Still
Sally she is beautiful and sad
she is always unforgettable
a thousand colors in the sky
she looks like a night breeze
the world keeps making noise
Sally just blooms quietly
she loves the sky full of stars
and will be full of tears when looking at it
sunny days she would stand on the beach
looking out of sight
rainy days she would stand in front of the window
hair hanging on her left shoulder
no one ever heard her talk about it
where do those sorrows come from
a night breeze blows under the moon
and she sighed softly
Lost Things
like a paper boat
that is what we’ve lost
thought I was not worth it
today I want to cry for all that
all the desires that have never been obtained
all the heartbreaking partings
all the time of drinking pain alone
now I’m crying for you
the lost things won't come back
drifting far away with yesterday
I'm still sad when thinking of it
maybe this is what it looks like
like a paper boat
that’s what we lost
not because I'm not worth it
but because they are not you
One after Another
it’s all history scattered over the place
picking it up carefully and looking at it it is full of misery
never any tranquility underneath here
everyone is born with a burden
when the sun comes out we will offer everything
and not think about tomorrow when the barn is full
here we have never learned to dream
sticking on the ground for many thousand years
keep your mouth shut when you open the door
after closing the door the gongs and drums may shake the sky
eat every grain of rice in a dirty bowl
put down the bowl and wipe your mouth and forget the past
you and I are just ants
the wind is blown away like dust
whoever cares about whose face
trying to live is the only way
Roy Gu is Professor of English at Shanghai International Studies University, China. He has published poems and short stories in both English and Chinese. He has translated several books, including Love by Toni Morrison. He is also a singer-songwriter and has released folk music albums.
Virgo, Prose Poems for Tara
Like the Ascent of the Sun (once there was just the salted sea and you and yes me)
the northern morns’ mourn like death of life, a silent lamentation if possible. crisp and unwavering darkness and Saturn rules the universe. but, once there was the southern seas, salted of course, and the breezes, a chorus of angels, kissed us and protected us and gave us secret gnosis and mystical insights hardly imagined. and the idea of the tides receded like the tides themselves and we appeared on northern shores again, - oh no! but between the winter lands and the summer lands there was something else, a sign and signal, that waited in your eyes, or rather in a quiet subtle sparkle of light there. this is what to concentrate on, maybe it is your soul. like the right holy scripture, like green chakra, like the special found rain-washed river stone, like the ascent of the sun.
sky and earth
the long sky, wide also, infinite in fact, and down here opaque for the mist and fog. mysterious. grey. a dream. the silhouettes of certain birds seen out of the corner of the eye, quick, fast, darting, agile, gnostic, full of strength and wisdom. then gone back into the firmament beyond the tree line, the hidden worlds. and the earth. what of it? rain makes long snake-like shapes in the precious and precarious snow. everything melting. fields. loams. tree farms. wooden fences. beige. brown. sometimes stones water washed, hundreds. fallen trees for old summer and winter storms. strange mushrooms watch the worlds out there. step and step. the structure of peculiar shrubs or wildflowers that froze in mid-growth as if waiting for something. the talk of the little streams loquacious. ravine. woodland. do you remember spring, summer, or fall, like old dreams? curving path take me and us under the evergreens that wait and are still, quiet, non-boastful and meditative. verdant. chaparral in the sudden winter wind.
terra Tara terrene, doncha know the earth is a virgo queen (of the long roads and the sun, or tractors and loams on the edge of the world)
the last of small towns in figurative and literal sunsets. the winter dusk waiting in some line of dusks to have its descent upon vast, vast, impossibly vast lands. also, to a discerning eye, a notification sign affixed to a pole or stick denoting the future conversion of the vast lands to business, residential, or other designations. but first the king winter moment of seconds and years,- roads like causeways and the old barns sometimes peaking up,- hill, flatland, on concrete forms. pastel blue. garden variety red. muted green and also grey. river, lake, estuary. many towns have the same street names. old church. little store. eatery. bus station. outskirts are factory, train tracks, old buildings for lease or sale but some just abandoned,- concrete ghosts and some paper or drape dances in the cold wind alone outside a single pane broken window. way back the tree line, evergreens, birches, other. the ancient sun still strong, slightly warming. feed corn fields. aren’t the dwellers of houses alone, lonesome, melancholic, ruefully ruled by Saturn even on an otherwise sunny Saturday? maybe. maybe not. blackbird. owl. hawk. water flows and other water is frozen. frozen and flow. flow and frozen. I watch the clouds. I look for a sign or marker perhaps metaphysical. I don’t know why. everything crisp and still and clean. the rains and snow have attached to millions of branches and stayed. a sudden gust and a sudden guest. the spirit of some thing that stretches beyond the length of the road, and that lives longer and stronger than the sun itself, and is larger than philosophy religion and all art forms, is watching.
the turquoise telegraph, or of watching the water whimsical
the island was immediately friendly and light, the inhabitants welcoming and joyful. an open aired bus traversed the market framed roads for a while and made for its destination the white sand coastline that married constantly a sea that was first turquoise and then further out, dark hued blue.
how agile the small fish that swam through there like bits of colourful dream remnants and how atmospheric the myriad clouds that still allowed enough sun to gather upon the small gentle waves and the fine grain sand. sometimes birds could be heard chatting distantly about something and this conversation mingled w/three men softly sounding tin drums, pan drums.
verdant palm leaves and indigenous shrubs, relaxed people and the noonday ease. the turtles are in the ocean and vessels roam,- motor boats, cruise ships, sailboats, yachts, and the world then is for long moments like a painting pastel and uplifting, meditative and contemplative. watch the turquoise water ripple just a little. can you see it? do you sense it’s mystery that has opened somewhat for you to read? and can the sea be read, discerned, known, like some story or poem, or like a kind letter home?
the woman, the dreamer, the world
one time I had a dream and I was beside you walking and you were smiling and at ease. we passed all the people and the people never knew anyone such as you. I do think there was a sea, and the wind in front and trees behind somehow sang songs of magic and visions and prayers. the palm leaves spoke w/the moon. you seemed happy and strong in spirit. slowly in the dream there was some problem and the world became gray and not multi-coloured. and the dream ceased. yet…but…still…nevertheless…one time I had a dream and we didn’t need literature or art or anything because we walked happily. we were our own music. for a moment anyhow.
You Are the Sun
there was the super flower blood moon and the nocturnal rains like bad dreams. but you are the sun. there was the world, oh my god and word, how miserable and low, petty and shallow. but you are the sun. there was the witching hour and grey dawn, w/the angel absent and the psychic discord of mean souls in the air. but you are the sun. there was the world frozen, the hopeful and inspiring wildflower of the pastoral field gone long ago, as if it never existed, and I told whoever I could about it’s beauty but nobody believed me at all. but you are the sun. there was dismay, discord, even death and no re-birth, just a thousand bad memories. yet you are the sun. there was the long lonesome sky even the birds gone far away, trading winter’s dark for summer day, and the wind vexatious, the towns unwelcoming and acrimonious, the cities saturnine and sinister. but you are the sun. all the major and minor arcana disappeared save for the Tower card. it painted itself upon the world everywhere. I went to the loam and stream, the sea and lake, the earthy valley and ridge and even to where fires tried to burn brightly. but there was nothing really, truth be known, and I could hardly see the earth. it was as if even day was night. because you are sun. because you are the light.
Shortly before my father died, he whispered to me longingly: “Daughter, treasure this, because it authenticates your heritage to our kinsfolk!” When I accepted this object, I discovered it was a stone with inscriptions I did not understand and delicate, mysterious lines. He continued, “It is a keepsake from our great-great grandfather and can ultimately be traced back to Bilal, the Holy Prophet’s first muezzin, and his father, who was the king of Ethiopia.” I accepted this small heirloom, which I carried everywhere with me in my handbag.
The person who shared my life under the title of “husband,” however, threw it down the drain at our house, thinking—as he told me—that it was a fetish. From then till now I have endured successive exiles. So I wrote this poem to explain the secret of my skin color—given that I am a native of al-Najaf, Iraq—spiritually, mournfully, and poetically!
My father said: “You were born quite unexpectedly, Remote from Aksum, like a beauty spot for al-Najaf—‘the Virgin’s Cheek.’
Your one obsession has been writing, but the sea will run dry before you arrive at the meaning of meaning.”
He affirmed: “During a pressing famine,
I devoted myself to watching over every breath you took.
I would thrust my hand through the film of hope
To caress your spirit with bread.
You would burp, and
I would delightedly endure my hunger and fall asleep.
I could only find the strength to fib to your face and say I was happy.
2
I would feel devastated when you fidgeted,
Because you would always head toward me,
And I felt helpless.”
Aksum! They say you’re far away!
“No, it’s closer to you than your exile.”
“And now?”
“Don’t talk about ‘now’ while we’re living it.”
“The future depresses me. How can I proceed?”
How can the ear be deaf to the wailing from the streets?
Aksum, you have colored my skin. Al-Najaf has freshened my spirit.
She knows and does the opposite.
She knows that I inter only dirt above me, and
That I deny everything except spelling out words:
M: Mother, who went walking down the alley of no return.
F: Father, who hastened after her.
B: Brother, who never earned that title.
S: Sister who buttoned her breast to a loving tear, no matter how fake.
………………….There’s no one I care about!
The trees tremble some times, and we don’t ask why.
My life surrounds me the way prison walls surround suspects;
I am the victim of a building erected by a frightened man.
With its talons time scratches its tales on me,
And I transform them into a silent song
3
Or, occasionally, a psalm of sobs.
Father, do you believe that–the roots have been torn asunder?
Fantasies began to carry me from al-Najaf to Afyon
And from Afyon to nonexistence,
Yellow teeth stretching all the way.
“History’s not anything you’ve made,”
One American neighbor tells another.
He’s surprised to see me.
“Who are you?” he asks when he doesn’t believe his eyes.
Would he understand the truth of my origin if I told him I was born in al-Najaf
Or that Aksum has veiled my face?
I have walked and walked and walked.
I’m exhausted, Father.
Is your child mine?
Show yourself and return me to the purity of your loins.
Allow me to occupy the seventh vertebra of fantasy!
Don’t eject me into a time I don’t fit.
I need you.
I ask you:
Has my Lord forbidden me to be happy?
Am I forbidden to preserve
What I have left
And sit some warm evening
4
Averting my ear from a voice that doesn’t interest me?
Answer me, Father!
Or change the face of our garden
So it changes . . . .to what they believe!
She is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq. She received her master’s degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books, her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese, ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian language. She is a Pulitzer Prize Nominee for 2018, PushCaret Prize Nomination 2019 and a member of the International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020.
Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021)
One of the Women of Excellence selection committee members – 2023
The black Lab bolted from the girl’s side, leapt the six steps from porch to yard, galloped full thunder, hind legs tumbling up and under like a panther in open throttle. A barking black streak of lightning running toward the horse and rider walking idly on the opposite side of the rural main street.
The girl sprang upright, screamed, “Teddy, no!” but raw instinct is deaf. Louder.
“No. Stop. No. No!” An echo in an endless last moment.
Wheels burned pavement. A fleshy thump. The unfurling howl. Then another and another, like wolf cries in a hollow night, a fire horn, “Help me, help me.”
“Mom!” the girl hollered into the house. “Teddy’s been hit!” And ran too, full thunder to the street.
The car had stopped, pulled aside; the horse and rider were specks in the distance. The dog lay on its side, nose pointed home, brown eyes looking up at the girl, blood streaming from his mouth, the O-shaped howl quieting.
She dropped to her knees, ready to trade a piece of her life to save his, to hold and heal him whole again. A thick-knuckled hand grabbed her arm, yanked her away. It was the man who had struck the dog. “No, sweetheart. Don’t ever touch a wounded animal.”
“He won’t hurt me,” she said, and pulled away, turning back, kneeling, reaching; the brown eyes seeing her, recognizing, the panic and confusion retreating, and then the cold glass stare.
She covered him in blind weeping.
The mother arrived. The man in his damaged car left without demand, weeping too, someone said. The grandfather buried the dog near the girl’s kitten. The girl went to her room.
When the father and two sons returned from the afternoon motorcycle races, the mother told them. The father retreated to the family room and sat on the edge of an ottoman. The girl followed and sat nearby. He stared wide, and then his eyes pooled with tears that wouldn’t stop. His shoulders curled inward. His head fell. And he too howled. The girl had never seen him cry. She didn’t know he could. She couldn’t take her eyes away.
He straightened against her piercing awareness, attempted composure, failed, and hardened in a full body turn. “What the hell are you looking at?” he bellowed into her face, then broke down again, gulping, “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you have any feelings?”
Nectar
for A
You are the bumblebee
in lavender, kissing periwinkle spikes,
making lacey stems sway in a July morning,
moist with humidity and dew.
Your search for nectar, endless,
your purpose in greater nature, unknown.
Like this, you found me
in a pollinating circuit of cyberspace.
“Thoroughly enjoyed your poems,” you wrote,
quoted lines, named publications.
“Who are you?” I asked.
And so began our mutual love
of words, ideas, beauty, art
in a thousand floral taps and scripts,
exchanged poems, edits,
in miles of personal history
with no regard for the consequence
of falling in love, until
the prosaic punch of your marriage, our distance,
the sting of secrets and denial
ended summer’s brief affair between
a yearning bee and a waiting flower.
Catherine Arra is the author of four full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks. Her newest work is Solitude, Tarot & the Corona Blues (Kelsay Books, 2022) A Pushcart nominee, Arra is a resident of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she lives with wildlife and changing seasons until winter when she migrates to the Space Coast of Florida. Arra teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com
Poetry
I need to write a poem
A poem that will serve as peacekeeper
Between the God And Humanity
Between the brothers and sisters
Between my self and my mood
I need to find the verses
Be completely different from the past
And so new to fit in the present
Need to have one truth
Justified and accepted
Need to write a new story
A new book about the life
Every single day is a new discovery
People become evil
Failure earn in so many levels
And love is replaced with food
People are divided
Between those who love the food
Between those who love the humanity
Need to write a poem about the fear
And the dark
But many of stars are shining
So must not affraid of darkness. But definitely need to re organize in our mind what the unknown is like?
People are divided
Between those who love the food
Between those who love the humanity
Is so, difficult to think with the stomach full
People forgot to love and they become
Slaves of their stomach
Little servants of this great stomach
That cannot filtre anything...
They cannot remember
Recognise the importance of
Share...
Poetry unites people
Poetry travels more fast than the unknown words, that remain unborn
In the mind of an author...
Need to write a poem
About the happiness
The smile of the childrens....
About the love we need
The love i seek..
The care i want...
The happiness i dream...
The journey that never ends....
Who is the captain of the boat??
.......
A star
Wishing be a star
I could be a wish
No importance if I was big or small star
My wish it depends on the person that make it
Asking for peace and happiness
Wishing be a cloud
A Grey or a white
I could express the feelings of people who cannot speak
Rain day if they are sad
Sun day if they are happy
Wishing be a star
🎉🎉🎉🎉
You
You.....
the face I did not see for years
You...
U are the most amazing being
But cannot touch
You,
The beauty is hiding in small pieces in your body and mind
You...
I can explain why
But i know my what
You....
That one day you crossed my path
Forces of love or passion touched me
Without reason
I am looking the east
U are looking the west
Miracles happens every day
You....
A passion I can live in a privately moment
Love I give
Love will never be understood
You...
In another space of galaxy
You..
My ideal
My secret Garden
You...
The moments I never had
You....
The distance between two countries
A bridge i will try to build ...to reach you
“In the textured glass, a body, blurred. Wrong collection of pixels to be Michel.” - the line that destroyed me. I read a line in a book. It is beautiful --- the line is beautiful I must explain what it means to me for a line to be beautiful, because you see --- it can be subjective and defining my terms is a habit acquired. An aftermath of studying philosophy. And so I find this line beautiful because it is simple yet unique. It --- I have to stop and think to explain--- evokes in me instantly an explosion of emotions. Which emotions though? Bear with me, I will explain: First, I feel tricked as if a magician played a hand, and although I was attentive to their every single move, I still missed the secret of the flash, between the Turn and the Prestige. Then I feel dumb as if my _amman_had asked me when I was young to bring her a specific piece of thread, and despite my multiple rounds of deep searching the Danish cookies box (where she stored all her sewing threads), I informed her of my failure to retrieve what she had asked of me. Only for her to come and show me how the thread was right there, in front of me, I shouldn't have even opened the box. Finally, I feel bitter like a mathematician working for years on an impossible problem, on the verge of making a breakthrough, but someone else already finds the answer--- an answer so simple that it hurts. And so I read every beautiful line, knowing it could have been mine. I tell myself: The Universe of language is rich with beautiful lines, the more that are taken, the more arise. The Space in the marginalia is infinite, and whether it takes seconds or eons, I will have my time --- to craft a line; simple and beautiful. But until then, I must burn, green with envy, I will toss and turn. Even though I am glad that Zadie Smith came up with it, and yet I can't stop lamenting the loss of another good line. I know I will never commit the biggest literary sin, called plagiarism. But I have mastered the Original Sin of coveting the word forbidden.
