One Poem and One Prose Piece by Dr. Koshy A.V.

 

A Pantoum as an ode or tribute on/to Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize winner, on his 80th Birthday.

It was a world made of love songs, of smoky hate and green-sleeved fate

It cut into the skin, till blood spurted out, visceral and feral

"Clinked, like a coin in the cup of the blind man at the gate"

Made of characters like the fictional Quinn, the Eskimo, and the real Blind Willie McTell

It cut into the skin, till blood spurted out, visceral, and feral

"You came up behind me, I saw you go by"

Made of characters like Quinn, the Eskimo, and Blind Willie McTell

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, et tu, a dream and a lie?

"You came up behind me, I saw you go by"

I have been the joker man, forever, and for larks

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, et tu, a dream and a lie?

"Look up in the hills, that flash of light." A dog barks.

I have been the joker man, forever, and for larks

In the world of the jukebox bars, the phonograph records will still gently spiral

"Look up in the hills, that flash of light." A dog barks.

I will hold you and dance again, to "rough and rowdy ways", Querelle.*

 

*from Genet

A reaction to Nero's fiddling

She had grown up in Delhi and found it unbearable. "As a part of the project, three iconic buildings in Delhi -- the National Museum, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), the National Archives Annexe -- are set to be demolished..." "Around 4,58,820 square metres in Delhi will be demolished as part of the renovation process, which includes Shastri Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan, Vigyan Bhavan, Vice President's Residence, Jawahar Bhavan, Nirman Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan and Raksha Bhavan." In the middle of a pandemic they still had money for such large scale construction and destruction, such ornateness and ostentation.

She felt her childhood fall away, hearing of and watching the demolitions. The blood in her turned to ice in determination, in anger. They were conserving, they said. What were they conserving? Not her memories of the city she had called home, at any rate.

She stood in front of the .gigantic, new building. It was quite a huge Vista. She had a Central(ized) view of it. She giggled. She looked around surreptitiously. No one was looking. She bent down, took a stone and threw it at one of the windows. The sound of shattering glass was music to her ears. Someone spotted her and alerted the authorities who started running towards her.

"Mad, must be mad."

"Be careful."

"It's a woman!"

"Terrorist?"

"Naxal?"

The voices floated to her and she started laughing. "Run", someone shouted, at her or the ones approaching, but "she stood hypnotized, rooted to the spot," still laughing, soundlessly, hearing the shattering of the glass again and again in her mind, music to her ears.

Dr. Koshy A.V. is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. He has many books, degrees, diplomas, certificates, prizes, and awards to his credit and also, besides teaching, is an editor, anthology maker, poet, critic and writer of fiction. He runs an autism NPO with his wife, Anna Gabriel. Two of his co-authored books published in 2020 were Amazon best-sellers in India and USA, namely, Wine-kissed Poems with Jagari Mukherjee and Vodka by the Volga with Santosh Bakaya.

 

 

One Poem by Debbie Hewson

 

Misplaced

 

I lost my Mum, people say

Like they put her down and walked away

And can’t remember where she is

Like a cup of tea or a glass of fizz

 

It’s a phrase that is unfair

And sounds like we, without a care

Have abandoned coats, a glove, a shoe

And on the way, a loved one too

 

In truth it is the other way

It’s us we lost on that sad day

A piece of me that’s left aside

Without my Mum to sit beside

Debbie Hewson lives in Dorset, where she is trying to restore a three hundred year old house, which is fighting her every step of the way.  She writes and walks on the beach and sometimes she dances badly.

One Superb Poem by Margaret Kiernan

 

Beyond Words-babies without amulets

 

Margaret might choose to read tealeaves in cracked bowls

Shore the world from news

 

Forecast Abbas will leave the table with his cigarettes

The tar throat pass-over. Margaret is it too late?

 

At his funeral feast of laments, Margaret may cast lots for kids

Still holding sound within their mouths

 

Margaret could rescue them, perhaps

Return billions  to Fort Knox

 

Make holy again the Torah, Margaret could possibly

Attempt a treaty with Divinity

 

Margaret sees no child beneath bludgeons

Rather crush  heads of the cabal

 

Those who drive Tanks over baby beds

Margaret perhaps  cast your spells.

Margaret Kiernan writes fiction, non-fiction essay, memoir, and poetry. She has had poetry and prose published in e-book, in anthology collections, and literary journals and magazines - including, Black-lion Press, Pendemic.ie journal-C19 collection , archived at University College Dublin, The Blue Nib Lit-Journal , The Write Life Magazine, Unity Global Festival, Vox Galvia at the Galway Advertiser, A New Ulster Literary Press, The Burrow Lit. Journal, Poet-Head.Wordpress.com and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

She writes with Over the Edge, Thursday writing/reading group at Galway Arts Centre, and, Ox Mountain Poets, Sligo.

She is listed in the Index of Contemporary Women Poets in Ireland, 2020. 

She holds several Educational qualifications, Including a Degree in Arts in Humanities, from Sligo IT.

Her background is in Advocacy in Human and Social Rights.

Margaret has completed numerous courses and workshops in writing, for prose and poetry.

Tutors in poetry includes, Annemarie Ni Churainn, Martin Dyer, Colm Keegan, Monica Corish, Moyra Donaldson, Noel Monahan, Kevin Higgins.

Tutors in prose includes, Claire Allan, Anne McMaster, Conor Kostick, Carlo Gebler, Malacai O’Doherty, Jan Carson, Ciara Doorley.

Margaret has four grown-up children. She lives in Westmeath with her dog Molly. She is a landscape painter. Is into Nature, walking, gardening, music, and heritage. She is working towards a First collection in Poetry.

 

Social Media-

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/margaretgibbonskiernan/@kiernanmargaret

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/margaretkiernan

LinkedIn: http://linkedIn.com/in/margaretkiernan

Facebook: http://facebook.com/margaret.kiernan

 

One Poem by John Patrick Robbins

 

Wellspring Of The Oasis

 

I will never share anything more than a drink and a laugh.

I am not the type to be myself with anyone let alone someone I just met.

 

It's better this way as I understand in matters of truth where it involves the heart.

 

It will never end well.

I have given up on any hope of anything beyond this page and a drink.

 

As in the silence I can sense everything and even the shit I care no longer to recall.

 

I view a distant muse who will never know my madness and maybe it's for the best.

 

I'm looking all the same my dear.

As this whisper of truth I hope finds you even within a strange sense.

May it hold its charm as I will never hold you.

 

And for the ignorant of my truths let them wonder and guess as you will probably never question.

 

A little bit of mystery is good for the tortured soul.

John Patrick Robbins,  is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review and The  Black Shamrock Magazine. 

His work has appeared here in Lothorian, Fearless Poetry Zine,  Medusa's Kitchen,  Spill The Words, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine,  San Antonio Review,  The Blue Nib and Sacred Chickens. 

He is also the author of The Still Night Sessions from Whiskey City Press. 

His work is always unfiltered.

 

One Poem by Prithvijeet Sinha

 

STANDSTILL

 

It was a hum,

then Poseidon's orchestra

was let loose. 

I was the virgin villa 

on the seashore,

ravaged by brute force 

of the waves.

 

 

January's drooping eyes saw my clandestine sorrow,

the word was spread from shore to shore.

Poseidon was the capital ,

receding tides here

clawed at my veins and foamed.

 

My hymen knot lay ruptured there,

my pillars bloodied by the night wind's prowl.

I was a derelict pawn in nature's cruel chessboard, 

waves of memories had shunned me.

 

 

That December,

the lighthouse, too, was a beacon no more.

Erect in his diffident indifference,

he was gendered by a testament of howling ego.

 

 

I am stripped of all my glory now,

the private rattle of croaking walls

is my sigh.

oh, how I stand as a broken body

drying my bloodstains,

as the sun shields me from daytime intruders.

 

NOTE: the above poem was originally self-published by the author on his Wattpad poetry collection WHISTLING CHIMES in 2015.

The writer's name is PRITHVIJEET SINHA from Lucknow, India. He is a post graduate in MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his writing career by self publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA besides having his works published in several varied publications as CAFE DISSENSUS, THE MEDLEY, SCREEN QUEENS, BORDERLESS JOURNAL, ASPIRING WRITERS' SOCIETY, LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL, CHAMBER MAGAZINE, LIVE WIRE, RHETORICA QUARTERLY and in the children's anthology NURSERY RHYMES AND CHILDREN'S POEMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD ( AuthorsPress, February 2021) 

His life force resides in writing.

 

Two Poems by Kelley White

 

So many empty ballrooms

 

even before the virus hit

adults stopped dancing to big bands

and only children danced, awkward

hands to hands and waists and backs

of necks and twilight, always twilight

through the windows, perhaps briefly lit

by the headlights of cars passing

in the rain. Here, in this empty place

beside the sea, the wind blows curtains,

windows just ajar to let spirits out

or in, and here’s a small, water-stained

photo, Grace Kelly, sixteen, dancing

with her father. Might have been you,

Daddy, you and me.

Lacuna

 

dear tooth

who greeted my children

with solidity

who guided whistles

through inattentive crowds

 

white marble gate to my voice

you have bitten off more

than you can chew

revealed the suspected

rottenness within

 

I felt no pain at your demise

only anger

at the stupidity

that opened once to momentary

yet compelling desire

to snap into brilliant

hard sugar

 

now I cannot laugh

without calling into view

my impoverished lack

of polish

cannot smile

without an open admission

of vice and greed

may you rest quiet

one half digested

as I have swallowed

your brittle crown

one half washed now

down the dentist’s

small whirlpool

sink

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in inner-city Philadelphia and rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her recent books are Toxic Environment (Boston Poet Press) and Two Birds in Flame (Beech River Books). She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.

 

 

Eight Haiku by Miriam Sagan

 

the day

painted a watercolour circle

even without you

smoke, fog, ink stroke

thoughts that disappear

before dawn

crow on a wire

the baby caws

at an empty sky

I made the garden

bed, now they lie in it—

ants

in his old journals

he claims he loved

only me

ten times a day

my to do list says:

stare out the window

no justice no peace

Reconciliation Park

graffiti

mindfulness teacher

never learns

my name

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent include Bluebeard's Castle (Red Mountain, 2019) and A Hundred Cups of Coffee (Tres Chicas, 2019). She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the creative team Maternal Mitochondria in venues ranging from RV Parks to galleries. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement. Her poetry was set to music for the Santa Fe Women's Chorus, incised on stoneware for a haiku pathway, and projected as video inside an abandoned grain silo in rural Itoshima. Her blog is Miriam's Well--http://miriamswell.wordpress.com

Four Sublime Poems by John Doyle

Someday San Francisco

 

Someday San Francisco will come visit me

when I’m broken like a window

 

that wrecking ball dealt with on Masonic,

the shortbread girl who stood near Union Square

 

will pick me up like crumbs before ravens take me;

she will be my daughter, my Persephone, my shoulder to crawl upon,

 

like a mouse or a caterpillar in Autumn winds in forests,

or a broken man who listens to David Bowie

 

while his planet asked him for divorce.

Someday San Francisco will come visit me,

 

tell me February is never gone, waiting in a brand new window -

shining on Masonic

 

Day One

 

Hal becomes Al,

removing one letter, otherwise he stays the same.

Carl becomes Carole, removing one organ,

adding another, but most tellingly two fresh new letters.

These letters are O and E.

O can mean Ohio, Obnoxious, Oblivious, Obstructive.

I've never been to Ohio, I've never had a sex change,

I did however give Hal back his H by accident,

he was courteous about it, but later I heard it rattling in a trash can,

Hal grumbling.

I am all of the latter nouns, which Carole pointed out to me

hours after Carl left surgery :

I have nothing left for E, except the word "Eventually",

which is what everyone and everything does to me,

over time they leave, eventually. I get used to it

 

 

Single Vehicle Accidents

For a man who died in County Galway, Summer 1980

 

Alone, straight stretch, sun like a basketball,

it strikes like cancer,

 

single vehicle accidents

near single storey houses 

 

where womenfolk come rushing to find solitary sons

of newspaper moguls, 21 years old, tux and dicky-bow still attached

 

somehow,

giving morning its first shapes and witness,

 

spread-eagled like a dream falling from an ear

that got trapped in light and dusty curtain,

 

and the cancer that had only recently cleared,

cracked-up limb and jigsaw skull

 

exciting the sleep from a newscaster's 

worn-down throat -

 

then an interlude from Brahms

before day-time 

 

finishes off the rest of us

less beautifully

Gillian 

 

Gillian somewhere in this aether

owns this book,

her signature dated - March 1970, I guess

 

from some liminality in England

that people occupy in ticking tocks of tea and bitter,

tractors driving past on Tuesday.

 

I found Gillian’s book, sitting on a radiator in a hospital ward,

sterilising itself as best it could

from dry-rot and AIDS, and things that silently capture 

 

elderly carcasses.

I sit here wondering if I’ve got cancer, or if not -

that simple -

 

what it was that caused Gillian 

to lose touch with this book

is not so simple. 

 

This is all I know of Gillian,

from a black-rot seat in times differing to these,

clocks and watches and clothing she knows.

 

There are other Gillians lurking here, be aware.

They too will appear, when they’re good and ready,

to share their diseases and dolls, their swear words and sadness

John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of nearly 7 years. Since then he's had 6 poetry collections published, with a 7th collection, "Isolated Incidents" due to be released by Pski's Porch in Summer 2021