At night 

curves in the road
multiply

when there are no
street lights

on those posted- 
25 miles per hour 
and they mean it
two lanes

Excessive drinking
is what the young
and the feckless islanders
do

tourists as well
willfully riding
their motorcycles

rented mopeds
ATV’s

dune buggies

without helmets
where none are
supposed to go

Their roadside
memorials are
everywhere

homemade paint chipped
white crosses losing
their luster
 

Death Comes to the Harborside 

Historic turn of the last 
century hotel and lounge’s
self-immolation produced

smoke and flames
visible on mainland
miles away

We wonder what happened
to the speakeasy ghosts

the good time girls

flappers and spirits
of the murdered and
those who died of natural
causes

Days later numbered
striped cue balls
are found unearthed
from rubble along with
a long forgotten
floor safe

Marked cards inside

Tally sheets and chits
IOU’s dated and signed
100 plus years ago

 
A community of crows

gathers in yew trees
bordering the inland
cemetery

The oldest headstone
date back to 1700’s
but the crows are timeless

By dusk there are
hundreds of them
silently inhabiting the trees

 
Surfing the Hurricane

A few 12 packs
and surfing the storm
seems like a great idea

a plan

“Oh, man, look at
the swell”

The rip tides
and the submerged
rock

the killer waves

 
The Chainsaw Artist

works nights in
a barn lit by flickering
kerosene lamps

Such an uncertain light
for carving dread beasts
never seen anywhere in
this world except
in his mind

When they are finished
the artist hides his creations
amid the clutching brambles

the decaying drooping trees
where hikers come upon them
in unexpected places

Unearthing these creatures
instills the kind of fear
that can never be erased

leads to illness
and despair

The woods feel haunted now

alive with unseemly beings
wherever the artist has been 
 
We can hear incessant

tolling of church bells
from the far side
of the great salt pond
where no structures
are

Such a mournful sound
propelled across
the surface by a steady
off-shore breeze

We listen wondering
why we are being
summoned from so far
away

inheritance

i see you, my child

taking after your father.

the way he yearns

to care for everything

except his own mind.

all you wish is to 

be loved the way

that you love the world.

the way your heart moves

is a cry for help

i watch your eye twitch

just like your dad’s

when he is locking away

his own mind into his

own form of purgatory.

he is jailed, sealed

away from the warmth

he desperately needs.

i love you, my child.

let your soul roam

free into all the wonders

this world can offer.

Village

A lonely cottage by the river wall
The sun scooped daisy under my beige wall
A pointed facade a long overturn over there
To mend and bask the town Meadows
As I lay dipping in the river 
I hear cascades over my rimmed lens
A lovely blossom it was, it lied open dust
The moonbeamed sun is lowly now
To hung the home grown lilies
The blue painted carpenter singed a choir
A thousand lullabyed biddings
For the village was aglow in the pure love. 

Lost

Grass or hair

Very close

Sickle-covered hands

Cut by the clouds of the decks

Sailors’ souls or sailors’ corpses

In the ocean of time

In the ocean of the soul

A void stirred by the storm

A void moved by the wind

Catch me

Raw are matches

Keep me warm

Hands are broken

Anchors melted into cotton candy.

Sails soak up the screams and become heavy as metal

No one remembers but the seagulls

Death by ship

A ship that tasted death

No one knows where the corpses go

Ice beneath the feet of slipping death

Cast-iron milk of tastes and sunken eyes of noses

Nobody knows how to compose a proper serenade

Nobody knows how to die with rhyme

Nobody writes dead poetry

Nobody writes poetry for dead people

Nobody knows how to write and read

Strange seagulls look everywhere with their beaks

EURIDIQUE COME BACK ONE DAY!

(dedication to my late wife)

Eurydice, come back one day,

that my song for you does not stop

prayer to Hades touches ancient crystals,

my muse invades Diana’s verse,

I will not turn my head back

that I am not Orfe.

Eurydice, take the fairies’ journey,

come to visit and don’t stop there to see

the children have grown up. Teuta walks

your traces in Grammar,

Fly like birds in flight,

Lali stays calm like a meteor pillar,

cold winter has fallen on me

I have snow everywhere on my head.

Eurydice, I wrote you a letter,

in which paradise do you rest,

sorry i didn’t have an address

and started the journey without a visa,

no passport, no goodbye

and how do we wish this year?!

The Sun’s Tears

I do not trust

the sun’s

tears

and Lora’s

love

I do not trust

theweight

ofher word

or the longing

I have for her.

The Drawer of Forgetfulness

I locked you up

in the drawer of forgetfulness

as the crystalline water under the earth

and the crumpled writing on the gray sheet

proof of the time spent in the studio

I saw you

in the labyrinths of the faculty

where the Alphabet’s raytwinkles

your voice can be heard in each class room

in the workbook you

are piling up the memory years.

Lora 

We wander through time 

like snakes in the bushes 

Lora and I 

in the ecstasy of the painting 

I gave her Mona Lisa’s smile 

I drank water from Lora’s bosom 

and I lost myself in adolescent dreams, 

I gave Lora a life 

I gave the sky a kiss 

the sun seemed to be silent 

and left a free way to darkness 

the rainbow lightens my way 

fiery I take the stars to the bosom 

I hug the sun 

to feel its tenderness. 

Lora is silent 

and she silently speaks 

in her blonde hair 

I touch the love 

embers in the lap 

white frost 

he left traces 

Lora is asleep 

with the fiery stars 

tickling her lips 

in the corrugated crown 

the sounds of silence 

I put her crown 

and I read under her eyelids 

the novel I will write 

Lora with her bosom as virgin snow 

lures the Talmudists’ years 

Lora crystalline meteor.

WHAT TO WISH YOU TONIGHT

I am drunken with craving

of cords of your voice

I seek the canary of love

in the labyrinths of the soul

the morning messenger is not heard

nor he knits the sounds cardigan of Monastery

you, the lost one in the waves of forgetfulness.

I glaze the pictures in the museum

I doze in present time

the verb love

I conjugate in first person

Because you loved me

I track in mirative form

the time passed in lucidity

what to wish you tonight as you forgot me.

Ah, with the sweetness of the vowels

Quivered even my lake

we, like two canaries in the mountains

loosing trails in canon

me, you and the voice

tonight brings me back to nostalgia.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
flutter

and here comes the old timer



a blackout drunk in the city
that never sleeps


has stories for days about
hookers, heroin and whatever
happens to flutter into his mind


i egg him on from time to time,
especially when he calls oprah
the anti-christ


how many black women have
fucked you over?


i stopped counting in the late
fall of 1979


like a lost dog, he wears those
puppy eyes like a scolded child


ok, let's go to the bar


he lights up

a smile



we get to the bar and ask for
two old fashioneds and a shot
of everclear


the bartender asks are you two
celebrating or looking to die


the old timer mumbles under
his breath
what is the fucking difference

i pat him on the back, reassuringly

tell him there isn't any
---------------------------------------------------------------------
imagine the fame

watching the news recently
has me rethinking all those
dreams when i was a kid
and i wanted to kill
my father

i sip on a whiskey
and imagine the fame

love letters on the wall
of a prison cell, cracking
jokes

of course i try not to
think who is claiming
me as their bitch

swimming in a river
of apathy that never
ends

whatever greatness ever
touched me has withered
away by now

a walking corpse


a poem edited beyond
belief

even the shotgun in the
corner has lost interest

i think of my bed as a tomb
and one day, i won't be jesus

actually get to enjoy
a few more hours
of sleep
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
any sense of depravity

a slow song
as she rests
her aching head
on what is left
of your soul

it was never
supposed to
be this hard

all the mistakes


bad luck dressed
as a devil in a
three piece suit

two dreamers left
alone to suffer

stretch a dollar past
any sense of depravity

this is what happens
when the drunks realize
a bon jovi song is never
something to aspire to

can't afford the good
drugs anymore

this is why you never
burn any bridges with
the homeless

you never know
------------------------------------------------------------------------
when the holidays roll around

embrace the madness like tomorrow
is the hooker with a heart of gold

some fantasy made up in a
tarantino movie i suppose

the nights get bleaker when the
holidays roll around

suicide is this tempting seductress
showing just the right amount
of leg

she will give you a taste and you'll be
fighting the urge the rest of your life

i see the tombstones of my friends

lucky fucks that made it out

but who knows

maybe some damsel in distress
stumbles into my life

i win a lottery or a ten team parlay
and suddenly, sunshine is something
more than just cancer waiting to happen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
something fondly

sometimes i believe my death
will solve everything and soon
enough i will be forgotten

my ego tries to make a point
that the poems will last longer
than any of us

and there will surely be a woman
or two that cries or remembers
something fondly

the realist in me laughs

knows none of this matters
or will come true

the ashes will be spread into
a flower bed where the dogs
will piss every morning
that part always makes me laugh

fitting

i always pictured my ashes
being flushed down a toilet
in a cocaine rage
but pissed on isn't that far off

hopefully the flowers

will look good



J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know better. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Yellow Mama, The Rye Whiskey Review and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. 

Rubina Anis is the Headteacher of Harimohan Government High school, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. She has obtained her honors’ and masters’ degree from the department of Arts and Crafts at Rajshahi University.