Fragrance

FRAGRANCE VOL 3 ISSUE 1 Waseem A Malla Shalini Samuel

Editor’s Note Dear friends, Glad to meet you all after long time. Sorry for the delay. My debut poetry collection “Singing Soul” is published now and that’s the reason I wasn’t able to concentrate on Fragrance. Waseem too was busy in his studies. We apologize for the delay and we thank you that you stood by us and patiently waited for the issue.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge says,

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

Let the words in best order refresh your mind.

Let the words of these poems rejuvenate your thoughts.

Let poetry rule your hearts.

Happy Reading.

Regards Shalini Samuel.

1 Evolution for some, not for all Piercing malleable opening, a softness in the face over ridden by cynical neglect.

Supper is almost ready, folly on the garden steps.

Intonations speak the underbelly layers of languages.

Puddles I deliberately step in to know the intimacy of water, the revival of being overpowered by the strongest of all Earth’s elements.

Superimpose me on your raincloud.

I cry like Lazareth shedding his week-old shroud.

I stumble under the falcon’s swooping breath, remembering myself prehistoric a bird before birds.

Allison Grayhurst 407 Sammon Ave., Toronto ON Canada M4J 2A9 (416) 466-4847 allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

2 Its Trees or Not Trees Human hopes and human experience interrupt and contradict each other until they become nothing more than a wallpaper pattern.

Unallowable worlds skulk on the edge of sight, devour the landscape with whispers.

I keep only a shaded window onto that madness now.

I know its trees or not trees and need not look again.

I let the soap bubbles with the imprint of eternity on them, hiss and hum their slaughterhouse politics, and pass gently by.

I behave as if stars are not bursting ecstatically, as if the king’s thousandth cousin the worm isn’t busily fucking itself into a broader existence.

And so the pattern in the wallpaper repeats with no meaning beyond its viral shimmy until‌ Collin Dodds

3 Too Frail to Mock

Reality is too frail to mock at this hour.

Our feelings do not run strong or long enough.

We are at the mercy of a gigantic echo.

The word Already rings throughout the echo.

It opens sentences and closes whole worlds.

In our one moment in the sanctum, we gather our voice and call out:

“Wait, we think we’ve found the answer: It’s either the Irish Blessing Cross or own urine.”

Like that, the little you screws things up for the big you.

Collin Dodds

4 Loneliness Grows Stranger the Larger It Becomes

We brought food to their lips. But they would not eat.

We implored them with prayer and self-flagellation.

But they would not be moved.

We blasphemed to the limits of our imaginations.

But they would not raise their hands or voices against us.

Still we fed, praised and cursed them.

Until, with an atom bomb to deflect creation’s question, we left that home.

Collin Dodds

5 Secrets of the Modern Race

My tribe held a gun to the head of the world, only to learn that you can’t just laugh off something like that.

Babies find it strange to be born among us.

The tvs fill with fantasies about institutionalized cannibalism.

And even the billboards concede that the primordial trust has been broken in the worst possible way.

The shape of that catastrophe worry the men all day and give them erections at night.

“How are we supposed to get excited, to glow, unless people are maimed and killed?� asks everyone, in or near a movie, now showing all the time.

The ancient processes are short-circuited.

Certain extreme measures unveil themselves.

The urgent center expands, takes the newspaper as its skin.

Collin Dodds

6 Room Without End

The endless room flickers.

Its lightning is line charts and its thunder is poverty.

The endless room makes men and women equivocal as anthropologists’ apologists, even in the privacy of their own hearts.

You can do alright here for awhile.

But you’ll never beat the dead man in charge.

Collin Dodds

7 Whispers of Soul

Into a colliery, the ground quakes Darkness envelops a pleading core Casting doubts—unsolicited visions Hesitation, overcoming the mind

Desiccated interjection sways Encasing the nimbleness from The woes entreated of the beyond Submerging my delicate soul … … in eternity

© Cristy Bramhall, July 8 2014

8 Noise

Someday, you’ll write your last poem, kiss your last kiss, look at a sun that won’t return.

You’ll be gone between the time that a leaf will begin to fall like an aimless, intoxicated sparrow, and when it will land.

The world will go on, busy where you’ve seen it, where somebody else has watched, where nobody’s ever seen, busy, lazy, at all of its speeds, seconds and eras intermingled.

The heart is a clock, and yours will simply stop, a gear

will spring off down the hill, rolling and shiny, rattling to the bottom – then spin, then hiss into stillness.

Where your noise was, there will be noise.

JBMulligan 3 James Street Washingtonville, NY 10992 frastus0g@gmail.com

9 When I die

I'll miss my family, my friends.

I'll miss poetry and beer, music and light and food.

I'll miss everything I had and lost.

I'll miss this sky.

I'll miss that sky.

I'll miss my senses.

I'll miss the world they fondle and question.

I'll miss the pets I bury and the pets that wonder where I am, that mourn if it's a dog, and wander off if it's a cat.

I'll miss the sweetness of dogs and the tartness of cats.

I'll miss the wet green leaves of spring and the splatter of autumn colors drifting down and away from the anchoring wood into dirt.

I'll miss the dirt.

I'll be the dirt.

You'll smell the air and go on.

That will be enough.

JBMulligan 3 James Street Washingtonville, NY 10992 frastus0g@gmail.com

10 Abound around On this speck of interstellar space I ride towards firefighting dreams As if valuable assets May be delightful in full measure Early in the morning of the world Next month will get involved Jumping out of airplanes To fulfill promises Worlds around me shrinking Stuck in a blizzard of stars Specifically millions uncountable Long may it wave This flag of which we are Unaware compatriots With pre-existing melodies An old poem set to music Years after its creation It will be for a long time Undercutting righteous claims Opposition calls our names Trying to predict a new era Added momentum Limited to a maximum Training to communicate Trust and integrity Like storytellers In their own nights Believing John Garmon

11 Pinched Corners Good people’s mistakes Pounded out by lawyers Rigging testimony Paying witnesses Under the table Her lips quivered As she testified Like a caught fish Gasping for air Pinched corners Of her dainty mouth The ugly prosecutor Held up his hand His dirty fingernails He declared dismay Had a flash of wisdom From who knows where They carried him away He tried to see Through the windshield The judge gave a sharp glance The jury had false leanings Good people paid They were ubiquitous

John Garmon

12 Then we will take care Trees and stones Wounds and moans Their bullets found us How it sounds To hear their flesh Struck point-blank Then sublime peacefulness We envied their being dead I nearly suffocated Under the mattress They hid me under Clutching tightly I listened helplessly My mind a wild frenzy Fears spat out Swiveled around Forced me to stifle My halted screams They said ride out Your turmoil They we will take care To see this doesn’t Happen again.

John Garmon

13 Nature’s picture

Dark grey sky peeping through The lattice of the branches.

Yonder stands a tree with its Serrated leaves as if waiting For someone in solitude.

Twilight is about to set in.

Morning glory has vanished With all its dazzling brilliance, Leaving behind a trail of gloom, A pall of utter despondence.

Soon darkness will come, Swathing the jet black canvas.

The night star gleaming with A smile so cherubic, I welcome the sheer loveliness.

The diamond-studded canopy,

A portrait of picturesque beauty.

Without radiance, without luster But with a comeliness, enticing The poets to doodle for ages to come.

Koyel Mitra

14 Exalted Shimmering rays percolate through my heart Effacing the weeds of yesteryears.

Pristine sunshine glitters in my window Embracing me with ample affection.

Day ends with the voluptuous twilight Painting the canvas of my soul.

Moonbeams smile at me Through the star-studded sky.

Night befalls but the light Never extinguishes, an aura of mirth Envelops and caresses me now.

Desultory Memories buried deep inside, Only groan and ache of encounter.

Loving traces of him embitter

My already captured heart.

His seductive smile meliorates Me in umpteen despair.

Cherishes for his attachment this Heart made sore by his immaculate love.

His love though chaste pierces My virgin heart with flames of desire.

Unabated passion scorches as This love is not replete.

Torched heart scours for a Love pure, primordial but incomplete.

Koyel Mitra

15 Fire

Why there is no fire When two red-heads of match-sticks chafe?

Not even a spark flares; a sterile dark.

Squirming between two match-sticks A fireworm whistles a wet song Into the xeric ears of no listener.

Why there is no fire When sun perfuses its life all firmament?

Dabbed in blue the speckless pilgarlic.

Set and rise not forever Hovering in the vertiginous heights near the tumbling edge Being overconscious ruins the step.

Why the word fire hasn’t Set self ablaze while everyone says language is reflexive?

Opposites furtively coexist with each other.

Aren’t there a thousand countenances for fire?

Seen just one that’s torrid, juggernauting everything How cool the womb of fire.

Why fire always leaves behind a souvenir When it’d inflicted severest of changes?

Not only Burn, scar, twinge, turn and bend,

But the suffered itself is one No rescue for the thirsty throat When it’d netted to the mouth of fiery waters.

Krishna Kumar

16 Jasmine

Seeing her heart effloresce every day Evincing her love through her pristine perfume.

Instinct prods to seek her Naked simplicity outweighing mundane glitz.

Tongueless language speaks love truer than the tongue Words fail truth by the time they reach the heart.

Not caressing her soft white petals, For any relation that involves touch will go sour.

Heart bursts when she quivers Even under the delicate smooch of the fingers.

Filling the lidless limitless bowl of the soul with her fragrance Receiving never ceases, so does the storing.

Squatting in front of her, mute and attentive While she sparges my being with her aromatic presence.

Love of smell is inexhaustible unlike love of flesh, For it lasts long even when it long ceases to exist.

Krishna Kumar

17 Metamorphosis 1

As he sat near the peaceful lake He detected all my composure was fake A beautiful butterfly flew Suddenly a sword it drew It changed into a deadly dragon Heading towards hell was its wagon The dew on the flowers all turned black Peace and beauty were all thrown at the back The sky was no bluer A grey substance rained like glue Stuck in it he became pessimist even more He wanted to escape from an invisible door His hands then transformed into wings What else was reserved for him in the long list of findings???

Shah Jehan Ashrafi

18 Metamorphosis 2

We all live in that transition Doomed to our own ambition Soft and kind Cruel and blind Touchy like the morning dew Violent anew While life pining to reach a new height Yet we embrace the ground in a hurry to take flight The monster inside us is always here Then we attack the one who is always dear Why do human beings live this dual existence?

Great souls need to go through that penitence The saint can become an ugly monster Yet a monster can resist a disaster We keep changing without changing The desert never disappears though it keeps raining Shah Jehan Ashrafi

19 Metamorphosis 3

A story is life Written with a sharp edged knife Strife, suffering all stout This is what life is all about Happiness too can pierce darkness But one wants a true abode with all fairness Where is that abode We keep changing it once aboard A mystery is life Like behind a veil stands a beautiful wife Only after death is an abode given The tomb stands between the world and heaven

Shah Jehan Ashrafi

20 Love Lullaby His writing echoes his affectionate voice, deep Reading every line he wrote for me, I fall asleep

I hold no memories of yesterday except these papers His every single line is a lullaby to me

Like a balloon slipping from its mooring My soul escapes into eternal peace

Reading these love filled letters became a ritual Since he left me, left me with tears

That washed away all my memories I have no more tears left to shed but

I realize that love can never be perennial Though I fool myself every day that it actually is

Basilia, India.

21 Dint You've always been a veritable greased pig when it comes to avoiding virtual disaster brought about by reckless risks, or lying your way out of an arrest.

Sure as a cat, you have nine lives, but at last count you've expended eight, so best toe the line from here on out.

I might add that at last sighting Silver Star was mating with wolves out where cattails grow in wide open fields of mind unwound.

This extends to me the concrete conclusion that love bites from her little cupid mites are mere nuisances: texts don’t constitute a relationship. Occasional appearances for purpose of consummating bodily bonding a necessary component in the overall gestalt.

I have taken Draconian action, informing her no more niggling excuses allowed: show up and shine or don’t burn my time.

You have no doubt noticed that Stephen Hawking has come out with an ominous warning about the Singularity, artificial intelligence an impending tsunami: think ahead 20 years, what’s more an entire century--mankind at that point ruled by dint of its own invention!

Such a world tailor-made for wealthy fops and dew-drop gypsy fairies that hum, flitting just this side of the sun’s corona.

No need to conjure, the native raisin so long dormant at that sun’s core has risen and is visible to your naked eye.

Thomas Piekarski

22 Teachers Moon when ceases to exist stars shine brightly negotiate universal maze choreographers end assignments dancers take centre stage or gardeners water the thoughts trimming the plants and cutting the rough edges for smooth growth within the periphery of social hedges, buds bloom sure, legend are not made in the womb discipline, values, responsibilities inculcated to be tools of anti-wrongdoing no gratitude is enough thanks giving makes one weep as investors far off watch their money grow in the building of a nation a nation reaps, they sow Tribhawan Kaul

23 Senryus Mothers cry blood all over newborns fathers ecstatic .

---------------------------Sun shining bright Twinkling stars fading fast.

Children starving --------------------------------Highway crash Brain dead Dead men walking.

---------------------------------

Eyes untrustworthy Beauty not skin deep Breakup.

------------------------------Simmer volcano Lush green mountain Best deception.

Watching to excel Waiting in wings Dreams in eyes

Tribhawan Kaul

Note from the poet :- Senryu is a Japanese form of poetry like haiku. It is written in three lines like haiku with syllables count in first, second and third line upto 5-7-5 respectively. It predominantly deals with human nature and its behaviour. Like haiku it is best known for its brevity and imagery. Reader has to imagine what the poet wants to say.

24 Things You Make

The fall of song accompanies no tree.

We saw through concrete to prevent future cracks when Earth's less stable.

Rivers run under us, against progress.

We arrive home by dark.

Time illuminates Berlin over and over again, even when it's broken.

I'll leave later for work tomorrow.

I'll email my coworkers to explainmy right headlight isn't working again.

Jason Arnold

25 Down on the farm

we kill chickens.

We don't care how the chickens feel we make them into a happy meal.

Mikel

26 Leather jacket stolen

When you have a broken car window you tend to notice all the other broken car windows in the world around you and you wonder if everybody else had their leather jacket stolen from their car, also.

Mikel 3.9.98

27 You'd never find out

She looks good until she pulls a cigarette out then I wouldn't kiss her.

She looks so pretty but smells like an ashtray.

They could put her on the cover of a magazine and you would never find out.

Mikel Sept. 29, 2000

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