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Walk in Beauty
Diabetic feet nerveless, infirmity of stroke’s zero sum, earth textures unfelt though walked, hear the dark dog panting loss, know the tiger without symmetry. With beauty around me, I walk, says the Navajo Blessing Way prayer to restore parts to wholeness like tangerine fragments returned to a sphere. Concentration follows steps pacing in beauty, nothing hinders movement; muscle memory grants the mind freedom of focus, taken for granted until, feet go blind. beauty is on every side, through the returning seasons, may I walk. I watch my moving feet closely for heal-toe slow dance across the floor of mindfulness as I learn again to advance in the Blessing Way. Today, I will walk the trail of the living room with beauty, living again, may I walk. (Victoria Crawford shares a journey in stroke recovery of learning to walk with mindfulness, reading stories she knew as a child for reading, and then the joys of poetry as she re-learned the magic of words.)
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 The Bread Shop
When I was 11, I couldn’t go to school because there were voices in my head that I thought were ghosts calling for me to join them. I was afraid of falling asleep but my aunt told me, to dream of one place that nothing could hurt me. So before I slept, I thought of a bread shop. Everything washed in a sunny shade of egg. That same year my mother wouldn’t talk to me because she couldn’t hear what I heard and wrote my fear into belligerence, beat me into submission. So I sat by the old landline and called my father, wishing someone would come home to save me from me. But when I was 12, I watched my father move his things out of the house and I should have cried but the man never came back, so I didn’t. Now I am 23 and I don’t believe in ghosts anymore. The voices still talk to me, but they all sound the same. Still I keep dreaming of a better place, sometimes a bread shop, sometimes a house with a hundred rooms, sometimes a boy lying on the same bed, sometimes the same boy driving us far, far away, sometimes a table with 4 seats filled in, sometimes of things shaped like cigarettes that keep me smiling. Sometimes I dream myself out of my own body. Maybe I would have somebody. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be me. (Vivien Yap is a writer and musician from Singapore. Growing up a quiet girl with loud thoughts, Vivien has learnt to let her writing carry the weight of a suppressed youth. Vivien’s book ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’ is now available for purchase online. Website: http://vivienywq.wixsite.com/creativesFacebook:www.fb.com/buttlicksInstagram: www.instagram.com/buttlicks) Burn My Heart
Burn my heart there is nobody to judge you Burn my heart pour your love over the flames Burn my heart I would choose you to die with Burn my heart when sensation arises on the way Burn my heart and colour my ashes with tears Burn my heart and dance with my name in your mind Burn my heart and lie about us flying to paradise Burn my heart take the last train to the hell situation Burn my heart and remember you are a woman Kills What kills you everyday kills me every other night It never stops flooding and extends to my flesh What kills you everyday kills me every other night It appears from the shadow of the sun behind the rain What kills you everyday kills me every other night It is the stranger who dies after chasing the fireflies What kills you everyday kills me every other night when the barefoot soldiers bombed the house of dreams What kills you everyday kills me every other night It is the stone who breaks the mirror of the river to the moon What kills you everyday kills me every other night It is the wheelchair who will never take me to your doors What kills you everyday kills me every other night when the world was young, I was the oldest seed in spring What kills you everyday kills me every other night It is the blind who walked to the wolves until they ate him (Ahmad Al-Khatat, was born in Baghdad, Iraq on May 8th. He has been published in several press publications and anthologies all over the world and has poems translated in several languages. He has published two poetry books “The Bleeding Heart Poet” and “Love On The War’s Frontline” which are available on Amazon. Most of his new and old poems are also available on his official page Bleeding Heart Poet on Facebook.) Escape
— A Le Morne Brabant Mountain legend As the rustling of British officers is heard anew, the maroons gasp among tied boulders on the windy cliff. Their dreams freeze; Death beckons at The Valley of Bones*. Five of them, like golden raindrops, shower to clinch it. Death shines brighter. The other maroons, shocked, take a step back. The leader whispers assurance—but the British are heard louder. The bondage swells in their raw bosom. The cold sunset drenches the spot with solid, red rays. These scarred maroons are unaware that the officers bear the news of their freedom. Hearts pulverised, they all join hands to shower too. Their shouts soon rend the air, seeming bold and free, blissful and final—only for their freed souls to learn later that they have left free bodies. What is more tragic than runaway slaves in rugged rags jumping off the shiny threshold of freedom without leaving one alphabet of their names along the wind? What is more tragic than slaves with babies in their bellies hitting the basalt hard, with the echoes heard over the pink sea? *] legendary name of the spot into which the maroons leapt ( Amit Parmessur is a poet and teacher. His writing has appeared in several magazines, namely WINK, The Rye Whiskey Review, Night Garden Journal, Ann Arbor Review and Ethos Literary Journal. He loves to pick off past experiences and turn them over in the light. Nowadays, he edits The Pangolin Review.) |
The Beautiful Space-
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