Editorial: Sunil Sharma

Sunil Sharma

Some good news in the stressful times.

This issue brings together a stunning selection of the 45 of the best voices from the West. In the second edition, specially curated by the celeb American poet Scott Thomas Outlar, under the annual column: “Western Voices”, some of the finest voices writing poetry in these challenging times can be heard speaking directly to the heart through sincerity and empathy; reassuring, sanguine and motivating words---the major tasks of great art across the time-space continuum.  

No doubt, it is a bleak phase, bordering on the dark. Things have changed dramatically over the last four months and affected all of us. Borders are closed.  Traffic is zero. Offices are shut. Danger is real. A virus has wreaked havoc on the economies of an integrated and interdependent world. As the shadow of the pestilence and death continues to loom large over the nations, infections rise alarmingly, the overall mood tends to grow pessimistic. Desperation is widespread. With no vaccine discovered so far, the race of the homo-sapiens lives under the daily fear of the invisible virus stalking the streets. Quarantine, self-isolation, plague, COVID-19, lockdown, social distancing, containment---these words so far functioning as cold and remote linguistic units have suddenly got a global currency, immediacy, resonance and connect that is astonishing in terms of the fast speed of overtaking other entries in the lexicon and the frequency of usage and quick recognition across the various media and age groups. Limited but most frequently used and recognized terms evoking dread and doom. Medicine, disease, death, human will and creativity are all having their own immediacy, vibrancy and colour, and, these clusters of meanings and practices are happening simultaneously in the daily conversations everywhere.

Poetry is a powerful mode of reflecting the complexities of such ugly realities. The angst and hope, survival and belief, in tough times, are artistically conveyed by poetry. These signatures ably record the meaning of human condition in most stressful circumstances. You will find these poems uplifting in their individual tones and contours.

You will also find video poetry link, somewhere else in this issue, where select poets respond to Corona in a most creative manner. Grouped under the new section: Prose and Poetry Readings in the Time of the Pandemic, some of the top-most authors in Hindi and English can be viewed here, talking of sublime moments that give succor and hope. Hosted by Setu, it is on the rolling basis.

Another initiative to serve serious art in various forms to your PC, month after month.

The other regular features are equally enjoyable---general poetry, prose, book reviews and translations, enough to keep you busy in the lockdown, and beyond!

We thank guest editor Scott Thomas Outlar and all the featured poets in the special section for their kind support to the open call, and also, to all the other patrons of the journal that has registered so far, a whopping number of 1,384,696 page hits so far.

Take care.

Stay safe.

This will also pass.

Best,

Sunil Sharma,
Editor, Setu (English)
Mumbai Metro Area, Maharashtra (India)

Setu, April 2020

Setu, April 2020

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Setu

Volume 4; Issue 11; April 2020

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Setu PDF Archives

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Editorial

• Sunil Sharma

Poetry

• Tim Suermondt
• Andy Conner
• Ahmad Al-Khatat 
• Adrian Rogers
• Stephen Mead
• Dennis Moriarty
• John C. Mannone
• R. P. Singh
• Smruti Ranjan Mohanty
• Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
• Parray Shahid
• Jaya Ghosh
• Adnan Shafi

Debut

• Ankita Pandey

Author of the Month

• Mitali Chakravarty

Fiction/ Flash

• V. Ramsamooj Gosine
• Alex Nderitu

Serial novel

• Rosie - Glory Franklin Sasikala (Chapter 6)
• Orange Dawn - John Clark Smith (Chapter 3)

Translation

• Telugu poetry of Anugu Narsimha Reddy by T. S. Chandra Mouli
• Hebrew poetry of Tali Cohen Shabtai by Eitan Medini

Book Review

• Robert Maddox-Harle: Adrian Rogers’s A Way Less Travelled
• Joseph S. Spence, Sr.: Ram Krishna Singh’s Tainted with Prayers
• Jindagi Kumari: Basudhara Roy’s Moon in My Teacup
• Gopal Lahiri: Susmita’s Quiet Whispers of Our Heart 
• Amit Shankar Saha: Naina Dey’s One Dozen Stories: Collected Bengali Short Fiction in Translation
• Nabnita Sengupta: The Eastern Muse edited by Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi and Malsawmi Jacob
• Namita Rani Panda: A House Within: An Anthology of Poems by Pradeep Biswal

Video Poetry

• Prose and Poetry Readings in the Time of Pestilence (Setu's Facebook Page)

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Special Edition: The Western Voices

Guest Editor: Scott Thomas Outlar

• Guest Editor's Note: Scott Thomas Outlar
• The Western Voices: 45 Featured Poets

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Forthcoming Calls

Setu Special Editions

• May 2020: The Fictions: A Selection. By the fantastic narrator Kelli J Gavin
• June 2020: The Local Flavours. By the respected academic-poet-critic-editor: Jaydeep Sarangi
• July 2020: Children's Literature. Reputed critic-academic-author Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

(The concerned guest editors will make open calls on these themed issues. -Editor)

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सेतु, अप्रैल 2020

Setu Home - Past Issues

Guest Editorial: Scott Thomas Outlar (Western Voices 2020)

Scott Thomas Outlar

I must start off with a huge thank you to Sunil Sharma and Anurag Sharma for inviting me back this year to guest-edit the Western Voices edition of Setu Mag. The dedication they show for their magazine each month is highly commendable, and their intention to serve as a bridge across cultures shines true. It’s always an honor to collaborate and work with Setu.

A debt of gratitude is owed to the forty-five poets who contributed their wonderful words to help make this project possible. Each of their unique voices acts as a lighthouse of inspiration during this critical moment in history that will define what the future of civilization looks like. Just as a muscle must first be broken down before it can grow back in a stronger condition, so too must we pass through this modern crisis of chaos before we emerge in a state of higher order. I believe the spirit of humanity remains resolute and that renaissance is waiting in the wings.

May you live in interesting times. Was that phrase first muttered as a curse or a proverb? Let’s dig up the bones and learn what they sing. And others say that life is what you make it. So I guess we’re now swimming through a prism of perceptions and projections.

We all know the score in the Age of Wuhan. What is there left to say? A world consciousness seized by fear is as virulent as the plague itself. Fortunately, the best salve for troubled times is beautiful art. Luckily, we have discovered a wellspring. Dose up. Drink deep. Sigh pure.

Selah,
Scott Thomas Outlar 

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Poetry: Western Voices (April 2020): Authors

Adrian Cedric Rogers Alan Britt Alicia Mathias Alyssa Trivett Ann Christine Tabaka Anthony Howling Beth Gordon Božidar Vasiljević Brian Rihlmann Bruce Boston Carl Scharwath Chani Zwibel Danijela Trajković Donna Snyder Don Beukes

Douglas Cole Duane Vorhees Dustin Pickering Elisabeth Horan and Amanda McLeod gary lundy Heath Brougher Hedy Habra J.K. Winters John Drudge Kashiana Singh Kathy Ellis L.B. Sedlacek Lauren Scharhag Lee Ballentine

Linda Imbler Maria Castro Dominguez Marianne Szlyk Mari Deweese Matt Duggan Mela Blust Michael Lee Johnson Michael Murphy Burke Mihaela Melnic Mysti S. Milwee Robert Maddox-Harle Robin Wyatt Dunn Ryan Quinn Flanagan Sheree La Puma Z.M. Wise

Setu, April 2020

Z.M. Wise (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native from Chicago, poet, essayist, occasional playwright, seldom screenwriter, co-editor and arts activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He was selected to be a performer in the Word Around Town Tour in 2013, a Houston citywide tour. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press, an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. The journal was nominated Best Poetry Journal in 2013 at the National Poetry Awards. He has five books of published poetry, including: Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock! (MavLit Press, 2013), The Wandering Poet (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014), Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems (Weasel Press, 2015), Cuentos de Amor (Red Ferret Press, 2015), and Kosmish and the Horned Ones (Weasel Press, 2018). His debut play, Bottles of Emerald for the Demon Queen (Transcendent Zero Press, 2019), was published in late December of 2019. His sixth book of poetry, Illinois Infinitarium (Cherry House Press, 2020), will be published in the summer months of 2020. Other than these books, his poems, lyrics, essays, and book reviews have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. The motto that keeps him going: POETRY LIVES AND LONG LIVE THE ARTS! Mr. Wise will make sure to spread that message and the love of the arts, making sure it remains vibrant for the rest of his days and beyond. Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading. 

Viral Spiral/Pandemic Epic

Brittle words on sun-bleached sheets.
Love in the time of papyrus,
love in the time of papyrus.
Writing verses, saccharine and sanguine, for mi querida.
Love in the time of papyrus,
love in the time of papyrus.
Scratched out edits on moon-kissed drafts.
Love in the time of papyrus,
love in the time of papyrus.
Midnight showings of one-woman performance in Kabuki theatre.
Polytheistic goddess rain,
shower our faces with blinding logic again.

Neck kisses from lavender lips, arise the bumps of skin.
Love in the time of the fire,
love in the time of the fire.
Quaking within tremors of intimacy.
Love in the time of the fire,
love in the time of the fire.
Two-backed beast caught in an inferno of frenzy.
Love in the time of the fire,
love in the time of the fire.
One second lost without defining touch succumbs to lunacy.
Drenched with the waters of Poseidon,
stiff white gold corpse of his trident.

Sea horseback rider galloping towards a desolate floating minnow school.
Love in the time of the virus,
love in the time of the virus.
Mayhem in the shrieking populace amidst the roots of the outbreak.
Love in the time of the virus,
love in the time of the virus.
Particle invisible, demon jaws decreasing the once-thriving numerical order of things.
Love in the time of the virus,
love in the time of the virus.
Unspeakable stubbornness and utter refusal, the universe’s final mistake.
Dying voices of the deathly sick and to those who panic,
help us to cease this abhorrent pandemic (before the hour of the tragic.

She stole my sacred heart to satisfy her secret soul.
Love in the time of denial,
love in the time of denial.
She pretends our unity was some hysterical mania depicted by the whitewashed media.
Love in the time of denial,
love in the time of denial.
Innocence lost to the wandering of a forest foal, paying woodland tolls.
Love in the time of denial,
love in the time of denial.
She leaves herself in a dehydrated corner to wilt like a pitiful gardenia.
Outcome unintentionally venomous, no sign of amity.
Let me breathe in exile as a shame-caked shadow in anonymity.

Fragile genius sings that they have left him behind.
Love was the cause of the virus,
love was the cause of the virus.
Black-eyed dog crooning to a milk-eyed cat of seasons.
Love was the cause of the virus,
love was the cause of the virus.
This upward prism spaghettifies into a downward spiral.
Love was the cause of the virus,
love was the cause of the virus.
Yet another madman’s blues, sinking seaworthy to the City of Blessed Heathens.
Judgment Days, reconcile and be damned!
Join us, silver refugees, as we mark our eight year out on the lam.

Love in the time…
love in the time…
Love was the cause…
love was the cause…
Compose newfangled myths
and love is the cure!
Compose newfangled myths
and love is the cure!

The Black Dreams of God

Pissant walks to the beat of a different drum,
reciting fragmented psalms to an empty congregation.
Insignificant singer dulls words down to a dim hum,
draining the lives of another twenty first century sensation.

And she finds herself falling from a rooftop,
purgatorial repetition on her skin, the circles of crops.
And he finds himself succumbing to the mundane,
death mask coming to life as a madcap insane.

Bat heads boil under cauldron bubbles,
supersonic screeches struggle with flightless wings.
Sacrifice the skies to thunderous applause.
Post-atomic hand bursts through the rubble,
bowing before an army of skeletal kings.
Greetings to the creatures of pacifism who retract their claws.

At last, acceptance comes to greet you
with the faces of angelic ancestors.
Avalon-like mists surround their guardian mouths
to choose your book of literary predecessors.
Gliding acrobats, the servants in white
blossom from the flower buds of ascension.
Traveling show, sir, kiss the seasonal ring,
belonging to a parallel spirit dimension.
We are but mere symbols tangled in some obscure affair.
Take the Black Dreams of God and turn them into a heavenly nightmare.

Like a sacrificial storm of Nile children wine,
I blush maroon in reply to her kiss.
Transcending the solitudinarian’s need to be confined,
I commit to eighty-eight more golden years of secondhand bliss.

Visions of watery deserts, making waves with sand monsoons.
Fields of lovers swept away by an envious typhoon.
One tongue of Albion speaks Blakean praise to Jerusalem.
Devils lost a morning star to the glowing heir of Bethlehem.

Walking across meadows of the blinding sky,
daylight turns a blind eye to a green pyramid.
Swimming under polychromatic kaleidoscope visions,
does this realm feel any different to those who lie?
A new motif for imaginations so vivid,
a new prison for a chaotic mind that lacks precision.

Wax and fog, fog and wax, grounded brume clouds
collect their followers, the earthen accolades.
Only one guru shrouded in bearded tears
will know the anti-climactic kiss of the cobra’s blades.
Stepping out into the fray of bloodlust,
the one who succumbs to glory, o’ resistance fighter.
“The pen was no mightier than the sword,”
so sayeth the lone prolific prophecy writer.
Date the continued end of a neo-futurist poem,
turn these Black Dreams of God to picturesque statue stone.

Blue Karma

Meditating…
Buddha’s head,
Vishnu’s body,
sapphire spirit guide.
Floating city above the monks’ village,
above this mountain.
Sane as they wish,
taming beasts of legend,
the ones mentioned in sermons.
And, then it came back to bite me.

Faith in what?
Faith in what?
Hovering aquatic women,
hovering bald heads,
chanting the same notes repeatedly.
Lovelier than the wind,
a tickling betwixt the neck and ear.
No good or bad.
I was born with a choice.
And, then it came back to seduce me.

Seduce you, how?
Did you wed her
before you bed her?
Traditionalist rituals, outside on a leash.
It is the eternal flame of love which penetrates,
not I.
Not I.

Grudge against the nature of meaning,
grudge against the calling of the wrong dream.
Collecting hateful deceits,
collecting hateful acts.

One does what one can,
so all hail the Dark One after the
country collapses into nix.
All hail the Dark One who
dwells under every metropolitan stone.
And, then it came back to show me who was boss.

Forest fires die down.
Sunken ships rise to the surface
from the slumberous crevasses.
The real treasure within was the
fetal beginning of our people.
And I thank you, monks, and
I bow to my master.
I kiss my mistress, but I
clutch my betrothed, the pen.
And, then it came back to wish me a less than fair salutations.

You fed her countless dreams, did you not?
Did you let her before
you wanted to forget her?
Sacred blue reminders wander off without me.
It was the chained heart of armor that let her go,
not I.

Not I.

Setu, April 2020

Sheree La Puma (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Sheree La Puma is an award-winning writer whose personal essays, fiction and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming in WSQ, Chiron Review, Juxtaprose, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Heron River Review, The Rumpus, Plainsongs, Into The Void, I-70 Review, Inflectionist Review, and PacificReview, among others. She received an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts and taught poetry to former gang members.

Returning to Silence

Based on the article “A Caregiver’s Story: Kaz Suzuki.”

There is no cure. This is what it is. This is reality. As the heartbeat slows, breath becomes shallow. A slow drip of prayers. Pain, stretches out, taut like canvas, toe to mouth. Blisters ooze. Pink, White. Grey. In December ‘89, a place without trees. With his hand in mine, he finally decides to test the waters. I marvel at our ability to live so many/lies. I shouldn’t, but I find it beautiful. Positive. With a disease like this, symptoms not patterns. Somewhere in the world, a dry cave filled with secrets, ours. They say to expect a rapid deterioration. They say pills could buy a decade, but when they talk about heaven, I prepare myself for the possibility that there may not be anything but a river. We are drowning in the here & now. I have never watched breath so intently before. Life exhales before curling back into itself. As sun undresses sky, I am alone. You are a shimmering final act. 

minimal acts of devotion

LA’s a fried chicken town, art, sawdust & beer. You are a monument & I am a wave

imitating a wrecking ball. Eager to be stars, we spend our first few days in line, waiting

for a pinhole portrait of the moon. I thought I could save you or at least peel back skin.

Wellness is a billion-dollar industry. I remember our bodies submerged in the Pacific.

I crawled into the shell of you like a hermit <crab> taking up residence. Quiet & dark,

your affection blankets me like a final resting place. But when the Santa Ana’s blow

wounds out into the open, you suck up girls like oxygen. I swim along the shore

drowning your name. I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt.

Super Glued to a Hamster Wheel of Suffering

  

I want to scream, point my finger at your lips. Make Noise. Make Love. Eat from the wind.

itself. Find a body of calm <water> & create a new energy.

I think of you, daughter, at the nymph stage, Mommy bubbles on your lips. Tears like baptism, cascading down cheeks, your insecurity pooling at your feet.

Or was that mine? We were both feeding on the same pain, real & imagined. They say that the never-ending rain will wear down even a stone.

There was a time, before snakes & wounds; before the world stitched up your eyes, your mouth, your ears, that we both had the same thirst.

I saw it as you danced across the floor, pink scarf raised to the sky before heart, mind, breath & body folding into giggles. You were three.

What is the price of awareness? I tell myself that you are suffering, stuck on a wheel, going around and around to nowhere.

We can’t fix what’s broken. I sift through the remnants of a flooded house. All I have is memories & the waters of forgetting lapping at my door.

Lost in anger, we grow away from our roots. I am a stem. You are a bloom. We both seek a new life cycle.

Setu, April 2020

Ryan Quinn Flanagan (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, Setu, The New York Quarterly, Blue Mountain Review, GloMag, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Why Previous Experience Appears on the Modern Resume

All male heirs

were seen as a threat,

so the sultan ordered them all killed

and young Ibrahim

locked away in a cage

at the age of two.

Placed in the dark

and denied all human contact

outside of being given food

and water.

22 years of this,

so that when the Sultan died

they came to Ibrahim as the sole heir

and he thought it a joke.

Refusing to come out of his cage

until they showed him the body

of the Sultan.

Figured it a ruse that would lead

to his execution.

And after they showed him the body

and proclaimed him the new Sultan,

the first thing he did was walk out into the courtyard,

his eyes having a terrible time adjusting to the light.

Then he went on a historic binge.

Ran through the harem as though making up

for lost time.

Ignored all matters of state,

choosing instead to have all the cats shaved down

and their fur made into capes.

This child who had been denied everything.

No proper education or training.

No light or love or encouragement.

And they thought it a good idea to make him Sultan.

No one taking the name Ibrahim after him,

which should tell you how well that went.

Drowning his entire harem

by weighting them down and ordering them

thrown into the waiting Bosphorus.

Before being dragged back to his cage

and strangled to death in the dark

from which he came.

Furniture Music 

You are not even there,

doing all the things you are doing

around all the people you

are arounding;

edicts from steep rollercoaster rides

that scream their way back out of lava

flow bedrooms on the cool,

believable Sasquatch foot patrols  

over this steaming Styrofoam coffee –

your eyes cut right out of their head,

placed in front of distracted appraisal jewellers

who wouldn’t know a cataract from a Kandinsky

which brings me to the fear of fears;

not Death, all those breaths before the last

so problematic, but rather what to wear

over the naked human body

which is why dress up becomes the game

of games and imagination

the only drunk in town.

Are You Holding?

He asked me in the dead of winter.

When snowbanks make fatal heart attacks

of men.

And I told him I could grab my balls,

but that the current chicken hawk market

demanded I charge monies.

                 

Even though he was a friend

and I was not getting any younger.

No exceptions.

They were most adamant about that.

Just a couple dollars in pocket

so the hungry banks weren’t the only tight

bastards weighted down by the personal trainer armies

of the modern age.

Drugs!

he scoffed.

He seemed angry

like my father when he got home

from work.

Various attempts

to stay out of his way.

The smell of skunk weed three doors down

from the people just moved in.

That way his face lit up

with waving backyard sparklers.

The remote to the tv between 2^nd hand couch cushions.

My laced brown boots back inside.

These drunken brown stairs that will be the end of me.

Simple as that.

Setu, April 2020

Robin Wyatt Dunn (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Robin Wyatt Dunn was born in Wyoming in 1979. You can read more of his work at www.robindunn.com.

 - 1 -

the name of the dark is mine

whose right and reaches stem the iron of my thoughts

too deep for reason or regret.

the way the day folds into the break

street on metal

cloth on face

the way the body readies for the breach

against the peach of light streaking by--

all underneath

all underneath I can glue the pieces onto my face

some horrifying Jupiter

father of none but winds

no one but howling winds

each one my son

- 2 - 
The work is a memory of death
Like a leash from below the ground
Moving my lips to recite the names:
Each one of them my family.

A leaden pole to measure the land
Plant seeds and sing.
The winter children dancing naked for the rains.

- 3 -
The name of the world

Like the name of history

Shuts out time

Shuts out the crimes of your hands and mine

It takes its time to say

How much it’s been afraid

How easy it’d have been to lie

And flee, and die

If only it could—

The name of the world

A passenger ship

A barrier slipped beneath

A diver perched on the edge of the rock

Your voice out of the canyon—

The sound of your feet

And the way you looked away

The name of love

Never to return

Or slow

Never to say goodbye

Hereafter and eternal

Bent out of shape

Stuck to onions

Running on empty

And muttering

Dancing around in circles

Trying to remember its name

Here is my name

Once again

Stuck out of frame

Trying to nudge inside—

The power of people to imagine the world

In seeing the world

Beneath purple clouds at evening

Blue skies

White light

The urgency of drivers on the road

Tucked tight under the burning of their teeth and lips

To run—

The power of people to work the world into being

Stack by stack

Word by word

Mile by mile

Dialing the phone

And digging their hands into the dirt—

The name of men

Pitched low

To burn

The name of women

Curved high

To burn

The names of children

Called out across the canyon

The name of mud

Stuck on the shoe

And the name of the truth

Hereabouts

Beneath your ear

Under your toes

Inside your hat

Inside your wallet

Over your head

Inside your hands

Inside your teeth

Your voice hovering around it

The melancholy reason of the truth

Nothing else outside of it—

A woodworn beam

Tucking gravely beneath the rudder and the flail

To beat the earth into a spume—

The name of my oath

Too bitter to utter

Of my devotion to you

Witch regarded and not able to speak but by eyes

Not able to move

But by degrees

To write the chapter of your deeds

Whatever they are

- -

Setu, April 2020

Poetry: Andy Conner

Andy Conner

Test

In Bangladesh
The rains
Have washed
Whole villages off the map
As they do each year

In Sudan
Families eat nothing
Except the dirt
Which surrounds
Their shacks

In Haiti
Career progress
Is scavenging
In the dustbins
Of a better class of suburb

In Malawi
Children die
Of the disease
That killed their parents
To maintain a company’s profits

In Colombia
A small boy
Is forced by guerillas
To shoot his father
In the face

In Israel
Men of God
Attempt to prove that He exists
By behaving
As if he does not

Do you believe in God?
***


Exclusive

What’s my least favourite word?
The word I’d most like
To expunge from English?

Exclusive

Exclusive
Isn’t exclusively a word
It’s an exercise in ideas
To which I take
Exception

I’ll explain

Exclusive expresses
The ‘right’ look
The ‘right’ age
The ‘right’ values
The ‘right’ colour
And, exceeding all,
The ‘right’ bank balance

And those
Who aren’t right
Are left

Extraneous

Or, if you prefer,
Excess baggage

Explain, if you can,
Exactly what you mean
Exactly where you stand
If your expressions of cool

Extravagance

Extinguish
The warming glow
Of extended exiled hands

This exasperated man
Fails to understand


Please inspect
The expectations
You exhibit

Please delete
The exclusive expletive
From the world
You inhabit

And if I’m
Expecting
Too much

Please exclude yourself
From my sight
***


Sweeping

Auntie
Respected, rich
Humbles herself

Auntie
Knowing what pride precedes
Hitches her sari above her feet

Auntie
A forward thinking lady
Descends the stairs backwards

Slowly

Clears her mind
Cleans God’s house
For the pious
The tourists
The peasants who spend their lives
Swallowing dust

Not born to be a cleaner
She sweeps
Bare-handed
Right to left
Right to left
Gathering tiny piles
Of unholy dust

Each movement
Physically
A speck of dirt

Each movement
Spiritually
A broadstroke golden universe
Of love and hope

Sweeping
Unkind thoughts
Sweeping
Everyday sins
Sweeping
The one thing
No rug is big enough to cover


Outside
Sweet water reflects
Ten heavenly smiles
Nanak to Gobind

Inside
The eleventh
Pauses its reading
And bookmarks
The purity
Flowing in and out
Of four open doors
***

Caste in Stone?

‘You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.’  -Rosa Parks

As an outsider looking in
From the top of my ivory tower
I’ll come clean
And begin by admitting
White skin
Whitewashed
Darkness within
Deepened fatal flaws
On the Jewel in the Crown

But it’s not about the British
Our sin wasn’t the original sin
It was all institutional
Long before we visited
Before we took retribution
For crimes never committed
Snapped the trap door of believing
Down
Means forever down

Are the gods really so cruel
To cast it in stone
To decide who owns what
And what you’ll never own
Then to beat you with the stick
Of sticking
With those they call your own
Should you really resist
Asking them why
Exactly how you’re born
Is exactly how you die

If it is written
Then teach everyone to read
Let them see this truth
You should discard countless millions
Maybe half a billion
On the cow shit grounds
The tone of their name
The tone of their skin
Are a shade or two
Darker than yours
If it is written
Send the third-class train
With a single shard of proof
Their necks should be stiff from straining
At the cold glass ceiling
Reinforced with steel
Shatterproof

If it is written
Then teach everyone to read


It is written the world over
Children are our future
So, if it is written
Praise holy India for investing in its future
If it is written
Praise the angels have two years of childhood, to smile through milk teeth
If it is written
Praise the three-year-old breaking stones, who thinks she’s playing a game with Mommy
If it is written
Praise she’s forever spared the discomfort of breaking in new shoes
If it is written
Praise the holy mosquitoes for sparing so many from a lifetime of anguish
If it is written
Praise the mineral displacement of the mobile phone. What’s a homeless child, when we’re all so well connected?
If it is written
Praise the holy government of India for allowing its rupees to be spent in a toddy shop immediately before lessons begin
If it is written
Praise the blurring rivers of toddy. They protect the teachers’ eyes from focusing on the back of the class
If it is written
Praise the teachers who spare the holy rupees of India. Detergent is a waste of money, when the angels’ wings can be rinsed
If it is written
Praise the holy lumps of filth on the angels’ wings. If they only learn one lesson, it should be they’ll never fly
If it is written
Praise the songs of praise angels aren’t allowed to sing
If it is written
Praise the golden-hearted child who accepts the price of his actions in a previous life
If it is written
Praise the holy parents who warn their kids the golden-hearted child is unclean
If it is written
Praise the prepubescent children who despise the dhobi-wallah’s daughter for carrying menstrual stains


If it is written
Praise the dhobi-wallah’s daughter, for mispronouncing her name and stepping out of herself  for a second
If it is written
Praise the holy violent child who cleanses her of this sin
If it is written
Praise the child of joy, who sits at the back of the class, dreaming Bollywood escapes, as his feet tap the floor with perfect syncopation
If it is written
Praise the holy chosen children, who leap from their desks and beat crude rhythms on his back
If it is written
Praise the leftover food, praise its holy tastes of rejection and isolation
If it is written
Praise holy India for attending the United Nations, while tearing up its charters
If it is written
Praise holy India for having the strength to hold the lead weights of its own hypocrisy
If it is written
Praise holy India for grasping the opportunities of the twenty-first century, with the serenity of a wilted lotus flower

If it is written
Then teach everyone to read


If Steve Jobs had been born in hi-tech India
Apples would have rotted on the tree
Ideas fallen seeds
As this adopted son of labourers
Slouched at the back of the class
While his cider-drenched worm of a teacher
Slurs and burbles through the basics
Of reading and writing
Touching the minds
Of the touchable
If Steve Jobs had been born in state-of-the-art India
He’d have slouched at the back of the class
Picking at his insect bites
Wondering why the chosen fruit
Were taking so long at their calculations
This boy with no apple for the teacher
This boy at the zero end of binary
This boy with latrine-streaked hands
A windfall
Spewed and strewn on the ground
Driven to logic
By the denial of faith
The denial of hymns
The denial of Bollywood escapes
Driven to logic
By a latrine-strength wind
Driven to a cyberspace in his own mind
To be shared with nobody
Driven to a cyberspace
To escape
To escape and to dream
To dream and to create
Because he is not permitted to dream
In holy India

If it is written
Log out of your MacBook
Switch your iPhone to silent
And teach everyone to read


If Mother Teresa was born in Kolkata
She would not have been allowed to shepherd the poor
Shopkeeper parents
Forbidding her from blackening
Her pure wool hands
When there was money to be counted
Groceries to be stored
Shopkeeper parents
Thanking the gods
Thanking them from the very bottom of their wallets
For sparing her the curse
Of a worthless golden heart
Teresa
Traded to marry
To expand the family empire
Attending occasional charity events
Giving as generously as she could
To the mild disapproval
Of her husband
Who loves her so so dearly
But with the very best will in the world
Can’t help thinking about
The rise in commercial rents
Teresa
Mother
To three or four children
Who can be a winner
Will be a winner
Must be a winner
Three or four winners
Who picnic
In the Maidan
Uninterrupted by the unanointed
The unchosen
The unclean
Laughing gently
At Granddaddy’s political leanings
And a mildly dirty joke
The laughter of the chosen fruit
Three or four winners
Who need her compassionate touch
Every bit as much
As the countless destitute of Kolkata
The children of caste
The children of the gods
The children of holy India
Three or four winners
Who receive Mother’s compassionate touch
Whenever they need it
Without condition
Providing they are winners
Providing their hands are clean

If it is written
Then teach everyone to read


High profile news in Hyderabad
Hung around for a month or two
Then his body’s cut down
The press leave town
Today’s breaking news
Is you
Endless pages of funnies
Known as the personal ads
Who’s better at hanging a smile on your face
Than your own dear mom and dad
These two are your real gods
Stationed not so far above
To protect you from the evil
Of marrying for love
Nobody’s dishonest
You’re all trying to be fair
If the skin tone
And the name are right
Who the f**k will care
If fair is open-minded
Or purity of heart
Integrity and humour
Only play a part
In the minds of dreamers
But am I really to believe
Young Indians are so shallow

You can achieve your dreams
With whitening cream
Will you miss out on your soulmate
For such soulless obligations
When even if you survive the poison
You’re still not the real thing
But a pale imitation
Do you want this for your own kids
Will you bother to explain
Will you love them for who they really are
Or as the interest
On a transaction
Their grandparents made

If this is written
Then teach everyone to read


I could bang on forever
You could eternally endure
If your story’s not a tragedy
It won’t be what I’ve said
But what you do
If religion is an opium
It hasn’t worked on you
You’re restless
Not sedated
Use your energy
Light the fuse
Millions of you out there
Kerala to Nagaland
You think your life’s remote-controlled
But you can flick the switch to manual
Debt bondage to your elders
High birth means jack shit
If you can’t enjoy your privilege
You might as well be Dalit
On your own you’re petrified
Kerala to Nagaland
Millions of you out there
Just breathe and take a hand
It’s a comrade in compassion
Same mist in their eyes
Millions of you out there
Log on
Get organised
You’re the golden generation
You’re blessed with hi-tech
Phones
Tablets
Computers
Log on
Rewrite your future
You’ll hear puppet-masters screaming
It is written
They’ve all read it
Every writer knows
For your best work
You must edit
Do it for yourselves
Do it for your children
Do it for the pure of heart
For India’s modern vision
Do it for your peace of mind
For access to clean water
Do it for your deathbed smile
For the dhobi-wallah’s daughter
Look around the room right now
Are you really on you own
So what if it is written
It’s not carved in granite
But on sandstone
You’ll hear puppet-masters screaming
They’ll light a fire for you
Well, if saying no is blasphemy
Then Gandhi was no Hindu
Apple trees can blossom
Overwhelm the weeds
Let it be written
You’re the ones who plant the seeds
Let it be written
You’re the ones who plant the seeds
Let it be written
You’re the ones who plant the seeds
Let it be written
Let it be written
Let it be written
And teach everyone to read
***

Setu, April 2020

Robert Maddox-Harle (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Robert Maddox-Harle (aka Rob Harle) is a writer, artist, photographer and reviewer. Writing work includes poetry, short fiction stories, academic essays and reviews of scholarly books and papers. His work is published in journals, anthologies, online reviews, books and he has three volumes of his own poetry published – Scratches & Deeper Wounds (1996), Mechanisms of Desire (2012), and Winds of Infinity (2016). Recent poetry has been published in Rupkatha Journal (Kolkata), Nimbin Good Times (Nimbin), Beyond The Rainbow (Nimbin), Numerous specific anthologies, Indo-Australian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (2013) and World Poetry Year Book (2014), Setu Journal (monthly), Asian Signature (2013). His digital artwork is concerned with the technoMetamorphosis of humanity.

He is currently a member of the: Leonardo Review Panel: Manuscript Reviewer for Leonardo Journal & Journal of Virtual World Research; Member of Editorial Board of numerous international literature journals, and Australian – NZ editor for Setu Journal. Artwork, Publications, Reviews and selected writings are available from his website: www.maddoxharle.com

Myth Mongers

The obscenity of mediocrity

cuts across the boredom of melting chocolate,

as delusions of nature's ardent love

contract into an insidious digital invasion,

cool reflections of darkness

strut the moon to space

awareness contracts into frightened frames

in a transformation of whiteness

irreverently as blue cold steel.

Sorrowed leaves fall towards the body

turning angrily into frozen Freudian fragments,

the wall of the dream

prospecting the limitations

confirms the validity of the straight jacket.

The green leaf of minimum focus

tries to obey rules which could not exist,

the catechism fails all credibility

the lies of the liturgy, venomous

separating the skins of despots,

the deceivers myth mongers

who hide behind mantles of passion and deception

their journey one of insecurity and destruction.

Enmeshed with the taste of solipsistic rapture

hysterically we scream for signs

from the uncremated dead rotting with binary toxicity,

veering from lingering toxic visions

ancestral roots are severed by an eclipse

the silhouette of a foreign homeland

guarded by silent sentries controlling cyberspace.

The Opening 

Searching for the illusive entrance

distorted pixels dance in my face,

invisible time-warp portals close

then open to reveal new worlds,

direct dynamic neural labyrinths

editing complex interconnections

harness the energy of data molecules,

they hint at the universal truth

a truth beyond all repressive doctrines,

sinister-like laser beams

bluish, hypnotise me

entangle me

my heart races erratically,

another unchartered time-warp portal opens

drawing me forward seductively,

I enter the Zero-point-field.

Sea Ghosts 

  

False hopes, empty promises

the screams resonate inside her paintings

weathered by a surgeon’s scalpel,

those penetrating eyes perched atop a scythe

drag her bewildered mind back to her head,

the deceptive spirit of mortality

is a discordant dirge,

twisted strings entangle web-like

as the cracks beneath the White lies explode.

A butcher bird descends, perching lightly

the arms of anguish pulsate

as exotic distant voices echo,

an owl screeches in the brightness

spirits of the slaughtered indigenous chill her eyelids,

the screeching,

the death-cries of the sea ghosts

howl in deep blackness across the rocky foreshore.

Setu, April 2020

Mysti S. Milwee (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Mysti S. Milwee is an International and award-winning poet, writer, screenwriter, and synesthesia artist (paints to music), from Southside, AL USA. Her works have appeared in over 1,500 publications, and has been used for academic and ministry programs across the globe. She is the editor of her journal Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal/Blog (www.sequoyahcherokeeriverjournal.wordpress.com). She is the “Poet Laureate” of Fire Eagle Ministries. She serves as an International Art Ambassador, and is the recipient of the 2020 International Artist of the Year, 2020 Global Arts & Humanities Award, and is the recipient of the 2020 Best Screenplay Award (“The Loner”).

Visit her page at www.mystismilwee.wordpress.com

Three Hour Seep 

I hear the kettle

whistle,

but yet my thoughts

linger -

deepening,

as my mind stirs

and brews another

weeping story of

somber and

solidarity;

picturesque views

through the kitchen

window,

to feel the wisdom

seeping -

into my skin, darkening

from the brew

that filled my lines

of age;

three hours felt like

three years weeping,

filling the cup

with dark secrets,

and darkened rings

to stain my heart

with something

bitter and tart.

Prisms of Thought

Reflections in faces,

you see existence.

Some faces are similar,

equal, and of parallel

rectilinear figures, whose

sides are parallelograms.

Spectrum of light, surfaces

on faces who feel the

moods flowing through

thoughts of transparency.

The voice separates from

white light into color form.

Hues of yellows and blues,

infusion into mind to

parallel the faces

of existence;

reflecting

refracting

infusing

dimensional existence.

Transparent voices

shows its faces in

light.

Angled thoughts bounce

into the light,

shaking hands with

heaven and harmony.

Faces glow, effervescently.

Objects in the eyes

speak existence,

premonitions and

prisms of thought.

Shades of Sincerity

Traveling in transparency,

my heart beats fluidly

with reality -

a promise of existence,

pricking my finger

to show blood and faith

that trickles downward;

a journey of existence

and wisdom;

shades solidify in the

green pastures, a foundation

of what life is to me,

what life is built upon,

blessed be;

where the light meets

the shadows of beauty -

honesty, realism and

shades of quality,

a vision in my mind

of where faith begins

and the shadow of fear

ends;

where butterflies flutter

and life exists in the air

of my soul -

the equality of sincerity

in my soul feeds the

heavens, where halos glow

effervescently in the

dawn of the morning

dew,

            sincerely waving an aura

            of hallelujah into hearts,

            left shaded.

A beacon of hope for humanity

Setu, April 2020