​After the Funeral

There weren’t many in the funeral home. The hall smelled like jasmine and looked like a chapel. You were done up in a red sari - your skin rouged to hide the pallor of your long sickness. Your son, my cousin, sat on the floor with the Brahmin in the shadow of your oak casket, repeating, as best he could, the mantras. He tried not to well up, I noticed, and once told me at times like this you had to be strong. We all drank coffee and looked on solemnly. Your sister burst into tears.

After, we drove to the suburbs to your son’s house, where held a lunch. I partook of the ancestral dishes, one of garlic cloves doused in tamarind and sesame oil. “These are old recipes,” you said. I started. “Why are you here?” “To help,” you said.

And you carried soft drinks to your children and your friends, but they did not notice you, lost as they were in memories of you. You sat quietly by your disconsolate sister, still spinning with grief. You dusted the Commander’s old medals from the war, then took your hand to his photo and kissed your fingers. You once said you were endlessly drifting long after he died. “Why here and not there,” I wondered. She looked so beautiful, my aunt – her spine straight, her pallor overwhelmed by a radiant red – the blood coursing through her.
 
**
 
Varanasi

After a drink at Prinseps, I decided it was time. I clutched the small bag of father’s remains, his flaky white remnants clouding the plastic. We lumbered in my guide’s van along the narrow, ancient roads. It was a dark, cloud-covered afternoon, but soon the sun bore itself onto the shanties and hordes of pilgrims. “How long have I searched,” I thought.

We disembarked and took a winding gulley – past sadhus begging for alms, fly-ridden tea stalls, and makeshift temples to the goddess, the flare of bright waving lamps erupting through doorways. We waded through the pilgrims, past old women clutching sticks. “They have come to die,” my guide said. We reached the hot still point, reeking of camphor and flames. And there I saw the Manikarnika ghat alive with corpses resting on pyres.

Manikarnika ghat, the granter of moksha, its eternal flames tended by Dalits. I felt the flames summon me, the hot stench of crackling flesh, the Ganges murmuring in the distance, Shiva skipping between charred bones.
 
**
 
At the Psych Ward

Really, I was in love with an insane woman, and you were never going to approve. What, with my disappearances for days, finally coming home reeking of reefer and whisky, I cannot blame you for what you did.

You took me to hakims, pandits and one long-fingered priest, but despite hopeful talks amid wafting censers, nothing worked. So you got me on lithium and put me in the psych ward.

I wore a loose-fitting gown that billowed in the airy hallways. I enjoyed talking to the nurses who called me “sweetie,” who wheeled over my meals - turkey meat loaf or chicken with powdered mash potatoes, always with apple juice in plastic containers with foil lids.

Sometimes I would hear screams, moans, and a cacophony of restless voices from across the hall. “Maybe they live in a different world,” my roommate claimed, who never heard anything.

They let those of us who required no physical restraints to play three-card poker in the evenings. One day, I burst into song because I missed my father. “You sing like Bing Crosby,” one of them said. I blushed as my father is a man who loves old singers.

From the one window I could see the sky painting itself a dusky red while the byroad filled with cars. Oh, the burden of their monotonous low hum, their squawking horns.
 
**
 
Cavafy Indica

I discovered him by chance, after reading one of his poems dangling from a notice board in the university hostel.  Titled “Days of 1905,” it limned a forbidden love.  The students hung it as a provocation.  “An imitation,” I thought, but the turn of phrase in a punchy Indian English, the varied meter, the subtle enjambment, the setting in a parlor at the port of Aden, where bodies lurked, hungry for love, made me long for more. Perhaps now I could go home having discovered something.

I made discreet enquiries and learned that he lived in a small flat in the old Jewish quarter, in the shadow of Magen David Synagogue.  He eyed me from behind his rusting metal door and reluctantly let me enter.  He had thick glasses, a pencil mustache, and white, close-cropped hair.  Along the wall, he kept old books no one reads in India anymore -- Keats and Tennyson, Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, and Johnson’s Rasselas. He brought tea, reeking of cardamom and asked, “what is poetry, after all?” as he unclasped a blue folder with a sheaf of typewritten poems. 
 
I spent the afternoon reading -- of palace intrigues among the Kanishkas, of the philosophical glories of the Satavahana Empire, of the port of Muziris with swelling mounds of black pepper along the shore, of the colonies in Sri Vijaya shadowed with imposing figures of Siva, and also of boys, so many boys, lolling in the tropical overgrowth, glimpsed shirtless as the wheat stalks swayed in the monsoon wind.  “Extraordinary,” I said. “May I submit a few to small journals?”  “Why?” he asked.  “I ache to bring something new to the world,” I said.  He clasped the folder and handed them to me.  Outside, the first monsoon rumbled in the Arabian sea.  I unclasped the folder triumphantly as I looked for a rickshaw, and to my horror the poems were fading, the whole sheaf turning blank. One page folded into a bird and took flight, fluttering hopelessly as the rain grew thick. 
 
**
 
The Dream
​
And there he lay, hooked to the pulsing monitor that blurted warnings with beeps. The riverine flow of protein wended through the nasogastric tube into his gut. There would be no more joy in food. What’s more, he hadn’t been awake for days, and she, frail herself, sat on the fraying hospital chair, her knees bunched against her chest, weeping, clutching at her prayer beads. 
How it all ends, I thought, a summation of blood, urine, and wasted limbs… what of the man, all his accomplishments? That night at home I slept on a couch and saw his mother, my grandmother, in a dream. She was young and beautiful, draped in a white sari. She stood before me as if posing for a portrait. An auriferous glow framed itself around her. There were other women in the dream’s distance -- giggling softly at each other, cavorting in a rush of hibiscus and peepal trees – but the set only served as an enhancement of her singular beauty. What joy, I thought, as she transmuted from flesh (flesh I swore I could touch, its suppleness and heat) to portrait, fixed forever in the prime of her life: resplendent, eternal.
 
**
 
Vikram Masson writes at the intersection of faith, identity and culture. His work has been featured in TriQuarterly, The Denver Quarterly, Glass, Juked, and Rust + Moth. His chapbook, A Scattering of Voices, is published by Kelsay Books.
 
 

​When I Meet The New Chiropractor 
 
I lay on the chiropractic table, a new doc getting trained in. This one is complicated I hear because her body is very creative. She directs my fingers to rest gently on my neck, a familiar place full of sinew and hardness,whiplash, whiplash, whiplash. She muscle-tests words and phrases. I’ve been peeling layers for years like an onion that should be dried up and powder by now.  Fear of dying she says and my arm goes limp, then up from the belly, a water stream seeking immediate exit through my eyes and the dark forest of imagination. I want to see through the trees. More words, the same effect. There is a slight convulsing as my body searches memory. I think I have learned to squeeze lemons into lemonade, that I have mastered self-care which I realize isn’t the same as healing. Suddenly, exhaustion and I’m quiet, feeling drugged inside a small constructed room. A many layered sleep transfuses me until I am nothing but a shell.
 
**
 
A Model Citizen
 
She wakes slowly from the king bed, the down comforter bunched about her. Legs stretch, hips flatten, neck reaches towards the pillow top. It’s a comfortable minute. She rises without thought. No ghosts from yesterday visit, no predictions guide her thoughts, no restraint to her habits. First things first.
 
Outdoors, a deep breath -- 
            lungs clear (check)
            neighbours surveyed (check) 
            bladder empty (check)
 
Routine has no boredom including breakfast at eight. Alert without stimulants, her energy is stored for the right activity as she shakes the morning loose, then rests on the chair patiently facing the windows. What might rock her off cue, have her awaken on the wrong side of the bed, exasperate the purity of her presence, stoke doubt in her desires? There have never been answers to these vexing questions. The cues are so well rehearsed as with all obedient beings. Right? What a good girl I say as I do every day at least two dozen times. Simple praise keeps her white-tipped tail in motion, eyes on her master; keeps her a model citizen.
 
**

The New Metrosexual is Female and She is a Madamsexual
 
A woman wearing red plaid flannel and unbranded boots appears asleep in her salon chair. She doesn’t wonder what to do with her locks one day when the dreads are gone. Her hair dresser stands on a two- foot stool and reaches in like a slow hand mixer, twisting and bunching to the rhythm of chewing gum while the woman’s eyes stay closed. She’s too strong to wince. Her arm tats creep out the cuffs of her double-layered shirt but seem afraid of the light and retreat. She has a natural immunity to excitement but if summer, she’d dream of driving a pearlescent two-wheeled chopper chariot, but it’s her steel-blue Prius out front. It’s sexy and righteous, efficient -- unlike the dreadlocks which are worth a wait while the snow bends sideways. At the right time, her flannel is ready for business. She steals a glimpse at a woman in the next chair who is losing her hair when the hairdresser says she gets stress-induced alopecia and castor oil is her go-to. The plaid woman nods because it’s a plant-based solution, but her carb-load is heavy like a front engine. She is four-seasons flannel, seasoned with ketchup over sweet potatoes. Organic all the way. She is the new metrosexual and she is a madamsexual. 
 
**
 
The In-Coming
 
He arrived to the emergency room in death’s breath just as she arrived with the still warm heart ready to rehome in his sunken chest. She noted his youthful appearance, tautness of arms, unwed finger, the life he should be living, instead… She noted him in a waning summer as he lay, weeks in a coma, taking his vitals daily, making chit-chat out of the air. Found herself sharing why she became a nurse, when she married then divorced, her life tilting on a new axis, family in Oklahoma who couldn’t comprehend her choices. She reminded his unmoved ears that he’d walk out of there one day, out to a world beating in rhythm. The day came when she found his room empty, his discharge verified. She blew what memory dust there was from off the bed, imagined a homecoming sign hanging at his door, family arms around his neck. Weeks later a youthful man approached her in the hospital corridor greeting her by name. “These flowers are for you. I heard everything you said.” 
 
**

When I Had to Read Little Women
 
My 6th grade reading teacher smelled of strong perfume, so strong I barely noticed her only the foul air strike that followed her, like Pig Pen’s cloud of dust but fragranced. She asked What did you think of that passage? I froze, choking on her Estee Lauder, my eyes fixed on her too large eye frames, wrinkled skin, disco pink lipstick, thinking about her extra toe. I thought it was punishment when she assigned Little Women, unabridged.  We had two months and 500 pages of compound sentences, sentences I had to be still for.  Meg, Jo, Amy, Beth slowly taking shape, my imagination keeping up with them. It was Jo for me. My feminist crush, caught in social expectation but armed with wit and courage. When Beth died, I imagined my grandmother’s sister passing at 16, lovely as a bird. I never told my teacher, who was mysteriously a Ms., that I too dreamed of Vanity Fair and art, books, and Paris.  That I would read it again two years later. That I would see every version brought to screen, think of my grandmother writing with her sixth-grade education, sending it off, handwritten, to the Belgian Gazette. That I would never change my name after getting married. That I would find a small mold enough to craft a wild life within or how my sisters used to call me Josephine.
 
**
 
Ice Growths
 
Ice came during the night downing wires, coating them thick as jump ropes. We kids jump to keep warm in one room with a fireplace. The six of us, huddle as mice into chairs, the rug, and every blanket. Outside, frost fields glisten, the trees droop as if in prayer, entombed in crystals.
 
On day three I enter a candle-lit bathroom with my oldest sister under the tall expressive shower head, a shock of cold buries me in terror. It is like ice flow encasing my young, small frame; those trees and I both struggling to be free.  We are preparing for a send-off until lines and heat are restored. Several white hours to Detroit, my brother and I plop on worn sofas and the smell of my four older male cousins, aunt and uncle. I sleep through breakfast and Sesame Street. In the middle of night two I learn about seats up and seats down as I fumble to the bathroom to pee, sitting carefully, gathering my little night gown but suddenly slipping through an open seat, soaked. I strip then wrap my shame into someone’s shirt on the floor. No one notices my change of appearance in the morning, my cousin’s shirt over me, wet nightgown on the floor of the bathroom, the smell of pee on my skin. I am invisible. No one wonders about a four-year-old insisting she needs to take a shower, which happens, alone, breath held under an ice-like spray because the handles only seem to go to C. For Cold. 
 
**
 
Rebecca Surmont lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has a love of corn fields, funk, and tiny things. Her written work has been featured in publications such as RockPaperPoem, Lothlorien Poetry Journal,  Amethyst Review, Steel Jackdaw, Hare’s Paw Literary, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Eunoia Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal. She is a leadership consultant and coach and has worked as a physical theater actor and voice over talent.
 
 
 
 
 

 
Primrose Hill
 
I could close out my time here, beckon to the summit all my unmade life, addresses mistaken for home. Foreign years spiraled with those in slim New England lanes unwind only in deserts of late middle age; too early for triumph, or even regret. Returned, sparked days that reached their noon over the span of London: seagulls in arpeggioed screech over Queen Anne’s Grove; popped echoes of cricket bats rolled over distant rectangled greens; anonymous grey birds soaring under aviary nets; intricate minor third Beatles’ harmony; the gruff declamation of the music shop ex-pat, doncha know, guitar is in the blood an’ ain’t really learned. I’d feel an old heaviness lift then, wander the hushed-down streets to retrieve all I did not do, yet still doubt that imperatives of words were ever fed by my blood, if any exigency throbbed enough to carve some sluice, some sign other adrift ones would read me by.
 
**
 
In the Wirral
 
Blind Harry daily taps along thick slate to the trolley’s round-about, tunes his ear toward the canal where wharfmen sing gruffly out, slap twined leads to shore. Made redundant from city planning, knew how many went down the sluice, borne to sea from Liverpool, where liver birds swoop to pick drowned men’s bones. Still got me travelling legs, he vows, and turns his good ear out over all Wirral, a place moored enough to drift home to. 
 
**
 
Mr Bleaney's Redemption
 
in response to Philip Larkin’s “Mr Bleaney”
 
Buggering critics, all of them, he hissed, folding The Sun’s Page Three girl over his knee. Floral chintz curtains did, after a while, sort of match the mustard walls, the beige tweed settee. What bloody good's a home if you can't compose your own colour scheme, he questioned the cat as it etched the tea table. Don't people realise interior decorating's an Art, not just pretty bric-a-brac strewn about? The surface of things is only the beginning; take yourself below, through to the grain! There's the whole texture, he insisted to last week’s vests still grey and limp on the back garden clothesline. What's wrong with a romp through the jumble sales just for me jollies? So what if nothing in this grotty box was made after ’68? Can't a man be left on a musty daybed wrapped in some grammy's duvet, finding all that was his life listening to The Beatles? Let me take you down to the off-licence round the corner, buy me weekend shandys, have a good think about that wandering-rose wall-paper, spot-on and safe enough so you can get some sleep.
 
**
 
Iced Coffee at the Diner
 
I’d left the exacto knife and the pills on the bathroom counter. If this is the morning to give up, why not a diner coffee first. Out of habit I’d brought a book of poems by someone more gifted, smart, thinner, and male than I’d ever be. It comforted me that the poems were sweeping in their aesthetic vision, bold experiences I could feel, even in the collapsed mine of my heart. I patted the cover. Good book, I thought, that you are here and I will not be. It is right to step back, let gift instead of effort claim the lineage. I thumbed my paper daybook, jumping ahead to a month that would survive me, and noticed a famous poet I admired would read. Then I pictured the spent lilacs no one would replace at my grandmother’s lichen-frilled grave. So much poetry, so much language can never translate. My iced coffee came in a retro-green fluted glass on a saucer lined with a doily, and a silverplate long-handled spoon. I vowed the last iced coffee; be brave and belt it down black to myself as I bent for the first sip. “Dégueulasse,” I spat, hoping no nearby table understood the French word for “disgusting.” Who can drink this dark bitterness straight? I poured in cream from a dented plastic container whose paper top tore moistly down the middle instead of smoothly off. There’s barely a full teaspoon in these, I raged silently. I emptied five more and stirred until the liquid appeared as soft linen the shade of our kitchen curtains when daddy was still alive. No coffee for me back then since I was only seven. But I’m sure I would have loved the surf of light that swirled into the murky cocoa-black while unmoored buoys of ice cubes fought to still on the surface. When the check came, a sun shower startled the outdoor eaters, who scrambled inside. I left double my usual tip and noticed, on the walk home in the ceasing rain, how plush the drops can feel on parched skin, and decided to stay.
 
**
 
A version of this poem first appeared in Orlando, a single issue mini-zine edited by Naomi Ovrutsky.
 
**
Two Dreams on the Theme of Love

Drunk on spiked peach crunch Rupert dreamt the moon lathered up with diamond juices, spilled down the front of Esmé’s purple gown, less like the fall of a dress than the silk shadows drooling across the trees. O frantic light, he cried, smear fast across my sleep, sing the music only love, its thousand floods beneath the skin, could wake. Esmé’s hands languid through her lover’s hair smoothed away the need of shadow. All that delirious autumn they traveled most together when tasting bitter sweat under rusting sky, two simple women scrubbing off the winter smell of death, clean as the silver edge of knife, deep as the cut and just as delicate.
 
**

A version of this poem was originally published in CT River Review.
 
**
 
Leaving

The curtain was drawn with that certain seep just short of the end of things, like the way you turned your back to begin the ascent outside our life in this room. We notice, then that cups and chairs and lamps speak in a language beyond the meaning we attach; when cast off, they set to chanting lamentamini, like gnomes in Ereshkigal’s cave, doubling her sorrow.
 
**

A version of this poem appeared in Northeast Corridor.
 
**

On the Disappearance of William Bradford’s Wife and Other Women
​
“Lost without a trace,” the official comment on Mrs. William Bradford’s disappearance from history. Perhaps overboard on one of her husband’s ships accosted by storm; perhaps run off with a more accessible spouse on the predictable shore; or perhaps took her own life in an English garret at first news Mr. Bradford would sail to the colonies. William Bradford had a wife, Shakespeare, a sister, Michelangelo, a mother. Across all tenses and times absent women: absence of genesis. How can we ever say “In the beginning” and mean it?
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first publish in Invert.
 
**
 
Alexandra Burack, American poet and author of On the Verge, has lived in England and Switzerland, and resides currently in Arizona, USA. Her recent work appeared in The Sewanee Review, Metphrastics, and Bulb Culture Collective, and is forthcoming as an author feature in Ucity Review. She serves as a Poetry Editor for Iron Oak Editions, and a Poetry Reader for The Los Angeles Review, The Adroit Journal, and $ Poetry is Currency. She enjoyed a 45-year career as a college multi-genre creative writing professor, and currently works as a freelance editor, writing coach, and tutor. Her new website is: https://www.alexandraburack.com.

​
The Milky Way – Culaccino1
 
after Milky Way Dreaming by Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (Australia), 1997 CE
 
for Lorette C. Luzajic, Bella N. Gul & Nashwa Y. Butt
 
Gravity 
 
The cup cannot stand the heat of the freshly brewed Brazilian Argento (washed; Vienna roast; notes: nutty chocolaty, tobacco, sweet ‘n bitter)—a courtesy of the 750 ml French Press—its porcelain body starts to perspire. A big globule of sweat knows it cannot escape the gravity of the cup; still, to somehow evade the situation, it starts travelling downwards—towards the base of the cup. The globule is clever: it knows it cannot climb upwards, ‘cause such an adventure will merely get it as far as the mouth of the cup and make it inevitably fall straight into the hot, hot black qahwah2 inside the belly of the cup. Hence, it hurries and gets to the bottom in the blink of an eye – tucks away under the foot of the cup and moves out of sight. A parliament of fellow globules of sweat follow in its footsteps.
 
*
Culaccino
 
By the time I finish reading ‟Some Meaning—,” ‟What I’m Made Of,” ‟When Alice became the Rabbit” and a dozen+ micro narratives from the Best Microfiction ‘21 by M. Pokrass & G. Fincke, in the midst of a dozen+ lifts and placements of the cup, the big globule and a multitude of medium and small comrades manage to morph into an asymmetrical cluster of culaccini on the surface of the coaster (with a print of the classical City of Florence, Italy). And the moment the culaccini inside the pair of my retinae catch the sight, the moment of eureka transpires: under my nose, such an esoterically enlightening analogy for making sense of the motions of uni/multi/superverse—where, the Milky Way is merely another teeny-weeny culaccino at the foot of a ginormous cup of space ‘n time.
 
**
 
1. Culaccino (Latin): A mark/stain (ring) left on a surface by the bottom of a cup/glass. Culaccini (plural form).
2. Qahwah (Arabic): Coffee.
 
**
 
Passenger Seat
 
after Stanley na Tasmáine (Stanley, Tasmania) by Julie Breathnach-Banwait (Ireland), 2025 CE
 
for Lajwanti H. Kahn
 
Fetish
 
‟Bum’s not even my fetish; ‘tis feet, actually; nb: both non/sexually,” I, Creature o’ Subliminal, thoughtfully explain myself, as I reach out for my (smart) mobile phone with my right hand (right hand) and try to pull it out from under her left bum-cheek, sat in the passenger seat. She squints, momentarily; locks my peepers with hers, maybe next time ‘round, I’ll make my feet sit on your ‘smartphone,’ then; smacks my hand with the laminated menu card. … “What’s yours? … Fetish, I mean?” but my intrigue only manages to get as far as the squeezing of muscles ‘n veins of her eyelids.
 
She puts her finger on ʽ69. Prawns In Oyster Sauce’ under the Chinese Seafood section; through the windscreen, signals the server – ever ready to take the order at the podium (installed outside at the entrance to YUM – Chinese & Thai Café). Make up your mind already. Don’t make me eat alone tonight! passes the menu over. … The very hybrid noun-verb, eat, can’t help but stimulate the subliminal, but I deliberately refrain from thinking out loud the internal monologue.
 
*
 
Inside vs. Outside
 
A classic – ہے / وہ کل بھی پاس پاس تھی / وہ آج بھی قریب ہے کچھ عجیب تھی / یہ شام بھی عجیب وہ شام –* humming on the (basic) digital console (via YouTube®, synced to my (basic) Samsung® A04s via The Bluetooth®) by the forever green Kishore Kumar; the air conditioner (set to 140C vs. 470C of Summer Heat/Humidity + mosquito swarms outside); and the quantum merger of the fumes from our perfumes (LACOSTE® / Pour Lui Magnetic + Touch o’ Pink) render the ambiance fetish-able inside my modern-day electric-blue hybrid vahana,** Toyota Yaris (1.0 Litre/semi-petrol, semi-electric).
 
**
 
*The past nightfall was mystical / So is the present nightfall, eccentrical / She was near ‘n dear, yesterday / She’s nearest ‘n dearest, today. English translation: Author (Mine). A classical Hindi song sung by one of the most revered Indian singers, Late Kishore Kumar (1929 – 1987 CE), from a classical Hindi film, Khamosi (1969). Original Hindi song lyrics by one of the most revered Indian Urdu poets and lyricists, Gulzar (Sampooran Singh Kalra).

**Vahana (Sanskrit): A ride of god/dess.

**

Some Loves*
 
for Emily Berry
 
love of click-clacks of the keys of keyboards; love of the flickering flames of candles; love of smells of the pages of books; love of the malt of whisky on the rocks; love of the aromas of cigarettes; love of the smells of ground coffee beans; love of the nibs of fountain pens; love of the spirals of leather bound journals; love of the letters of incomplete verses; love of the flip-flaps of flip-flops; love of the tippy-toes of tiny feet; love of the flip-flaps of the wings of fireflies; love of the radiant red of red roses; love of clickety-clacks of the wheels of trains; love of the creek-cracks of wooden floors; love of the creek-cracks of cider doors; love of the wet of rain-soaked sand; love of the green of green grass; love of the tangy-tangerineness of tangerines; love of the flavours of home-made pickles; love of the perfumes of clean clothes; love of the hair of hairy cats; love of the tails of tall dogs; love of the flowers of florentine flasks; love of the barbs of owl plumage; love of the teeth of pitch forks; love of the prints of parsley frocks; love of the lights of traffic signals; love of the boards of road signs; love of the rails of train tracks; love of the bottoms of bootcut fit jeans; love of the creases of corduroy jackets; love of the heels of chukka boots; love of the wheels of hybrid cars; love of the aisles of aeroplanes; love of the shelves of supermarkets; love of the blue of big ocean-blue eyes; love of the slips of small lips; love of the bones of petite faces; love of the knots of iranian kilims; love of the windows of glass-buildings; love of the stretches of long-long roads; love of the glow of big mobile phone screens; love of the chills of cold-cold december nights; … (keep filling the blanks).
 
**
 
*A response to a prose poem, “Some Fears,” by a contemporary poet of prose poem, Emily Berry (2013).
 
**
 
This poem first appeared in Owl Of Pines: Sunyata, by Saad Ali (AuthorHouse, 2021).
 
**

The New Religion
 
after Carousing Computers by Eileen Agar (The UK, b. Argentina), 1988 CE
 
for Cameron A. Batmanghlich & Nikolaos Karfakis
 
1. 
These days, the epitome o’ emptiness, for an addict, is waking up (from a sound sleep) to an empty mobile phone account and without any access to the internet. ‘Tis a different kind of emptiness than the one professed by the proponents of the School o’ Sunyata, though.*
 
Nota bene: life and living are more the matters of compulsions – socio-psychological in nature, above all.
 
These days though, the attorneys of the Homo Sapiens Enterprise can be found industriously preoccupied with making all kinds of promises regarding freeing the humankind from at least the intrinsic-instinctual-compulsions.
 
Anyway, ‘tis a poem and NOT a genealogy of homo sapiens, or critical treatise on its visions and missions of becoming some ‘homo deus.’ (As if the (demi-)devas/devis have ever been found to be much freer from desires.)
 
2.
En route – on foot and in PJs – to the local tobacco kiosk, the voice-in-my-head flexes its vocal cords: I’ve actually never ever looked up anywhere as to what the modern-day scientists and nutritionists have to advise ‘bout the daily recommended intake of mobile phone balance, internet data usage, and content consumption – modern-day Digital Fetish!
 
3.
Apparently, all manner of modern-day spiritual Pandits of Mind & Body have all manner of measurement scales, models & formulae for regulating our (conspicuous) consumption fetish. Without exaggeration, so much so that there are recommendations for the daily allowance of inhaling ‘n exhaling, these days. A sheer courtesy of the New Paradigm – RELIGION, more like – they are so very proudly pronouncing Algorithmism — a marvel of the faith that the Duo o’ Science-Technology has placed in the enterprise named Homo Fictio Simulatio (Simulation Fashioning Man).
 
**
 
*Sunyata (Mahayana/Theravada Buddhism): This school of philosophy professes the absence of ‘intrinsicness’/’essence’ i.e. being and phenomena are subject to flux (change). This metaphysical system of thought is primarily concerned with comprehending the properties of ‘emptiness,’ ‘hollowness,’ or ‘nothingness.’

**
This poem first appeared in Owl Of Pines: Sunyata, by Saad Ali (AuthorHouse, 2021).
 
**

New Habit
 
after Man Smoking by Alberto Magnelli (Italy), 1914 CE
 
for Shaohua, Christiana, George & Nikolaos
 
Summer o’ ’06 CE
 
The Summer in ’06 had just sprouted. She had finally decided to return to her port of origin. She said she didn’t have enough monies – neither did her parents – to invest further into any higher education degrees anymore. And being on the same boat, I knew she wasn’t lying either—being an Alien in The UK isn’t a walk in the park. Neither did I have any healthy financial reserves to support her. She said she wanted to find work; wanted to change her lifestyle; she had had enough of studies. But, with an MA from Cambridge, she was already rather over-qualified. It was no wonder she was having all kinds of difficulties with securing any decent jobs with any firm. Anyone in her shoes in fact would’ve faced similar dilemmas.
 
*
 
I didn’t stop her from going back either – being logical/rational/mature and all. And neither did I stop the sea of tears running down my cheeks, when I kissed her goodbye at London Heathrow. … Before I turned around – to make it to the Victoria Train Station to catch my train back to Leicester on time – she said, … But it’s not as if we’re never going to meet again. … And yes, the goodbye-kiss wasn’t the last (goodbye-)kiss!
 
*
​
First, it was George & Christiana; then, it was one Malaka Nikos; now, it’s her!* … Oh my days! How many more am I meant to see off at the airports and these sad, sad train stations here? I thought to myself, with mildly wet eyes, on the 2-hour long, long, long train journey back to the Environmental City of The UK. … (Only a couple of years down the road, little did I know, no one was going to be there to see me off at the very airport. … Life has her own peculiar bag of tricks & treats to teach a lesson or two, I suppose.) 
 
Summer o’ 07 CE
 
Throughout the post meridiem, the mild, mild breeze had kept toying with the impulsive afternoon-pulse; now was luring the quiet of the twilight to her nest of dreams – like one vengeful Medusa disguised as an Athena. It was pleasant enough to walkabout in flip-flops and shorts.
 
*
 
But, this Summer o’ ’07 had been rather unexpectedly hard on me. At the entrance to Nixon Court, I tended to my newly found habit – smoking cigarettes – and tried to regain perspectives on things: Hmm. But if not for purely intellectual and philosophical reasons, why would I even want to pursue this doctoral research in the first place? How could he demand a change of orientation from me at this stage? I would rather I had withdrawn from the programme altogether! For, without the ‘Working Class Hero’, there cannot be any ‘Heroes’ anyway! Besides, I’m not in it merely for pursuing a professional career, after all! … Maybe, maybe the Professor did understand my state of mind, but perhaps, wanted me to see there wasn’t any need to rip the wings off of the bird at this stage. Hmm. I don’t know. It’s all history now, but only brushed under the carpet, for now, I’m afraid.
 
Summer o’ ’08 CE
 
The Summer in ’08 was knocking on the door now. Behind the office desk at my new workplace in Manchester, the urge to fulfill the desire for the due dosage of nicotine and caffeine was making me rather suffocated. 
 
*
 
At the ramp, I lit the hand-rolled cigarette; snatched myself from myself for a moment to myself: Hmm. I think I’ve taken the right decision. No! I don’t think I am in self-denial here, at all. I don’t think there is any ‘escapism’ here, really. Sometimes, it’s simply not possible to fix a broken situation no matter how hard one tries; so, it’s simply best to change the course of action. And perhaps, it was about time for me to put my life on a different path – give it a New Direction. Yes, that’s right! … But perhaps, sticking to this new habit isn’t such a grand idea. We shall see. Anyway, soon it will be time to pack my suitcase and bid the UK farewell. I will exchange this new habit for new stories & chapters that await me in Down Under, I suppose. Let that be the raison d’être now!
 
**
 
*Malaka (Greek slang): Loser/Idiot.
 
**

This poem was first published in Ephemeral Echoes: Twenty Twenty-One Edition, by Saad Ali (AuthorHouse, 2021).
 
**

little did he know
 
for Ejaz Rahim, Lloyd Jacobs & Farooq Malik
 
initially, he took to (reading & writing) poetry as a means of catharsis. little did he know, it was to be rendered a force of habit, in no time. little did he know, he was entering into a wedlock with late hours of post meridiem and early hours of ante meridiem. little did he know, the habit was bound to trespass into the terrain of compulsion, in no time. for, he had the infamous aphorism violated the sovereignty of his thalamus: pen is mightier than the sword. little did he know, no matter how many pens and books and papers he befriended, none were going to help him save himself from himself, as he floated from one island of form to another, on one boat of literary-tools to another. little did he know, all the islands and boats were already amply congested. little did he know, he was en route to befriending perplexity, in no time – from putting his faith in one fortune-teller to another, from confiding in one friend to another, from finding solace in one sibling to another, from pursuing composing one magnum opus to another. little did he know, he was en route to becoming devoured by the cultural-normatives – no matter how religiously he professed cause & effect. little did he know, his cart was en route to pulling over at the door of (amor) fati – no matter how resolutely he advocated flux.

**

This poem was first published in Ephemeral Echoes: Twenty Twenty-One Edition, by Saad Ali (AuthorHouse, 2021).

**
​
Saad Ali is a poet-philosopher & literary translator from the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. His new collection of poems, Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021), is an homage to vers libre, prose poem, and ekphrasis. He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrases into Urdu. His work appears in several anthologies, including Poetry in English from Pakistan by Ilona Yusuf & Shafiq Naz (eds.). He has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Best Microfiction. His influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Tagore, Lispector and more. www.facebook.com/owlofpines
 
 

 

​ Healing Through Music 
 
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when Barbra who happened to be sitting next to an Art Nouveau bronze in the light of a Tiffany lamp recalled a passage from Vinteuil’s sonata for piano and violin (or violin and piano) that had so enamored Swann when a particularly sticky little phrase not unlike the one employed again in the septet crept into her brain. Whereas the tune had begun like novelty ice cream, punched up with nuts and candies purely to frolic through a modest overrun, it was upon the palette of her mind that the melody unfurled into a lush romantic ballad reminiscent of decadently rich gelato al caffè. Over and over the motif spun golden spirals of mesmerizing self-similarity, through recapitulation and reprise, the crystalline bars advancing and retreating only to be snatched back before escalating in a sustained crescendo of tremendous ecstasy filled with soaring high soprano voices backed by full orchestra. Nearly transported away on a swell of sound, she clutched for the dogs, clones of her favorite curly-haired Coton de Tulear, and instantly felt her blood pressure drop, her heart rate settle from fervor in favour of the calm that comes from knowing that love never truly leaves and that music can capture memories and redeem them.
 
**
 
This poem was first published at Vita & The Woolf.

**
 
Whoever It Was 
 
after “Whoever She Was” by Carol Ann Duffy

They see me only as a mythical creature on city art.  Not alive. My jaws, still new, chew threw the cap. I smell the wax mingling with lemony pheromones. Bee, say the giant voices of the keepers of the round helmets. Bee. A grist of insects, suck nectar or pollinating crops for food. The buzz of tiny wings repeatedly. I do not mind. Perhaps someday. If you’re very lucky. The cycle repeats. The comb is crushed and strained of honey. When you think of me, I’m an orchestral interlude played on violin. Bustle of music. Listeners’ delight. What do you want to be when you grow up? A bit of zizz hangs on the petals. My scientific name sounds wrong. This was the garden. There are the coneflowers. Packing sweetness into hexagonal cells. For when they come. Whoever it was, forever their veiled eyes watch it as it journeys from snapdragons to primrose. It cannot be my kind and still I have a jar of light amber honey to prove that it was here.
 
You remember the precious things. Sunny days or finding your way home. One bee doesn’t matter. You fix your dead apian eyes on the drone which is spraying insecticide on your field. 
 
**
 
Romantic Fallacy
 
It cannot come to good the breaking of a heart no matter what short gains may follow a psychologist kept in Van Cleef and Arpels a stylist paid to cut in bangs before regret takes hold the gym membership the fast food carryout poker stakes and cigarettes aftermath of ruin but would that these spoils bi-products of the debaculous affair make some useful purpose of pain and sorrow as if increase in commerce could replace devoted love carelessly shattered by what sweary wisdom is destruction fed that can ever be a blessing when so much that we do not see has been lost and cannot be recovered
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
**
 
Whereby the Legacy Robe Recipient Can’t Even

What can you say of a life spent performing Newsies and Mormons and most recently an Employee of the World Wide Wicket Corporation? What equity abides in learning every line, every move of every lead part staying in the background never stepping into the spotlight? When you said goodbye to your hometown and headed for the city, you didn’t care what people thought. Enrolled in dance classes by day, you waited tables at night hoping to be ready when the big break came. For what began as amusement became ritual honouring the chorus and blessing the show. So opening night you twirl in the gown circling the stage counterclockwise as every hand reaches out to touch history and pride.
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
**
 
Not, Not Pennsylvania’s Laureate 
 
Poor Sam Hazo, fellow Domer, sitting at your desk trying to convince Wendell Berry to come to Pittsburgh– did Naomi Shihab Nye and Gregory Peck give you such trouble? Tom Ridge never said you were no longer top bard no other poet challenged you for the title although Peter Oresick does have a mean left hook. So what if your words are not state-sanctioned promoted through official channels to citizens of the Commonwealth possessing nothing but the authority of your own convictions. Show us a world of enlightenment and self-actualization. Take back the mantle; transcendence is in your reach. You need no permission to advise the culture on meaning no ceremony or pronouncement to speak truth the imposters are those who will not be taught when knowledge presents itself who dare not comment or explain lest they be found wanting. 
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

**

SCOTUS Van Backs Over Mary Richards’ Tam
 
If you’re a woman of a certain age maybe you shouldn’t be standing in the middle of a busy intersection tossing your hat in the air. Maybe you should be home raising kids or knitting. Maybe you’re at a crossroads in life and aren’t so much celebrating as serving things up to the fates. Gravity has its way, of course, and the cap lands on the frozen ground. Also, why was the van going in reverse when it should have been going forward and who was driving that thing anyway? Ohhhhh, Justice Aliiiito! It was almost as if he were aiming. There is nothing to do but muster your dignity. No one is going to commission a bronze statue of you picking your belongings off the pavement so you best get on with it and head to the office wet hat dripping limply from your hand. There is work to be done, and, Girl, this time you’re all alone.
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at Shot Glass Journal.
 
**
 
When There Are No Cracks 
 
How can you describe the burstiness of a sunset? Biting a juicy orange might help. And how do you capture the colours of the ocean? Perhaps Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral may be of use. Everywhere is colour–your socks, this button, the neighbour’s roof– except the stuff that’s clear like sea jellies or windows or things that are white like clouds or glaciers or teeth. Wavelengths, short and long, travel and land bouncing back to the eye where rods and cones send signals to the brain. But it’s not all pigments and dyes some colour is shape, intense and brilliant like marble berries or butterfly wings. And if color can be structure its properties remain  even in darkness where there is not the smallest space to let in the light.
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
**
 
American Politics Enters the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum 
 
If you are in the mood to learn something, you might learn that the dumb bastards on one side of the aisle and the dumb bastards on the other side of the aisle will never get on and not even experts at the Belfer Center can tell you why. You might think it would be nice to live in a country where proponents of gun control and the Second Amendment or supporters of legalized abortion and the right to life are equally right, but it makes for a very dangerous place indeed. And though you Veblen me and I social justice you, what is gained is more than what is lost. So in this indifferent age, take care of your fellow Americans while the politicians take care of themselves and know that in a meaningless universe full of hollow victories, there is room enough here for us all.
 
**
 
A version of this poem was first published at litcat and The Transnational Magazine.
 
**
 
A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife, and mother of four. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole  (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley  (Blue Jade Press).