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Poetry
Ashes
By Dimitris P. Kraniotis
The fireplace
was eager
to put a fullstop,
in the sentence
where the road
of my dreams
stuck
upon the word of happiness
with sparkles
of wet logs
I collected
from the inside of me
that I dared
to turn to ashes.
Illusions
By Dimitris P. Kraniotis
Noiseless wrinkles
on our forehead
the frontiers of history,
shed oblique glances
at Homer's verses.
Illusions
full of guilt
redeem
wounded whispers
that became echoes
in lighted caves
of the fools and the innocent.
Dimitris P. Kraniotis is an award-winning Greek poet and the author
of 3 poetry books: Traces (1985), Clay Faces (1992) and Fictitious Line
(2005). He was born in 1966 in Stomio, a coastal town in central Greece.
He studied at the Medical School in Thessaloniki. He lives and works
as a medical doctor specialized pathologist in Larissa, Greece. He is
Founder & President of World Poets Society (W.P.S), Editor &
Director of 3 online poetic libraries, Editorial Director of the Greek
medical magazine "Hippocrates" and a member of several international
literary organizations. He has won a number of international literary
awards for his poetry (in Greece, USA, UK and France), which has been
translated and published in many countries around the World.
If Not Crusade?
by Gary Beck
Further additions
to the vocabulary of terror
are certain to emerge,
as the continuum of resistance
entangles more of our lives.
Our recently surfaced foes,
presuming to inherit
the stature of Cold War enemies,
are not entirely unlike
Renaissance banditi,
who lurked in isolated places,
practicing depredations,
then slunk back to obscurity
when destruction was accomplished.
21st century media, however,
fan the flames of violence
with instant worldwide communications
and graphic visuals
that reinforce the horrors of disaster.
And why are mainstream muslims silent,
except to infidel overreactions?
They may not have a pope
to speak for one religion,
but that doesn’t mean that the many voices
of self-appointed mid-east presidents,
generals, colonels, mullahs, imams,
other self proclaimed custodians
of the heritage of Mohammed,
should allow abusers of the faith
to kidnap the word of god
and carry out abominations in his name.
Throughout the Cold War,
the United Nations General Assembly
generally assembled and was hostage
to two conflicting powers,
or third world manipulations.
Now that the Soviet Union is no more,
the big, bad U.S. of A.
has inherited all the fear, resentment, hatred
that once was shared with the big, bad bear.
We are now engaged in a protracted war
that could become a clash of civilizations,
if responsible muslims don’t respond
to the anarchic excess of extremists,
or if western societies don’t recognize
the threat to their institutions,
and if the U.N. doesn’t defend
the future of mankind’s aspirations.
Gary Beck's poetry has appeared in dozens of literary
magazines. His recent fiction has been published in
numerous literary magazines. His chapbook 'The
Conquest of Somalia' will be published by Cervena
Barva Press. His plays and translations of Moliere,
Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced
Off-Broadway.
BLUE CROSS
by MK Ajay
Against a sky fractured
by stunted hills and a radio tower,
a blue cross is summoned into my sight -
a neon Christ.
This crucifix is not
suffering's symbol;
a pain suffered yesterday
could well become pleasure of memory tomorrow.
Its seeming solitude
gathers rain clouds
menacingly low
around the white-washed piety
of this old church, a sign that the first missionaries
or their sentiments
tenaciously overstayed.
From my living room's balcony
our little daughter asks me
if rain clouds stalk this blue cross
only after dusk, as thieves do.
THE SLOW PACE OF THINGS
by MK Ajay
I can feel
a bright yellow bead
blossom in a village yard,
red ants climbing
along its stalk
of morning freshness,
workers of this soil,
my nemesis
for gaining this garden's attention.
I see evanescence
in a rotting chikku fruit
dropped by a timid squirrel,
as he seems to recall
lessons learnt from his father
during several summers
of watching humans like me wonder.
This is ancestral land,
where even flight of white herons
and flap of their hasty wings
as they depart from ponds
belong only to timelessness.
Nothing else
can lay claim
to this rummaging squirrel
and the yellow blur of these flowers,
and the insipid forays of these ants.
I can feel moments stretching,
blossom again
into that same timelessness.
MK Ajay's poems have appeared in several publications such as Orbis,
Blue Fifth Review, Indian Literature, The Little Magazine, Cerebration, Niederngasse, Kavya Bharati, Ygdrasil, Crimson Feet, Chandrabhaga, Brown
Critique, Montreal Serai, Poetry Chain, Muse India, Kritya, Zone Magazine, Ampersand Poetry Journal, Quill & Ink and In our Words: A generation
defining itself.
He is the author of a book of short stories and two collections of poems, including a forthcoming title from Plainview Press (Austin, Texas).
He hails from Kerala, India, and currently lives in Kuala Lumpur.
Poetry from our May 2007 issue.
Strangers & Angels
By Howie Good
A stranger, they say, might be an angel
unrecognizable in the diffuse light
and the enigma of his arrival
who looks at you as through eyeholes
cut unevenly in a brown paper bag
and relates with ghostwritten words
the events which are about to transpire,
who feels a terrible need to confess
there's another person with your name,
the downcast face of a sunflower
after the birds have scoured it.
Howie Good, a journalism professor
at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Death of
the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills
Publishing. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals,
including Right Hand Pointing, Stirring, Flutter, The Rose &
Thorn, 2River View, Prairie Poetry, Poetry Bay, Juked, ken*again,
and Lily. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006.
Soldier Tears
By Kenneth Brown
One night in Iraq a soldier looked to the sky.
He posed a question to God as to why.
"Why all the fighting? I don't understand,"
Was the question he asked, as he stood in the sand.
He searched the heavens high above
Thinking "If we truly are one world, then where is the love?"
And that's when he saw it; shining so bright.
His question answered...a tear fell from his eye.
The kids always known it; now he knew it too,
The Little Dipper flies over, the Middle East too.
Kenneth Brown is an active Duty soldier
currently serving in Iraq
He is 37 years of age and comes from Byron, Georgia.
Neither Safe nor Saving
By Martins Iyoboyi
Our leaders are neither safe nor saving
and they have incurred the wrath of the land,
They are safe neither here nor abroad
nor is the hour of their punishment far,
For there is in the land
men and women of wasted days
who have had their collective heritage destroyed
And only wait for a song
to lead the way for expected hopes.
We neither shall be consoled by their imprisonment
nor by the angry words of both the young and old,
But must see to their end
which will not be long in coming
When as they have treated the commoners of the land,
They shall be publicly put to the sword
And all their acolytes and sycophants with them.
Martins Iyoboyi comes from Kano,
Nigeria.
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