Poet of the Month: Ndaba Sibanda
The Swing by Renee’ Drummond-Brown
In My Memories by Nandini Srivastava
The Fractal Maze by Sudip Adhikari
Sonnet VI : Sonnets by Aminul Islam
You Must Have Heard Me by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
I am in a Print by Hiroshige by John Grey
Poet of the Month: Ndaba Sibanda
I hear A Nearness
I listen
I listen to the silence of her storms
I listen to its close remoteness
I listen
I listen to the loudness of her whispers
I listen to its near aloofness
I listen
I hear a heart heaving for some healing
However I hear without a hearing aid
I listen
I hear a song sung in silences and storms
However its remoteness is near and dear
New Phenomena
Official for what? The only happiness I seem to get from your ministry
Is an outburst of laughter. Some people watching us are unhappy!
They say either that ministry should be called psychiatry
Or a nullity. I know you are saying less stress to our uncles,
Our dear sisters, our cousins. Who says poverty
Or indeed stupidity runs deep in our lineage?
Happy we are in Africa! In our state…
Happiness has finally been invented!
Who said we cannot be the first?
Our taxpayers cannot be sad!!
On Bumping Into Her
She told me about it. The story of guests
who rent cars or a bunch of bunk beds.
I didn’t know what a backpacker hotel
was. She told me she was a backpacker.
No wonder she had her little supplies,
her personal belongings. Her things.
At one time I know she stuttered:
I didn’t catch some words she uttered.
Did she belong to who? I didn’t get it?
Did she talk of her things or her thighs?
Then there was a lesson on travelling,
travelling on budgeted accommodation.
On a backpack being smaller
than a rucksack, on getting a pack.
I said ok: sackpack ,backsack,
or knapsack or whatever. Bye!
That is Where My Umbilical Cord Is
Today you stand tall in defiance of all the challenges
Right in the southern western part of the country
Just like in the year 1893 when a Union Flag was raised
As the huts of King Lobengula’s capital were up in flames
Did Dr Leander Starr Jameson not congratulate himself
For scoring a British South Africa Company`s victory?
In the first place why did King Lobengula say: “I’m he who is”
“Persecuted and rejected” if his ascension had been bloodless?
These days some young folk affectionately call you Skies
I prefer to call you Ntuthuziyathunqa or Ntuthu in short
A nickname which speaks volumes
About you being an industrial hub
Or so you used to be a habitation
Where industrial smoke abounded
Bulawayo my majestic city
Bulawayo what a stunning city
Bulawayo rich in cultural history
Were you not the commercial capital?
A great gateway to Southern Africa?
Were you not our transport nucleus?
For you provided rail links between
Botswana and South Africa and Zambia
They can do or say whatever they want
But Bulawayo you are my umbilical cord
You are my pride and in my heart forever
Bulawayo City of Kings and Queens
Located within the vicinity of the Matobo Hills
And the Victoria Falls and the Hwange National Park
The Swing by Renee’ Drummond-Brown
His mansion has
oak stairs. A southern
flare. The ghost of my past also
resides here.
The sounds of torture echoes like
plantation shutters swinging em’
to N’ fro.
As I polish his silverware. The floors
crack. The walls
speak; who lives here? Certainly
not me!
THAT dirt driveway houses
my DNA. The open door is locked. I enter
from the back to cook
his menus plus
add me some fat-back. My minds
on that auction block. Those slave ships. Moses
parting THAT Red Sea for me. Gotta’ get back
to work; cause, I don’t wanna’ swing. No!
Not on this day. No! Not me. All
my clean windows see
“THAT”
infamous SHOW tree. Reminding us
O’
that swings plea. To make sure
you hang-em’ on high for
Massa’s sake and the picture-perfect imagery. I’m jus’
a passer by; til’ my turn to swing. Until then,
I’ll jus’ keep on telling; while keeping it clean.
Dedicated to: Self Preservation is the law of the land
A B.A.D. poem
In My Memories by Nandini Srivastava
Shall I tuck you or let you fly in the wind?
Fly like an insane kite
Shall I stop you or let you swim in the river?
Swim like a naughty shellfish
Shall I find you or let you be in my memories?
To be like an unforgettable dream in my life.
Refugees by James G. Piatt
Shattered bits of terror like rusted razor edged tears, pierce hope in the minds of war weary souls, knives of fear splinter hope, leaving only an aching grayness: Weary women with covered heads, tired old men with shaggy beards, sobbing children hungry and afraid, all trudging through rocks and burning sand hoping to escape from chaos and death to a safe refuge in a foreign land. The cold seeps through tents and bones, but they still pray during special hours each day, hoping for an answer in the icy winds of the dark night, while obscure politicians form committees to decide, which poor souls will be sent back to their war torn nations to die. Where is mercy?
The Fractal Maze by Sudip Adhikari
The splattered fuzz converges
like a chiaroscuro, to tell the stories
of becoming and noise.
I am lost in a fractal maze,
but I don’t regret.
We think we are too small
to be the infinity, too frail to dwell
in the folds of a dreamscape.
we think we are the limited hues
of color, caught within the
perimeter of a white canvass.
I keep zooming into myself
and all I can find is me.
I am everywhere. I am the only one
I am the God, whom no religion teaches.
Sonnet VI : Sonnets by Aminul Islam
The sonneteer pens sonnets immaculate
Readers go astounded at his calibre :
Engrossing rhyming scheme,dulcet metre
No prominence find we there inexistent
Critical acclamations formidably flood in
He wins awards national and international
Students around the globe study his sonnets
Many are also doing research on his work
His sonnets have sheerly been a trademark
Since they’re incontrovertibly pure sonnets
Many poets become his followers assiduous
They also earn renown sonneting like him
Thousands of people are still famished
No sonnet could even once them feast!
You Must Have Heard Me by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
skiing the alpine victory
vociferous as a pack of wildebeest
throwing magazines in the air
because the unchecked throne of gravity should
not go unchallenged
my hair parted down the middle
like a true centrist, flakes of dandruff
to announced an unplanned winter
lipstick scrawls over the bathroom mirror
as the throat of my voice belts out
the last dry dregs of Top 40 radio
the hair of my naked legs so numerous
with age that gurus working in teams
could not find me, but you must have heard me
just down the hall, schooling Wagner in spilt pantomime
another horse meat racket busted in the South of Spain
I wonder how many vegetarians are moonlighting
for Interpol, selling bottles of avocado shellac
to foodies with nails under the table
as I sit cross-legged on the floor
cooling down like a bowl of soup,
a spent fire extinguisher in my hands
so that I know the gulag Fascists
have won.
Five AM by Jake Cosmos Aller
In the midst
Of a dismal night
When all about me seem
Somehow affright
When my multitude of friends
Have fled into the ever deepening
Righteous night
Leaving me alone
To face the shitty sun
To race for the phone
And have some fun
Alas I have constipated diarrhea blues
The sky is puke green
My wallet has lost its last green
I have seen a dawning of the blues
I sing to express
My feelings
So somber and depressed
Some day
My world will exist
For now
All that is
Or seemed to be
Is merely a stoned dream
Of burning licorice trees
Dry Tears by Daginne Aignend
They say it will become less
the cramping pain
The suffering, apathy, a lead weight
on the chest, is this a heartache?
Not being able to get through
my daily routine, I sit and stare
I want to scream in grief
but my voice has fallen silent
I want to run and hide
but my body doesn’t respond anymore
Slowly I wither, excruciated by numbness,
as I drown in a pool of dry tears
I am in a Print by Hiroshige by John Grey
I am one of many snowflakes
suspended in mid-air.
This is good for me,
being singular and yet
in the good company of so many
of my kind.
Sure crystals of ice
suggest coldness.
I prefer magic, even beauty.
While some may wish to
blanket the earth,
I am free, forever falling.
Besides, light is always
on the lookout for me.
I can surprise you
with my glitter.
It may seem as if
I’m a lonely prisoner of the winter sky.
But the Inuit have fifty ways
of describing me.
And only one of describing love –
warm.
About the Poets
Ndaba Sibanda has contributed to the following anthologies: Its Time, Poems For Haiti- a South African anthology, Snippets ,Voices For Peace and Black Communion. He edited Free Fall (2017). The recipient of a Starry Night ART School scholarship in 2015, Sibanda is the author of Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing and Football of Fools. His work is featured in The New Shoots Anthology, The Van Gogh Anthology edited by Catfish McDaris and Dr. Marc Pietrzykowski, Eternal Snow, A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma scheduled for publication in Spring/Summer 2017 by Nirala Press and Seeing Beyond the Surface Volume II.
Renee’ B. Drummond is a renowned poetria and artist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the author of: The Power of the Pen, SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER, Renee’s Poems with Wings are Words in Flight-I’ll Write Our Wrongs, and Renee’s Poems with Wings are Words in Flight. Her work is viewed on a global scale and solidifies her as a force to be reckoned with in the literary world of poetry. Renee’ is inspired by non-other than Dr. Maya Angelou, because of her, Renee’ posits “Still I write, I write, and I’ll write!”
Nandini Srivastava is 20 and was born and raised in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh in India. She studies her Pharmacy and Computer Science in her home town and is an avid reader of English Literature. Her works have appeared in Tuck Magazine. Poetry is next to her heart to express the deeper feelings and poignant chronicle of life. Her frolicking mind longs to hang out with North Indian chat and pani poori. She is an emerging poet and short fiction writer and can be contacted at nandinisrivastava1997@gmail.com.
James G. Piatt has published 4 novels, “The Ideal Society,” (2012), “The Monk,” (2013), “The Nostradamus Conspiracy,” (2015), and Archibald McDougle PI: An Archie McDougle Mystery (2017), 3 collections of poetry, “The Silent Pond,” (2012), “Ancient Rhythms,” (2014), and “Light” (2016), and over 1,000 poems, 35 short stories, and 7 essays. His poems have been nominated for pushcart and best of web awards, and many were published in The Top 100 Poems of 2016, 2015, & 2014 Anthologies, and the 2017 Poet’s Showcase and Yearbook. His fourth collection of poetry will be released this year.
Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. His poetry has appeared in more than eighty literary magazines, online/print. His recent publications were with Beatnik Cowboys, Zombie Logic Review, The Bees Are Dead, Silver Birch Press and Eunoia Review. He digs beat poetry, punk rock, hip-hop, science and good beer.
Aminool Islam is a bilingual poet who weaves poetry in Bengali, his mother tongue, and English. He also weaves English sonnets. He did his M.A in English literature from National University,Bangladesh. He’s currently the sub-editor at a literary magazine named Neeharika.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Setu, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Jake Cosmos Aller has completed 10 volumes of poetry, three SF novels, and an unpublished collection of short stories. After retirement he began submitting to various publishers and contests, and has been published in many literary magazines and online poetry sites such as “Poetry Soup”, “All Poetry”, “Moon Café”, “Duane’s Poetree”, “Eskimo Pie Net”, “Creativity Webzine”, “Writer’s Newsletter”, “Down in the Dirt”, and Facebook poetry sites.
Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch poetess and photographic artist Inge Wesdijk. She likes hard rock music and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals. Daginne posted some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her fun project website http://www.daginne.com, she’s also the co-editor of Degenerate Literature, a poetry, flash fiction, and arts E-zine. She has been published in several Poetry Review Magazines, in the bilingual anthology (English/Farsi), ‘Where Are You From?’ and in the Contemporary Poet’s Group anthology ‘Dandelion in a Vase of Roses’.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Front Range Review, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Naugatuck River Review, Abyss and Apex and Midwest Quarterly.
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