Stephen House - managing ok

Stephen House - managing ok

Stephen House is an award winning Australian playwright, poet and actor. He’s won two Awgie Awards (Australian Writer’s Guild) , Adelaide Fringe Award, Rhonda Jancovich Poetry Award for Social Justice, Goolwa Poetry Cup, Feast Short Story Prize and more. He’s been shortlisted for Lane Cove Literary Award, Overland’s Fair Australia Fiction Prize, Patrick White Playwright and Queensland Premier Drama Awards, Greenroom best actor Award and more. He’s received Australia Council literature residencies to Ireland and Canada, and an India Asialink. His chapbook “real and unreal” was published by ICOE Press. He is published often and performs his work widely.

managing ok

my mum is ninety

and now in a nursing home

one of her joys is the visits she gets

but the home is in lock-down with the virus spread risk

so we now chat most days on the phone

as a writer performer

i make a living from shows

it’s been my work for decades

but my gigs are all cancelled indefinitely

so i’m not sure what comes next financially

to make ends meet

i rent out part of my house

as an artist it gives some security

but my tenant’s a musician and his work’s dried up too

so who knows what will happen from here

i shop at the supermarket

quickly once in a week

as that’s what they advise us to do

but it’s strange there now as some shelves are empty

and i saw two women fight over toilet paper

              a play that i wrote

has been touring in spain

and that’s exciting for me as a playwright

but the tour’s now cancelled because of covid-19

though that means nothing compared to the deaths there

i’m not complaining

given the world situation

so far i’m healthy and managing ok

but each day the news seems to get so much worse

and i can’t say that it’s not affecting me

AK Nongthang Angomcha – THE UNIDENTIFIABLE

AK Nongthang Angomcha – THE UNIDENTIFIABLE

AK Nongthang Angomcha (Akoijam Romila Devi) Lecturer, Department of English Naorem Birahari College Khundrakpam.

THE UNIDENTIFIABLE

By mistake or not,I am confused of

The lone guest comes here with task assigned

Methinks what the purpose would be

'Bout steps,talks to him to get whereabouts

Says the absconder doesn't know about himself

The early arrivers say when enquired

Though they undertake along the same path

Since many years , decades and centuries

All of them to each other are strangers

Strangers,still strangers even to themselves.

Asks about the long trek adventurous

How to succeed,how to overcome the hindrance

Tells that it's upto the drive of time

When commanded by the drive of impulse

'Bout destination they say with a sigh

It is unplanned since the start upto the end

The souls are all naked,have no identity

Deficient of enlightenment, paralyzed mind

Only if each of them all know their selves

There will be no stranger within self and around.

YI JUNG CHEN - Zentangle Love

YI JUNG CHEN - Zentangle Love   

Besides teaching pupils of learning difficulties in Dounan Elementary School of Taiwan, Yi Jung (Jolene) Chen wrote scripts and co-worked with other teachers for illustrated books in Chinese, English and Japanese. At my leisure hours, I also wrote poems in English, Chinese and Taiwanese language. Provided given the opportunity,

I would like to have my work published by a reliable agent and share my works with people around the globe.

Zentangle Love   

The ripple on the pond drops

concentric circles spreading out from the center,

Your attentive eyes,

sparkling with passions for painting

the curving line of fervent heartbeat.

Mandala petals,

Buddha teardrops show mercy for human.

My trembling lips remain closed,

praying for the best of luck between us.

Interwoven pattern converges somewhere,

foreboding our destiny to meet

in moments of uncertainty,

no guarantee for a promising future.

Painting colors of wind,

slightly stunned by your wits,

dancing to the perfect harmony of Oriental and West.

Arts of impressionism,

you nickname my works.

Venus ties us together

in a knot of comradeship

never to be severed.

A review of Linda Imbler's Red is the Sunrise by Herojit Philem

Book Review

Name of the Book: - Red is the Sunrise

Name of the Author: - Linda Imbler

Genre: - Poetry

Year of Publication: - 2019

Publisher: - Independently Published

ISBN: 9781076170903

Purchase Link: Red is the Sunrise

Red is the Sunrise is a book comprising of 30 poems written by Linda Imbler. The book opens with the poem titled Theros Bequeathes Her Breath to Carpo and closes with the poem titled A Backyard Incident in St. Loius. In a sentence, Red is the Sunrise is a collection of poetry by a woman about women.

Poems of this collection are loosely structured i.e., to say the lines of the poems are not of equal length, some lines are of 13 syllables while some are of 2 syllables. But poems would give a vivid picture to the readers. With beautiful beginnings and at the same heart capturing endings, Linda Imbler's poems in Red is the Sunrise would give a pleasant thought and at the same time would leave the readers nostalgic.

In the poem, “Her Movie Script” the speaker’s grandmother sits on a chair recollecting every moments of her life. The poem ends with “If only she could remember the names of the actors.” Again the poem “Last Day” opens with “We got up so early with so much to do.” This opening line is full of live and energy; throughout the poem the activeness can be felt. The characters are so active, so much involved in worldly live that they bought each other a gift but gave not of their time.  But the closing of the poem would leave a reader in the state of suspense as it says “Only one of us rose the next morning.” 

There are many heart touching lines in every poem. A line from poem Warpaint one would get motivated by “………., I am confident I will win both the battle and the war.” While a line from the poem Silent Meal, “Their relationship did not die with shouts and tears” would give the power to have patience in a relationship and at same time a line from Mama Evans, “Many things we remember today with a sigh”  would definitely leave the readers recollecting many things sweet sorrows of the things past.

Some of my favorite poems in the book includes:-

1.       Her Movie Script

2.       Last Day

3.       Memory

4.       Poe’s Annabel Lee

5.       Puzzle

6.       A Cup of Tea

7.       The Forgotten

All in all the book Red is the Sunrise is multi-faceted with its various feelings that would leave to the readers. The book is worth reading. It has lots of literary values. Poems are not very long but with minimal length each poem coveys the complete ideas, feelings and emotions are expressed to reach the readers.

Paul Robert Mullen - BREAD-LINE

Paul Robert Mullen - BREAD-LINE

Paul Robert Mullen is a writer, musician, lecturer, radio presenter, traveller and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has four published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), 35 (2018) and disintegration (2020). He has had poetry and fiction published in reputable magazines worldwide, including The Interpreter's House, Barren, The Fiction Pool and Ghost City Press. Paul is the co-founder and editor of The Broken Spine Artist Collective.

BREAD-LINE

Dad was a glove maker in a factory on west-bank industrial estate. He had been all his life. He worked long hours to support the family, and saved all the money he could to make sure we never went without. He was a hero to me; never squandered a penny on himself, or drank his wage away down at the pub like other fathers I knew. A quiet man, who appreciated the simple things in life. He was also fiercely proud. The neighbours respected him, and he always did what he could do help everyone in our quarter. Hey George, everyone would holler as we went by. The postman, the lollipop lady, the butcher, the local builders, the lanky girl at the newsagent.

He was a deft hand with a paintbrush, and he used to get ‘foreigners’ as he would call them – jobs for cash from people he could trust. The extra money helped us out, but it left him tired. He never complained though, and he always spent time with me growing up, whenever and wherever he could.

Everybody spoke highly of my Dad.

Losing his job in the factory was more than just a blow. It happened all of a sudden, without warning. He gave himself to that job for over forty years, and then it was gone. 

Dad’s face looked grey after that. He shrunk overnight. The lines around his eyes stretched so that the veins in his temples pulsed through. His shoulders folded like the corners of a battered old book. All motivation and self-respect drained from him, as though blood from body on a mortuary slab. Unemployment was failure to him. It meant he couldn’t support his family.

We all felt sick at the news.

            ‘What can I do, Mum?’ I pleaded. ‘Can I get a job? Maybe I don’t need to go to college after all. Maybe I can just get a job and help Dad out?”

She smiled through damp eyes and hugged me like only a mother could.

            ‘God knows you’re a good boy,’ she whispered, ‘but you are going to college.’ 

Mum walked out of the room to make the dinner looking suddenly older. The smoky scent of fresh braising steak, new potatoes and sweet carrots in a thick, peppery stock seasoning infused the kitchen and living room. It smelt like family. Our house had always smelt that way. If it wasn’t home cooked food, the air was ripe with lemon bleach, or the airy smell of clean linen, or that wonderful hum of pressed ironing.

‘We can barely afford to survive. We might lose this house,’ I overheard Mum saying later that night to Dad, slumped at the kitchen table.

‘I won’t let that happen, Marie. I swear I won’t.’

The vulnerability in his voice took my breath away. He’d always been a strong man in my eyes, but I heard nothing strong in his tone that night.

I heard fear, disillusion, frailty.

The next morning as I came down for breakfast I heard them going at it again. I sat on the stairs, head resting against tired wooden spindles. There was an urgency in Mum’s voice that frightened me.

‘You’re fifty-eight, George. Who’s going to employ a fifty-eight year old with no skills?  What’re we going to do?’

‘Calm down, Marie. Something will come up.’

‘Oh for God’s sake, things don’t just come up when you’re our age.’

I felt angry at Mum. She didn’t need to drum this shit off the walls. We were all thinking it, and that was stressful enough.

‘I’m thinking hard every waking minute, love. Really, I am. I’ll come up with something.’

‘There’s the mortgage, and the bills, and Bray’s college fees. I’m a nervous wreck with worry, George.’

The more I thought about my college fees the more terrible I felt.

‘I told you,’ Dad said, suddenly firm. ‘I’ll think of something.’

I felt a rush of blood and pride and other things I can barely explain.

He no longer sounded hopeless like he had the night before. Granted, he’d barely slept, but there was a resilience in his words and in his manner. He’d had his night to ponder. Now he was up, striding around, thinking on his feet.

And I believed him.

I had to believe him. He was my father.

I felt guilty about the nice clothes, and the computer, and the games console they’d bought me for my birthday. All the other kids had them, but I didn’t need them. Gaming is stupid anyway.

I thought about selling my road-bike and some of my records. School held a car-boot sale on the last Sunday of every month. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. I had a mint condition copy of The Beatles’ blue album on gatefold vinyl, which was probably worth £30. I started to raid my wardrobes for all sorts of stuff I really didn’t need, and decided that if I had a good day with the sale I could probably make £100.

            ‘Dad,’ I asked later as he nursed a rare brandy in front of the TV. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

He seemed wounded by my asking. I could see it in his eyes that he’d have preferred I didn’t know. No father wants a son’s help. Not until they’re too old to care.

            ‘Yes, Bray, there is,’ he said after a period of thought. ‘Go and get yourself a bloody good education and don’t end up in a job like mine, son.’

            He got up to pour himself another Brandy, and I noticed the dole forms on the table. He’d filled them in but hadn’t signed them. He turned round from the drinks cabinet quicker than I expected and our eyes met.

He knew what I’d seen and lowered his head.

Outside a car engine roared into life, and intense, tawny headlights cast silhouettes on the blinds. The TV played reruns of classic sixties gold performances; The Searchers singing ‘Don’t throw Your Love Away.’ The flicker of the TV lit Dad’s face up in fractals of disjointed colour, and it seemed odd at a time like this that the singer’s face should be so full of joy.

I walked to the stairs but something in my gut made me stop.

‘I’m proud of you, Dad. Never forget that.’

Mohit Sharma aka Unbound - Am I alive…?

Mohit Sharma aka Unbound - Am I alive…?

Mohit Sharma aka Unbound is a writer who loves to add life into the forgotten facts of the life itself. He believes that writing is the strongest form of expressive art which can be incubated from one mind to another. Mohit has written his first anthology with the title 'the beginning...!’ He is currently working on his non-fiction novel, 'the beginning of an end'. He loves to write in both English and Hindi. He has been awarded 1st Runner up in the Global Poetry forum award for his poem, Am I alive. Mohit is a part-time guitar player and loves to play outdoors.

Am I alive…?

On a confused morning, I woke up in a hurry,

Maybe it was a hangover of that nightmare that sets me on a flurry.

I saw myself struggling for a laugh or even for a smile,

My artificial happiness is due to materialism that is standing tall on an undue debt pile.

I saw myself struggling to lend my care to a needy.

I doubt whether am I slowly turning to be an enduring greedy.

Never forgot to check my virtual social status and conversation, 

Something fake exists for sure, which on me is gaining the domination.

In that blind race, I am nothing but a baffled desperate mind

Don’t know what to achieve still walking in a direction undefined. 

Couldn't recollect the last time when I saw those blinking stars in the sky.

Those days of childhood were good, when I could set my imagination to fly.

I am sharing my innermost appalling to all, unconditionally and maybe free,

Don’t have enough time to share, the moments of my unforeseen glee. 

Being miser as an appreciator, I am blindly enjoying my role as a critic,

Not able to listen to that true inner voice, as something went wrong to my psyche acoustic.

Turning numb towards the feeling of love so as with its perusal,

It’s even becoming bulky for me to differentiate amid the fake and real.

Afraid of loosing my phony identity within that virtual world of mine,

Not able to justify my existence yet living with a hope for my darker side to shine.

My happiness is crying for being lost upon, even in the shape of small packets.

Don’t know for what I am waiting, thus to break my life’s own claustrophobic brackets.

 My body is working fine and so is my brain,

Yet feeling frozen and suffering from an unidentified pain.

I am slowly breaking the hangover to let myself overcome that strife, 

It was not a nightmare but a harsh reflectance of my own day to day life.

I am carrying myself knowingly to nowhere with a hope to get thrive, 

Lost myself again somewhere, leaving an unrequited question that “Am I alive…?”

SONALI CHANDA – SILENCE

SONALI CHANDA – SILENCE

SONALI CHANDA is an eminent writer and author. Born in Suburban KOLKATA,she completed her postgraduation from Burdwan University. 

Her writings resemble the current issues and different topics of burning issues in the country and the social malices..!!

Last year in 20 h January, her travelogue"LADAKH...En route Tibetan TABOOS, launched in Kolkata,Salt Lake,BHARATIYAM!!

In her Travelogue, she vividly described her journey throughout the whole Forbidden Land,

their languages, religious views, geographical variations, historical backgrounds and many more!!

Her many poems, flash fiction, short stories already published in different web magazines, online magazines including Counter Currents.......!

She's also an eminent photographer, her Wildlife and Landscape photography gained profound appreciation from different corners and countries Her soul wrenching writing s of burning issues, psychological issues and problems along with current social malice rooted a significant mark in recent times..!

Her Debut NOVELLA "Helix of Ebb and Flow" is on the way to publish...!

SILENCE

Show me a path, while I leave behind 

All my pains, my wishes and dreams,

As once I leave my footprints, 

never return back!

I roll my sleeve to move ahead,

whatever there in my way,I embrace them..

Birchs and pines,smoky evening, 

While walking through the woods, I see the hushing winds mused!

They all are so fresh and pure,

With the sundown clouds, the mists passes by,

Why I should least bother, to whom I have mine?

The anguish, that I weighed much,

Left behind for the sake of you,

Whom I needed in my worst hours, 

They vanished, consoling with some word power.

Let my silence be my answer, 

Let it roar, to make them know, 

Besides them,another world is there,

Which is waiting direly, I must go!

Sanjhee Gianchandani - Distance

Sanjhee Gianchandani - Distance

Sanjhee Gianchandani holds a Masters’ degree in English from Lady Shri Ram College for Women and a CELTA from the University of Cambridge. She worked as an English language assessment specialist. Her love for publishing brought her to her current job as an ELT editor in the K-8 space. She compulsively writes poetry to fill in the interstices in her day. Her poems have been published at several places including Madras Courier, eFiction India, LiveWire, Setu, Indian Ruminations, Otherwise Engaged Journal and Poetry Northern Ireland. 

Distance

Screaming your name from the rooftop,

yet you seem impervious to it

typically how relationships are

distraught bit by bit

existence precarious psychologically

and so vulnerable our sanity

life is a continual negation

of hopelessness and despair

and we entangle our relationship

in the web of uncertainties

it all seems like a dream

within a dream

the stars seem much nearer

and farther do you seem

in life we realise that

no place is further away

in death; between Hell and Heaven we sway

can we not break the ice

with a simple phone call

has this created so huge a wall?

for love knows no boundaries

we’ve heard this for centuries

yet you cannot hear me

from across the room

or perhaps you don’t want to

remains an unresolved mystery

Sahaj Sabharwal - OTHERS ARE ALSO HUMAN BEING

Sahaj Sabharwal - OTHERS ARE ALSO HUMAN BEING

Sahaj Sabharwal is from Jammu city, J&K, India. 

Email-: sahajsabharwal12345@gmail.com 

Instagram-: instagram.com/sahajsabharwal 

Twitter -: 

twitter.com/Sahaj_Sabharwal

OTHERS ARE ALSO HUMAN BEING

Besides male and female gender,

The third category is taken as terrible blunder.

All humans including foolish and wise,

Mostly everyone do such things which indicates, their aim is just to criticize.

Behaviour with those people,

Like they are not humans but just null or dull.

Genderqueer also have feelings and deserve respect, 

If they are born on earth, they have their own aspect.

If they are not under male or female category, 

That doesn't mean that they can't achieve heights and we become their source of worry.

All we need is to be kind and change setup  of our mind,

Not like that which today we understand and tomorrow again we discriminate with a heart which is blind.

Rushmila Khan - Filthy Poor

Rushmila Khan - Filthy Poor

Rushmila Khan has an affinity for indie films and books. She recently founded her own non-profit publication. Her book reviews have appeared on The Bookshelf and poems on Orange Blush Zine.

Email: rushmilakhans@gmail.com

Facebook: @rushkhans

Instagram: @rushmilakhans

Twitter: @rushkhans

Filthy Poor

Why do poor men give birth to poorlings

Why do they thrust such misery?

They fall face first to the earth

They eat the dirt off someone's feet

And the sun rises

It casts neither valor nor umbrage

The insufficiency flourishes

Like a bed of sunflowers

The fractals of the honeycomb

The branches of conjoint arterioles

They suffer.

Why do poor men give birth to bony ghosts

Born ghosts and turned to ghosts

The apparitions haunting their siblings

The invisible saliva drips

The silent noises make the only tunes they ever bear

There is no music in the land of the starving

There is no desire, no mercy

The vertebrae shifts and cracks

There is no history in all the marks

Just suffering.

Patricia Walsh - Coffee, Sugar and Alcoholic

Patricia Walsh - Coffee, Sugar and Alcoholic

P atricia Walsh was born in the parish of Burnfort, Co Cork,and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; Narrator International;  Third Point Press, Revival Journal; Seventh Quarry; Hesterglock Press; The Quarryman; Unlikely Stories; and Otherwise Engaged.  She has already published a chapbook, titled Continuity Errors  in 2010, and a novel, The Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014.  A further collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication in August of 2020.  She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and is a regular attendee at the O Bheal poetry night in Cork city.

Coffee, Sugar and Alcoholic

Having the power to read sins, markedly,

withholding information at the crucial point,

producing like a conveyor belt, inhumanely

praying thanks for getting through much today.

Consummate behaviour becomes the smallest ones,

snapping like a twig at the least pursuit,

kept at bay like a trophy unbecoming,

overconsumption of stimulants all too fair.

Open for business, bargains coldly staid,

recorded in the newspaper, circulated wide,

rushed to protection, bludgeoning same

watched over shoulders, garnering favour.

Loved out of measure, celebrity stasis,

staring at subordinates blowing another mind,

coded entry into a state of perfection

completely awful, it s the final line.

Dented for a thrill, decorum injured.

Stealing music from a grateful audience,

eating on the quiet, a recipe for punishment

hit through gloss, the unmistakable sound.

Homely fires not very much to ask,

watching from the familiar, as a man,

blemish-free, the breakage forestalled,

consumed with impunity, a bloodied soul.