Rik George writes

Day Breaks

A distant cow calls for a bull.
The day breaks gray over the grove.
Taped boxes wait along the wall.

I drink my tea and clean the cup.

My life is almost ready to move.

I close the last box, wrap it with tape,

and stack it with the rest. I check

for things I've overlooked. Just day

and dust in the corners, not one scrap

of us, just me in the waiting stack.

The climbing sun brightens the sky.

I hear the movers park the van

on the drive. I push my past away,

open the door, and let them in.

 

Sunil Sharma writes

In the cold

A pigeon perched on the cable 
Shrunk within its grey feathers
Head bent inside the underbelly
To beat the cold draughts.

It is 10 am and 10 degrees Celsius.

A man, grey stubble, head bent, sits hunched
On the tiled pavement in the Connaught Place
In a sun that hardly warms the air
He clutches a torn quilt around shrunk shoulders

Blankly stares at the high-rises and frenzied vehicles.

Both --- pathetic figures

Un-cared!

Welcome dear disenfranchised to Delhi of the Moguls

The constant Indian power center.

 

Robert Lee Haycock shoots

Before the Storm

Umid Ali writes

THE BALANCE 

I

The sky!

The wire-ink sky –

Its fire is igniting the moon –

Starts becoming black –

Air lacks air.

Mother earth!

Its fondness is the sun –

Its cuddle warms the soul –

Even though you suffer,

It gives you a place in its heart.

II

The sky!

The sky – ghost market…

They sell themselves to others.

With endless accounts,

A people of the ghost market

The earth!

The earth – soul market…

They devote themselves to you,

Gratis and gratis,

A people of the soul market

III

The sky!

Unthankful this sky –

Impracticable wish

The earth!

Kind mother earth –

The heart has grown up in the world. 

--tr. Asror Allayarov

[from THE GATE OPENED BY ANGELS]

Akor Emmanuel Oche writes

MY EBOMA 

Spear us tonight oh lady fairest

to walk with nocturnal delight in the garden of breath.

lavender and sunshine owner of our breath

me and my soul at daylight, locked together till death.

Eboma!

Like morning glory embracing air at morning light,

so i long to bare you in my arms.

A candle lit on the left

your fingers fondling the right.

James Lee Jobe writes

The face in the mirror just asked me to lean in closer for a secret.

Some days it feels like I am staring at myself.
I turn around suddenly, trying to catch myself at it,
But I always seemed to have looked away just in time.
It's maddening. And I have built a neighborhood
Inside of my neighborhood to house my guilt.
There's room for your guilt, too. Life is funny that way,
Like dozens of clowns spilling out of a tiny car.
Time is a pendulum, no it isn't, yes it is. Now
I have to go, it's time for me to learn the secret.
Or not. 

                                                                 Groucho & Chico Marx, "DUCK SOUP"

Dorin Popa writes

A  QUESTION

"Do  not  drink the  waters  of  death.”
           -- St. Anthony  the  Great 

let us purify the place
then let us wisely wait
and will Beauty itself
stop
some day
in front of us?


Michaelangelo -- The Torment of Saint Anthony, after an engraving by Martin Schongauer .