Crossing the Bridge

Crossing the Bridge

Martin Ijir 

 Why is this bridge narrowed with countless rails, dwindling with rotting rafters, souls walk passed with confidence, how come I became so terrified? And the emotions are unveiled as a Sun striping her clothe at night, before the moon appears. Wait, please wait, wait don't drift away into the crowd, please tie my robe with yours to remove this fear from my soul. Also annihilate evil that holds my steps from this bridge. I need to cross through her ebbs and reach the doors of divine abode. Watch your feet, can you feel the water on your feet. See how warm my soul became, this must be the water of rebirth, cleansing my soul from steps of delay. Let's journey quickly I need to meet my host and tell him about the happening in the world. Lest I forget please remind me to ask when will he annihilate the evil of men. The resounding stalks troubling the columns of my heart. I will love to ask why evil pervades on men and why is there no solution, even millions of dollars have been spending on global security. Why is the bridge opening, when we haven't reached the middle? Don't you think my faith is tasted. I forgot my oars to sail through this miniature water, and my eagle spirit is beclouded by the congestion in here. Please how can we reduce this people that creates the traffic, the trudge the path with their hawking feet. Shut up, the bridge has no pain, the crossing bestowed dwindling hope for those whose memories sleaze upon the quest of the earth.

Weeping Willow

Weeping Willow

The arched back of my granny, stooped as the weeping willow, is precariously picking the rice, sorting through the grain and counting her miseries, and giving it a name. Some of them thrown instantly, some tucked away knotted in the filigreed ends of her thick embroidered Kashmiri shawl she drapes in the chilly winters of the mountains to keep her warm. Slanting sun of winters makes its way through the thick bushes of the mango tree giving apricity to the tender saplings, her rose bushes, in her tenderly loved garden where each stem is pruned precariously loved gently before it turns into a boisterous flower-laden stem. Some have deep thorns, which prick her thick yellow skin leaving bloodstains when she goes. The trail of unrequited silence which she never let her wrinkled eyes leave as it smiles through the thin crows’ lines and warmth which oozes through her toothless smile.

By MEGHA SOOD

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BIOGRAPHY

Megha Sood is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the Literary Journal MookyChick and a Literary Partner with the "Life in Quarantine" Stanford University, USA. Her works are widely published in literary journals and anthologies including Better than Starbucks, Gothamist. Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, Kissing Dynamite, American Writers Review, FIVE:2: ONE, Quail Bell, Dime show review, etc. Three-time State-level Winner NAMI Dara Axelrod NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020 and National Winner Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020, Finalist in Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019, Adelaide Literary Award 2019 and Erbacce Prize 2020, Nominated for the iWomanGlobalAwrads 2020, Works selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Editor of ( "The Medusa Project, Mookychick) and ( "The Kali Project," Indie Blu(e) Press).

Prose Poem

IT STINKS TO BE A FLY ON THE WALL of Napoleon's bathroom. I was on assignment, researching my doctoral dissertation on the existential psychotherapy of alienated persons. This was an important case study. Napoleon had stolen the Mona Lisa and hung her portrait over his bathtub. His daily ablutions made her wink, like counter transference between therapist and patient. This became central to my thesis and you may now call me Doctor Fly, even though Sigmund Freud pointed out there were too many holes in my theory about an art thief.

David Thane Cornell

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David Thane Cornell is an American poet, poetry editor, journalist and Salvation Army relief worker.

A Lemon Tree

 

The lemon tree piled her dry vibes, over there at the topmost tedium, the spring molded her into a glittering and warm crystalline, that melts tenderness, she is slender, delicate and intimate, fragrant jubilation glows in her dress clothing the nudity of her dry days, there is no way out for the night but to take off his sandals, and about her secrets roam, and lay his head on her quivering scent, two braids of listening stars, wave while topping her magical pride, out of her gloom, the lemon fragrance flows, swaying on the turquoise shores, while the murmuring of flickering sea decorating her, with twilight and daydreams hues. Her soft fluffy leaves in her armpits, dew hold, sunbathing on her translucent throne, kidded by the fluttering rainbow on her soft pillow. Every morning, her sparrows fly overhead, singing her the universe song, betting for life standing, as she gathers the nuggets of spring, and feeds her buds elixir of immortality. She wears the feathers of pink dreams, gleefully dances, flowing elegance, suspending wishes with alerted kisses, waiting for the season of meeting to wipe out the austerity of winter and make her evade the withering of hibernation, her features will shyly sweat, if love in her fasting heart flashes, while expelling sorrows out of her chest, her blooms ripen and reckon, if the handkerchiefs of dawn covertly tickle them, and the pulse in her deeper roots, increases, as the gleeful glitter of the pollen spathe appears, and her lineament ceaselessly exult, the fingertips of the tender warmth, on the peak, rejoice in bliss ,she still retains a beautiful smile that opens the doors of the morning adorned with silk, there is in her looks a drunken horizon, brightly hopeful, beneath her eyelids, the flowers hatch, and embrace her lights, freely loitering, breathing the fragrance of her innocent laughter, the seasons will inevitably listen to the roar of her loving treasures, as satisfying her starvation with nightingales' melodies, and changing the rituals of days, drooping the truthfulness steps towards her towers, inviting me to freely muse myself, as she grants me the crowns of her spring, she colors me.

A narrative expressive poem by Kareem Abdullah

Translated by me Henry Smith

 

Bio : Kareem Abdullah, is an Iraqi poet and writer. He was born in Baghdad in 1962. Kareen Abdullah is the author of "Baghdad in Her New dress" ( 2015 Book House). His name had appeared in many important Arabian literary magazines and he won Tajdeed prose poetry prize in 2016.Kareem has eight poetry collections in Arabic and his poetry was translated for many languages.

COLD CHANTS

Winter chants are drowning in fog, leaving in the memory of the streets with an unforgettable chill. Its cold corners are silent and freeze like an old absent tree. Their sound bends and fades into a wide space where the word has only to fall into the mud. The miserable ships penetrate my ears while these echoes go away and vomit the eternal pain in the generations’ dreams. These are the tales of civilization which sinks into the ocean coldly, even the sea water, including bracelets and dates, and has been swallowed by flies at a breaking moment. The heart of the world retires as a widow; there is no place for human dreams, no warmth and no praise. There is nothing but emptiness; the wheat branched out of her legs, bending shyly, only heavy air in her head and its hollow stomach has become warm springs. Yes, you are right a thousand songs are hidden here but the peasants know nothing about them.

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Anwer Ghani is an award-winning Iraqi poet and Pushcart nominee. He was born in 1973 in Babylon and he is a religious scholar, consultant nephrologist and author of more than a hundred books; thirty of them are in English like; "A Farmers Chant"; Inner Child Press 2019, and "Warm Moments", Just Fiction, 2020. Anwer is the editor in chief of Arcs Prose Poetry magazine.

Mother's Postcard

Mother's Postcard 

The postcard was blank as words were eaten by the new moon. Day was Amavasya!  I would have  located the address rolling in the  virtual rings of ethereal atoms. But stony sisyphus came to rest under the bawdy sun and his  shoulders were bruised in a trailing salty brook.

“ Keep  this  one  for  a  brief time”

 I took the gravitating stone on my chest. Dark  was  so  compressed that all twitterers were   shut in the twilight and I awoke in my wrinkles. It  was not a dream or hypnagogia, too  much  for my crushed chest. I saw the words on the  pale postcard.

 “ she died the previous night”. 

Copyright@Dr Pragya suman