Spring Issue #4

march 2011

tahrir square by colin fernandes (watercolour on paper) 16x11.5 inches

Poetry

Raphael Urweider post autumnfrom eight seasonsi did not invent thetrees but learn theirnames gave yoursto some they did not object and repeated itin the wind eventhe wind carries it wellfrom tree to tree to you. zoe's earring zoe you have lost an earringi stroke the grass like a sleeping animal zoe you have lost an earringi comb the grass like you your hair zoe i can't find your earringi feel the grass that is grey by night zoe your earring must be somewhere elsei have been kneeling for so long in the darkness before you zoe the air smells of earthi search in vain the soil is soft zoe maybe your earring is losti can find only twigs and stones in the grass zoe have just a little more patiencei remain on my knees and for your sake i search zoe you have lost an earringi will not give up till you have it again zoe you bend and help me in searchingi find the earring in your hair.the moonfrom a round dancelea when i look at the moonthat is slowly becoming fulli do not think of you themoon has nothing in commonwith you lea its pale its craggyits light bone-white surface doesnot resemble you in the least andstill dear lea i think of you whetheror not i see the slow full moonbecause even before i saw it leamost of all i was thinking of you. Raphael works as poet, translator and musician in Berlin. His first volume of poetry, Lichter in Menlo Park, was published in 2000. His second collection was Das Gegenteil von Fleisch (2003), and the latest Alle Deine Namen (2008).

Anindita Sengupta I am not part of your languageI, who yearned the unfamiliar, its cool touchlike a silk robe, its cruel thrills - you don't knowwhat I mean and the turning away - I now studythis continent between our skins, our roughand combustible boundaries. I try your footprints onfor size, and skid. Its a wreck. Its all lieswhen we speak, words like spiders skulkingin the bath. Their eyes are prophetic. Their legsleak blood. I ring the tub with preventive.This is more than I wanted: love as beautified disease.This is being assailed by the same germ repeatedlyuntil ones immunity breaks. This is losing,and us ceasing to remember what weve lost.This is love turning to hair on our tongues.AukFleshed with sawdust, tamped with glue,you sit upright in those ghoulish rooms,glass-eyed and unseeing. You grow languidwith memory: pink coral, shoals of angelfishflittering among seaweed, the beautifuland mute rituals of living--the way your body changed hueafter making love, the drowsy warmingof an egg as it lay like an enormous pearlin the sun, the luted sounds of its waking.And how the others started vanishinguntil one day they were gone, every last one,and you stood alone, a black and white speckwith bewildered eyes, clicking your beakat sea and sky. Nobody knowswhat dreams allowbut in the east wing, a door yawns.The guard tell me you glow in the dark.EveningLets talk of how we opened oysters to scent the evening.You meant the pearls as offering; I meant the evening.Shadowing each other up cobbled steps and backthis ishow we gathered the tides, the snow in Kent, the evening.Sandwich. Dover. Deal. The bus turned peripatetic:Black mountains outlined in mist, distant tents, the evening.Through that restless winter, we asked those worn questions--will you rent a movie? Shall I rent the evening?Wigs, wine, wickedness. We play at versions of self.Across the sky with silken squawks, white geese accent the evening.My eyelids remember him like a lash of rain,This memory is an absent one. Absent, the evening.Why don't you come in for once, he challenged with a sneer.How dark it gets outside. How imminent, the evening.Corridors are not rooms, Anu. In them, youll carve nothing,not a word, not a letter. You wont even dent the evening.Anindita is a poet and freelance writer in Bangalore, India. Her first collection City of Water was published by Sahitya Akademi in February 2010.

Neil Ellman Virs Heroicus Sublimis(after the painting by Barnett Newman, 1950-51) It is the primal scream of the riverAngelic bloodSome see fireSome a wound on theSplayed cadaver of the earthEmbarrassed by the sunHear, hear the wringing of handsThe red monthThe end is nearIt is told in the starsTold in crimson recriminationsIt is the color behind closed eyesA moment before the endWhen the universe bathesIn holy lightIt is the holiness of lightOnly the sky knowsThe mystical audacity of red.Piazza dItalia(after the painting by Giorgio De Chirico, 1913)The city has fallenCitizens packed in cattle carsOblivious to the sun.The sentries have fledShops boardedFlags taken downLibraries emptiedMuseums looted of historyThe rats, pigeonsAnd alley catsHave fled as wellOnly the two of us remainAbsorbed in ourselvesWondering if we are nextOr just the firstWhile in the vacant squareA granite goddessReclines on her pedestalSatisfiedThat her work is done.Cactus Man(after the charcoal drawing by Odilon Redon, 1881)So few of us leftIf anyThe cactus menHunted To extinctionSo few Giving succourTo the earthThe earth to usIt seemsI am aloneI defiedThe desert coldMy spinesDefined the heatAnd hunted Like a hareI compliedMy headBecame a prizeSkinnedTannedFilled Mounted on a standAs ifI were alive.Neil lives in New Jersey and his poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals throughout the world, as well as in five chapbooks of ekphrastic poetry, the most recent being Mirrors of Miró: Ekphrastic Reflections of the Art of Joan Miró.

Abhimanyu Singh Death in red Early morning Sleep tugs at the eyesLike a dog at a polythene bagHanging from a rubbish bin. This poem costs Five rupees to write. Amsterdam I Amsterdam Is pain in the knee, as if needles Being inserted for an operation without aenesthesia I walk, hold -ing my breath with every count Of two and releasing it at four; what else to do The dark, cold Night won't relent; the trams Don't stop and the cabs are all full I try not To give in to hate and anger Towards my lovely girlfriend who misjudged my Endurance To cold earlier, while weWent looking for the painters in De Wallen, Walking its narrow, cobbled streets looking at the birds in cages who sing their song at a price. Amsterdam II Amsterdam Is a coat that I want to buy And that she thinks to be unnecessary Since I have Little money to spare; I walk out and sit outside the shop, smoking My rolled up Cigarettes since I can't affordAny other 'real' ones. Later, we fight and she cries: Tears that would Almost freeze as they fall Down her cheeks; I feel so sad I could die. Amsterdam III Amsterdam Is snow falling like ash from a Huge joint being smoked up In the sky and pigeons Crossing the Street With you. Amsterdam Is the Cold wind blowing her hair away all over her face. Amsterdam Is a kiss we sneak in as theHard rain throws the umbrella above our heads,out of shpae. Amsterdam Is a song musicians play on the Streets, making me think of Spain and 50's Bollywood. Amsterdam Is the graffitti people paint on the Walls, breaking them down with each spray of colour. Amsterdam Is freedom served cold In a china bowl.Abhimanyu has worked as a cultural correspondent for The Metroplus and The Hindu and freelanced for The Caravan and The New Indian Express. He has made short films, acted in plays, played music and organised poetry readings. He recently read his poetry at a Poetry Across Borders event in Bangalore.

Amy Huffman Pretending Not To BeI am what is wrongwith my life.If only I could cut me outand paste meanywhere else.Far away.Out of sight.Out of sound.Out of reach.Of myself.I long to damage nowhere's air.I want to replace itwith every dropof my own.Till I am gone.Till I am empty.Till I am nothing.More than a nightmare dream.Released as a scream.In the dark. A Shining Thing's DescentListen to me.I have swallowed your reflection.Too many timesto lie.To the mirror of the lake.I am still a god.Only hollow.Your tears fallright through me.Becoming me.A river.Of regret?For sureI will holdall the timeit will takeyou.To forget.A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published her work in literary journals such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Eastern Rainbow, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, The Intercultural Writer's Review, Icon, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.

Meena Kandasamy Mulligatawny dreamsi dream of an englishfull of the words of my languagean english in small lettersan english that shall tire a white man's tonguean english where small children practice with smooth round pebbles in their mouth to the spell the right zhaan english where a pregnant woman is simply stomach-child-ladyan english where the magic of black eyes and brown bodies replaces the glamour in dishwater blue shadesand the airbrush romance of pink white cherry blossom skinsan english where love means only the strange frenzy between the man and his beloved, not between him and his caran english without the privacy of its many roomsan english with suffixes for respactan english with more than thirty-six words to call the seaan english that doesn't belittle brown or black men and womenan english of tasting with five fingersan english of talking love with eyes aloneand i dream of an englishwhere menof that spiky, crunchy tonguebuy flower-garlands of jasmineto take home to their coy wivesfor the silent demand of a night of wordless whispered love.Backstreet girlsTo the moral policeThis woman, she is a slut. And that girlover there, she is the glutton. And I ama bitch with tattoos on my lusty thighs.This dark lady has storm in her speech,That one strikes gold as part-time witch,And I am a shrew with summers in my name.Tongues untied, we swallow suns.Sure as sluts, we strip random men.Sleepless. There's stardust on our lids.Naked. There's self-love on our minds.And yes, my dears, we are all friends.There will be no blood on our bridal beds.We are not the ones you will choose for wives.We are not the ones you can sentence for life. ScrewtinyFor an affair:Trust any man who is allergic to children, Carries a civil war in his eyes, travels a lotAnd speaks up when you are subjectedTo society's customary stone-throwing.This hero has a history of scandals.He keeps secrets like slave-girls.Trust this man to never let you down,Or stannd you up, even if it involvesrising from the dead. Amen.For marriage:Trust a man only after you have dunkedHis head in buckets of freezing water.Trust all the truth spilling out of himWhen you have slipped, like soap on skin,Rusty pins under his toenails. Eyes wide openTrust him as you take him on an electric danceThat makes his penis sing. Test him to trust him.Detest him to trust him. Trust a man through faithIn all forms of torture, which is how men trust each other.Meena Kandasamy is a poet, writer, activist and translator. She has published two collections of poetry, Touch (2006) and Ms Militancy (2010). Currently, she is a Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at the School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.

Bill Herbert Slow Animals CrossingLemurs somehow, at that lilt of the roadup and sideways at the trees, stooping throughthe farmyard on the way to Derrybeg.Surely there are slower creatures who could cross:turtles with their solemn wiping gaitor sloths who swim as though to sinkis no disgrace, such aqualungs of air would betrapped among their matted spider hair.I think of water since that night was full of itand white frogs leapt into my lightslike chewing gum attemptingto free itself from tarmac. And I think of lemurswhenever I see that sign with its red lettersbecause of the night, and the storyof the three men walking home, and the manon the left said 'goodnight' to someone elseand the man on the right, 'goodnight' to someone elseand the man in the middle asked whowere they talking to? And one had seen a manand one had seen a woman, and bothdescribed the third man's parents, turning offat the road to the graveyard. And when I thought of lemurs I'd forgotten they were namedfor the Latin word for spirits, and I only saw,crawling slowly in my mind across the night roadback to my parents' house and my daughter,the bandit eyes and banded tails and soft grey backsand the white hands of lemurs, delicately placedupon the twist and the shrug of the road.HieroglyphicThe hawk that shears the hedge then steadies, heldabove the verge by urgent need, he isold Egypt's sillouette, the pictogramfor 'kill'. There is a lock to which he iscontinually the key that must releasea narrow death from everywhere in air.He is the tender axe that has to fall.Tyne TunnelThese days I tune in speciallyas I approach the tunnel, hoping forsopranos, pianistic flourishes,colouristic passages, as I pay and windmy window up, switch on dipped lightsand descend to the river's underbelly.The static comes in swells, quite leisurely:it pulls itself over the voice, the strings,it shushes, couries, smothers, sinks,and then it reigns like poison in the lug,a crush of other traffic, a scrape and drag -cans across rock, silt through gills: the gully.I always feel it will be troubled bysome voice that breaks in witha songyou only hear down here: the tonguecompressed, half-ham, half-Janacek;the message cold, eruptive, wrecked -but there's nothing till sunlight and, gradually,the same tune altered by the weight of water. Bill Herbert teaches at Newcastle University. Recent publications include Three Men on the Metro (2009) and Writing Poetry (Routledge 2010).

Lalnunsanga Ralte CherawI cannot place it in terms of the bigger picturebut it's somewhere south of where i am; here,a place that is built on some great mercy of Providencewith houses teethering on cliffs.We are known for our dance that has bamboos snapping at ankles,as our young men and women, dressed in traditions best, hop in and out.The essence is in rythm and balance,one wrong movement could lead to disaster. one-two three-four one-two three-fourThis dry and dusty place boasts of small towns and big houses,with comprehensive differences in warmth and sizes.Out of these, the hopes of future generations,hardly able to walk with pants worn at knees,and shoes that can feed a family for months.(but what is food compared to the latest fashion)Subbing identity for brands, a living,breathing advertisment.and in their coolest,hippiest ignorance,sing along to an apt tune"Pretty fly for a white guy"(O well, you know he doesn't really get it anyway) one-two three-four one-two three-fourWe also have our share of democracy's champions; the politicians,who in years of election give huge contributions to charity and churches.(for votes.....keep your salvation)Then the righteous elders that go home to ignored wives and children,and illegitimate grandchildren,that sit around a table for a perfect family portrait, and pray,to a God that does not live within them.we also have our revivals, as the crowds go,in throngs, to see the magic show.The deaf hear, the dumb speak, the children see,visions of angels and Christ; slowly,convincing ourselves of strengh in our shaky faith.Multitudes would bow in awe at the spectacle but, if in a single raindrop or a humming insect you do not see the miracle then you do not see God. one-two three-four one-two three-fourA word of praise for our ingenuity,we do not have liquor here, but we find inventive ways to get high,off household appliances and medicines.Mean those meant to fix meant for a fix.And Jim, poor Jim.He's hanging on a shoestring.The diluted blood in his veins ran cold.His relief from pain became his pain.And in the songs of mourning and accompanying drums,mother would cry, "...it's my fault!"Silent father would whisper, "..it's my fault."In the corner of each isolated spot,they would discover,repentence,regain the rythm to the dance,but Jim, poor Jim,He is dead. one-two three-four one-two three-fouruntitledI grow weary of metaphors and analogies and images,Of sea creatures, landscapes, folk tales and stars.Food on my table, ground beneath my feet and burning hydrogen gas.But you are here and you are beautiful,and all my words, strewn together into a blanket of clever sentences,will neither keep you warm nor shelter you from rain.Perhaps some hapless lover will muse upon these these wordsbut soon replaced by,a box of chocolates,an overpriced perfume and a dozen decaying roses,and my words crumpled and stuffed into a pocket of memory called forgotten.But i do realise that the world will not stop for me and i will notstop for the world.I'm a writerI'm a poetI am.Lal works as an English teacher at Christian Academy College, and Mizo Modern Higher Secondary, Shillong. He spends his time drinking tea and awaiting MPhil results.

Smarika DirgeAnd now the fields lie black and coldSmoke rising, a rested dragon.But not so in the bright afternoonWhen it was awake and roaring highSnorting ethereal flamesOrange against a deep blue skyHis black sins flyingWith the gray ash and dustAnd little flitting swallowsBoldly daring each otherTo dive into its mouth.Can orange change their blackOr will it awardWith a brighter sheen.Or will the swallowsFly away for fear of the heat.Do not bother the angry dragonSome say, look how it is spreadSubmit to it, they urgeFor after all, orange is better.Stronger is its fireThan the afternoon sunWhat do we care nowWhen its all been done.The orange seems better indeedPowerful, bright, beautifulit has not hid the sunFrom the swallow's eyes.They try getting near.Swallow, swallow the fire wholeThey try getting near.Swallow, make the fire cold.And now the fields lie black and oldSmoke rising, a rested dragonFed by the swallows who decided to die.LeslieI saw you in a white kameezBrown from the Indian heatA rucksack, a weathered shieldTo pull against you when unsure. Your hair, light brown and curlsFalling soft against your sleepy faceAs you adjusted on your berthThe book you were reading fold.Till you woke up in sudden terrorSurprised perhaps to find you thereStrange land, strange peoplePerhaps you were dreaming of Massachusettsian grass?I asked if you were alrightYou smiled a bit and calmed downYou talked to me and said "hi"And told me your name. Leslie.You sat against the window openAs fierce wind broke the rattle of trainThe contours of age in your faceShadowed by the dying sun.You spoke of museums and my gray landOf folios and a thousand-year-old manuscriptsOf if I was Hindu, neigh, a warriorYeah, I said, I battle in ideas.You were surprised I could spell your name rightThat I could talk demography, culture and wineAnd you laughed when you saw I carried a suitAnd I, when you brushed your teeth five in the afternoon.You wanted to learn, I had a book'Mother Pious Lady', and you hated kids, hehOnboard 7309 Down, seats one and sevenAh well, I have not much more to say.Then several hours, the train stoppedWhere from your land, had come that explorer firstI'd slept, and you were a dreamOf water from sea spraying against rocks.Smarika is from Bokaro, a small town in Jharkhand, and is currently studying law. She has a forthcoming poem in the feminist journal, Manushi.

Nicholas Wong Thirty-One SummersWhen I was six, I squatted next to ma when she painted her toenails in cheap cherry, bloody and glossy red. I sniffed her toes. My heart beat faster. Then, she smiled. Each summer, she put on her new sandals and took me to the beach, where she could roll up her silk dress and let her lanky legs get some tan and attention. She left me alonewith my sand castles, which later must fall into pieces either because of brainless bulldozers or busy waves. The water, so dutiful, washed away everything: memories, happiness and youth. One day, she picked me up after school in a downpour. She slipped, but she still held her umbrella up high. My classmates laughed, covering their toothless mouths with stupid dirty hands. I didn't laugh. I looked away, embarrassed. Then, we walked home with our arms crossed. Our wetted skins touched. I remembered that was the first time her body offered no warmth. We walked more slowly than usual. Our feet, soaked in puddles, walked against the black slanted rain.Tonight, my mom fanned herself on the couch, wearing my favourite shorts ten years ago. Her legs, now pale and thin, could hardly bend. The edged toenails, like crusted pins, were late for restoration work. Anne Carson says the pain of losing a lover is to watch a year repeat its days. I don't realize I love my mother until this summer, until her ache repeats day after day when she picks up from the floor her fallen hair, until she doesnt notice her hair has fallen.Nicholas is the winner of Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (Oct 2010) and a nominee for Best of the Net 2010 and Best of Web 2011 Anthologies. His poetry is forthcoming in Assaracus: Journal of Gay Poetry, Prime Number Magazine, Pirenes Fountain, and the Sentinel Champion Series among others. He is currently a poetry editor for THIS Literary Magazine. Visit him at http://nicholasybwong.weebly.com.

Kamal Kumar Tanti DeathWho cries (at) whose death?The poor haplessMimicked the Old Kachari1At the end of a confined adoration,Reaches the banks of the river.Perhaps,All rivers dont have shoals.Dead before DeathWe saluted him for the last timeBut we knew,He died a dogs death.We lay flowers on his corpse for the last timeBut we knew,He was vile as fox.We laid him in the graveBut we didnt knowThat quite under his graveHad always been the voiceless gravesOf our own selves.Long Shadows of Reminiscence(1)First showers of the Monsoon, and the earth and sky washed, awash. Green, I am Green.And green is my world. My people too are green.Who am I ? And who are we ? Do you, can you, recognize me?I come from the crafted roots of tea plants. Green tea plants, greener stillAnd in their roots and soil do our lives and our souls lie coded, enfolded.The forest, faraway, and I wonder that my roots there got uprooted where was it?And how was it that the dry earth, the bald hillsThose trees and river and stream got left behind long agoMy beloved left behindThe forest and the forest songs that echoed through it left behind long lost in time.The Karam4 night, it was when it had happened. Our everything left behindThe joyous drumming of the Madol5, it then became the rhythms of sorrow, of lossAnd the dawn that the night broke into, it let us see one last time our river, our home.Our home, it slipped out of my grandfathers old shrunk arms, his shriveled embraceAlas ! Fate and its games his resigned voice then floated in the air, unto me.Reminiscence, utter reminiscence!Long and deep shadows of reminiscence!(2)My roots, and house and home and forest, my village All that I had left behind, in the folds of lost time.Where was it that my traces were once alive ?Medinipur or Bankura or was it Kalahandi?Where else?How were the wind, the rain and the dazzle of sunshine?And the trees and birds and hills left behind?The colour of our earthThe colour of our trees and its clinging creepersThe colour of our skin,Of our clouds and the skyThe colour of our swimming fish and fluttering butterfliesHow were those colours of my past?These colours of my reminiscence And the treesThe lovely loving birds of my reminiscenceAnd the green, green leavesCan you return them to me?The life throbbing in my reminiscence, I wish it true, true unto me.My deep long shadows of reminiscence.(3)Green gardens of green tea plants and fragrance of their fresh leaves- Reminiscence of those daysSwirls and curves of the rivers and the scatter of pebbles along the shores- Reminiscence of those nightsTree, every tree and the lovely loving birds- Reminiscence of glitter of days lit in sunshineHuman bodies bloodied and soiled, and the weeping of the deathly owls- Reminiscence of sheer nights lost in darknessEvery page in my book of reminiscenceGive it back to meI wish it back.My deep long shadows of reminiscence.Kamal is a bilingual poet and writer in English and Assamese. He belongs to the Adivashi Tea-garden Labourer Community in Assam. His first collection of poetry Marangburu Amar Pita (Our Father Marangburu) won him the Munin Barkotoki Literary Award for 2008.

Raphael Urweider
Anindita Sengupta
Neil Ellman
Abhimanyu Singh
Amy Huffman

Raphael Urweider
Anindita Sengupta
Neil Ellman
Abhimanyu Singh
Amy Huffman
Meena Kandasamy

© elena ray

Prose

Photo Essay Most of the pictures here have tried to capture people who have been, for their own personal reasons, driven beyond social norms of connection to feel isolated and lonely Sometimes voluntarily, to show their rebellious disapproval to social connections or sometimes simply to accept defeat for not being able to cope.Nishant is a final year MBBS student currently based in Dehradun from Varanasi. Travel, human behavior, music and Varanasi are his inspirations.

god's lonely people

by nishant ohri

Sketches

Local

Have a Nice Day!

Charu Kartikeya is a journalist based in New Delhi, presently working as reporter-anchor with Lok Sabha Television.

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