Friday, November 30, 2018

Rashid Pelpuo writes

WE HAVE COME THIS FAR

I
We have come this far
Beating back our fears
Against our failings
In triumphant postulate

It was a struggle to take back our souls
Lost in the tongues of our adversaries
And those who never were our heroes
But sought to steal our gains
From our innocence

The stakes went high
The ambience of state power
Coiled around our sweaty bodies
Attempting to break our spines
In the familiar world of our longings
And push us into ignominious ditches

II
It is good reason to conjure a cure
For the many who seek comfort in misery
To rise and join the brave urge
To the common chorus
That we will never live in unresolved misery

We recount in those journeys to liberty
In the sacred woods of vast opinions
We planted the seeds of unity
And vied to win vacillating ideas
And we won the glory of the crown

We repossessed our minds and hopes
From the passion greed
Of men who sold their essence
And walked in empty shells
In naked self-destruction

III
Knowing where we come from
We have traveled far
We have cured the times
We have beaten off all the dews
We have made the paths passable

We have engineered a reinvented self
We have reclaimed our minds
We have found a new genotype of hope,
And we have ground our fears away in furnaces
To build a new nation and a prosperous people

In the logic of space conjoined time
We are touching the flame of change
As yesterday’s brave men now watch
In compelling acquiescence
To irreversible tides sloughing a new world


Let’s cure ourselves
Of haughty minds
Who see no wrong
In hailing devious haggards
To wrought foul our glorious gains

Let’s redefine success in the cauldrons
Of boiling ideas in superior attitudes
Let’s create a conscious world
Where we can be sure
When the sun rises and sets

Let the truth be told that
This urge to win is no vain venture
It smothers avarice mercilessly
It severs every gaping hunger and squalor
It blossoms in enduring law and order



 
-- Jia Sung

Donal Mahoney writes


Budget Cuts and Bill’s Regrets

Bill’s been seeing 
a therapist for years
trying to get his life on track
but all he talks about is  
his many regrets in a life 
not wisely lived.
His therapist suggests 
he put his regrets on a boat 
and let it float away.

Bill heads for the pier and 
loads the boat but it sinks.
Too heavy are Bill's regrets.
The next day hundreds of trout
are floating dead on the surface.

Taxpayers argue on shore
about the reason the lake 
has become a floating wake.
The Nightly News reports 
climate change killed the fish 
and noted experts say 
the latest budget cuts mean 
more dead fish to come.
The only good news is 
Bill has a new regret. 
Oceans Are Like Mountains Turned Upside Down -- Jaelah Kuehmichel

Lily Swarn writes

You Read My Eyes

You read my eyes as if they were an unpronounceable word in the thesaurus

Searching for answers to vague questions
Answers that you already knew in your heart
That heart which was lush with a nameless love

My eyes looked down from the image you had placed strategically on the wall opposite your study table
As if it's placement in your bosom wasn't enough

The chill permeated through your royal, high collared coat
And snowed around your weary shoulders
Tired with the constant gazing into my irises

Sometimes they hummed a long forgotten ghazal
Or cooed like the grey dove in your back yard
They were garrulous eyes like taunting women folk sitting around the village tandoor

The mysterious aura in the almond eyes was not because of the dark Kajal that crooned love ditties

It was the stony silence of tradition
It ricocheted and boomeranged around your steadily dimming reading glasses
Till you fell into a dream filled stupor
Your chin resting on your yearning chest 



 

 Self-Portrait -- Michaela Chorn