March & April 2019
Vol IV No II
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
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Published bi-monthly
International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм
with Michael R. Burch
PURSUIT
But the lantern-light dancing on wet streets
Is what the tripping, trembling heart greets.
Plish-plash, on soft rotting petals
Drops play volley, then plot misdeeds.
Flaring nostrils, hands, tendons fret;
The fog shapes a stranger, then retreats.
Splay ropes around her, the hand decrees;
Then unties knots in sweet release.
AN URBAN LANDSCAPE
Over the disputed alleys of my body
Your eyes roll like marbles
that children scatter in play.
Strips of your tattered words
Make buntings for a feast;
The shimmering veil that you gifted
hangs from the clothes line,
Wet with tears
And dried with sighs.
The curves of my body
Become stairs and balustrades
that your worn feet climb
to reach your stuffy room.
Mysterious couriers deliver parcels of hope
That are burgled every night
By stealthy thieves.
I dress like an evening of lamps
With scent and flowers and bejewelled hair
Awaiting your promised return.
Every morning the promises
Are swept with brooms
Into neat piles of rubbish
At the street corner.
GRAVE MATTERS
Each night I dig graves,
Little holes in the earth
That snails could crawl into,
And call houses.
Each night I dig pits
And put in eggshells,
Vegetable peels, shiny beads,
Pieces of glass bangles,
And memories of us.
Each night I turn earth
Like an earthworm at work,
To test the compost
Made of tender words
That you once bestowed.
Moonlight scrambles
Over scraggly tree branches,
Drops to clumsy earth
And muddies her knees,
As she nimbly packs
With silvery fingers
The crevices of graves
With straws of hopes
That yellow and linger.
Mandakini Bhattacherya is a multi-lingual poet, literary critic and translator from India. Her scholarly articles and poems have been published in international and national journals and also in books.
I am fighting,
fighting with the demons,
the demons that reside in my head,
my head that would have exploded,
exploded and shattered into pieces,
pieces that would never be joined together;
together we could have fixed me,
me, alone in this chaos,
chaos you never intended to calm;
calm that would have nurtured my soul,
my soul, that has turned into darkness,
darkness, that has eaten me alive.
Hira Naz Sulehri, from Pakistan, is a process improvement executive by profession, a poet at heart, and an avid reader out of love.
Forever Yours
I will still be loving you . . .
Maybe something happens, and you don’t remain you;
Maybe something happens, and I don’t remain me,
Maybe our paths diverge,
and we get lost while walking.
I’ll still love you.
You taught me to laugh, you taught me to love.
My days and nights are beautiful,
All this is because of you only.
If you ever remember me,
I will come to you in the form of wind.
I’ll still love you.
Whether you are in love with me tomorrow or not,
Whether I have your permission tomorrow or not,
With all the pieces of my broken heart within me;
I’ll be loyal to you.
I’ll still love you.
Chintan Khatri was born in Mumbai, India, and now lives in Tempe, Arizona. He is a Software Engineer by profession and has been inspired by love to write poetry. He dedicates these poems to the only love of his life, a writer to whom he owes everything.