the sun is sparkling, the rain rumbling, and we badly need some poetry...

Wednesday 27 June 2012

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.

Monday 18 June 2012

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.

Monday 11 June 2012

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.

Thursday 7 June 2012

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. 

Wednesday 6 June 2012

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.