Poetry in our Time
Amit Shankar Saha 
1
Seasons of Life
Khoya khoya chand, khula aasman
Aankhon mein sari raat jayegi
Tumko bhi kaise neend ayegi…
Early in the morning I wake up
listening to slow romantic songs
of Dev Anand and SD Burman
and, perhaps, remembering you.
In this fast paced world of AI
it is almost an anomaly
to wake up to such leftovers
of popular culture of the past.
I am supposed to write avant-garde
poems for post romantic future
and not dwell on false nostalgias,
memories that have not been mine.
How do old and new overlap,
how can they co-exist…
like some old vinyl records
kept beside digital discs.
But then I realize how every
season that comes is a new one
and yet they have all come and gone,
just the same, for ages in the past.
So I wait for a new season to come,
for this AI to become old,
captured in songs to be sung,
and this time the wait won't be long.
We've left slow romantic far off things
in this fast paced world of AI.
But the digital is turning vinyl
and this time the wait won't be long.
Na tum hamein jano
Na hum tumhe jane
Magar lagta hai kuch aisa…
2
A Poem to Raise Lazarus
On World Poetry Day I write
a poem to bring back the dead.
This poem can revive
all those who died
in wars and road accidents.
After all a death certificate
has only words
and so does a poem.
What's the difference?
In one you are stamped dead,
in the other you are forever alive.
I wonder what will happen
if I put a death certificate
and a love poem
in Schrödinger's chamber.
Half-lived lives must be
brought back to life
to live the rest.
Their organs are still fresh.
In nature nothing dies
before they decay.
So let youth grow old first.
Let cells disintegrate
before they are snuffed out.
This poem is a proton pump
to restart the heart.
This poem is your argument
for such injustices.
This poem is Nachiketa's third boon
to raise Lazarus from the dead.
Bio
Amit Shankar Saha is the author of six books including four collections of poems: Balconies of
Time, Fugitive Words, Illicit Poems and Etesian::Barahmasi. He has won the Wordweavers
Prize amongst other prizes and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Poetry
Prize and the Best of Net anthology. He is Associate Professor and the Head of the Department
of English at Seacom Skills University. His website is https://www.amitshankarsaha.com
RUKHAYA MOHAMMAD KUNHI
GAZA POEMS
A New Year Poem
War is for equals,
and so is love,
Not when one side is already down:
All was always unfair –
in love and war.
Home was a place in my heart
that you (love)bombed
And now
feelings have turned refugees
in their own home,
running haywire
awaiting death, like power cuts.
(Palestina was a woman:
her heart promised a marriage,
and her space taken away-
her consent,
her choice
her voice.
Herr.)
And like a Palestinian,
the moon is a watermelon today
She has now learnt
to bear a knife in her heart
with elan,
like a badge of honour
On this new year night,
she dies once again
for what she stood for.
Can you take ‘that’
away from her?
A Christmas Poem
This Christmas,
as Santa tries
to fill his stocking
with at least one gift
for a child.
In another part
of the world,
children desperately
try filling their tummies.
As death comes unpacked
for them:
their only gift-
Their Santa is only a clause.
And the whole world
slumbers in peace.
Wailing Wall
A little boy
without blue eyes
& without blonde hair
asks:
What was my fault,
if my father threw stones
at your father’s house,
As your grandfather stole
my grandfather’s home.
Upon the Herodian stonework
of a land,
A Wailing Wall continues to wail.
Human Animal
What God-
discriminates
between children of the light
and children of the dark?
What Scripture
preaches unholy practices
in pursuit of a Holy Land?
What (State?)
defends itself
against babies?
What people
are refugees
in their own homeland?
Place them in
an open-air prison,
bombard them with
white phosphorous
and kinder bombs,
Ask them to run
and close all routes
and then-
deny them food and water.
Were the gas chambers kinder?
The Swastika revolves
to a full circle,
And bitten by
the bystander effect,
the world just watches.
If this is what humans do-
I am proud
to be a human animal.
Saga
Home has lost its meaning —
Home
House
Shelter
Shell
Babies born in prisons
freed,
only to be killed.
Fathers finding lost sons
on cameras
dead —
Azrael?
You kill with the
premise of a promise:
a cause long lost.
Will the same grounds
justify the holocaust?
You mean this sham
called war
Is real?
We can forever see
beyond the anagram.
Shrinklet
………………
Convert
Covert
Overt
Over
O
© Rukhaya M.K. 2023
Bio: Dr. Rukhaya Mohammad Kunhi is an award-winning writer who has published her works in national and international anthologies and journals. In 2016, she was listed as IWI’s Incredible Women Writers of India. She was catalogued among the best late Indian 20th century essayists like Arun Shourie, M.J. Akbar, Pankaj Mishra, Arundhati Roy, Amit Chaudhuri, A.K. Ramanujan, among others by the Humanities Institute, USA. She was recently awarded with the Gifted Poet Award 2020 by Women-Empowered India (WE). In 2021, Dr. Rukhaya was awarded the Reuel International Prize for poetry. In 2022, she was listed amongst 100 Inspiring Women of Kerala by RBTC, a global initiative. She currently works as Asst. Professor of English at Nehru College, Kasaragod, Kerala. She completed her PhD from the Central University of Kerala.
Peshawa Kakayi((پێشەوا کاکەیی:: a Kurdish poet from Iraq. I am happy to
showcase international writers for the ILA Magazine and Peshawa is extremely
accomplished.
I got frozen in the Patriot Hills, ripened within myself
Peshawa Kakayi
Translated: Goran Sabah
=========
Sometimes when the sun appears,
Snow starts to wail,
‘What a century! Since when I was vulnerable
Snow eaters devour me?’
I am in a country,
My root goes back to the ice age.
Since humans set foot in my land,
Climate has destroyed my nature,
I am now hit
My future will be a miscarriage baby,
I might not produce offspring!
Oh humans! How foolish are you?
You created a flag for me,
So that the other six territories
Melt in me,
Look, besides period and semicolon
That appear in my mountains,
Commas grow in my plains.
In some places, it is snowing,
Languishing my stories.
Along the way, my body is frozen
My feet provides my soul with another air,
Tipsy with the slushy snow.
My feet do not need a coat of snow,
The ancient snow had no name on the summits,
People come here jumping on planes, using parachutes
To live in this icy territory;
I set a tent in Patriot base camp
My groans mix with snowflakes at night.
I cannot read the stars,
Looking at my fingers,
Shivering,
As if, they were asteroids
falling from the space.
I hugged my knees,
At this midnight, thought of yester night
Why I am so pale in this whiteness and
Cannot go back to insomnia.
I came outside like a night watch
Startled people,
Each grabbed a lamp
I redrew the Kurdistan map for them on snow,
Look!
Its limps have horseshoes.
Its head neighs like a horse,
Pay attention to its head, a head of Western women,
The wolves want to behead it so that
It stops neighing!
My home is a child,
Its cord is not cut
Its liver and intestines
Are extracted by the political parties.
Even now
Its heart is a blazing fire,
A flame that smokes,
People want to be a flame, but are not allowed.
No word is uttered by itself,
Some words contain history
Turned hundreds of words into one word,
For instance:
Kurd and mountain,
Kurd and diaspora,
Kurd and rebel,
Mountain, diaspora and rebel are
The summary of hundreds of books
Have come out,
To be read in this fast wheel
Keep their heads out of other books!
2021
Oh New Zealand
Peshawa kakayi
Translated: Goran sabah
Oh New Zealand!
I am not an immigrant,
But my tongue is an untiring courier
Turns my jaw into sky,
Takes me over the mountain range of my teeth,
I slip,
My teeth stabilize my balance,
I am scared of bears in the mountains,
Of a wolf, peeling off my skin and eat me,
Then a dog lick my bones
My tongue would not be able to
Carry my bones and put them in my mouth
So that my teeth
Talk about their journey while grinding my bones!
When my teeth stabilized my balance,
The tongue licked me,
Gathered and put me back inside itself,
I got soaked in its saliva,
The tongue turned me into a thick and chewy word,
I came back to the paved street.
I passed through the Willington streets,
Without being a goose soaked under rain,
My wings fluttered and my tongue clucked.
Dogs behind me showed me their tongues,
I wished to be only a word,
When they bite me,
If peeled my skin and left only my bones,
I could at least fix my letters!
*
I walk through water,
Cannot guard the ocean,
But when I see its huge waves,
I raise, almost touching the clouds,
My bladder explodes, creating a hurricane,
My breath becomes windstorm
My vision blurs,
Am I the storm?
Or a storm whirls me around.
I don’t know where is the head of the ocean
To where its leg extends.
But I know it is about to drown my with both its hands,
It thinks I am British
Have come to take the diamond in its belly.
Oh ocean!
The ships passed on your chest,
Ploughed you,
Took your jewels out.
Oh ocean!
I am not one of the emperors who turned Asia into a storm,
Emptied the stomach of Africa,
I understand your conceived waves,
Dying because of human beings;
I understand your complaints,
Who didn’t visit you
To open your belly!
I am not an explorer who steals,
I am an explorer of language
Do not conquer any place,
Only look into your palms
To interpret ate your wishes so that
You can read them in my poems.
The will
Peshawa kakayi
Translated: Goran Sabah
=======
One day I will become cloud/ move around: I thunder…
Let the wind not disrupt me,
So that I soak smoke and dust
So that the lightening speak up
That I am a rainy cloud!
*
Will become rain/ pour: I drizzle…
To pour my purity,
So that I wash a corner, a street, a neighborhood
Let the air freeze me,
To rain like snow!
*
Will become snow/ pour: flake by flake…
Let the earth not swallow me,
So I can cover an area, a mountain, an abandoned place
Let the sky illuminate,
That I am a pure lover!
*
I will become fire one day/ set a blaze: bit by bit…
Let my love shine,
So I burn my soul, body, bones
Let my pure love soothes and
Turn my burned parts into ash!
*
Will become ash/ land everywhere: like snowflakes,
Let another day break,
So I can see a river, sea, an ocean and
Bring it to you in a pot
So you can keep my pure love!
*
Then come to me/ see: scrutinize…
How my love set up a tent,
Dreams, imaginations, realities wonder
About the interpretation of my traces,
This is only me, I say, a lover never been backbitten!
2008
Dust house
Peshawa kakayi
Translated by: Goran Sabah
I write
What the Earth and sky tell me
To write with the notebook of the wind
With the pen of the cloud.
Dust storm or not
Is it coming?
Are you blind?
The air tells us:
You, the dust, when you rain
The sky’s sight gets blurry.
***
For ages, they have wanted us to leave the Earth
Who will move to Mars?
Isn’t it copy pasted here?
***
In the air
The air is not itself and the Earth’s skull is cracked,
When it awakes,
It forgets about rain, snow and hail.
Colored or not,
White becomes an old poem inside the snow to get obsolete!
Flood becomes a prose for the calendar
The farmers will read it in their farms.
Hail breaks lesser windscreens than before
Dust comes by itself, attaches itself to the windscreens,
Only when the price of wipers goes higher
Human beings understand their naivety
Only then slam their heads against the wall.
***
No one has energy for revolutions
Look, revolution is waged in the air,
Orange revolution
Turns into red.
***
Dust
Its heels were cracked,
Preferred to stay in the desert,
Itching its skin
Taking showers with the wind
Without the cities seeing it!
Dust was forced into the city,
Can settle in any corner it chooses.
Human beings rush into the desert, wandering!
Like air and water we have density, they say,
We rain and we have existence.
***
Dust winds through the gardens
Blinds the gardeners
When it sees flowers’ miscarriages!
Wheat flowers cough,
Saying, dream interpretation is unnecessary
“If the situation continues as such
Famine come to you every year.”*
Grass forgets itself,
Visits the hospitals
To receive a share
And the money lands in the pocket of a wealthy doctor!
***
At nights, we don’t open the windows,
Here is a dust house!
Stars are blind
The moon is drowned in dust storm.
***
Every month, we publish a schedule,
Salary schedule
Raining schedule
Death schedule
Battle casualties schedule
Launching spaceships schedule,
The dust too
Announces its schedule so that
Its name is in the sky every month.
===
2022
*It refers to Prophet Joseph’s dream interpretation.
Universe and man as a formula
Peshawa Kakayi
Translated: Goran Sabah
We do not know what man wants from science!
Changes through science or adapts by it?
Man goes into universe
Wants to say I exist no more,
I make my way with life’s rhythm,
Exploding with the universe.
Oh science!
What art and capacity you have!
I examine not me but the big bang.
The eternity was reviewed, from seen to unseen,
From the big bang to swelling.
They did not listen to vibration,
To see where was it coming from!
They didn’t examine how nucleus were created,
Until they became atoms and spread in the universe.
Nucleus after nucleus say: oh my!
That is the formation of darkness,
From the mating of male and female
Light comes to existence;
When they mingle, a light comes out,
The universe gives out shine.
If your atoms are examined,
They go back to the darkness era.
To whom should I ask where stars are?
How do galaxies shine?
Galaxies evolve
To create the clusters of sky,
Man picks up all clusters
To make wine and get drunk.
From the big bang
The entire universe comes to being,
From the small bang, man, who
Wants to have a universe born inside.
2018
Peshawa Abdalla Abdalrahman, also known as ((Peshawa Kakayiپێشەوا کاکەیی: )), is a
Kurdish poet and writer. He was born on 19-4-1984 in Qaladze, Kurdistan Region of
Iraq. He completed his primary, secondary and high school education in the same city.
In 2008-2009, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in political sciences from Sulaimaniyah
University. He has published articles in many newspapers and publications. He has
published 21 collections of poems, written and published a research book, and a book
on poetry based on four in-depth interviews. He also wrote a literary diary. That’s an
average of 24 books so far. He also has four books ready for publication, two of which
are research and two of which are poetry.
Several studies and readings have been conducted on his poems. In addition, ten
Undergraduate studies have been conducted on his poems.
He has also translated four books into Persian. He has also translated a collection of
poems into
Arabic. He also contributed to a book entitled Poets for Peace, published in Tunisia. He
has also
Contributed to an anthology book entitled The Multinational Pen Soldiers, prepared and
published by Mohammad Shamsul Haq Babu of Bangladesh. Several of his poems
have also
Been translated into other languages including Albanian, Uzbek, Spanish, Igbo, English,
Indonesian, Bengali, Bosnian, Polish, Chinese, Russian, Serbian, Arabic, Persian,
Kazakh,
Kyrgyz/Kyrgyz, Macedonian.
He has also been published in the United States in the first and second volumes of the
American poetry journal Paradise on EARTH, an international anthology.
He has also received seventeen awards in 2020-2021-2022.