The Eternal Eyes of Lord

2022

The Essence of Prayer

Part I

What should I do

           (Now)

Lock it up in me

Or scatter it around the meadow?

A crow can touch it-

The wheels can break it-

The sun can burn it-

Ughgh!

Sometimes, it is foam like-

Fire-

Water-

Sand-

What is it?

It is the spirit. It is the same spirit that withdraws the spirit of “What if.”

It is the same spirit that embraces the spirit of uncertainty.

It is the same spirit that dances with the tunes of by-gone days.

Same, same, same- Everywhere

Like some god-sent sailors

Finding nothing except

Their fragmented, repented souls

Rippling images on mirror-

Water as mirror.

Like the atheists overlooking

The signs given to them by Jesus, the Lord

And celebrating life

With no peaceful prayer;

It fails to follow  the patterns

Of light projected onto

The ship, water

From the lighthouse-

Lighthouse as God’s hands.

Who is it?

It is the humans,

The souls-

Who gather rage, hatred, and lie

Like a heap of garbage

Turning

(Unconsciously)

Into the bad- mouth, foul- scented beings.

It is the humans, the same humans-

Who look at the time

The same cruel time-

The same forgiving time-

The same loving time-

Holding its soul

Within its palms

With youth and

With mercy-

Some gibberish words come out from

Mumbling lips, crooked bodies,

Beating heart-

Those same words create the echo

Of some meanings-

Thus, a prayer is born.

All the lost souls

Like soldiers, sailors, farmers

Look at the sky

Only to listen to those same sound-

Sound of their echoing souls

Sound of prayer

And they find

Themselves in the land

Of songs.

Songs of destinies-

Songs of dawns-

Songs of divinities-

The same song that is written as the lines of fate

Is becoming the prayer-song

For the scribblers

Named as unseen forces-

The Goddesses and the Gods.

08.01.2025 

Part II

Once, I crossed a lake-

Beside it, I saw a

Chain of   grotesque,      Gloomy Faces;

Multitudes of pain Run through      

Swollen Limbs,

I shed off tears

And it was vanished into oblivion.

Part III

O my Muhammad, O my Lord Jesus, 

Fill my heart with spiritual Thirst.

O my Virgin Mary, O my Grace,

Shower thy Blessings and Revive these Damned cells.

2019

Fear

Some words in my throat

That I want to swallow

Want to vomit

Keep stagnant

I do not know

The reason.

My current state is dwindling like waves

Waves of sea

Sea of uncertainty and fear

Navigating life between dilemma and faith.

Sometimes,

In life

You feel you have to be saved by Jesus

And

In these cases,

You can only be saved by God, the Almighty.

You know you fear a lot;

You know you cannot handle pressure

As it fractures your bones

And makes your soft soul bruised;

Bloody, wounded

You have become

It is just fear- 

Alas! Everyone wants to be saved.

To Sylvia Plath: A prose poem 

Today, I owe you a great treat,

It is not a sonnet, 

Not a parody evoking laughter,

Not an epic 

Demonstrating your journey from body to spirit,

Or spirit to body,

Not an ode to unveil your woes.

It is a chamber of secrets, a drawer of emotions;

People rush to the pornographic clips to derive pleasure,

I rush towards you,

 And find a piece of solace

In you.

The name that moves its wings around my neck

Coming back from dead past,

Is none other than Plath.

Today, I owe you something

To your butchered soul,

To your ruined peace,

I will offer you green ashes, red debris

Made out of women bodies

Those bodies faced electrocution, marital rape, sharp attacks, agonized anguish,

Bagful of dirt under their dripping Eyes, quarrel for Vegetables

And utensils

And unkind dowry, child birth, menopause, loneliness and death;

You wrote for them, for me, 

And for those unnamed Plath(s),

Caged in their rooms

kept hidden under their door-carpets, sealed in the bell jars,

Jars of bad mouth

And sold to the markets.

Your words carry voices

A sound of determinism as well as of instability

 Paradoxical antithesis, surreal aroma

Of your poem 

Painted my race’s trauma,

You never held pen between your fingers,

The pen became the weapon,

And continued your writing therapy,

 It reminds me of 

Lowell and Anne Sexton.

Today, I owe you a gift, a magical pot

That will remove the blemish, blemish between you and

Ted’s Bond,

The bond between Hughes and Hawks,

All I remember is

The way you suffered

The way you ended the life.

I am haunted by the passing sadness,

From staring at the starry sky

To the empty playgrounds-

From the lonely crow

To all the insects slightly emitting out 

A mellow sound,

I notice all, 

I kept a brush in my pocket ,

The words that I chew are the Words that 

I owe you, my Plath.

I remember

How vulnerable your Soul was

At the time of separation,

How brutal that man was!

How you craved for love 

And feared for losing your cherry lips and hairs 

And beauteous colours and gloss.

Smokes curling up from the oven 

While cooking up a bowl 

Of noodles,

I think of your burning head,

I am sitting on my room along with your poems

To know your body and soul.

2019

Don’t Forget to Water Me with Light

If I don’t return,

don’t seek me in beds or dreams.

I’ve become rain

spilling from the eyes of a retiree cat on the stairs.

My form now a kettle

boiling with longing.

My voice, cracked and dry,

from pleading too long in mud.

Put flowers not on a grave

but on the dinner plate

for I will join you there,

in the bread,

in the steam of coffee,

in laughter bursting too soon

like a mirror too fragile for love.

If you wish to speak,

speak to the wind all tangled in curtains.

If you wish to cry,

I will harvest your tears

and plant them behind the house.

One day, a tree will bloom

its leaves whispering with my voice,

its shadow resembling

somebody you still cherish.

H.MAR

Brunei

The Empty Chair that Hugs Your Breath

The chair is still warm,

although you vanished yesterday.

Even the sky is guilty:

why will the pillow not own up to its loss?

I rest in your memory

an empty space that’s forgotten how to remember.

The floorboards creak,

not beneath footsteps,

but beneath prayers that never learned to find their way out of the throat.

A cup of tea goes cold,

even though I fill remembrance into it each morning.

And that chair

still retains your breath,

like air refusing to be released.

H.MAR

Brunei

Author Biography

Dr. Haji Mohd Ali bin Haji Radin, known by his pen name H.MAR, was born on 5 August 1968 in Brunei Darussalam. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Malay Literature from Universiti Brunei Darussalam and currently serves as a Senior Language Officer at Language and Literature Bureau, under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Brunei Darussalam. He began writing in 1984, producing works across various genres including poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and essays. His literary works have been published both domestically and internationally, and translated into multiple languages worldwide.

His local publications include Hidup Yang Mati (Anthology of Poems and Short Stories, 1996), Kota Kaca (Novel, 2003 & 2020), Taman ‘O’ (Anthology of Drama and Short Stories, 2003), Gelora (Poetry Collection, 2011 & 2023), Exotis (Short Story Collection, 2018), Taman Mimpi (Drama Collection, 2021) and Pemanah Bulan (Poetry Collection, 2025), all published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Brunei. Internationally, his works include حديقة الفلسفة / Philosophy Garden (Poetry Collection, Morocco, 2022, The Association La Vague Culturelle), Jardins Du Rire (Drama Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Garden X (Short Pieces Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), KAMEO Y Las Cartas Perdidas (Short Story Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Moon Archer (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2023, Diwan Al Arab), Taman O (Drama Collection, Malaysia, 2024, Nusa Centre), Arciere della Luna (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2025, Diwan Al Arab), and  قمرٌ دمويّ / Bloody Moon (Poetry Collection, Egypt, 2025, Diwan Al Arab).

H.MAR’s literary works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Mexican Spanish, Colombian Spanish, Serbian, Albanian, Macedonian, Uzbek, Turkish, Greek, Nepali, Urdu, and Korean. H.MAR is the recipient of the “Borneo Book Award” Special Book Award from the National Book Development Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2025.

1. Tell us about your self

I am Til Kumari Sharma from Nepal. I am the best-selling co-author of Creating a Better World, A Spark of Hope vol 3 and few others. I am a poet in the world record book Hyper poem. I am a featured poet in anthologies like The Poetry Posse- 2023, 2024, 2025 and others. I have earned a “World Creative Hero Award” by LOANI. I was a teacher and professor and now I am an internationally recognized writer.

2.How have you started to write poetry?

When I did not get a job as I wished in Nepal, I started writing poetry to address my distressed feelings about my country, politics, and female exploitation in Nepal’s civil war. Then I made myself a regular poet because I published poetry books and used to sell them in schools and colleges of Nepal. I travelled to every city in Nepal.

3.What is the message you want to give through your poems ?

 I want to give the message that people, politics, and education must be with ethics and discipline to lead society and the nation. And poetry must be leading people to a way of life that’s not corrupted.

4.Do you believe that new generation is reading and is caring about literature.

 I did not think so. But this time my two books are about national politics and criminal or corrupted politicians and Nepal’s corrupted media too. Such corrupt institutions were exposed by youth recently in our country. Similarly to what I wrote, real Nepali youth did take on society. Is this a coincidence or inspired by my writings? Certainly youths read. They are very clever to know about the literary situation in our country.

5. How are you feeling when you see your Poems published in several foreign sites.

 I am happy that several foreign sites that published me are like golden jewelers, allowing me to express my emotions or creativity. So, I want to say infinite thanks in this interview to all who published me.

6. Do you want to share with our readers

A phrase that changed your life

 That phrase was by you, your original voice: “Poetry unites people”  by EVA Petropoulou Lianou. Yes, it is your truth that poetry associates society, community and all to express same common feelings with writing or typing. That inspires not only me, many others too.

7. What is your future project

My future project is to lead society, my nation, and the world by writing poetry of positive thought. In our world women are exploited with violence and secret harassment and those who speak up are silenced. Girl students are silently exploited by males in schools, colleges and many other places. Women are not secure. So self-defense should be made. Poetry writing should give an education into ethics and self-survival morally.

 My project wants all people as children, youth, aging to live with good morals. Then world will be better.

Thank you so much �� 

EVA Petropoulou Lianou ���� 

eviepara@yahoo.fr

As World- renowned poetess Miss  Til  Kumari Sharma is a Multi Award Winner in writing  from  an international area from Paiyun 7- Hile Parbat, Nepal.  She is known as Pushpa Bashyal around her community. Her writings are published in many countries. She is a featured-poet and a best-selling  co-author too. She is  a poet of the World Record Book ” HYPERPOEM. She is one of many artists to break a participant record  to write a  poem about the  Eiffel Tower of France. Her World Personality is published in Multiart Magazine from Argentina. She is feminist poet. She is published as the face of the continent ( Cover Page of Asia) in Humanity Magazine.  She is made as portrait  ” Poetic Legend of Asia” by Nigerian Painter. She is  world creative hero of LOANI.

Review of “Break the Silence: Anthology of Verses”. Vol. III  in 2025

      First of all, infinite thanks to Brenda Mohammed to bring this book in light, Florabelle Lutchman to bring nice book cover  and poets around the world who are included here to bring world light.

      The book is the best version of healthy life style that it deals with poems of many poets. Brenda Mohammed  brings very nice thoughts to make society, nation and world better. She wants to mitigate the dirt of  inhumanity through these poems. The poetic theme is to pause drug using, abuse to people, and exploitation to women. The poems have crafted a new shining world to bring peaceful humanity.

       The book mentions about the useless drug addiction and other violence that ruin the world. The suggestion of this book brings concept to make useful and peaceful society where utopian leading will be there. Poems reduce the concept of bad environment of society. This book urges the readers that all poems of poets from different countries suggest not to take drugs, not to engage in trafficking and violence. Then we can create the best and meaningful world.

     Today’s world is full of inhumanity and unethical doings. So, the book provides the higher education to all kinds of people not to fall in rough world and not to endure any injustice for us. Revolution should be there against injustice. The poets inside it revolt against the false matter of evil things of society in which people engage in unethical things. Sometimes we writers are abused by illegal and unethical people. So, this book urges to be ethical and civilized human. Another happy moment in this book is that it is Amazon Best Seller 1 book. Founder Brenda Mohammed inspires we all to express our feelings against all kinds of violence in society.

     So, thanks to the founder and all poets inside it to craft the words of justice. 

Purple Plums and Sumac Red

-Autumn and Autumn 

1980, 2025

Creative Non-Fiction 

Brian Michael Barbeito 

(for Tara)

ONE

Purple Plums 1980

(Home Harken Hearth and the Stones and Water Then)

I felt messages in the yellow buttercup, as if a spirit whispered, and could sense angels. I remembered the purple plums of long ago home, the ones that blossomed in autumn, and some of the tree branches stood throughs wrought iron gates, weighty like the gates themselves, and there was a textured sky nearly always then plus multi coloured leaves red yellow orange brown just down the ravine way. So many colours in the cool-air world then, and I was an innocent, a young mystic,- alone and connected to the ether, the other world, different realms where guardians from heaven sang songs and also appeared as shapes in the drapes or tiles, even plastic toys or in the fabric of area rugs and couches. Always benevolent, assuring through their very existence, if a bit sad also for the songs they seemed to sing,- songs I couldn’t quite make out the words of but could still feel the feelings meant. 

For all that through,- nothing was provable. But what would it matter, as I had nothing to prove anyhow,- knowing the veracity and validity of it all. And I didn’t have anyone to talk to anyhow. I could say that I thought other people saw and heard the spirits and signs, knew about events and the intentions of souls good or bad,- or that I didn’t think they did. But I didn’t consider it either way. I was just to myself, in my own interesting worlds and I found them interesting. 

Until I didn’t. 

One day the world that people would later make fun of or explain away through medical models or imagination’s life, would present itself in a little too real manner for me…

I was awakened in the night to a ghost floating back and forth at the foot of my bed. It was transparent and a boy about my age, six or seven. He was trying to communicate something, but I couldn’t hear. Wave back and forth just like something from a cartoon or movie he did. But I became too frightened and began to leave. He motioned for me not to and had a panicked look on his face. The message that he had come to convey or else the help he needed, maybe both, was not complete. 

I ran across the long hallway and looked back. He flew out from the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. I never saw him again. 

Sometimes I think about him and that night and how he might have entered. The top window, the third floor one that was mine, was looking out to the ravines and their trees and wild beautiful deer and coy,

 coyotes plus feral foxes and, possibly,- the spirit world. How I loved to walk down there sometimes by the water that used to rush with confidence in the summer storms or remain calmer on say, the late summer dusks. And rain-washed stones, stones which held spirits themselves,- calling out with strange faces but with countenances that I was not frightened of for my being used to it all. 

My room was stationed above the black wrought iron gates and the purple plums. Late autumn when it’s cold is not too early to have a fire. And sometimes in the stone hearth below was crackling and flying orange embers. Maybe ghost boy was attracted by the smoke ascending to the moon-lit firmament. Maybe I’ll never know. 

TWO

Sumac Red 2025

(Autumnal Azure Agape and the Long Way Home from the Pastoral Glade)

In the meadow after the trail are flowers and bees, evergreens, and a copse of birches also. This is all at the purlieu for one can’t really go any further. But the real grand phenomenon there is the sumac, and some cultures use its deep red for colouring dye. It stands around proudly and boasts its tropical style leaves and deep redness to the calm country air. 

A soul can think many thoughts along the way there and back, under the verdant canopy as the sun filters in here and there like the sky talking to the terrene earth. But out on the glade of the meadow near where a swatch is cut through it all to walk, thoughts can ease a bit, for the peacefulness of the atmosphere there…no people or machines, no panic or psychic discord. That is surely why people seek the whimsical woodlands, the mountain, the lake, and the sea plus the desert. 

The spring lets the rains to be more than anytime it seems, and some feral shoots begin to grow through mud. Summer is a celebration for the grasses and grasshoppers and a thousand varieties of insects. Birds sing. Fall lets loose colourful leaves and ghostly winds, whist the winter shows millions of sparkles and reminds of nature’s realities and how they can be beautiful but must be respected. 

It’s a fine place to stand before heading home. There isn’t a point per se, even a subtle one like a bird watcher or photographer might want to find. It’s different. It’s not valued by the world, the secular set. It’s wordless, even for a poet or writer, and can’t be painted or photographed, sculpted, or even have a dance made about it. Perhaps it is simple touching the Source or the angelic realm, even if with some new crown chakra or fingertips or a part of one’s spirit. Yes, that might be it, a sense of home and meaning felt amidst the area and atmosphere of the glade and small series of bushes, the old copse of trees by the corner sand pit that have their root systems sticking out but are still okay. By the beginnings of autumn, the liminal, changing, still nascent and inchoate fall. 

Oh fall, or the promissory note for such, a paper writ in the sudden gust of wind like a ghost or The Holy Spirit itself, in new textured sky for a gathering of clouds, and the thousands of leaves still on the trees, kelly green and hunter green also, at the perimeter, when they sparkle in breezes and seem to appear golden. ‘We are golden now, against reason and logic, look at us watch us document us tell the others they should know…the ones that would care anyhow, as someone should see this!’ And even in the lines of small stones trying to tell a story, magic can be discerned, as looking down can also be a way of searching within through and via the outer. 

—-

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet, writer, and photographer. His third compilation of prose poems and pictures, The Book of Love and Mourning, is forthcoming in autumn 2025. 

Hearts 

Your heart tonight

Touch my heart

Like the first time…

My heart 

Close to your heart

They whisper

They talk like they know each other for years

Your heart tonight

Make love to my soul

A love full of passion

With care

Respect

Your heart tonight

Show to me

The magic moment

Exist

Your heart

Touch my heart

Like a child

Your heart

Has his own

Prophetical knowledge

You are a diamond

But i had to climb

The highest volcano

So i can find you…