Nullity – A Poem by Ian Fletcher
Why the extinguishment of consciousness
causes me such distress I do not know
for that nothingness into which we all go
will surely put my preoccupations to flight
nullifying everything in an endless night.
poetry
Evidence – A Poem by Krushna Chandra Mishra
Wherefrom, you tell me,
Shall I collect evidence
On my complete ruin in your hands
Once you in all cunning
Have erased everything
From coming to be used against you
To put me back in my place
From where in utter grief and loss
I stand displaced and perplexed?
Now thus once again
On your calculated return to me
I have nothing more to ask
Except to once in concrete terms
Explain to me how and in what conditions
You sought to withdraw from my life
To keep your shadow constantly troubling me
To my utter despair and ruin
From the dark abyss of which perhaps
Never in this life
I think I shall recover for sure.
Evidence it is
I am beside you and here
Not demanding anything except
Finding you broken and lost and groping
For something you know
You will never be able to lay
Your crazy hands upon.
Gin Thing – A Poem by G. S. Katz
Last night I had a gin gimlet
Usually prone to bourbon or Irish whiskey
Departed from the norm
Took a lovely journey to clear spirits
Helped my mood
Became floaty and optimistic
instead of the usual dulling down of the senses
A drink before dinner, centers me
Gin races through my system
Euphoric
Everything’s gonna be alright
It’s a gin thing babe
Voodoo Doll – A Poem by Ananya Dhawan and Sanchit Goel
She’s darkened art,
an almost human (one might say),
a conjurer of charms so terrific,
of love and hate
and magic, prolific.
With pins and needles
Sticking out of her heart
She is hypnotizing humanity
right from the start.
A spiritual figure for luck and charm,
if fitly used, she means no harm.
I marvel at her sinister décor,
a bald head and eyes that lure
Is she the one to avenge wrong doers?
Or is she the one being avenged for?
With soothing colors that killed her soul,
Pulling everything around like a warm hole.
The doll that makes little ones smile,
Is all set to cause fear in their eyes.
If what they say is actually true,
Voodoo is her thing,
The doll is just for fools.
Then maybe we should burn her,
Put her in a ball of fire,
While her colors turn to ash,
We might just see her true desires.
Who Am I? – A Poem by Sanchit Goel
I am the extrovert who keeps to himself.
I think about myself before anyone else.
I look myself in the mirror for myself.
I talk to you but about me.
I selflessly extend my hand when yours is full.
I am the introvert who only believes in extroversion.
I am kind and gentle in most extraordinary ways.
In a way that I appear when you need me the most.
It is most unlikely that I might be of use.
I am soft and trusted when you whisper your secrets.
Your secrets are mine, but mine are distrusted.
I am rude and harsh in the face of self-beliefs.
I am courageous to the cowardly.
I stand up to them who can’t stand up for themselves.
My strength in my arms is a symbol of size.
My strength in my heart is nowhere found.
I protect myself from external disasters.
I am a coward to all the internal monsters.
Am I the face that they recognise?
Am I the name that they plagiarize?
Who am I or what am I?
Am I not to ever understand in this lifetime?
Am I human being that counts?
Or am I just another package of weight?
Who am I?
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Thanksgiving 2016 – A Poem by Stan Morrison
asleep, relief from pain for a while
awake thankful for what preceded
grateful for what remains, hopeful
ambivalent about whats to come
yet sober, aware of life’s fragility
in the last analysis so powerless
swept along by the day-to-day
love rules supreme
Euphoria – A Poem by Ananya S. Guha
Whatever archives say is not
history
history is there in walls of
ruminations
mind’s arcades
phantasmagoria of dreams
paintings hanging on walls
suffocated out of our obtuseness
and ink stands
which speak of
the derelict written word.
Euphoria visualised.
Story Tree – A Poem by JD DeHart
It begins at the base, a series
of background questions.
Then the story is spread out
Leaf to branch to leaf, a face
of a protagonist, a villain,
a few strange quotations.
One way, the story branches to
a satisfying locus of foliage.
The other way, the way is broken,
splintered, falls breathless to the ground.
In a Liminal Space – A Poem by Marie MacSweeney
Born during the famine
my seawoman ancestor set out regularly
into the Atlantic, southwards
and eastwards, towards Bristol,
trading metal and grain.
Though she lies quiet now
in the tomb at Ráth
my mind carries her about,
delicately as a caul,
sets her free on the high seas.
I am there too, at the binnacle,
manning the compass,
plotting our course westwards.
The name of our journey is mingling, or
daring, or dwelling with the things she loved.
In the sea there is no place
that is not her place.
Each journey is an alert
romance.
She respects the ocean’s stillness,
knows its savagery.
As waters rock beneath us
I nudge through her reticence,
amid flicker of whale pulse
and dolphin plunge, touch her heart,
sky sidling away in the wind,
and the notion I share with Kate, that this was our
first home,
that we crawled from its wet turbulence
aeons ago, limped across shores,
loved land later, with its trees and sighs.
Allegory – A Poem by Cattail Jester
I’ll be the ham
You be the mustard
Life can be the crusty
bread that holds us
together, toasty.
Now I need to figure
out the plate, napkins,
kitchen and cook.