Apathetic Ennui
Striking hands have been torn from ticking clocks, Minutes birth hours and days form into months. Time stands perfectly still, As motionless as a stone. The four walls around me are closing in, Their smooth edges caressing my elbows, And their sharp angles nipping my heels. I have counted every last bump on the ceiling, With lazy eyes and long breaths. My breathing is so deep, so shallow, so expansive, That each inhalation lines my lungs with arctic crystals. Breaths puff out through visible mist, And my tongue tastes like winter. My bed provides some sort of respite from such boredom, As I melt into the sheets and time disintegrates around me, Minute hands fondling me under the covers, Hour hands strewn across the carpet, And seconds on the sill. Blazing morns turn into shadowy sunsets without a moment’s notice, There is no difference here between a dusk or a dawn. I hope to no God that there will be some sort of end to this, Some sort of rescue from my dull imprisonment, But as I lie in wait and bide my time, No clock will aid me. 2017
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Curved waters
The earth moves, Triggering readings. Finding balance, Firmly on the floor. Jolts again, Rocking the cradle. Suddenly waking up, To the unsound alarm. I see the waters, Raging high above. Swallowing innocence, Building sandcastles. Land and waters, Kiss each other. Yet both elements, In conspiracy killed. In a curve, The waters rose. The terrorized earth, Instigated it. Beyond the sea, Land has drifted. Causing boundary impact, Shifting visions of globe. Shouts of fears, Souls with tears. Looking back at stillness, With no forgiveness. How still you are now, Broken our hearts are. I urge you to stop, With both my palms clasped. (Dr Maureen Shyamala Rajamoney, born and bred in Penang, resides in Seremban, Malaysia and is currently serving as an English teacher in Chan Wa National Type Secondary School.) Neuralgia
this torture tripwire in my brain - there’s no warning when it will light up when the next bombardment will come, and when an attack commences it shatters my left hemisphere starting as a dull clenching in the hollow of my temple electric throbs growing in intensity ballooning to a harrowing pounding like a screwdriver wedged in my ear a knife in the gaps of my teeth a needle piercing my eyeball. I’m thrashed about like a rag doll in the merciless onslaught of a trigeminal nerve turned rogue, as it swells on me, a mutating beast writhing eel of errant firing analgesics cannot mute or dull, it rears like a basilisk to strike with a volley of voltaic stabs and I’m slashed down to my knees groveling, calling out the names of all the myriad gods, now gone, who heard my cries a long time ago. Remission Three hundred days pain free - colors and scents slowly begin to feel pleasant and normal again. amygdala rests, as I try to look forward without fear, without the filters of PTSD a challenging feat, when carrying the weight of a vicious fiend still lodged, though slumbering, in my brain. (Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a Sydney based artist, poet, and pianist. She holds a Masters in English and is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project and Authora Australis. Her recent works have been published in Red Eft Review, Glass Poetry Journal’s Poets Resist, Eunoia Review, among other journals.) Autumn Moon
Blossom and leaf know change and turn, earth days see constant beginning and end; hold the spark of eternal fire in hand, smile at vanishing years, ignore the tick of the clock, take the staff and continue to walk the road, the steep winding stairs. Peoples scattered like leaves swept by storm. World fire blazes, death reaps on earth. Preserve this flame of mysterious birth, which knows no decay, only lasting desire, whose agony is lost in blissful devotion. From a flowering exuberant explosion incense clouds of sweetness expire. Time dissolves easily, so full of sun, drink from the scarlet chalice of this day. Gently, the linden tree hangs an array over us: its subtle green filigree veils. Chimes, in the distance, sound, hours like fluttering leaves fall to ground slowly in the counting weighing scales. Darkish and solemn under bitter air leaves rustle on the narrow path, announcing early autumn days. Sweetly suffused by ripe apples’ scent, trees stretch their bronze-golden branches. Wine winds purple chains round walls, so rich and ripe, so full, this summer's end. Shining like last bouquets of flowers embraces summer selves in final love, whispers goodbye; the cooing of a dove, the heavy perfume of saved hay, silage, straw, cabbage and apples, of pumpkins and grapes; sustenance for long cold winter days. August evensong Like sweet woodlark’s song, flows quickly on soft wings sunshine spreads on undulating hills, dew-wind unites with winding rills. Wafts from the sirens’ songs, oscillate like sounds of sea, deep subconscious longing, gives us time to think. Crickets fiddle in the grass, a creek runs through rough stones, the rose glows in the garden, gorse blooms along the fields. Far the scream of jackdaws; then a long and heavy sigh. As if the mountain takes a breath, gusts are falling from the high. Buzzing through the treetops a swarm of rushing birds and from the beech slope short wing beats of a dove. Shepherd and flock seek rest, near fields of corn abundance, and on orchard’s fruited vines still rests the summer silence. On sylvan peaceful scene the sun is shining brightly, and stripes of light lightly move along like hands. The late summer’s sun rests on bare rock’s face to grant to moss and ivy a last warm favour’s grace. Waiting for the reaping hook, rich meadows’ golden gift, soon yet the austere, rough threshers’ work comes to an end. Harvest celebrations fade away around the rich filled barns, around the farmhouse’s threshing floor summer night drapes veils galore. The opulent harvest time is gone, the green pollen waves and dust of rye and wheat fields are blown and flown away. Scurrying through fences’ laths, from the stable to the shed slipped a marten’s fleeting shadow, swiftly up the birch tree’s trunk. From deep forests soothing silence, when the silent star balls glow, distant the monotone night’s song of steady falling waterfalls. Final strokes of nine peal from a village tower, whining of a mandolin over the dreaming hover. Hay moon’s morn and eve Mellow are the July nights when the sunset’s reddish fading and the early morning lights dawning blur and blend together. When summer with red roses bleeds to death so rapidly, cawing ravens mourn the dead, the blackbird has not sung its last song yet. Warm rays from the sunset make distant peaks glow red, the scream of the wild eagle sounds over the forest silhouette, while pale-cold falls the mist into the closing day. Under lime trees, under elms, under thatched roof’s hanging wings overgrown with moss and weeds, stretching wide and shielding. I want to put into a song what on moonlit village green I heard the fairies lisping. What grey stone’s mossy green inscription said to me. Fog pictures rise in twilight, from the dark days ‘past. I hear faint voices whisp’ring, sounds of pleasure, lament, anger. A last farewell, so distant. Silent night in the deep forest around the birches’ black white bark; around the alder’s trunks so dark, flows the moonlight soft and mild. (Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is an artist and a translator and writer of poetry, crime novels and short stories. He is writing haibun, tanka, haiku and poetry in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose. He is a member of four writer groups in Ireland and lives in County Kerry, Ireland, for more than 25 years and is a proud Irish citizen, born in Germany. He was published in 59 anthologies, literary journals and broadsheets in UK, Ireland, Canada and USA. Writes also under his pen name: Eadbhard McGowan) |
The Beautiful Space-
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