houses, and with the grace of the God her writing was appreciated and encouraged, and she was honoured.
