Three Poems by Adreyo Sen

The Absence of Silence

Today the cuckoo will stutter and hover uncertainly
as it sings the joyous tidings of the new dawn.
The tribal women will hurry past the closed gates, heads bent,
for his quiet smile won’t greet their mischievous mango-stained laughter.
The baby next door will gurgle expectantly for Nana,
as she stares out of the window, only to subside into a woeful quiet
that requires all the comforting powers of her mother.
The squirrel won’t come out of its nook, only stare,
with dim, beady eyes at the once well-fed street dogs, wandering aimlessly.
The passersby will hesitate as they cross his gate,
their mouths opening in greeting. Then they will briskly walk away.
He has gone now. He has finally left the sun-baked red soil well-trodden by his feet.
This fall, you won’t see him fragile and bent,
slowly picking the strewn leaves of gracious old Dorothy,
only slightly younger than him.
We knew him not, whence he came from, his age.
He was as timeless as the rippling brook flowing from weathered rocks,
greeting generations of passersby with a gentle morning nod.
We knew his presence, we knew the soft silence
that greeted us as we passed his gate, his cheerful eyes making us feel secure
No more…

The village is silent and ill at ease with itself. The silence is tense and heavy.
And the young white-clad woman tries to push away the violent stillness
Attacking her as she softly covers her father’s withered face.

The Forest Comes Alive

Dawn comes, the sky is tinged with black
and the colours of the rising sun,
new and yellow, coming to command the stars.
Somewhere a bird, for all birds
seem the same to me over here,
breaks into a twitter, timidly, for
it’s an ordeal to be first, to break the silence.
She’s followed and a storm of twittering
blasts through the silence. The sleepy dog
cocks an eye and gets up with a moan.
He shakes himself and ambles on.
The trees start rustling in tune
to the fresh, sighing wind.
that seeps through the forest.
A buzz of activity somewhere.
A scamper of feet and then silence.
Two boys come along the wet road,
their eyes aglow with excitement,
off to get their daily milk.
Grey wisps of smoke float somewhere,
a red flame burns steadily behind the bus
and people warm their hands at the fire
They do not talk. There are no words required.
Their faces reflect the peace of the morning.

Not for long. Somewhere in the tents
A babel rises, the day has begun.

 

 

 

Village by the Sea

 

The discordant symphony of water and pebbles
ushers faint whiffs of the Raat Ki Rani.
A distant rumble rolls through the tense skies
as a white streak passes across the velvet blackness,
only to vanish in silence.
The sea roars back, stormy waves surging forth,
its enraged froth fast drying on the parched white sands.
A dull yellow blur grows larger along the mountainside,
revealing the centuries-old path of lovers.
Her ebony hair and clothes plastered to her skin, a girl calls out,
to the scattered white specks, her eyes smiling.
They come together in a final sonata of cowbells.
In the scattered mud houses, the black-red stoves
burn steadily to prepare the night’s meal.
The cicadas pick up their personal quarrel,
stilling the night with their evil shrillness.
And as the last glowing embers of a long day slowly fade out,
The far away city’s giant causeway of ebony-stained yellow lights
Is reduced to empty darkness.

 

 

 

Adreyo Sen, based in Kolkata, hopes to become a full-time writer. Adreyo did his undergraduate work in English and his postgraduate work in English and Sociology. He has been published in Danse Macabre and Kritya.

A Poem by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Desert Flowers

Driving
hours into the desert
spilling sun

dusty road wheeling into sand
wrenching spinning tires under
into a final lunge

car revving
heat vapors over the hood

turning the engine off
sighing with the windows down

finally
where I want to be

opening the door to
all the answers

walking barefoot
breathing easily

a loner, rebel,
thinker of how it should be

I squat on a soft mound
drawing a picture in the sand

others have been here
tortoise, lizard, snake

skin rags
clinging to skeletons

listening to
hoarse winds
telling me to dig my roots very deep.



Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to stay up all night and write with lightning bolts until they fizzle down behind the dark horizon. His poetry has recently appeared in a handful of stones, The Camel Saloon, The Rainbow Rose, protestpoems, Black-Listed Magazine, BoySlut, Orion headless, The Carnage Conservatory, and Aphelion.  He is the editor of Dead Snakes at http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/

A Poem by William G. Davies, Jr.

The Feeder

I open the door,

the birds skitter away
even though I hold
a bowl of seed,
for all they know
I may be harm
approaching silently
the way peace
can sometimes lull.

William G. Davies, Jr. has published in numerous literary reviews such as The Cortland Review, Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and most recently, Miller's Pond and Absinthe.  He lives happily with his wife on ten acres in rural Pennsylvania.

A Poem by Tom Hatch

Coyote and the Catfish

Near the edge of the pond walking

On tip toes, on the sand begins to run

Leaving tiny lean toed paw prints

Stopping suddenly as his head bends

Stare into the water still as his body turns

Tail end making a radius puts his omnivorous muzzle to a halt

Pointing precisely motionless silent

Between the reeds his look

Does not waver

Tail posing as ballast for delicate balance

Little steps bit by bit paws move one at a time

Lifting just the right height placing the next foot

Forward that equals the height as if drawing

A circle precisely in a square

His head lowers decreasingly below

His thin sharp plow like shoulder blades

Not making a sound in a deadly tacit silents

His perceptive eyes do not blink

Keeping the pace all so long-drawn-out

Then he hits the water with a paw appearing almost like a cat

Pulling back knocking a fish out of the waters edge

As it lands it breaks the reeds flat sets flies buzzing in flight

Fish's tail flipping up sending white sand on a shiny black body

The performer grabs clutching the flopping fish between his eager teeth

Black thick catfish whiskers

Feeling the canines hot breath from thinner whiskers

He turns around basking through a curtain of

Long low hanging young golden willow boughs

Then he bows and without a doubt will not make a curtain call

The dog and feline fish and day have exited the stage

Tom Hatch paid his dues in the SoHo art scene in the 70s, 80s and 90s. He was awarded two NEA grants for sculpture back then. And taught at various colleges and universities in the NYC metro area in art. He is a regular at The Camel Saloon and BoySlut. He had recently published The Mind[less] Muse. He lives in CT with a few farms up and down the road works in Manhattan. His train ride to and from NYC is his solace, study and den where it all begins and ends.

A Poem by Agholor Leonard Obiaderi

SEEKING 

In the ash-coloured dawn, I

have stared at the sequence of
petals, their ring.
To discover what will stand
erect as a tree trunk or lie flat
as the horizon.

The crimson-cheeked flower

possessed little knowledge of it.

I have gazed at the long road,

its endless hours rolled into
open-ended pouches.

A hope for something I

could hold up to the
light.

I have stood by the roadside,

no sparrows
twitter,
awaited the hatching of the blue-yellow-reddish
dusk.
Until my investigation
turned the gloved hand
inward.I dipped into me,

touched something equidistant

between the heart and the mind.
Something that could stand upright.
It was coloured

red by blood but absolutely

stainless. So, I knew I
could never find the shape of my tomorrow,

waitng by the roadside, gazing up at the

stars reading meaning into
floral patterns.

Agholor Leonard Obiaderi lives in Nigeria. He loves poetry and crime novels though he has no criminal friends. He has been featured as poet of the week in Poetry Super-Highway and Wild Violet Literary Magazine. His poems have been published in Storm Cycle Anthology of Kindofahurricane Press.

A Poem by Marianne Szlyk

Winter into Spring

 

I.

Across the skim of ice,
the trees are bare fingers
in the grating wind.

The bittersweet berry
fades far past
the orange of carrots.
The leaves left on the vine
darken to brown.

II.

The fog inflates
and expands
over the pond.

Walk away.

 

The fog lifts.
Branches glisten.
Lichen clings.

III.

The wind across the pond
no longer grates
on bare-fingered trees.

Walk slowly
this time.

Yellow and purple
crocuses rise up
like mushrooms
after rain.
New mulch sours the air.

 

 

 

Marianne Szlyk is an assistant professor of English at Montgomery College, Rockville as well as an associate editor at the Potomac Review. Her poems have been published in the Antigonish Review, the Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Atrium, Eos: The Creative Context, and Aberration Labyrinth. Other poems may appear soon in the Ishaan Literary Review.

Two Poems by Emanuelle Cartagena

Desert

 

Crossing the lines in the sand,
go stamp with
Irregular gait,
while carrying the dead Arizona dry air,
Flourescent green cacti greet you,
enticing knowing what they store.
Tumbleweeds wisp in the-
burning hot wind flushes face full of red,
biting the pores and stinging the open wounds,
lashing up into your face.
The particles flash their warning signs.
Atmosphere like venus,
hovers its oven bake ready heat,
clinging to your heart,
and wrapping the shackles on it.
Ever omnipresent,
your delirium nearing,
as your thoughts melt into pools,
and the water evaporates from your skull.
Secluded from life,
orange-brown tinted soil spans for miles,
so much so,
it leaves your imagination,
to do its work.

Tethering away the air splits in two,
Spherical sky objects warp,
ovals, squares, and Native Americans,
or hippies frolicing around,
chanting old hyms for survival,
and reciting one haunting line,

"Welcome to the desert.
It may be the last welcome you hear."

 

 

 

A Good Day

I noticed the bark on every tree,
sitting so still, placid.
Orange syrupy sap seeped into the dirt.
Stumps stood strong like a lumberjack's torso,
never sturdier.
On this gloriously sunny day,
filled with dry air and blooming fluff of cumulus,
Trees won most,
gulping the rays and sapping the oxygen.
I also noticed........

 

Background calls,
crept into the forefront.
Bulky, piss-yellow bulldozers readied,
waiting for the final signal.
Three, two, ONE!
Sharp, metal claws raked into the once peaceful bark,
and the crunch made sure you knew,
quiet was finished.
Wheels pressed up against the stumps,
and rammed into the wood and sap.
Leaves rustled, tumbling down into the vehicles.
Foundations, roots all snapped,
two, five, seven at a time.
Noise was like a thousand homes toppling at once.
WHOOSH! RIP! and a fall, many.
They all fell for a reason,
The real estate signs, suits,
and the smiles proved it.

 

 

Emanuelle Cartagena is an aspiring, up-and-coming poet with a passion for words and how to use them. He has been writing for about 8 years now. He's also performed his poetry all across the state of PA. Manny has been published in Pigeon Bike poetry, Linden Avenue, New Plains Review and online with Earthborne poetry and Haggard and Halloo.