Poetry from Dr. Jernail S. Anand

Older South Asian man in a pink turban and coat and tie standing and reading from a large open book.

Diet chart

 

What you feed on 

So that your body keeps moving 

Is your food 

And what keeps it 

In good trim are your thoughts .

Your stomach is not hungry alone 

Your mind too 

Feeds on certain ideas

What you entertain and take in

Is also a part of your daily diet 

All the ideas that generate in your mind 

Or which strike your mind 

From outside 

Look at the type of thoughts 

You find delicious 

Evil is a great delicacy 

Foul  deeds smell so sweet 

You do not need as many arguments

To commit a crime 

As you need to keep you  away from it

We are healthy on the basis 

Of what we eat

We are happy on the basis of 

What we intake as thoughts 

Together they form a complete man

Our focus is on fruit, calories, 

Vitamins, Calcium etc 

But we make extra use of our brain too 

Which is rivetted on artificial joys,

Making merry and go happy.

Body is healthy, but mind is sick 

The thoughts it needs are missing 

We are on a decadent diet 

Dwindling by the  day 

As human beings..

Dr. Jernail S. Anand is a poet and philosopher from India.

Poetry from Elaine Murray

I Wish I Were A Mermaid

I remember the sun glistening on the waves going down to the sea. 

I hope to see whales coming up for air.

I think of the sea horse way down the sea.,

Sea dragons gliding across the sea floor.

Even the sea plants dance with the sea.

Oh! If I could go down the sea like a little mermaid dancing around 

the coral with swaying sea weeds.

As a little mermaid I ask the seahorse for a small ride.

Oh! What beauty I could see down into the sea.

Poetry from Lan Xin

Good Days

Poem by Lan Xin

Internationally renowned writer, poet and translator, member of the Chinese Writers Association. The only female inheritor of UNESCO-listed Dongba Culture, International Disseminator of Dongba Culture and practitioner of Chinese culture’s global outreach. Winner of the Italian Francesco Giampietri International Literary Award, President of Lanxin Samei Academy and Dean of Yulong Wenbi Dongba Culture Academy.

What makes a day good

Some live in the perfection the world admires

Yet grow numb in ease

Forgetting how to feel

Some walk through simplicity and toil

Yet find joy in the mundane

And peace in contentment

A good day

is never defined by what you have

but lit by how your heart perceives

When gratitude dwells within

and you cherish all before you

when you love life deeply

with tenderness with contentment

with a heart that knows how to love

Then every single day

becomes a day that shines

Poetry and art from Brian Barbeito

Sea Pelicans Balcony and Jellyfish 

I entered the water but had noticed other people did not. Yet there were no sign or verbal warnings about anything. The sea in a storm season had somehow riled and stirred everything and people were getting almost immediately stung by jellyfish upon entry. And I was next. 

I didn’t realize at first, just that my body ached and itched and I got right out and tried different things. Water cold. Pool water.  Air. Nothing worked. A doctor came and gave me some medicine, and we could see the line on the arm that extended far across the inner arm that was swollen. After a while I felt well, not in crisis. 

But the doctor came back and said she was worried because that medicine is supposed to be liquid not solid, that it had gotten old. I said not to worry, and she stood watching the sea eating an ice cream cone. 

At the night I sat on the balcony and read For Whom the Bell Tolls under a soft yellow electric lamp. A lizard, the small type, watched this from the stucco wall. This was in Puerto Morelos. I slept a bit and began reading again inside the morning. Beautiful pelicans that looked like dinosaur things flew. I stood and stretched. Things would be okay. I’d avoid the sea for a while, certainly. But things would be okay. There were passages from the novel written so well I had to just pause and stare at the sky, wondering how Hemingway had done that. Ya, things were well enough, having Hemingway and that balcony. Besides, they had a good pool on the grounds. 

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Essay from Brian Barbeito

Beyond the Extraordinary or of Joseph Conrad (Experience, Language, Hard Work, and Genius)

Many of the scholars and documentaries and such rightly claim that numerous things contributed to Joseph Conrad’s highly successful and monumental canon of literature. They point out his multiple languages, plus a passion for the sea and written word, and the study and hard work, plus an immense dedication to craft and truth both. But, though that’s all obviously true, in reading him there is something more, and it’s that he was possessed of genius. And in two ways. 

One part of his genius was in seeing, and he himself said that above all he wanted to make people see. And the other half was in expression, in writing. He saw and he wrote. Many people speak multiple languages, and several are writers and poets, but is there anyone that can turn every sentence into gold like Conrad? Little or few. And in a climate modern where sparseness and brevity is lauded as a fashion for some odd reason, his golden descriptive sentences shine even brighter, turning the idea of telling a story into something immensely valuable. Conrad can show the way back to true storytelling and literature. 

Therefore, it is a sea worker’s life and experience, the languages, the interest, and hard work, but, nature or God also added genius to the mix. If you look closely, even though there are several that can turn sentences that are extraordinary, there are few that can go beyond the extraordinary into something else entirely. 

Poetry from Sayani Mukherjee

Festival

The freckles of festivity

Comes nearer to me

As I ride along the silhouetted past

Dim lit crevices of my heart

The birdsong knows my happiness

Knows the sorrows of my unfolded dreams

Little by little I get deeply personal

The horizontal dreams are rushing again

The rose dreamt of Jerusalem and heaven

The nocturnal past of Shakespeare’s heroines

The flute of Krishna is forever love

I come together with love and festival.

Poet Lan Xin honors United Nations Chinese Language Day (4/20)

Tribute to the 17th United Nations Chinese Language Day

Portrait of Confucius

On the 17th United Nations Chinese Language Day we celebrate the timeless charm of Chinese characters a carrier of thousands of years of Eastern wisdom poetry and cultural heritage

Five years ago during the 12th UN Chinese Language Day one of the three core thematic lectures selected by the United Nations “The Mysterious Dongba Hieroglyphs” was solemnly held at our Dongba Culture Academy My respected master the 17th-generation Grand Dongba Priest Aheng Dongta appeared on the front page of the official United Nations website As a wise man of the Naxi people and the soul inheritor of Dongba culture he brought the world’s only living pictographic script to the global stage letting the wisdom of Dongba culture and the brilliance of Eastern civilization shine on the international stage

Dongba hieroglyphs are the living fossil of Naxi civilization a cultural code spanning millennia and a spiritual bridge connecting the past and present and linking civilizations As the sole female inheritor and international communicator of the Dongba culture of the UNESCO Memory of the World I will always stay true to my mission as a cultural messenger delving into the translation and research of Dongba ancient books to let this precious human cultural heritage revitalize in the new era Taking language as a bond I will promote dialogue and mutual learning among different civilizations injecting oriental energy into world peace and cultural prosperity