Five Poems by Ibn-Umar Abbasparker

An Unwanted Choice

 

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

 

With those words,

George W. Bush drew

a line in the sand

and told every Muslim in America

to pick a side:

 

ally or enemy,

country or faith,

America or Islam.

 

Why?

 

Why were Muslims forced

into a false dichotomy

when no other

religious group was?

 

Christians weren’t;

Jews weren’t;

Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs weren’t.

So why only Muslims then? 

 

 

On A Late Summer Sunday Night

 

“Emails” by Yung Lean is

playing through my headphones.

I take another sip of

Blue Moon beer as I stare

at the hazy orange streetlight

outside of my bedroom window.

The streets are quiet tonight;

a rare occasion. I go to the

bathroom to piss and return to

finish the beer. My third one so far.

I lay down on my firm mattress.

As I ponder this present situation,

the alcohol performs its

sleep-inducing magic. I take off

my headphones, close my eyes, and

float away into soporific bliss. 

 

 

A Poem Inspired by Cowboy Bebop

 

My left eye gazes at the past

while my right eye views the present.

Because of this split focus, I fail

to create a future for myself. 

 

 

Thursday Morning

 

The white daffodils are starting to rot.

 

I notice them from

my bathroom window as

I get ready for work,

 

After brushing my teeth,

I pause and look at

myself in the mirror:

 

forehead lines, bags under

my eyes, a receding hairline,

and a slight muffin top.

 

Ten years may go by fast,

but they leave a few marks.

Oh, well. I finish getting

 

dressed, grab my coat, and

head to my car. Once inside,

I glance at the daffodils

 

and see a white petal fall

to the ground. Then, I start my

car and drive off to work.

 

The day continues its usual march. 

 

 

A.Y.

 

Not much has changed for him since high school.

He still lives in his grandmother’s house,

still works a dead-end retail job at the mall,

and still runs with the same circle in

his hometown. He also quit community college

after just three semesters. Thus, his world matches

the size of his ambition: small and limited.

It’s almost sad that this 29-year-old “man”

maintains the life of a suburban teenage boy.

Yet, this is what he wants: freedom from

responsibility, struggle, and growth (i.e. adulthood).

He’s a classic case of Peter Pan syndrome,

but with a bad haircut. Even if it’s not

visible to him, other people can clearly see it.

They move forward with their adult concerns

while he remains stuck in stagnation. His

only plan for the future involves

living off his grandmother’s inheritance

once she passes. Meanwhile, he spends his nights

perusing Pornhub, Instagram, and Twitch

in a room stacked with collectible toys.

Ibn-Umar Abbasparker was born in the city of Newark, New Jersey but he grew up in the sleepy suburb of Sayreville, New Jersey. He has been writing poetry since high school. Poetry has led him to several intriguing places, allowed him to meet interesting people, and develop new connections over the years. This has transformed Ibn's simple interest into a sharp passion for writing poetry. Along with writing poetry, he also likes to read books and collect coins. He has had poems published in The Literary Hatchet, Soupcon Magazine and SCAB Magazine.

Four Poems by Vanessa Wheeler

 

SCREENING

my breasts removed

and cervix too

and burnt all three

an early cremation

of a fraction of me

no eulogy

and every year on

universe anger day

I get a text - 

come for screening

(for the me that is ash)

and the tut tut text next

MISSING

last seen in 2016

a couple of breasts

heading to their waterloo

a pair of embryonic sweat glands

a first bra and she blushes

Boudica’s bosom

black cabs cleaving sea of traffic

as they paraded across Marylebone Lane

two hundred years each

with child

a loop made of milk and eyes

lying down taking the surgeon’s call

pinching not weeping while he whispered

off with her breasts

stumps

smile

say thank you

only her waist left

and in her dressing and her undressing

and in her bathing and her loving

missed

LOVE IV

you are my liege, you are my knight

galloping on the Southbank

little boy lost I hold you tight

your hard breath, your hard hold

both I like

you are my liege, you are my knight

May’s lilac and the summer sun

luminous across your bed

little boy lost I hold you tight

stealing away quiet night

a slow burial of me

you are my liege, you are my knight

waiting, but you never come

sunlight fading into the muck

little boy lost I hold you tight

you are my liege, you are my knight

dark quiet the garden is dead

I wait, I want –

little boy lost I hold you tight

you are my liege, my knight

little boy found I hold you tight

you are my liege, my starry knight

BOLD LOVER

you say you love me

catch

it's unrequitable

poem says no

what a swizz

get off that urn

and court me proper

play Donne not Keats

keep your unrequitables

woman (not muse) here wanting

Vanessa Wheeler is a London-based poet. She lives and works in London and is currently unpublished.

Five Poems by Kushal Poddar

 

The Inside and The Outside of That Space

Dark listens well. Light talks

and talks. One word sits

on the cornice. Another tiptoes

on the fence. One word buries

a bone.

Once, while under a mad spell

I dug through the whole garden,

dug out your longest sentence.

If I found it earlier everything

and nothing would have changed.

Right now, dark listens with

the rapt attention of a good kid

who already knows- inside

and outside of a classroom

are different.

The Address Printed On The Envelope Is Never Enough

The postman still visits.

He forgets my address

everytime and enters

through the other entrance

and calls me asking for

the direction inside the compound.

Today even I cannot remember

the path between the buildings,

through the patches of weeds,

bypassing the startled cat. I cannot.

I ask him if he can see my hand,

a brown one, that waves at nothing

through the black collapsible gate,

eager for the letter, eager to trace

that address printed for on the envelope.

Homestay

The moon floats in the brine broth.

A boat kisses the shore. Its lips taste sad.

You have been fragile once,

want to be that again, overthink

the possibilities and omens,

judge a man by a moment.

Those footprints on the sand

can be anyone's. You repost them

on the same face of the earth.

The thoughts are reduced to be ducks,

and they too return to their homestay.

Insomniacs

During these insomniac hours

night stands in its speckled pajama.

The entire middle class becomes poet

They do not know. They wait.

Sleep rides a torrent. Sleep sleeps

on a blue plastic roof,

and no one writes down those thoughts,

and a handcart moves from one end

of the dark to the other with

mist piled upon it for anyone

who wants to pay and take it home.

No one where I live sleeps.

They wait. They wait for the text

of the morning.

 

Fated to Satiate

When the predator and the prey

begin to breathe as one,

and when the wind adds a shiver

to the grassland, and the river holds

on to the hollow of a tunnel

that they are yet to engineer,

I see the absence, emptiness

gain a structure, wear some flesh,

stagger and stumble toward me

and be me as if all my history

is the fall of a rodent, silent

and fated to satiate the gray and white owl.

Kushal Poddar - The author of ‘21 Gun Salutes and the Hemingway Syndrome’ and 'How To Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch' has eleven books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a five-year-old, illustrator, and an editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe.

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