Ten Haiku/Senryu/Scifaiku/Monoku Poems by Sheikha A

 

Ten Haiku/Senryu/Scifaiku/Monoku Poems

raven grief 

a tearing dusk 

this damp night

 

uprooted

resown in a cosmos

full of future

hummingbird

perched on artillery — 

outlier canvas

midwinter dream

goldfinch on blackthorn

glistening

lake mist a heron tucks in her wings

 

mohua—singing caution to the wind

  

one glitch in turn of solstice north wind-fire

abstraction

Orion in a moon-sleigh

shooting stars

waltzing to moon’s melody frost flowers

Orion’s sword

in the murmur of night

— half moon

Sheikha A. is a Pushcart and Rhysling nominee from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poetry appears in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Her poetry has been translated into 11 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com 

Five Poems by Olchar E. Lindsann - Including One Translation from French - English

 

Hidden Earth Face

 

slap shot mannikin mashup face

slash Soudden Hurrican’t art

iculate ontologic p’raiseup penned

in predawn crackdown ten’ebrous

shrapnel flashsprout fisherrip up

wrestless raidon poise on floodp’lain

out iced morgue tongue lipping up

that ice-king’s laps hot spurts in jets

spits’perm o’frost o’er Severin’ Macaw

s’trides raw thru skull dust chips

rips empath Thunder jugular’s Bolt

for cover kick in kid nabbed tendon-ball.

Granite, then of Moss

       ~~†~~>>>::◊::<<<~~†~~

            “ripening all the while”

       –Paschal Beverly Randolph,

        Dealings with the Dead (1862)

       ~~†~~>>>::◊::<<<~~†~~

                  >>>::◊::<<<

And so I ran the tariff gamut, every

new condition being more and ever

favourable, amphibious, brought out new

raw properties from within me, and new

        beauties to the salt in

a sun’s sear eye. I was still such in drafted, in

revision one might be of imperial permafrost, is

of no account, ––only states. Something taps me

    that I should slice in every thin cold

    cut that ever I felt, monad detained

though I was logging hours, the song was

barricade was germ was destined to

throw off any large-language-model form

myself upon dead-line

 

     As I nestled

icepick flotillas, slept.

If she would never talk

of petting crimes,

pressure of grief would

allow seldom data

     to flow, for

central nervous cycles

over-burdened heart

burnup boingo necktie

     and well up, o

slop shop committee

whom I loved so well.

     √√√√√√√√√√

“t, for the tear foun

  tain seldom thaws”

   – Paschal Beverly

 Randolph, Ravelette.

     √√√√√√√√√√

bystanding mourners

countdown hotrod, publish

“Never more,” and a

tendril batter cancelled

til tears refused

entire floor units:

     poor heart

for talking parts

I could weep now

ascend while gasping

floods still gather

spirit legions, spirit

strings snap and crack.

Los Hymn VIII

 

beyonder furnaces : warforge;mortar

laid adamic bomb : raw’ogre;mordor

nervetrenchWork: flawgr; Orc’force

     sanker generoil tanker

     con’spireacy of contrAries

fallin Albion hacked into sons

     Hand>>sunscreedn<<Koban

        daughters into song Albion

     Hyle)))mooarnèd(((Skofield

          found all’beio’nation

in warmiidst b’ask the strikill dr’one

     tomb’é of visionArieswarms

intuernmeant’s craven craidle hill, come

     matter’s mundust cavern Phandtoms

de chaoslayage fourfolded gates

de hateslough make y’our silop realm

          ::Go!GoNoOzÂ::

     Dleifoks(((à pox=>vala)))Elyh

        sTones into lumen’s Loscity

     Nabok<<vegeteleology>>Dnah

commundus midtst sordid wastes

Translation from the French:

 

                 the elephants

          by Leconte de Lisle, 1862

like an ocean sans edge lies the ebony red,
and which blazes, quite hushed, full crumbled in its bed.
an immobile undulation now overspreads
the horizon of copper gas where mankind’s bred.

voided life and void noise. all the satiate lions
lie asleep in deep lairs a hundred miles on,
and giraffes sate their thirst on the fountains of cyan,
way down, beneath the date-palms panthers love to lie on.

not one bird passes by while its wing flagellates
viscous air, where a sun enormous circulates.
there some boa betimes, who while dozing’s been baked,
makes its backbone’s glistering scale-flakes undulate.

thus beneath the fair heavens burns smouldering space.
but, while all in dolorous deserts lie slumbering,
the elephants rugged, rovers slow lumbering
to the realm of their birth have humped across the wastes.

from a speck on the skyline, like a brown in mass,
they draw nigh, upsetting powder, and one detects,
so as not to digress from the track most direct,
how beneath vast sure legs distant sand-dunes collapse.

he at the head is a chieftain of old. his frame
is as chapped as a trunk which time gnaws at and mines;
his head is like a stone, and the arch of his spine
hurdles mightily on with negligible strain.

never slacking his pace nor yet pressing his march,
he leads to their coda ordained his powdered peers;
and, while gouging a sandy trench out in their rear,
the gargantuan pilgrims trail their patriarch.

with their ear-folds outfanned, with trunk tucked between tusks,
they shuffle, eyes shut. beating and steaming’s each gut,
and their sweat in flaring air as clouds rising up;
and all round them a thousand zealous insects buzz.

but what signify thirst and the ravenous flies,
and the sun that is crushing their black pleated back?
they dream while they trudge of the disavowed lands,
of the forests of fig-trees their breed occupied.

they will see once again rivers freed from vast mounts,
wherein howling swim hippopotami immense,
wherein, bleached by the Moon that casts their silhouettes,
they sink to drink as they batter bullrushes down.

and, replete with their ponderous valour, they pass
as if a blackened strip, onto limitless sand;
and the desert claims its immobility back
when from the vista the massive voyagers vanish. 

 

from Leconte de Lisle, Poemes barbares. n.d. [1900]. Lemerre: Paris. pp. 183-185.

Olchar E. Lindsann has published nearly 50 books of literature, theory, translation, and underground history including six books of the ongoing series Arthur Dies (Luna Bisonte). His work has appeared in Otoliths, Lost & Found Times, Brave New Word, No Quarter, Slova, Fifth Estate, and elsewhere; and he has performed sound poetry and lectured extensively. He is the editor of mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, whose catalog includes over 250 print publications of the contemporary and historical avant-garde, and of the periodicals Rêvenance, Synapse, and The in-Appropriated Press. He also translates work of the French avant-garde of the 19th & early 20th centuries.

http://olindsann.blogspot.com/
http://monoclelash.wordpress.com/
http://revenant-archive.blogspot.com/
http://autonomous-library-catalog.blogspot.com/
http://bouzingo.blogspot.com/
http://emanationsoftheyellowsign.tumblr.com/

Seven Poems by Thompson Emate

 

Sad Flute

 

Tunes of despondent melodies,

Torture of a deprived soul,

I journey through a dark meadow,

I carry an undue weight,

I am hollowed by yesterday,

An elegy to twilight.

The Wind Whispers

 

Feeble boughs sway in the twilight,

The wind sighs and sings,

The rhythm of another era,

Whispers of the impermanence of life,

A door into its mysteries,

I remember my mother’s tales,

About an emergence in the stillness,

When deadness plucks nature’s strings,

Somehow this view left me,

The memories awakened in me.

Shroud of Dusk

 

Emergence of the unseen,

The mystery of ages,

The emptiness of something,

That which echoes in silence,

Heard by the seekers of truth,

Unveiled in deep solitude,

The mind calmed from its tempest.

Bracelet of Stars

 

A gathering in the stillness of night,

A fulfilment of what the sage foretold,

Emergence of the unspoken and the unwritten,

The arrival of a different spiritual order,

A bracelet of stars is the sign,

A revelation of only one true sovereignty.

The Coming Tomorrow

 

Holding onto tomorrow,  

Looking beyond today,  

Pushing aside my troubles,  

Reaching for tomorrow’s light.  

Hoping for a blossoming day,  

Walking out of today’s complexities,  

I journey into the unseen,  

That which my mind envisions.  

Anticipating tomorrow’s bloom,  

Fighting against the tendrils of night,  

Awakening a feeble hope,  

Finding the path to redemption.  

Remembering the words of the sage,  

Dwelling on the promises from sacred texts,  

I look beyond today’s shadows,  

Opening the door to a radiant tomorrow. 

Look

 

Look at these lovely thoughts; 

They have journeyed with me from the altar of consecration, 

Accompanying me from my communion with the Father of Lights. 

 

Look at these pure thoughts, 

The garden in my heart, 

Shrivelled on the muddy, pebbled path that leads to my shelter, 

Trampled by the chaos of impatience and inconsideration. 

 

Look at these blotched thoughts; 

They accompany me to my shelter, 

They follow me through the door 

That opens to an unlit room and a cold welcome. 

 

Look at these shattered thoughts, 

Look at these dark thoughts, 

Flying from my chamber, 

Feathered by the hidden falsehood of friendship, 

Winged by the darkness of the church at the first light.

Echo Chamber

 

Troubled by my journey into the day, 

Disturbed by the need to engage with its affairs, 

Worried by the voices that gnaw at my mind, 

I withdraw into my echo chamber, 

Finding comfort in its familiar space. 

 

I’m pleased to be in my little echo chamber, 

Thrilled to swim in the sea of my thoughts and reflections. 

Nothing feels amiss, 

Nothing intrudes. 

 

Yet, the garden in my heart begins to wilt; 

I start to feel plain, 

My imaginative lens begins to blur, 

And my understanding of the night becomes shadowy. 

 

When I finally step out of my echo chamber, 

My slumber is interrupted. 

I am flooded by the mysteries of the night, 

And I start to feel other worlds. 

My mind wanders through the sky, 

Becoming a turbulent sea in search of redemption.

Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing, particularly poetry and prose. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. His writing is themed on the inner struggles of the mind and the search for redemption. His work can be seen in Poetry Potion, Poetry Soup, Spillwords, Visual Verse, Writers Space African magazine, Borderless Journal, Friday, ScribesMICRO and elsewhere. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.