Richard Jeffrey Newman

I STILL DON’T KNOW WHERE HE’S BURIED

The bird was a dove; the gun,
a blowgun Joey ordered through the mail.
We took it wrapped in a green cloth
out back by the tracks. Joey
placed the weapon in my hands,
holding up once he’d done so
a dart, toothpick-thin, blunt end buried
in a marble-sized plastic orange sphere.
“Don’t inhale once it’s in the tube,” he warned.
“You’ll break your teeth.”
I crouched down behind the bush
blocking the view from Albert’s house,
slid the long metal barrel through the fence,
and put the dart in the blow hole.
I don’t remember Joey urging me on,
or if he tried to stop me,
but the moment the breath that killed the bird
left my lungs, I wanted nothing more
than to inhale it back.
The summer Joey murdered himself
the news found me too late for the funeral,
and so I see him now
the last time I saw him whole,
sitting next to me on the wooden fence 
he climbed out of his room to smoke on
one last time before he left for the army.
The beers I used my early beard to buy
were gone, the friends we drank them with
as well, and Joey held out a joint
he said he didn’t want to share
with anyone else. “My father,
he chewed the words, “can be
a real asshole sometimes.”
Then he’s home on leave and we’re walking,
his right arm conducting
a slow four-four march
he tells me he can’t stop,
not even after three years of no acid.
“I feel like a fucking drum major,” he jokes,
so we start marching for real,
like when we were kids,
down Tulip Avenue
in perfect step,
holding our horns
in front of our chests,
as if we were again
first and second seat
bass baritone bugles
in the Knights of Columbus
Drum & Bugle Corps.
Joey gave the signal,
but just as we started
to raise those phantom bugles,
he grabbed my wrist
and pulled me behind him,
holding his finger up
for silence.“The hole,”
he whispered, pointing,
not taking his eyes
from where our next steps
would have landed. “You
can’t see it. It isn’t after you”


YOU’D BETTER FINISH KNITTING: A GHAZAL

So I’ve decided to embrace his death, 
the way, before, I did not embrace his death.
I slam the phone down on his mother’s voice.
I will not allow her to deface his death.
One by one, the cars behind the hearse
pull out, slow runners forced to race his death.
Autumn leaves sweep the air above our heads.
Few fall. That we’re still here amazes death.
They put their brother in the ground and leave.
“Revenge,” his sister says, “replaces death.”
Sun-bleached on the sand, bones stripped of flesh.
The tide rises, recedes, displaces death.
A moment comes when what has ripened falls.
Your hunger is a hole that chases death.
I kissed a woman young enough to be
my daughter. Age receded. Face this, death!
Snow accumulates and melts, gives way
to each fruit in season. Come, taste this death.
I’m never more alive than when I come.
Only true surrender erases death.
No other path will lead you to the end.
Each step, if you are fearless, praises death.
They’ll tell you Richard’s words besmirch this page,
but virgin white will not efface his death.


ON THE MATING OF RHINO BEETLES
  —on a painting by Allen Hart

Inflamed, your rival rushes you. You fight,
grab him where you can and lift him high,
puncturing his thorax: you win. Nearby,
the scent of the right you fought him for, bright
compulsion calling you to what you are,
though she too struggles at first. When you're done,
and no one should confuse this with having fun,
she leaves to bury the future she bears not far
from here. She goes alone. You wait for death,
though you do not understand that you are waiting;
and if I say that you are contemplating
anything, it is myself, my own breath
I measure. You are nothing more than spent.
Your epitaph? You won; you came; you went.


METAPHORS

Stubbled mouth of a living cave, curved edge
of a clamshell’s hinge; a moss-covered hill,
unopened bud, curtains across a stage;
sphinx’s riddle in a dimpled cup you fill;
a place of refuge that swallows why you’re there;
pages of a book you read with your tongue;
a feast, a flame, a supplicant in prayer;
the world’s hunger focused in a song
that bathes you till your need is all you know;
riverbed swelling at spring’s first touch,
the spread wings of nightfall, cat’s eye aglow;
the hollow in your heart that’s left unstitched;
a mirror showing you the way you came,
different every time, yet also the same.

New York

---

Bishnupada Ray
 
ISTHMUS
 
a cold swirl catches up the land
a penguin boat floats near the ice wall
a dry wind blows the year round
the grassland sways in the rhythm
of an avenging memory
 
here the rugged north meets the draped south
upon a bridge of floating stones
a long distance polar express
has just crossed it
shaking the rigid hands of a compass
 
the undecided fingers are unwholesome
around the loose libidinal centre
like the floating lumber from a wreck.
 

CANNONBALL
 
we who live at the crater and see
the seething flames rise to our knees
and breathe sulphur and cough sulphur
we who sacrifice our organs to the untamable
and dance with the stars of chaos and death
and see our souls melt into molten metal
are now nearing to the shape of a cannonball
in this ungraspable smithy of a hell-bent sun.
 

India


---


Kristine Doll


AN ORDINARY DAY

Sometimes sorrow drops
softly, like a wounded bird.
Sky and earth shudder;
a moment, a sigh, move through
just an ordinary day.


STICK WORKS 

I shall be cozy
	in one of your nests.
Safe in the reclaimed
elegance of delicate birches.
Soothed by the scent
of stately cedars;
or snuggled, perhaps, 
inside a majestic oak.

Secure in my woody armor,
eye to eye with all that is aloft,
I am freed by flight 
and upswept hymns.
My legacy is all that has been 
and is and ever will be–
sky to earth,
earth to sea,
sea to sky
unbroken.

Massachusetts



---

Shokrana Sarkar

WINTER IS COMING

Winter is coming
And so is your winged memories
Like the guests from North.
Each and every tree resembles me
And my life is like the
Foggy weather of the morning.
I know the Sun has risen up
But it’s hard to see
And feel its warmth.
Left alone in this cold world
I search for the smoke from
Your burning fire.
Turning into ashes
Now is my only Desire.


SHADOW

While sitting beside a bonfire
I glimpsed at my
Own distorted shadow
And wondered, “How could
This shadow be mine?”
There were others also sitting there,
And I watched their shadows.
Their shadows bore
The resemblances of their masters.
Then I asked one person to insure,
“Look at this shadow and
Tell me what do you see?”
He replied, “I see you
Lying on the dirt
And shivering in pain.”
Then I again looked
At the other shadows
and saw the same.


THE EVENING LAMP

Have you forgotten how you used to
Walk beside me on that
Small narrow bridge
That connects our homes.
And how you used to light a lamp in the evening
On the middle of that bridge.
You always said that this lamp
Would show us our ways whether
The night be a night of
Full moon or lunar eclipse.
And we will always be able
To reach out to each other any time.
Don’t you remember? At dawn
You used to visit that lamp
And seeing it burning itself
You used to be pleased—A little sacrifice
Essential to make sure we never
Fail in connecting ourselves.
Did you know I used to fuel
To that evening lamp at midnight?


Bangladesh




---

Rachel Mejia

THAT FATEFUL DAY

9/11, how much I hate that day,
the day when the havens were
screaming in terror and pain!

All was calm and cheerful, 
the skies were a vibrant blue, 
not a single cloud in sight
suddenly I felt that something was not right,
ignoring the uneasy feeling,
I continued to walk,
suddenly there was a deafening sound,
of metal and glass breaking.

There was screams of horror, 
my own scream escaping my lips,
a airplane was inside the twin tower,
stuck like an arrow to its target,
dark smoke was bellowing, 
staining the blue sky.

I hear frantic cries for help, 
many were calling 911,
chunks of the building fell,
my blood ran cold,
as I saw another plane crashed into
the other tower.

By now many people were exiting the towers,
the fire kept on growing,
I closed my eyes— 
hoping it was all a dream,
soon I heard the wailing of the sirens,
from the police and ambulances,
it was a total chaos.

Many people screamed, helped, called and cried,
news reporters were reporting the tragedy,
by now the skies turned black with smoke,
suffocating us.

Minutes, hours passed,
the smell of death, blood,
smoke and gasoline was everywhere,
the fire could not be put out,
then there was a terrible sound,
the towers were falling,
people began to run,
I did too,
a baby was left alone in its stroller,
I covered her as the first tower fell,
creating a wave of dust ,
shaking the ground.

From that day on forward, 
things were never the same,
for that day left a scar in our memories,
9/11 that fateful day when all began to change.

New York