I am sitting here alone, hair shower-wet, Carefully digging the pebbles out From the bottoms of my feet (Where they’ve been embedded) With the little sharp digging tool Found folded in a cheap nail clipper. I think about breakfast in the morning, Wondering if I will wake up to make it, Wondering if I will wake up to eat it. Then, Going to the window for the tenth Time With three questions in my mind – Has the rain arrived? How furiously will it fall? How long will it linger?
I Have Your Skin On My Mind
I have your skin on my mind. I have your sadness in my eyes. I wear your apprehension, a pure white cloak I work day by day to shed. I hold you in my imagination. I want you the way I have always wanted. I long for you and the twisted smile I see when I close my eyes. I see it grinning over me as you ease me in. I see you going slow on top of me. I feel you dripping down each thigh, My hands in your hair, My mouth on yours. I want to make you happy. I want to see you smile just like that. I know you know this wish to make you content is all about me. I feel your hands going through the hair on my chest. I shiver in compliance.
I would feel better with your body up against mine. I have your skin on my mind. I have your scent in my imagination. You have me on a string. Please pull me toward you. I closed the door. It’s just us. You can still be invisible, just not to me. I promise.
I Long To Be Loved
I long to be loved And understood And wanted
And that is why
The moon, the sun, the dirt beneath them
The wind and the clouds And the depths of the ocean
The splashing on her rocks and sand And the falling of the rain Will always be more powerful
Than I
Our Hair Reposed
Our hair reposed on the same pillow, You face away, I face toward, My fingers clenched on your hip, My body heaved to yours. Smelling the evening in your hair And on the back of your neck. Just glorious. No more worried lonesome blues. You sigh and turn to me And our mouths meet again, Tasting hot and wet, Just like the first time. I grow hard against your leg And your breasts strangle into my chest hair. Now it’s hands and eyes locked And tongues and lips, Bodies moving as one. The chains fall, The music begins And the room is burning Like a star. It’s time to show each other What love feels like Again.
Quatrains
In these poems I read I see women compared to the moon, the sun, A lovely spring morning And even the ebb and flow of The Milky Way
But whenever I think of you I just see a beautiful woman Who is unaware of her power, Uncertain of her beauty.
Not a force of nature, Not a season or the impetus For the growth of crops Or the cycles of the ocean tide.
No, It’s just you – A human woman so indescribably gorgeous Whether waking from sleep or sitting alone Or looking back at me with such kindness
And unfathomable love. To me, that is more astounding Than the movement of the tides Or the aligning of the stars.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Earth’s been composting for centuries. Ted just hastens it a little. That wire-mesh bin is at the heart of it, five-sides and shiny wire, cut and assembled it himself. Twigs and roots, grass and rotting fruit – he stirs it together like making broth. Sure the smell is fierce but he’s the kind of man who’s invigorated by foul odours. His nose connects them to plump red tomatoes, golden turnips, melons fat as pregnant sows. Indeed, the stench is a bridge from his nostrils to the kitchen table, from sweaty brow, strained hands, to the McCreedys gathered together for a delectable Sunday dinner. So earnestly, he hurries nature along. All for growing family in its own good time.
Early November
My breath-smoke greets yellow leaf with silent echo, invisible ripple, just this whisper made mist in clusters of cold.
Keep moving through pallid light, wild-honey froze tree trunks, by cold metal fences, blood and air, a crisp, wary mix.
There, in the distance, the sniff of a chimney, the pucker of faces through window’s frail shine.
The onset of hearth, the dusk hoops of flame,. the flight of ash, the hug of fire, and a house thawed of indifference.
An Aah Poem
Stream constant in its flow, its sounds, no wonder I fall asleep on the banks.
My nature incursion pauses in a patch of soft grass. And I don’t breathe as much as swallow a long draught of air.
There’s a tear in the clouds, the treetops. Sun shines through inexorably.
Taxi
Taxis ignore me on a dismal, rainy night. No matter how far I stretch my arm, the cabs speed by, blurs of yellow indifference. Snug in the back seat, warmed by engine air, that’s all I ask. A short trip to my apartment. five miles at most, that’s all I need. And I’m even willing to pay. Look at my face, dribbling with water. my shirt, drenched to the chilled skin. Doesn’t that say big tip to you in every language. Finally, a taxi does stop, a miracle. but a woman appears out of nowhere. pushes me aside with a brusque “Excuse me. sir, but I’m in a hurry.” More rain, more soaking. Patience will be lucky if it doesn’t catch pneumonia. Only a rush, a dash, keep dry.
Lake Harmony, May 2020
Daylight mops up after rain, puddles ripple faces of drinking sparrows, grass glitters, trees glow like glass, new growth, flush with moisture, welcomes sunshine into its fecund mixture, the afternoon rolls out like a towel drying its way into coming darkness, where the moon waits behind Earth’s curve ready to launch the night.
Camping, the Safety in our Numbers
They’re out there somewhere, bears, wolves, maybe even a cougar.
The fire is dwindling down so the cold also joins the pack.
But we have the tent, the bed rolls, and the body heat that moves between us.
Protection comes down to your kiss, my hug, your hair spilled on my shoulder.
A coyote howls. A great horned owl hoots. You’d think they’d learn.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Here’s where I get it, stood in the playground next to parents who attended school with my eldest, or when the new teacher enquires if I’m her granddad.
Here’s where I get it, taking the youngest to the cinema, bumping into an ex- colleague I’d not seen for ages, who assumes I’ve embarked on a second marriage.
Here’s where I get it, at the G.P. practice, explaining Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, quickly adding, that of course, she’s adopted – otherwise what would they think of my missus.
Here’s where I get it, on Christmas morning when she stops me from unwrapping the present with Daddy written upon it, because it’s intended for her real father.
Ray Miller is a Socialist, Aston Villa supporter and faithful husband. Life’s been a disappointment.
In the ’80s you could fly Piedmont into Worcester, Mass. Weary Friday-night salesmen joked, Helped the attendant pronounce the name. This was my parents’ penultimate Summer in New Hampshire, My father agitated, Convinced they had left Without packing, and hoping He could get a shave At the barbershop in the lobby Of a Days Inn motel, My mother, exhausted, Glad someone else would drive The rest of the way. The other day I bought a postcard On eBay, outbidding someone Who must have wondered Why anyone else Would want a souvenir Of the Worcester Airport.
APRIL 2021
1. On television every day Several people tell us That the images we are about to see Are disturbing. Shocking. Dispiriting, Though that is my word, Not theirs.
2. On our street at Golden Pines, Red lights flashing more often now: We’ve been here 15 years.
Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.
You can find more of Robert’s work here on Ink Pantry.
You speak of a coast that’s so pristine, where the sand is decked with shells and pearls, where the fish that venture into the air are safe from spears and goring hooks.
There the trees that hum to the eager wind have never been bled, or to fires fed and nestlings whose parents fly all day long are safe from fangs that crave for blood.
The ripples that lap its ancient rocks know not the taste of flotsam or waste, have never been whisked by engines whose grunts can agitate the souls of the deep.
There I would romp with my shepherd dog and walk barefooted along the bay, and feed the dolphins as I do the swans every urban but blessed weekend.
You woo me with a notion, I scrutinize my map, but startled wake up to the alarm clock: my dog has been departed for over twelve months, and your headstone is covered with ivy and moss.
Nostalgic
Castle Street, the shop where I used to purchase my pint of milk, the telephone booth that conjured up my next of kin, the oldest house in Glasgow that nourished my medieval bent.
On Cathedral Street, our window commanded an imposing view of the historic cemetery where the gentry repose, shielded by monuments of stone, which are now a metaphor for tranquility and hope, my shelter from a never-ending war; the inn where I consumed my very first scone with a Scot who wore no kilt but was Celtic to the bone, my very first friend in Glasgow.
Sauchiehall Street, the window-shopping of gorgeous stores the Glasgow Film Theatre whose exotic films enthralled aided by John Doyle’s jellies and popcorn.
Lucia
She sat in a cage matted with wood shavings opposite a cat who pranced with fright, I wondered why he had placed them thus.
I was walking to escape our dose of darkness, a three-hundred-minute power-cut, periodically robbing evenings of work and fun.
A whimper then a scream of remonstrance made me retreat to the very same spot I always avoided with utter disgust.
With a stick, he was terrorizing his products: rabbits, chickens, and all sorts of birds to be docile and curb their wants.
I shun all dealings with whoever trades with lives, but gazing into her eyes, I was utterly mesmerized, a seven-month Loulou Spitz, mere merchandise.
He made me pay double the price she brought for alarm was resonant in my voice that had a pitch in the presence of abuse.
I called her Lucia, she brought me light. Her name’s pronounced with the Italian tʃ sound as in charming and cheering, the traits of my new friend.
The Lamp
The lamp that illuminated your pensive face, kindling freckles that dot unadulterated benignity, gilding the auburn that crowns your head, rippling above a well-nurtured suavity, cascading over your variegated lips, suffusing wan cheeks with cordiality, imbuing each iris with fiery rays, redeeming each dilation from obscurity, has been auctioned for sale.
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.
The way my mother’s countenance glitters When from a land far-off I return home
from ‘Mother’ by Chandra Gurung
Chandra Gurung is a poet from the remote village of Gorkha in Nepal who grew up in India, where his father was stationed in the Indian army.
His childhood was happy, yet he states, ‘the bad things were the geographical distances between my family members, especially with my mother. That made me experience solitude and loneliness as a child, and I was often deprived of many social connections.’
As a sensitive and shy boy, he preferred to remain alone; turning to his pen, words and books for comfort. He says, ‘to this day, these early emotions are still some of the strongest urges in my writing.’
With such a background, Chandra writes mainly when he is travelling and alone. He writes, ‘It is not that I write poems about just anything that comes to my mind, but I write only on those topics and themes that are of most interest to me, such as social and political issues and the predicament of human life. These are the subjects of many of my poems, as are the present deficiencies of humanity.’
Many of these subjects are contained within a 2020 publication of 47 of Chandra’s poems entitled ‘My Father’s Face’; written in Nepalese and translated into English by Mahesh Paudyal.
From his poignant words, it’s clear that Chandra’s love of his native Nepal and the people he has met within his life are of paramount importance to the poet.
Some, such as ‘Lovely Moon’ can be imagined as written by the poet simply seated and observing the world revolving around him.
The Moon, Appears atop a hill And stealthily descends Slips into the well Lands on a riverbank Perhaps, it is looking for its love Inside the night’s bosom
At other times, Chandra focuses upon his deeper social and political thoughts, as eloquently expressed in the poem, ‘Patriotism’.
He picked The Sun and the Moon from my sky And wrapped them in a piece of cloth Dyed it in my blood Washed it in my sweat And said: This is your national flag
He packed my faith And my trust into a bundle And placing the same in front of a statue Said: This is your national deity This is your national religion
Reading through the collection of poetry, the main aspect that leaps out towards the reader is the beautiful simplicity and directness of the words that Chandra employs on every line.
Here is a man of simple truths and thoughts.
Here writes a poet who observes this material world and seeks enlightenment from everything he senses.
Chandra writes about the world as if he is portraying it through the lens of a camera. Nothing within the book is overly complex, nor does it need to be. Multiple adjectives are not required in order to express the notion of a tree, a landscape or a person.
This is perfectly expressed within the poem, ‘An Old Lamp Post’.
Beginning simply, we are the observers of a typical street scene, as witnessed through the ‘eyes’ of the lamp post.
An old lamp post Stands quietly in the corner And witnesses – The kids playing on the road The fatigued porters conversing at the square The chitchat of the housewives on the adjoining veranda And the friends meeting at the tea stall’
A scene adeptly expressed, as if we were right there in the street – maybe leaning on the lamp post and simply observing.
However as the poem nears its end, the energy of Chandra’s words have altered to a more sinister and darker level, following the introduction of some rioters who have pelted the old lamp post with rocks, which now stands alone.
It is unattended like a home abandoned in famine Like a village devastated by an earthquake No new bulb has been hung No new paint has been applied And my nation stands in the darkness of time As does this old lamp post
Chandra has the simplistic talent of expressing his soul via language open and available to all; regardless of where they exist within this world. His words are like paint upon an enlightening easel, such as this poem called ‘Land of the Old Boatman’, beginning with a wonderful, descriptive tone and ending with an onomatopoeic flourish.
Dil Bahadur Majhi, an old boatman Rows his days on the surface of the Narayani Enjoys in the village of its water Roves along its aquatic streets Devoid of colour Devoid of taste Devoid of form Lives a life like that of water
Like in the chest of the old boatman This country aches in hearts Countless in number Plop…plop Fizz…fizz Plop…plop Fizz…fizz
You may wish to get your own copy of Chandra’s book here.
She’s stubbed out her last cigarette, we marvel that she managed it; a sixty-a-day inveterate, a Marlboro-mad smoking stick who craved not only nicotine and the repertoire of motions, from hand to mouth and back again essential to devotions, but had augmented the habit to flatten flames that burnt within, by applying lighted nub-ends to the stubbornness of skin; to steady flight and cushion fall and obviate oblivion; to moderate the mercury indifferent to Lithium.
She caught us glancing at her arms for pale uneven patches, rolled her sleeves and turned the palms, her burns exchanged for slashes; the scars of broken beer glasses, scores of jewelled and jagged edges, brooches, blades and coloured plastics, crampons spiking every crevice.
At the weekly self-harm classes we will sterilise her weapons with a sigh at further damage and an eye upon infections. She plays the part of maverick and scoffs at antisepsis, seeks the tear of fraying fabric and heightening of senses. She’s courting her intrusive thoughts when she doesn’t take the tablets, like the thrill of sexual intercourse without the prophylactics.
Ray Miller is a Socialist, Aston Villa supporter and faithful husband. Life’s been a disappointment.
I have a simple life A simple wife A simple kid Some simple strife
I like a simple meal A simple book A simple look into the workings of the USA
I have a simple outlook A simple philosophy And, simple friendships
Simple man, not simpleton Simple mystery of life: Be kind to all, and to all a good life
Answer to Simple by Vera Wang
The simple man has simple demands, Get me a simple beer, and Get me a simple bag of chips, Get me some simple crackers, and Some simple cheese! Ah, a few more to add on, How about some simple chocolate and simple ice cream? “What, you are not?” “All I ask is every Friday some G. D. simple treats!!” Why? “Because I’m simply a simple man with these simple demands, and If my simplest list is not fulfilled I will simply yell and scream, Amen!
I offered congratulations from this morning to tomorrow even though I was corrected regarding the date of birth. How do I explain that a person has no idea when he will end his life this time around?
I write to my mother, my love for her in the most unexpected moments of tribute
how will I explain that perhaps it is the penultimate greeting of a daughter to her mother before the present cuts the latter and not the resurrected midwife from the year ’80 the umbilical cord between me and her placenta and not to give birth to me again? But to kill.
I look at my father and cry for another twenty years or so that he will not be here I was ahead of the artist to “grow and sanctify her great name” in the Kaddish prayer in the twilight hour in Sacker Park. I shed a tear.
If you live in consciousness as I wrote “God does not pass over life from man, as he does not pass over death.”
You are the most miserable person there is, with such insight you do not enjoy a single piece of bread and no drink. You are dead.
A Letter to Tali
There’s a whole world waiting for you around the darker corner of life
in which you are adept enough to sort clothes of the same ethnic group of the black cloth of your life.
If you hadn’t been a little better than the decorations that would add figurativeness
so as to decorate the rhetoric of the black cloth of your life
I promise you that you would get to see a star fall in the dark!
Untitled
I planted you, my love, I planted you And how come what flowered was not what was planted/and the bearing did not yet give birth What was born
How come what did not wane could be weakened And on the other hand, the trouble is.
And only into my life they husked this mix Of how and why, the slips I saved From your eyes.
Kohenet
You are willing to come To Jerusalem Where I kill myself Every single day –
You can’t live in a place Where the Transfer is Conceptually different For you –
As much as you warned me About America
Where people don’t realize The difference between Poetry And Song,
I want to go back to Europe – where people live By caricatures
You say you like Jews
You thought I came from Those countries – where it is forbidden To uproot My Ghetto
So I am going to the hospital What the hospital asks Is one less lady Who smiles.
It’s Almost a Decade Since
She saw you in the Irish pub that night With your Japanese wife
Wearing westerly clothing You held her Kimono The one she hid
While she imposed the “Misogo” Instead of the Mikve.
Her name the same as the Filipino Domestic of my dead Gramma
You know, many Jews died since You left, more than Gentiles, But you, You are my best lesson It is not forbidden to walk with an Ilk of “Geishas”-
It was your best deal To leave me alone, when I First died in my Twenties.
To My Father’s Surgeon
I’ve realized how it works: It is announced that … and it’s known all of a sudden! *
You know that suddenness has an action plan that is comprehensive and detailed – it’s a strategy within itself.
When it (the suddenness) receives existence in a person’s ears it is experienced as a malicious trick indeed it has no advance warning or alert before taking action. Did you know that I had to dismantle this trick of suddenness
On the 27th day of January, 2015 on the 10th floor of hearts in question marks under full anesthesia and full monitoring in waiting very exact for waiting for the cardiology ward.
After all, the obvious suddenness is no longer understood and has many consequences, it is the realization that we are winning something that we would not necessarily be entitled to when my father is on the operating table at a supervised temperature at which you bypassed the blockage with an additional route in his heart
and I could not offer you assurances at this time my father!
And I was to the Traveller’s Prayer and the chorus in the Book of Psalms, from “Blessed is the Man” and to the verse “And all that he does will succeed.”
Did you know that I have connected to every special quality for any trouble that may come obsessively?
And I was for every letter of the letters of your name in Psalms
and I searched for any mention in those hours of heredity
Did you know that my father has three daughters of wonderful Semitic beauty will you recognize my father in them? When you operated with this suddenness on father.
And is charity not just a theological term for gratitude to be considered – please accept this (from me), surgeon!
*Heart bypass surgery, decided on within three days of detection!
Sabbath
When I don’t have cigarettes, it determines my Sabbath fate.
Nevertheless, it all begins with a cigarette on Sabbath with an exhale just before sunset until the inhalation the next day when the stars emerge with the blessing “That distinguishes between sacred and profane”
This is the most important day to consume cigarettes, because the day when God rested from all his work is not an idea.
That every business is closed in Jerusalem, even if they made enough from tobacco consumption during the week.
Really, there’s a woman for whom the cigarette is her language and the way she counts in cigarette butts corrects her phobia with numbers.
I need a cigarette that does not exceed 10 centimeters and is no more than 7 millimeters in diameter The effect of the nicotine substance found in tobacco on the human brain inspires in me at the same time the quality of writing on the Sabbath.
It should be seriously considered
that there are withdrawal symptoms arising from a lack of nicotine in the brain that is prevented from me to contain them when a person does not consume cigarettes on the Holy Sabbath.
Accordingly, the biblical saying will come here that “the Sabbath may be broken when life is at stake”
Should I silence any thirst and adhere with the Creator blessed without any adherence to an object for an entire day?
Generally the week enters on the Sabbath. For me? On Sunday.
Tali Cohen Shabtai is a poet born in Jerusalem, Israel. She began writing poetry at the age of six, an excellent student of literature. She began her writings by publishing her impressions in the school’s newspaper. Her poetry was published in a prestigious literary magazine of Israel ‘Moznayim’ when she was fifteen years old.
Tali has written three poetry books: Purple Diluted in a Black’s Thick, (bilingual 2007), Protest (bilingual 2012) and Nine Years From You (2018).
Tali’s poems express spiritual and physical exile. She is studying her exile and freedom paradox, her cosmopolitan vision is very obvious in her writings. She lived some years in Oslo, Norway and in the U.S.A. She is very prominent as a poet with a special lyric, “she doesn’t give herself easily, but subjects to her own rules”.
Tali studied at the David Yellin College of Education for a bachelor’s degree. She is a member of the Hebrew Writers’ Association and the Israeli Writers’ Association in the state of Israel.
In 2014, Tali participated in a Norwegian documentary about poets’ lives called “The Last Bohemian”- “Den Siste Bohemien”, which was screened in the cinema in Scandinavia.
By 2020, her fourth book of poetry will be published, including Norway. Her literary works have been translated into many languages.
