What Would the Flowers Say? I don't want children fighting in another war, to argue about a livable wage among rain drops shaped like inflation, or to feel smart for predicting I'll eventually be censored for writing a poem- I just need to live, yet even that has moments terrifying as gunshots and reminding me how many umbrellas leak, leaving me with days, where I want to crawl in the dirt, bury myself, only to bloom as a person sized flower, but that would be crazy, wouldn't it? Life's Cooling Fire We're being used up, worse than a candle burning in the middle of the day, only to surrender night to the darkness, where dreams are forgotten, so alarm clocks can have their say, as we let pay stubs give us light, like hungry flames, refusing to learn the moths' names.
Monthly Archives: October 2022
Poetry from Babatimehin Asíwájú
Unbroken Self-Portrait of a broken boy my greatest fear is dying alone in a windowless apartment in the countryside. & having my dead mass submerged 6 ft in the tangible despair that is my aura. i'm still trying to figure out why all my stories taper into tragic endings. my therapist said i'm broken. she lied. my mouth is home to the most torturous sores that have been conceived by guilt. my body drowns in the ocean of my eyes when i'm alone. i'm always alone. I do not believe love is a craft to be learned. or i do not believe I am capable of learning it. I've been hurt too many times. I've fractured every bone in my heart. my body is a brick wall with no doors. I'm unable to let anyone in. I know it's hard to believe, but my smile is a drawing on my face that fades at night. I know it's hard to believe, but this poem was not meant to end this way. I know it's hard to believe but this poem was meant to have a happy ending.
Babatimehin Asíwájú is a student of Civil Engineering in the University of Ibadan. A Essayist, Poet and Dramatist, he writes on social issues as well as on his minority-tribe identity. He is currently a member of The Poetic Collective, TPC.
Writing apart, he is involved with activism and while he’s not doing either, he plays table tennis.
Poetry collaboration from Christina Chin and James Young
Tan-Renga by Christina Chin & James Young late moonrise the blood moon bleeds an unsettling howl the clock says it is the time i think it is a sacrificial fowl at the crossroad incoherent chants the book falls title page up licking thin lips a raspy whisper lights her eyes drawing closer we are all there creating potions the new priestess casts spells the cat watching a spider drumming on the lintel beam a woodpecker across the cemetery no heads turn
Poetry from Ridwanullah Solahudeen
Precipitation and Evaporation as the Science of Human Creation Like a boy who holds a piece of marker Scribbling on a white board Writing, erasing… God writes, too, But erases, with purposes. And so when HE writes, Prints of shoes we find at our doorstep, Like the footprints of rain on the chest of the earth. Then I learnt, That everyone comes as two bodies, heavenly bonded, Showing God's journey to the earth. At a time, a body of water Leaves green footprints on tree-begging palms, With a water pot Emptying itself without breaking. At other times, a sun that flashes the earth To set, leaving no ray behind But clothes every tree with brown leaves, With a pot's shards, Or bore its content for the soil or both. Here, I knew that, The soil upon which trees were raised Is in serious rivalry with the trees For God's gift whenever he visits the earth. Trees are closer to the sky But this does not matter, As a gift that is meant for the soil Shall have its way into her mouth, Through the thin lines in between trees' palms. And if a gift is meant for the tree, Trees shall be perfect enough to save the score. At first, I thought this was God's bearing a scale Between the trees and the soil, But no, the soil has it all in the end As all was just about writing now and erasing later.
Ridwanullah Solahudeen, Olalekan is a Common and Islamic Law undergraduate of Bayero University, Kano. He is a patriotic member of the Nigeria’s largest youth and teen writers’ Foundation, Hilltop Creative Arts, Osun branch. His works have appeared and forthcoming on Spillwords, the Piker Press, Synchronized Chaos, D’lit review, Al-mirath Islamic magazine, the academy of hearts and minds, inter alia. He was the winner of the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria’s Best Essayist Award for secondary schools in Nigeria, 2019; Mahmud Kola Adesina, SAN, Osun State Best Essayist Award for Secondary Schools in Osun, 2020; Brainbuilders Teen Speak Out 7.0, 2019 1st runner-up award; and Stars Writers’ Award for his short story, Without Despair. Ridwanullah is currently making ASUU’s suffocating strike win-win for himself at Ikolab Mayor Aluminium Depot, where he is doing his entrepreneurial training.
Essay from Z.I. Mahmud
Abstract Writing: Dialogue Between Rachel Carson and Sir David Attenborough That Still Inspire The Canon of Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities Through Their Gravitas of Legacy Charles Elton’s ‘conservation of variety’ is at the height of the fame, vainglory, appraisals and reappraisals to the ecocriticism discourse. How far this pedagogy brave heartedly surmounts conservations sanctuaries, wildlife museums, environmental stewardships and preservation centers ought to be of paramount importance in urbanity and rurality alike. In this seminal paper dramaturgical and narratological stylistic approaches have been thronged to culminate the evolutionary trends of feminist ecocriticism studies disciplines within environmental humanities. Brief Biography of the Author: Formerly Undergrad freshman English Literature Major hailing from department of English and Humanities (ENH) at Brac University. Presently of latest accord, Z I Mahmud is a fullbright Indian Council For Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholarship fellow Suborno Jayanti Scheme achiever-awardee and UG aspirant of University of Delhi’s Department of English. Z I Mahmud exalts in the glories of glamorous explorations with glowing sparks of somber sobriety lingerings in stirrings of literary criticism, literary theory and genres of narrative. Readers are heartily welcome in cordiality to intimate in correspondence through email: zi.mahmud@g.bracu.ac.bd Ever since publication of her bestseller masterpiece ‘The Silent Spring’ Miss Rachel Carson might have been lionized and treasured in gamuts of memorial letters, newspaper clippings, library archives, magazine articles, biographical fiction and memorabilia so forth. Mostly the gravitas of David Attenborough’s interview correspondence with Miss Carson surrealistically and ethereally becomes the pinnacle of cliffhangers through literary interview. David Attenborough: Oh, hello, Miss Carson! Delighted to see your gracious face after a milestone of traveling through the Falklands. My briefcases suited with Christmas souvenirs of turkey toasts, Scottish brandy and a pelican to be adored, petted and mothered to perfection! Ah, the customs don’t charge me sterling pounds as long as I am allegedly breached of poaching. In the meanwhile, butlers and valets are seen to work with flaming girandoles and thus lighting to warm wooden stony sculpted concrete hearth overwhelming chimneys brimming as hobgoblins like fiery charcoal. However, Rachel Carson horrified by this wit of her residence staff storms in diglossic fury and soon this tumultuous turmoils wreaks havoc; she wroughts a lecture in the repartee as if harangue. David Attenborough, the seasons’ guest contemplates metaphysical Carson: Americana ought to be deforested in and the glacier Atlantic melting would ensue catastrophically endangering the sea albatrosses and sea lions. Feasting mind and mortifying flesh to contemplation of rolling mountains and breasting snow drifts cliffs amongst the Lancashire witches haunted marshland moored woods. The indigenous wolves of the Atlantic and Welsh landscapes anthropocene have embarked on their destiny of diminishing downfall: extinction, Since genetic integrity [a term commonly used as a phrase of conservation Biology literature to evoke the value of a genome that is “pure” and “not polluted” with the genes of related species or subspecies] of genome sequences splicing have demarcated the lack of tameness in these inhabiting wild wolves. Gothic vampire stories and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga ! Ahhh, ahhh, romantic thrillers –alludes to a toasting of French imported champagne! Miss Carson: Fie! Fie! Attenborough…a hybridized aversion of a wolf in the wilderness is worse than useless; throngs the pangs of heart wrenching woes; the harbinger of hybrid swarm; in which establishes the dystopian anarchy; and wolves eventually dimmed out of their intrinsic wits. David Attenborough: Indeed, my Ironic Lady ! Ah, you are absolutely fascinating with your rhetoric like the mermallaide; which takes me to the seashore atoning my mal de mar; garnishing seasoned sea-food beside the beach lines. Miss Carson spread marmalade on their toasts, poured over the porridge and stirred quickly to thicken; bowled and plattered with amarnath doughnuts. Door bells! Miss Carson was very popular among the schoolchildren for fostering them doughnuts and hot porridge and chunks of digestive biscuits. Granny! We’ve come and today won’t depart without you! Ye shall visit and picnic upon the Atlantic seashore bays. Upon these schoolchildren and teenaged graders Miss Carson fretters in boyishness to be reticent grim faced lady to the sullied by the lurid facets of being scared to death: sea level rising, ocean acidification and mass extinction.To her the perfect world is a pungent, credulous or a form of disavowal:deck chairs on Uncle Farley’s vessel. Ethical and ecological commitments are necessary for imagining utopia in Anthropocene and these young generation are the harbinger of audacity to reflect epical change in utopian allegory They ought to address grievances of ecological justice by the cathartic purgation of class struggle, racism, sexual violence and hemispheric inequalities, alienation. This state of affairs interleaves coalescence of demerits of modern political and economical systems and alternative hedonism anchorage of spiritual deprivations. David Attenborough: Ah, these sweethearts dazzled as Peach Blossom Springs in the Garden of Eden. Anchorage of idyllic existence turns to a doom with anthropogenic climate change and global ecological crises which strike their environmental humanists temperament. Miss Carson with accusatory deconstruction: Aye! And I ought to demarcate the hubristic investment instigated by materialistic impulses that we all are flawed and fungible mortal creatures in the leaky boat. Children grinned at the apprehension and implored Miss Carson to foil as a preacher of Biblical allusions. So Miss Carson apprises them of the testamentary evidence The Archangel Michal, brandishing the fiery “Sword of God” and cherubim with “dreadful faces” and “fiery Arms” herd Adam and Eve out of their lost home. Cats cuddled and cushioned and woodpeckers perched plummeted their foliage and Miss Carson commences yet another anecdotal scene When Adam and eve ate the apples perhaps they took into themselves, unknowingly the absence of God and that absence manifested itself in their loss of innocence and the decay of nature. Angelic warnings to Adam and Eve would be lowly wise and they ought to not attempt knowledge above their capacities. Lucifer’s despoiler Fallen Angels’ diabolism… Spring can associated with depreciation of the environment with demonic temporality condescending air water, fire, and belching smoke.” And the children wondered in nightmarish envisionings of post Edgar Allan Poe’s fantasy and miracles spectacles : Post Martian revolution. Dawning the harbinger of a paradoxical Anabell Lee perisher into the symbolic life of imperishable misery and frustration. Metamorphoses of resistant species as evolutionary genes adaptations and associated mutagens and carcinogens invoke havocs of the rumblings of an avalanche. Take for instance, the gypse moth fluttering about among low vegetation or creeping up tree trunks in the orchards of Miss Carson and furthermore, thereafter, houseflies and cockroaches infestations overbrim the kitchen parlor, and ardor of scary menacing screaming Miss Carson. For these, secondary vectors of microorganisms control programmes reinforce stimulated life history, population densities and reactions to radiation with overwhelming outcomes. Fermentation and nitrification might be affected in unprecedented actions. Biological equilibrium girdled by predators and parasites might be an investigative quest to the extent of the agricultural community, fish and wildlife department, governmental and federal agencies and medicine association. Human rights cannot be enmeshed in the cocoons of biological warfare and environmental movement is the serendipity. “Beneath the forest floor the world accumulated with honeycombed tunnels and runaways of small mammals-white footed mice, voles and shrews of various species'' encompassing fraternizing harmony with living creatures pressures, and counter pressures, surges and recessions with engrossing environmental justice. This is the narratology that surfeits the dramaturgy of bravura and stardom against the hubristic whims of the precariousness of living existence. Ground-breaking and lifechanging literature of the mystique feminist environmentalist would be divination of blessing in disguise; to the tempting lures of discoursing environmental humanities ; by the vogue of historical non-fiction memoir. This reenacts perilous voyage by the diabolical menace of frosty seas and snowfields glaciers — timelessness survival stories harrowing climate injustice to presciently supernal extent. Fabric of cultural diversity and environmental diversity are interwoven by these streams of consciousness and surrealism through harnessing imaginaries like ecocriticism, feminist science studies, environmental history, environmental philosophy as holistical radical transformation. Intergenerational memories and speculative fabulation mapping crystallizes the dictum of ‘ecological literature’ and ‘ecologized humanity’. Popular literary and film genres such as the Western establish habitual feeling states about national belonging, gender performance, racial and social transgressions. While scrambling, mumbling, rumbling and scampering through everyday anthropocene, haunting climate debacle springs from freedom individualistic libertarian choices. Insofar, none the less the popular enthusiasm and candid appealing motivation behind sci-fi metamorphoses to cli-fi genre staging Rachel Carson and David Attenborough as Hollywood might offer therapeutic catharsis to readers and theater audience alike. References and Further Reading 1. Ecocriticism and Vitalism in Paradise Lost, Leah S. Marcus, Milton Quarterly, May 2015, Vol 49, No. 2, pp. 96-111 JStor 2. The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities
Two Poems from John Culp
This Beauty My Heart Could see the No Hope With fears thrown on the fire to keep us warm tonight I'm fearing absentia missed and Lost on pure fruit-filled Faith A Basket always empty Before Love Can Stand Knowing our Love not ours alone And my Palm is Visible to me Raised to Care in the Empty Light filled on Broth & stirred emotions to soothe the already Soothing turn a Day from light to dusk & Rest Knowing by John Edward Culp The Dreams that never Die & will never be the Same again for Now has no plural form And Time is A Name in Passing the Half Full Cup that's alway finding the new Completion to Reach for without bending, just Standing Here Sleep finds me, Baggage at the Door, fallen to pillow where confusion loosens its weave Drawn to the fragrance of things to be Yes, I say yes, in my Dreams! The Dreams that never Die & will never be the same again. Written the morning of Monday, October 10, 2022 by John Edward Culp
Poetry from Robert Fleming
Poly-Mania wife 1 loves wife 2 wife 1 hates husband 1 man and many women Y & >= 2X assembly line sex fraternal twin boys many men and 1 woman X & >= 2Y many husbands love many wives paternity tests many women and many men >= 2X & >= 2Y Queen Formulaes rock + opera = bohemian rhapsody planet + thermostat ≠ Freddy Mercury 11 / 24 = day Freddy died stadium clap standard deviation ≠ we will rock * u Queen – Freddy = Adam Lampert ** greater-than less-than equal-to are for mortals not math must i compare me to a seed sprouts to green thorn stalk yet to bring forth corn. back-bone to be spine >= 6’ …. .. . must i compare me to an archer aim-yellow strike-blue st O P you’ll grow up to be president present arrived i’m no president red light < no head hair > much stomach fat compare me to my-was my-to-be continue > < = intercom: kitchen–dinner–now
Robert Fleming lives in Lewes, DE. Published in United States, Canada, England, Ireland, and Australia. Member of the Rehoboth Beach and Horror Writer’s Association. 2022 winner of San Gabriel Valley CA broadside-1 poem, 2021 winner of Best of Mad Swirl poetry and double nominated for Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Follow Robert at https://facebook.com/robert.fleming.5030.