MY DAY STARTS ONLY WITH YOU!

If your absence is neither gain nor loss

Don’t know why it bothers me then

My day starts only with your thoughts 

My crimson evening comes from you

Every moment I breath in is called life

Your blue eyes and tender arms in mine

Nothing but you rule in me all the time

Your words are my words you do know

My dreamy nights are but your gifts

Strange all of me has become yours

I want to be loyal till my last breath 

The unbreakable thread has bound us 

Even on separating it doesn’t separate

Even on breaking it does never break.

EVEN IF I DIE!

Days and nights your memories visit

They do torture my anguished heart 

Meeting and separation are norms now

I am all hopeless in your crazy thoughts

For the world the heart is a puppet

I can well imagine how it does feel to be

Please don’t look at me so intensely 

Promise me if I die you won’t forget me 

You always reside in the corner of my eyes

Yet you exist somewhere far away from me

You are so close to my heart I believe !!

MY HOPELESS HEART!

My heart full of love is incurable 

It’s hard to explain its passions

With its hobby to live and die

My hopeless heart is all thirsty 

Of poison all the while; walking

On embers is its hoary practice 

Still tempted to wounds and pains

Causing sorrow and loneliness 

Splendour of love and disgrace 

Am never ever sure of its mood

My passionate heart is incurable.

MY WORLD MOVES SO FAST!

Every time i see you

My world moves so fast

It doesn’t happen often

When meeting a stranger 

Don’t go away far from me

You have my swear

I love more than myself

Whatever is in my heart is all yours

Ask me anything you desire

Who stopped you from asking me

If you have intention to kill me

Do it slowly

Not even the slightest of noise

Made from my lips.

Sahitya Ratnakar Dr Prasana Kumar Dalai.

(DOB 07/06/1973) is a passionate Indian Author-cum- bilingual poet while a tremendous Asst Professor of English by profession in the Ganjam district of Odisha. He is an accomplished source of inspiration for young generation of India. His free verse on Romantic and melancholic poems appreciated by everyone. He belongs to a small typical village Nandiagada of Ganjam District,the state of Odisha.After schooling he studied intermediate and Graduated in Kabisurjya Baladev vigyan Mahavidyalaya then M A in English from Berhampur University PhD in language and literature and D. Litt from Colombian poetic house from South America.

He promotes his specific writings around the world literature and trades with multiple stems that are related to current issues based on his observation and experiences that needs urgent attention. He is an award-winning writer who has achieved various laurels from the circle of writing worldwide. His free verse poems not only inspire young readers but also the ready of current time. His poetic symbol is right now inspiring others, some of which are appreciated by laurels of India and across the world. Many of his poems been translated in different Indian languages and got global appreciation. Lots of well wishes for his upcoming writings and success in future.

He is an award-winning poet author of many best seller books. Recently he was awarded Rabindra nath Tagore and Gujarat Sahitya Academy for the year 2022 from Motivational Strips. Jaidev Puraskar from Kavita Minar Badamba Cuttack A gold medal from world union of poets France & winner Of Rahim Karims world literary prize 2023.The government of Odisha Higher Education Department appointed him as a president to Governing body of Padmashree Dr Ghanashyam Mishra Sanskrit Degree College, Kabisurjyanagar. Winner of ” HYPERPOEM ” GUNIESS WORLD RECORD 2023.Recently he was awarded at the SABDA literary Festival at Assam. Highest literary honour from Peru contributing world literature 2024.Prestigious Cesar Vellejo award 2024 & Highest literary honour from Peru. Director at Samrat Educational charitable Trust Berhampur, Ganjam Odisha.

Vicedomini of the World Union of Poets, Italy. UHE awarded him the prestigious Golden Eagle award for his contributions to world literature in 2025.

Completed 257 epistolary poems with American poet Kristy Raines.

Bharat Seva Ratna National award 2025, International Glory award from Manam Foundation Hyderabad Telengana. On the eve of the 1979 Independence Day celebration he earned the Rashtra Ratna award & Maa Bharati Seva Sammana. In 2025 he received a doctorate in Humanity and Literature from Theophany University in Haiti with UNESCO, AEADO and the leaders of Autonomy International. The Prince of Crimea and the Golden Horde from the House of Genghis Khan gave him the prestigious title of “Honorary Bey.”

Received Sahitya Ratnakar from New Delhi 2025, Honorary Doctorate from RMF University collaborated with east and west university Florida United States of America on the eve of International Peace Day. Prestigious THE CONDOR OF ANDES from UHE Mexico 2025. PRESTIGIOUS DOCTORATE from VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE AND WORLD PEACE 2025. Nominated for Padmashree 2025. Three-time Gold from the world Union of Poets France. Doctorate from Theophany university Haiti contribution for the world literature 2025. SAHITYA RATNAKAR from New Delhi. Dr. Mayadhar Mansigh Saraswat Samman 2025. Doctorate in Gandhian Philosophy, Peace and Humanity 2025.

Doctorate from Victoria University for Peace 2026. UHE of Peru appointed him as a World Ambassador for Peace and Justice 2026.Valiant of the Nation Award 2026 on the eve of the 129th birthday commemoration for Subash Chandra Bose.

INTERNATIONAL BOOKS

1.Psalm of the Soul 2. Rise of New Dawn 3. Secret Of Torment 4. Everything I Never Told You. 5.Vision Of Life National Library Kolkata 6.100 Shadows of Dream 7. Timeless Anguish 8. Voice of Silence 9.I Cross my Heart from East to West and epistolary poetry with Kristy Raines, published in USA.

BEHIND THE VEIL

I want to tell you

that even your magic veil

cannot hide your secret smile.

And despite its red color,

it cannot hide the radiance

of your glowing cheeks.

I feel your racing heartbeat

and sense your burning longing

behind the veil.

On the shores of your wishes,

I see the smile on my face

that joy left years ago.

Anwer Ghani 

A poet and physician

Iraq

LINKTREE

Spits

1 

Little girl from my school 

Beating a teddy bear with a belt

The toys are bashfully silent

The sun is still shining through the window

Parents will come home from work soon

2

He says that sperm must be swallowed

His cum tastes as dirty as his armpits

He likes to call his dick big and shove it in my mouth

His wife probably doesn’t know that I’m blowing her husband

His dick is as dirty as his words

He likes to call gays fagots, it’s supposedly sexy

He can’t even imagine how much sperm his wife tried

I can’t even imagine how often a husband kisses his wife on the lips after adultery

Love is a raw chop seasoned with pepper

But like a madman I still believe that someone in this world truly knows how to love

3

Greenery does not ask the night whether it is worth growing

The baby wants to sleep in a green carpet of grass

But the baby falls asleep in the green glass of time

The future is spit and we are drowned

CREATIVE VOICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE 

They are eager to create a good impression at work.

They are eager to create what you see, what you look, what you spark.

It is important to create from experience, from the mind of creative person.

They may have a scattered cognition.

They may seem like weirdos but the sacrifice makes it a real and accurate.

They create the television we watch and enjoy.

They never abnegate themselves.

They use their strategies to create something purposes.

They have effulgence lighting the way they create.

They perfect work with courage and forte

Their strength, their patience and their determination to see they accomplish and attain their work.

Their strength help them to appear self-important and self brain work.

They have determination to create something on the earth.

We leave some of our culture to follow someone trails for seeking refuge to achieve our dreams.

Our culture is the key to success and creativity adds something to it.

They change the world with what they create.

Their ideas bring light where there was no light.

They inspire others to dream on act from their courage.

New hope is freshness.

And follow culture and creatives is the life.

“Ummusalma Nasir Mukhtar is a Nigerian poet with a passion for words that transcend pages. Born to Nasir Mukhtar and Rahma Muhammad, she’s nurtured a dream of becoming an English literature professor, inspiring others with the power of language. With siblings Hauwa’u (Jidda) and Zainab (Inteeser) – a budding computer professional – Ummusalma’s journey is a tapestry of creativity and ambition. Her published works, ‘Ink Beneath My Skin’, ‘Shadows of My Voice’, and ‘Sun Rise’, echo her voice, weaving tales of experiences and emotions. With each line, she steps closer to sharing her unique perspective with the world.”

A Third

Fate   banned   opposition
    accounted              human
resignation          famine
                 hesitated        losses
tragedy          parking lot       fortune
        an indeed         appointment to
railroad                             obscurity
             figured              rabid
    talkative           feted        boom
association    prickly     conduction
         ambidextrous                  ironic
      plight                  lackluster
serial               complexity         industrial
            pit                       stomach
                diplomatic           user
preventative        causing in
      bureaucracy          courts
                   indignation           pipes
                               views
generalist                        competence
            cited
domino       geologist          period
               featured         salacious 
incognito            flame
     network            calling card
         fortune teller                   average
profile            breaking                pinch
           discontinuity       memoir






no actual pepper

pillage offer of little capacity
corpse of desolation
                        an impeachment
                        sweeping plunder

          boom prince racked
          confused epilogue
          tracking hangover
          recognized credit
                               tangle handguns
                               nestling ink
                               and social scale

quill gravely half-timbered
downriver twenty minutes
worth ermine trace spires
feathery measured stovepipe
goatee hatred golden chain reaction

     cross,pit,currant,earlier,
     haberdasher,docks,notaries,
     penny,euphemism,clutch,
     voyages,gums,unilateral
     baffled,isolated,profits,flames

globe suffers navigational cargo
fraught astrolabe raids enthusiasm
viable endeavors plant icebergs
bone-jarring celebrity dully exact
shipmate grotesque jumping deck

                                           reach back
                                           looted event





Ongoing perpetuated concrete battlegrounds

Tape MACHINE wings
ballet elementary
        denial

>>> sessions
,             contents
     ,                rescinded
creditors influence
an influx of
           constructivist
disCOURSES<<<
………………..
	AS A
matter              of
       fluently
theoretical vigor
             CrashinG
&                   revising
     likewise
                eradication
[.][.][.][.][.]

         Deep proactive
assumptions
                    caught
            glued          to
the portrait
of the embedded
                   sculptures
.
.
. 
   Oriented surface
napping                  ON
                  TOUR
        to                 floor
an invisibility collective
collaborating
    dissonant
shingles assembled
            fluorescent 
clusters
                       permeating
END
     notes
,              zeroed
         out              ,
left to flounder
                    in
unstoppable
                 elsewhere
a medium
     simplistic
preexisting
     generational
habit
     ineffective
,                day
   dreaming
           ,
       associated
detailed
              medium
          cool          dalliance
,
      variable               ,
artless          ,
            struggling
to                     possess
            a
                 curated
reserve.





Still fluid notion

Rude keeps guessing thumb imprint
suddenly spared sword allowances
no bazaar turning flair gold record
formerly airport research material.

Activation cosmopolitan funnel
     gliding     voracious     quartet
expanded self-regard amended
                 start vandalism
                 a piece whining
                 recorded barrel
                 ball of defection
                 scaling palace.

                                Splendid
                       telescopic fountain
                  : ToMb ToWeR   ,   unlikely
            diverting Rome,Istanbul,
                             Cairo,selfhood.

Groaning                        overgrown
             might reoccupied
        thousand-pillared             mosque
shapeless            shrine                  pilfered
                 eccentric heaps of
                 figurines contradict
                 wrecked courtly litter.

        “What they saw has gone native.”

                      “Very few words report friction.”

               “Distant assistants four later editions.”





Invisible or living

Weekly incidence welded to caution
: manure feigned membership :
           acute collarbone identity
          ,cosmic instigation,
                                an overreaction.

Critiques
        THUS = however futile
             separated caricature,
    verbose cartons of
                           ridicule.

                Feral outlook
                judges syntax.

                               [humane dystopian
                                madness (horizon)
                               ,supper club
                                        destined
                                film still       ,
                                turmoil of
                                effective
                                            drives].

Maxims aren’t full-contact programs.

     Atmospheric nihilism [collage
                             one another     ,
                             subjected to
                                    membership
                             dues & don’ts].

Underground segments
critical hysteria
hostile
          center=
                   stage.

Cacophonously burping
,mainstream contribution,
     hack,heck,hack,heck,hack.

                              Geriatric sponge
                              kicking backside /
                              slide discourse
                              features excerpts /

satire renews an activation /

                        themed civil wars / 
 
         public replicated self-definitions.

                Unconscious ethos broader guilt
                : exacting imaginary citizens :
                                               “Knotted ties apply
                                                 triumphant lust to
                                                 outstretch physiques.”

Musical rather than coherent.
                 [ideas campaigns
                  first person
           , judges harsh flasks]

Impaling begins.

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is a member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author most recently of the books punctuated avalanche (Stone Corpse Press) and en=raptur=ed [riverrun] & mingle (Ranger Press) He has had numerous pieces published in various journals. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

Holy Grail

Each afternoon, between Gomer Pyle and Big Ten Theater, the pantry door opened to a small altar and a humble gray amphora, the cookie jar Grail of my Oreo eucharist. My arm disappeared into the dark, wide mouth womb eagerly to the elbow. My small fingers fished for six. There was a compulsive comfort in the number, and with blackened teeth I’d sit before the TV transfixed in ritual, gulping a glass of Nestle’s Quick.

After Mom stopped cooking, cleaning and comforting, after Dad lost the house, the business and confidence, after thrown curses, clothes and coffee, a hysterectomy, psych wards, divorce, therapy and thirty years, my mother sent the forgotten vessel on some well-intentioned birthday errand. She’d glued the broken lid to contain the cargo of my childhood pain. For a while it was on exhibition, an empty antique sitting upon a shelf. I brushed my teeth obsessively after each occasional cookie.

Today I’ll reap and rejoice in a quiet little catharsis. With hammer and shovel, I break and bury the jar in my backyard. Today, I can see my wounds as a sliver slices a finger. What I once thought brought solace, now appears brittle and sharp. Blood fills my hand and drips wet, warm and sticky into the earth. This new grave is moist, fertile and sweet.

Saint Francis

I was canonized, or nearly so, in Ogunquit, Maine last summer on vacation. At dawn, along a granite edge, a collision of continent and ocean, gazing at the Atlantic’s implacable crush upon the shore, I sat in a deck chair cupping a croissant and five-dollar latte (no vow of poverty quite yet).

However presumptuous, a passing fantasy, I thought of myself as Saint Francis. Ridiculous. (On my pilgrimage, a tourist charter to Assisi, I only recall the charming Giotto frescos there; no birds congregated in the basilica; however, I wasn’t paying attention.)

I wasn’t blessed with a martyr’s beatific vision, no celestial seraphim. I was more attuned to inconsequential sparrows flitting about my feet in unassuming feathers, in browns, grays, the drab shades of friars’ habits. Unlike the brash gulls, sparrows, humble, timid and admittedly and prudently so, were terrified of the sea.

My Fioretti: I’d like to believe they gathered for my sermon, my wisdom, my eloquence. Surely, I would allay all fears; so, I mimicked their small chirps, but they cocked heads skeptically.

Graciously indifferent, they skittered, too busy with pecking and scratching, a miracle they listened at all.

Weapons

When Vietnam took all the boys and splayed them on the evening news, a boy, like most boys emulating most men, but especially in uniform, I was smitten with TV shows on World War Two, diluted versions without the gore, without the complications of falling red dominoes.

After failing at catch, Dad tried again in a trifecta to win my affection. Dad fashioned a wooden machine gun (my deadly 30 cal.) to mow down Nazis in Normandy. Keenly, I provided the “rat-a-tat-tat.” However, screams and morphine were not included.

Dad built a cannon from a board and a pipe, artillery on wheels pulled behind my tricycle, a barrage devasting for the Hun. However, my little howitzer was mothballed, rusting when I began riding a real bike. Undeterred, Dad bought more lumber.

Dad spent hours (I was not around) on the envy of all the other boys. An ace over France, I sat in the cockpit of my Spitfire shooting Messerschmitts from the sky. However, trouble was, it lacked altitude. I never left the driveway, never wore my parachute.

Dad was on yet another sales call and I was home alone when I took a hammer to my grounded fighter. After the crash, it never flew again.

Before I Die

An artillery shell stirs my flesh with mud and soldiers divide my limbs among dogs. Just before I die, I’ll taste the softness of my beloved’s lips and a ripe, sweet, summer peach, not bitter plastic tubes or pain-killing pills. I’ll listen to the house finch and the wren but not the television getting in a final commercial, nor one last bit of Mozart’s brilliance.

My body glides in perfect, choreographed grace over steering wheel, dash, through windshield glass, my blood painting car hood and pavement in sweeping, expressionistic gestures. Just before I die, I’ll gaze upon a pale blue sky filled with the warm light of morning. I’ll not look up to a clean, white ceiling and harsh fluorescents flickering; I’ll inhale the humid breath of Spring or the pungent decay of October; I’ll not smell disinfectant on cold stainless steel.

I’ve lost my speech; my right side hangs as limp as a nursing home prick, but I manage half a smile when I’m told my heart has worn too thin. Just before I die, I must hold something in my hands: my grandchild’s face or my son’s graying head; I’ll dance one last time upon the forest floor amidst Mayapples and sassafras; my feet will never reach the clean tile beneath an iron bed.

children die and we buy phones
children work in mines in africa
to mine cobalt for mobile phones.
do you have a nice mobile phone?
i do and will update it soon.
children work in mines in africa
and are forced to slave for pittance.
as a kid did you have to work in a mine?
i never had to either.
children die while mining cobalt
for nice new mobile phones:
children die and we buy phones.
Buy. Phones.
Children. Die.
(repeat).

a petrol and planet hypocrisy
fill it up again and again
places to go and roads to drive on.
full tank in and exhaust spews out
into the air it goes and blows.
and yes we go to fossil fuel rallies
for we care about our environment.
we limit plastic use and love the trees
and always recycle our rubbish.
but again and again we fill up our car
as we have all those places to go.
so is care for the planet and fill it up
a petrol and planet hypocrisy?
you tell me as i know nothing
(but i do know what i’m feeling).

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain for 4 years.