Poetry in Our Time

Christine Chen

1

 Forgiveness

 

In fact, voices came from all around,

But I only heard the ticking of the clock and the pattering of dewdrops.

Birdsong and petals falling.

In fact, there were bursts of explosions coming from a distant unknown place,

Carrying the cries of despair and death.

I mistook them for the wind blowing.

 

In fact, there were various scenes:

Burning flames, bullets, and a sky on fire.

The end of Pompeii before it arrived.

But I only saw the moon rising, startling the mountain birds,

The night wind lifting a corner of the curtain.

And there were butterflies, golden butterflies in sunflowers,

white butterflies in the morning glories.

I could distinguish them all, one by one.

 

Forgive my insignificance—

Leave the task of saving the Earth to God;

Saving wars and orphans to the great leaders;

Saving earthworms and withered trees to myself;

Loving me to you

 

2

 

The Red Rider                    

 

Epigraph: A red horse was given power to take peace

from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword…

—Revelation, the Bible

 

My eyes sink into the depths of your gaze

I see what you see—

Sunrise and sunset, birds and beasts

The nautilus opens and closes, corals bloom for millennia

 

I also see what you cannot see

Bombs are thrown into the chest of the earth

Ruins riddled with stray bullets

 

The oceans are littered with non-decomposable waste

Ships drift above, carrying

Displaced people seeking refuge…

 

Glaciers melt, submerging island after island—

Erased permanently from the map

 

Gluttonous greed overflow

Out from the eyes of politicians and arms dealers

Larger than the appetite of Jurassic dinosaurs

More devouring than fallen angels—

Yet they appear so charming

 

Your book of wisdom is still revered

The church stands on Snake Island

Few enter, fewer understand

 

Dust covers ancient scrolls, I open

To the page marked by a Bodhi leaf bookmark—

“The Lamb opened the second seal…”

 

The clouds in the sky burning, the sea around us boiling

You walk out from my gaze，speechless

 

a New Zealand writer, poet, translator, and newspaper editor, won the 30th Italian “Ossi di Seppia” Award for Best Foreign Writer in 2023. Her works have been translated into nearly 20 languages and are housed in institutions such as the Royal Library of Belgium and the University of Rome. She currently serves as a committee member of the World Poetry Movement, the coordinator for Oceania, and an ambassador for the UN-registered Writer Capital International Foundation.

 

KESHAB SIGDEL (Nepal)

 

Two poems in solidarity with the people of Palestine

  

Against the Devil on the Move

 

We are sleepless since ages

But we are awake since ages

Assuming us asleep, your men bombarded our homes

The pigeons sheltering in them flew far and away

To tell the world your cowardice act.

 

In a rage,

Your men arrested and chained us

The wind that touched our body grew into a gush of storm

And blew your fort

Constructed in the swamp of greed and inhumanity.

 

In response we spoke

We spoke against your cruelty

So, you pulled out our tongues

But those tongues yelled even more louder to reveal your deeds

To let the world know the devil on the move.

 

You grew more insane

You poked into our eyes with the bayonet of the guns

The moon and the stars witnessed your crimes

Before the sponsored cameras distorted the truths.

 

Yes, last night, a lot of us died

But that is not the end of the story

We resurrected back to life

We marched to the open field

Not to avenge your crime

But to ensure justice to our people

Now, we fear no death

We fear no bullets

Our bones have turned into launchers

Our skin became the shield

Our eyes superseded the darkest of your thoughts

And our mouths exploded

Against your atrocities

 

Living, we will fight with our voices

Dead, we will fight with our memories

Now you will see us everywhere

Yes, we are Palestinians.

 

 

The testimony of a morning in Gaza

 

The sun rays

entered into the room

through small punctures in the wall

and flooded over my mother’s shawl

that spread over my body

 

The smoke from the clay oven

raised and tossed the walls of the chimney,

and returned to the room, making it hazy,

forming a smoke cloud seeking its way out

through ventilations

 

The milk kettle whistled, and

the foam oozed out of the lid;

A white stream ran down the kitchen slab

trickling on the floor drop by drop

 

Whining Malaika, my puppy, wasn’t sure

why I didn’t join her for the morning game

She moved out of the room

with an apprehensive gaze through her half-closed eyes

She had probably sniffed that something wasn’t right

 

They did it all early this morning

I could not wait to say to her–

I’m sorry

 

I was dead

but not annihilated

 

Now is the hour of Al-Qiyamah,

the rising of the Dead!

 

 

 

Brief Bio

Keshab Sigdel is the author of Samaya Bighatan (‘Dissolution of Time’, 2007) and Colour of the Sun (Poesis, 2017). He has edited Madness: An anthology of world poetry (RedPanda Books, 2023) featuring 297 poets from 101 countries/territories. He also edited a volume of Nepali poetry, An Anthology of Contemporary Nepali Poetry (Big Bridge, 2016). His recent work of translation Shades of Color (Nepal Academy, 2021), is a collection of indigenous Nepali poetry. Besides poetry, he also writes fiction, literary essays and plays. He is the Editor of Poetry Planetariat, a global poetry magazine published by World Poetry Movement. He also co-edited Of Nepalese Clay, literary journal of the Society of Nepali Writers in English and Rupantaran, a journal of translation published by Nepal Academy. Sigdel teaches Poetry and Literature of War, Conflict and Trauma at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. He is also active as a rights activist with extensive involvement in human right education, policy lobbying with home government and international agencies and has faced a dozen of arrests for his public activism.

 

 

Dorothy Payne

 

There Will Be No Forgetting

 

“You ask me why I care, why I risk all that I am—
have been—
and I’ll tell you:
‘Things keep happening’”
(Pablo Neruda)

Things keep happening:
I’ve seen the walls that darken
the Negev,
that blinded the world
to Mohammad al Duri.

There is no escaping
borders that get higher
and wider
darkening the landscapes
of Death.

I’ve heard the screams in
the night,
tasted the sulfured air
after their killing

I’ve been there.

Watched as they wrestled
men, women, children
to the ground
like terrified, sacrificial sheep:
made to see it over, and over, and over again on T.V.—
in our sleep—
made us complicit—
there, now, here;
made us witness
their lynchings
in the streets—
revealed the horrors to come:
and they have—
one, by one,by one…
boys, young sons,grown men
slaughtered like lambs;
our heads hooded along
with theirs:
virtual killings
on our names;

sent us scrambling
to stay safe ourselves,
desperate to figure out
how to survive this horror:
desperate to
just breathe.

 

What to do with all this death?

This is the question
that holds us now,
threatens our own
gasping for air
as the looping truth
returns again,
and again,
and again
in 10th dimensions clarity:

There is no past,
No “over there”.
It lives here
everywhere

Where the Slaughters of Greed
muzzle the baby calf
who just wants
to suckle it’s mother;
murders the man
who just needs breathe;
strangled the woman
who dares to speak;
degrades the man
whose land
he stands upon;
slaughters the boy
with his hands
in the air…

 

There can be no forgetting this:

 

No forgetting this terror
closing in on us;
no forgiving the green
in the pockets
of those who choose
not to see;
no forgetting the fondling
under our sheets;
no ignoring the stains
on our own clothes
if we fail to put
our bodies to the ground
to stop all this;
no wallowing in the sorrow
of our perfect knowledge
of all of this;
no forgetting
the dollars for drones
with our morning toast.

No,
there will be no forgetting this.

Things keep happening in
this deepening darkness:
the dead keep dying;
the flags keep flying
and the bankers keep
stockpiling the spoils of oil
as the children keep starving.

No, no forgetting this:
the disrobing
of the teachers,
the doctors,
the warriors
humiliated in
streets;
the maiming
of the babies
crying out
for their mothers
fathers;

the silencing of
the Poets…
the silencing…

No,
there will be no forgetting
this.

 

Dorothy (Dottie) Payne—USA
World Poetry Movement