Only Fragments Found 

I wonder how can I tell my child that we are humans? 

Everyone is pointing and shouting at 
The blacks, the Asians, and the Arabs. 
I don't understand who is inferior or superior. 

Am I lazy to remain silent? 
Like a warrior widow. 
Maybe I am insane to resist the awful travesty? 
Bush promised me that he is going to establish equal opportunity and peace for my country. 

Since the war started only fragments found 

Everyday is another kind of tragedy  
Nobody dreams of being a comedy  
Although, most of the soldiers are crazy. 
I learn about peace and not preferable race  

Undesirable faces must be wiped off the earth  
We are not corpses yet, we must record our existence
The sadness and massacres must be in history books. 

If our stories are miserable then you can laugh at me  
If our memories are from the past then slaughter my life  

Those bullets holes on the wall of my grandparent's room, They will not be erased, 
hold my hand and let me breathe fresh air. 

10/12/2021 Bleeding Heart Poet 

  
 The Orange-bellied Himalayan Squirrel
  
 How charming - it makes the world spell-bound
 O Himalayan Squirrel, Red-bellied Squirrel
 How you do all the things charming 
 How you do all the things shining to the eyes
 How you do all the things, sitting on the branches of the silk cotton tree
 How you bring out the cotton from the cotton fruit 
 How you gather all in a certain place
 How your brain acts on how to beautify the other side
 I know you don't, all meanings of the cause, but you do
 How your brain is fixed on how to make the nest warm
 How all together the cotton matches the long line catkins of the land
 How it shines with its red belly in the morning sun
 On the branches the sunny morning opens the door
 The heart that never felt such a wonder
 The love and beauty, no greed for power and pelf
 A resort to live forever
 What the eyes experience here, will ever come to an end?
 O sacred Orange- bellied Squirrel 
 I see you and the heart always dances
 The heart throbs for the new passion something for love and sex
 We need the figure of the belly as red as the sign 'Love'.
   
 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
 05/12//2020
  
 The Pheasant-tailed Jacana
  
 The doves, the kingfishers and so many colorful birds 
 Flying and calling over head in the silent resilient place
 Charms the hilly atmosphere around the lake
 Smile over the breeze, wiggling the lotus petals and leafs
 As though I am going to rise from a deep deadly sleep 
 Drinking the water of Lethe in Hades  
 How the world of love made by the two  
 The male and the female pheasant jacana
 How they live on in this watery leaves
 How they come close to each other 
 How the female lays the eggs and fly to the other  
 Leaving her mate behind she must have her desire fulfilled  
 Infatuated by again builds her love palace with
 Lays her eggs as before in every case 
 How the male hatches the eggs and breeds the chicks!
 Of hatching and fostering the chicks 
 What a wonder a sense of love and faith to each other!
 And responsibly set from above!
 To every each other - father, mother, sister, brother, lover and beloved
 From one corner of the world to the other we always wander for something new
 A doorway to the novelty of thought and light 
 O breeding male pheasant Jacana, 
 What you leave behind for us?  
 I think and observe the responsibility for the new generation.
  
 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
 06/12//2020
  
 Sculpture Fight
  
 Now the whole world is threatened in fear of corona
 A rush of flame burnt all over
 What's going on outside?
 Indulging on or falsifying the commons 
 The party against the government 
 An excitement among the audience in Jalsa (Gathering at night for Islamic speech before the audience)) 
 Not that people like to hear but nothing to do without listening 
 As they are sitting before the speaker  
 The argument against establishing the sculptor the speaker breaks the silence of the night
 Shouts as loud as he can for not to establish any more in the country
 The great man for whom our heads bow down in respect and honor
 That person people recognize him as 'The father of Nation'
 He is our great leader Bangabandhu Shiekh Mujibur Rahman    
 Violating the rules of maintaining the social distance
 A group of people come out with a procession 
 Without knowing what the sculptor meant for
 A seduction for holding the country instable
 Some miscreants broke one of the Bangabandhu's sculptors in Kusthia 
 While people are dying and being affected daily
 In every second corona swings around
 Can't shake our hands; kiss on face, advance for lips into lips 
 Love flows on heart to heart only spiritually
 Doctors and nurses have no time for rest
 Day and night on duty for cares and treatment
 Creates a remorseful condition of earth
 Some are counting their profit
 Some are repenting on loss 
 O heart, O diversified heart here you cry and cry
 There you rejoice on falsifying or forging fortification  
 Dying in one side line after line
 The fight we see head to head, hand to hand on the other. 
  
 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
 07/12//2020
  
  
 Playing Hide and Seek
  
 You play hide and seek
 In the world -Love and Trick
 I know the intrigue, a wonderful battle field
 My journey over the mountains and hills
 Through the oceans and the trees
 You play hide and seek
 I know but dive so deep
 No cause why you play this game
 No claim why I die and feel sick
 I know I love to die
 A touch of pain and joy
 I like to rest on it, my sweet retention
 O my sweet dear, my loving sky
 On the ground in the starry lit I lie down
 You cuddle and fondle on
 I feel like maddened in excitement
 Feel fresh as morning light 
 You play this hide and seek 
 Overflowing joy the whole night - kissing and missing in plight. 
  
 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
 08/12//2020
  
  
 In the Abyss of Forgetfulness
  
 Light turns into darkness
 Darkness is now more lovable than anything else
 Light appears to be dark cloud
 We fall into this play of light and dark
 Nothing comes out of this ghostly dangerous but heavenly saint
 O lament, hidden in the light
 Charming in darkness
 Love regenerates in the abyss of forgetfulness
 People humble and fumble
 O danger lies in the bushes, the poisonous snakes.
  
 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
 08/12//2020 

 
 
 
ODE TO MULES, CATBIRDS, INSECTS, AND GOD
  
  
 Interspecies friendships?
  
 They’re great, aren’t they?
  
 A bonding of pure affection
 sometimes unequaled in human civilization.
  
 A mule wearing a snorkel and goggles enters
 the high school convocation flopping rubber 
 flippers against the smooth terracotta tiles.
  
 You gotta love that!
  
 [Yeah]
  
                           *……*
  
 A catbird screeched high above a tulip poplar
 near the local middle school earlier today,  
 then warbled hieroglyphs before entering 
 our forsythia hedge and vaporizing  
 inside its prickly branches.
  
                     *……*……*
  
 I wonder if we pay enough attention to insects?
 We mostly complain about them, but they’re 
 preoccupied day in day out with whatever’s 
 required to evolve their DNA.
  
 Sounds a lot like us, eh?
  
 And what about lusty zebra mosquitos
 who just want to our be blood brothers?
  
 We shouldn’t overlook such things.
  
                    ◄   ◄…..►   ►
  
 What’s the last thing that goes
 through an existentialist’s mind

 when he smacks the windshield 
 at 90 miles an hour?
  
 That’s right, God.
  
  
  
  
  
  
   

 

 THE NIGHT JOE WATSON & I DOUBLE-
 DATED TWO BEAUTIES FROM THE 
 THRIFTWAY SUPERMARKET
  
  
 I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer 
 the Italian in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar.
  
 So, he picked Meg.
  
 I liked Meg.
  
 I liked Meg a lot with her tamarind
 arms, bronze legs, & eyelashes like 
 dragonflies haunting my dreams, 
 but, alas, I was mesmerized 
 by the Italian Aphrodite broiled
 to perfection in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar. 
  
 So, off the four of us cruised, two
 of us ending up below the spidery
 legs of the Lake Worth pier.
  
 That night kisses like wild bruises 
 migrated from lips to necks 
 to shoulders in the casual blink 
 of a full moon’s penumbra 
 tattooing hair, flesh, 
 monkey blood, & bones. 
  
 I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer 
 the Italian in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar.
  
  
  
  

Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves Bonnefoy. Alan was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. He has published 20 books of poetry and served as Art Agent for Andy Warhol Superstar, the late great Ultra Violet, while often reading poetry at her Chelsea, New York studio. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

Discussion of the success behind the authenticity of the novel

“Perseverance for knowledge and passion for dreams” engender the issues explored in David Copperfield to be interweaved in Great Expectations. Fact and fancy, reality and imagination or private and public encapsulating life sketches of memoirs: memorial, monument or testimony chronicles a spiritual autobiography. The world of the biographer’s existence has been socially, morally and imaginatively much more complex, compromising and more essentially ambiguous than one David inhabits as interpreted in the parenthetical thesis of Anna Foley foreshadowed within bibliography.        

 Enslavement by a heartless society, destructions of war, mass genocide and totalitarianism engrosses modern critics such as Chesterton’s shrewd criticism apprising and appreciating Dickensian character Tobb as the vitality of real humanity or humility, those who have nothing but life. Furthermore, George Orwell, the satirist of political and moral allegorical fable quintessentially denotes in his essay on Dickens always, “respond emotionally to the idea of human brotherhood.” 

Differentiating Advantages and Disadvantages of Reading The Autobiographical Narrative Fiction Great Expectations

Psychoanalysis Freudian theories and gender studies by modern critics today, question the integrity of memorable characters, boisterous humours, intrigued plot twists, precipitous cliffhangers or suspenseful ending and universal themes. Bread and butter (graveyard scene) were connoting alleged erection employed by Pip to hide and cover adolescence. Victorian ideals abhorred and despised the tendency of incestuous relationships, masturbation, lascivious or carnal desires, adultery and so on. Magwitch and Herbert’s guidance or guardianship excessive handling of Pip is a striking matter of moral degradation in modern criticism by shrewdest psychoanalysts or gender studies theorists.      

 Mr. Pumblechook appearance of that of a Sheriff and the reticent patronage of Compeyson disdains readers or critics detesting demonic characteristics in Mr. Pumblechook’s personae. Another striking fact in debate is the emotional setting of prison infirmary. Incidentally, Pip reconciles in salvaged spirit to acquire redemption for the penitent sins encountered after demonizing feelings about Magwitch. Withdrawal of snobbery from the redemptive minds of Estella and Pip ending doesn’t disseminate justification in absurd ending despite smugness shattered by the discovery of great expectations. 

Further drawbacks of the novel discusses the issues of being the idealized gentleman in the ironical witty commentaries of Dickens to satirize being gentleman to table manners, style of dressing, body language, speech, wealthy fortunes and so forth. Interestingly, the irony here talks of Victorian tradition of mass graveyard shameful, embarrassing, defame or guilty conscience because bereavement of working class or middle class bourgeois should be preserved in sepulchers and epitaphic tombstones inscripted. Farm labourers, coal miners or domestic servants weren’t exempted from the case study. Socio economically youngsters were passionate about being marines or veterans and clergymen whilst the legacy was endowed to the elders. Daughters inherit dowries or petty estate unless the male relations remain obscure. Dickens employed the character of Drummle from Somerset as neither aristocrat nor Shropshire gentry which provokes the issue of class distinction and classification of a gentleman. Romantic delusions implored Pip to board the accommodation Boars Hotel with the illusion that Miss Havisham [fairy godmother]’s Estella, the ward would be his fiancée.              

 “Poisonous” and “pernicious”, “infamous” and “shameful” the novelist epitaphic phrases paraphrase poor living conditions in prison. “From head to foot there was convict in the very grain of the man” demarcate English, French or Convicts curtailed from European civilization  “a savage air that no dress could tame.”  In reality Dickens shrewd criticism allegorizes the Victorian prison reformation. Gospel of improvement or progress brightening or heightening metropolis with passing of traits in the transformed sub urban hypnotizes colonial enterprise. Dickens forgets to narrate the vanishing or exclusion of Abel Magwitch symbolizing injustice. These extremism of characters resonate unrealism oscillating in the novel. In the novel, Estella, the heroine marries the doctor from Shropshire after Drummle’s death. Pip understands that she has developed maturity through suffering –irony of resolutions. Superficiality of the gentleman sways away as soon as the hero, Pip’s inferences and conscience awaken. What really matters in life is being honest, true, loyal and kind. Great Expectations is nothing but a work of genius by modern critics. It is also very widely read by ordinary people except those who dislike fiction. Dickensian vocabulary, complex and lengthy sentences and verbal irony are obstacles in interpreting modern Dickens.       

When snarling, Orlick, the tangible flesh and blood presence denounces Pip as “young wolf” and remonstrates Mrs. Joes, “You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery”. Dickens contrasted this to the boarding school educated counterfeit money con artist bcause he could copy handwritings that appeared behind the scenes- elusive and shadowy. Compeyson blights the lives of Miss Havisham, her ambiguous half weak brother and of Magwitch on the one hand. And on the other, the deal of treachery trial’s betrayal stimulated white terror vengeance of the open book of crime and punishment-the symbolic of ripest exploitation. Magwitch “marries” Molly “over the broomstick” unlike his counterparts Orlick and Compeyson [Compeyson breaks Miss Havisham’s heart]. Why brevity and humour? The barbarity of the justice system sentences mass and Dickens mocks the judge’s verdict in ordering a special censure for Magwitch. [“My Lord I have received my sentence of death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours”]

Orlick’s indulgence of vengeance after being dismissed from the forge and Miss Havisham’s caretaking, tempted him as Compeyson’s dupe luring Pip into lime-kiln [*lime kiln- kiln or furnace of reducing limestone shells to lime through burning or incineration]. Orlick was sentenced to imprisonment in the final part of the novel through a commit of blundered heist: the robbery of Mr. Pumblechook-the ostentatious caricature. Dickens’ laughter and humour reflection in Pip’s  appraisal that the villainy of Orlick showed atonement is subtly the question of moral integrity. [Pip acknowledged Orlicks’ temperate behavior of stuffing the nose of Mr. Pumblechook with flower annals]. However, critics like Andrew Moore, disparaged shrewd glimpses of analogous to a loose ending of the plot.

John Thomas Allen is 38, loves stained glass, and loves imagery for imagery's sake.  He also enjoys giving single dollar bills to crack addicts at real carnivals, igniting charity balls for people who don't work, and entertaining strange strangers online. He admires the work of Peter O Leary, Bernadatte Meyer, and Mina Loy.


The Carnival Tarot

I was there the night the carnival tarot began
  In a glass mosque of magic satin 
flooded with fireflies 
     winding the meditation boxes 
   to a focus levels flooded without grounding 
        To a focus level split in the screaming   
        sonar whistles 
     dew drops of dim deja vu, 
         beads bodiless with worlds shed aflame
           echoes of billiard halls in their boozy spider glass 
           echoes of hobo clown gangs split in galleys  
               of long handed shadow  
           echoes of orchestrated lightning in black boxes 
           echoes of paint chips patterned after a decayed 
                  glass marquee in downtown LA
              The third eye all smoke  
                and thus frying the Om…
   now with the dowsing snakes hushed buzz. 
     The fleecing syncopation of All In All   
                            All At Once
    Before falling they’d seen ameythistine temples,
               rising tide of movie monsters eloped
                   from the moving pictures 
                   in the singular monstrosity of self possession
         gravity’s cells swallowing each free breath of even
                                 air.
      In the EVP library’s soundscape, the voices freed
      the dead’s sound bytes inside holofoil crypts.
       The pale swan arms, bonding afterlives, braille echoes on the No. 5
      pencil 
      She sang the Hours with carnie ministers, crowned ghosts.
        The icons were flooded out with sound mirrors the body 
                                        of a saw
      Refracting icons in the library’s reading room 
         Howling and nude in caged specters of lightning, 
               eyes smoked like a blue owl
                     a  dribbling decoy of light.

The elevated language in Sanjeev Sethi’s poetry collections Bleb and Hesitancies draws readers in, encouraging multiple readings of each short piece. Although the collections consist of small vignettes without a true narrative thread, some characters take shape: the speaker’s tiny grandchildren and aging parents.

Many pieces explore memory and internal thought processes: In “Palmer,” the speaker reflects on solitude: “The aftermath/is soaked in sapience./ Richness of receptacle/
endows the individuation/of insights.”

Others comment on the writing process and on words and imagination. In “Cry for Clemency” Sethi compares writing to raising children. “Poems are like progeny, after parturition they are nursed and nurtured until they fasten their futurity.”

While some would consider this metaphor unusual for a male writer, Sethi’s sensibility is delicate, full of grace for the human condition. He shows this sensitivity by including people of all ages and genders, including the elderly, as poetic subjects and describing them with dignity.

The slow pace of both collections encourages us to ‘hesitate,’ to step back and think, to develop and honor our interior lives. Sethi uses the word ‘hesitancies’ directly in a few pieces, many of which concern physical and emotional intimacy that deepens as people take the time to let relationships unfold.

Bleb and Hesitancies call to readers with a quiet insistence, pulling us in to matters of the heart and mind with the voice of a wise friend.

Sanjeev Sethi’s collections can be ordered here and here.

 
 
 
 Story Title: Cheers To Forever
 Written By : Dennis Mann
  
  
 It's precisely those nights when you feel the beginning of a new life when your heart beats at an uncontrollable speed, when you never get tired of flashing your perfect white set of teeth to the random guest that attends your wedding solemnization.
  
 She descended the stairways as a sea of eyes stared at her, but her focus was only on the man whom she would be spending the rest of her life with. Her champagne sleeveless gown caressed the floors as she made her way down like a slow train that never wanted to reach its destination.
  
 Her man in a blue-black Tux was radiating sparkles of shimmering light under the magnificent chandelier. The point came when they had contact, and it seemed the two would never want to separate for a minute: their hands bound by love. They walked closely while smiling guests all dressed fashionably in white for the Night Party.
  
 Just six hours ago, the couple said a big yes to each other and wore a wedding band to signify their long-lasting bond. The newlywed husband couldn't stop smiling as he danced with his wife.
  
 "Kobie, I love you," Adelaide uttered, her eyes in deepest sincerity and her voice in complete innocence.
  
 "You are my royal lady, and I love you so much, dear," Kobie said as he revealed a gap-toothed smile.
  
 The happy guest rushed on the circular dance floor and moved their waist to the live band by Kwabena Kwabena, 'Royal lady.'
  
 Adelaide dropped the hands of the man she loves and joined Kwabena Kwabena closely. Kwabena Kwabena seized the opportunity to be an excellent performer as he played the trumpets to only one valid guest—the bride.
  
 But clearly, someone wasn't happy that everyone was in a merry mood. "Ermm, thank you, thank you." Funny Face said. "The night is very young, and there is still plenty of time to dance." He coughed in a joking way. "This is a fantabulous wedding of my main man, Kobie. Ekom adi y3 a kye."
  
 Everybody laughed.
  
 "Kobie has been a friend in those times I thought I had no friend. You know people believe since you are a celebrity, you have lots of friends and have no problems. They lie. They lie baad!"
  
 The guest laughed again.
  
 "Kobie has been there for me countless times. I can't start counting. I love you, bro." Funny Face turned back and gazed at Kobie. "This is no gay love."
  
 The men in the crowd roared from behind.
  
 "I love you with the love of a mother. Your new wife shall bring you peace-"
  
 The crowd cheered, Amen.
  
 "—And beautiful children."
  
 "Amen," chorused the guest.
  
 Adelaide, seated close to her husband, gazed at him for a second, and they both got close like a magnet drawing them together, and they kissed.
  
 Funny Face managed the party very well. He cracked everyone up. Kobie was glad to have listened to his wife to make Funny Face the master of the ceremony.
  
 A burgundy Range Rover Evoque parked outside at the entrance of Villagio Heights. Smokes exhumed from the double steel exhaust pipes. The giant oaken doors opened, and Kobie stepped out with his wife in both arms, wrapped like a child as he descended. He dropped her carefully and opened the car door, and helped her into the car.
  
 Kobie turned back and waived the increasing number of guests at the entrance. Kobie kicked start the accelerator, and the sports car hummed slowly away with a 'Just Married' tag at the number plate. The growing guest waved at them as they faded in the pitch dark night.
  
 The newlywed couple drove on the H1N1 road leading to the Tema motorway.
  
 "Honey, do you think we should go to Holy Trinity Spa tonight? Considering the journey, let's sleep tonight and start our honeymoon tomorrow?"
  
 "No, dear, I want us to get there tonight so we can rest and begin a wonderful life ahead of us from tomorrow."
  
 "Okay. Anything you say, dear. I know your eyes are lazy in the evening; that's why I'm saying that."
  
 "You have nothing to worry about, dear. We shall be fine."
  
 Soon, not long, as they just passed the motorway roundabout, a long truck skidded terribly and crashed the sports car. The car was crushed instantly to a corner. Kobie and Adelaide lay unconscious with blood spilling from their head.
  
 It was not clear if they survived.
  
  
  
 Dennis Mann - Author
 
 Email: authordennismann@gmail.com
 
 Instagram:
 https://www.instagram.com/persiux5
 
 Facebook :
 facebook.com/authordennismann
 
 Call/WhatsApp:
 +233247654113
  
 
  
 
 Wide Reading Among Kids (WRAK) is a children's literacy program in Ghana. We encourage readers to support this program. More information on WRAK here. 

 Wide Reading Among Kids 
 
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 Email: widereadingamongkids@gmail.com
 
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