Rachel Corrie

In the time that I have been here
children have been shot and killed,
declares Rachel Corrie, who was appalled 
by the Israelis’ occupation of the Holy Land.

Having borne witness to the persecution of Palestinians,
to tank shell holes
that fill their walls,
to discrimination,
arrests, 
and displacements,
she stands before a bulldozer to prevent
the demolition of a pharmacist’s abode,
waving to the driver in fluorescent clothes, 
who ignoring her calls,
proceeds adamantly with his goals:
to demolish farmland, 
property,
and an American pacifist’s voice.

As a child, Rachel had publicly voiced her dream
to annihilate hunger before 2003
but died bulldozered by the Israeli authorities, 
aged only twenty-three, 
a brave heart
that was not intimidated by autocracy.

 
Silence II

I recline upon my bed and sit still.
This silence will not last for more than two minutes,
for yells, sirens, and vociferating mobiles
will shortly resume their daily dialogues.

I hunt for fleeting spells of quietude,
mere bubbles that burst
within fractures of seconds,
since noise has become an integral part
of the fabric of our private and public lives.

Most of the people I happen to know
fear silence,
a much-dreaded foe,
and associate it with death,
withdrawal,
or some psychological problem.

Ears are plugged,
flooded with torrents of noise.
Some TV sets are switched on throughout the nights
as if the angel of death is denied entrance
where music, dramas, or arguments are at work. 

I envy the Buddhists their moments of peace
who look like daffodils in oases of green
and think that even a monastery 
is a heaven I cannot attain.

 
What Might Have Been

You wish you could revoke a thousand decisions that derailed your life
and imagine a paradisiacal existence had you chosen otherwise,
a pathetic line of reasoning
for nothing can alter the course of your stars.

We were taught that our fate is written above our eyebrows.
Others believe it is visible in the lines of our palms.
I saw mine in the eyes of every enemy
who twisted their knives in my mind.

I indulge in no regrets
and avoid dwelling on the past,
avoid erecting monuments
for tragedies that blasted my paths.
I look ahead with a cynical smile
and expect the worst to come.

 
Perfidy

Dethroned and crownless, the convicted queen
has beckoned her subjects to kneel and pray
not to the skies who its children would claim,
not to the gods who torture and enslave.

A communal prayer of a wordless fabric
commences with a soundless tone,
a dirge for years of diminutive stature,
for frenzied hours that dissonance bore.

With interlocked fingers many awkward forms
betake themselves to swim to the coast.
The perfidious clouds that languish for havoc
now zestfully disband to open a door.

One streak of red that dilutes the streams
zigzags its way among pebbles and stones.
A pair of eyes that are petrified
look on at a scene from a severed throat.
 

Impossible Love 
 
To grasp what an impossible love truly is, 
Not everyone can fathom, only those who've lived it. 
The strange emotion that is called love, 
Is known and felt by those distanced, who've felt it. 
In an instant, it comes, taking you by surprise, 
You find yourself enchanted by a stranger's eyes, 
Unknowingly, your heart takes flight and flies, 
To love is something only the heart implies. 
The delicacy of a rose's velvet touch, 
The beauty of a leaf with a grace that's such, 
The blush of your cheeks, a sight to clutch, 
When your hands tremble, that feeling, it does clutch. 
The glances exchanged, like lightning's sparks, 
Eyelashes fluttering, like burdens in the dark, 
Your heart flutters wildly, like a mad lark, 
This state, only those in love can embark. 
When you gaze at their picture, lost in thought, 
As the caravan of memories passes, unbought, 
And separation's inevitable, as it is sought, 
The years of longing, in your heart, are caught.

Elmaya Jabbarova was born in Azerbaijan. She is poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for
Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.

there is no silence
in a men’s homeless shelter . . .
late-night cough chorus


—


today marks ninety
days at the homeless shelter . . .
misophonia


—


downtown skyline through
the shelter’s dock door window—
men snore in the night


—


today marks five months
here at the homeless shelter . . .
let’s just sleep all day


—


purple foam earplugs . . .
the shelter at midnight is
almost dead silent


—


bio/graf

J. D. Nelson is the author of ten print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado, USA

October 1 



Exactly one year ago

He took London

To the hospital

Because she was having

Another vestibular episode,

That visit being

Their last visit

To the hospital

Never crossed his mind.





Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of the Peace Corps memoir “Fiesta of Sunset,” and the forthcoming poetry collection “Home Again.”

Always A Sinner

And I climb the staircase and a well-lit blonde bob smokes a cigarette in affair with no one and with eyes for naught but the night, and yet she still makes the effort to nod as I enter and this fills me with hope for the evening ahead.

 And the lights are ambiguous at best as I walk the corridor and consider a former love or lover in a corner with arm encircling the waist of a current beau in sweater vest and boot cut. He is gesturing wildly and all eyes are alight as he swings his tale and I turn and head for the kitchen where I see Jess with teary eyes as she dabs her forehead.

 Jess has not been crying, she has simply thrown up and warns me of this possibility as she hands me a pill and places her hand around my neck, draws me in and holds me tight whispering “sweet nothings” with a smile as I swallow.

 I head toward the living room and find the couch pushed to the wall and bean bags thrown helter skelter. Sam Cooke sings sweet melody as a young man brushes the inside of my arm and says “Do you want company?” and “That’s a shame, a terrible shame,” as he steps away to offer himself to another.

 A shirtless individual entertains a cavalcade and I lean in to hear “You’ll be surprised how many times you need to stab someone to kill the son of a bitch.” Pause, grimace, “A wise man draws quickly across the throat and gets the foul deed done in one quick go.” Pause, final rejoinder, “You must never forget the idea is not to bring death, but to simply withdraw life,” and they clap on conclusion and I realize I have just witnessed a performance piece as he takes a quick bow and then waves a hand across his face in attempt to deflect attention deftly earned. A girl in front of me turns to her side and insists, “This is nothing compared to his cut of Capote, now that is divine.”

 And I grab a bean bag and head to a corner and sit and close my eyes and try to recall the melody of ‘God Only Knows’ as that never fails to bring a tear to the eye and tonight is Sam’s night after all. Leaning my head against the wall I stare to the ceiling and spy a spider in a webbed corner and lose myself for a moment as it – as if startled – hurries to one side.

 A brunette drops a bean bag next to mine and leaves only to return with a drink and lit cigarette. “Charlie,” she says by way of introduction and it strikes me she is the kind of girl that will not age well. Cliché perhaps but her eyes are a blue most piercing, with a southern lilt that is oh so disarming and hints at inner strength most resolute.

 She tells me she achieved her first multiple orgasm when a boy went down on her as she listened to ‘Smile’ on heavy headphones with eyes closed and only the odd lift of the hips to guide the way, she slept with her lit professor on a dare and was disappointed that a published author could be so unimaginative in bed, she owned two iguanas and had just finished the short stories of Hemingway.

 I nod at each revelation and tell her I admire her sense of adventure, I own zero iguanas and I am considering hiring a cleaner before my apartment inspection a week from Tuesday.

 Charlie takes a drink and a drag and points out the spider overhead, a cat brushes itself on Charlie’s leg and then on mine and Love begins once more.

Michael Tyler has been published by Takahe, Bravado, Adelaide Literary, PIF, Daily Love, Danse Macabre, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Dash, The Fictional Café, Potato Soup Journal, Fleas On The Dog, Cardinal Sins, Mystery Tribune, Other Terrain, and Suddenly And Without Warning.

Michael writes from a shack overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. He has been published in several literary magazines and plans a short story collection sometime before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and …

Benediction

From mankind's cruelty and abomination
Beasts blatantly defying the laws of creation
In the midst of society's tragic situation
Exists two souls with pure, true adoration
Whence strength of one in consideration
So shall be for weakness in sublimation
One cannot claim no need of cooperation
Strong and weak are equal in protection
From each other rests their own salvation
No one claims about slavery or domination
No ego, no lies, no arrogant reputation
Their love for each other is their benediction.


Still Dare

When no one seems to care
No one for emotion to share
No wick for a heart to flare
Will you still dare?
When life seems so unfair
Feet are on a strand of hair
No space found in one's lair
Will you still dare
When there's no star to stare
Vulnerable for soul to bare
They have stolen your chair
Blocked the heavenly stair
Will you still dare?
Yes! Dare though no one care
Share even a wickless flare
Stand firm if there's no chair
With true courage, still dare!


Spared the Rod

Taught power to love and not to hate
You have relied not merely on fate
You have faith and trusted on God
Though I have spared you the rod
Soon I shall be leaving and be gone
You have always been my loving son.

Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14,1965, in Manila, Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry. 

Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for truth in pursuit of equality and proper stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

The List

You get to hear about
Bucket lists

All the time

Around here

And they say it like

They invented the term.

So they tour like desperate

Folks. Old folks trying

To get it full

A bucket full of foreign cities.

Walking on canes,

Wheelchairs, walkers

Hobbling along

Seeing this and that

Filling their buckets

As if their life will fill

With this:

Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin

Riga and Berlin

Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

They fill their buckets

Like Egyptian Pharaohs filling 

Their tombs for their time

In the next life.



                Sea Story

The North Sea, just its name reads

like a caption in a history book:

a seascape of crashing waves, one

of those wooden ships, full sails

sailing into a troublesome future.

The North Sea, sounds like an entry

in an immigrant’s journal, the feel

of loneliness and an unknowable

future. The North Sea, even today

seems like a summary of a climate

we all have to face along the way.

The North Sea all around us and

ahead of us, greeting us like it

greeted so many before us, a sea

untamable that we all will face.



            Tour Guide

How do you explain a place

You know so well to people

Who know little or nothing about

You or the place you need to

Explain. It’s a job, it’s your job

So you begin. There’s history

And all the details that set it

Up, the forces, the personalities

This war, that occupation, but

You notice the group start to

Doze off. These aren’t students

These are tourists, who yawn

At things they don’t know. You

Can pick out important sites or

Start off on the nature and how

It fits this place and people. You

Can talk about the economy or

The social systems that you know

They know little about, education

Media, the military if you must

And the various religions that vie

For prominence in a country not

Known for its religious traditions.

It’s an avalanche of material with

Little appeal. It’s an audience that

Pays a lot but wants very little. It’s

A job and you do and pretend that

Somehow it makes a difference.

.