The Immigrant
by Afzal Moolla Seeking solace. Seeking a home. The immigrant finds, Rotten prejudice. Fungal anger. The immigrant, alone, hoping for, A solitary chance. To belong. The immigrant, alone, always, An outside entity. Eternal outcast. A viral threat. A reeking odour. […]
The Fallen House
by Aju Mukhopadhyay The Fallen House I was in my prime youth when I left the house flooded by different hues in different rooms- satin blue of the sky and pinkish love-rose blooms bright yellow of the sun in the stairs youth-wild green in the balcony; ‘twas a grandiose affair […]
The Poetry That Is Life
The theme of the traditional poet Was not of life. In the barren expanse of his imagination He conversed with his mistress and wine Living in an imaginary world He was a captive Held by a beloved’s funny tresses. As for others, They held, in one hand a cup In the other A mistress’s […]
Take My Hands
by Ajmer Rode Take my two hands make eight feet of them give them to the spider I soaked in hot water in my kitchen sink. I will hide my arms in long sleeves, will finish the last painting with brush in my teeth but take my two hands. If the […]
Tablet
As the dark cloud passed, I in the crimson shadow of the moon viewed the square and the streets an octopus stretching a languid leg in every direction toward a black swamp. And on the cold cobblestones a crowd stood, so many and in the midst a prolonged aticipation bordering on despair and weariness. […]
Stroll In A Particle
by Ajmer Rode If you can find a path into it there is enough space in this particle to stroll for a lifetime. Blue Meditations Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: External links Bat’s Poetry Page – […]
Stones
by Afzal Moolla Making tea for two, alone. Tears mingling with the Earl of Grey, desolate. A heart shredded, leaving only wasted murmurs, wasted breaths. A soul hardened, all alone. A heart aching, to beat. The heart slips, among scattered stones. Afzal Moolla […]
Spanish Banks
by Ajmer Rode The grey sands invite me to follow the receding sea water to recognize a clam shell that could be the house where my ancestors began. I walk slowly with respect. Blue Meditations Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: […]
Somber Song
In a leaden dawn the horseman stands silent, and the long mane of his horse is disheveled in the wind. Oh God, God, horsemen should not stand still when things are imminent. By the burnt hedge the girl stands silent, and her thin skirt moves in the wind. Oh God, God, girls should not […]
Poem65
by Ai We smile at each other and I lean back against the wicker couch. How does it feel to be dead? I say. You touch my knees with your blue fingers. And when you open your mouth, a ball of yellow light falls to the floor and burns a hole through it. […]
Playing With Big Numbers
by Ajmer Rode The human mind is essentially qualitative. As you know, we are easily excited by pinks and purples, triangles and circles and we endlessly argue over true and false, right and wrong. But quantitative analyses rarely touch our souls. Numbers were invented mainly by men to trick each other. […]
Percy Janes Boarding The Bus
As the bus rumbled on I continued under my breath “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Percy Janes, Newfoundland writer, poet, just boarded the number something-or-other.” If this was Portugal, a plaque would be placed over the seat where he sat. As it is, you have me mumbling in the street like a tourist in […]
One Word
by ahcene mariche Words are like bees They have honey and vemon Sometimes they are so sweet Sometimes as wounding as knives A word can bring you up Until you reach the top Then, you will know Fame and wealth Glory and power A word can knock you down The […]
Once She Dreamed
by Ajmer Rode Once she dreamed she was Mileva, the long haired Serbian girl who married Albert Einstein. She quietly watched when Einstein twisted the absolutely flat space with his hands. She watched when Einstein broke the absolute flow of time into pieces and spun them around at different speeds. She was […]
O God
by Ahmad Shawqi O’ God ! I wander all day and pine through time, And seek some comfort in my rhyme. The noblest of rhymes overflow with love, The sweetest line – the musical and pure – Are written down for the heart as a cure. Men turn as they pay to […]
Notebook Of A Return To The Native Land
by Aimé Césaire At the end of daybreak. . . Beat it, I said to him, you cop, you lousy pig, beat it, I detest the flunkies of order and the cockchafers of hope. Beat it, evil grigri, you bedbug of a petty monk. Then I turned toward paradises lost for him and […]
Night Words
by ahcene mariche Night words are like butter They melt at the breaking of dawn I advise you the virtuous! Never rely on them! Go to seek for your happiness Beware of lack of will and laziness Hearing soft words Leads to a deep sleep Once you close your eyes You […]
Negligence
by ahcene mariche If we could make of negligence an arm It would cause disaster Pains and wounds And lead us to despair and failure No one can tolerate it It is the ruin of all hopes We want to keep away from it When we see its doing From our […]
Mustard Flowers
by Ajmer Rode If you see an old man sitting alone at the bus stop and wonder who he is I can tell you. He is my father. He is not waiting for a bus or a friend nor is he taking a brief rest before resuming his walk. He doesn’t intend to […]
Meditation With Feet
by Ajmer Rode Father meditated with feet in a pan of warm water before sleep every evening He never expected my mother who brought him the water to kneel. Rather than wash in hurry he wanted his feet left alone let the dust particles loosen as he quietly thanked his feet and […]
Love
by Ainne Frances dela Cruz Lion-like this mane of hair he combs for dandruff man- -this must be love. Strangeroad.com Copyright ©: 2011 Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: External links […]
Little Talk
Don’t you think it’s probable that beetles, bugs, and bees talk about a lot of things – you know, such things as these: The kind of weather where they live in jungles tall with grass, and earthquakes in their villages whenever people pass. Of course, we’ll never know if bugs talk very much […]
Light The Festive Candles
Light the first of eight tonight— the farthest candle to the right. Light the first and second, too, when tomorrow’s day is through. Then light three, and then light four— every dusk one candle more Till all eight burn bright and high, honoring a day gone by When the Temple was […]
Levitation
by Ainne Frances dela Cruz In dark girls I see your skin. The lines of veins delicately whispering on the underside of your arms. The graceful motion of your fingers, how you always seemed on air, entrapped with wings; you who only had to rise to fly. I, in another time, […]
Labor Pains
I am sick today, sick in my body, eyes wide open, silent, I lie on the bed of childbirth. Why do I, so used to the nearness of death, to pain and blood and screaming, now uncontrollably tremble with dread? A nice young doctor tried to comfort me, and talked about the […]
Labels
by Ajmer Rode The baby just born into this world has been greeted, and well taken care of. Already a variety of labels have been etched on him. One for race. One for color. One for religion and maybe one for a caste. at the same time he is told you are born […]
Kalli
by Ajmer Rode Kalli followed me eight miles to the market where animals were traded like slaves. Cows goats bullocks camels Kalli was black beautiful and six prime age for a water buffalo. She was dry. Repelled bulls as if she had decided never to go green. Hard to afford, my […]
Insect039s Nest
by Aju Mukhopadhyay When it came and built the frame on the wall, briskly I bruised it by a finger. Twice it came again I ignored it then. Now on the wall it has a shelter at the back of my computer; a frail one inch hollow tube upside open downside closed […]
In This Cul De Sac
To make sure You have not said: “I love you,” They smell your breath. They even smell your heart Trying times are these, my darling. They flog love Tied to the post of the cul-de-sac We must hide love in the closet. In this serpentine maze This crooked cold corner They feed the fire […]
I See Chile In My Rearview Mirror
by Agha Shahid Ali By dark the world is once again intact, Or so the mirrors, wiped clean, try to reason. . . –James Merrill This dream of water–what does it harbor? I see Argentina and Paraguay under a curfew of glass, their colors breaking, like oil. The night in Uruguay […]
Gravity Suspended
by Ainne Frances dela Cruz gravity suspended. fowls dreaming of air. so wings. connive and beat. so dread. of pain and air. so distant. the reach from sky to earth. so pain. but after all the sun. The Tower Journal Fall 2010 Copyright ©: […]
From Death
I have never feared death Even though Its hands were more fragile Than banality. I dread, however, to die In a land where The grave digger’s wages Exceed the price of human freedom. Looking for, Discovering, Choosing freely, And transforming one’s essence Into a fortress. If the price of death is higher than all […]
Forfeiture
by Aimé Césaire As soon as I press the little pawl that I have under my tongue at a spot that escapes all detection all microscopic bombardment all dowser divination all scholarly prospecting beneath it triple layer of false eyelashes of centuries of insults of strata of madrepores of what I must call […]
For My Mother
by Afzal Moolla Someone always told me this with tears in her eyes A wife left South Africa in the 1960’s to join her husband who was in exile at the time. In 1970 the husband was sent by the African National Congress to India to be its representative […]
Fly Fly Butterfly
Fly fly butterfly, Fly fly butterfly, Fly fly butterfly, Fly up in the sky so high. CATERPILLARS! What do caterpillars do? Nothing much but chew and chew. What do caterpillars know? Nothing much but how to grow. They just eat what by and by will make them be a butterfly, But that is more than […]
Even The Rain
by Agha Shahid Ali What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain? But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain. “our glosses / wanting in this world” “Can you remember?” Anyone! “when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain? After we died–That was it!–God […]
Destiny Far Away
by Akansha Singhal I hop and jump on the floating stones, stones sit on those sharks. A step and all bones, when its not even dark. Dark greens far away I can see and I am destitute the only way to get free, free I want to be but still solitude. […]
Conversation
by Ai We smile at each other and I lean back against the wicker couch. How does it feel to be dead? I say. You touch my knees with your blue fingers. And when you open your mouth, a ball of yellow light falls to the floor and burns a hole through it. […]
Calling All Angels
by Ainne Frances dela Cruz Towards bright lights and heaven, we hesitate, weakened by gravity unable to fly looping through earth. Satellites, things that catch us make us fall. Nets, I would love to catch and catch those things we lose because gravity, time, makes us give things up. Still, soul-weary […]
At The Locks Of The Void
by Aime Cesaire In the foreground and in longitudinal flight a dried-up brook drowsy roller of obsidian pebbles. In the background a decidedly not calm architecture of torn down burgs of eroded mountains on whose glimpsed phantom serpents chariots a cat’s-eye and alarming constellations are born. It is a strange firefly cake hurled […]