Many years ago, people said "Radio waves are harmful"
100 years later, the list of 'waves' is rather scary
radio, television, GPS, shortwave, WiFi, smart phones,
tablets
computers, transmitters, smart meters, satellite dishes,
etc.
like walking running through an invisible fog
computer and cell phone reception on Mt. Everest.
How rare to live in a remote canyon or valley 'off the grid'
to live in a house with no TV, cell phone computer tablet
no smart meters for electric usage bills
numbers received in a hand held device 20 feet or more away
miniature transmitters sending number signals constantly
no one needed to log in the numbers by hand
Perhaps there are faraway places in jungles
North and South Poles, remote islands
having considerably less amounts of media frenzy
no electricity for smart meters and microwave ovens
Now, in public schools with WiFi beamed in, not hard wired
school children having headaches, difficulty concentrating
plus other various costs of the computer age
and advanced civilization…
…lives in Chichester NY. She is an artist, musician, and poet. She loves nature, and is always outside, doing gardening and lawn duties at eighty years young. She is a non-electronic gadget person, and proud of that. Books are her life, after art. She sells her artwork locally around Woodstock. She replies to all snail mail. Address is: 3 Rion Road, Chichester, NY 12416
when you’re silent, you say the most,
when you dream, you see the most.
elephants wake to the orchestra inside you
—for the first time the hunters are scared by their own trumpets.
take a look inside yourself while you’re taking care not to
tread on the grass.
in the room there’s the smell of all the nights
we failed to create. the stars fell asleep, waiting
on the floor. there are still traces on the stained tiles, insignificance
like a shadow lurking between outlines.
we will go without getting angry
at the flowers to the dance that turned purple to yellow.
in the night fan we missed another prayer.
—mental dust
which in the cosmos plays out the saddest dream.
winner of the Enhalon prize 2018
[само малку молитва]
кога си тивок тогаш најмногу зборуваш,
кога сонуваш тогаш најмногу гледаш.
се будат слоновите со оркестарoт во тебе
—ловџиите за прв пат се плашат од сопствените труби.
гледај во себе додека внимаваш да не ја настапнеш тревата.
во собата мирисаат сите ноќи
кои не успеавме да ги создадеме. ѕвездите заспаа чекајќи
на подот. по извалканите плочки сѐ уште траги, маленкоста
како сенка се крие помеѓу фугите.
ќе си заминеме без да се лутиме на
цвеќињата, на танцот кој го претворил виолетовото во жолто.
во вентилаторот на ноќта испуштаме уште една молитва
—ментална прашина
што во космосот го игра најтажниот сон.
.hidden scripture
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
don’t forget the written
words, the voices that subdued
the joy of your voice.
unite the cities, move the
bridges.
in the centre place a fighter, move
the white capturing piece, do not worry,
the winners
write it down.
.скриено писмо
не заборавај ги напишаните
зборови, оние гласови кои ја покорија
радоста на твојот глас.
обедини ги градовите, помести ги
мостовите.
во средината постави борец, пушти
го белиот ловец, не грижи се,
оној кој победува
запишува.
.the forgotten stool everyone should sit
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
proud of our past
unstable in the present
we tremble before the future
we cut down trees although we know
that a football pitch can’t be built on a hill
where the goalposts can’t be seen
we run uphill with stones in our pockets
the doors and windows don’t creak anymore,
but behind them the same snobs throw us away
like spoiled pickled food, they don’t smell us,
they throw us in the cellar as destroyed,
invalid evidence.
true values, right?
we/they are all managers of the office for
lost reasonable opinions.
one day I’ll take all the flags waving in vain
and I’ll put them in a washing machine.
they all need to be washed—together.
with the same washing powder and the same softener.
because that should be the new freedom!
we float in life like a plastic bag in the wind
in a full-length silent film. the ones who don’t realize it,
even more so.
great people leave, little sweethearts come
—except for the ones found on the shore.
will they achieve greatness or will unease eat them up?
amid crudeness, stupidity and vanity galore
everyone looks for their place under the sun to scream their heart out
about everything weighing down on their soul.
we want to be cherries, yet we’re worms, hidden inside them.
a mandala made of sand left in the storm,
until someone stops breathing
—we’ll keep on destroying ourselves.
.заборавениот троножец на кој сите треба да седнеме
горди на минатото
нестабилни во сегашноста
се тресеме на иднината
сечеме дрвја иако знаеме
дека фудбалскиот терен не се гради на рид во кој
головите не се гледаат
трчаме по угорница со камења во џебовите
вратите и прозорците повеќе не крцкаат,
но позади нив истите снобови како расипана зимница
не фрлаат, не нѐ мирисаат,
не расфрлаат во депото како уништени,
невалидни докази.
нели вистински вредности?
сите с(м)е директори на канцеларијата за
изгубени здраворазумни ставови.
еден ден ќе ги соберам сите знамиња кои залудно се веат
и ќе ги ставам во перачка машина.
на сите им треба перење и тоа—заедно.
со ист прашок за перење и ист омекнувач.
оти тоа би требало да биде новата слобода!
лебдиме во животот како пластично ќесе на ветрот
во долгометражен нем филм. оние кои не препознаваат,
уште повеќе.
големите луѓе си одат, мали срценца доаѓаат
—освен оние најдени на брегот.
ќе станат ли и тие големи или јанѕата ќе ги изеде?
во раскошот на грубоста, глупоста, ништожноста,
секој си бара место за да си извика
сѐ она што му тежи на душичката.
сакаме да бидеме цреши, а црви сме, скриени во нив.
мандала сме од песок оставена на бура,
се додека некој не престане да дише
—ќе продолжиме да се уништуваме.
…was born on 11 November 1983, in Skopje, Macedonia. He writes poetry, short stories, essays and journal articles. He also writes haiku, senryu, renga and publishes them on the microblogging network twitter. His works have been translated and published in numerous anthologies, poetry books and journals for art and literature in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Egypt, USA, Argentina, Russia, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Bulgaria…
He has published the poetry collections: Ice Water (BCC, Serbia 2011), Anthologist (2014), Hidden Letter Anthologist (2019), Linear. Numbers (Macabeo, 2021) and won several awards and recognitions including: Enhalon, presented by the Struga Poetry Evenings; Angelo La Vecchia Prize in Sicily, Italy; Prizes at the “Poetic Literary Sparks” Poetry Slam in Prilep; Struga Waves in Struga; and many more.
He is the president of the Association for Cultural Development and Protection of the cultural heritage “Context – Strumuca,” an organizer of the global poetry event “100 Thousand Poets for Change,” a representative of the World Union of Poets and the School of Poetry–Macedonian Delegation, One of the founders of the Antevo Slovo and Antevo Per” Awards, and Editor of strumicaonline.net and reper.net.mk. He also is a conceptual artist and has had several exhibitions, installations, performances, scenography and multimedia projects in Norway, France, Italy, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria… And he organizes cultural and art events, collaborates with youth, art, film and theatre festivals.
Translator's Note: Pek-êng Koa was formerly incarcerated for 16 years due to two charges of robbery. "My Probation Plea is Rejected Again" was created around 2007 and 2008.
…is an award-winning Taiwanese poet, he is also a teacher and a campaigner for the creative writing of poetry in Taiwanese language. “My Probation Plea Is Rejected Again” was from his poetry A Firefly in the Fence(2010), published by the Tainan City’s Bureau of Culture.
…is a writer and translator from Taiwan, her short fiction and poems can be found in Hennepin Review, Kitaab, Story Sanctum, and e-ratio, among other literary journals.
the morning sun rises in all its glory
to dusky rose colored clouds, tinting the world,
but from the west comes an ominous dark wall
high above the land, dosing fast.
rain drops begin to descend, softly, gently.
tears from heaven to cares the soul.
sultry as smoke, a wall of rain approaches
a deluge to wash away winter's last clutches.
quickly the last pockets of snow melt away.
uncovering the grey of stone walls long covered
soon will come the green of spring but all there is today
are a fow jonquils, hyacinths, and crocuses—spring's promise.
quickly the rain passes, leaving all shiny in its wake
as the swallows come out, in all there glory
to swoop and dance in the wind practicing their aeronautic prowess.
afternoon falls, darkness descends
and the snow once again begins to fall
and so i sigh, dreaming of the sun's warmth,
as i wait for the dawn anew.
hope
so beautiful
yet so fragile
hopes are easily dreamed
but so quickly dashed
we hope for the stars
and won't accept less
we are crushed
when what we don't want happens
but aren't thankful when it does
hope…
we need hope
but we shouldn't expect
shouldn't ask for what we don't need
yet we do
we should accept the little blessings
for what they are
tiny glimmers of hope
be thankful for friends and family
he glad to be alive in this beautiful world
and the rest
well
the rest is negotiable…
…heaped up chaos of knowledge
which fails to have an external effect…
—Nietzsche
denying our disdain for the loneliness of honesty
we emerge in these capitalistic space-time territories
where to be courageous you must hunt
beyond the bounds of automatable actions
staying at least one step ahead of the exponential hunger
as totalities fiend to feed off our labor:
this constant conversion of potential into actions
we devise devices to combat the need
to feel grounded in any given place & any given time
we manipulate ourselves with screens
distorting our sense of presence
with far off times & far off places, as if soon
we'll never think
(thanks to this grace of our disgraces) to be where &
when we are
transforming "when" & "where" into all time, all places
but please, let's not deny our purpose
let us instill intention into this attention
would you perhaps pretend to bother
would you perhaps pretend to bother
now that my current has begun its seduction
(dear timbre of distracted trees) now
my mind’s continuous & chaotic river
pulls you along as driftwood wishing to be burnt:
will you perhaps pretend to bother
to be my equal, my friend, my merging water?
the chaotic & continuous river of my mind
hostile & bitter, nourishing & sweet—this river
is playful deceptive, defiant, contiguous
rivers accept all confluence but mine contains residue
from Santa Fe, Austin, & New Orleans,
stretching from Sḥem to Jerusalem
& roaring with the ambiguous sounds of musical intent
—do I dare submerge you
into the unseen world of emerging re-emergences
merging—as equals, as friends, as water?
would you perhaps pretend to bother
to prevent malicious voices of the dead
from igniting false fires of renewal—those voices
that consume all that has yet to merge
with the water?
please merge, my merging, friendly water…
my mind’s chaotic & continuous river
carries your rolling body, soaked but still separate from me,
more present than any molecule & sharper than any atom:
pretend, pretend, pretend to bother
to be my equal, my friend, my merging water
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever
so many generations hence.
—Whitman
our future is not the future if we choose
to hide what we don’t choose: mortality
is not a mask we wear like relative morality
blind to its ends & aimed at exhausting what we know of
mortality,
like the lifespan of a picture presenting some present
as impressive because more important than choosing
is to be chosen: seducing potentialities sings immortality
actualities! potentialities! being human & being born
into the condition of choosing choices that forget
the disdainful desire of being chosen to help
in this endless string of bearing: bear the future,
bear the present,
bear these projected fractions of the self
presented to impress whoever might next approach:
new patterns emerge from the pain
of our having chosen & our having been chosen
because once the desire to defer presence was entertained
time & distance formed—allowing us to betray
one another, forming tears that tear out pain
of actual sadness from potential futures:
thinking of how everyone eventually will have been
we are all statisticians, analyzing time & space
for the pleasure of losing ourselves between patterns:
pattern forming—pattern finding—each pattern
a seductive song
so go measure—measure & then deduce probable solutions
how do abstract thoughts suggest that they can affect?
whether as geometer or statistician, our wonder
ought to discover the pleasure enjoyed by those who
impart projections of future forces to imagined objects
because even abstract objects have the power to
affect the world:
from the rivers of Babylon to the mountains of Sinai
from the cedars of Lebanon to the salt of the Dead Sea
all these times, places & songs—once measured—
can be chosen
……founded Jerusalism, a non-profit organization to promote Israeli literature in English. He is a PhD student at Hebrew University, researching the intersection of modernist art and orality through a study of David Antin’s talk-poems, and is an OWL Lab Fellow.
on a kite string you fly me
then cut me adrift
with your own hand
to float on air
in the passage of seasons
the flight of geese
carried by the breeze
spinning and sailing
ever further and away
keeling when it sags
to sink among trees
snagged by a runner
as spoils of conquest
claimed by strange hands
by right of possession
used willfully then
harnessed and tied
to unfamiliar strings
raised once more to fly
and ripple in the wind
its dance and the surge
could still entrance
but severed in a duel
swept away by the draft
i am seized yet again as bounty
straight out of a fickle sky
so captured and surrendered
in casual repetition
riding ever degraded strings
in the hands of fortune-hunters
my colors fast declining
my garments wearing thin
patched up for tears
dispirited now and dull
flickering but damply
spent and shabby
i fall at last
to a gaggle of street boys
who brawl and bicker
over a patched-up thing
and tear it to pieces
in rivalry and spite
the one most irate
snaps the spine in two
cracks the bow
shreds and crumples what is left
tosses it on the roadside
kicks dust over it
looks about for other game
all broken and torn
i am but scraps
of the paper kite I was
fooled by the fable
of a momentary release
it was just sport for you
but a worn piece of thread
still locked in a knot
you tied with your hand
binding spine and bow
to equip me to fly
remains as a relic
in the wreckage that is left
furnace of galaxies
virtual in cyberspace
a cypher and
a dot
digital breath
waves of sound
no flesh
no bones
cyphers and dots
meeting
cyphers and dots
across riven continents
littered oceans
a wilderness of black ice
phyllium forests abuzz
stir and fuss
of cybernetic insects
hammer and din
over deserts
of white hot sand
over wastelands of burnt rock
whispered vibrations
in virtual ears
cuddles
in virtual arms
qalandar condor
wings thrashing
storms spectral lips
strokes and scours
and shreds
with ghostly talons
tears into phantom
belly and entrails
plop
plop
astral stones bubble
molten in flaming lakes
furnace of galaxies
fizzing endlessly
jets of heat
seethe singing
galactic light
burbling
spilling over
babbling in concentric ripples
scattering
clumsy wares
a cosmic potter’s wheel
churning swirls of stars
crude
suns and moons
comets
and planets fired
glazed and burnished
celestial dregs
candescent debris of eternity
immeasurable space
nothing
purgatory in perpetual dissolution
mutation
trance
trans
cyphers and
dots meeting
cyphers
and dots
splatter in a virtual eye
arsenic
on a virtual tongue
a virtual palm
salted for prayer
a virtual heart
pumping plasma
through cyber thoroughfares
cyphers dots
burning slag
flooding galactic highways
holding back I refuse
that gift of life
toward which I have traveled
all these long years
without knowing
where I was headed
till ready to slip away
without regret or rancor
seeking even fondly
that state of not being
existing without
awareness of existence
without self
or sense of self
and this forbearance
launches us
into orbits
far from each other
where we shall not
cross paths
in dimensions of time
we know
yearning incomplete lost
pulled into another world
into other worlds
until the collapse of time
in the collapse of space
that instant
which allows us
to tear through curtains
of separating life screens
crash through spun glass
of gossamer fancies
hurtling towards a tryst
that is written into our lives
certain beyond doubt
and possible only then
at the very end
when hours are dust
and dust a flash of light
we dream the impossible
long for something
that cannot be
and what is imagined
is rendered probable
all that has ever occurred
all that is happening
all that will transpire
converge and come together
held all at once
in this moment
that must be ours
an instant that unites
and so reunites us
in a transitory gleam
in the glassworks of the imaginary
that seizes the real
and preserves it forever
in the moment
of its obliteration
…has published four collections of poetry,a literary travelogue about his experiences as a fellow of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa, and a couple of edited anthologies of Pakistani literature. He served as translation editor and contributor for Modern Poetry from Pakistan, a Pakistan Academy of Letters project supported by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, and is the Ellen Douglass Leyburn Professor of English at Agnes Scott College, where he teaches courses in literature and creative writing.
Somewhere deep inside me
Is a longing for a place I never was
In a time I’ve never been
In a home I never had.
There is a feeling that belongs
To a person I never occupied.
There is a dream that is
More real than any reality.
It is a bird that flies through the
Night and can never land,
Whose home is my breast.
Blanks blanks
Another shouted
Smoking gun in hand
As a man crumpled
To the ground
One night long ago,
Just as another man
Shouts blanks blanks
As democracy crumples
To the ground
These days.
Sitting next to a piano
In the dim light from another room
Reaching for an ivory key from memory
An echo from long ago
Sitting on a couch behind my aunt
As she sat on her piano bench
Both hands tentatively fingering the keys
How I loved her graceful movements
In my youth perhaps I felt that
If I could only fill the world with love
Perhaps I could feel its echo.
I’ve often wondered what would
The histories of the future be.
Would they be as far from the mark
As the futures of our many pasts?
Would our pessimisms or optimisms
Prove as unfounded as our other
Beliefs and prejudices
That betray us? Silence and
Inaction are the unsung heroes
Who would save our lemming selves
From running off the cliffs
Unwittingly.
…was born in Columbus Ohio, USA, in 1947. He graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in Psychology. He served in both the US Army and the Israeli Defense Forces. Mike moved to Israel in 1978 and lives in Raanana. He has self-published ten books of poetry, four novels, a book of short stories, and a book of essays. Mike is married to Talma. They have 3 sons and 8 grandchildren.
(Inter)National Poetry Month is a time to celebrate poets and their craft—in the U.S. and worldwide. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your expressiveness or your pure charm, to delight and to show the importance of sharing thoughts, activities, nature, pain, joy—the descriptive words go on and on…
Poetry is a special oration that reminds us of the important role of poets and their poetry in our cultures.
“Poetry helps us appreciate the world around us and empathize with one another. Typically, we think of poetry as boring and nerdy but this month allows us to change our perspectives and look upon poetry as a rhythmic art of expressing one’s love and thoughts.”
The spring winds of April are coming fast on the streams of March’s melting snow. We are looking to catch those elusive poems blowing in the wind to share with many. So…April comes quickly and blows by swiftly.
We invite you to join us and express yourself. Share a poetic expression of yourself, your life, and experiences. We want to hear from you! 🫵🏽
the wind has sticky fingers
it likes to play with us
upon a hillside lingers
to grab our papers thus
off we go, running to fetch
our work we don’t want to lose
running fast i try to catch
my paper which chose to cruise
like a dove upon the wind
free of the earth's restraints
i should have thought and pinned-it
i’m losing it oh good saints
oh wind you won this race today
against the likes of me
for tomorrow oh do not dismay
for i’ll wear sneakers you see!
Review these submission guidelines. NOTE: In addition to what is written in the guidelines, for the April Inter(National) Poetry Month submissions, please put: April Poetry Blog in the subject line of your email.
While it is mentioned in the guidelines, we remind you to send the poetry in a single file, up to 3 poems for this call for poetry. Include a bio either at the end of the poetry file or in a separate file. You may include a few links to prior publications. Please include any social media links you want us to share below your bio. If you are including a headshot photo, include it as a separate, hi-resolution JPG file (please not a thumbnail size).
The BeZine 