Writers International Edition

Poetry

MOONLESS NIGHT: Poem by Arsha Bijer

She is fifteen
A half-moon
in a little frame,
Dwelling in fairy tale
Despite of all controversies

Pretty frock frills that
strive hard to conceal the-
blobs of flesh on her chest,
Always ended up-
with a candied mouth.

She is seventeen
A winsome warbling bird,
Whirling in a daydream
Almost a full moon.

Her classy bosoms
A little too full hourglass,
that separates the sleeves.
She hates the cramps,
That comes often with-
a nasty acrid smell

She is twenty,
Feisty with full of spirit
A perfect full moon,
Like the dangling-
earrings of night.
Her scoop neck-
Is proud of those endearing
breasts, obsessed with love.

She is a satellite that,
flown overseas through ages
And fell on the ground-
as a meatloaf,

Look at the sky,
Where you can see her
As baleful black clouds,
Prior to a heavy downpour!

The only poem she left with,
remains unpublished.

Arsha Bijer
© Arsha Bijer 2022

 

Unchained Dreams: Poem by Devika V M

The decisive patch-
Paved way towards the
middle.
I could collect,
I could hustle,
I could ensure –
Your endorsing memory.
I keep reading and
reading,
Pouncing into myself,
Keeping all the secrets
die in me.
The dumbfounded man-
Keep watching me.
Ferocity or concern?
I couldn’t recall from him.
Reluctantly I walked
toward the lobby,
Discontent of my
thoughts-
Stuck me at reading,
Troubling myself into it.
The scenario seems
denude,
Scandalous of amity or
enmity tortured me!
Exaggerating the world-
Indulging myself in
chores.
Run away- provocations
murmured,
But the conundrum
sticks in me
Of the man ;
Eyes keep watching, precision not well enough.
The toddler cried and
cried-
Reeling from shock-
Waiting for ‘She’:
But no one cares!
The frivolous demands,
never been fulfilled.
Rushing; expecting
much!
I could see from far,
The blurred vision of girl,
Catching and throwing ;
Something expected.
Turns five’, five’ and five’,
The voice shouted-
As if a disturbance to
me-
And for the unchained
dreams!

Poem by
Devika V M

GUNS IN GARDENS: Poem by Laksmisree Banerjee

Ah, can you not hear the hoarse cries of the approaching torpedo?
The suppressed grunting of the angry thunder?
The incinerating rage of the lightning in the blossoming gardens?
Can you not see the outstretched arms of wailing green branches
Reaching out to the school- bagged, uniformed children
Walking side by side for their morning prayers in classrooms?
Those that you push into battle gear with hazardous guns
Those that wallow in fury of uncontrolled angst
You convert schools into warzones splattered with soft cherry blood
Lobbies steeped in crime and greed
For arming children with guns of death
Rather than books of life?
O you creed of super-powerdom
May you become one of peace and love
To sustain the whiteness of your doves—–
Inhuman hate-clad hubris in loose strings
Spectral terror of the darkest purple clouds
Floating above in aimless dislocation
Rudderless unreigned juvenile wrath
In the clutches of gun-totting monstrosity
In zones of misplaced machoism
From Texas to California
From Florida to New York
Usurped by unloved reckless anger
As forests and multihued rainbows weep
shedding blood and tears
In a land of unabated guns of annihilation
Shattering ceaselessly tender leaves of blooming buds in disarray
Nettled in thorny fogs of unwashed innocence
Prodded in disenchantment to kill and shatter
Beauty of tumescent new lives…….
Ah the dissolved souls and fainted cries
The muted reverberations die across the ocean
As life becomes a toy of unbridled cruelty
Smothered forever in silence
In the precincts of innocence—–

Poem by
Laksmisree Banerjee
©Laksmisree Banerjee 2022

CYBERWORLD: Poem by Irene Doura-Kavadia

Towards the end […] it’s like towards the end of a masked ball, when the masks are removed. You can now see who those with whom you came into contact [ … ] actually were. For the characters have (finally) revealed themselves, the deeds have borne their fruit, […] and all delusions have crumbled…
A. Schopenhauer

A fancy, shiny new world
Stretches right before your eyes
Picture, colour, enticing word
A brand new reality luring
Out loud for you to enter, cries,
With the bright shiny smile
of a toothpaste commercial star
constantly with attractions pouring
draws you along to travel far

God, it looks so enticing!
Undeniably, unchartered waters
For all the globe’s seafarers
-Amateurs and experienced alike-
Always prove utterly inviting
For you to cross all borders
And reach out for the spike

With a bright shiny flashing smile,
Skillfully pulling the wool over your eyes,
There stretches out all-hiding cyber vile
And sweet reality soon turns into hideous lies
As virtual truth no real virtue bears
And when the going gets really tough
Only the tough ones shall get going

While the rest, all graces and airs,
perform behind a foggy curtain
the tantalizing seven veils’ dance
of Salome, the utter femme fatale,
and meeting their demands ends up in death most certain;
and they can equally be a female’s or a man’s
leading inevitably to heartbreaking results

A fancy, shiny, stardust-sprinkled world
Stretches right before your eyes.
Beware! It won’t be long before
The veil drops, rearing Medusa’s ugly head
That venomously turns it all into icy stone
Or to a hellish devouring fire, scarlet red,
Till even your last breath’s tear dries.

Thus, do not wonder, dear, do not cry
Don’t even dare to ask how or why;
The fact is obviously evident yet wry
-as at times willingly by most overlooked-
That for reality there is absolutely
no possible substitute, even when rough,
difficult, harsh, or undoubtedly tough.
So, listen to my sound advice and not ever try;
better prove wise and not get hooked!

Poem by
Irene Doura-Kavadia
© Irene Doura-Kavadia 2022

THE CUP OF TIME: Poem by Amar Pratap Singh

1

I am bored of living
Drinking a cup of time
Looking at the path of the path
While waiting here.
I don’t know where I am
From here to there to where
Been busy finding meaning
Drowning while growing.
Life is a distraction perhaps
Wandering around
City city and village village
Mountains, mountains, roads.
Got the meaning, felt useless
What has passed seems like a dream
The conflict of meaning disaster is meaningless
Life really seemed to be a dream ..
Sleeping tired so much me
While testing without any reason.
I’m bored waking up sleep
While saying and listening.

2

The cup of time is many
Sweet bitter sour sour
Somewhere the salt of tears somewhere
Filled with dessert of happiness
Never anger hate hate hate
So selfishness got drunk somewhere
You get your own people to say
Got a spicy lick of relationships
All the juice mixed in this cup
Love is not found on love.

Poem by
Amar Pratap Singh
Ⓒ Amar Pratap Singh 2022

My Love: Poem by Sujatha Warrier

My love is all my own,
I dream about its rainbow hues,
I wind my way often
down the lanes of its memory,

I smile over its expressions,
revive its passions,
ruminate on its reflections,
ramblings and rants of long ago,

I keep at bay the fears,
wipe away the tears,
revel at the joys
buried in the deepest fathoms
of my heaving heart,

The tears, fears,
joys, sorrows,
thoughts, dreams and all
will be mine on call
to relive as is my wont,

It’s not in me to give them away,
It’s not in you to take them away,
It’s not in them to just go away,

My love’s been about me, always,
I’m its master, I’m its slave,
It’s in me to give you the reins

or take them away.

Poem by Sujatha Warrier
© Sujatha Warrier 2022

About the Poet

Sujatha Warrier is a writer and editor by occupation, and a poet and translator by inclination. Her articles and poems have appeared in magazines, literary e-journals and anthologies. One More Line and Other Poems is her latest collection of poems. The Attic & Other Poems is a collection of her poems, with illustrations. Fireflies is a collection of her micropoems. Totally Owordosed is her blog. A few awards and jury recommendations have come her way.

A LIE: Poem by Dr. Sreekanth Kopuri

For CHARP

woven with the void of
years in the African sands,
borrowed from the
life’s incomplete pages

sits in secure flat seated chair
bought from the supermarket
as a highest bidder at a secret
safe government auction

the natural defensive uproar adorned
in showy kinesics, entreats for scraps
of learning from another that
proclaims the biography of its own
blunder written with the stolen letters
from the pages of a ruined history

it picks up the leaves and windfalls
spilled under growing trees in the
government orchard with more lies
that socialize a life whose belly
bulges with the voracity for wealth

(First published in A New Ulster Ulster, Northern Ireland, November 2019)

Poem by Dr. Sreekanth Kopuri
© Dr. Sreekanth Kopuri 2019

About the Author

Sreekanth Kopuri is an Indian poet, current poetry editor of Kitchen Sink Magazine, Alumni Writer in Residence, Athens and a Professor of English from Machilipatnam, India. He recited his poetry in University of Oxford, John Hopkins University, University of Florida, Heinrich Heine University, University of Gdanski and many others. His poems appeared in Arkansas Review, Christian Century, A Honest Ulsterman, Chicago Memory House, Heartland Review, Lannang Archives, Tulsa Review, Expanded Field, A New Ulster, The Rational Creature, Nebraska Writers Guild, Poetry Centre San Jose, Underground Writers Association, Athereon Review, Word Fountain, Synaeresis, Wend Poetry, Vayavya, Ann Arbor Review to mention a few and are forthcoming in many. His book Poems of the Void was the winner of Golden Book of the year 2022 & finalist for the Eyelands Books Award Greece, 2019. He is the recipient of Immanuel Kant Award for his collection of poems on Silence 2020. An independent research scholar in Contemporary Poetry, Silence, and Holocaust poetry, he is presently working on his research work “Silence in Contemporary Ecopoetics of Transcendence”. He lives in his hometown Machilipatnam with his mother.

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

ROBERT FROST

William Wordsworth poem writers edition

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth