An International Journal of Poetry, Poetics and Visual Arts
FOUNDER/PUBLISHER/E DITOR-IN-CHIEF: DEBASISH PARASHAR New Delhi-World advaitamspeaks@gmail.com
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief: Debasish Parashar E-mail: debasishparashar87@gmail.com advaitamspeaks@gmail.com
Published by Debasish Parashar New Delhi, India.
https://advaitamspeaksliterary.wordpress.com/ Copyright Š2017 The Authors
The contributors named in this book have asserted their moral rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act to be identified as the editors and authors of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the above-named copyright owners and the publisher.
Typography & Magazine
: Debasish Parashar
Cover Design & Page Layout
: Monikundal Bora.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poetry :
John Guzlowski, David Ades & Leslie Ades., Sukrita Paul Kumar, Z.M.Wise, Indunil Madhusankha, Biswamit Dwibedy., Daginne Aignend , Rony Nair, Ann Christine Tabaka , Ajmal Khan , Ryan Quinn Flanagan , Kariuki wa Nyamu, Nalini Priyadarshini, Nivedita, Mariela Cordero, Elizabeth Mariani, Sudeep Adhikari, Jyotirmaya Thakur, Joan McNerney, Carl Scharwath, Chestha Rajora, Rajnish Mishra, ilhem issaoui , Iris Orpi & Kabir Deb.
Visual Arts :
Daginne Aignend & Kyle Hemmings.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
From The Editor-in-Chief :
We have faith in poetry and visual arts. Advaitam Speaks Literary journal is a baby born out of that simple faith. We have just started our journey and we don’t know many things. We are learning everyday and we shall keep on learning till the end. We don’t strictly adhere to any political ideology, but we believe in listening to everyone. That does not mean that we are indifferent to the socio-political, cultural, sociological and economic changes happening around us. We appreciate everything creative and constructive. We don’t appreciate hate-mongering, although we do appreciate constructive criticism using the powerful tools of poetry and visual arts. We believe that as poets and artists we dream, and we love. Above all, we see and we do.
We are thankful to our contributors who have almost blindly believed in a new journal like us. We are thankful to our readers and well-wishers from different parts of the world.
We hope that our enthusiastic contributors and readers accept the Volume 1 Issue 3 of Advaitam Speaks Literary journal with love. Thank you.
Debasish Parashar, Editor-in-Chief, ASL journal.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Poetry
© Debasish Parashar
(In Picture : Anwesha Parashar)
“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” – George Bernard Shaw
Advaitam Speaks Literary
John Guzlowski
Bio: Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz said that Guzlowski’s writings reveal an “enormous ability for grasping reality” and that his first volume of poems ‘Language of Mules’ “astonished him.” John Guzlowski's poetry appears in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Rattle, Ontario Review, North American Review, Salon.Com, and many other journals. His poems and personal essays about his Polish parents’ experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany and refugees making a life for themselves in Chicago appear in his memoir Echoes of Tattered Tongues (Aquila Polonica Press). He is also the author of three novels. He is the recipient of the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Poetry Award and also Eric Hoffer Foundation's Montaigne Award for his book Echoes of Tattered Tongues.
On My 64th Birthday I Think of Dostoevsky
He had no 64th birthday, his death put a stop to that—a late winter’s day, a dropped pen holder he couldn’t pick up, an argument over payment for some work, the usual trivia triggering the blood spilling out of his lungs, into his throat and mouth, his wife Anna screaming, pleading with him to stop the red tide vomiting past his teeth and lips, but how could he? He knew what he knew. There is no cure for death. It stopped when it was ready to stop. And then there was just her weeping begging for some hope, some words that would tell her he was still there gaining his strength in the darkness.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
David Ades & Leslie Ades
Bio:
David Adès is a widely published Pushcart Prize nominated Australian poet. He is the author of the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal, and the poetry collections Mapping the World(commended for the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award 2008) and Afloat in Light (see https://www.isbs.com/collections/uwappoetry/products/9781742589466 . David has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. His poems have won the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize and have been shortlisted or highly commended for a number of other prizes including the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and the Newcastle Poetry Prize.
Lesley Adès is a well-travelled doctor and artist. Her imagery featured on the cover of Friendly Street Poetry Reader No. 26, and her brother’s poetry anthology, Mapping the World. She practiced as a full-time artist in 2003, and 2009/2010, and has had eight solo exhibitions. Lesley uses oil paint, beeswax, collage, glazes and sculptural elements to create narrative works of whimsical children and primitive figures. She has published extensively in the scientific literature, and on her experience of the interplay between art and medicine (Out of captivity. Med J Aust 81:628-630 (2004)). Her works are held in private collections in Israel, France, Switzerland, America and Australia. She believes passionately in the power of art and medicine to heal.
The following is a paragraph contextualising the collaboration between David and Lesley Adès:
David and Lesley Adès, brother and sister, have long been interested in collaborating together. David has previously written poems inspired by Lesley’s art. Lesley’s art graced the cover of David’s book "Mapping the World" and also of "Friendly Street Poetry Reader 26", which David co-edited with Ioana Petrescu. The collaboration for ‘Bouquet’ was unintentional. After their father's death in 2007, David and Lesley independently forged creative and artistic expressions towards their mother, Huguette. David wrote the poem "Bouquet". Lesley dedicated an entire exhibition – "apostrophes and biscuits" - to her mother. Attending the exhibition, David was astonished to encounter the sculpture (bronze casting, steel, wire, wood, plaster of paris, acrylic, enamel, collage, silk, tulle), entitled "Bouquet". Each in their own way, brother and sister, sought to acknowledge the enormity of their mother's love and express their shared loss, using their respective parallel languages.
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Bouquet
I have gathered the most beautiful flowers from all my fields of tenderness, arranged them just so, and placed them in the vase of your love so that you may find consolation whenever you need it.
Sukrita Paul Kumar
Bio: Sukrita Paul Kumar, born and brought up in Kenya, is a well-known poet and critic. Aruna Asaf Ali Chair, Delhi University, she was formerly, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and an Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA). She has been a recipient of many prestigious fellowships and residencies. Her books of poems include Dream Catcher, Poems Come Home (with translations by Gulzar), Without Margins and Folds of Silence. Amongst others, Sukrita’s critical works are Narrating Partition and The New Story.
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Good Morning
Razor sharp and shrill The ray of light enters the room shearing the wavy curtains knocking my eyelids open, waking me to this world snapping me out from the world nesting inside so secure, so fragile lying wrapped in delicate covers of sleep
Inside, action in deep darkness within the ball of time
with no creaks and splits
till light cuts through it Eyes opening to the world outside, cars galloping on vacant, early morning
the sun slanting over black and grey heads
glistening roads children school
readying
for
already frowning under heavy baskets filled with worries and nerves battling with split time doling out morning greetings with heavy hearts
All over again same motions of the day from morning chores to afternoon labour to the prescribed evening walk of ten thousand steps to a dinner of measured calories
Sinking into the couch I rush into the world behind the eyelids deeper and deeper still with all curtains drawn into a world secure and fragile
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Z. M.Wise
Bio: Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native, poet, co-editor and poetry activist, writing since his childhood. He has been a written-word poet for almost two decades and a spoken-word poet for four years. Wise is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press, an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum, with his dear friend and founder Dustin Pickering. He has published four full length books of poetry, including: 'Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock!' (MavLit Press), 'The Wandering Poet' (Transcendent Zero Press), 'Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems' (Weasel Press), and 'Cuentos de Amor' (Red Ferret Press). Other than these four books, his poems have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. The motto that keeps him going: POETRY LIVES!! Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.
zmwisethepoet.tumblr.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zack-weiss-74aa4775
Serpentes: The Year
Killer cobra, baby rattler. Spit in the eye‌ Mongoose: the paramour. Crawl towards the evening trickster and make ssssssensual Ssssssundays. Cursed with immobility, except belly on the ground. Crawling king, energy-pilfering queen.
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Unhinge the French jaw to show us love of your resonating dance. To be incapacitated by forked tongue orders, furious farce! Anaconda mama, be my latest squeeze. One step! One slither to paradise! Cool is the reptile. The blood: the vile. Bite the nourishment. A meet and greet for Egyptian newborn eggs. Ride the sister‌ The lake cannot take memories of you again.
Indunil Madhusankha
Bio: Indunil Madhusankha is currently an undergraduate reading for a BSc Special Degree in Mathematics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Colombo. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet and content writer. Basically, he explores the miscellaneous complications of the human existence through his poetry by focussing on the burning issues in the contemporary society. Moreover, Indunil’s works have been featured in several international anthologies, magazines and journals.
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A Portent Warns a Soldier's Wife (Previously published in TH REEST VERSES anthology)
The gutter of the wrenching lamp flame twisting itself wildly made a warning It jumped, skipped, pulled and spun round and round And was, in the end, dragged away by the roar of a brisk wind Her pulsation was hit for a moment‌ Throughout that night, she was armed against her heart The next day, it was late in the morning as she learnt he was gone, Gone with that very flame of her lamp.
To a Street Girl I Saw (Previously published in the Ascent Aspirations Magazine on 1st January 2016)
Your permed hair and gaped mouth still do I remember Between your dried lips. there were the brownish stained teeth that never gleamed. You had made your home in a grey corner of the scruffy pavement and a companion in a skeletal puppy. The torn out frock with its receding thread attached to the thin figure of sickly constitution. The sputter of a coin or two in your stained, discarded sardine tin was your sole communication. Goggle eyes fixed upon you and pupils in them dashing up and down While the night gorilla hurrying amidst the street buildings your soft whimper heard by nobody. At times you were beside a public dustbin scavenging leftovers amidst a heap of cellophane. Your still eyes, I know, bore an expression and they revealed everything.
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Biswamit Dwibedy
Bio: Biswamit Dwibedy is the author of Ozalid (1913 Press, 2010), Eirik’s Ocean (Portable Press, 2016) and Ancient Guest (HarperCollins, 2017). He guest-edited a dossier of Indian poetry for Aufgabe13, published by Litmus Press, and edits Anew Print, a smallpress focused on translations from India. He was also a judge for the Best Translated Book Award in 2015. He has an MFA in writing from Bard College and teaches in Bangalore at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology.
Bubbles
The Master had been busy in discourse or indirectly observe, bubbles on water are as if planets, and so I open the lid of the pot & see the birds fly into the sky!� In our day to day life For example if there is a fish, it would let bubbles small and large seen on the water surface & in Chlorophyll sunrays very feeble nonetheless was a flower but it changed to a bird, that is it found your helping hands to be mine alone in all my work and plays not disappear floating into the separation between orbits.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Daginne Aignend
Bio : Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch poetess and photographic artist Inge Wesdijk. She likes hard rock music and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals. Daginne posted some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her fun project website www.daginne.com, she's also the co-editor of Degenerate Literature, a poetry, flash fiction, and arts E-zine. She has been published in several Poetry Review Magazines, in the bilingual anthology (English/Farsi) 'Where Are You From?' and in the Contemporary Poet's Group anthology 'Dandelion in a Vase of Roses'.
CRAVING
You're beautiful as you lay there Alabaster skin shimmering pale in the twilight The scent of roses mingled with camphor frames you in a painting of a prodigious serenity
I need to embrace you, kiss your cold lips, taste the fading shreds of an abiding tenderness Our coalescence will be
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be perfect in all its splendor when my hunger shall be quenched next night by your bittersweet blood
RED
I never liked red colors, too aggressive, it makes me nervous Though a whisper of red is the cherry on the cake like the touch of carmine lipstick I wear, going out with the girls
Once I painted an entire wall flaming red It was awful but reflected my state of mind at that time, chaotic and full of anger Then I decided my wedding gown should be red More of a statement against
all those sugar coated laced traditional wedding dresses It was a beautifully elegant and seductive garment with a glittered red bosom Escorted by the most incredible high heeled red pumps The happiest day of my life
Red turned to be a bad omen Our relationship stranded, my beautiful dress destroyed due to a bad treatment at the dry cleaner's The glitters melted and my marriage froze
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Rony Nair
Bio: Rony Nair’s been a worshipper at the altar of prose and poetry for almost as long as he could think. They have been the shadows of his life. (They’ve been) the bedsit at the end of a long day; the repository that does the sound of silence inimitably well. Not unlike a pet; but with one core difference- the books do suggest, educate and weave a texture that marginally provides streams of thought that are new. And one of the biggest pleasures of his life, is certainly holding a treasured edition in one’s hands. Physically. Rony works as an oil and gas Risk Management consultant. He’s been 20 years in the industry since starting off as an Industrial engineer a long time ago. Extensively traveled. Dangers fronted often. But that’s his day job. The one that pays for bread and bills.
Rony is a published columnist with the Indian Express. He is also a professional photographer about to hold his first major exhibition and has previously been published by Sonic Boom, Quail Bell Magazine, YGDRASIL journal, Mindless Muse, Yellow Chair Review, Two Words For, Ogazine, New Asian Writing (NAW), Semaphore, The Economic Times, 1947, The Foliate Oak Magazine, Open Road Magazine, Tipton Review, Antarctica Journal, North East Review, Muse India, and YES magazine, among others. Rony has also featured in the Economic Times of India. He cites V.S Naipaul, A.J Cronin, Patrick Hamilton, Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Nevil Shute in addition to FS Fitzgerald as influences on his life; and Philip Larkin, Dom Moraes and Ted Hughes as his personal poetry idols. Larkin’s’ collected poems would be the one book he would like to die with. When the poems perish. As do the thoughts!
Inventories from the Wasteland
The deepest woods bear pathways. Twinning up over “Welcome” boards; department stores stock piles of sewage stowed away from vision. Necrophiliacs and butterfly parks. Stalk-eyed train tracks. Curving alleyways; splinters of grass. Escalator stairways, glass-frosted giveaways fronting up as talismanic signboards. Run down shanty towns papered over washed laundry boards. Bags filled with yesterday’s scabs. Mental eyewash.
I came by yesterday to walk with you, “Who walks through woods anymore,” you said, “other those those crazy souls. Bereft. Alone.”
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A fair distance from Paris. People traipse out behind stadiums; to let themselves release, in conservatories, where birds mutate into carnivores in evolution; reversing the score. Pterodactyl plates in museums no longer bear signage or signature plates, as the moors who stand guard hold inquests. In selfie mode.
So the pathways curve in sonorous ways. The birds still congregate on solitary mannequin shaped trees set up to adorn tanks filled up to resemble lakes. You said, “Who walks anymore anyway! And these woods aren’t woods anymore.”
Billboards scream of carparks and trees, viscerally placed to draw our breath; spasmodic. Entwined. Ghost-ridden. Laughs before lights seems to be the name of the game. No Cigarette zones and stubbed out reams. Fairy godmothers, empty dreams, cars plying into driveway stores. Rubber machines. Gravel.
If you still want to not walk alone over petrolite spirits, there’s green bunds and verdant hillocks. Just down from the liquor store.
You said, “Stuck between longing and love, I’m not too sure anymore.”
The moral police occupy swathes of foliage. Corruption is legal, but a kiss would kill. There’s a stage ready for the next conservation advert. Beside the stash there’s carwash tracks; gargoyle taxidermists stuff elephants next to toy trains that run east to west. Plywood lines in fracture echo across territory long held in abeyance; marked by silhouette rings curved into the next golf course. Refreshment sins.
These are places down under where we knew the score. Peopled tents and rancid bores extended hands; and comedy out of an Elmore Leonard bookended triage. You said, “There you go again. With something that means nothing.” I sat down. And retched.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Ann Christine Tabaka
Bio: Ann Christine Tabaka was born and lives in Delaware. She is a published poet, an artist, a chemist, and a personal trainer. She loves gardening, cooking, and the ocean. Chris lives with her husband and two cats. Her poems have been published in numerous national and international poetry journals, reviews, and anthologies. Chris has been selected as the resident Haiku poet for Stanzaic Stylings.
RED SKY
Red skies, blue promises I remember you when the lilacs were in bloom, you held out your hand
I was lost in your history of castles and white knights, begging for another caress, only to be discarded
Dragged through the darkness like a frightened child, the ocean called to me by name
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I answered with a sigh
Like so many dandelion seeds I was scattered adrift, nothing left to give, but a red sky
SEEDS OF HOPE
The day breaks open like a giant seed pod, spilling its treasures before us. Expectations scattering on the wind, to find their new homes and take root.
Lingering a little too long I lose sight of my journey, drifting into that unknown place of mind and thought.
Memories of you and how your hand touched my face, fill stray moments lost in the sands
of an abandoned sea shore.
Cold ocean waves washing away yesterday’s footprints of time. I walk past fragments of life floating on a tidal pool of dreams.
The day pushes on in breaths and sighs as I continue on my way, watching the seeds of hope drifting out with the tide.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Ajmal Khan
Bio: Ajmal Khan A.T is a bilingual writer who writes in English and Malayalam. His English poetry collection My Tolerant Nation is published (forthcoming) by Wings & roots (2017) and Malayalam one line story collection Museebat (2017) published by Monsoon Books, Mumbai. His poems have featured in Muse India, Bangalore Review, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, Thumb Print Magazine, Beyond the rainbow literary magazine, Cafe Dissensus Magazine and The Sunflower collective among others. His poems have also appeared in anthologies including GOSSAMER; An anthology of contemporary world poetry by Kindle Magazine.
My missing poem
My poem is said to be missing by the editor I got a formal letter today saying "Your poem is missing and we regret to inform you that we can't publish missing poems" I had sent it via Registered post signing on the poem He had to sign on the register to accept my poem and in the records he has singed on it Still he says my poem is missing Did any ABVP goons assaulted my poem after the editor singed on it? This time my poem had a Muslim name unlike last time it had a Dalit name then Editor didn’t accept my last poem saying I haven’t attached an original Scheduled Caste Certificate since they found the attached certificate fake Now I didn’t have any Muslim certificate to attach with but he might be sure of it from the syntax, adjectives, verbs and rhymes that its a Muslim before it was "missed" between the editors Where does all the missing poem goes? To the dust bin of the editor and then to the dumping wastes ? Until a new poem being written and published the idea of my poem see no light Unless my poem is found in between by the police or the dead body of my poem found in editors dust bin.
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Rejected poem
The poem was accused as anti national and rejected like a US visa applicant from Muslim country It wanted to prove as nationalist It started with Vande matharam the continuing lines were only nouns of the independence struggles which the poem was part of Rest of the lines were written in green, white and kesari in colour Signed on the lines which start with J&K that they are integral part it ended with national anthem The poem was again rejected on the grounds had two names Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in foot note, syntax had no saffron and khaki pattern Moplah rebellion is included and instead of 1947 its written Azaadi.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
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Charles Baudelaire, Negative Nancy Extraordinaire
Flippant awning glib canoe paddles frivolous purchase belittled shoelaces indolent wormhole offhand comment X3 dismissive opium trade superficial gaming cards dispirited shipwreck X 7 indifferent telephone book contemptuous whale blubber sluggish street corners trivialized embrace apathetic half-dollar
unmoved moving vans getting parking tickets from the city.
Leisure Suit
Looming strident gait down the avenues each word mulled over careful as a bank heist collars of impersonation starched and practised and exacting; the knife breaking skin, sex games in the dark, adulterous flesh on flesh: pungent animal thrusting‌
See you in November my dear, my lovely, an excuse for each occasion.
There is a reason dinner parties chew their food in collective silence.
Large manila envelopes stuffed full of the hungry Philippines
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Kariuki wa Nyamu
Bio: Kariuki wa Nyamu is a passionate Kenyan poet, script writer, editor, translator, literary critic and educator. He obtained an Honours BA Education (Literature and English) from Makerere University, Uganda. His poetry won the National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU) Literary Awards 2007 and Makerere University Creative Writing Competition 2010. He is published in A Thousand Voices Rising, Boda Boda Anthem and Other Poems, Best New African Poets 2015 Anthology, Experimental Writing: Volume 1, Africa Vs Latin America Anthology, Best New African Poets 2016 Anthology, among others. He is presently pursuing a Master of Arts in Literature at Kenyatta University, Kenya.
Silenced forever!
Silenced forever is the renowned satirical essayist and most acclaimed poet since he became President’s Advisor on Literature and the Media!
Silenced forever is the outspoken Professor of Comparative Politics since he joined the regime he castigated for years on end!
Silenced forever is the critical playwright and most prolific novelist since he quit writing after he was allegedly accused of treason!
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Silenced forever is the radical and foremost fighter for Gender equality since she was crowned Minister without Portfolio!
Silenced forever is the iron-hearted Parliamentarian alias iron lady since she was coaxed into taking up Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs!
Silenced forever is the most vocal and cynical economic analyst since he was nominated chairperson of Anti-corruption Commission!
Silenced forever is the daring award winning investigative Journalist since he was appointed head of State House Press Unit!
Silenced forever is the senior Literature don and vociferous critic of president’s stand since she took up government spokesperson-ship!
Silenced forever is the charismatic lead protestor and paupers’ rights activist since she was decorated with an accolade on Heroes day!
Silenced forever is the visionary columnist and strident public sensitizer on maladministration since he won State’s overseas PhD scholarship in Film Technology!
Silenced forever is the prominent opposition MP and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate since her acceptance to form the coalition government!
Silenced forever is the no-nonsense Major General freshly turned politician since he was inveigled to take up ambassadorship to I Don’t Know Where!
Anyhow, kindly bear with them since they knew not how it’d cost our nation and don’t ever take me seriously since I don’t wish to be Silenced forever!
First published in an Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry entitled A Thousand Voices Rising, 2014
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All in Your Honour
When you cease to be, You’ll surely hit the day’s headlines Flags shall henceforth fly at half mast for a couple of days, as you so demand. Several days of national mourning shall be declared all in your honour awaiting a colourful State burial for that’s precisely your last wish upon leaving the August house!
Indeed Honourable, You’re going to love this that a three-hour memorial lecture of your Life story shall be held at the University’s amphitheatre in reverence of the legacy you’ll have left. Your remains shall then be driven to Bunge for a special sitting Then, a day of free public viewing of your body shall be observed at Uhuru Park and one more day of conveying condolences to the bereft at Nyayo stadium by whoever that wishes to shower you with praises!
And on the send-off feast Our national flag shall cover the State- imported casket! The military police band shall lead the procession with entertainment
The government spokesperson shall read the novella-length eulogy! The most right Cardinal shall say the day-long requiem mass! And His Excellency the President who I believe will be appointed the chief mourner by your clan shall surely give a regretful speech to the nation for the untimely demise of a Right Honourable!
Beloved compatriots, that’s all our law makers ask for in death As if they’ll hear any of the said praises As if they’ll see the Live Television broadcast of their send-off As if they’ll read the genuineness of emotions of mourners As if they’ll appreciate the long convoy in their stillness And thousands of paupers coming to see the police shoot in the sky And since it’s only in Africa where the dead have choices… Fret not, for we shall definitely honour all your demands!
First published in Jalada Africa 04: The Language Issue- Bonus Edition, 2016
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Nalini Priyadarshini
Bio: Nalini Priyadarshni is the author of Doppelganger in My House and co author of Lines Across Oceans. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, podcasts and international anthologies including Mad Swirl, Camel Saloon, Dukool, In-flight Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, The Riveter Review, The Open Road Review, Your One Phone Call, In Between Hangovers and Yellow Chair Review. Her poems and views on poetry and life have been featured on AIR (All India Radio) and FM radio. Nalini’s has been nominated for 2017 Top Female Writers by The Author’s Show.com for her book Doppelganger in My House. She lives in India with her husband and two feisty kids.
The Weaver
Arguments make you more real than kisses you hand out as a second thought before you shoo me out of your world and disappear on me for days I weave the cloak of familiarity with slivers of you I pry out while that tiny Japanese masseuse walks your back Denial won’t redeem you or make you less vulnerable my unwavering love just may
(Part of Doppelganger In My House)
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The Doors
Dragging at my feet are doors galore some never opened some relocked and key tossed down the throat with a vodka shot
Rusted locks tempt me with promises of treasures lost destinies misplaced turns I missed choices never mine to make
Doors rankle with every step grow heavier by minute bogging me down with what isn’t but should have been or could have been
Freedom is what I seek from gnawing pustules of yesterdays and tomorrows to rise and soar unshackled, unbridled, unaffected
(Part of Doppelganger in My House)
Nivedita
Bio:
Nivedita is a poet, writer, publisher, independent researcher, editor and karepak. She blogs at nnivedita.com and has founded nivasini; a work in progress especially in the field of social creative entrepreneurship.
Her research papers and works have appeared in noted journals and anthologies and she has presented her papers on poetry, social change and publishing in Unveristy of Hyderabad’s RawCon 2014, was selected in 2015’s Raw.Con before she moved to Wisconsin where she is an active member in the start up literary groups and nonprofit publishing multimedia houses. Her most recent review of Unbound: 2000 years of Indian Women’s writing (Ed. A. Zaidi) appeared in café dissensus.
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Poem 1
Poem 2
Photosynthesis Spread your arms and let the oxygen of your being
Poem 3
Class Jester, the joker Jester never had it easy. His life, a riot of laughter
circulate into the burnt leaves and broken dreams His heart, a relic of disaster
The carbon dioxide of the seeds can He wore tight pants to look like a fool but he was cool
only be uprooted by thy kindness, love and compassion, regardless
That damaged his core – ah, a terrible whirlpool
Mariela Cordero
Bio: Mariela Cordero is from Venezuela. She is a Lawyer, Poet, Writer and visual artist. She has received many awards and accolades like Third Prize of Poetry Alejandra Pizarnik Argentina (2014), First Prize at the Second Ibero-American Poetry Contest Euler Granda, Ecuador (2015), Second Prize of Poetry Concorso Letterario Internazionale BilingĂźe Tracceperlameta Edizioni, Italy (2015), Micro-poemas Prize in Spanish of the III contest TRANSPalabr @RTE 2015, Spain as well as the First Place in International Poetry Contest Hispanic Poets mention of literary quality, Spain 2016.
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The air knows.
He is full of my confession he feels the face of the unknown he plays with the atoms of my Eden he shouts to the crowd that name but no one can decipher his scream.
You came with the rain.
The sun of this story without telling
You were in the middle of the downpour
Expands me.
a taste of the climate a landscape to succumb to.
Only the air knows. You were multiplied in every drop like an invading fable.
You were like thunder in the scar of my night.
Elizabeth Mariani
Bio: Interdisciplinary Artist Elizabeth Mariani currently lives in New York and works mainly in photography, visual art and poetry. Mariani has been published in Poem Town Randolph, The Brooklyner Magazine, Berbice [Mrkt], Hammered Out, BlazeVOX, Fortunates, Artvoice, The Buffalo News, After the Pause, Two Serious Ladies, The Seneca Nation of Indians Newsletter, Great Lakes Review, Letterhead, Nomad, and Fortunates. Broadsides have evolved from collaborations with artists Jeremy Maxwell and Michael Morgulis.
WWW.ABOUT.ME/LIZMARIANI www.85cqu.wordpress.com
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Directives Undone
This is for the homeless poets crippled with shame and menstrual blood This is for the cisgender straight women on a marriage trajectory assured of their righteousness This is for the beast living large within the concept of race This is for the pulling of tissues of tissues of tissue This is for the removal of skin
Sudeep Adhikari
Bio: Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. His poetry has appeared in more than eighty magazines, online/print on different parts of the world. His recent publications were with Beatnik Cowboys, Zombie Logic Review, The Bees Are Dead, Silver Birch Press and Eunoia Review.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Shangri-La of Void
The stone-turf bends across the void of a lonely day as the pines silently whisper Diamond Sutra to a wet Shangri-La, watching over a world of suffering with its eyes of melting gold.
The silence comes in shades of dark and washed out greens. And the uncountable ruptures
On nothing-windows, trying to be the soul of multiple and more.
The void has a thing for things. It watches itself through the eyes of its own sins; in the form
of you, me and all the weeping granites hanging on a mountain slope.
Jyotirmaya Thakur
Bio: Jyotirmaya Thakur is an Indian poetess and writer. She is a retired vice Principal of an International school. She is a creative writer at few poetic forums and a freelance writer, an admin of nearly ten poetic forums, national and international. A member of jury in poetry competitions in seven poetic forums and presides as judge in English Co curricular activities in schools colleges and clubs.she worked as Editor-in-chief of school magazines, ‘Srijan ‘ and ‘Reflections, was a reference editor of a literary magazine ‘Quest’. She has published articles, short stories and poems in English and Hindi magazines and international anthologies and websites. A book -REALITY OF RHYTHMS has been published as e-book available on amazon.com and hard copy will be available soon. Jyotirmaya holds certificates for excellence in performance and contributions from various poetic forums,nearly 10 emerald medals,25 platinum medals,45 gold medals and 25 designations for icon of artistry of literature. The co editor of Anthology on “Women, Whims and Fancies “of My books Publications. She is a coach and counsellor of tribal, rural impoverished children and attached to an organisation epileptic children in Uk.She resides with her family in Kent,UK and also resides in India ,she is an Indian citizen.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
SHE IS A WOMAN She is born unwanted but saved for humanity, Human race has to go in leaps and bounds, Her grace and love is a gift of divinity, Her compassion, humility always astound, Who believes what goes around comes around, The one who hopes for a better day, Her essence in positive grit, courage surround. The one who won't give up on anything, Anyway she's a woman unlike the rest, The one who spends her day smiling, Healing, spreading hope in light, Her heart cries in darkness of night. She's a woman who loves to be loved One who looks so mighty strong, For children, elders and beloved, But her tenderness feels wrong. The orphan, discarded child is a girl, She is the one who flags unfurl, She is a woman who picks herself up, Everytime she falls in the dump.
Joan McNerney
Bio: Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Three Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky and she has four Best of the Net nominations.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Fear
Sneaks under shadows lurking in corners ready to rear its head folded in neat lab reports charting white blood cells over edge running wild.
Or hiding along icy roads when day ends with sea gulls squalling through steel grey skies.
Brake belts wheeze and whine snapping apart careening us against the long cold night.
Official white envelopes stuffed with subpoenas wait at the mailbox. Memories of hot words burning razor blades slash across our faces.
Fires leap from rooms where twisted wires dance like miniature skeletons. We stand apart inhaling this mean air choking on our own breath.
I planted my garden
on the wrong side of moon forgetting tides of ocean lunar wax wane
only madness was cultivated there underground tubular roots corpulent veins
Advaitam Speaks Literary
flowers called despair gave off a single fruit...
I ate it my laughter becoming harsh my eyes grew oblique.
Carl Scharwath
Bio: Carl Scharwath, has appeared globally with 100+ magazines selecting his poetry, short stories, essays or art photography. He won the National Poetry Contest award for writers One Flight Up. His first poetry book is 'Journey To Become Forgotten' (Kind of a Hurricane Press). Carl is a dedicated runner and 2nd degree black- belt.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
PTSD
Hot black asphalt impregnated and marked with the tires of a spinning coffin box.
Pieces of cold medal violently envelope around your warm skin. Glass rains down in tiny fragments of snow mixed in the creation of shards stained in blood and sunshine. Falling asleep in a gyration of a vertigo vortex. Morning will awaken you with the chance to hold life again in your fingers.
Florescent sun slants Upon a new genesis The inspiration is here Seized in understanding.
Cheshta Rajora
Bio: Cheshta Rajora, a postgraduate student in English literature from Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Although I am beginning a new gig with legal studies, my relationship with language is as complex. I like to wrestle with it and push its boundaries to make space for newer ways of apprehending reality. While writing began as a child, it was during my graduation days that I realized that poetry, and literature at large, has a more public role to play. I began to get published in college and department magazine. My short story has been recently published in an online travel journal, Coldnoon magazine, titled 'The Girl with the Pearl Earring'.
Writing has allowed me to crawl into impermissible bylanes and alleys and check, for my own, if something is amiss. I also like to write non-fiction. I also maintain a blog of my own in order to never allow my well-being suffer at the hands of schedules, time tables, and grotesque heartbreaks.
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Monochrome grey of Aleppo
The city is crying in a single colour of grey for the shade of a tree that now bends into a turned and twisted burnt barbed wire, The city is crying in a single colour of grey while mosques turn to bony skeletons, and people to swabs of rubble. The city is crying in a single colour of grey while mothers take new sons to their breasts.
It will find words. It will write. It will weep again in memory
Rajnish Mishra
Bio: Rajnish Mishra is a poet, writer, translator and blogger born and brought up in Varanasi, India and now in exile. He loves his city and knows how much it has affected him as a human being and as a poet. His work originates at the point of intersection between his psyche and his city. His work has now started appearing in journals and websites.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
NY Times Report
A Bronx man conducted surveillance of military and intelligence outposts in New York city and airport, in support of anticipated terrorist attacks, the federal authorities said in a criminal complaint. The man, 32, a naturalized citizen, told the F.B.I. in a series of interviews: he was recruited for Islamic Jihad as part of an effort to develop “sleepers” who lived ostensibly normal lives. Could be “activated and tasked” with conducting operations.
My Lines Life-long have I envied others many a line, Will someone ever envy me mine, My verse born now, fresh, dead until read? Someone, anyone, yes, you If only you read it! Would you call it just fine? Would it not be dead, not dead if read? Not when, but if, nor good or bad just read? I thought of writing lines for you, Of beauty, of strength, of truth, A song, just one, of hope, of inspiration. Lines on those themes come rarely now, To write that way in these times is a sin, These vacuous, vacant, little, listless times. What use of such pursuits? In a world like ours, what’s false, what’s true? Hate, anger, frustration themes right for you. My poems shallow, from heart’s depths rise. They lack in the mass of meaning, vision’s breadth, not volume, Not style but sense, not craft but art. Who wants to say just what they want to say, and stop, When it’s just begun, not half the distance run? When how it's said, for how long heard, is half the fun? They call me passionless, in my head, half-alive half-dead. I lack sorely, they say, inspiration: Those drops of blood that the heart brings on page. My poems are hard as stone, artificial. I bring no flowers of hell with me, No, that’s not all, no fires of heaven bring I. The visionary glance is not mine. Love, longing, thorns of life, not mine, Nor envy’s green flush, shame’s blush scarlet, fear’s pallor: They have almost been done to death. Nor can I take a prophetic stance on Self or Man, Doubt or Faith, all inventoried subjects, Nature or Nation? Crawling in mud, or flights sublime and steep?
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ilhem issaoui
Bio: ilhem issaoui is a 24-year-old Tunisian translator and poetry and short stories writer. Some of her poems and short stories have appeared both online and in print in magazines including Three line poetry, Salis Online Magazine, Mind Magazine, Mad Swirl Magazine, Jaffatelaqlam, Danse Macabre, About Place Journal, etc. She is also the author of a collection of poems entitled Fragments of a Wounded Soul.
open thy windows O sky celestial
open thy windows O sky celestial fasten them not this evening O sky gather thy clouds and weep as it pleases you I march solivagant fuliginous, none can see me none can fear me I fear myself open thy windows O sky celestial On that balcony I wept and dreamt and sung On that balcony I wept his departure And there too I yearned to defenestrate all thoughts of him I damned the rain I have loved I damned the almond blossoms I have adored
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Iris Orpi
Bio:
Iris Orpi is a Filipina writer currently living in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is the author of The Espresso Effect (2010), Cognac for the Soul (2012) and Beautiful Fever (2012). Her work has appeared in dozens of print and online publications across North America, Europe and Asia. She was an Honorable Mention for the Contemporary American Poetry Prize, given by Chicago Poetry Press, in 2014.
The Soul’s Changing of the Guards
I want what this twilight has: glory in transience and freedom and an entire sky to paint as it sees fit. A message to listen to, spoken in colors and breathed into the act of fading purples into reds into touches of slipping darkness. A sense of being enough. The softly spoken poetry of an ending, coming in stages as the moments fall through a spectrum of sentiments, first, apart then, into each other and later, into the lingering certainty of having just witnessed beauty, and neither being burdened to recreate it nor regretting that it cannot be possessed.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Remembering
The hometown of the past is known for its broken clocks and the trains of thought that get crowded quickly at rush hour, where half the passengers forget where they’re going before they get there and memory misses most of its stops. There is music but it only plays when something important is about to happen, or has just happened, but never when it is happening, and the familiar hush is made from the debris of moments that will be broken down and played over and over, on many a sleepless night. The weather is nice, except for storms, and the occasional evening when the moon looks beautiful and no one is there. People change their appearance depending on the light and whomever they are speaking to, and they use big words, words that hurt, or heal, or cause earthquakes; very rarely do they make small talk unless they’re falling in love.
Kabir Deb
Bio: Kabir Deb was born in Haflong and completed his schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Karimganj. After that he completed his Graduation and Masters from Assam University, Assam. Poetry has been his passion and a hobby from his childhood. He looks forward to change the society with the power of poetry. When the society is facing with many political and social conflicts he would like to show them that poetry can destroy even the most destructive force in the society as poetry knows how to create. His works has been published in 'To be my Valentine' edition of Hall of Poets.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Light in Darkness There lived a boy far away from peace; Days and night were not different for him; Bullets and wounds never adhered to him; Yet his world was made of it; His nights were curious and nomadic; He lived thinking of a single spark; But there was only one stone before him; Now he hardly sees green leaves in his tree of life; Dead pulps never lets him forget the hurdle; Sometimes he used to imitate Castro by lighting the cigar; But had less courage for lighting him; The moon now has clotted before him; It now shines but to spread darkness; The quartet of his life bows before him; And demands to make them see light; He says 'O life, the horse now is free'; His voice echoes like the lonely voice of a hawk; It's the echo of revolution; The horse now can never be tamed; He will run like Manto's story; Painful yet will keep your eyes open; The story and the horse will never let you close your eyes; Because it's not someone else's story; It's your dark mystery; A mystery so dark that there's no labyrinth to reach it; The boy once met with himself; In the far rocky island with his diary and bike in his hand; He saw thousands of other dark souls; Dark but moving soul; Before that point he was also a dark soul; Yet a static darkness is of no use; These moving souls had smile and passion; Which kept darkness hidden far beneath their habits; He bited his tongue out at a moment; As he saw the owner of the cigar which rested with him; Castro and Che never were so close; As once someone thought that darkness can never replace darkness; The boy named Che searched his whole life for light; Yet he saw light in the darkness named Castro.
Visual Arts Visual Artist: Daginne Aignend
Berries
Hidemyeyes
Forestacia - Unity
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Visual Artist : Kyle Hemmings
9ThCIa
She Loves to Dance
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Advaitam Speaks Literary