like a curtain caught in a window that was never opened
and even now there’s a silence I visit sometimes
where she almost speaks
and I almost answer
Leon Drake is a Toronto based poet whose work has been published in print and online. He lets his writing speak for him. For art is the best side of us.
Between the intermission of sunlight and shadow is the eccentric owl, A paradoxical symbol perched on its prairie horse at the mythological rodeo, Adorned with a grim grimace and stoic gaze, Embracing and embodying wisdom, knowledge and intellectuality conceived and perceived as
teachers or seers, per nocturnal personality, Especially due to their supernatural reportage with Greek goddess Athena, in Greek Mythology Athena, the Goddess of
Wisdom, was embodied by an owl,
said to have sat on her blind side to help her see the truth better, underworld harbinger of medieval spirit literature, they are also embodiments of death, darkness, mystery, and Tragedy frequently showcased in Shakespeare’s literature, notably Julius Caesar,
as omens of death or calamity, possessing dualistic qualities of wisdom and warning hence be weary of their company that
proffer a complex tapestry of celebratory elasticity and foreboding fraternity… They can also be romantic allusions symbolizing solitude and introspection much like pensive poetic bards
conjuring up missiled missives as lymphatic literary marmalades…
Jacques Fleury
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self
I have the opportunity to review a powerful work that portrays women as a quiet but unstoppable force. This poem is from my friend, the talented and respected poet Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi of Qatar.
The poem
By Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi:
She Who Walks with Light
She moves with time, yet time cannot hold her.
Through dust and doubt, she gathers her strength.
From pain, she shapes resilience.
From hope, she kindles fire.
She honors yesterday
And rises stronger from every fall.
She does not wait for the dawn—
She carries the light within
And creates tomorrow
With every brave step.
****
Poetry Review:
“She Who Walks with Light”
Dr. Bashir Issa Al-Shirawi of Qatar.
Review
By Yatti Sadeli
⚘️This poem is a portrait of a woman as a quiet but unstoppable force.
In 10 lines, the poet successfully encapsulates an inner journey from wound to fire, from falling to creating tomorrow.
The title “She Who Walks with Light” can be read two ways: she walks with the light, or she walks as the light.
The line “carries the light within” emphasizes the latter. The light is not borrowed from the dawn; it is innate, which she chooses to keep burning.
Conclusion “She Who Walks with Light” is a short, powerful poem. It doesn’t lament the darkness, it doesn’t glorify the wound, it doesn’t wait for a savior. It notes: a woman who makes peace with her fall and chooses to light herself will always be one step ahead of time.
Each line feels like an affirmation that can be taped to a mirror—not to be read once, but to be remembered whenever doubts arise.
He loved the dregs of the broth and the stub of days left:
The little sleep nudging and knocking on his eyes,
And the crystal crumbs crying uneaten on the plate.
He shredded sweet meats with forked toothpicks,
A tired mouth disdained the rinds of cheese.
The tiny crimps on the suit he missed in the ironing
Lingered like sore fingers of a leprous hand.
All the small words that stuck to his throat like phlegm and the bigger world of remembering of those days,
Those tiny footnotes his life had become
Sat like dust on the oaken table, grey and tangible.
At last he mowed down his once-hot soupand the bistre in his eyes asked not for pity.
GEOMETRY OF THE DAY AFTER
What happens when the sirens
stop? Think of the silence,
or the rhetoric’s sweet sonic
in the city’s cold tumult.
Talk of the spikelets raising heads after the clean shave.
I choose you, a stranger’s outstretched hand, after the unmerciful quiet wears your face to the bones.
I see your ears
Pockmarked in blood, your name, splattered across the city’s grey face,
cake into a totem cream.
The sounds you bear
from rapping the door and flaking the wall
in the city hall conjure the ghost of the last frost.The only time birds sang
in the blistered sky
was when the moon wrestled the earth.
AS THE OVERPLAYED TURNTABLE GROANS
the world holds its breath as if sweet stenches from the trenches were some fetish to disdain or dissuade.
The skeletal threads of fire and brimstone chainsaws to teacups.
Morning hailstorms ground the waters of Hormuz.
Brackish taste remembers what the smell strains to unlearn.
Every step is a swindle of note. Every word a luxury.
Every tap dance kneads a hollow sound in the bones
from the brain that owns a hundred ritual regrets to the trails of ourselves in the shadow overlooking the cliff we turn to for a plunge. We love grunge whether the sun sinks behind hills or
the world frays at its forked ends.We are worn-out fingers on a ploughshare,
the forgotten half-life of a smouldering song.
PARABLE OF THREE TANGLED SPIRITS
Freedom rides in the saddle of death.In his hands lies the reins and the kingdom,
neither sauntering nor galloping in the streets of Jerusalem,
not sweating or wallowing in Golgotha’s fields;
thoughts scurry awayuntil the trial pales into a shadow.
In the remnants of a losing battle and a strained home,
Jesus dreams of marrying a shadow.
Neither flesh nor soft touch stays, but silence
that sways like miracles within.
Smoothly, the water splits into wine,
When Mary and Martha linger at his feet,
it is as if the lips of heaven were kissing His Holy Ventriloquist with the magic words.
How will a spiritual eye choose between two beauties?
One ruby-haired and full-bosomed. The other blue-eyed and sprite. What is the cost of the fragrance in shekels? And the trio spar unclad in a serpent bed
where the sheets frayed in a million places.
A pillow strains with mixed blood and lumps
of a built-in liberty; in the transfiguration of love,
intransigence hardens a garden into a layered city
where bones and walls refuse to die.
Nattie O’Sheggzy is a poet who, often accompanied by his loyal dog, Exhale, finds inspiration in the complexities of simple things. He is the author of two poetry collections: Random Imaginations and Sounds of the Wooden Gong. Nattie’s work has been featured in various literary publications, including Literary Yard, Sandy River Review, Everscribe, Ultramarine Review, Heroin Love Song, Agape Review, SweetSmell Journal, Smoky Quartz, Feed The Holy, and LiteZine. He is currently working on publishing his third poetry collection.
Tribute to the 17th United Nations Chinese Language Day
Portrait of Confucius
On the 17th United Nations Chinese Language Day we celebrate the timeless charm of Chinese characters a carrier of thousands of years of Eastern wisdom poetry and cultural heritage
Five years ago during the 12th UN Chinese Language Day one of the three core thematic lectures selected by the United Nations “The Mysterious Dongba Hieroglyphs” was solemnly held at our Dongba Culture Academy My respected master the 17th-generation Grand Dongba Priest Aheng Dongta appeared on the front page of the official United Nations website As a wise man of the Naxi people and the soul inheritor of Dongba culture he brought the world’s only living pictographic script to the global stage letting the wisdom of Dongba culture and the brilliance of Eastern civilization shine on the international stage
Dongba hieroglyphs are the living fossil of Naxi civilization a cultural code spanning millennia and a spiritual bridge connecting the past and present and linking civilizations As the sole female inheritor and international communicator of the Dongba culture of the UNESCO Memory of the World I will always stay true to my mission as a cultural messenger delving into the translation and research of Dongba ancient books to let this precious human cultural heritage revitalize in the new era Taking language as a bond I will promote dialogue and mutual learning among different civilizations injecting oriental energy into world peace and cultural prosperity
