Poetry from Isaac Dominion Aju

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that you saved a young boy. I want to let you know that you revealed a young boy to himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy feel seen. I want to let you know that you led a young boy towards healing. I want to let you know that you gave a young boy a voice. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see the world better. I want to let you know that the young boy began to seek for more, that the young boy became a citizen of the world, that the young boy decided not to die again, that the young boy began to walk with a surer gait, that the young boy decided to give life a chance, that the young boy began a journey of seeking for the meaning of his life.

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that a young boy is still alive because of you.

Nearer To Ourselves

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When our stories were far-fetched

You brought them closer to us.

When our stories meant only one thing

You made them versatile.

When we didn’t understand well,

You cared to explain.

When the stories were one-sided

You made them balanced.

You made us inquisitive.

You made us ask questions

You gave us a mirror to peek at ourselves.

You lighted up the gifts!

You said no to the silences.

You sat down,

Bore the pain,

Heard the calling.

And you answered the calling,

So that others could hear theirs too!

Isaac Dominion Aju is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared in different literary publications. In the analysis of his creative nonfiction in Penned In Rage Journal (UK), his work was compared to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half Of A Yellow Sun on the theme of identity. 

Poetry from R.K. Singh

HERITAGE

Rechristened streets or cities

with Hindu names make no history

nor erase the Muslim past

they assault country’s culture:

diversity of lived glory

politics of pain, joy and care

liberatory future

in hate game add to frozen hearts

no discourse would ever heal:

memories may fade but won’t die

like I die every day, yet live

2

OLD FILES

I burn my years and erase

memories that couldn’t be stacked

against the wall of a broken home

I’m too old to hold out long

the fall is certain

and the burden too much

I can’t be a hostage to the past

nobody would buy

the smoke is momentary

and the heat hurts more

let me live life through my self

doing nothing, thinking nothing

just sitting silently and watching

time takes care of the rest and life too

3

FIVE MICROPOEMS

i.

 I knock at your body’s door

 or peep into the room 

through the little crack 

for a bit of love 

squeezing my rise above 

the cynosure and reduce 

to a drop at the labial path

ii.

vagina museum:

painted femininity

jelly fish rising from deep

no good luck, gropers asked

not to touch the cleavage

iii.

icy water

stabs my body in dark:

Mahakumbh

I hold on to the rope

my soul trapped in me

iv.

teary eyes

with sparks and lightning

dried vision

caged existence

seek deliverance

muttering old prayers

v.

I grow wings to become a bird

on bed rising to dream in a room

that couldn’t be church to breed hope:

end up a small hope in grave

no sun reaches to raise me again

Ram Krishna Singh, also known as R.K.Singh, has published poems, articles and book reviews in various magazines and journals over the years and taught English for Science and Technology, Indian Writing in English, and Criticism at IIT-ISM, Dhanbad for nearly four decades. His published poetry collections include Against the Waves: Selected Poems (2021), 白濁:

SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST (English/Japanese, 2022), Poems and Micropoems (2023), and Knocking Vistas And Other Poems (2024). More at https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh                                 

Poetry from Hauwa’u Naseer Mukhtar

Light-skinned Black woman with red lipstick, eyeshadow, and a multicolored headscarf. Crowns and stars in the background.

IN THE ARM OF SOLITUDE

Mark of flea, I feel indeed

Comes with wings, closed my breath

Unknowing dreams, praying beats

Wry the words with yo from head.

Thaw the rhymes of thee and this

Echo of silent, in the waves of is

Sound travel heavy seas

Solitude cry, but I and thee.

Sky of mirrow, it’s flea

Feeling the bite and dull I please

Beyond the eye beside lips

Brock the stone eye sleep .

Anon, I see lass in deep

Flea bite me in heart, I think

Is between fire and water drips

Wrapped in the arm of solitude.

Woo through the ocean flane

I hush forest of voiceless trees

Life speaks in riddle tongue

I see ehor mood, shadow whispers

In the arm of solitude, mute hand

Life on breath, days shadowed

Dull alive and killed the bright

Solitude speaks to me with her voice.

          By HAUWA’U NASEER MUKHTAR

         KEEN PEN

        HAWK EYE POET.

BIOGRAPHY

Hauwa’u Nasir Mukhtar, known in literary circles as “Keen Poet” or “Hawkeye,” is a burgeoning poet and writer hailing from Gombe State, Nigeria. My work is characterized by a keen observation of the world around me, weaving intricate narratives that reflect both personal and communal experiences.

EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

Born and raised in Gombe State, I am the cherished daughter of Nasir Mukhtar and Rahama Muhammad. My upbringing in a nurturing family environment laid the foundation for my artistic pursuits. I shares a close bond with my sisters: Ummusalma, affectionately known as “Dazzle Poet,” and Zainab, dubbed “The Legend.” Together, they form a trio of creative minds, each contributing uniquely to the tapestry of Nigerian literature.

My foray into poetry began at a young age, inspired by the rich cultural heritage of Northern Nigeria and the vibrant literary community in Gombe. My pseudonyms, “Keen Poet” and “Hawkeye,” reflect my perceptive nature and my ability to capture the subtleties of human emotion and societal dynamics.

Poetry from Dr. John Portelli

Older light skinned man with reading glasses and a white collared shirt with a blue floral pattern seated at a desk. Books, abstract paintings, and a lamp are behind him.


POPPIES

Poppies without borders

Unending scarlet

As in Gaza

Where children play

With the blood of the dead

……….

GAZA

the bundled snowy clouds emerged again

like the frigid death of an exile in Gaza

the sacks are overflowing with bones

the snow is light death is heavy 

…….

A SEA THAT ROARS

a drop in the universe like the granules of 

orange sand in Gaza, the horror of the 

mighty pretending to be at peace

it roars for the forsaken children

who watch the lonely robin left nibbling

at the corpses of their parents and siblings

they rot away, while Trump and Netanyahu

shake hands on their plan to cover

the horror with a Mediterranean resort.

they falsely promise glorious days for the orphans

who will never give up the vision of their 

great-grandparents nakbatised by British Zionists

this heartless plan of the President 

will never appease these starving children, 

who will never give up hope

they know that from death new life is born

let the sea roar!

……..

JOHN P. PORTELLI

John P. Portelli is a Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, originally from Malta, and author of 11 collections of poetry, two collections of short stories and a novel. His work in Maltese  has been translated into English, French, Italian, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Greek, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian and Korean. While he migrated to Canada in 1977 and settled in Montreal, and later in Halifax and Toronto, now he lives between Toronto and Malta.

Essay from Dr. Jernail Singh

Older South Asian man with a beard, a deep burgundy turban, coat and suit and reading glasses and red bowtie seated in a chair.
Dr. Jernail S. Anand

EVIL, CRIME AND VIOLENCE: HAS GOD FINALLY LOST THE BATTLE?

What keeps us holding on while watching a movie is not the even flow of events, but we always look for how and when things take a twist, a villain is introduced, and the film ends with a brutal fight in which the villain is killed and his empire decimated embodying the great ethical message that good always triumphs over evil. I have never seen a movie in which the protagonist is killed at the end, and evil is shown prospering. However, the movies of contemporary times sometimes come up with blended stories which present victims who turn villains and take on society or their tormentors. I am reminded of ‘Deewar’ in which a victimized child turns out to be a great mafia don. He was getting back on the society which had caused the death of his father, and brought the family to ruin.

When we look back at literature, and, in particular, drama, we wonder how comedy stands nowhere in comparison to the impact, the tragedy leaves on the mind of man. If we talk of lasting impact, it comes only from tragedy. Tragedy is nothing but violence which is given an aesthetic turn so that finally it evokes a wholesome response from the audience. ‘Oedipus’ ‘Macbeth’ ‘Julius Caesar’ ‘Hamlet’ are immortal works which have left a lasting impact on the mind of man, finally making them emerge as better human beings.

If we are shown a film in which people are living a happy life, after some time, we shall start feeling, why we are wasting time. What is there in it. So, that ‘what’ which we are looking for in a film is some villain, something going wrong, so that it leads to some ‘thrills’ and thrills are not possible until things take a twist, and go wrong. If we look back at Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, nobody will read it if Satan is dropped. Evil and violence are essential to make peace and poise, meaningful and worth craving for. When evil dies, we heave a sigh of unmixed relief. It is another thing this feeling of relief is different if we are watching a tragedy by Sophocles or Shakespeare. The students of literature know a tragedy effects catharsis by purging the feelings of pity and fear, thus restoring the mental balance of the audience.

Violence that we watch before our eyes on the road is different from the violence we watch in a film or even drama. Distance lends charm, even to a vile thing like a violent death. Actual violence evokes anger, and a feeling of revenge, while the reported violence makes us sit and reflect, and the servicing of our mind gets into operation.

Learning what is good may be a difficult lesson. But the instinct for the evil is quite intrinsic to mankind. Our nervous system reports faster to malignant impulses. Still, truth and untruth, and good and evil remain intertwined and in order to understand good, we have to have an instant understanding of what is evil and where good ends and evil begins. In this way, the study of evil is more important than the study of good, because when we study evil, we shall automatically understand, what is not evil, and all that is not evil is good.

Sometimes I wonder how we dislike the easy flow of life. What we call ‘illat’ in Punjabi is ‘mischief’ in English. Mischief is the sapling from which the tree of crime takes shape. Mischief in its infancy dons an aura of pleasantness, which we tend to enjoy. But it starts giving us headache when mischief takes the shape of mistakes, and when mistakes become a habit, they become the cause of cardiac arrest for the society: that is crime. A mistake can be corrected, and atoned for, but for a crime, one has suffer. The only reason why the perpetrator of a crime has to suffer is that he makes others suffer, and unless he himself suffers, the account cannot be squared.

How evil is interspersed in our being, we can judge it easily if we filter the ideas that enter and fleet from our mind for an hour. We shall soon come to realize how evil comes so naturally to man, while for doing good, we have to force ourselves into strict discipline, and even train our mind to think right thoughts. It is shocking and surprising too, that we need no training in doing evil, while we need gurus, scriptures, oracles, and pilgrimages to understand the idea of good.

The real surprise is we have a huge array of religions, and prophets, and their teachings, their sacrifices, and their shrines which dot the earth in millions. India has a great spiritual legacy [which country hasn’t have her own?] like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Bhagwad Gita is the greatest spiritual text for right living. So, is the Guru Granth Sahib which represents the Sikh Faith. If we go further into it, we shall see how people like Yogis, Nagas, Boddhis and Lamas are required to undergo rigorous training of body and mind, to keep their minds in trim. They wear a particular dress, and lead  rigorous lives, and they are told that they must keep muttering the name of God all the time.

I cannot imagine how great is the lure of evil and violence in our lives!  They always keep us on tenterhooks, always trying to destabilize us and cause our fall.  The paradox is startling. For evil, you need no training. You can do it very naturally. Rather, if you indulge in evil, you feel so natural and normal. But, if you are told to do good, you need the backing of religious rigour, and when you do it, it is not done, it is performed, like a duty. To be good is a duty. And, you know, a duty is a task assigned to us much against our will. How happily we perform our duties?

I don’t question why Eve fell to Satan’s insinuations. Even Adam could have fallen, had Satan tried his art at him. But, I think Satan knew our modern dictum which has been the subject of declamation contests. If you teach a man, you teach only one person. But if you teach a woman, you teach a whole family. Satan might have been thinking of devastating the entire tribe by poisoning Eve’s ears. The original tribe was endowed with Original Intelligence, in the form of Innocence [which does not, however, mean Ignorance]. Satan attacked it very cautiously. He proposed that they should get knowledge and know more and more about themselves and their existential conditions.  It was tempting for them. Evil’s greatest quality is that it tempts. Men fall because of greed. That is why, Lustus, the neo-mythical heir of Satan is shown as blessed by Greda, the goddess of Greed [neo-mythology]. In fact, when man is greedy, he can be  tempted which means he has said good bye to reason and sense. It is a perverted form of trance, in which reason is put in abeyance, and man does not know when he has glided into the glittering world of crime and violence.  Just as Truth has a physical dimension in Ethics, Evil has a physical manifestation in Violence. How we love it? Our world, our newspapers are full of news items relating to crime, killings, abductions, arson, accidents, heists and scams. They never upset us. That is the neo-normal. Rather what upsets us is the absence of a villain and violence from a piece of life, as much as in a film.

The Author

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, [the Seneca, Charter of Morava, Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky award and Signs Peace Award Laureate, with an opus of 180 books, whose name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia]]  is a towering literary figure whose work embodies a rare fusion of creativity, intellect, and moral vision.

Poetry from Eva Petropolou Lianou

Middle-aged, light-skinned European woman with light blue eyes, light brown hair, and a black turtleneck sweater.

Αbout poetry

Poetry

Is a very demanding woman

She knows how powerful are the words

They can win a war

With the right verses

Poetry,

Needs loyal man

Needs time

And caring

As you take a white paper

And you give your self

Creating sentence s

With your heart

A woman need so

Much caring

Much love 

As the poem

Is ready

To come out of your

Stomach

Or your heart

Feelings never spoken

Feelings never shared

A woman was never loved…

Poetry

It is the way 

We see the love

We see 

Ourselves

Trying to  

Be loved

Trying to make 

Wishes

 to come true

Poetry

Is our freedom…..

Poetry from Taylor Dibbert

Tariffs

No matter what happens

His appreciation for bourbon

Is looking pretty savvy

At the moment,

Obviously he’s a 

Rising global strategist 

Poised for a big year.

Taylor Dibbert is a poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of, most recently, “Takoma.”