Friday, March 29, 2024

September 2019

  hand washing apples are crimson like the faces of children who exit their births breathing as fire, raptured by still tears. she was a silence of horror the venom of encroachment tearing up like wind a tunnel of thought I am only left to this fanatical flaw centuries of madness, tearing at the curtains. like Shakespeare’s army ants actors in drag, frightened wraiths isolated...

Poems by Kalyani Bindu

A Fever of Living Some nights step lightly, like lily-shadows in blue water- apparitions in transit, between dreams. She awakens in a translucent purgatory- a tread from an incipient dream to a feverish slumber, to a body - a map of nocturnal metamorphosis, lacerated fish belly sewn with orange seams, eyes like butterflies in rivulets of pee, unmade and...

Poems by Katacha Díaz

The Trickster Kokopelli, I know what I know. You are the mysterious humpbacked flute-playing Casanova of the cliff dwellers of the American Southwest. Kokopelli, you are the carousing peace-loving traveling salesman seducing women in villages with your many gifts of music, dancing, and mischief. Kokopelli, having seen you in ancient Anasazi glyphs and rock art; and having spent time inside the...
RIVERS Should I multiply or divide my soul in rivers under sheltering domes? I have left bits of me in the Elbe and the Rhine. I have left liquid tears in the lighted Seine. Paris, Berlin, Dresden -- each city is an epic, a tome. In rose gardens in the day or beer-gardens at night I have ranged and roamed. The...
Apiary My friend Sharon raises bees. In her veil she cranks the handle of the silver bee smoker calming the hives. Bearding, swarming in the intimate harmony in which nectar becomes honey or beeswax candles for any altar. Scouts return with tales of pollen. The gilet jaunes swirl around the point Zero buzzing with anger at the money the rich will spend to...
VERTIGO The falcon soars far above us, a denizen of light and air circling different wind currents in a vastness that eludes us until he sees the smallest speck, a rabbit emerging from its hole, and he zooms down to capture it in less than a minute  -- like the vertigo of parachuting words on the pages of...

Sweet Shop

Title: Sweet Shop Writer: Amit Chaudhuri Format: Hardcover Book Length: 128 Publisher: Penguin Publishing Date: February 2019 Language: English Reviewed by: Pramila Tripathy Sweets and Calcutta: A Tryst with the Metaphysical Amit Chaudhuri’s book Sweet Shop came out in 2019. The poems of the book take their themes from various kinds of sweets and present a meditation on...
Terry Engel I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, just a few feet from the engraved words that marked the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. stood to give his “I Have a Dream” speech. At the time of the speech, August 28, 1963, I was three and...
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma even the violence seems germane. same old Wichita, ain’t it? bomb every last life boat, make the bird on the bill soar free above that ancient tomb. a camera’s just one eye but damn if we don’t know how to whisk a crowd after wrongful frenzy.   the NRA pays less taxes than me  you won’t find that shrapnel wound in their tax ID #. the business end of muzzle is only prelude of holy creation. “be...
Title: Indelible Fingerprints Writer: David Estringel Publisher: Alien Buddha Press Publishing Date: April 2019 Language: English Reviewed by: Sarbajit Sarkar Human tenderness could be defined with the virtual space it occupies while confronting melancholy and utter loneliness. Life, as it is perceived in today’s world, possesses a constant threat to our existence and perennially makes...

Poems by B S Tyagi

Word… Word is Brahman It emerges from Hiranyagarbh And wanders in the ether Man’s heart vibrates He hears its rapturous melody And sways in ecstasy And is lost in the sacred silence. The other day… The predator pounces upon the word And preserves the kill A dictionary is compiled It hardly objects But, is it at ease? Lexicons continue multiplying And then, words…words…words… Words sans soul   Across...
John Michael Flynn We can’t all display the courage, talent and nerve of a Rainer Maria Fassbinder, but we can try, at least, to respect it. A bomb had leveled the cathedral, leaving a steeple of stones gone black with soot, a bottle and can here and there lodged in...