SALVATION IN THE EYES OF THE SUN
Somewhere, a boy is digging a tomb of
memory and ends up having his head
hung between this poem. I don't want to
start this poem with memories, with lines
that bring me more closer to extinction.
So when about to sleep, I'll close the
windows to not have a taste of the airs
that scents more like my brother, still, they
sneaked in and romance me with their
roughened edges. I dreamt of salvation
in the eyes of the sun, the sun came &
pour me her rays; they doesn't taste
like scented flowers, like vine ripe mangoes.
I ran to the moon, the moon placed in my
palms, darkened images. I don't know know
where else to search for light, I returned to
this poem; I saw the dreams of my sister
withered in a flower betwixt the lines. I saw
with my korokoro eyes the nakedness of
her dreams choking my breath. Tell me
how more to starts a day than to wake up
in the garden of lilies, everything here
pop me up to an emissary of tears.
I mean to say, here; I am a portrait of
a boy hung on the walls of fate
THRENODY
To the souls the ground swallowed
To the dreams that got ruptured
To the faces been robbed of smiles
To — afternoons of collapsed skeletons
To the moments that ticks in the chest
To the days lived in fear— yesterdays of wailings
To the fruits that got plucked off unripened
To every kin yanked and slewed at Burma
To the dirges— The threnodies
To the victims of faulty policies—
To the Yobe, the Zamfara— where my brothers and sisters await their death.
To the everyday mourning news of the television
To the widowed, the orphaned
To every blood shed— broken promises
To the days, where the goats no longer feed on greens
To every agony
To every pain
To every story that falls blood
To every dreams shattered
I say, let's put our heads and brains together
In spite of our homes been war-torned
Let's keep our hope alive— fate like a citadel
And our bright steps will once again spring love
“Let’s dream big and make reality bigger than our dreams, let’s dream together in a humanity immersed in art, science and culture.”
Floating lightness By JEAN EUREKA
Floating lightness, sign materiality
opposite confrontation, unfolded metaphors,
in pacts of stone.
Mythical experience, inherited revelation
light synthesis, sublimation, imaginary.
Whole in quarters, Cloudy in media,
Asleep in thirds, Initiation and ephemeral body,
Wake up.
Alter ego neon, Eternal essence
Induction of the teacher, In silver gardens
time center, inert return, life, sacrifice, resolution
Tlàloc quartz, children, gods, droughts, Abyssal hike.
Resurrection of allegories
Luminous tremors
Idyllic awakenings
Brief review
In decaying inductions
Parasomatic, extracorporeal
Pact accepted,
On mother moons.
Swing bridges
Irreversible destiny.
Here and now
Tomorrow, never, always.
seductive lightness.
---------------------------------------
Drought
By Jean Eureka
The prairie became desert, it was the decisions, the ones that are made, the ones that are forgotten, it was the wars, the pain and the greed. Of green cloaks, now marked cracks. The meadow became deserted, it was the indecisions, the ones that are released, the memories, it was the half peace, the false joy, the feigned detachment. Of blue cloaks, deep cracks. The lush meadow became desert, the sky no longer watered the cloaks, fearful of hypocrisy.
And despite everything, I can still see the light through the cracks.
Betrayal irreversible, death irreversible. Your impact, my impact, our impact ... let's not look to blame if there is no time for solutions.
Does it matter? Did it matter?
Earth resists, humanity ... awake!
The prairie became desert ... arid, hot, and inhospitable.
And we are still here.
Biocorta:
The DHC. Architect Jeanette E. Tiburcio, known as Jean Eureka, is a proud Veracruzana. Living in the state of Querétaro for two decades, and the descendant of a great artistic, educational, historical and cultural legacy, she is known in the world as the Mexican Pandora's Box for her fascination with poetry.
She is also known for supporting spoken word, for teaching architecture, the arts, mathematics, and science. Also, for promoting youth of all ages, architects and teachers.
She began her career with a masters' degree in Innovation and Research, as well as in Neurolinguistics and Accelerated Learning. She has 30 years of experience teaching mathematics in basic education, high school and college, and has more than 150 awards for her activism, awarded in more than 50 countries for her social contributions, cultural, educational, artistic and peace achievements.
She has 11 honorary doctorate degrees awarded by different universities on four continents.
She is Life President of Mil Mentes por Mexico, Cabina 11 Cadena Global, Eureka, Accelerated Mathematical Learning and the International Rector of the Mexican University of Entrepreneurship. She is also the International Rector of the Children's University, a recent member of the World Academy of Thought, and an honorary member of Teaching Colleges in America. She is the Founding President of Sustainable Reaction working on the SDGs 2030, and the National Executive President for Mexico of the Main Research Institute of India in its general offices for Mexico.
She is a member of different peace groups in the world working to forge a better human condition, where ideas are promoted in harmonious freedom of collaboration among nations based on understanding and promotion of universal values and respect to achieve justice and freedom of thought.
In 2022 she was named Honorary President of the Hispanic World Union of Writers, which was founded 30 years ago and has a presence in 140 countries. She has two solo books and has participated in 22 international anthologies. She is the Founder of Las Olas del Arte Magazine in Belgium and of Trezz Magazine in Mexico and is the editor of Literature magazine in China.
Don't Try!
You made me cry,
Then said goodbye.
You ran away,
Then come today.
begging me to stay,
Although you are far away.
Couldn't you just be a memory?
Since I can’t be near, but only away.
Don't I want to stay?
Of course, but you enjoy being away.
Don't worry, I won't cry,
All I want to scream is "DON'T TRY".
*****
all my darkness waxing moon
***
same shit different day cicadas
****
in the name of the lord wolfsbane
***
mayflies—
my fantasy of
someone else
***
orchid seeds
the dig of his nails
into my waist
Lori A Minor (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent poet and activist. Recipient of more than 15 haikai awards, they are proud to be included in A New Resonance 12 and to have given presentations at Haiku North America (2019, 2021). Lori’s sixth book, Hot Girl Haiku, is now available.
The Dragons of Paris
(Upon reading Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’
Abuse of Science, by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont)
By Christopher Bernard
Once upon a time,
in the glamorous, notorious City of Lights
that lies across the sinuous Seine
like a seductive odalisque
of reason and sensuality,
beauty, style, good taste, and sense,
there appeared a foul and toxic fog,
a smoke that belched and bound the town
in mental night.
The citizens wandered, stunned and blind
and crying out in random shouts
in words no one could understand:
“Le petit a! Jouissance! Différance!
Pastout! Afemme! Séméiotiké!”
that filled the air all over France
from caves deep down in old Lutéce
(“Mudville,” once called, now called again),
where the Dragons of Paris disbursed, in smog,
dank volumes of mephitic breath.
The Dragons’ names put terror in
the hearts of all good citizens:
Lacan le Gros, Foucault le Mal,
grinning Baudrillard le Bouffon,
Kristeva la Sorciére,
Jacques Derrida l’Indécidable,
Gilles Deleuze, la Porte Sublime
du Dindon de la Charabia,
and more, with a host of dragonettes
pursuing the work of their dark masters
cooking in their dens a glorious madness
of chopped dictionaries and tossed
charlatanry, spiced with cynicism,
that sickened two generations
of impressionable, clueless, half-educated youth,
most of them – hélas! – American.
One day two knights rode from the west –
Sir Alan and Sir Jean by name,
“Follow the Science!” writ on one shield,
“Physics to the Rescue!” upon the other –
and bravely stormed the fetid caves
whose floors and walls were lined with texts
with dragon sweat and guano thick,
unreadable, yet cruelly read
by generations of undergrads
and graduate students until they squealed,
“There is no truth, there is no Real,
no good not always already a weapon,
Big Other, subject, sexual relation
(sorry, mom, dad! I never really happened!),
no meaning not infinitely deferred,
no science, objectivity, facts
(“no facts but only interpretations,”
as unholiest St. Fritz of Nietzsche said);
‘Il n’y a rien hors de texte!’; no world,
nothing whatsoever beyond the Word!”
(because, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get
a degree (in English) so they could teach
in a nice, respectable university,
and maybe someday get tenure – but then, my friends,
they wouldn’t even get that – poor dears! – in the end).
With a thousand bold strokes, Sir Jean and Sir Alan
pierced the hides of the Parisian dragons
(“Mathematical gaffes! Scientific misunderstanding!
Bad logic, worse grammar, bad French and worse English!
Logical dead ends! Arithmetical nonsense! Hang it, just meaningless gibberish!”)
and out of the holes in those green slippery skins
hot air hissed away in a gale o’er the Seine,
and the dragons – the two Jacques, the one Julie,
Jean, Gilles, Michel, and a crowd of others –
shrieking death cries, flew about in a panic
as they shrank like a frantic mob of balloons,
gnashing and frothing and hopelessly flying
from darkness to darkness – one felt sorry for them,
almost – till they shriveled down to what they had been
all along: a few inches of thin rubber, with mouths
agape, and nothing whatever inside them but air.
Sir Alan and Sir Jean, armor dented and scarred,
swords flecked with balloons punctured, and smeared with ink,
exited the caverns out to the light
and the acclaim of a grateful city. “At last!”
rose the cry on all sides, “We can again see the sun!
We can breathe! We are freed from the impenetrable night
that threatened to destroy us – above all, our minds!”
The two knights, bloodied, exhausted, but victorious,
took their modest bows. “You are really too kind!”
Then glanced at each other: it wouldn’t do now
to tell these people they were partly to blame
for nursing the dragons with their own folly:
spare the critic and spoil the intellectual.
Don’t get them in the crib, and give them a fight?
When (if!) they grow up, they’ll give you a bite!
At the banquet that followed, they had stories to tell:
close calls with the enemies of thought and light,
genuine creation, and piety for the human:
intellectual pretentiousness in a shotgun wedding
with despotic professional intimidation
fueled, on the one hand, by status anxiety
and, on the other, by narcissistic delight.
Unhappily, they had not gotten
all the dragons in the end:
one sly dragonette from the Balkans fled,
escaping to Slovenia,
his innocent home, where he remains,
cooking his oracles for the next set
of gullible college students, if there are any left!
_____
"Christopher Bernard’s most recent book of poems, The Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a 2021 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Top 100 Indie Boks of 2021.”
The Sob of the Masses
In day and Night
Even if
It rains Cats and Dogs
Even if
The weather has Changed
The Masses weep though
wars and starvations
bedeviling the townlets
Oh ! Oh ! Oh! Oh!
This is a dime a dozen
Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Oh !
Day by day
Their daughters are being raped
Jewels or not
They pedestrianize to China
and wail million times before they could get a drop of water
It is the last Straw
Of the masses
Forwhy
Their Godfathers pay no attention to their Woods
Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Oh !
Let us pray to get rid of these
Lest We face the Music
God Forbid !
The Threatenable Nation
Though Poem is not Easy
But I Should not be a lazy
Oh ! My Country my Country !
Insecurity threatens Our Unity !
Places have been vandalized
And We have been massacred
Why Threatenable Nation?
It's a Nation Without Motion...
Why do they always loot the properties of
Government
Without any development ?
No peace in Cities Nor Hamlets
But Alas unutilised Talents
Oh! My Country My Country !
Insecurity threatens Our Unity
In this Country
Inadequate Water Supply
Inadequate Power Supply
All became norms
Prosperities are Very rare
While
Unemployments are rampants
Oh ! My Arewa My Arewa !
Yeah ! it's My Province
And
We lack peace
It's indeed time For Us to raise Our Voices
Let's Wake up let's wake up!
Manna don't fall From heaven
And, With no pain no gain
Yeah ! There's
Kidnapping, raping
And genociding it's really not kidding
Open defecation and deforestation
I'm afraid!
They are not Once in a blue moon
All this in my father Land
In Countries We are third World
This Country it's befitting
To be called the Threatenable Nation
Oh ! My Country My Country
Insecurity threatens Our Unity
Let the Message be Clear
This Country is Nigeria
We Shouldn't be in voiceless
But in vocalness
Oh ! God tackle all Our Obstacles
A Tearful Country
A Large Country,
But less than blue Ivory,
With no blooming tertiaries
rather a blunt Resources.
We Vote Our Leaders
Later We turned to ladders
While we Weep
They sip the elite drink
And left us to our thirst
Oh! Where Is everyone's talent?
Have they lost their craft
Oh! Where Is Our Government?
Let us Save her Beforehand from drought
Else
We would Cry a river.
Short Bio
Yusuf Salisu Muhammad was born on Saturday morning 15/3/2003 in Katsina state, Nigeria, He received His earliest Education at police Children School, Katsina state, Nigeria, then proceeded to Saldefi International School Where he earned a Secondary School living certificate also in Katsina state, Nigeria. He is currently Studying B.A History, at Umaru Musa Yar'adua University, Katsina State, Nigeria. Some of his poems were published at Susa Africa, Hausawa, and Voice Of Northern Nigeria. He started writing poems at 17.
#1 Poem Title: "Kweeju" (Abandon Child)
I am kweeju,
Born with a black skin,
Abandoned by a woman and raised by a hunter
Bright, Brilliant, articulate strong and bold;
I’m filled with hatred,
Skillful enough to attack my enemies.
I am kweeju,
Often the target is sorrow
My future is not confined to charity
Give me the gift of a lifetime,
Give me a dream,
A door of opportunity;
I will thrive.
I am Kweeju
Do not hide my fault
Show me my wrong
I am like any other,
Teach me to dream,
And I will become one.
I am Kweeju
I am the son; son of the soil,
Rich in texture and content,
Full of potential for a better tomorrow,
Lack of motherly discipline and character,
But filled with hard work,
Teach me to think like the star within me
I am Kweeju.
#2 Poem Title: Weeping/Moaning
We were four in numbers,
When we heard the sound of death’s call,
Calling our mother under cover,
We were shocked and rolled like an ocean,
A mighty man of nature, one who gives and takes,
But time was not appropriate.
Weeping has turned to our morning meal,
An early dream has come to an end.
She was our sleeves, woman full of thoughts and emotions,
One who lighten our world,
One who gives us hope for the future has passed on.
She left tears in our eyes,
Memories in our hearts,
Searching for remedy,
And finding none.
Weeping/moaning
Mother is gone,
I could hear the voice of a new mother calling from the other side,
The little one with such an instigating look.
My blood boiled to hear the voice of my younger sister crying,
The tears rained down her cheek as a sign of misery.
The tree has waved its branches, and the dry leaves have fallen.
We work more and play less,
The one who holds the dream of an entire family has crashed,
Clear waters ran through that fertile land,
By the light of dawn,
We called it home,
We shared a dream,
But now it’s gone.
We could not change,
Or bring back the days,
But feel her presence around,
And we weep all day.
Who Is A Woman?
The backbone to a man in time of difficulties;
One who lighten the affairs of the family,
And the attention she gives,
Seeking the treasure of satisfaction,
A light in the night of man's trouble.
The bridge of every man's dream,
The apple in the eyes,
The representation of man's life.
Who is a woman
One that is quiet,
millions of things are running through her mind
as she stares at you,
she is wondering why she loves you so much,
despite being taken for granted.
She stands by you like a solid rock.
Never hurt and taken for granted.
Who is a woman
Mother to our future leaders
One who has the unique character like salt,
But her presence is never remembered,
Her absence makes all the things tasteless.
But,
Her smile and commitment,
Make a man realize a woman's worth.
Author Bio
Jelvin Stephen Gibson remains the name. He was born in Montserrado County, precisely ELWA Hospital, on Friday, 8th August 1995, as the first son of four children. Father's name is Stephen T. Gibson, and mother's name is Etta B. Sulonkpala (late), while his stepmother's name is Benetta Jones Gibson. He is from Bong County by origin.
He holds certifications in Acting for Stage, Acting for Radio, Artist Management, and Acting for Camera.
He is a classroom Teacher; he holds an Associate Degree in Education (AA) (Language Arts) from the Licosess Mobile Teacher Training College. He looks forward to having a B.Sc as soon as possible.
His hobbies are writing, reading, teaching, and caring for others. Because of his writing, he gained popularity in the Liberian Movie Industry. He wrote and starred in the movie "Greed" and also wrote the script of the story "Kweeju" (Abandon Child), which was a zone project.
His father is his inspiration. He always gives him some direction to face something, gives him the story ahead, and is always optimistic about realizing his dreams. He always says that he is the best and that his family is his spirit.
