Amit Parmessur - 1 Poem

Unique Umbrella

Listen to me.

O my sweet, unique Umbrella friend!

You are the pronouns, prepositions and

verbs that govern the sentence of someone’s life.

O my sweet, unique Umbrella friend!

Your exotic beauty, brimming with

religious bells is the only

labyrinth any mad poet would venture into.

Your anger is the only adorable thorn

he would like to be stabbed with.

Listen to me!

Please hide from the rainbow.

Let that smile of yours bloom and

let the world relish its simplicity, its bliss.

O my sweet, unique Umbrella friend!

The sight of you holding

that giant mushroom is an antidote

to the fears raining like bent coins

upon the land of someone’s heart.

Please, hide from the rainbow.

She’ll be jealous.

Please, don’t venture into flowers.

They’ll hate themselves.

Yea, please, don’t sing with the pink doves.

I wish your umbrella would grow unique,

magical Wings and carry you where

the winds of Sorrow don’t breathe.

O my sweet, unique Umbrella friend!

Someone will write your Hebrew name all

over his clock, to make your beauty his the

whole day, till his last, slow, incomplete gasp.

BIOGRAPHY: Born in 1983, Amit Parmessur lives with his black cat nowadays. Since 2010, his poems have appeared in more than 100 literary magazines. His book on blog Lord Shiva and other poems has also been published by The Camel Saloon. He is nominated for the Pushcart Award and lives in Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius. As long as he gets published, he knows he is on the right track.

Ali Znaidi - 3 Poems

The Pen Becomes a Ladder

My fingers, red from taking the pen for hours

turn black against the piles of white papers.

Heavy with nonsense,

the way a camel bears a burden on its hump.

This is not the Truth,

but a version of it falling into

the tips of your fingers

kneeling to the papers and liberating the mind.

As paper comes and paper goes,

my mind learns how to climb the walls of the Truth,

despite chasms and forgetfulness.

And the pen becomes a ladder

for my mind to climb the stairs of the paper—

I mean versions of the Truth.

 

Poetry/Sin

Poetry is that original sin.

In the beginning was the fig leaf.

The snake’s tongue was the pen.

Ink was tamed

to write the first sin.

What is a poem,

but a sweet sin

written on the fig leaf

that covers the private parts

of everything?

Collage

I brought scissors, so sharp.

I cut images from papers.

I cut especially catchy headlines.

I also brought

a bottle of glue, so sticky.

I brought black ink,

various water colours,

and some virgin white papers.

I wanted to make the nicest collage poem ever.

When I started conquering

the seductive white papers,

I spilled the ink and water colours

over them

because I was so eager and impatient to finish

the conquest.

I just remained agape,

looking jubilantly at the mess I had done,

like a little child

who had just torn that doll.

Biography: Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He graduated with a BA in Anglo-American Studies in 2002.  He teaches English at Tunisian public secondary schools. He writes poetry and has an interest in literature, languages, and literary translation. Some of his poems appeared in The Bamboo Forest.

Lakesha Wickner - 1 Poem

Here We Meet

I put your picture

Up on my wall

To remind me

That it's not so bad.

Close your eyes

And feel my lips.

Because when it's night

Here we meet.

The tricky thing

Is just yesterday

We were children.

Brushing your hair

Out of your eyes

Reminding you

To keep your eyes

Wide open.

People waiting around

To see you break down.

Don't worry about

The world hoping

To see you fail.

Because I'm right 

Here beside you.

Stars shining upon

Our faces,

Upon our world.

You're the one for me

Let me hold you tight 

As I kiss your gentle lips.

Let me say I love you

Before you say goodbye.

Give me a chance

Before you change your mind.

Because when it's night

Here we meet.

Here is where I take

My one last chance

And kiss you goodnight.

BIOGRAPHY: Lakesha Wickner currently resides in the USA. Besides writing poetry, she also draws and sometimes models. She has been writing poetry since being 12 years old. She is currently working on a novel.

Kathie Turner - 1 Poem

Saturday Night Bingo


It’s Saturday Night Bingo
Mama’s going psycho
Gotta go, gotta run
Goin’a see some action

I wanna go solo
Mama says, “Oh-no”
“Go ahead, get my purse”
Else I’m gonna start to curse

We’re ride’in in our Pinto
Going through Monroe
Hit the brakes, push ‘em tight
We’re gonna have a good night

The hall-way’s narrow
The caller shouts, “Hello,
Grab some cards, sit right down
You’re gonna get a brakedown”

Here’s the games’ logo
There’s the numbers ya follow
Grab the blotter, make a dot
Put it in the right spot

Go for the gusto
Get’in five in a row
Then ya shout, shout out loud
“I’ve gotta BINGO.”


Biography: Kathie Turner is a part-time student at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Concord, North Carolina.  Her major is nursing, although she has found a love for poetry and fiction. 

April Salzano - 1 Poem

Where We Dream Our Dead Alive
 
We have slid into bed again, too tired for sex,
talked out. We collapse from the million mundane activities
that make up a day. It is in dreams we unearth our respective dead,
carry them up and back
to life: your one-legged father, and mine,
yellow and shriveled, sometimes swollen and dialyzed.
We ask rhetorical questions among the wreckage.
We say, You shouldn’t be here. They buried you,
to which they raise an eyebrow or admit to fault they never would
have in life. There is so much more to say, but we are too tired.
We suspend them here for seconds that will follow us
into the bright eye of morning.

BIOGRAPHY - April Salzano earned her Masters Degree from University of London and teaches Writing at Westminster College in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in several print and online journals and she is currently working on her first collection of poetry and an autobiographical novel examining the moments of pain and beauty involved in raising a son with Autism.