Monthly Archives: October 2017
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
just the right amount of alcohol
sometimes when i
have had just the
right amount of
alcohol
i can picture myself
on my grandmother’s
bathroom floor
my cousin putting
her nipple in my
mouth and telling
me to suck on it
fast forward a quarter
century plus a few
years and there’s a
knock on the door
there’s the same
cousin with two
magazines sent to
the wrong house
the same smile that
makes my skin crawl
as i lock the door back
i realize i was never
meant to be anything
more than a broken
soul
i trusted that the years
would change all this
time is the knife firmly
planted in my back
one of these days i’ll
stop enjoying the pain
cremated and flushed
Poetry from Vijay Nair
Whore Poets
Poets we had against war
Poised in voice a roared lion
Polecats they fumigated rulers
Poker- faced all in funeral parlour
Poets that genre left a vacuum
Whore poets a new genre,
her Vagina a maze into womb
in Rotten eggs of her publisher
His heavy stroke vying into
Her soft surface of vulva
Fame of odium wafting
the Heavy unpleasant odour
An emetic; a cause of vomiting
From printer her copies
all Waffles her vacuous !!!!
©-Vijay P Nair -2017
Short story by Sheryl Bize-Boutte
MADELINE AND ME
“Stop it! Stop it!” Madeline screamed as the kids on the Whittier Elementary school playground hurled whatever they could find on the ground at her. Sticks, rocks, dirt, even discarded remnants of lunches were launched toward Madeline as the evil chorus shouted, “Fat Mad!’ Mad, Fat!” “Mad” was short for Madeline and “fat “was because, well, she was bigger than the rest of us and those kids were mean.
Madeline ducked and dodged as best she could, screaming all the while. “My hair is clean!” she cried, as she covered her head with her hands in an attempt to protect her gleaming blond hair from the onslaught of garbage landing on her from head to shoes. That blond hair of hers was her crowning glory. For her, it neutralized her large body type and gave her a modicum of self-esteem. And for Madeline, the big white girl, and me, the skinny high yellow bookworm, self-esteem was often hard to find.
Madeline was not just a white girl standing in the middle of the 1960’s white flight, she was the only white girl left at my school. All of the other white kids and their families who were in the neighborhood when my family and I arrived in 1960 had moved away. On the schoolyard, as in the world, we had become acutely aware of our differences, and the torture that could sometimes result. We had also arrived at an age where how we chose to handle differences would be revealed. As fifth graders we did not process much beyond influences from parents, teachers, friends and television. When those influences combined with where we were at the time, we often just fell into the actions that made us fit in with the others. It felt so good to fit in and so lonely to be an outlier, we were all vulnerable to meanness at one point or another. And those of us who were different, in varying ways, tended to cling to each other, just to get through the times we were forced to leave our sometimes viewed as odd comfort zones and step foot on the scary asphalt yard with the others.
United in the third grade by our differences to the accepted norms, Madeline and I were solid best friends. We were the only friends we had, and on that day, on that schoolyard, it was my duty to come to her defense. Even though I was thinking this, I still waited a tick for the adult yard monitors to intervene, but when I looked over at them, they were pointing and laughing at the attack along with the others. As I scanned the crowd it became clear that the adults who were supposed to protect us were having a good time watching Madeline’s anguish. As more joined the sideshow, those who had already used their physical weapons, added their voices to the verbal insults, while others began to gather just to join in the “fun.” After all, nothing bad could be happening since the adults were participating. No nothing bad. Just the torturing of Madeline.
Travelogues from Sanjay Bheenuck
My host slammed his bottle of Guinness export down on the table. Its viscous body swayed. He took a long drag from a cigarette and directed the exhale at a ceiling fan. The opium damaged Indian tapped his fingers on the table thinking. His eyes shot upward, observing the smoke being churned by the fan. I looked at him as if expecting a response, but he continued to gaze at the fan and none came. I peered through the thin layer of smoke and made my move on the chessboard in front of me. A broad yet friendly looking American took in my move, resting his hands on the table to consider its consequences. Our host spoke.
‘I can’t get weed, but maybe Opium?’ I shook my head. The American made his move on the chessboard. I considered my options. The host responded to a hum on his phone, then a buzz from the front door. The door creaked and opened, a broad, tattooed, Chinese man entered the room, and casually began counting out large wads of money on the table I was seated at. He discussed recovering gambling winnings in English to our Indian host, who then made a hand gesture, the two of them promptly switched to a quiet conversation in Chinese.
I got up, walked to the fridge, and took out a beer. I gestured to the American who nodded, I took out a second for him. I sat back down at the table and opened the two beers. I took a sip, the beer was cool and satisfying in the pulsing midday heat.
The daytime activity of Melaka could be heard washing in through the glassless windows. A complex mix of languages engaging in a variety of trade and business. A cacophony of vehicles, new, old and very old, and of course the occasional tourist.
Short story from Vandini Sharma
Him and Her
With the sunrise and call for azan each morning, Alia set out with her milk pail. She didn’t walk four miles to the shepherd anymore.
Nobody knew her secret.
Maybe Iqbal did. He squabbled that she didn’t do his Maths homework anymore.
She went townwards, where a crystal river threaded beside her path, down the darkened mountainside. Orbs of faint light would begin to tear patches and glow through the dark of her hometown’s heavens.
She came on his street.
A knock on her teacher’s shuttered door let her slip inside, and her pail was poured to brink with the milk can kept inside.
Thus, she was free of her whereabouts for another hour.
Then he smiled or made a pun, if she looked too frightened.
As Alia hurtled from home, each morning, she felt like her pulse was threatening to burst through her chest. Her relief thawed the icy fear, only once she was inside. Once Alia saw his good humoured face, she could do it. Breathe out the danger.
Nobody knew about the studying either.
The books.
In this valley, it wouldn’t be allowed.
There was an outhouse in his backyard. A closet sized room, that smelled of books. One kerosene lamp hung down a wire. He would reach into his closet, fingers grasping through the stacks of books, and pull out her copy.
There was a rug too.
A rectangular table with peeling paint and an underside with scrawled curse words and symbols, from the boys he taught in evening. But for Alia, it was the closet that held the magic.
You see, it made candied almonds and nuts appear, whenever she was particularly good.
So they’d sit down and begin. When the sums got too hard, the laughter and jokes at each other’s expense helped.
Poetry from Mahbub
Our Present Children
Nowadays the parents of our children
Are very careful to their children
Involve the children always busy with study
The world is too much competitive
Parents want them to read till evening
When we, not very far away from this
Likely to play on the ground
Before sunrise they start for Kindergarten
When they should fly like birds on the floor garden
They need more education from very early of age
How it be possible hits always to the parents
At this what it happens
Children grow weak and not innovative brain
Parents are very careful to their children nowadays.