Lacustrine So many nights I hear the rain,I hear the matter cry again…I’m lonely, and my thoughts may drainTowards the dwellings lacustrine. And it’s like sleeping on wet floorboards,A wave keeps hitting me’n the back —I shudder in my sleep and reckonI did not pull the drawbridge back. An historical void is stretching,I find myself…
Infinite Difference “If we keep on speaking the same language together,we’re going to reproduce the same history.” Luce Irigaray Our language holds us hostage.and we are forced to speaknew truths but sometimes,the words are twisted into lieswe are told to hide. To speak louder calls attentionto the volume not the words, not themeaning, not what…
Sharda presumed the letters were for her. For milliseconds, her heart was fooled into a whorl of wild, tropical joy, into a spiral of luminous hope, into becoming a living labyrinth of spinning, concentric, elliptical coils. Her realization of the messages being for another folded her fleeting sensation of being in a happy surge. The…
Unanimously ill What would it beif we’ll got sicksuddenly,If there won’t besomeone us to treat,someone to removebandages and bracket? What if,as our legal right, sayto get sick,we find out quickthat we are ill one dayand had no one at allno one to call? And what if, sayon a damned daywe’d got sickallat once astray? ….
A Free Snowman I have deserved the gratitude of Italy.I have contributed to their history,To people, art and culture, by and large:I gave them snow. And plenty. Free of charge. Italians, captured on the River Don,Were packed and convoyed in a cattle carAll starved and thirsty, barely hanging onAll hoping that their end was not…
Quarantine The pain isn’t contagious,I assure you, the pain cannot be transmitted,No nerve twisted in my peer’s bodycauses excruciating touching inside me.The pain is not contagious, the painSingles out more atrocious than the walls,No quarantine isolates so perfectly,It’s trivial what I say – that’s the argument.Lord, how much literature we contain!The feelings – remember? –…
Mu Us Desert, Encountering a Herder Too Old to Have Consciousness Paler than the belly of a dead fishAnd more pallid than salt and alkaliThe desert now is dwelling in his earsIn his eyesIn his sweat pores and hair folliclesAnd in his throat From his aged flesh drained by the sunNo more grease or moisture…
Born and raised in Bombay (Mumbai), Pramila Venkateshwaran is a prominent voice in Asian American poetry. In her works, she blends her vision, life experiences, memories, and cultural influences, like an artist, mixes colors to paint a picture on canvas. In her writings, she gently and subtly approaches her readers and exits impactfully, leaving one…
INSANI FATUM When I was bornThere were no angels waiting for me,There were no magicians in the backyard,No relatives present,Not drunk prophets;There was no one to drawBeneficial lines in my birth chartOr whoever reads in the golden placentaUnique plots, unpublished destinations;Ariadne, Virgil, Ovid were absent;Only Sisyphus celebrated my arrival:……………_ At last I will be replaced!…
Book Title: What Survives Is The SingingAuthor: Shanta AcharyaPublisher: Indigo Dreams Publishing Ltd, Devon, 2020Date of Publication: February 2020ISBN #: 978-1912876211Reviewer: Sarah Lawson What Survives Is The Singing (the title is a reference to Bertolt Brecht’s lines “Yes, there will also be singing / About the dark times”) sings us many songs about our own…
King Crypto and Laplander Enigel Sad minstrel, much steamierthan good old wine served at the weddingBy the groom’s father given thereWith bags and ribbons, tinsel weaving, Of all most stubborn minstrelA grand old song still tries to sing,Sing of Laplander Enigel,And Crypto, the mushroom-king! You, guest with quest!Your feast, my tongue did burn and sting,I’ll…
In our continuing efforts to bring international literature to our readers, we are pleased to bring the 11th edition of “Life and Legends,” focused on Romanian poetry, which includes works of significant Romanian poets of the 20th and 21st centuries. This cornucopia of classic and modern Romanian poetry is a generous gift from our guest editor Maria Magdalena Biela, a Romanian writer, translator, and scholar based in Finland.
