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…

Mal Compris

A daughter was born one day to the King of a prosperous kingdom. She was christened Malade. She was a very even-tempered and pleasant girl, and a joy for her father to behold, until one day she was afflicted with a tremor about her features. A severe juddering affected her hands and face and was found by all to be quite disquieting. In fact, she could not hold a teacup without quivering so badly that the contents were spilled. The princess was the only child of the King and Queen. Malade, of course, had a plethora of tutors and so did not have to be around others her own age; that would have caused the King severe embarrassment, as well as being humiliating for the young girl herself. One must keep up appearances, as the King well knew.

When she was six years old, Malade was given lessons in the equestrian disciplines. A young groom, older than Malade by about one year, was there, and the two young people struck up a cordial though not close relationship. This youth was called Judicieux, and he was very good at his job, and soon he was tasked with servicing all the horses that the damsel used. Judicieux was sensitive to the plight of Malade, as he was himself lame. Though she was starved for attention from children, they both recognized their proper places.

Years passed. As Malade grew into young adulthood, she was beset by the responsibilities of her position: functions of ceremony at her father’s table and in the King’s stead. But her malady never lessened; the juddering continued.

“Oh, Judicieux,” she said one day in the stables, preparing to mount her steed. “What shall I do?” I am to meet the prince from the northern kingdom. His father and the King desire that the prince and I wed and effect the joining together of our kingdoms. “What if the prince hates me?”

“He can’t help but love you, Milady,” said the groom with feeling.

“But my quivering,” she said sorrowfully. “With all the beautiful women in our two kingdoms, why would he give me even a second glance?”

“If he has but eyes to see, Milady,” he said from his heart. He then limped back into the stable.

Malade thought of Judicieux: “For a cripple, he has many beneficent qualities. He shall make some peasant girl a fine mate.” And she thought nothing more of Judicieux or her dilemma, for she was astride a horse.

“Milady,” said Inepta, watching as her mistress struggled with her palsied hands, “perhaps if you concentrate, if you tell yourself to be calm, you will not judder, and things will be alright.”

“Thank you, Inepta,” said Malade, “but in seventeen years that strategy has been to no avail.

“Yes, Milady,” murmured Inepta, looking sadly at the princess.

That night, the kingdom was astir. The king would formally announce the engagement of Malade to the prince of the neighboring kingdom. Prince Stephen was rich, handsome, powerful, and heir to his kingdom. Much was made of the festivities. It was wintertime as well, and Christmas was likewise celebrated. This was everyone’s favorite time of year. Sumptuous comestibles proliferated, and sparkling wine flowed like rivers. Everyone partook heartily of the rich food and libations, and at the summit of the evening, attention was focused on the prince and princess.

“Daughter,” intoned the King robustly, “you have before you a prince worthy of your honor.”

She looked shyly into the eyes of Prince Stephen. He returned her gaze, but his face fell.

“Great King,” said he, “I cannot marry the Princess Malade.”

“But,” the King objected. “It is all arranged.”

“That may be, but I have our mutual kingdoms to consider. What will become of us if I marry the Princess and our children are born who are as deranged as she is? How would our realms function? How would our diplomats sort it out if it were thought that the royal family was addle-minded? We would surely become a laughing stock throughout the continent.” The prince’s words pierced like a dagger the heart of the princess.

The king took a great breath and released it wearily. He knew what the prince said was conventional wisdom. He released the prince from his betrothal.

So the Princess returned to her solitary existence, seeing no one other than her lady in waiting, Inepta, and her groom, the lowly Judicieux. She continued to relish time spent among her magnificent stable of horses. Starved for companionship, Princess Malade began conversing ever more intimately with Judicieux on any number of subjects; to her great surprise, she found that he was informed, intelligent, and wise far beyond his station in life. He rivaled the courtiers, in fact, in his canniness. She began to harbor an idea. Despite the fact that Judicieux was neither rich nor handsome, nor the heir to a great throne, she was completely smitten with him.

One day Malade approached the King and inquired, “Father, shall I never marry?” The King, surprised that the Princess would want to marry after the debacle with Prince Steven, responded to his daughter.

“Why, Malade, you will never be wed to a sovereign, as you have seen, but you may of course marry—if only for companionship. And I suppose that if you have a male child, he will inherit the throne, whether he is a juddering idiot or not.”

“I have chosen my husband,” she announced excitedly. The king, with little enthusiasm, asked who it would be. “I shall wed the most intelligent, thoughtful, and wisest man in all the kingdom,” she told him. “I shall marry for love,”

“Have you only just met him?” he inquired.

“I have known him half my life,” she replied. “And the King, seeing as Malade was very old now—almost twenty—knew this to be a long time indeed.”

“If you have made your decision, word shall go out, and a wedding will be arranged,” he said, but still with scant enthusiasm. “Er… who have you chosen?” he asked.

“Judicieux, chief groom of the stables,” she told him. The King swallowed any remarks he might have had.

And so a wedding was held. All the dignitaries attended, including Prince Stephen, who had since married and was beset by a harpy of a wife.  He was barely able to draw a breath, but she would criticize him for it. But she had a fertile womb, and all of her children were likewise disposed to be curmudgeons. Stephen’s kingdom was almost constantly at war due to his poor diplomatic skills. The prince looked upon Malade now with admiration, for certainly she was the most beautiful bride ever to grace this or any other castle. He had simply never noticed before.

After the wedding, Judicieux, as the husband of the King’s only daughter, sparked an interest in the king. Like his daughter, he was pleasantly surprised by the native intelligence, thoughtfulness, and wisdom of his son-in-law–and a cripple at that!  And as a part of the royal family, the former groom was drawn into the diplomatic order and soon became the outstanding minister in his Majesty’s service. And as his abilities became well known, so too did Malade’s grace, manners, and loving instinct. They had many children, but one of them–like the princess and later the queen–had tremors, but the child was treated with patience, understanding, and compassion. And showered with love. After a long reign by her parents, that child, christened Empathique, served as the greatest sovereign that the kingdom ever saw.

One by One Becomes One

‎

‎If I had not held your hand

‎Human life would have remained incomplete

‎The world would have remained in the shadows

‎The light of the moon would not have come to the earth

‎The grasshopper’s wings would not have written

‎My first love letter.

‎

‎If I had been alone

‎Poetry would not have been born in my heart

‎Spring would not have come to this heart

‎The cuckoo would not have called in the depths of my heart

‎The river of life would have lost all its waves

‎No one else would have awakened in my heart.

‎

‎If I didn’t keep my eyes on you,

‎Who would make flowers bloom in the desert?

‎The seven colors would remain unknown,

‎The flock of birds would lose their language,

‎The Himalayas would float in mute tears,

‎My poetry notebook would remain empty.

‎

‎If I had not met you,

‎The path of love would have been unknown.

‎Who would have gathered happiness under the canopy ?

‎Who would have achieved the melody on the harp of the mind?

‎The sea would have flown in all directions.

‎A pile of sighs would have accumulated in the vast void.

‎

‎I understand by holding your hand

‎One by one becomes one

‎Looking into your eyes I understand

‎Two by two becomes two.