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International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм

guest editor Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch

Confessions of a Philophile

 

A new ecstasy takes root every time I think of you
blooming into a jungle of exhilaration
redolent with shenanigans

 

Stripping subterfuge on muggy afternoons 
we plunge into ourselves
let go of the world as we know it

 

Hold our breath as we explore our allness
right from the shallowness of our skin
to the deepest end of our beings

 

Unfettered by fears of going under
we fondle the precious in us
unleashing the joy in spurts

 

You were not the first
you won’t be last 
for I become love
every time I think of you


Love Conquers All

 

I did not believe it, for

though I tried hard, love did not love me back

and I was resigned to writing 

poems of unrequited loves for the rest of my life

just about then I fell hard

for a man who almost made me shut him out

of my world for grossing me out with his proposition

but that would have been unfair 

mostly to me ‘cause he was a moon

and what I had glimpsed was only a sliver

a whole unlit side of him remained to be explored

and by gad, I am nothing if not adventurous!

So we explore

ourselves and each other

terra incognita waiting for us with

a wealth of passion and tenderness

one day at a time, unsure what tomorrow holds

always glad we return 

to mine more 

unravel another dimension 

 find new ardour

peeling back layers of past agonies 

to heal and rejuvenate 

loving what we become in togetherness

molded by what we love 

we face what we hate and survive

love, as they say, does conquer all.


Paramkeni Dawn

          For Carlo Pizzati

 

Anchored in the middle of spilled gold

under an inverted piece of heaven

they are hard at work

to make a living from life that thrives

in that bowl with a hundred shades of blue

every time you visit balmy Paramkeni

to inhale the salinity of Coromandel in silence

before returning to menageries of words

clamoring for your attention.

Like clockwork that winds itself

the sight of fishing barges with humming

open-carburetor engines offers strange repose to

a traveler whose head never rests twice on same pillow

time has a way of tip-toeing back and forth

stirring anticipation with recollection

into that morsel of life on this crisp February morn

which is bound to slip and lodge between the

folds of all tomorrows resting in your hand.

Nalini Priyadarshni has been writing poetry and other stuff for almost a decade and has been published worldwide in literary magazines and journals. Her poems have been widely anthologized and collected in Doppleganger in My House and Lines Across Oceans, which she co-authored with the late D. Russel Micnhimer. 

Evening vignettes

 

I

someone calls out my name
 

faint
distant
inaudible

as if lost 
a hundred miles
beneath the earth

 

II

yet another dull face
lit up on discovering
a heap of stars on the road

 

III

even the tables and chairs
dim in the twilight;
a butterfly ascends and ascends
unfolding its two wings
to eclipse a few fresh stars

 

IV

at the edge of the world
the hands of winds shook my leaves;
we separated outside space or time
late evening —

the door left slightly ajar
three cuckoos chirping at the window beam
and i have been staring
at my right hand fingernails or the wall behind
for quite some time now

 

V

the grass fields
stretch across seasons and beyond
and the trees are falling from their fruits

come with me —
the world today is just a big wooden chair
let us simply sit and stare deep into space

                for there is nothing else to do

 

VI

later in the night,
a whisper shall rise
from the bottom of the seas
and erase the exhausted lines
from all our faces

THE FUNERAL THAT DOESN’T END

 

in the night

            to dream

                        of a gleaming grave of the dead sun

                        and below, the world: an emptiness with burning lips

the stars were snatched from my palms

the birds stayed forgotten

and in the garden, all the men that ever existed,

arrived one after other,

            to weep at a death so strange

Faiz Ahmad is a final year student pursuing his Bachelors-Masters in Biological Sciences at IIT Madras, India. He believes in poetry as the ground of bewilderment, of amazement at simply 'being’. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Salamander, Off the Coast, Indian Literature, Anima and others.

A Caged Bird
 

Having kissed the pinnacle of freedom,

The poor bird now cries in her cage;

Her captors are proud to have saved her,

But she wishes she dies in her cage.

 

She envies the kites flying high;

She had tried flying, many times, in her cage . . .

But now, with her bruised bones and soul,

And a hopeless hope, she lies in her cage.

Prasang Agarwal is the English editor of Lotus Valley International School, Noida, and has been previously published by Better Than Starbucks and Writer’s Pocket, among others.

WHERE IS THE PROMISE NOT BRUTALLY KILLED?

 

Every drop parts and rains

Along with the broken promise of the sun.

Thunder threatens the world of sleep

Where children dream with their mother’s fancy.

The lamp’s dead cotton sits lost in thoughts

Only to peep again with blazing eyes.

You, my love, also forgot me!

Who now rules the kingdom of destruction?

When the light withdrew from the lamp’s lips,

I sat and counted promises of the day.

Who keeps his words precious forever . . . ?

Where is the promise not brutally killed . . . ?

Muhammed Rafeek E graduated from the University of Calicut, Kerala with a BA and B.Ed in English and earned an MA in English Language and Literature from Periyar University, Selam. He now works as an Asst. Professor at a private college. This is his first formal publication.

A Reddish Haze, kad art.jpg
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