CELEBRATING POETS Random Editor's Choice OLD AGE TEAR How quietly look in the eyes when a smile dies
cold tears flowing in a bright old eye
like a content flowing from the shore to a quiet shore where youth has been blooming tears tones in gray verses of poems wrinkled with the face mount like a camel with two humps for a purse the old cheeks in a poverty meal mouth with cold wrinkled from the frost gibberish in the language of the unknown pronunciation alphabet which was known for Hammer frightened in a curative of the cursed time on the tidy gray hair gave a silk chord in the melodic symphony he played on his cheeks with a note he sang in the heavens in the seventh sky beauty kept in dry cerach In ashes the body of her before turning wrinkles will give up equality in a blind street, these eyes will close. Where a black devil will play in the old bones time to put a worried head in the cool ground and let it dance over the body eyes from old age with tears dried leaving without a voice in lavender fields the Angelic triumph would play on the harps white angels let the black granite raise on the cross blood covered with a human stain. let the bad of the spear celebrate suffering. © Tadeusz Grela POLAND The Legacy of Slavery The memory, a furnace
Built up in my heart; And my lachrymose Can't puff it off. Worst still, is its advancement We are swimming in. We are not ourselves Eurobirthed into a disarray. We are being robbed of Moral judgement; And distributing anything ours In the praises of nonauthochthons. What is our offense? The modern slavery is aching; Our leaders are their missiles. Why can't we think us? Oh, the japa! We subscribe to slavery Now, ourselves. Imagine Nigeria's top deeds Against Niger Republic! This memory, a story Our children must hear in the moonlight. What our forefathers suffered Now, modernized, the worst! There were events for stories And History uncurriculumed. Listen, my child. Whom you see now Staring and whispering to you, Is an image of our fatherland Now, placed in the middle Of the widest and deepest sea; With his hands tied to his trunk Making the swimming impossible. My children, hear me, I have been robbed of myself; The self of abundant resources To enrich outside our borders. My senior children are used as a missile Against my family to satisfy the offshore! Help me tell your likes; The now generation must know That, whoever uses your father, as a serf Will never mean anything well for you. © Ikwulono Mohammed Senison NIGERIA The Night dusky beauty holding thousands of mysteries enveloping with darkness, profound provokes curiosities with its scenic silence the camouflage of treasures of starry skies exuded by incandescent decor creates magical Arcadian romance beneath the firmament sleeps the whole universe in a stupor state leaving all stress behind resting in most tranquility and peace far away from somewhere a tinge of tangerine hue glimmers, provides hope though... darkness encapsulates the entire clime swaying arms of sleep induces stupor to all the mankind after days' long labor finding some trance beneath the charcoal skies stillness has got serenity too hushed darkness speaks a lot, though of relaxation, of calmness and magnificent repose! © Seema Sharma INDIA MY FLOWER is MY POETRY If you were a flower, what would you be? Me? I'd love to be a Gumamela! This 'complete' flower has a filament that is always heavily laden with pollen ~ attracting butterflies and hummingbirds! Known as Hibiscus, this wilting flower only lasts for a day, then it closes, curls, and falls off. Nonetheless, this flamboyant flower blooms all year round! It comes in many lovely colors: red, yellow, white, and even purple. That is how I want my poetry to be ~ simple, varied, and blooming! © Maria Evelyn Quilla Soleta
aka Hibiscus PHILIPPINES DELIVERY What is your delivery to others? What do you deliver? The same package of feelings That others gave to you Or something else? Take care to your delivery Of words, facts, reactions! If the package is not ok Just leave it at the door. © Bogdana Gageanu ROMANIA Time to Switch Up Not suitable for the faint of mind You been you for decades You live life in your own shell You don't know someone is ruling you The world has always been in color Music fills a quiet soul You counted time in white lines
and the body was moving even casually Time goes by so fast like a bat You sneak looking in the mirror Knowing that gloomy mode turned you over You hide your face with great fall. Your deeds are not forgotten The light in the tunnel won't highlight anything You will leave like a bird into the unknown No word will be left from this wicked The gates will not be that gracious You didn't help others with harm You won't be able to see over the shoulder You will be left alone to wander in misery. © Tadeusz Grela POLAND IN LOVE WITH AN ANGEL Say to your groping heart, hush, and to your skeptical mind, be still! I have sainted my soul to your extol, For your sake I've scrubbed my filthy hand. And the pristine blood of the lamb has also purged my hellish heart. Speak and thy servant will take heed, Teach and my two pupils will be diligent Pupils unto thee - learning under thy Pedagogy - To see and to do thy will. Turn to the stars and let the moonlight lead you. Follow the footprints of your instinct to this precinct where I, thy lover lives. Tell me! Is the imprint of a man's mind in heaven's print not accessible to angels? I learned that angels don't dwell in hell but Tell me! Will thou teach me how to build a Nirvana in this mortal world of darksome inferno - a replica of what an angel will call hell? Tell me! If I commit myself to thee, are you sure the burning heat of this world will not cause us to dispel? © Olusegun Ajayi "The Pioneer Poet" NIGERIA BE THE JOY OF DAYS As vision the layer there...quaint Where see no man sway; Inhaling the cosmic zephyr - Way being of the milky way; With pulses warm of the naked sun's ember, My memory of love! gorges faint... With time! the destroying flood... Upon its tendency to make remote They heart, exiling a dream; And with each day in step in denote Of sorrow's tangled hymn, Oh! canter in loneliness! given the nod. But upon the get of sunlit eye, Reflects the heart's inflection Of a smile - revealing life's delight: And confessed...the sacred crest...of my retention; Be the disquiet of desired beauty...to sight; Indeed! be the joy of days! beard of hope... of a dream romance, that doesn't lie © Henry Farrell UK HEARTBEAT AT DAWN In the quiet soliloquy Of the quiet night; Dead in its embrace Listening to the echoes Of your heart's beats... With me, Wrapped in the quietude Of your whispering symphony; My sole, soul's accordion. Two innocent souls merged, A Siamese Forever in your nostalgia Are we bonded, a body. Awake I remain monologuing And listening to the pitch Of our rhythm So high as it soothes. A balm in this cell, An encystment embalmed In the cocoon calm Of your consoling beats. © Kichime Philibus Elisha Nigeria ICON AND SOUND Thinking so deeply I have wasted so many chances Trying to find a way To reach out to you I'm tired of making excuses. Your seductive passions Evoke the consciousness of desires in me So, take my exhausted heart To comfort in your love forever. I'm like an iris floating On high tides In an ocean of affections My emotions are melodies Of a violin tones traveling through the wind And penetrating into your mind. In love, there is no measure of time Only two bonded souls in a template Losing or winning is not the question I can hear the motions of love calling my veins For it is love, it's the space of life. © Nasser Alshaikhahmed RAS TANURA, SAUDI ARABIA
Anniversary

On the anniversary
Of his hand touching
My cheek
For the first time
In that crowded venue
I dream of him
Remembering the glow inside
That I felt all the next day.

© Bernadette O'Reilly
IRELAND

SHADOWS A'SWAYING

Shadows a'swaying upon an evening breeze
move to an unheard refrain
eked out on distant pipes
in some remote hinterland unknowable
evoking unspoken sorrows
and the whispered mysteries
of life and death, death and life

They mirror the sweep,
the pitch and rise
astir in the boughs of denuded trees
As this way and that they incline
yielding to gusts of cool air
wafting through the deserted woods

While thin clouds
ghosts of midnight
scud across the heavens
fleeing wisps in diaphanous gauze
etched upon the celestial canvas
as silhouettes ephemeral
Transient enigmas
gone in a whisper
where the spirits of night ever lead
afloat upon the midnight scape
Ruffling the leaves of weeping willows
exquisite of chalk white trunk
and stirring the unfathomable waters
rippling on a silent lake

High above a mortal realm
lost in a world of slumber and dreams
insubstantial as the cosmic display
a' gliding across the firmament awhile

© D. A. Simpson
UK
MOTHER

You bore me of uniqueness
A skin,
Beautiful enough to admiration
You planted me hard
On a land of treasure
With a landscape beautifully laid
That my heart groans with joy
Who am I to shed tears?

Mother Africa
Your structure is a beauty
That observers stare with saliva
They pour out their eyes
To have you on their brains
Because you're rich
Rich dearly that I'm blessed.

Oh mama Africa
The lakes you poured upon my feet
From Victoria to Tanganyika
A wholesome of mountain like Cape
Zambezi and Nile rivers rich
Who are we without your beauty?

For us, you gave a rich language background
Swahili lamenting beauty
Zulu and Xhosa elegantly dancing
Hausa and Igbo a nature's safe
Up you served us so well
Oh Mother.

Today I'm in a celebratory mood
Dancing to your beautiful music
Lingala pacing Rhumba
Afro beats a taste of the west
Amapiano oh Amapiano Kapuka rivaling genge Who are you mother Africa?

You're simply elegance
Beauty that's ecstatic
An aroma of excellence
Fragrance that dances on my line
I'll forever cherish you
You're my home, my mother. © Dredan Brian
'DRE Arts' KENYA
IF POETRY LEAVES ME
Do you know that my heart bleeds
Without writing a sweet melody? Do you know that my life is meaningless Without this gentle guy named Poetry? Do you know that I laid down my life To rewrite burning tears and sorrow? If poetry leaves me, order my last tube. My blood has dried up and faded away. If poetry leaves me, The sun, moon, and stars will crack. And the trees shall blossom in tears. Even angels in heaven shall moan, For a tasty pen and paper has fallen. Oh, if poetry leaves me, Weep not for my corpse; The sun has zoomed over my nostrils. If poetry leaves me, Collect my broken pieces of words. And if I sleep with my pen and book, Order not an ambulance; Bury me with one of my touching poems. O, my body shall sleep on ice, But my words shall arise like dry bones. So, if poetry leaves me, Buy me a white book to be covered. And not a shining or spicy tree. If poetry leaves me, Please question the ground. From him, I was created. I will reimburse him. © Gabriel S. Weah LIBERIA



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