It’s Not That Simple Staying Indoors For Three Months, by Misky Braendeholm

It’s Not That Simple Staying Indoors For Three Months
by Misky Braendeholm

Just now I was thinking about us and how you used to say things never last and do you remember when we’d stop after school and share an ice cream and you’d always say nothing ever lasts and your ice cream melted and dripped down your arm and I’d say, Really why not? and you said it’s just not that simple and at the time I didn’t see why not and just now as I’m sitting in my favourite chair enjoying the bright colours of spring and listening to bird song and reading about another 655 people dying from the Coronavirus and me all closeted away self-isolating, and well that’s when I suddenly realised: life just isn’t that simple.

Misky’s work is regularly published in monthly issues of Waterways Poetry in the Mainstream, Ten Penny Players, and most recently Right Hand Pointing.

the long cry settling on dust, by Corbett Buchly

the long cry settling on dust
by Corbett Buchly

the boy whined without end
that his legs were weary
burning like the center of a neutron star
that his belly was empty
like the silent vacuum that hung between planets
that his skin burned
blistered like the earth’s crust pockmarked by humanity

his mother soothed with song
crooning the soft twitter of a painted bunting
biding her time among the pines
but his father was absent
lost to the savagery of the maras
and the cheap bullet that sung his final note
like his words, unknown and violent

but the boy did not calm
going on with his ceaseless lament
the others that marched grew angry
chided him to end his grating grievance
the boy only lowered his voice
grumbled his pains in chant without end
digging like spurs into the travelers

at the border the two soldiers emerged
rising from the scrubland itself rifles in hand
turn away! they shouted, brandishing black steel
that glinted like carapace in the shadow of dark cells
all stood stunned as the boy continued into America
his litany of sorrow drumming
like the pulsing fusion that powers our sun

the rifles rang out against earth and sky
two sharp barks of protest that echoed only twice
but the boy’s voice thrummed on
running like a river up the Chisos mountains out over the Texas plains
and at last spreading like fire across the sky
an angry prayer that tattooed the land
like comets or stardust falling upon our heads forever

Corbett Buchly’s work was published in Barrow Street and North Dakota Quarterly. He studied English literature and writing at both University of Southern California and Texas Christian University (Masters and B.A., respectively).

hollowed light, by Corbett Buchly

hollowed light
by Corbett Buchly

through the neighborhood woods we rode
I on violet Schwinn banana seat crowned
over roots through cobwebs racing for the other side
where light spilled at last through the opening
in the trees of someone else’s backyard the sanctity
of the sun on asphalt a few yards beyond

one Saturday we chanced upon teens’ vacant
hideout discarded aluminum beer cans
lay crumpled, their labels worn away
amid the dirt trampled by too much laying
this hollowed out space in the thicket
held the light differently impossible yellow
beams of light mixed with dust an odor
lingered that made me remember
how imagined beasts could hide for years
in hall closets and among the piers beneath the house

my bike propped against a tree ready to take flight
I stepped lightly to the edge of this strange dimension
but I knew we had arrived too soon
the tremors in the light pushed
me back into the ring of boys
back onto the worn trail where anyone
might trespass in the natural shadow

Corbett Buchly’s work was published in Barrow Street and North Dakota Quarterly. He studied English literature and writing at both University of Southern California and Texas Christian University (Masters and B.A., respectively).

Fellow Walkers, by Edilson Ferreira

Fellow Walkers
by Edilson Ferreira

Sitting by the road’s edge, I watch life go by.
I see men, women, old and young people,
companions on our journey, the pilgrimage
we have embarked on, since forgotten ages.
They carry in their faces their realities and, beyond,
I try to imagine what really lead them to move on,
but cannot be seen: their well-kept secrets and desires,
their high esteem, their own motto, their ego.
They are striving to be individuals,
rather than simply one more.
Sometimes I see even myself,
mixed in the crowd, perhaps a little lost,
but firmly believing to be on the walk too.
I feel we are all connected in an invisible web
and hope we will reach, each at their own time,
that promised and dreamed land,
where happiness dwells, milk and honey spill,
and evil never finds shelter.

Mr. Ferreira, 76 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67, after retiring as a bank employee. Since then, he counts 147 poems published, in 223 different publications, (all originally written in English), in 44 selected literary reviews. He lives in a small country town (Formiga, Minas Gerais state), with wife, three sons and a granddaughter. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize 2017, his first Poetry Collection, Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems, was launched in London in November of 2018. He is always updating his works at http://www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

The Taste, by John D Robinson

The Taste
by John D Robinson

‘You kiss me now and you
kiss me forever’ she said:
I really didn’t know what
the fuck she meant but I
said ‘Alright’:
I know now of her words,
I can taste them,
feel the moistness,
the sensuousness,
the gentleness,
it was no kiss of deceit
but of truth and
surrendering, of merging
and she gave herself to me
and I to her:
that kiss is here now,
sleeping across our lips
like a car-crash early
on a foggy morning
hi-way.

John D Robinson is a UK based poet. His poems have appeared online and in print — several poetry chapbooks and a handful of collections. His latest publications are The Sounds Of Samsara (Cyberwit Publishing: India), Sharks and Butterflies (Cajun Mutt Press: USA) and a forthcoming collection, Red Dance, which will be published by Uncollected Press, USA.

Stayed by the Way, by Edilson Ferreira

Stayed by the Way
by Edilson Ferreira

Sometimes a well-intentioned soul calls up,
or even comes to me personally,
claiming to have found, in improper and improbable place,
references or things that certainly belonged to me.
I answer I do not need them, I do not miss that,
keep them where they were found.
They are pieces of myself that I had to leave
by the paths I have travelled in my life,
penalties imposed by my fellow ones,
by sudden, irrepressible and irrefutable passions,
born in a simple, loving and thoughtless heart.
Pieces that proved I did not refuse not even a little
of the portion I must share in my human condition:
I lived, suffered, loved; left my journey well marked.

Mr. Ferreira, 76 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67, after retiring as a bank employee. Since then, he counts 147 poems published, in 223 different publications, (all originally written in English), in 44 selected literary reviews. He lives in a small country town (Formiga, Minas Gerais state), with wife, three sons and a granddaughter. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize 2017, his first Poetry Collection, Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems, was launched in London in November of 2018. He is always updating his works at http://www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

Of Home, by Misky Braendeholm

Of Home
by Misky Braendeholm

Mum embroidered us
into a picturesque past.
Companions.
Bookends.
Sisters.
She took to the ramparts,
and set us girls
on summer steps to read.
A coming of words over
dulled weeks,
like sucking thumbs
for loss of time,
counting clouds
until it rained.
We were little
bunting children
sitting on steps.
And we knew invincibility,
until we left home.

Misky Braendeholm’s work is regularly published in monthly issues of Waterways Poetry in the Mainstream, and Ten Penny Players.

Origins, by Akshaya Pawaskar

Origins
by Akshaya Pawaskar

I am the green planet.
My figure has been traced with a carbon paper
lying beneath me. And all these copies
are walking besides me orbiting.
Once we thought world revolved around us.
Ptolemy must have made us believe so
and we didn’t question.
Until one day I woke up to feel I am a nonentity
I exist as an illusion, smoke form eventually to
Be Snuffed out.
Heliocentric world as Copernicus propounded
Humbled me.
Every day I get up in a different bed now,
sometimes cozy with electric blankets
At times my pores breaking out with the saline water
Battening bed bugs.
I eat duck’s tongue, lotus stems, and mopane worms.
Houses fold and unfold inside my orbital sockets
as planes wade in air like shark
Watched by radars.
Vagrant I cram up my rucksack,
an extension of my backbone
Like a tumor parasitic
It whittles me down to components
Of primordial soup from
Where it all began.
We are all related by blood and birth
The songbird, the algae, the weed,
the tree, the lion and the skunk
And when the Noah’s ark
Will float we will be in the same boat.
In search of new lands
Columbus in us beckoning.
We are all nomads at heart.
Aren’t we once again
moving, searching, hunting,
Killing?
Utterly primal, utterly lost
Mere atoms in a continent
Sized matter.

Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, Indian ruminations, The blue nib, North of oxford, Rock and sling, shards, Awake in the world anthology by Riverfeet press. She had been chosen as ‘Poet of the week’ on Poetry superhighway in 2019, featured writer in Wordweavers poetry contest and second place winner of Blue nib chapbook contest( 2018).

In the Enthralling Buddhist Land, by Akshaya Pawaskar

In the Enthralling Buddhist Land
by Akshaya Pawaskar

I am a cat with nine lives, for three I play, for three
I stray, for last three I stay. In my previous life I
must have been a Buddhist as I sit here lost in
landlocked Himalayas staring at the Himalayas
half dazed and lulled by the incantations in
the thinning air of the monastery with
The ornate prayer wheels swirling
and my knowledge of sanskrit
limited to one mantra of
‘om mani padme hum’.
Twiddling the concept of Gross national happiness
in my fuzzy brain inhaling the fog I feel as
unmoving as the log. I see a fly and see
it fly without swatting, I must borrow
the sense of Dharma at least
for now, how could I not
in this mystical abode?
Its wall running along
the cliff, falling down
to nothing, a void.
Where the Buddhist master meditated for three years,
three months, three weeks three days and three
hours. And I have been here three minutes
inhaling the remnants of his breath to
purify my own. Then I think of him,
again while I am suspended over
a male river Pochu swaying on
the horizontal scaffolding
draped with prayer flags
blessing in red and green.
Stiffened with fright, clutching my phone with fear of
Returning cycle of samsara- Life, death, rebirth and
my karma flashing like pendulum along with
oscillations of the Punakha bridge. I think
again of how the revered Guru flew on
the back of a tigress and crossed
the ragged yet overwhelmingly
beautiful lands of Bhutan?
My vertigo builds slowly
But surely as I walk.
I feel the weight of the Ashtmangala lucky charm locket
around my neck and it reminds me of the strength and vitality of dragon portrayed in their symbol of ‘Druk’
and for reasons unknown even the phalluses painted
on their white washed houses and I cross over to
the other side where the spicy Ema datshi
with its chili peppers and cheese waits.
Sometimes it is all about starting
with conquering the small fears
before going for the big kill.

Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, Indian ruminations, The blue nib, North of oxford, Rock and sling, shards, Awake in the world anthology by Riverfeet press. She had been chosen as ‘Poet of the week’ on Poetry superhighway in 2019, featured writer in Wordweavers poetry contest and second place winner of Blue nib chapbook contest( 2018).

Altered Itinerary, by Ron. Lavalette

Altered Itinerary
by Ron. Lavalette

He drives an hour north to
Montgomery’s famous scones;
decides to limit himself to a
single scone and a coffee
because, even as he settles in,
he thinks about the bar at
Positive Pie down in Hardwick,
remembers they have Switchback
on tap, remembers how dark
and cool one end of the bar
can be; how conducive to
journal work that — somehow,
some time later — ends up published.

He drives an hour south and
drives another hour south.

Ron. Lavalette is a very widely published poet living on the Canadian border in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. His premier chapbook, Fallen Away, is now available from Finishing Line Press. His poetry and short prose has appeared extensively in journals, reviews, and anthologies ranging alphabetically from Able Muse and the Anthology of New England Poets through the World Haiku Review. A reasonable sample of his published work can be viewed at EGGS OVER TOKYO: http://eggsovertokyo.blogspot.com