Poetry in our time
ALI AL AMERI
(Palestine/ Jordan)
(1)
The Milky Way
Do the stars sleep like letters in time’s box?
Do they slide in the evening?
like silk on lovely shoulders?
Do they open like lovers’ words in the house’s shade?
Do the stars meet like the lines of palms?
Do they embrace quickly:
two rivers after a long voyage?
And do they change places, as spirits between night and clouds? Do they
compete up there, as pupils compete to draw their teacher’s face? And do the
stars gaze at their faces in mirrors of mist, as women in love stand before
mirrors drawing kohl for their rendezvous?
I have seen the Milky Way
guarded by lightning
and I have seen
the songs rise
at the curve
and I saw
Eden above the bed.
(2)
The Bow
To the forest
descends
a rainbow
from above the branches.
It winds shadows around its hands.
It hangs lovers’ names
on the nail of the past,
where clouds drop a stony title,
from the top of the blue to Friday.
I saw and so did the lilac.
I saw a shepherdess pouring
into the lyre a day
and a silvered paradise and singing.
But darkness remained in the bird’s neck,
like the necklace of a widow
At the farthest end of the world.
(3)
Woman
(To the Spanish painter Lita Cabellut)
A Woman from east of the heart,
grinding wheat on a stone,
singing for a lightning flowing between the music.
*
A Woman in a lunar house,
embossing lines of henna in the door,
igniting a wood of incense under the unseen,
and opens the secret of meaning.
*
A Woman swaying in front of the mirror.
At midnight, traveling to her first paradise.
Over the silk of the fire, butterflies hovering.
The woman pouring a light into the clay,
and drawing two lines on the path.
*
A Woman from east of the spirit,
fluttering like a morning on the hilltop,
anointing a blue pebble with oblivion,
and walking towards the remembrance.
*
A Woman from the heart of east,
lighting love before the arches.
In her ring the sapphire stone blossoms.
And when the shadow bends over a language,
the meaning of the meaning glows in her eyes.
Ali Al Ameri 
is a Palestinian- Jordanian poet and painter. He is a member of the Jordanian Writers’ Association, Arab Writers’ Union, Jordanian Press Association, and he is the national coordinator of World Poetry Movement (WPM) in Jordan. Recently he is the Editorial Manager of “Publishers Weekly Arabic” (PW Arabic) magazine, published by Sharjah Book Authority in UAE.
is a Palestinian- Jordanian poet and painter. He is a member of the Jordanian Writers’ Association, Arab Writers’ Union, Jordanian Press Association, and he is the national coordinator of World Poetry Movement (WPM) in Jordan. Recently he is the Editorial Manager of “Publishers Weekly Arabic” (PW Arabic) magazine, published by Sharjah Book Authority in UAE.He Participated at poetry festivals in Palestine, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, France, Spain, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Kosovo, Colombia and Venezuela.
He published three books: “These are my Intuitions .. This is my Vague Hand”, “White Eclipse”, and “Enchanted Thread”, and the fourth book “Ink Inscription .. Poets Talk about Childhood, Love and Exile” contains interviews with seven poets. Many of his poems have been translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Macedonian, French and Albanian. His poetry book “Enchanted Thread” has been translated into Spanish, and published by Poetry House in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Jagriti Roy
Numb observation
Numb and silenced not by atrocity.
Hesitating tears in their eyes
Truth defeating thousand lies
Hold their own place with pride.
Dumbfounded not by inhumanity.
Missing smile of a hungry child!
Top notch pomp of cruel mind
Those are too hard to hide.
Abhorred not for own cruelty.
Some faces man-made inadequacy.
Admit them is a outright heresy.
This is a situational ebb and tide.
Ignored not for my delinquency.
Be there for the oppressed,
taking care of the bereaved.
Empathy is now hard to find..
Puppet
My soft skin get wounded and stressed,
but I fail to protest every time.
My lips are stitched in such a way that shows a smile
and not allowed to get puckered.
My adorable soft colorful hands get scratched
but I fail to protest every time.
Just because it’s your show in which I work
you keep pulling the strings that are attached
My eyes, those cheerful eyes get drenched.
Not in tears of pain but due to strain,
but I fail to close them in that time too.
It reminds me those dreadful outcomes that I faced.
My soft colorful clothes are getting torn.
My cheerful smile and shine are fading away.
But I have to keep my mouth shut anyway,
as not my pain but my smiles are adorned.
Jagriti Roy is a poet, 
blogger and author from India. She published her first poetry book ‘Her Random Thoughts’ in 2018. Beside that, she has regularly written for many websites and performed assistant editor’s responsibility for one of them.Till now, she has contributed essays and poetry to various international magazines, e-books from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Croatia, Egypt and Argentina. She has took part in Accra Book Festival (2020) (Ghana) and La Luna Con Gatillo (2022, 2023) (Argentina) as a performing poet and coordinator.
blogger and author from India. She published her first poetry book ‘Her Random Thoughts’ in 2018. Beside that, she has regularly written for many websites and performed assistant editor’s responsibility for one of them.Till now, she has contributed essays and poetry to various international magazines, e-books from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Croatia, Egypt and Argentina. She has took part in Accra Book Festival (2020) (Ghana) and La Luna Con Gatillo (2022, 2023) (Argentina) as a performing poet and coordinator.Pulkita Anand
Every Season
Every season is the same, or the years?
The colour of pain is ochre or blue
Does it matter? When things come
Like a shameless poem, a line
enjambed on another layer
On a layer, piling one another, a girl
Making her plaits, or the girls
pounded, does it matter?
It does when the womb is filled
like a day. No. A dark night….
When a girl comes instead of a male child …,
A lottery lost every time; a rain swept the crop,
An eclipse of the sun when a girl is born
An albatross in the neck, a curse inflicted
On the parents, a play of fate, dearth of donation
To get admission. Future imperfect, present indefinite
No bright fight for there’s no right…..
Cast in the net of the social sphere
An innocent bird looks and trembles at
The sound of men, does it make sense? Nope.
A-touch-me-not touched, a doll played maimed,
Mauled, a cry, a scream stopped in the womb.
Every time it tries to come out……
Every season is of pain when life is a living death.
What are we….
What are we, trash in their lives
What are we, a burden in their lives
What are we, misfortune in their lives
What are we, curse in their lives
Moving from trash to trash, they push, smash,
Crush, brush, hush, and flush us.
Moving from country to country, they throw, blow,
Mow our lives to woe
Moving from relation to relation, a duty to duty
Till the relations lose their beauty
Though we are celebrated in texts
Though we are eulogised by poets
Though we are celebrated on dates
Yet, there is no rest from the tests
There is no end to the songs of abuses
There is no end to our tragic tales
Somehow striving, somehow sur
Vi vi ng
Geography
You are interested in my geography.
Let me tell you, the molten lava in me
Is lethal and fatal
My hurricane and tornado will sweep
Your feet
You might freeze in my blizzard
And avalanches
My heatstroke will drown you
In sweat
So, a statutory warning: don’t take me light
Because I’m a bright supernova
Pulkita Anand 
is a student of literature. At times, she loves to write too. Her creative works have been published in various journals: Setu Journal, Indian Periodical, Shortstory kids,The Criterion, Twist and Twain, Tint Journal, Lite Lit One, Indian Ruminations, Langlit, Ashvamegha, Lapis Lazuli, Conifer Call, The Creativity Webzine, Winc Magazine (Issue 1, 2, 5 &7) , Stanza Cannon, Superpresent, Muse India, Madwomen in the Attic, Poetica#11 &12, The Uglywriters, Impspired, Golu : The Ant, Literary Yard and among others.
is a student of literature. At times, she loves to write too. Her creative works have been published in various journals: Setu Journal, Indian Periodical, Shortstory kids,The Criterion, Twist and Twain, Tint Journal, Lite Lit One, Indian Ruminations, Langlit, Ashvamegha, Lapis Lazuli, Conifer Call, The Creativity Webzine, Winc Magazine (Issue 1, 2, 5 &7) , Stanza Cannon, Superpresent, Muse India, Madwomen in the Attic, Poetica#11 &12, The Uglywriters, Impspired, Golu : The Ant, Literary Yard and among others.