Poetry: Kujtim Morina

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

Kujtim Morina was born on 1972 in Has district/ Albania. He graduated from the University of Tirana for Maths (1994), the University of Shkodra for Law (2004) and has a Master’s in European studies from the University of Graz/Austria (2008). From 1999 to 2009, he worked with international organisations in Kukes region. Since 2009 and onwards, he works in the Albanian diplomatic service. 

So far, he has published the poetry books: “Drunk under the fog”, 2007, and “Return of eyes”, 2010 and a short stories book “Next time” (OMSCA-1 2015). From his literary translations, it’s worthy to mention: “The Gulag Archipelago” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Princi Publishings 2012) and the poetry books: “Song for my name” by Linda Hogan, (OMSCA-1 2014); “The soul dances in its cradle” by Niels Hav (Denmark), OMSCA-1, 2016; “Antology of Kuwait poetry” (OMSCA-1,2017) and  “Persian Roses- an anthology of Iranian modern poetry”, published by Klubi i Poezisë, Tiranë, 2017. In English, his poems were published by the literary magazines: The Sound of Poetry Review;  LAKEVIEW, International Journal of Literature and Arts; The Galway Review”; Prosopisia; etc.

To Syria

Oh Holy Land,

even your heaven is blackened

by the rising smoke of war.

Light candles at any corner

in memory of the dead,

and in disobedience to the regime

  - but no violence.

Man cries for falling of a tree,

let it alone another human being.

Syria,

fighting with yourself -

one arm strikes the other one.

Go back to your own.

Don’t you listen to the prayer song of Sami Yusuf:

“silent words”, heartfelt words

for thoughtful children,

lonely children

and ruined cities.

How many people are now dead,

deprived of enjoying their lives!

How many millions spend overnight

without a shelter!

How many widows

confront their fate every day!

How many mutilated,

are left with broken dreams!

How many! How many! How many! ...

Oh Syria!

The stems of dead lilies

will sprout up again.

Cities will awake from the ruins

and power held by blood

will lose its sway and soon decay.

Then the country should be recovered

with love for human being

and not hate.

The fire of friendship

We should feed it with solid stuff.

The lively flame to stand for hours.

Then to make and remake it again.

The hands can't be warmed in the dry ashes.

If either one leaves, the fire isn’t made

until they get together, the magic fails,

It risks always to be vanished,

thus, by divine spirit is furnished.

Vision

Blood swashes rise from ground to the sky.

What a huge disaster has happened there!?

Setu, April 2018

Poetry: Aprilia Zank - Gjermani

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

Dr. Aprilia Zank is a freelance lecturer in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she teaches Creative Writing and Translation Theory.

She was born in Romania and studied English and French at the University of Bucharest. She then moved to Germany where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics from the Ludwig Maximilian University for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity. The research for her PhD thesis was done in collaboration with six universities from Europe, and as a visiting lecturer at Alberta University of Edmonton, Canada.

Aprilia is also a poet and a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English–German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch-deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik, LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2010, and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dream Publishing, April, 2014).

She writes verse in English and German and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013.

Her poetry has been widely published in anthologies and periodicals in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, India, the USA, Canada, Argentina, South-Africa and New Zealand. Her own volume of poetry TERMINUS ARCADIA is due to come out soon.

As a translator, she translates from and into German, English, French and Romanian in collaborative projects with various artists all over the world. In this respect, she organised the W-ORTE Literary Festival 2010 in Munich, the events POETS IN PERSON in London in 2012 and 2014, and the event IMAGINE THE BEATS in Munich, in 2015. These events brought together poets, writers, scholars and artists from many countries.

Aprilia is also a passionate photographer. To her, photography means the attempt to get a new insight into the essence of things. She has organised several photo exhibitions at the Ludwig Maximilian University and other cultural centres in Munich, and several of her images are prize winners and have been selected for poetry book covers.

digging for springs

I had to dig deeper for springs

this year

the ground dry

rocks and roots

barring my way

dairies

bound in buckskin

train tickets

for cancelled journeys

family vows

treasured

in creaky drawers

cobwebs

growing to ropes

around my ankles

blinded by dust at dusk

and haze at dawn

weary to carry

all those registers

with fading names

and missing addresses

while stray dogs

snarled in mating games

and the owl dived

and tore its prey

on the velvet moss

of the holy stone

I had to dig deeper

this year

beyond layers of soil

and layers of skin

to catch a glance

of the lily

shimmering on waters

thousand years deep.

his name is prophet

inspired by a fellow poet’s verse

I see you

drifting above the clouds

as there is no abode for you

beneath their desultory patterns

you with the patch on your right eye

and the knife in your bowels

you with your rice-paper heart

and the tongue of a hundred tongues

you have reached for the holy light

but it blurred to haze

when you touched it

with your trembling hands

you have walked on soot

and begged for shelter

at celestial gates

but nobody washed your feet

or called you prophet

and when you’re gone

your words will linger about

homeless

restless

waiting for translation.

  

no pictures please

we have our pride after all

the day flickers away

dragging along the last beams

of a weary New York sun

the cold grabs at you

from behind numbered walls

empty-eyed dummies

prophecies of uncertain futures

we may have nothing

but we have

our pride

at dawn

New York snatches its pray

sucks it

chews it

spits its shell

at the close of day

they may have nothing

but they have

their pride

New York is cold

it shuts its doors

behind registered family names

it closes its eyes

upon

homeless

hopeless

desiccating identities

but they have

their pride

New York is mute

it has no answers

to those who go to bed

without prayers

having no bed

and no one to pray to

but, no,

no pictures please

we have our pride

after all;

Setu, April 2018

Poetry: Ade Caparas Manilah

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

ade caparas manilah… a.k.a. Ade Orosa, ade c., Gandah Manilah, a Philippine born but an Australian citizen since 1991 says, ‘my affection for writing and poetry can be traced since i was a meagre toddler, four year old… “She could create a short story out of a piece of stone or a leaf.” my mother would say.’ i am a no lukewarm, scorpio woman, born 04 november, divorce with 10 children .. my life has always been an alternating rainbow and stormy weather! _ I am not an intellectual, only witty… and to borrow Montaigne’s word, “and so I myself see better than anyone else that these are nothing but reveries of a man who has tasted only the outer crust of science in his childhood, and has retained only a vague general picture of them: a little of everything and nothing thoroughly”. A study-addict, always a student mingling with the young… a class top notcher, a valedictorian, a declaimer, a debater during my elementary grades and high school days; also an honer student, a deans lister in all colleges and universities… i have reached my goals!

---

#1

‘rare’

“i love so quickly so intensely like a forceful wind, smashing flood… yet i am also a fragile plum sprout that can stand unnumbered degree of velocity, still in vibrant brilliance after the storm!” _ade c.

you… haughty wind

and i

a flimsy blossom

quiet in comfort

watching the silent streams

suddenly

you… in concert with

the surging flood

smash crush me!

exert forceful velocity

whip me carry me

and i, like a timid plum

willingly bend

in an idiotic surrender

seemingly

in total jouissance

unmindful of my

future yesterday!

ahhhh..

darling i love you

don’t you forget that

your wind

your flood

will come and go

smashing crushing

other blooms

but… i am rare!

art selfie & philosophical discourse: ade caparas manilah

sunday 3:05pm o4 march 2018 sydney nsw australia

#2

“40 shades of climate change”

summer… bubbles
autumn… tickles
winter… cuddles
spring… sings
‘climate change’ arouses me!

no! wait!

please not yet

don’t don't come

you’ll ruin my silk channel

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

oh… ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

your ‘machiavellian’ gismo

in ‘kahuts’

with treacherous

thunder and lightning!

now… my silk channel is wet

hugs sculpts contours

funny…

that’s my body burning

ahhhh… your pouring rain!

naughty poem by: ade caparas manilah

sunday 3:22pm 04 march 2018

sydney nsw australia

first published: first virtual poetry.. a one-woman show: Library World Arts of Memories

11 february to 31 march 2014

  

#3

“a wood nail mimics your life?”

“poetry comes in many forms: free verse, septon, haiku, quatrain, diamante, ode, epic, ballad, etc.,

but it must be appreciated without the benefit of accompanied  image… this is a great challenge…

hmmmmmmm… i’ll dip my finger  to this challenge!” _ade c.

life is a challenge, difficult to live

yet challenges  can be won

swaying trees, running brooks

pebbles nails fruits food

birds dogs books songs singing

anything under the sun

is identical to our life

they are models

mimics miniatures of our life

our challenges… 

one day, i cooked ‘lengua estofada’

hmmmmmmm yam… 2.5 kilos

kaput in one sitting

preparation was tedious

whole raw lengua boiled to skin; off thick outer skin

then simmer with all the ingredients for hours

when tender in their natural thick sauce

it’s the shining glory… salivated by all

‘lengua estofada’ is life model!

hammered fired hammered

cut scraped cut

before fine gold appears

everything… our five senses can seize  

are examples of life challenges

like now…now, a hora mismo

i am being challenged  to write a poetry

without support of an image graphic artwork

the challenge

i paint my  thoughts in words

so my readers won’t fall asleep… they are left challenged…

a wood nail mimics your life?

philo poetry by: _ade caparas manilah

sunday 3:34pm 04 march 2018

sydney nsw australia

first published: monday 5:38pm 22 june 2015 sydney australia

Setu, April 2018

Setu, April 2018

Setu

Volume 2 Issue 11

April 2018

---

Editorial

• Sunil Sharma

Poetry

• Louis Kastakin
• Chani Zwibel
• Mario Vitale
• Elizabeth Castillo
• Gopal Lahiri 
• Debashish Parashar
• Sham Ramlal
• Srishti Sharma
• Jagari Mukherjee
• Md. Hanif

Collaboration Poetry

• Elizabeth Castillo and Jonathan Aquino

Masterclass

• Mark Antony Rossi on poetry

Translation

• Bangla poems of Pankaj Saha by Jaydeep Sarangi
• Telugu poems by T S Chandra Mouli

Special Essay

• “Wordy-Wallahs”: Partnership Strategies in World Literatures in english John Thieme

Short Fiction

• Abu Siddik
• Ana Vidosavljevic

Author of the Month

• John Thieme

Literary Interview

• Lela Manganaris by Roula Pollard

Contemporary Concerns

• Nazia Kamali: Virmati’s Quest for Independence in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters
• Guni Vats: The play of truth and illusion: Language as myth in the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra
• Indrani Chakraborty: Dr. Jekyll: The Transhumanist in the Victorian England
• Ihsan Malik: Problems of Cultural Intrusion in Literary Translation
• Pushpa Rani Prasad: Descartes dream argument
• Bonosree Majhi: Reclusive mountains and soporific dreams: Analyzing the textual representation of space in Ananya S. Guha’s Hills Of Slow Time

My World and Words

• John Thieme

Classics Revisited (External Link)

• Gogol: Memoirs of a madman

(Credit: The University of Adelaide Library, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005)

Photo Essay

• Rob Harle: In the arms of middle brother

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

• Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano
• Ade Caparas Manilah
• Aprilia Zank
• Kujtim Morina

---

सेतु अप्रैल 2018 हिंदी संस्करण
Setu Home - Past Issues

Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano (Italia)

Exclusive: Poetry from Europe and other Western locations: Curated by Agron Shele

Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano

Published works “Pensieri trasognati per un sogno”, 2013. “Fra distruzione e rinascita: la vita” , 2014. “Diario di una ipocrita”, 2014. “Vita su un ponte di legno”, 2014. “Cuori Attorno a una favola”, 2014. “Tracce di semi sonori con i colori della vita”, 2014. “Sensi da sfogliare”, 2014. “Piccoli fermioni d’amore”,  2015; “ Due amanti noi”, 2015, “Credibili incertezze, 2016” “Frammenti di sole e nebbia sull’Appennino, 2016”, “Soffio di anime erranti”, 2017.

I gift you a tear

I gift you a tear
hardened by time
that rolls between old words
that reverberates very deep inside.
I gift you a tear
that narrows in grief,
so it shatters in the memory
of a poor dream.
I gift you a tear
in a blow of pollen,
in a gallop of birds
that does not contain the madness that it remembers.
I gift you a tear
in an imperfect drop
that cries for the universal hunger
from the hollow orbits of the eyes.
I gift you a tear
that goes through the memory
prisoner in a drop
it slides away.

TRAVELING THOUGHT

I observe the sky, the grass,
The flights of light things
From life
And its time of pauses.
I feel the life that speaks
And all the stars become
Words, words, words
Which illumintae the paths.
The smile from all the lips
Also become words,
The terms approach in deaf steps
And in the silence
Of the clock licensed by the hours,
When nobody spies among the leaves,
The sound of the voice
Is the strip of the rain that fills
Ancient wrecked islands
Of words that the feet get wet
with the inner streams
Of vague brains
Who discuss about the utility
Of a distant humanity.
The men together smile,
Without losing hope.
Water that carries, water that leaves,
Infinite ideas travel
In the pushed wave,
The wind rolls fast,
Brings somethiiing to the world that no longer expects,
Are thoughts of love, in a letter,
Written words
Interprets bits of wind, channeling ideas
And among the nation's seas they travel.
The mute Universe awakens
Cities, towns, without answers
Where people that wouldn't expect nothing,
Marveled, stand at the window
And lay down the arms to collect the ideas
Of words that open paths
For men, women, dumb and blind
That they wanted to feel clearly
The words that have power
To build bridges
Between the towns that no longer love.

MOLD OF DREAMS

The perfect mold of dreams
Is naked in the nest of the bird prophet,
And in the passage from parents to children,
Man forgets succession; he does not remember
The eloquent sounds of ablaze births
Which were burning in the wait of a name.
Man, man, where did you lose the emotion
To contemplate the rain that takes off
The flutters of the swallows in the wind?
I see in your eyes the absence of feeling,
The mental streams asleep
And I feel a hand, drags you in lost dreams,
Covers the conscience with its fingers,
The whole hand brings you the dress of indifference
When you see other men suffer
And in this humanity without name, crushed
Of the pieces of wind, I see you die without suffering
because of the death you carry in your eyes
And shout the word love,
Without comprehending its meaning.

Setu, April 2018

Poetry: Debasish Parashar

The Way I SUBSCRIBE

All in a maze of more-than- emotions
I clicked SUBSCRIBE.Yes, all capital letters.Yes, I saw them.Letters are funny
beings.
They still combine to create meanings, gang-up to control my mind
and build bridges all around.
Bridges between selves are built with stimuli and I walk across worlds.
A figment of semantics is a culpable homicide and I walk across worlds.
I walk inside against gravity
I SUBSCRIBE all in a maze of more-than- emotions
I disagree with you if you say
emotions build bridges and reason burns
reason actually strengthens bridges
hyper-reason SUBSCRIBES
or hyper-emotion ?
SUBSCRIBE is a second from my self
a proxy for the nano-humanity that stands with the world.
SUBSCRIBE is that more-than- real I always desired to inhabit.
Desires are a river shaped by its valley
and the valley is a negation of itself.
What is desire if I always get it ?
And I SUBSCRIBE.

15 Minutes Out of Town

15 minutes out of town

Debasish Parashar

is a festival
and you know
how much I love to sing aloud
I used to
15 minutes out of town
is a whole new world
where we can freely breathe
and get cosy
like winds kissing monsoon showers
15 minutes out of town
we can drive away
to see
the highway meeting the green fields
like the corner of your eyes
till a point
when curiosity kills insomnia
like a lantern killing a night
15 minutes out of town
we can dream again
the dream we always dreamed
of being two yet one
Away from the tinsel world of
overhyped romance and flawless intimacy
we can fight aloud like cats again
15 minutes out of town
there is a river dying
On its banks
I can confess my love for you again
It will not be a selfie
good enough to be uploaded
on social media you know
but at least we can fall in love again

4 delhis

my existential plane of experience and the extended floodplains of Yamuna
create an angle
inversely proportional to my house rent.
4 delhis.
if there is a car on the street
the car on the street is cars
can be edited like a video clip.
4 delhis.
there is a wedding on the second floor
and here i am, a stranger happy like a voyeur without a convincing reason
living can be like passive smoking.
4 delhis.
i can climb this city like a lizard against gravity
i can roll this city like old photographic films
i can read and deconstruct this city.
4 delhis.
I was born in a house without a house number.I just knew that house
just like the sounds of my mother's bangles.Just knew it.
Now i live in a multiple city multiplying vertically into a complex matrix of numbers.
4 delhis.

Setu, April 2018

Fiction: Mr Madman's House

Ana Vidosavljevic from Serbia, currently lives in Indonesia. She has her work published or forthcoming in Down in the Dirt (Scar Publications), Literary Yard, RYL (Refresh Your Life), The Caterpillar, The Curlew, Eskimo Pie, Coldnoon, Perspectives, Indiana Voice Journal. She worked on a GIEE 2011 project: Gender and Interdisciplinary Education for Engineers 2011 as a member of the Institute Mihailo Pupin team. She also attended the International Conference “Bullying and Abuse of Power” in November, 2010, in Prague, Czech Republic, where she presented her paper: “Cultural intolerance”.

Everyone in Klonville knew him as Mr Madman. His real name was Hank, but rarely anyone knew it.

Mr. Madman was a strange creature. He was probably in his late forties. He was tall and had pretty messy shoulder-length hair, beard that always looked dirty, very thick eyebrows that almost met in the middle above the bridge of the nose and long, broad and upright ears resembling ones of a vampire. He had broad shoulders, strong arms, very big hands that could probably pull up a smaller tree together with its roots. His legs were long and his feet large. His appearance alone was enough to scare not only children but grown-ups as well.

Mr Madman lived alone in the house on the hill not so far from the town's cemetery. That fact even more emphasized his strangeness. And definitely, it provoked people to make up a lot of strange stories about him. However, it was not the only reason for those weird stories. Mr Madman had never got married. No woman wanted to marry such a strange man and he didn't seem interested in getting married and having a family. He had all those strange animals in his house and that was probably enough for him. Older people in Klonville remembered his mother who had been a very nice woman. She had been a writer and had rarely left the house. And when she had left it, she would go to the town's library to borrow some books or buy some groceries in the local shop. She had always wished a good day to everyone with a broad smile and had known everyone's name in the town. She had raised her son alone and no one had known or found out who the father of the child had been.

Mr Madman was the peculiar child. He was an introvert boy who didn't play with the other kids. Instead, he collected animals and played with them. He had the whole menagerie of them. He always had either a frog, a lizard, a snail or a snake in his pocket. And his backpack was a temporary home to mice, squirrels, grasshoppers or crickets. Other kids stayed aways from him but they didn't dare to bully him since he was much taller and stronger than any other boy his age. He didn't talk almost at all. The teachers kept trying again and again to make him talk and answer their questions but every time he was asked about anything, he would just stare at the black board absentmindedly with an incomprehensible facial expression. No one could guess what he was thinking about. However, he loved reading books and he wrote some nice essays, but he would never read those essays aloud in front of the teacher and other kids in the classroom. Once in a while, Mr Madman would bring a frog or a snail into the classroom and let it rest on his desk. The teachers protested and other kids disgustingly frowned. But no reprimands and punishments discouraged him from bringing his pets to the classroom.

After he had finished the elementary school, no high school authorities wanted him as a student. And his schooling ended there. He started working on a local farm planting and picking up fruits and vegetables. This job didn't require talking and interacting with other employees. And Mr Madman was a hard worker, a real asset, so his boss appreciated him.

Mr. Madman led a quiet life. After work, he would go back home, and probably spend time with his animals. No one knew how many of them he had. After his mother had passed away, no one entered his house. There were rumors that he had a room full of snakes, and that he slept with a piton in his bed. And some ladies heard from some other ladies in Klonville that during the night he visited cemetery and holding snakes in his hands, he sat on the tombs and hummed some strange creepy tunes. There were so many other stories about Mr Madman and his house. There was a great deal of speculation about what was in his house. All those strange stories provoked not only children's but grown-ups' imagination as well.

One autumn day, a group of kids, bored with the same games they played every day, made a plan to break into Mr Madman's house while he was at work. There were four of them, all of them ten or eleven years old. Tobby was the only one who didn't like the idea and he tried to persuade the others that this mischief was a bad game. He was not scared of what they might find in Mr Madman's house, but he felt sorry for this man whom everyone either avoided or abhorred. He didn't do anything bad to anyone and he didn't deserve that kind of treatment. Other curious children didn't let Tobby in peace. They teased him and blamed him for being a coward. Finally, Tobby gave in and decided to join them in their mischief.

The kids waited Mr Madman to go to work. They were hiding in the bushes no that far from the house. Tobby reluctantly agreed to do his duty but he told them he would just take a look inside the house and leave. The kids made a plan to break the window and enter through it. The one overlooking the front porch was the easiest target. When they were sure that Mr Madman had left the house and turned around the corner, they waited another five minutes just to make sure he was far and couldn't hear the window breaking. Then, they cautiously emerged from their hiding place and approached the house. The tallest boy, Fabian, grabbed a rock and threw it at the window. And when all of them started cleaning the window pane from the broken glass pieces and getting ready to jump inside, they heard the fallen leaves rustling and someone's footsteps. They turned around and what they saw left them totally flabbergasted. It was Mr Madman holding a big snake and standing still just a few steps far from them. He must have heard the window breaking! But that snake he was holding! The huge man and scary snake were the terrifying scene.

The kids started running toward the bushes they had been hiding in previously. Only Tobby remained standing not sure what to do. Mr Madman didn't approach him. Instead, he slowly headed toward the front door of his house dragging his feet as if he had been very tired. He waved Tobby signaling to follow him.

Tobby was not scared. He recognized in Mr Madman's gestures the signs of friendliness. Tobby was overwhelmed by the burst of excitement, anxiety and curiosity. And that curiosity didn't leave room for fear. He followed Mr Madman to the inside of the house. When he entered the living room, Tobby's jaw dropped. He was so surprised by what he had found there that he couldn't speak. In the middle of the room, there was a big aquarium full of colorful fish. Small in size, those beautiful fish swarmed all over the aquarium. Their swimming and moving graciously through the water was so beautiful that Tobby thought he could sit and watch them for hours. However, there were so many other distractions in the room, so Tobby couldn't just sit and watch the fish. In one corner of the living room, there was a small terrarium with three lizards. Two of them were green and the third one was black with white spots. There was moss, pebbles, small plants and soil inside their home. It looked cozy and comfortable for the lizards. Then, next to the lizards' terrarium, there was another one, almost the same size. This terrarium was a home to many insects. Tobby recognized springtails and millipedes, but there were some other insects he had never seen before. Few meters far from the insects' terrarium, there was a huge bowl with tiny turtles. There were at least dozens of turtles. They seemed pretty happy swimming around water grass in their big home. Finally, after Tobby moved from the turtles' aquarium, he spotted the last glass container which was the biggest one, and it was empty. He turned around and looked at Mr Madman who was standing in one corner of the living room still holding the big brown snake. Its body was wrapped around Mr Madman's right hand. Mr Madman nodded approvingly showing that that terrarium belonged to the snake and he said “Jo” revealing the snake's name. Then, he approached this big terrarium and placed Jo inside.

Mr Madman retreated to the kitchen. It was a small room with no animals inside but there were a lot of books and magazines on the kitchen table. He didn't talk. Except introducing Jo to Tobby he didn't say a word the whole time. He put the kettle on the stove and obviously wanted to make tea.

Tobby sat in one of the kitchen's chairs and waited patiently. After a couple of minutes, Mr Madman placed a cup of mint tea in front of Tobby. An increasingly strong mint fragrance filled the kitchen. Tobby's nostrils opened up with pleasure breathing in and letting the alluring scent fill his lungs.

The friendliness and hospitality of Mr Madman made him feel ashamed of what he and his friends had done and attempted to do. Tobby felt the need to apologize for the mischief.

“I am really sorry for everything. Actually, I have never liked the idea of breaking into your house.

I'm sorry.” Tobby said.

Mr Madman could read the sincere look in Tobby's eyes. He just nodded his head in acknowledgment. He didn't say anything.

After a few minutes, when he finished sipping his tea, Tobby asked Mr Madman if he could again take a look around the living room. Mr Madman again nodded.

Tobby went back to the living room and moved from one glass container to the other investigating their inhabitants curiously and admiring them. He spent half an hour inspecting the animals in this magical room and then he heard Mr Madman approaching him. Mr Madman carried his working uniform indicating that he had to go to work. Tobby realized he had to leave. He reluctantly headed to the door and while leaving the porch he turned around and asked Mr Madman if he could come back again the next day. Mr Madman again just nodded his head “yes”. Tobby smiled and finally left.

That afternoon, unfortunately, a bunch of policemen invaded Mr Madman's house and everything changed for Mr Madman and his animals. Tobby would learn that evening that his visit to Mr Madman's house would not be possible the following day.

When Tobby's friends ran away that same day from Mr Madman's yard, they went directly to the police station. They yelled and cried and told the whole story to the officers. The officers first didn't believe them. They called their parents and they also called Tobby's parents who was missing,by the way, and they realized that the kids' story might be true, since they reported that Mr Madman had captured their friend Tobby and had probably tortured him. After a couple hours of writing the report and investigating the frightened kids, four policemen, armed with guns, went to check Mr Madman's property. After they had checked the front yard and made sure no one was there they knocked on the door and found no answer. They broke in. There was no one inside except the animals in the living room. And all their glass homes and all those creatures shocked the policemen. Especially Jo, who was a big guy. The policemen called the special unit and some other animal experts and they confiscated all the animals. Some of the animals were released while Jo, the turtles, and the fish ended up in the capital's zoo. That same afternoon, some strange governmental officers came to the farm where Mr Madman worked and took him to the mental asylum. He would never again see his animals or his house.

When Tobby came back home after spending some time in Mr Madman's house, he found his grandmother immersed in worry. When she saw him safe and sound, she hugged him and started crying. Immediately, she called his parents who were in the police station being investigated about their son who had gone missing. Once they arrived home accompanied with the police officer, Tobby told them the whole truth skipping the part about the animals. The grown-ups didn't seem convinced. The other kids' story was so dramatic that they suspected Mr Madman had drugged him and threatened him not to tell the truth. They sent him to the hospital for medical check-up. Tobby protested but to no avail.

Later that day, the doctors confirmed that there were no traces of any drugs in Tobby's body. There were no signs of any violence on his body either. He was released from hospital but still no one seemed to believe his story. He was repeating that Mr Madman was a harmless sort of man and that he seemed a nice person but no one heard what he was saying. The grown-ups seemed so engaged in the drama spread all around Klonville that they didn't want to hear the truth. The drama was more interesting and they tended to keep it going until it reached its culmination. The animals just proved them that Mr Madman was insane and that he needed to be in a special institution, locked and under supervision.

The kids' story, exaggerated and with the key facts misstated, brought too much attention. Not only local newspapers, but national also, covered the story. And all of those stories had Mr Madman as an anti-hero, villain and wrongdoer. What did he do to carry those titles? Everyone in Klonville had an opinion about it. And Tobby was probably the only one who knew him more than the others, even though, he spent only a couple of hours with him. But he couldn't help him. He was taken away, confined in some tiny depressive room, maybe he was even put in shackles. All those thoughts roamed Tobby's mind. But he was only ten years old and no one listened to him. No one believed him. He was only a kid.

As the weeks and months went by, people in Klonville started forgetting the whole episode with Mr Madman and his animals. His house was abandoned and its walls and roof were slowly crumbling. Many things disappeared from the house. The cutlery, furniture, TV, stove, radio. Only books and magazines remained. And they were being heavily damaged by humidity and neglect. Tobby managed to save few of them. A couple of times, he sneaked out and went there carefully not to be seen by anyone. He was sad to see Mr Madman's house in the state of dilapidation. And he wanted to have some memory of him. So, he took few of his books. He was afraid he would forget him the same way the other people in Klonville had done during the time. After the last visit to Mr Madman's house remnants, he got an idea how to keep him in his memory forever. He went home.

Setu, April 2018

Poetry: Mario Vitale

Mario Vitale

Thanksgiving Dinner

Home for the holiday from New Orleans,
with Mother and Father at the tiny
drop leaf, brown rosewood, mahogany
table with the gold, grinning claw feet;
Father, choler- red-in the-face, short-
sleeved white shirt and cane, says the blessing
as Mother brings in the turkey and cranberry.
Then Mother asks, " Won't you have more ?' and father :
"Do you think Moll Flanders was a whore ?"

(I have suffered and bleached my hair blond. )
I am silent before their replies.
Mother sighs. "I can scarce speak to her."
And Father, too, quotes Shakespeare. (I am thin
as paper and the rose- colored bowl
of blown glass sitting on the silver stand,
half- filled with water. )

Waiting for you to find a place

Once I had this fanciful idea of recording
the silence in each great cathedral
and marketing these...

As you pull open the worn and squeaky door
there's a strange moment of apprehension as if
you're not sure what will greet you - a fullness
or an emptiness; a football-stadium roar
or a silence; an earfull of praise or
a mindfull of questions...

but the first step inside, and a silent gasp -
it's bigger inside than outside...
and the sound of your steps soars to the high
indescribably glorious roof like a
small bird looking for an escape.

so that you'd like to sing a note or two
to hear them repeated by those
invisible angels of the echo, waiting poised
in the stoniness of the walls and roof
like the mountain cliffs and valleys
from whence the stone was dragged
by devotion.

and you feel an intruder into the space of history
waiting for you to find your place.

How wonderful if at this moment, history unreeled;
played itself backwards; and as the years rolled back,
the cathedral nave would fill with the quietly respectful
devout. Then back again, and the voices would be more raw,
rich with the earth they'd just been tending.

Would the praise, to our ears, sound more heartfelt?
we'll never know.
Reel back again to that almost
unimaginable scene - the walls rising, still part built;
the clambering masons, chisels singing on the stone,
lifted only a little lower than the angels
on wooden planks on slender wooden scaffold,
the squeal of pulleys, the sudden silence of tools
and the call for the master mason;
and up there where the roof is still blue-grey sky,
the occasional bird from an optimistic nest
built the year before in the part-built spire, fluttering,
searching for a crumb or two from
the mason's heady meal

as birds may wheel again over half-there walls
when please God no the roof falls in and
respectful visitors walk down the tidy gravelled path
where once the aisle was walked, bowed head and singing,
but now so neatly grassed where pews and praise once stood,
remarking out aloud or in their heart
how the silence is, still, living, there.

Hampton Beach 

The smell of fresh fry doe
Time had elapsed playing at the casino
Fresh lobster with a side order of fries
Those spacious wonderful sky's
Down at the shell the continental were playing
A walk by the lady of a statue in waiting
Flip flops and the sound of laughter
A playground for kids in the middle
The boardwalk with seagulls flocking over head
Fire works in the midnight air with flames

The Poor Man

Today I stand on the outskirt of town
shiny brow
take out the towel
a decorated mast
to overcome each task
the gift of liquid courage
lines being drawn in the sand
the poor man
distance himself on the street
pan handle his way
curiosity sets in
someone hands him a big ten
equate logic for fear
all draw nearbegs for his next meal
unusual sex appeal
columns of sand when to understand

Dancing upon a limb 

remember me among the sea so faithfully we must agree

through shadows peak along the path in the forest
a spotted owl in a tree on the path a grey fox
caress a lavender flower the braided tapestry of the sun
shouts of laughter from within a pull of the heart

dancing through a limb on the tree must humbly agree
the brigade of silence attacks the meager senses
alone I sat once again within my thoughts
thinking of that spotted owl how it quivers

the cordial tap of dander fast approaching
with cosmic wings caught in flight

Setu, April 2018