The Kingdom of Foam
Whom I saw old yesterday
Is young today
Thinking dead who was buried
Is walking on the yard
The ill-fated man having no legs is running in the field
Today the vast sand dune is rambunctious with the sea foam
Dead fish are jumping and bathing in the river
Arjuna who never lost his aim
His arrows are aimless
Despite meeting again and again
Radha and Krishna were never in affair
The blind poet Thamyris is looking toward light
Wrinkle skinned Zulekha is
Becoming young gradually
But Jesus had not yet been taken down from the cross
From The Stage of Execution
I exactly don’t know why
From behind the prison cell I remember my mother
Mother used to say you know- writing poem doesn’t bring bread and butter
I remained silent in humiliation
But today I have time
I can ask question like a brave son
Mother, who don’t write poems- can they bring bread and butter either
My mother is now counting her last days
And the predecessors are lying in the graveyard
I don’t know if they died of hunger or not
And the science of the lords doesn’t blame
Hunger as the cause of human death
I will be hanged at the third watch of the night
To know the final message
The concern of rainy winds floats in the eyes of my comrades
May be my death has settled the dew of countless pains
In the sky of their eyes
That will be twinkling like pearls
In the sun of love
I am indebted and grateful to my fellow comrades
The poems written by me
Are the essences of their life indeed
I’ve just decorated them with immortal ink of the truth
I have not forgot their love
By the ordinary pain of death
The love that no one- can unearth
Even throughout his lifetime
Standing at the edge of death I feel that today
Now I am heeding toward the place of public execution
I’ve only one minute left to be hanged
Meanwhile what else may I leave for a nation in decline
Without the example of igneous death
Curiosity
I keep a cloud of many words
In my chest pocket,
I keep the anxieties of unknown
In my mind’s locket.
Where do the blue stars live
Or blue fairy wings,
Where does the red lotus
White seagull swings.
Where does the King Cobra dwell
In hidden hilly rest,
Where is the cave in the North or
In the Southwest.
In which sky does the eagle fly
Lays eggs in the sea
Why is the bird’s heart frozen
When cloud sounds bee.
To which distance the rainbow
Bend its face behind,
Why do these questions arise
In the corner of mind.
As a child looks everything
In the blinks of eyes,
So have I opened my eyes
To listen the cries.
Rezauddin Stalin is a very famous Bengali poet, born in 1962 in Nalbhanga village of Greater Jessore district.
Many local and foreign awards including Bangla Academy. His poems have been translated into 42 languages of the world.
Along with poetry he established himself as a successful media personality. His basic thoughts on various issues of the society give us light. Rezauddin Stalin is now the international voice of Bengali poetry.
Closed Hearts
She said I’m not what they say I am
I can’t help but cry
Just a little
The knot in my throat
And weight on my chest
Leave it unsaid, he said
She never mentioned how his silence hurt her
Leave it unsaid, she said
He didn’t tell her how many things were seething to come out
Death by so many small nicks along the way
You never know what goes on behind closed hearts
Eating My Shovel
Rolling in the cold San Diego waves
the up brings life value
and the down, maybe not
I eat when I’m depressed,
when I’m happy, whenever
I self-medicate with coffee and food
So many people say that life is too short
I disagree
Life is so, so long
My hopes for happily ever after
faded to midnight
Every choice narrowed the prospects
Fewer possibilities now
I’ve dug too deep
and the only tool I’ve kept is my shovel.
My Dead Body
At the funeral of my husband’s best friend’s father, for the first time, we broached the topic of what we want to happen to our dead bodies. I have always wanted my body to be useful to others once I have lost any need for it. I told my husband that I want all of my remaining healthy organs donated, and the rest of me donated to science. I would be happy for my body to be a cadaver or thrown out into those body farms in the middle or south United States to help forensic scientists hone their craft. My husband was appalled at this. He could see himself donating organs, but he wanted the rest of him buried, so his family would have a place to visit him. I pointed out how environmentally unsound burial is and what a waste of human tissue, when he could help science, even after death. After a bit of back and forth, we settled on organ donation, then becoming trees to be planted where our loved ones could visit, but we’d be friendly to the earth in death.
He wants a headstone
I just want to help someone
We’ll see who dies first
San Diego Beaches
Heading north, waves chase my left side
As the water pulls back, little puckers appear in the smooth wet sand
The sand crabs are reaching toward the sun
If I’m lucky, I’ll find a sand dollar
Or one of those butterfly shells
The former home of a muscle
Clam
Or oyster
Splayed open
Revealing its shiny vulnerable inside
I remember when La Jolla’s seal beach
Was once the children’s cove
Instead of the home of so many ocean puppies
It was the perfect wading spot for little ones
Protected by the sea wall
Bordered by tide pools
We used to gently press our fingers
Into the center of the sea anemone
Until they recoiled into themselves
Now the seals take up all the space
And bark either in delight or warning
To all who dare to venture near
We Can All be a Stranger
She knows exactly how
to break my heart
My perfect little girl
with all those imperfections
Her cherubic face
makes me want to
give her everything
She wants and more
my obligation as her mother
is to not give her everything
When she lies
She’s a stranger
When she’s obstinate
She’s a stranger
When I raise my voice
I’m a stranger
When I punish her
I’m a stranger
I can’t just be
her best friend
I cant just give
her what she wants now
I have to help guide her to the best self she can become
My little girl is a woman
in the making
and the making is the hard part
CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor accomplished in film, academia, and creative writing who performs, writes, signs, and rarely relaxes. She’s a flash fiction and poetry editor for Dark Onus Lit. CLS is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA.
Evening brightness Slightly dew dropped pearl My butterfly winged dappled sunlight Hibiscus rhythms of night vapour That harbours a mild mellow film Rainbow trout and opal eyed souls My bright tea tree holes Labyrinths of turpentine palaces Singsong lyrical balance Yet a bright shimmery dew Whiter than heavens Celestial realms A bright future Beyond cause and effect Just celestial.
"See How We Fell"
See how we fell without knowing...
Years ago, ago, ago...
Blowing air through the barrels of our nostrils,
singing songs surrounded by walls of people.
Pounding drums and plucking electric guitars,
roar of low heavens in our ears...
Hollywood movies bulging our eyes full,
then drugging them almost shut.
Dancing circles of crowds flaunting,
nights dark with flashing bed escapades...
Too young to know
down the hall hospitalizations...
Stumping our barefoot dreams and schemes,
mind murdering those we seldom thought of...
Dead toads on the road smashed
and dried behind the high school auditorium.
Always wishing for true love
and marrying a saint we didn't deserve.
Babies crying in the middle of night.
Sending them to school in a blink of shock.
Working 2 jobs into old age,
wishing for a reboot with bags under our eyes.
The world becoming chaos in a diaper.
The dollar becoming acid in our pockets.
The only way out has always been before us.
A prayer of grace with unending tears, tears,
tears....
Whilst chronicling the history of professional bookselling and book buying, and drawing from the chevrusas (study groups) of his Hebrew youth, Jeff Deutsch passionately advocates for himself and his fellow booksellers (or les levreurs de livres) as essential in this century.
He wisely circumvents Amazon-bashing when establishing his case for a better-developed bookselling culture, which would entail a non-retail approach to selling books. Perhaps best articulated as one that would “rebuild deliberately what had first developed organically in response to the limits of space.”
Jeff aptly distinguishes between “serious” and casual book-browsing, as “exceptional bookstores both reflect and create their communities.” He postulates that the “good” bookstore “is about interiority” as he guides us through the existentiality of bookstore design and architecture:
“…the shape of the bookstore operates…akin to a literary form.”
Jeff offers several anecdotes to what this form looks like. My favorite is the bookstore as zuihitsu (following the brush); or is it ēnso – a freeing of the enlightened mind to let the body create? If so, humanity has severely underestimated the value of the bookshop for centuries now, which can explain the subpar human condition.
ēnso
According to Jeff, selective uniquity is rampant in the book-buying culture. He reminds us that “book discovery…is a highly individualized endeavor” leading us to an anticipated future immersed in literary utopia. This zen and/or rapture of book browsing involves searching “the millions of grains through sheets of interrupting water.”
Yet like a book, Jeff suggests, “the imagination is…portable”. It can be postulated that the bookstore is where the two meet and, with a purchase, marry. This marriage of the “life of the mind” is sanctified and consummated by the creative ritual of book browsing.
If a book is portable why, then, does a bookstore pose “a problem of space?” Perhaps it is because books are an illusion. Oftentimes books possess the knowledge we already have within ourselves, which would qualify them as a sort of trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye). When we physically see what we already know, we feel confirmed. That is, perhaps, the greatest attribute of the book.
If the bookstore is a haven for the heterodox, what, then, is the library? Jeff hints that it can be a kind of prison for books from which the book lover must rescue them. This makes sense. A “lost” book can remain on the shelf for millennia without ever being acknowledged save from the occasional dusting alongst its spine. Bookselling, on the other hand, serves as a filtration process to provide the book buyer opinioned “essentials” within the great ocean of books (i.e. great books).
+
Life bond anneal
Reminders of Breath
Let eyes awaken !
And I drop to feed the Stars
I Know
with Heart Beats
Rhythms on Song
No mission is Left unattended
as Spirit rises
Like no time Before
Dreams meant nothing
until now
My forgotten Sight
Knows no Bounds
Falling Backwards to the unseen
Yet expected
Blissed Out !
willing to stop
drawn through shielded flames
toward Stars in a quiet night
and Home again .
Lets be As the greatness melts
moist in the life of new Beginning
...
by John Edward Culp
January 20, 2020
