Watch the Quiet Ones

There are things never said causing oblivion
Access to information stalling ambition,
Sameness in form a blinding difference
Not ordinarily a problem, but still kissing death.

Some public kiss eats my soul
Enough to dissolve trust in a hare’s eye
Burning over coffee a necessary trick
Dispose with necessity, surviving letters.

Tying up hair in a predictable spancel
Rebuffing concern over a light lunch
Theories of disposition not ringing true
Packing sweetness is a hypocritical mass.

Picking apart decorum to the last degree
In no company do I raise my height
Black serviettes furnish the belated sorrow
A sly association dissolving the soul.

Criminal cliques, deluding God,
The road to perdition calling the shots
The princess stripped of her entourage
Deservedly alone for a minor crime.

Infused with good deeds, compensate for demeanor
Exclusion zones reign supreme across the board.
Waiting for star turns singing a praise
The quiet ones plot again for aggrandizement.
 


Sing Before Sung

An artist to regimentary love looms large
Taking random lives in due course
A poet’s sweat gone before bedtime
The young king wishes for wisdom,
A fitting climax for the stage hand.

Not seeing that far is a curse to savor
Sequins before substance tighten the screws
Of satisfied failure, a hypocrisy burned,
Loving the weather while you can
Traveling the scorched earth dream.
	
Stripped to the waist, a boy with principles
With the exact change and a illicit prescription
His discourse is brief, phoning the phonies
No one getting hurt in the course of the day
Sweet failures mourn the last song.

Acrylic eaten quickly by unholy punters
An artist unheard is calling the shots
Acres of beauty for sale, anonymous wishes
Burn with perdition, fighting for a soul
Taking apart roles to expose the carcass.

Justifying desolation before it is sought
Asking for grief before consummation
the roll calls for gridlock of another’s wits
and what is unsaid, playing with fire
and dancing on another’s head.
 


Hypochoristic

He twists his blade like a remembered kiss
Being made up to a parody of likeness
Attention deflected to a newish fad.

Choosing a clachan over history,
Grinded into heartbreak a savage conclusion
Weeping in public is a hard option.

Some white boy riot simplifies things.
People changing to vicissitudes of embarrassment
Avoidance strategy is a necessary string of events.

Feasting on the street not a good thing
Gathering dishes not an historic task
Sarcasm where intended, a shame of light.

Drawing on tradition edging two souls
Wanting to be a best friend stalls acceptance
Disbelief at parties in another block.

Political solution is on his side
Gathering an importance a done deal
All getting hurt at the end of the present.

Taking a live is the only  possibility at hand
Weeping with pain traveling upstream
Watching over a dangerous cause.

Knowing pain before it is etched
Conceding defeat in a public stare
Filtered through a facetious quip.

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals.  She has also published another novel, In The Days of Ford Cortina, in August 2021.

Exile is like the Desert, a homeland for God. *
The Desert’s nakedness is borrowed from the sky’s. *
Freedom is like the Desert: we only dwell in it in order to transcend it. *
The Desert’s enchantment is borrowed from that of eternity. *
The Desert, homeland for the spirit, exile for the body. *
We go to the Desert in order to quench our thirst for freedom.
—Ibrahim al-Koni, A Sleepless Eye: Aphorisms from the Sahara

When I lived in Cairo, Egypt, over a decade and a
half ago, I would head to the desert periodically: to empty
myself of the city’s noise, overhear myself, and then lose myself.
I approached these desert pilgrimages with the
earnest intention and passionate belief that I was going
to encounter that part of myself not entirely accessible in
other circumstances. In the desert, there is nothing to hide
behind, nowhere and no one to turn to. It is where all those mad
hermits and mystics—my people!—had their visions.

It’s an extreme environment, and I suppose I felt that if I
 flirted with that extremity, in a committed, honorable way, a
breakthrough might be granted to me. (If you were somehow
avoiding yourself, and you went to the desert, somehow you
would meet.) The rumblings of Eternity were there, if you could
just be still enough, quiet enough, and indifferent enough
to your self, your many selves, your many frivolous selves.
Walking, reading, musing, I felt outside space and time
and came to realize the necessity of aloneness: Aloneness as a
prerequisite for the sublime sensations or epiphanies I sought.
Sure, you could be alone around people, alone in your living
room, but if you reached toward this elemental aloneness—one
with the sand, the rock, the water, the stars, and the sea—you
could experience a deeper innocence and purity of perception
and as a result become a better witness to the life inside you
and around you. The desert doesn’t, really, care much for you.
It may, perhaps, want you there, but it doesn’t need you there. It
doesn’t seek to appease you in any way. It only wants to declare
its harsh, bold truths, and if you can stand it, then you might stay.

What you hold in your hands is a slender packet of
yearning; poems inspired by my desert retreats over the years.
I did not, fully, recognize at the time the nascent thirst in these
poetic meditations, or how the profound spiritual longing in
these reflections was to mystically point for me the way towards
a spiritual and religious life—a path I am exploring with wonder,
and humbly deepening, nearly two decades later. It means a
great deal to me that this poetry collection is bilingual and that
my words will return to the part of the world that inspired them
in its native language. I’m, especially, grateful that the Arabic is
rendered by Osama Esber, a respected Syrian poet, translator and
publisher whom I’m fortunate to call a friend and who, previously,
has translated poetry of mine for Jadaliyya. All of the remarkable
photographs accompanying my poems are by a gifted young
Moroccan photographer I admire, Zakaria Wakrim, a kindred
spirit who knows well the mystery and magic of the desert.

Thank you, Rowayat, for bringing my words back Home,
to my beloved Egypt.

Yahia Lababidi, 2021

Solitude and the
Proximity
to Infinite Things

The Desert is a cemetery
picking its teeth with bones
littered with brittle stones
marked by a grave air.
Mourning its myriad souls
it murmurs threnodies, while
winds scatter desert lament.

Guarded, hostile growths
defensive and aggressive
martyrs to their desert mother
they all wear crowns of thorns.
Tortured trees break desert skin
protruding stiff, bloodless veins
blades of grass, yellow and dry
shuffle from side to side, rigidly.

Wanderers travel to see and hear
Death-in-Life and Life-in-Death
To see Stillness, to hear Silence
Nothingness-punctuated-by-Space.
Pitting its stare against the Sun
the Desert returns it, pitiless
unblinking, exchanging secrets
of terrible, Eternal matters.

Indifferent, like Time,
to time resigned, without heart
proximity to infinite things
sets apart, makes remote.
Underfoot, twigs and rocks crumble
crack with ill humor and dry wit
taking perverse pleasure in pain
like one past suffering, yet bitter.

The desert has its dark jokes
over which it smiles alone,
Mirage is the word for desert humor.

Yahia Lababidi is an Egyptian author of ten books. His most recent work is: Learning to Pray, aphorisms and poems (Kelsay Books, 2021), and Desert Songs, a bilingual photographic account of his mystical experiences in the deserts of Egypt (Rowayat, 2022) You can learn more about his work, here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/205852.Yahia_Lababidi 

Readers can receive an aphorism of mine, daily, sent to their phone by signing up, here: https://dailywisdomtexts.com/yahia_lababidi

the shrill wail

of a siren


skinny bodies

the place fills 

with ghosts







head bowed

she lights 

a candle


at the tomb  

footsteps in the mist







a shadow crosses

Mary's stone face


mourning moon

the bare trees 

spread skeletal arms







two saucers of milk

for mewling cats...

the witch's eyes


a corner spider 

you cannot see







I try to reanimate

his old stories

bones in the ground


his soul has left

this body

Self-Realization

Gaurav Ojha

My quest towards understanding the concept of self-realization ran along circles of debates, discussions and doubts before I read the writing of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Before my encounters with the works of J. Krishnamurti, I also used to think of self-realization as a spiritual experience of the inner spirit or soul that culminated in the eternal spiritual quest of a seeker. And, as a free thinker with my non-theistic world-view, I was always a bit skeptical of all those ideas that relate self-realization with inner spiritual awakening.

However, J. Krishnamurti’s insights on self- realization emancipates the concept of self-realization from the narrow dimensions of significance it derives from religious dogmas, spiritual exercises, mystical experiences of spiritual seekers, and from spiritual masters, gurus, saints, sages and their esoteric interpretations.

With the radical insights from his works, I have come to realize that it is utter nonsense to think that one can know one’s self significantly, completely and fully, through isolation, exclusion, through regular practice of some kind of spiritual exercise and introspection in some solitary state away from all the hustles and bustles of life.

Similarly, it is not at all necessary to be a religious or a spiritual person, practice renunciation, give up your social life, live in caves and monasteries, and perform ascetic rituals regularly to comprehend the notion of self-realization.

To put it in the words of J. Krishnamurti, self-knowledge is a process, not an end in itself or a conclusion; and to know oneself, one must be aware of one’s actions and reactions in one’s relationships. Further, he argues that you discover yourself not in isolation, not in withdrawals, but in relationships: in your relationship with society, your wife, your brother, your mother, friends and family, and with other beings. Hence, self-realization is neither a spiritual achievement nor an isolated mystical experience; rather it’s an endless process of learning and re-learning where one becomes aware of one’s own self in relationship with others. Therefore, it’s nothing more than a self-illusion or ego-trip to transform your identity, take up a spiritual title and boast one-self as a self-realized person.

Besides, nothing exposes us wide open than our relationships. Our relationships provide us a mirror to observe our being along with its pretensions, denials, fantasies, inner torments, selfish desires and unconscious motives, inner insecurities and repressions by allowing us to see the projections of these hidden aspects of our inner lives in our relationships.

Hence, it’s our relationships, how we relate with our self and with others, and how we unveil our thoughts, emotions, actions and reactions in our dialogues and encounters with others that truly allows to us discover, acknowledge and understand ourselves better than any form of spiritual exercise, solitary meditation or religious escapism. 

Yes To Life

Gaurav Ojha

 Being a one-world and one-life person, I don’t like to think of my life as a rehearsal or a preparation for something better, behind or beyond this world that awaits me after I die. As a biological creature, I know, I am not going to be here forever. Hence, before death removes my character from this world, I want to play my part, become more conscious of this world and its exhilarating beauty, pursue knowledge, understand myself better and improve my character.

And, finally, when this brief drama of my life comes to its close, I wish to depart from the stage without leaving behind a sack full of burden, guilt or regret.

Human life is utterly transient. Hence, my life is only a brief spark in this vast universe, and soon the spark I am carrying will flutter and fade away. But as long as the spark lasts, I have promised myself to carry on with my passionate commitment to taste all the impulses of life in its utter recklessness.

I have come to realize that I am part of a universe that is utterly unpredictable and indifferent to human concerns; however, I can’t remain indifferent because for me my life, my search for knowledge and especially my relationships with other people really matter to me. Life has been unfair to me many times, and there are those usual days of languid confusions and vast sorrows, but I keep up with my constant solace knowing that the universe lives its life with me.

Moreover, human life is rather plotless. And, with all the tumbling experiences of life bubbling around us, we might feel that our human life is utterly meaningless without the presence of another world or an afterlife beyond this world. Similarly, we imagine a supernatural being that constructs and directs the narrative of our lives. And we also like to project unscientific, superstitious and meta-physical beliefs like destiny, laws of karma, sins of past-life, God’s will or grace, damnation and predestination to make meaning out of our lived experiences. 

However, our life only appears to be meaningless only if we consider the source of meaning to be outside of us. Whereas, our life is a continuous dichotomy of joy and sorrow, gain and loss, presence and absence, perfections and follies put together in a single package. Human life has poured itself out from this world, and it also passes away here. Hence, to live, enjoy and understand our human life authentically, without mere pretensions, prejudices and projections, we need that courage to say yes to life in all its shades and shadows and also embrace its utterly transient, random, unpredictable and contingent nature.

Waking Up

Gaurav Ojha

Many people are languidly happy with their religious beliefs, superstitions, hollow and insensitive rituals, hence it’s rather difficult and at times even dangerous to challenge and question their unscientific and irrational assumptions about human nature, human life on earth, laws of nature and about the mysterious universe. Therefore, I must confess, it’s not easy being a naturalist, humanist, free thinker, skeptic or non-religious in a culture context where many people take the concepts of spirituality, religious values, beliefs system, rituals, myths, astrology and the esoteric ideas like reincarnation, liberation and salvation for granted without ever doubting or making an inquiry over their validity.

Our universe is outside-less, and we human beings are finite creatures placed against a vast, infinite and mysterious universe.  I find it rather ridiculous to believe that we get thrown into the infinity of additional existence judged from our less than a century of human life we spent in this tiny speck of dust among millions of galaxies dancing in the sky. We human beings like to expand the briefness of human life with the concept of eternal life because we are still too afraid to confront our mortality. Without our fear of death and nothingness, it seems rather unconvincing to argue and believe that our finite human existence and its experiences, errors, memories, imaginations, actions and reactions, choices and decisions have those lingering impacts that last infinitely.

There is only this flux of life and nothing else apart from the sparkling sensations of being alive. I find myself living in an ever-changing world that is vibrant and alive. For those people who wait for eternal realms, heavens, Shangri-La, mystical worlds, paradise and other spiritual planets after their death, human existence may appear less meaningful to them than their ultimate destination. However, I recognize my death as my final destination. Hence, for me, the journey of my life is far more meaningful, exciting, vital and vibrant than my destination. 

As a finite being, I want to live my life with utmost care, joy, gratitude, creativity, courage and understanding, as I find little pieces of delights that keep on pouring out from the immediate experiences of my life. There is always music, dance and poetry in the organic rhythm of life. Whether it's paradoxical, complex, confusing, mysterious, painful, unknown or overwhelmingly beautiful, nothing can be as delightful as to wake up from the slumbers of our self-conscious delusions, to express our thoughtful love for actual life and to be alive, here and now.

My hand is shielded and my eye was fortified

my eye is a pharos in the sea–
that my heart jumps to the bottom,
my hand is dipped into it
the waters were coldly hot,
with a sensation that stole
my senses, my hearing then my sight.
I tried to escape with my sight first,
my hearing and my sense,
I waited second after second
and a year after year 
for the rescue from no one
still my hand dance for the hot sea waters.
let me snatch my sight
let me remove my hand 
from the mouth of the hell
& not to let its eyes marry the hell light,
now, let them see the sky's womb
& see how sun and moon were born.


Mubarak Said is a poet, an award winning  essayist and a  short story writer from Funakaye Local Government of Gombe state, Nigeria.

Said was a winner of 2020 ANCOPPS essay writing competition in Gombe state. He participated in many secondary schools competitions , including FRSC essay writing competition and so.

His works have been accepted and published by different Nigerian and international News papers and and literary magazines as World voices magazine, icefloe press, literary yard, beatnikcowboy, teenlit journal, ILA magazine, the pinecone review, Susa Africa, Applied worldwide, Opinion Nigeria, Today post, daily trust and daily companion.

Award distribution of Bangadondhu creative talent search competition & National Education Week-2022 in Chaipainawabganj district at Green View High School Auditorium

Abdullah Al Mamun

District wise competition result for Bangadondhu creative talent search competition & National Education Week-2022 declared in May 2022 and its celebration of distributing certificates and crests has been organized today 7 September, 2022 at Green View High School Auditorium by district education office and the prizes and certificates were distributed by Duty Commissioner of Chapainawaganj District A K M Galiv Khan, Principal of Nawabganj Govt. College, Chapainawabganj, professor Sankar Kumar Kundu and District Education Officer Md. Abdur Rashid. In this competition there participated so many students, scout leaders, scout groups, secondary school teachers, secondary school head teachers, madrasha teachers, head teachers, college students, college teachers, principals etc. In Bangadondhu creative talent search competition Jadid Khan, a student of Harimohan Govt. High achieved the best certificate in Language and Literature. Tajin Binte Reja, a student of Nawabganj Govt. College was awarded the best for competition in Mathematics and Computer. In this way certificates were distributed with 300.00 taka to every competitor from every category and subject.   Every year this National Education Week is held throughout the whole country and so many students and teachers are rewarded for their special performance in various sections. Those who can perform their best they can be rewarded as the national prize winners. Upazila is the beginning to reach the top of the honorable place. After winning the Upazila prize, in the district wise fight the best class teacher for secondary school is selected Md. Mahbubul Alam, Senior Teacher (English), Harimohan Government High School. Professor Sankar Kumar Kundu, principal of Nawabganj Government College is rewarded as the best principal at college level and this college is rewarded as the best college at this Sadar Upazila. In this way from so many categories  students and teachers are given the certificates and crests to their respective performances. Students are to compete with various types of songs, recitations, writings etc. Every year this competition is arranged by our government and students can have their chance to attend the competition to express their creativity. Our government is trying to reach our country to the level of the richest ones like Singapore, Thailand, America. These creative personalities will work heart and soul and take our country materializing our dream of our aspired Sonar Bangla.