New Poems: Sushant Thapa

 

Clean Slate 

 

A long walk to keep up 

The sun by my side. 

Shadows linger like 

Dust in my shoulder. 

The way is sandy, 

It took me forever to 

Let go of the lock 

That cages freedom 

In a room. 

I have to write, 

I have to keep up 

The heartfelt sensations. 

Hearts don't lie. 

In conversation with myself 

I found you. 

Yes, a bit of myself in you, 

And my imagination. 

Imagination is musical 

And I tune my instrument 

For it. 

I play the dusty life

And make it a clean slate. 

I again say that

I wish to play with my abstraction. 

 

 

Faded Time 

 

I am at the gate.

I have passed by like 

A silent river. 

I percolate, 

I make murmurs 

As I cut through the stones 

By my wave. 

Pour me a melancholic assurance 

And throw away 

The plastic happiness. 

I am like air, 

I am a relentless pursuit. 

My music is 

The soul's synchrony. 

I follow your dark path, 

Holding your hand with 

All your mighty trust. 

I picture the future,

Where the sun excuses itself 

For an evening shade. 

The merciful heat 

Lets us through a narrow shade 

Of romance. 

Life goes on through its faded time. 

 

 

 

Love is Forgiveness 

 

 

The mind takes offence 

When it is shut. 

A home becomes inhospitable 

When it is full of jargons. 

Jargons of relationship, 

Jargons of care that cages, 

Instead of dreams that color 

The black and white life. 

I understand how the first affection spoke, 

When guiding hands 

Lighted the lamp. 

The primordial fire 

Still blesses us. 

If the world falls apart, 

We take it as it is, 

We are doomed anyhow 

So let’s look at the stars tonight 

And feel the heaven 

In the grain of sand. 

It is easy to see the war, 

And hard to forget. 

Why wage war? 

Why kill innocent lives? 

This evening I am shattered 

Yet, I write of love. 

It is a rebellious living. 

This heart is a garden 

Where some plants wither and die, 

Without the care, 

Without the affection, 

Without the easy breath. 

Love is forgiveness too, 

I hope the war-mongers 

Learn to love. 

 

 

Every Saint in Me

 

What it takes to be happy? 

A glittering night 

An open sky, 

The music that distracts

For good, 

A slight breeze, 

A new poem 

That gets written 

In the heart first. 

I tune my heart of stone, 

I extract nectar from 

The figurative night 

That is so symbolic 

To be the god’s work of art. 

A solitary darkness 

Is a colorful meaning 

For interpretative brightness, 

No other darkness is more 

Interpretative and thus Meaningful. 

I wake up to the moonlight 

And my soul trapped 

In the musical soothing. 

You arrive in bits, 

I spill my paint 

In the canvas, 

Just like those bits. 

Every curve and curse

Is thrilling, 

Every saint in me 

Is a sinner 

In someone else’s court. 

I count the blessings 

Of a day, 

A mind full of spring, 

Even when winter

Treats me like an outcast. 

 

 

Figuring Out the Mystery 

 

Society tells you 

A safe corner isn’t a place to be. 

But you are on the road 

To create yourself. 

You would have bought the sky

And the stars, 

When you stray and go

On your own, 

They script a discipline chart 

For you. 

I want to traverse pure

Maybe a slight blues would console. 

I keep the music on loop, 

Try to figure out the meanings 

Of my dwellings afar, 

These lyrics don’t die, 

There is poetry in the first glance 

Of the open door, 

I invite truth, 

Even if it is painful. 

Crossroads make a beautiful memory. 

I plan nothing, 

Because I love to figure out 

The mystery. 

 

 

Filling its Emptiness 

 

Rest assured 

Unspoken pauses 

Are to be understood. 

The world leaves its gaps, 

The height 

Of scientific development 

Has been all the achievements 

Of nuclear warfare.

It is a mere power 

That can corrupt, 

The propaganda is not 

A communication strategy. 

Bullet holes leave death marks. 

I am the dark alley 

Where majority walk. 

I will not buy your hatred 

Even if it feeds me, 

With delicacies. 

The void keeps thinking 

How to go deep 

And fill its emptiness. 

Bio: Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet with nine books of English poems and one short story collection to his credit. His poems are published at Bold Monkey Review, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Corporeal Lit Mag, etc. He is a lecturer of English in Biratnagar, Nepal.

New Poems : Rus Khomutoff

 

DRINK THE NIGHT SEA AGAIN

AN UNTITLED POEM

IMAGEN DIVINA

FACE OF LOVE

SECRETFLOWERS

CRY OF WISDOM

New Poems: John Grey

Carnival Dancer

 

She’s not so much a dancer 

as someone who grows lither,

less inhibited with the music.

It’s her gift to strangers,

on a street, intermittently lit,

in contrast to the deep black of her hair,

the eye-liner,

propped by lips blood-red as cherries,

waving her chrysanthemum,

castanets clicking like cash-registers

to the strum of fat guitars.

 

Crescent moon, warm evening,

from doorway lamp to doorway lamp,

then tracing, with dark fingernails,

the electric spark of the riverbank,

flaunting the knife strapped to her thigh,

lovingly retrieved from its hiding place,

the perfect prop for a move

as sinfully graceful as eleven at night, 

with occasional laughter, an odd trumpet,

all part of the costume.

 

Cat’s eyes, locks plastered down the middle,

cheeks powdered, from plaza to narrow street,

she can draw on public sex

she has never used in private,

eyes the families 

that come out once a year,

feel, in watching her,

the erotic shiver of the city.

Gutter Man

 

Nothing like pools of last night’s rain

for some breathtaking views of your reflection

and good times had by all

rippling in water.

 

And you live nearby with your mother

though you’ve forgot where exactly

and sleeping is sleeping 

whether on a bed or in the gutter,

 

though that’s no ceiling 

but a cop standing over you,

all in blue, with a face 

where the moon ought to be

 

in the first rays of daylight,

and his gun keeps materializing 

on his right hip – bang! bang! bang!

wait a minute…that’s your head. 

Getting Back There

 

You leave the city,

don't stop driving

until the land flattens out

and farms fall into view.

You're on course for the rural heart

of the country,

miles of straight white fences,

cornfields stringing gold from silo to silo,

town to town,

RD numbers and wooden mailboxes

carved with a family name.

Forget the droughts,

the miserable yields, the vampire bankers

and the unforgiving commodities market.

You sense something as pure

as a scrub clean in a porcelain tub

under a sloped ceiling,

a star-tippled skylight.

You reckon on a homeliness

as beckoning as a sit on a porch

in late afternoon, at the dimming of the sun,

cured by wind-borne farmyard smells.

You're geared to such delights

as early morning scouring a barn for eggs

or leaning on a fence,

watching a tractor work the land,

or crows hobnobbing on a power line.

You get here

just as farmers are down to their last dime,

can't wait to get out.

And wives, as bruised as the earth,

can no longer hold back.

And the backs of sons are bloodied

by the strap..

And a daughter,

looks out the window for city lights.

sees only stars,

those sparkling betrayers of distance.

It's how it's always been.

It's how it never was.

Congratulations, you've made it.

Congratulations, you can't tell the difference

Rainbow

 

It's up to you now, Laura.

I've suffered through the storm,

 

the nearest thing I know to divine judgment.

You promised rainbows. Show me.

 

No, not some of your buttermilk pancakes.

Or even that wine you've been saving.

 

I want my prism of droplets refracting and reflecting

the white light of the sun.

 

Don't screw up your face like that.

Stare out the window for me.

 

Find me that diaphanous spectrum.

There are colors out there surely

 

and brighter, lovelier than peacock feathers.

You think you're so clever bringing me food and drink.

 

But I can't taste my way clear. A forkful of that,

a sip of this - where's the awareness?

 

I've been bullied by the sky.

It's not up to you to make amends.

 

Just describe the brilliant hues of the rainbow to me.

And how they fill up time and space

 

Or float out ahead of the body, touching everything.

Let me know that they have our hearts, our souls.

 

And, oh yes, make sure

they're willing to defend them.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and California Quarterly.

New poems: Richard LeDue

My Ten Count

My ten count sometimes lasted

two days, as I sweated defeat

through my underwear,

and heard counting in the voices

of co-workers, bus drivers, strangers

in love with the victory of silence.

The courage easier years ago

to fake, using a half empty bottle

of whisky to prop myself up,

until the hangover the next day

knocked me down like a left hook

turning my soul into glass.

Another Reluctant Spring

Your death comes back to life

to haunt me at 2 PM,

when the snow melts

just like it does every year,

and I want to say this is faith,

proving god believes in us,

but it leaves me feeling more alone,

more certain in my own uncertainty,

as my memory tries its damnedest

to unremember the cancer

stealing your voice away,

until it came back today

as ghostly footsteps

trapped

in the attic of my mind.

The Struggle Against Silence

Bach’s music is heavy with sadness,

like someone who has to believe in god

in order for the world to make sense,

while Beethoven is the thunder

from angels bowling away

another summer night,

and Bukowski the static stained radio,

relishing classical composers at 1 AM,

until the last wine bottle emptied.

Sane as an Egg

chewed with an open mouth in the morning,

while in the garbage can,

the broken shell sits;

any sound it had made lost

to the same silence we let say goodnight to us

or mumble the alarm clock’s noise

after hitting snooze for the third or fourth time.

Yesterday’s deja vu easily forgotten,

until the shower sings the same song

and the coffee left to cool too long again,

making a desire for madness, that our ancestors

perfected by letting it stay unspoken,

the best satisfaction we can have.

Any Corpse Could be a Genius

A dead name might find life

on a tombstone,

like a street people remember

because there was a brothel

or a house famous enough

to have ghosts,

if they’re lucky.

Of course, there’s grey hair

first, sore backs

that mean nothing, doctors

lecturing about blood pressure,

and empty bottles

filled without anyone noticing

pieces of a soul.

A Morning Person Lazarus

The sunlight at 7:34 AM is

potent as the first glass of whisky,

except it’s been six months

since my last drink,

and the ice in my freezer

more frozen than ever,

but no one seems to care

about how I don’t squint

at the morning sun now;

a cloudy confirmation

that life has meaning beyond

a hangover hanging from another,

or that god might be

one more set of eyes

who believed my smile never died.

Richard LeDue lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has published both online and in print. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest book, 'Sometimes, It Isn't Much' was released by Alien Buddha Books in February 2024.

Find more of his work on Bold Monkey Review here: 

https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2024/05/featuring-richard-ledue.html