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International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм கவிதை บทกวี ποίηση költészet 詩歌

with editor Vera Ignatowitsch

who would feed the orphans?

 

my heart is a pancake

shared by the poor and homeless

and there is a poetic spot

which belongs to the orphans

who, covered with my blood,

seek a home

through ages I wonder

who are those orphans?

then I find the answer

hanging on a page in the sky

those who sleep in the trash cans

sweat and cry and spit

those who make small clay houses

doesn’t let them get into

these ghosts that you see

close to the traffic signs

shaking more than breathing!

 

my heart is a pancake

shared by the poor and homeless

and the eternal question is

who will feed the orphans?

the naked bodies crawl on the sharp docks

the small hands are forced to break the rocks

the time howls without mercy

the children watching our world

from their neglected corner

their skin tells you how the sun is every day

their violent shiver tells you how cold is every night

 

my heart is a pancake

shared by the poor and homeless

whose bones pray for their tortured bodies

their tears improvising a poem

for the watchful eye

 

my heart is a pancake

shared by the poor and homeless

under the ground they are many

trying to steal our attention

crying secretly and laughing as a compliment

hiding under the bridges

wrapping themselves with newspaper

which never ever talks about them!

in front of the pizza shops

they are many

watching in silence

and never tasting

next to the parks they are many

looking out at their fellows in humanity

and whispers

get out of their chests

alongside toy stores

they are many

spying bitterly

running strongly to the trash cans

which hold their cotton toys

 

my heart is a pancake

shared by the poor and homeless

and I wonder if one good heart

stops beating

who will feed the orphans?!

 

Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer. She has written articles, novels, short stories, poems, and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic, and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines.

A Tree

 

A tree

Has a co-existence

With human beings,

Of passion and compassion,

In an unbreakable relationship

So whenever you use

The axe on the tree,

I find my body

Smeared in blood.

 

 

Nature Prayer

 

O! Source of light come

on every leaf of the forest

your arrival presents

new life to the universe

new music starts vibrating

in man and nature

O! Source of light

you drive away darkness

sing new songs of devotion

 

 

Dr. Ram Sharma is an accomplished poet and writer: writing in English and Hindi. He has published ten poetry volumes. Dr. Ram Sharma is presently an Associate Professor in English at J.V.P.G. College, Baraut, Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, India.

coffe beans.jpg

The Angel Will Take Off His Hat

 

Between us two the smoky mirror of a freedom

which we will never understand, from which we come out

and into which we go as into water that trembles

and protectively closes behind us.

That flake, lonely and white, always floating between our flights,

which our incoherence led us at the beginning to consider as charm,

the asthenic debility of the hour without contour,

flowing continuously, to the point of a kind of suffocation . . .

Maybe we will never write our names on real wood,

maybe we will never smile at each other with our souls totally clean.

 

Our expectation gives birth to silent flowers in the miraculous sphere

of moisture, of a possible and glorious fertility,

that is why I am saying to you: understand this love as a round and baked

bread, and hot, from which you can take a steaming piece whenever you want.

Your guardian angel will understand you and he will take off

his hat, once in his eternal life, to cool off in front of the hunger of the absolute.

 

 

Dragoş Niculescu’s poems have been published in over 150 publications in Romania and abroad, and he has been named among the fifty most important contemporary Romanian poets. He has five poetry volumes and one drama volume in print.

The platform is no more

 

The platform is no more

The faces do not look at one another

The timetable moves opposite to the clock

The lake of the morning calls the births

Though there is an identity crisis

And a huge tower screens the black magic

And I reach for my fuel of this year

And find only the expired ointment of the past

And so I return to the papered battlefield.

Who will win all the golden vices?

There is a queue

And it is long and dead.

 

 

Partha Sarker writes poems to protest against social injustice and crimes against nature and does not know what to do but dreams of revolution, of course in vain.

Friends, Land and Flowers

 

I am guilty of not having many loves

and few people have been my friends.

I am a man of old-fashioned customs,

the one who hopes to be duly introduced

and then exchange a full conversation.

Forgotten refinement of the times of yore,

etiquette learned in the old social rites.

My friends are few, faithful and heartfelt,

not subject to the usual taps on the back,

easy laughs and feigned cuddling.

They are always austere, even stern,

but never fail when you need them.

Never accustomed to false praise

and empty words,

but prompt, effective and friendly deeds.

Like the land where I was born and raised,

dry plateaus and arid hills, narrow creeks

and honest meagre sheaves by the harvest.

Stubborn trees that, unlike the others,

wait for the driest season to bloom,

naked even of leaves, find strength

to bring forth delicate yellow flowers,

resembling pure and true gold.

 

First published in Young Ravens, issue 9, December 2018.

 

 

Edilson Afonso Ferreira is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. His work has been published in international journals since he began writing at age 67. His first poetry collection is Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems.

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