WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

  enheduanna   was i the first one who dared put her name on a text was i the first one who angered some heads so they erased my face from the tablets tell me oh goddess inanna was i the first one who’d spoken in first person singular in the prayers for escape from trials so particular: I was a princess in the first world empire high priestess in your temple but nanna took my crown gave me a dagger and a sword and bade me be my own judge and put an end to my shameful life still my urge is strong and here i am at midnight speaking unto you there’s one thing that troubles my soul i wish to know if i was the first to work with illustrator but hush now and speak not a word we’ll wait for a mansplanation from the omniscient narrator                                                                         ...

  the shadow of music     the blackbird doesn’t kiss the night the blackbird kisses always             the air that becomes music   the blackbird turns to             a shadow a shadow travelling             the night a shadow of a sound   nothing moves not the water not the air not a thought   rising high & deep only a fine sound you hear you see you taste   rising from the shadows             the yellow beak             the wondrous beak bringing your breath to a halt   the blackbird sings again               it is spring   (tunari, april 2026)       your lips were waiting for too long for ...

  Trespassing on Paradise   Only monster presumes It is his birthright to invade full-on, but Paradise, like Onyx, does not give in.                                 Wherever we go we carry them - the monster and paradise- like a pair of parakeets; two sovereign states of black and white- with us.     There are no sober words in monster’s dictionary; you can realise it while reading newspaper, listening to radio, watching TV or browsing social media. Everything deteriorates with the passing of time.   The domain of the statuesque paradise is squeezing day after day and the monster believes in expansionism. There is only one remedy left to block its road: Burning the effigy of hatred and inviting simulacrum of love.   Be assured, the Paradise is not tired of upholding the tenderness as done earlier an...

  Maria and the l ily   The lily was black.   And the angel adorned with heavy armor. Whose words sounded a declaration of war. This would be the battlefield – for attack His gaze directed, beyond the window into the dancing desert   listening from the street, the womens' voices and laughter. Echoing from – as billowing white sheets waved high on rooftops.   The flow of everything impeded nothing And for a while, she forgot the angel which called on her to stand for all that she stood Her stance, here nor there, would matter not   Yet she knew the battle would rage festering under skin ravaging a'waste   crimson deep like the apple while the worm devours – savors a lesser creature without name burrowing yet darkening, beauty's face.   (From “The Lost Goddess”, 2023)   (translated by Ginger F. Zaimis)         A N N A                   ...

  On the fragment   What begins,             what ends,   we transit from one night to the other, to another nightfall, another fog, knowing that each instant touching us is the last   that we aren’t eternal that time isn’t ours only its indifference   that we emerge from hollowness, from silence from the absent   It is said that one cycle ends and another begins, a something that closes, a something different that appears. But, if there is a new phase, which we suppose is true and it approaches as a radiance in the half-light, what would the difference be from that other detachment of the environment? what makes rain stop being rain or wind from it no longer being wind and that their caress is now different? what should be glimpsed upon so that it provokes another yell, another countenance another fog? The orphanage we endure as we discover ourselves in transit towards death, is evidence of the other’s...

  My Generation   once again I am   the only one naked   at the party what   is wrong with my   generation     Fugue Hallucination While Listening to Cat Stevens, 1971   A boy sits on a Persian carpet   hovering a foot above the floor   in the center of many other boys   exactly like him on other carpets exactly like his carpet   hovering above other floors exactly like   his floor and those other boys on other carpets   above other floors circle slowly   round the central boy on his central carpet   above the central floor like blades spinning   round a pinwheel turning on or turning off   an awareness that forms and transforms and dissipates   and reforms a question at the hearts of all those boys   on all those carpets which is which one of the spinning boys is   the boy?     People Ask   People ask why I don’t   have a ...

The Anger   It's alright, just let it out Shout at me Release the blind rage that has long built up in your heart, your mind your every cell Just shout at me, use your angry eyes, Use the fire, with the light that burns my skin, my hair, my soul The anger of this earth the anger from pain and despair from repressed feelings from bearing the sins of being human…   And you are free And I will hug you in my trembling arms And all tears will flow in a current into the Blue Danube, into the Red River, into all And we melt into that river Remaining forever flowing into the universe We are a giant tear scattered in the universe.     How to Hold This Longing?   I wish to store all these tormented memories in a secret box. Hide it inside me So I can live normally   But every night it wakes me up in a sweet, painful longing for you Why we are together, at the same time very far away?   I lull my heart every night, pretend to see the swe...

                to Claudia   the poem is your double that turns over in your eyelids hypnosis of your Kingdom that has untied the cry from its vital space you are the very substance that your poem devours and it is difficult to distinguish your traits they take on the colours of failing humanity each time that internal overflow takes over you fade away the Earth and create the invisible whirlwind of the skin the pain under your neck is the mark of deserts that carry your dismay what a reversed sweetness the song of the shores that sparks the fire of your lip which salts your sleep love of love without eye without memory just a flight and the house of the air your poem is also a breast digging the abysms like an unrevealed wedding   (Translated from French by the author & Saad Ghosn)                     ...

  Nautical   I   Tree was I, substances, strands. In some jungle my roots still sleep. In spite of it all, tree was I and on the fallen leaves I saw my voice multiplied, I’ve known the greenery, the pain of winter, the tranquil shadows, the flight of ancient birds. Tree was I, no more, substances strands     II   On the dock, hands tied by a scream, a suicide   From the command bridge, eyes saved by the shade, the lookout answers the call.   It is a dialogue between pariahs, the ship is there, it never departed the dreams of the suicide.   III   At his home, the captain has, over the central frieze, a bottled ship   After finishing his task he sits down to contemplate it   Very little has changed   The captain knows that a bottled ship isn’t safe either no one can know with what turn of the wind we’ll run aground by the reef   This is why piloting it is better from the frieze with its gr...

  Things remained unsaid   Each time I return from you I feel something has remained unsaid   It’s not that it was something important Nor even it was regarding you or me But after coming back, I felt as if Something remained unsaid At a point of time I could nolonger recall What was to be said, what hadn’t been said   At times I feel that Much more remained unsaid than what was said What remained unsaid Must have been unworthy of saying   (Translation from Bengali by Barnali Roy)     In Search for the Perfect Word   I can’t finish my poem in absence of the perfect word The right word which would mirror my thoughts The word which can alleviate my restlessness I can breathe easily then     In absence of this elusive word I could never finish my poems Only unfinished ones fill the pages In want of the perfect word I could never ever profess love   (Translation from Bengali by Barnali Roy)     Your story   I wanted to h...