Whispers of change for a land of anguish

Down here, where peace has aged and weakened,

And replaced by infirmities that sap my strength.

Sobs and cries echo daily, melodies of hardship,

as garrison claims a new title :”The big man’s diet “,

earned with the sweat of pain and heart labor.

Look, our elders survive on cherished dreams,

bearing witness to change, that made them burdens;

burdens indeed, to their own seeds.

The youths contemplate with watchful eyes,

anguish covers them like a tinted blanket of dust

Behold! Doctors work to hasten us to the grave,

foolishly struggling to keep us broken apart.

Verily, verily, we are nothing but unguarded flocks

Whose shepherds are parasitic lives, drenched in riches,

And oppressing terribly with meaningless words.

Sobs and cries remain daily melodies,

men wilt under the land of anguish,

where peace has grown pale_ now wearing wrinkles.

16 December 

Today is 16 December, our Victory day—

After ending of nine months bloody battle,

A day of helpless surrender of enemy;

Their day of defeat.

They are dishonoured who snatch away the Sleep from innocent people 

By envy and egoism of Bayonets,

Who bereave others others from their rights Under the knee of their dirty power,

Who made helpless mortally every corner of 

Beloved land.

Until now salty blood smell of thirty lakhs 

Bengali floating on air.

Lanes and by lanes, killing fields stand on eyes 

With crying of grave silence 

Repainting with blessings of memorial. 

Across the world holy child of bestial sperm,

Blooming war child carries tearless lament of 

Desolate Heroine. Think of,

WHO knows the gruesomeness of war than us!

So, we don’t want war but peace in the globe. 

Avoiding starvation with sufferings from the Debris of burnt peace house 

Today we are fifty two years old. 

In this 52nd Victory Day of Bangladesh, at this Assemblage  I am a petty representative 

Who am sending peace message to you all

Of the world, a letter with red alphabet and Green envelop of friendship is being delivered To every home of world village. 

Today,16 December, in our Victory Day, I wish

A leader of pure soul to come back with calling 

Of magical voice of generous life like Mujib in 

The persecuted land of earth.

Wishing them to wake up of wounded and Moribund lives for fighting of Independence. 

Wishing them to sing a song of freedom. 

One day, the earth will give shiver with pandemic of peace.

Aklima Ankhi is a poet, storyteller and translator from Cox’sbazar, Bangladesh. Born in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. She has a published poetry named “Guptokothar Shobdochabi” written in Bangla. She is a post graduate in English Literature. As a profession she is a Lecturer in English. 

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears at The Notre Dame Review. 

Spirit of a Place, Spirit of a Thing (Artist Statement)

In an off handed remark during an interview, U.G. Krishnamurti, called by some an anti-guru, and by himself, ‘Something like a philosopher,’ said that he once thought he could sense the spirit of a place. But then he brushed it off through words and body language. It didn’t fit in with his philosophy and message. But I resonated with his statement anyhow, because I had always felt that I could feel the spirit of a place and also a thing. Old town, lake still and wide. City street, carnival game vendor and prizes. Bee. Spider. Flower. Vine. Ridge. Summit. Stone. Petal. Stream. Sun. Cloud. Bird and dusk, horizon and dawn. Lock, denoting love, affixed to lonesome bridge alone in the rain. Artifacts. Areas. Some saturnine and some sanguine. Hundreds of places and things, their spirit, against reason and logic, somehow speaking out, not with language of course, but calling out nevertheless. Semantics and nomenclature could argue what spirit means. Is it the atmosphere, the daemon, the angel, the area, the vibration, the feeling? Is it physical, metaphysical, true and there, or purely imaginary and projected? Difficult to know conclusively. But there is something I think in all that mise- en-scene, and so on the rural footpaths and metropolitan worlds also, I try and photograph it and also write about it, this spirit of a place and spirit of a thing.

NEEDLES

We wedded the ink with the skin.

The priest performed acupuncture

consecrated by heroin,

and the nurses purled the sutures

while the knitters prepared the syringe.

These rites we practiced unpinned time.

We survived your blessings and sins

and withstood your charities and crimes.

We know our bricks wither within

but our ivies, they cling, they climb.

WHAT ABOUT THE AGE OF LOVERS?

The age of heroes is broken.

The palace is now aflame.

The historians’ is growing.

The heroes are not to blame,

for, though their strength is diminished

it isn’t demolished yet.

Tomorrow’s the resurrection

but today is just a rest.

Our bodies and experience

form the borders of our mind.

But there exists That Beyond Sense

that we cannot understand.

We get confused in worlds not right.

If bandit’s in the library

and pundit’s at the prize fight

we can’t tell plains from prairies.

We imagine a symmetry

that we can’t yet define.

We assign all our mysteries

to God, to magic, to time.

We gird our egos in armor

to weaken our defenses,

but freedom embraces karma,

aggression joins resistance.

Desire develops into deed.

Our matches become beacons.

We were waves that became a sea

and rowboats that grew riggings.

Orators are clothed in words

and scholars stand on language.

But heroes must speak through their work

and lovers through their anguish.

A DEVOLUTION OF THE VAN GOGH SOUL

My heart sits tarnished

in its rib prison.

The inclement earth

burns under heavens

ashen and barren.

Who erased the stars?

“MUSHROOMING”

If you were forest

i could purport

this noble purpose

for these frequent

meticulous surveys

that I perform

throughout your moist

and fetid shadows

WITHOUT YOU BETH

                       MY LIFE

Beth:

I miss you often.

These paths unmapped and all my everythings nones.

(near me still your spirit hovers

but — unattached!)

standards weighed by a crooked butcher’s variable pound.

*

Breaths used to lift dolphin-like

from our depths

like frost balloons toward the sun

in/and/out, those beaths of lovers

with joys unmatched.

up/and/down/and/up/

an ocean-rhythmed merry-go-round.

*

Death.

Abyss-dropped coffin.

Everyone wept. Someone mumbled a little Donne.

Then they handed round the shovels.

(An egg unhatched:

without you Beth my life’s another burial ground.)

*

Faith?

My fists clasp-softened, fingernails ripped —

faith, you say?

A black-habit nun who whispers yes but means never.

Faith’s record scratched:

Here’s how the faith radio with no aerial sounds :

…

The Victory Day

16th December is the Victory day of Bangladesh
After a long line of death in nine months ---
Severe torture, rape and struggle in the deep dark place
The Morning Sun rose in the East sky
On this day of 1971
Bangladesh, a name written with the blood of millions of Bangalee people
A name glorious with its own beauty and struggle
We have bought this country with so many lives
When I go through this history
I can't but cry 
Oh, my country! We have found you in the map of the world
Where I live and find myself to be one the world's citizens
Oh, my Bangladesh! I love you from the core of my heart.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh,
11 December, 2023
 

Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. 

He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad.   His English writings have been being published in an International Online Magazine - Synchronized Chaos from America for seven years. 

Candle

Games of chiaroscuro air
My open ended soaked sun beach
The divine judgement
Why we open up our own
Pandora's boxes 
Lying everywhere
In the name of love
Just falsifying money 
Stifles my inwards 
I just needed
A little candle soul
To sit beside
My honeycombed style
Before it's too late
We're shooting stars 
Lost revenues new avalanches
My archery of bows 
I just need one pinpointed
A single lotus petal
To smoothen out
Impurities of inward crevices
My fairy shiny letters

classIQue

A home is nothing

without a baby

Albert Einstein.

Won’t you con-

sider adding one

to your family?

The adoption fee

is only $275, &

you’ll get a 20%

discount off your

next five home-

delivered pizzas.

“My quietness has a hamster in it”

Used to be content
with the traditional
hamster package—
a wheel, a wooden
carrot to chew on, her
single goal to be a
fūzokujo in a soap-
lands. That all over-

taken by new tech-

nology & the advent
of Polynesian tiki

culture. Now her
engine is fueled by
biodiesel derived
from coconut husks,
& she wants to drive
the slickest cars, to
become a Street
Czar named Desire.

Purple Haze

Start with a
premise. Or.
The seen thought
that may or may
not have to 
struggle to reach 
the top. Or. The
unseen thing that

tickles the back
of the mind be-
fore striking a
chord & singing
scuse me while 
I kiss the sky.

Innovation & discovery

occur in direct proportion 
to the amount of non-
piercing body jewellery 
being worn. Govern-

ment has tilted the 
playing field to favor 
this approach. Balance 
is the foundation. The 

statements are short, 
clear. Event merchandise  

is now available on-
line. What is a ratio?

you have been band from facebook

Let your Girl Scouts
lip-synch freedom
songs & use their cookies
for pleasure not for
pain. Now that the
mouth of the wild beast
is ranked #315 with a
bullet on TripAdvisor’s

top 788 attractions in
Paris, we can move
on to the next important
project—does jelqing
lengthen, & lengthen the
shelf-life of, one’s penis?

These poems were previously published in a print book by Mark Young, The Codicils.