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Here an era e c h o e s
An old song on slopes of silver and crimson descending hills

Where days rush blitz and hours ride turtle back, conversing
Erstwhile memories

The eyes that have cached my spring, my blooming, and colors of my dreams

The place I call home

Memories

Wakeful night
Underpins weight of unfallen tears
Silence shoulders
Gravity of emptiness on pinions of fleeting years

Away from flocking dust on shelves
Books, save your memories in
smudges, highlights
dog-eared text and pages

Places that speak of your presence— your absences


Solitude

Walk with me on a lane most forestalled
Lonely place where solitude caterwauls

I hide from me, my fear
Normalizes in buzz, fuss and throng

For once, I brave the librettos
Silence always sings

These ascetic hills and monastic trees, listen and grow 
astute and still

Singularity

Emptiness
Has a character
In your absence

The chasm
Has crushing gravity

Vacuity-a black hole
Floating in my universe

Its voracious appetite
Eats my suns

Your memories-an event horizon
Where days stretch in length

And tug with singularity of your reminiscences

Cityscape

A scalded cat- my City 
(mile a minute) changes 
Semblance on her face

Dumbfound child in me 
Looks for familiar curves and flecks

Measure for measure
Its once comforting scape
Mutates in the name of headway
(I think) she’s still bitter 
For when I had once voiced a rescript-
I have outgrown its crossroads, potholes and bends

Her urban facet stretches with lighted bridges
And well kempt suburban alleys
Gone are the similar faces
That had known with heart
The items on my grocery list by

Today when I come to her with wistful longing-

She hands me strangers on construction cones
Festering remorse on forking roads
Souring distances and divider lanes


Sorrow

Cadent, astronomic vastness of aging Cedar

Cannot call a halt, on zeal of a carpenter bee



Like sorrow – solitary, shortsighted

Blindly burrows where shame has softened the grove



Slowly hollowing out the years

Thickening stories written in the stars

Doctor by profession. Sarika Jaswani is a Crochet Artist, Art Tutor Writer of Children's Stories. Philanthropist. Poet. Published. Passionately reads & writes poetry. Art Lover. Bird lover. Dreamer and blogger.

        Published on 
        -'Tide Rises Tide Falls' 
        --On Medium with A Cornered Gurl @ACG @Scrittura @MoveMePoetry
-Fever Of Mind Poetry
-Silver Birch Press
-The Organic Poet
-SpillWords
-The Women Inc
-Trouvaille Review
-Antonym
-HeronClanPoems
--a frequent vss prompt writer on twitter. 

Her poems run on theme of love, reflection and philosophy of life.  

When love goes against you


Is like one losing the ability to think
Memory is life

But my life is not  just a memory

Another scene of lie 

Like a broken hope and a wooden breath 

I'm feeling small

Not so strong
Waiting for you to help me



When love go against you,
You are Walking like a blind

And was given pain instead of your light

A trigger inside me,
Only to pull it down and wake up


Everything I need is not a charity
Is only truth belief
I'm your Waterfall,
 think of me 
As I think of you 

When love goes against you,
 
Is a tear in the eyes that says good-bye
You did not accept the love;
You did not accept me
I gave you my all,

But from your side all I could see 
Pain and tears in vain.


When love go against you,
Every tear that rolls
Slowly down your cheeks

Searches for the path of love
But life seems so bleak 

When I think I've figured out just how I feel,
When I think I've had just about all I can take

I look into your eyes and forget my path

I will recruit for myself as I go,

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go








God's Beauty

All life will testify of you, 
if they are loyal 

With you, I hope to fly and feel your comfort
Flee to you away from the present heat,

There, I will wash myself and be neat.


Let the rain be my path and the moon my light that I may travel.
My heart decorates your beauty,

The sky above, the source of rain, the snow port
Which calms earth temperature.



God's beauty,
God is a masterful artist
Painting warm colors to show his wonder 

He has painted our world in a rainbow of colors

For others to see his wonder
The sky and the moon are scattered with perfection

Such beauty is hard and difficult to understand.


Thankful we are,
For your forgiving heart, and wonderful life 

Even the birds that fly high in the sky

Can relate about your wonders and perfection.

Nature's Cuddle

My heart fills in blessings
When I rush to the pastures, green and florid land
The river bank or the other side of nature calls me 
To soar higher and higher with the birds the blue mingles with 
The eyesight turns back to the condensed shady illuminated mango garden
Invokes me to join the picnic with the neighbors
Here by the water the breeze flowing on blood soothes my heart
Take my breath fresh and longs to stay some more time 
The heavenly peace I find even in the sweet dream in my midnight sleep
I won't like to threaten my heart for the nightmare of the tiger's prey
Nor to join the line of the burning fireplace having the body turned into ashes. 
  
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
02/01//2021

The Shade of Light

You live in the shade of light
I hover around the grey and pale
Floating in darkness to see the light of morning
Rohingyas' eyes fixed at the unknown future to the sandy Bhasan Char
Night be filled with glowing colors 
The mundane fugacious pain or beauty lasts as long as
The winding snakes swimming away before the eyes on the stagnant pond
The light sweeping away from one corner to the other
Make us busy with work, the other deep in sleep or dance.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
03/01//2021


Your Single Word

Your single word of Spanish cherry 
Pours the scent in my heart
Your light of the word-smoke flies over on the surface of my eyes
Blows soft wind on the river
The rays of the rising sun - mild reflection of your love
Holding this focus I find the way of reaching the goal
In the midst of millions of stars 
You are the moon-my ostrich plume
Throughout the sphere of your single word blooms the world's eye
Phoenix the bird - the glorious wings of your loving charms. 

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
03/01//2021

The Heavenly Breast

Surrounded by the deceptive world 
You stand before me with your jolly and smiling face
And spread the hands
I hide myself into your breast
Passing the night in maddening gay 
Are you an angel of heaven?
All the sorrows and sufferings turn into a heavenly joy
Never like to turn my head back from this shelter
Please, allow me dear forever and ever
You are the image of my love
I would like to die, of course in this world you build for me.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
04/01//2021


The Sprouting Laughter

That hidden surprising laugher
I remember ever and anon at my rest
With my sisters I talked and laughed in the starry light so loud
The sunny sprouting grass in the rainy season
But within very short getting in touch of the burning chimney 
My heart fully staggered down, tossing in the stormy night
Day by day as the burning wood the heart turned into ashes
While laughing the eyes poured down
Stopped or browbeaten by the vipers
Faltering once and again and faded
What's the use of a ninny?
Now after so many times of rising and setting the sun
I can hear the heavenly laughter of my little daughters
Mingling with the light of the stars
O the world of life and light - the heavenly resort of joy!

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
04/01//2021

Life In Me

A piece of life 
I always carry in me,
it's not difficult 
besides making me slightly broody,
but it's a feathery 
heavy unbearable load
that changes it's the onus 
depending on mood.

Mood like 
Venice's anachronistic 
charm,
or like seasons 
at places closer 
to equator's arm,
varies 
with astonishing recurrence
or just changes 
with unbelievable 
happenstance.

The mood is a significant part 
of my mundane life
which controls my life 
in every felicity and strife
I coaxed and cajoled 
my life to control mood
nothing worthwhile happened, 
never for good.

But then... 
that's life which I carry in me,
A faded memory 
or a blushing smiley,
A wailing 
of heartbreaking grief
and a collage of various moments.
..... very very brief.

Mamadee is a student, youth leader, activist, an entrepreneur, community organizer, a writer and above all a philanthropist residing in Voinjama City, Republic of Liberia. Who captures emotions and loves to paint work like pictures. Writing for him has become an undying passion and hobby. He enjoyed a bilingual emotion- mixed childhood, in a society where everything was lively with daily scenes caught the eye, so well that he writes on many themes. He finds solace in writing what surrounds him, such as the daily scenes from society, both positive and negative. He loves to capture the life of Liberia, Africa and the world at large. Mamadee is currently a student at the Lofa County Community College, reading accounting. His passion for self sustanance in food production led him to volunteer at Agrolite.

My Sun Kissed Brother


I used to be told that my brother stepped one foot too close to the sun

He shone, my brother

glass speckled sunlight 

was the embodiment of living 

as he used to say

before he stepped one foot to close to the sun


He would stretch one tawny golden arm behind himself 

at the beach

flipped shades onto his eyes

as if that were his one Achilles' heel

his one vulnerability 

but the rest of his body soaked sunlight 

as if it were water


He survived off of golden 

drank shimmery liquid 

and prayed to the sun god

He always carried a fascination 

that wrapped itself around his mind

squeezing closer and closer

pressing the movement of 

hurry 

you don’t want to miss it

deeper and deeper 

until it was all he could think about


He awoke with the sun

and died when it came down

The World's Saddest Song Remains the Same



"how long, how long must we sing this song?"

-- U2





A roadside billboard in my town says, "Pray for Ukraine,"

and I want to.



In the UN they give speeches, but BAROOM!!! the bombs

continue to fall on city buildings, smoke and flame fill,

light up our screens,



And we've seen this horror movie before: correspondents

in body armor and helmets counting explosions -- cut to

rescuers digging rubble,



Pulling bloodied civilians out onto stretchers -- cut to people

in chaotic queues on train platforms, children everywhere,

some families bringing their dogs,



And I want to help them onto the train, give candy to the

child, tell the harried conductor he's a good dog, will cause

no trouble, but I can't be there -- but I can't close my heart



To what I see.  And I can't look away because I know war:

how thoughts travel one day to the next thinking of death,

how waking is just another day of death, laughter so rare



It is a shock, like a bomb, when you hear it, your chest

so constricted against gloom you can hardly join in, and

I don't want people to die, and I don't want people to live



this way, but I can't go and give any real help, any more

than the foreign ministers and politicians giving speeches,

so I will pray, pray for Ukraine.



I remember a ruined Russian tank, half-submerged on a bank

of the Kabul River, left there like an open-air museum piece,

left there when the Russians withdrew.



So I pray for Ukraine, and I pray for the day when every tank

in our world is just a left-behind museum piece.



Iraq Diary


I



Sky’s pink beginning of darkness in thick dashboard glass,

a tonal pop starting every radio sentence, our vehicle halts

in the dust that floats, always, over MSR Tampa like death,

waiting to settle, corner of the eye movement in sudden

wind.  Iraqi cars swerve away from us, same pole magnets

as roads merge, our vehicle’s gunner looking for a ghost,

pointing at each car, ready to fire belt-linked rounds

into the VBIED that waits for us here – it’s been days, but,

always, it’s only days before it’s reincarnate, pieces of metal

reassembled, same dusty car torn, we saw it, can’t forget it,

torn apart in the last sand-fire explosion.  For the gunner

to miss its quick dart, not pull the trigger, means our death,

again.



II



A boom felt so much as heard, puffs of smoke

blown instantly out of sandbagged windows,

the sick feeling in the gut, heaving, hearing like underwater

now knowing absolutely like ESP, like Newton’s laws that

someone has died.  Clouds of sand roll over

the line of t-barriers that has stopped

most of this blast’s shock.  Minutes later

men are running, “Are you okay, are you good?!”

On the other side of the barrier wall, at the gate

to MSR Tampa – later, the wreckage of bodies

will be gathered into black vinyl bags

by unlucky soldiers – DNA trusted to match the parts.



III



Laundry pickups “Three to Five Days” later, if there is time

to drop it off before the third country nationals lock the door,

board their bus for the other side of camp.  My friend lives

in a dirty uniform, coming straight off dusty roads, still in body

armor, kevlar helmet tucked into an arm, to wait the long line,

call home: “I am alive” the understood meaning of “it’s me.”

I start counting -- every third day the average, “No Phones,

No Computers” taped in the door glass of the MWR.

“Someone has died” the understood meaning.



IV



At night a crowd gathers at the MWR’s tv to watch curling,

Winter Olympics oddly popular, some soldiers standing

to imitate the frantic brushing while the stone moves easy,

like exhaled breath down a steadied gunsight, to a contact

where a contest winner is all the future that’s determined,

the arena so free of dust, desert flies, the quiet game graceful

in its efforts like the strain of a ballerina, so civilized,

like the ceremonial ringing of a peace bell, a heavenly echo

floating over a manicured garden.




A War Photographer Goes Home



When he found himself wanting only beauty it slowed him.

Staring out the open window of a dusty white Toyota sedan

at terraced olive fields on a sunny hillside, a sagging felt

headliner rippled by wind brushing his head, he just sat.



The three with AKs who jumped out first looked back at his

reverie, waiting, to take him to the rubble-strewn village.



Yesterday a child touched his arm, mother lying dead

on the shaded street, dust of her fall hovering in air,

the familiar percussion sounds of 55mm grenades close

as the sniper.  Down the block smoke scent rising in sunlight.



And he couldn't train his camera to take a shot of her,

instead kneeling to say "habibi" to the child in broken Arabic.



Maybe he was idealistic once, in Bosnia, fired by stories

of journalism school, finding that one "Napalm Girl" photo

that would become an international, explosive knowing.

Soon, it was just competition, the race to hotspots,



swapping information with cynical diplomats, seedy

hotel bars.  Staying.  He who estranges his family best wins.



But suddenly he sees the brown lands and gray mountains,

all the murder thy neighbor countries, only landscapes of bones.

For years the photos were people around him.  Now a crazy

moan is starting in him, deflagration of the countries stilled



in his moments become an awful remembering.  Always

he refused to look away, now a whiplash of seeing too much.



Later, he stuffs this pain in a hasty duffel. As the plane rises

from Beirut International, the Middle East's shadow fades

and he looks down on his dull suburb of cut lawns, deciding

to take the job at the college, repair a long-distance marriage,



play war-junkie PowerPoints to darkened lecture rooms, take an old correspondent's advice: "Don't let the dead into your soul."



Absolute Time, Uyuni, Bolivia



Where time's a wave of dry wind across a salt pan

desert, particles of sand clothing giant, driving-wheeled

cylinders -- empty fireboxes awaiting shovels in

yesterday's hands, broken glass Bourdon gauges stuck

in a synchroscope loop of boiler pressure zeros –

like Zen masters, locomotives powering Bolivia's economy

to a new industrial age stopped, rested on their tracks --

as if hearing energy can never move faster than light,



squat in an acolythate entropy of rust under the daily,

victorious sun, aware: their silent tracks still move

with the eternal earth, spinning forever

into the future, a thousand miles

per hour.

A US Army combat veteran, Steven Croft lives happily on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia on a property lush with vegetation and home to various species of birds and animals. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, The Five-Two, Ariel Chart, Eunoia Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Synchronized Chaos, and other places, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

The Love for Humanity: The Hatred for War

The death of innocent souls in wars
makes matter worse
Why should the mighty push for such human disaster
over a trivial matter?
When a nation of great strength wages war
against 'a lesser' that once shared territorial grounds more,
It creates unhealthy concerns for the rest of the world
as the loss of lives and property would become seriously odd
Experimenting with bio weapons 
at the expense of innocent lives in those nations
Is stretching humanity beyond its threshold of peace
to the point of embracing the purpose of unease
What is the gain of disturbing peaceful coexistence
If not witnessing the pain of disturbance?
Let the powers that be give a second thought to their action;
for the future would assert the reaction
Humanity craves for rest of its rest
So, it would be unpalatable to disturb that crest
Truth be told,
Regardless of who seem to be at fault,
War should not be what is to be looked as fought
There is always a ground of reconciliation
an understanding of co-operation,
a place for dialogue,
a method of taking out lingering backlogs,
an eventual resolving of differences,
a viable approach to avoid in future sitting on defense,
The love of mankind is paramount
So, war must be in a state of surmount!