Good morning with good wishes

By

Manik Chakraborty. 

Good morning with good wishes

The colorful morning light,

Let the earth rise with laughter again

Let the blackness be erased.

Flowers will bloom with the song of birds

Bees will run,

Flying in confusion

They will steal the honey from the flowers

The wind will blow, the sky will be colored

With the murmur of the river,

Nature will laugh again

With the song of the fisherman

The Loss Of Words

He kept them once,

in the lining of his coat,

folded like letters never sent,

warm from the friction of thought.

They used to come easy,

like rain that knew his name,

each drop a confession

he could hold without trembling.

Now they rot in the corners

half-formed,

chewed down to bone,

their meanings siphoned off

by something with a quieter hunger.

He trades syllables for silence,

line by line,

until even his voice forgets

how to reach him.

There is a page

always a page

waiting like a witness

that will not intervene.

And somewhere beneath the ruin,

a single word claws upward,

bloated, unrecognizable,

begging to be written

before it dies again.

Windmills

The wind

keeps trying to explain itself

to the same crooked blades

and they nod

like they understand

but all they really do

is turn

grinding the sky

into smaller pieces

until evening

falls apart quietly

behind them

The Affair I Never Had

I remember her
like a place
I never went

a street
with all the lights on
and no one home

we passed once—
or maybe we didn’t

but something in me
kept waving

like a curtain
caught in a window
that was never opened

and even now
there’s a silence
I visit sometimes

where she almost speaks

and I almost answer

Leon Drake is a Toronto based poet whose work has been published in print and online. He lets his writing speak for him. For art is the best side of us.

In the quiet of my restless mind,

Dreams awaken, undefined.

Like shadows dancing on the wall,

They rise, they fade, they softly call.

I walk alone, yet feel no fear,

For hope itself is always near.

A fragile light within my soul,

Reminds me I am still whole.

Though nights are long and skies are grey,

My dreams refuse to drift away.

They whisper gently, calm and deep:

“You were not born to simply sleep.”

How Wonderful The Gift Of Life Seems 

Can you speak or write in the absolute now, or is the now gone in the time it takes for the now to hit your senses and wind its way up our nerves into our brains and then for us to speak or write it on a page?      

Can we overlook the micro-moments between perception and recording on the brain or on paper?     

In this near to now my dog licks his black paw stretched out on the bed. The light streams in a side window into this darkened room onto this notebook page and a dove outside calls. Those nearly nows are receding as my pen moves on the page trying to pin them down.     

The dove still calls. The air filter hums almost silently in this allergy season.     

Now there’s the sound of a page turning as I write more in the nearly now. It is close to quiet in this nearly now. A top drawer in this old brown wooden desk is half open. There is a humming in my ears. I have a taste of tinnitus.      

Here the nearly now is mostly still. Some might call it boring. So busy am I in recording that my thoughts are rare. My body feels a little tired. My sad bad knees are both aching. Should I be sorry this nearly now is not more dramatic?      

Put down your cell phones, kids, and enjoy the silence. Learn to muse and think on your own.    No bombs are falling outside but I know they are falling elsewhere. I hear the quite whir of a plane overheard. Rain is falling, a slow rain outside that my dog and I don’t hear, or maybe Coco dog hears.      

It’s been peaceful to settle into this nearly now. I am content, and now I am thinking in this nearly now, of a thought I had yesterday.     

Is that cheating?     

Is that thought as much of the now as the tinnitus in my ears? You may disagree if you are here with me in the nearly now at a later date.     

Yesterday’s thought is about the story of life’s beginning. I learned in school that life began with the mixing of chemicals in a warm body of water. The constant stirring in currents of the chemicals finally led to life. Perhaps it was a virus kind of life since a virus sits on the edge of life and nonlife.     

 But what if life bloomed in more than one place, here on this planet or elsewhere? What if life had multiple origins? Maybe there are aliens out there and distant planets we cannot travel to in multiple lifetimes. I am thinking of this in the nearly now. Any memory pulled from the past as thought is now in the nearly now.      

And when I am thinking in the nearly now, am I not also thinking a bit in the future in a yearning for the future?     

I’m thinking I may publish this rambling on the nearly now in the future. It is the possibility of sharing my thoughts with others that leads me to write them down. Nearly now thoughts of the future are pulling me forward.    

So perhaps no divides exist between the past, the nearly now, and the future. Time, as the old metaphor said, is a flowing river and cannot be divided.     

My hope is that some souls in the future will read this and the ideas will live again rolling through their nearly nows, and I will kind of live again.    

 It has stopped raining. My spouse is starting to move about, getting ready to check on the backyard garden. I give my love a quick kiss as she heads out the back door. I may feel differently tomorrow—what with the terrible calls coming out of the wider world—but how wonderful the gift of life seems in this nearly now. 

The Legend of Loquat Island

1. You Bring All of Yourself

When the sun has fully turned to summer,

you are still there,

among the indistinct clouds.

You do not come,

do not step on any of the seven strings,

rhythmically stepping out of the unclear clouds.

Nor do I go.

The stop sign is yellow, hidden by pagoda blossoms;

I fear I might lose my way.

The wind runs along the shadows of flowers till noon,

and noon shatters in the sound of the qin.

Flowers are like eyes, gazing at fruits from afar.

Leaves and sails turn brown gradually —

summer is growing old.

For loneliness is a game of Go,

played by the left hand against the right.

In a throat murmur, I paint rust over your name,

walk near the fence, bend with the grapevines and peer.

It is already summer, so much summer.

Soon the flowers will put on yellow jackets.

The last bus always writes ugly novels,

yet cannot write your warm name.

You are my summer.

When you come, summer stays.

Let maple leaves burn themselves out.

As long as you bring all of yourself.

2. Perhaps I Do Not Love You

Perhaps I should not speak this obscure sentence.

Your drizzle is about to damp my swaying steps again.

Your story moves me,

moves the vast seasonal moods in my heart.

A liquid landscape rises on our cheeks, a curved theme.

Your eyelashes, scattered with chinaberry flowers,

take me as your future.

Yet from your small figure, I revisit my past.

In this summer with a mischievous sun,

innocent fruits stir the noise of old days.

It is only that we are too gentle, like water,

fond of waiting and remembering.

All from one moment’s attention

grew into the whole secret of my life.

I love you — the shadow of my childhood in you.

Please love me too — your promised autumn in me.

Let us be two mirrored Z’s,

lyrical on either side of a single sentence.

3. Duet

We walk into a night without a title,

into a bumpy alley.

The moon, a yellowish raven,

holds the burning road behind us.

One easily grows emotional in the dark.

You say it’s nothing — we’re poets,

so I am no longer shy.

I take your hand and walk past the lamps of misunderstanding.

Alley connects to street; the alley is a solo.

We are a bumpy duet,

perhaps all duets are like this.

We laugh secretly, and our laughter turns to flowers on branches.

We cannot turn back; the moon still lingers,

we have lingered too.

That year we both lost love, both looked pale.

It is fate, you say, pressing your lips

and holding me tighter.

I only lift my head and whistle a clumsy tune.

The alley leads to the long street.

We count the stop signs one by one and do not stop.

In every tree shadow, two pairs of eyes catch each other.

The duet behind us spreads into a clear mixed forest.

You imitate my whistle,

then scare yourself away.

On the main street,

we give away our bumpy heartbeats

to all the lingering figures of Pisces.

4. Loquat Island

Loquat Island lies where God does not reach.

Invitations are rejected,

stamps are rejected.

Even the temperamental typhoon

cannot land on Loquat Island.

Loquats on Loquat Island never ripen.

Summer flowers only bloom for crowded music.

All numbers from one to seven love lyricism.

Loquat Island, Loquat Island, far out at sea.

Tender green coconuts are lifted by tides to keep balance.

Drift bottles carry distant questions.

We pass through the typhoon.

We land gently, on each other’s coastal lips.

Since we came, the moon has hidden in the bird’s nest in the tree,

the sun has lost its way in our eyes,

and drizzle always murmurs softly.

Since we came, loquats no longer turn sour.

We occupy the date of waves and rocks,

the date of moon and sun.

We link our hands into a rainbow and claim sovereignty.

With a wave of the sleeve,

we snap the rope of the canoe,

wave away the one-way wind and rain.

Let us stay on Loquat Island —

be two loquat trees growing ten leaves each,

standing in a season where even stones can bloom.

Loquat Island, Loquat Island, abundant in love.

Let us pretend to be mountain spirits,

cloaked in litchi leaves, greedy and playful.

If one day the sea is stuffed full of loquats we shake down,

will you invite the lovelorn typhoon

to come to our Loquat Island

and taste authentic loquat love?

May 24, 1985

 Father’s light 

Father, your warmth is like the sun so bright,

Every word you speak guides me through the night.

When I grow weary, your voice gives me might,

In my heart, you are a beacon of light.

Your soul is vast, like the shoreless sea,

Through you, I found faith and the strength to be.

No hardship can ever discourage me,

For with you by my side, I stand strong and free.

Hardworking, honest, and kind in your way,

None can replace you, come what may.

Your smile is my joy, the light of my day,

May your life be a throne where golden rays play.

With you, our home is filled with grace,

Peace and happiness in every space.

Stay healthy and near us, in love’s embrace,

May joy follow every step you trace.

Gulsanam Mamasiddiqova was born on July 22, 2007, in the Oltiariq district of the Fergana region, Uzbekistan. A 2025 graduate of School No. 25 in Oltiariq, she is currently a first-year student at Andijan State University, majoring in Philology and Language Teaching (English). Gulsanam is passionate about literature and linguistics, seeking to bridge cultures through her creative writing and poetic voice.

Corsica 

France valued you at a price, and Genoa prospered from your sale.

Your isle of beauty took France’s lustful glances, as Genoa for gain, sold her costly Cabochon.

Your beautiful bay and dramatic cliffs caused so much contention for your dowry.

Palombaggia’s white sands are lovers’ basking points, where dreams and many fantasies come to fruition.

Rocky coves, diverse plains and mountainous interiors attract every romantic adventurer seeking your atmospheric and fragrant scrubland.

You are the pearl between Italy and France!

The very beautiful bride between, guarded jealously by France’s over-protective all seeing eye.

Bonaparte first inhaled you at infancy! 

On Saint Helena’s very distant bland shores, he nostalgically christened you his childhood paradise.

In his depths of longing, he craved and craved for your fragrant earth, like one who craved for his departed Josephine!

Joseph C Ogbonna is a widely published poet, former high school teacher and an amateur historian. Some of his many works have been published in Spillwords Press, North of Oxford, Waxpoetry Magazine, Borderless magazine, Micromance magazine, PoetryXhunger and in at least two dozen anthologies. He is also an Amazon International best selling co-author.