Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia writes

FB HUNGER

Sank like a stone
In the Facebook Pond
Left no trace
Behind

Hungry thirsty
Twittering Bird
Chirps -
Will no one
Be kind?

Just a Like
Or Two
Will do
Dear Sir/
Madam
Don’t mind

What!
No comments?
And
No response?
The Poet’s in
A Bind

But then
Consoles
Himself / herself
By saying
They’re all
Blind

Arlene Corwin writes

Thinking Clearly

Simply trying to think clearly -
Times and destiny against me;
Not alone, it is we all.
A world of digits and addiction,
New temptations,
It admittedly an effort,
Tiny hippocampus shrinking ever.

Worlds and words that curl around reality
Like smoke from chimney.
Chronicles of global sadness,
Headlined news chronically bad.
A world of digits and statistics of a world on fire,
World that cultivates desire.
Ergo, 
Ego mine is trying, as a consequence, 
To change the sequence. 
No veneer or scornful sneer.
Pensive, clear, fully sincere -
Harder, probably, than ever.

John Grey writes


THE PREMIERE AND ELSEWHERE

As I recall,
we didn’t step
out of a limo,
stroll down
a red carpet,
faces speckled
with glitzy lights.
Nor was I in tux
and you in a
figure-hugging
sparkling red gown
with a plunging neckline
and slit up to the thigh.
We didn’t smile for
the crowds,
pose for the photographers,
small talk with celebrities,
attend a gala party after.
In fact,
it was a suburban multiplex,
mid-winter,
and we parked beside
a snowbank,
stumbled across the
icy lot,
wore jeans and jackets
and high boots,
bought tickets
and went inside.
But, the thing is,
we all saw the same movie.

John Grey writes


YOU DID NOT ALWAYS LIVE ALONE

all the sporadic sounds
of the house
vocalize presence

the radiator
is not just a radiator

but someone who once occupied
these very rooms

who exposes the heart
to the ear

the feelings
even in the fingers
to everything beyond touch -

a rattling window
stops just short of embodiment

and a rustling curtain
near enough
puts flesh to bone –

and something is leaking

            not what
            but who

John Grey writes


THAT CRIPPLED KID

What did our elders expect of us?
We weren't the ones badly constructed. He was.
Coming from homes where everyone was reasonably well put-together,
imagine our shock to share a classroom with someone so malformed.
The teacher instructed us to act like there was nothing wrong with the kid.
That merely encouraged our callousness.
Wasn't it enough that we ran while he hobbled,
that there was never a game in which he could join in.
One leg was wrapped in metal.
Both feet were fitted in ugly brown boots.
He walked like one limb was a shovel digging in the dirt
while the other came down stiff as a fencepost.

Those were days when we caught lizards by the tail,
picked mulberries, swam in the lake,
anything it seems to make that kid feel out of it.
We had the bodies to go with our hearts and minds.
Good jobs, happy families, were our God-given right.
Not so the one that God took his unfairness out on.
How it must have seemed to him as if the rest of us
had more good health than we needed,
as if there must be a cripple in every crowd,
so everyone else can walk upright on two legs.

Is it the cussedness of luck
to have the one take on the pain of the many?
For the hale and hearty to not thank him for it
but ridicule his sacrifice?
Since then, I've felt some of what he went through,
but more in the moment, not all the time.
My down moments don’t make war with my body.
I still feel whole. I see no reason to avoid me.