Arjun Dahal

To My Cigarette

A kiss to the lips,
With the rush of palpable breath
Eternal tranquillity you possess,
Everytime I hold you.
Then, a short pause
And a panting,
To kiss again…..
In a loop….
Now, we must quit,
Before, it ruins us both.
We are half burned,
But, will the memories conflagrate?

The solitude of wisdom

He told the candle,
“We must burn ourselves,
The light divides the darkness.
The scorn they painted
Vile and frozen
Now chafes beneath the veins.
The prophet’s dream they sang
For a profit on the street
Now immures us in between the sinister and dexter.
The votive shadow lies vacuous,
And the spirits of angels
Belauds us with the intoxicating prelude,
Counting the souls for sale.
O my friend
We must be cremated,
To be new and pristine.
Unfathomable burdens must be dropped,
There’s still a long road to walk.”

---

Amir Darwish

There must be a light at the end of this tunnel

There must be a light at the end of this tunnel
At a point where
So many eyes look into darkness
Cut through a bone and
Shine it.

There will be a creature there
Strange One
With no hands
No lips
No arms
No ears
No body
And only eyes
Eyes and soul.

That being will find a light from within you
And strike it out to the world.

Over there
In that place
The river of sadness dries
Melancholy waves hush and
The Sorrow garden
Reflects an Arabian desert moonlight
To shine the universe.

There

You sit with your hand back and forth
Playing the water of a Damascus fountain.

Imprisoned Tongues

They imprisoned our tongues
And declared our sex speechless

Like two Babylonian stones
Our eyes are now useless.

Palestine

Palestine is a rose that rose
To refresh the air as it enters the nose.

---

Tatjana Debeljacki

Japan in April

I crave silently and far away.
Naked, filled up with perfection,
I am attending enjoyment.
Where there is trust there is always glee.
He never painted my passion,
Dreams from the color to the word,
Without suspense and shivers.
The moment of light strikes me.
Pressing Japanese air onto my face.
April is slowly spilling its colors,
above duplicate shadows dancing away.

To the uncaring

Lost in the grey loneliness.
Cognition intruder – rustling from the mind.
Unclear thread, passionate, cruel, is awoken.
The fruit is not conspiracy.
The lunatic, genius of silence!
Get closer to the unspoken.
The analysis of reason- slavery!
During walking, visible shame.
Exciting autonomy,
Opened door, the windows,
Draft!
In the mist the stairways
Leading to heaven.
Paralyzed conscience,
Portable mirror.
In the plural against the fluency,
Conducting, behavior,
And admit the guilt.
The line connecting,
The road to the spacecraft.
We walk on by in dishonor.
Bronze woman,
Brass man!!!

---

Francis Devine

The Steamship Hare

for Pádraig Yeates

Since first light
we were there,
cramped close against the Manchester
Shed at the South Wall,
a clawing dampness
enveloping the quays,
all eyes sifting the fog,
watching the bar for the first
sign of a heralded deliverance.

The cold slow bore –
worms in a stair skirting –
mother’s thin shawleen
insufficient to lag the bones,
the fevered excitement of daybreak
waning, belief in Jim
challenged by rumour, begrudgery
and the citing of false gods.

Then at a quarter to one,
a Port & Docks Board man
high on a steam shovel, glass to eye,
spotted the streaming bunting,
the flutter of the National Transport
Workers’ Federation flag,
the steamship Hare butting
into Liffey mouth, entering history,
bearing Larkin deep
inside our souls.

There was no disorder
but disciplined attendance,
a silent respect for Brothers
Seddon and Gosling –
important, bowler-hatted Englishmen
from the Trades Union Congress –
a patient vigil rewarded
by ticketed parcels containing
ten pounds of potatoes
and a further ten pounds of bread,
butter, sugar and tea, jam and fish –
all in boxes and bags with the letters
‘CWS’ printed boldly on the side.
Our mother shared out our ration
with other unfortunates in the building,
something that seemed
unquestionably natural.
There were biscuits for the childer
which we sat on a plate
and would not eat
lest we had nothing
left to admire.

Jim had delivered us from hunger,
now we had to press forward to seize
the Promised Land,
knowing that our army
could henceforth march
on heart and belly.
A half century on,
I saw an old, wizeny man
stood outside the GPO on May Day
with the other dribble-drabble few,
cheering Paddy Donegan and Seán Dunne,
a gold, Shilling
Co-operative Society medal
swinging on his grease-shine lapel.
When he told me he got this
for crewing the Hare,
I instantly saw his image
in those digital photographs
thousands unconsciously took
on that dank, drear day
in September Nineteen and Thirteen
as evidence that Hope
did once actually walk
amongst us.

The poem first appeared in May Dancer ((Watchword, Dublin, 2007). Following that, its second appearance is
in The Children of the Nation: Working People’s Poetry from Contemporary Ireland edited and introduced by
Jenny Farrell (Culture Matters, 2019)

---

Jude Dillon

Whiskey bright betrayer –killer of time
fizzled into candles and light bulb
I left you, hugged and smiled and done with
mountains closer than your faraway looks
an orchard of crooked limbs
I won’t even cry in your sleep anymore
carefully I slip into dying

rise up black foam to the top of the white city
hold the belly in before
the dusty light has closed the door on me
reached deep into the shadows
with the rasp of logic

quibbles with your voice
grown tragic with flaws
spread the compliments a little thin

lab rats await your experiments
ready and waiting
with coffee warm in your hands
Nightmare makes her rounds
the folded legs of gorgeous scissors
a hollow lantern dull with smoke.

You appear to have regained my senses
the shiny side of depression
you are someone close to stay apart from
catching onto real

I listen now for all your looks
holding up the sky and locking in the trees
it’s early for pouring out the wind
a girl deaf with the touch of men
the currency of darlings with counterfeit faces
colours change clothes with circles and squares
walk ahead of me, streets that shape the light
hum with the voice someone left for you
the lie built around your family

where have all the colours gone in the box of dark?
boxes that open at both ends of the bottle
I backed in with taunts of love
into the chattering mind
lights chiseling into bits of view
tightening the sky for another run at the sun

a smile comes eager to share
understands the look
undresses a drink
the shallow end of every conversation
talks you out of the room.

I’m ready for someone spoiled on lust and looks
her mind clangs with coins and keys
Who goes between a coffee and the cigarette
damping down light with snowflakes and fog
a soot drifted look

what the whiskey did, what the music wore, where the mountains hid, why the rain delayed
a riddle unlatched by the power of staying away

the scrape of your words sit in my attic
piss against a shy mountain
hug close in the brittle scratch of your hair
with a grip on your lip

a moment comes between us with intense light
an ocean stretches out with your hands
a river takes a whisper to shout up a canyon
a gift that shimmers

Light runs out of your mouth
what rain shines up for the wind
the crumble of strawberry houses
will not remember if you hold them

the grip of polyester on wooly minds
the lace of generous trees
the bulge of grey mist
Love is a jinx
knuckled under to the boot of the Earth
I thought I saw us far away and shiny
your figure slips from my fingers
puts down my guitar and remembers.

---

Rani Drew

Anatomy of Migration

Older than time, migration is the story
of survival. Change and betterment,
desire and dreams put motion into feet.

The first stirrings begin in the brain. Reason
catalogues gains and losses, credits and
deficits. Movement  becomes compelling.

New visions bring desires to the heart.
Collaborator of the brain, it fantasises
greener places on the other side of the globe.

Eyes become alert, spotting dangers before
they arise; stealth and caution rule the feet;
the alien speech ties the tongue to silence.

Hair, more passive than others, is the first
to protest at the change. Climate plays
the ruler; willowing tresses must straighten,

the growth made sparse, the sheen can’t stay.
The innards fail to cope: kidneys to filter liquids,
liver to process food, the body functions harden.

Turning native comes at a cost.  The identity
is recorded and must not change or, asylum can
be withdrawn. Deportation is  round the corner.

---

Olfa Drid

Marital masquerade 

same house
no home

same kitchen
different food

same roof
separate beds

same constraints
diverging views

same hurdles
different angles

same kids
opposing instructions

same sofa
back to back

harmonious in public
enemies in private

praise in the face
bullets in the back

silent outwardly
cursing inwardly

close bodies
distant hearts

same family name
secret pseudonyms

same real life
discrete virtual lives

common destiny
polar opposites

united
each on his own

together
alone

masked
unmasked.

wedded
unwedded.

---

Stephen Philip Druce

The Gardener and the Rose

The gardener felt
inferior to the rose.

The rose, with its natural
beauty for portraits –
a blazing jewel in the dirt,

flaming without fire,
ice cool for the burning sun,

alluring to the bees, its sweet
perfumed scent, its eagle petals
that swooned with clutched
un-spilt raindrops, bestowed
from ballet clouds.

Then one day the rose got
too old. The gardener wept as
he cut it down –

the rose with the inferior soul.

The Murmur of the Goose Machine

Behind the shuttered rapture
the raconteur pours a diamond sun.

Did you hear the murmur
of the goose machine?

As you slinked astride rackety
fruit stall – gorged on shrieked
spleen to its riotous belly,

did you clamour to such book flesh,
as trumpeting foxes leapt from
dead chapters on paper horses?,

did you warn the night fox
of the snapped twig?

For the storm preacher, did you
run with drumming hounds upon
drunken daisies splashed in carnival wine?

Or did you turn and face
the dust in the cruel wind?

---

Peter Dudink

Dianysus’ Indecent Poem

Tribe of the how are you!!
The happening and well-to-do…
I have cried
for the powerful, rich and successful,
and just a bit for the poor children
blasted and broken by big-time dolts,
by hunger, despair and
oh, did I mention
the greedy blasted dolts?

No, I have not turned to violence, not just yet
I have been a slave of the pen,
in a comfortable poverty
fought inner battles
against despair, against eternal pity,
to give the children nutrition,
I have sought the milk of happiness

But look at this mess!
roughshod and too rushed
I manhandled my words,
and spurted this pretty fountain
of boiling black blood.

Ah, there’s no treasure in this chest,
my children,
for I am but a man.
but you, oh ladies of the nice hairdo,
so dressy and endowed,
hunters of new fangled freedoms,
envy of the emperors:
flaunt your teaties!
your sculpted, uplifted busts,
drive the poet-man mad
with jealousy.

Bah, your empty breasts feed no one!
call all the weak, the starving,
and mentally malnourished,
with their millions of tiny gnashing teeth,
I call the children,
on this day of love
to devour you.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
there’s ha-happiness
Grecian style.

I’m so anachronistic!
I think I’ll go admit myself
to Tomorrow’s Sunny Meadows
Mental Asylum
for dairy cattle
and eat purple grass
with my fellow ilk
until the day I surely shall pee
the best curdled milk
you ever did sneeze.

But wait – my dear,
for proof these words mean happiness
squeeze out, just for me,
the most rottenest
carefree smile.

---

Alan Dunnett

No Mercy

I will be back with a gun.  Talk alone
did not serve.  I know it is a mistake
to commit to violence.  Its dark moan

begets violence.  That’s why we must make
everything go away, die forever,
suffocate under salt, gasp at a stake

driven through the heart so that you never
rise again, not in this life or the next
crawling in bright limbo instead whether

the day dips or ascends.  Blinded, you take
no comfort through eternity.  Rather,
you will never sleep yet always awake

ragged and staring, restless with no home
to head for begging the Kind Ones to break
you into little pieces and be done.

Stand-Off

I am resolute, Oh Lord, for the Right,
just wondering why it must involve dead
violence.
Facing you in the red,
wet eye of battle, I only see this:

matters must not end here.  Don’t apologise
at this point when you find it is all done
for you.  The time to make amends has gone.
In finishing you, I bring the hot breath

of a curse upon myself though the gods
know exactly why it has come to this.
You hurt my children.  We talked about this
and it made no difference.  You burned

our homes and we fled to the mountains.
For a long while, it seemed like all was lost
but you could not kill us down to the last.
Now it is a new day.  Even these thoughts

put blood upon my hands but sacrifice
buys the future although they call it vice.

In This Light

You sit with the others staring at the agenda.
Everything is in order and respectable.
The chairperson is venerated, the coffee
is not instant.  The doorknobs are burnished gold
in this light.

You are here by design and not by mistake
and yet you wish it were not so.  You wish
you could leave and return with force
because this meeting has a foregone conclusion
in this light.

Everyone is polite.  Some are confident.  Some
are riddled with concern.  There must be a way
to change the future but this is not it.
They will smile and minute with accuracy
in this light.

The Leader Seeks to Retire

Then we started fighting among ourselves,
disagreeing about what should be right.
All this while, we had not been getting fat
as the gruel was thin, thinner by far
than the thick, rich soup the sleek burghers smeared
on their soft, plump lips as they slurped it down.

We were losing sight of our intentions
and failing to act together.  I thought,
it’s time to go.  The road is open.
We will leave the rest to argue things out.

We can walk through the night and be long gone
before the sun comes up.  Let them argue.

This is a failure.  We’ll be forgotten,
Marie.  No, you say, this is a mistake.
We are not important but things we said
that were given to us to say though
all the words were ours and the way we spoke
the words were ours will not be forgotten.

The children grow up and may be angry
because they do not know what freedom is:
a light which comes and goes in the distance.
Once, I chanced upon it and nearly drowned
in a moment and then…. then it was gone.

Freedom is not licence.  Not seeing you
ever again would be hard so I say,
stay.  Be strong although you feel weak.  Business
needs to be finished.  Don’t think of failure.

You make me feel as if the only point
lies in staying.  I feel weak if I go
but perhaps I am weak if I stay.  No,
stay and argue harder and better.  Stay.

I’ll stay and make leaving a memory.
Let go my wrist, Marie, and trust me now.

from Civil War

Start

This is what we did: we crossed the river
under the shifting light.  Everything else seemed
the same but we knew nothing would ever

be the same again.  I turned to Kimble
and he smiled.  What’s next to do?  Burn the land.
Destroy bits of ourselves that are not him.

Some nights, I fail to remember reasons
or else remember them as dead things, things
I could make an effort to understand just

in a grim way.  With fingertips, I press
my brain but it is not understanding.
It is memory, an arterial

injunction determined lifetimes ago,
disconnected by natural erosion
from passion.  However, it is easy,

then, or easier, to deploy.  Duty
and practice give the professional touch.
If I get home, I might sleep a little

but for now, with the river behind us,
I am inhaling smoke.  They say he’s mad
and will last the winter.  I cannot tell

what comes with spring.  Renewal, even-handed,
draws from the young light without distinction.
You smile, Kimble, and note the wind has changed.

Early (Bloody) Incursions

We took the first city last night.  I looked at
my hands missing a piece of comprehension
and said to Kimble: what now, Kimble, what

are we doing, these are our people, what now?
Already, the phone is ringing.  New friends
want to show support.  They sort of believe

what they are saying.  I know I said no
going back.  I know what I said.  I knew
in my heart there would be no going back.

Maybe it was the boy, staring without
a father now.  Am I his history?
Anyway, we go forward.  That is clear.

They are sending virgins in white dresses
but first Oh God we must burn and destroy.

Practical  

I denied the child and in different ways
said you were another person.  Beneath
the caff light, I explained I was going

to Lima on an expedition.  Back
whenever.  How much money do you need
assuming I admit to this?  How much

does it cost?  In the time it takes to drink
one more black coffee, we shall resolve things.
Last night, a man shot at me.  London’s not

what it was.  You could die in an instant
that is immeasurable.  Stop your coughing.
Let me sort the coffee and then we leave

separately.  A reconsideration
would be too much.  Do not now speak of love.

Instruction

And then I went to the elders who said,
Do not give up.  It is hard but do not.
You will be tired.  You will taste defeat
but you must go on.  Learn from everything

that goes against you.  Make your enemy
your friend although you eat dirt.  Take yourself
right away from this chamber of echoes
where men are lost in complaint and entrapped.

Defeat

With dark winter coming on, we went back
to the reservation, those who were left,
(we had nothing but ourselves in bare feet,
no blankets, no food – the horses were gone)
silent children with thin arms and swollen
stomachs, women with dry breasts, men with guns
we were prepared to lay down.  Our masters
took us in smiling, seeing we would serve.

Now please know that in this moon we are dogs
but every dog has his day.  Let them drink.
Let them smoke cigars and put their feet up.
Do you think we will just forget this shame?
Let every single drop of blood be weighed.
There will be an accounting and meanwhile
we are fed and grow strong under the yoke.
When they sleep, they will get what they deserve.

Burning the Land

Following a retreat.

Then they started to burn the land.  We looked
down at smoke crawling and sent a runner
by the safe, secret pathway to Kimble;
still he would not come.  In the hour of need

he would not come but in being alone
we took strength; we thought harder, weighing up
how we might hold sway over our lives
as we looked down at the slow smoke

and men moving with their own dark purpose.
I said to Marie again: we’ll end it,
no more living like this, I promise you.
We’ll go home, have peace.  That is right, the way

it should be but first I must do this.  Men,
she said, in a small, still voice.  Well, please God
you win your day.  God is good.  Where is God?
I asked.  Look hard but you will not see Him.

He is in us or nowhere at all.  Pigs
are cleaner than these fire-abusers.
I’m telling you, God speaks in my actions
and, if I do not act, God is nowhere

and I am nothing.  We are in a place
that is cold and beyond the sun’s long reach.
No one will help us.  Men draw back and care
for themselves and that is their carelessness.

Our fathers fought for what we’re losing.
For them, it was not easy, either.  No
time is easy.  Let us be strong.  Let us
stand up for others and return to light.

Then the air was silent and the red bands
of sky held their place in deepening dusk.
Far below, there was drinking and feasting
and a child called twice and Marie went in.

In Chains

Defeat but the war is not over.

At this time, we became slaves.  Our masters
were pleased since we agreed with everything.
We did as they said and life was easy
for them.  They grew fat.  Down below, we slept

with rats and found a kind of steadiness
in only thinking as they did, only
doing as they said
but in dreams, Marie,

I am myself again.  The children grow
each day and forget me… I will return.

In dreams, I remember captivity.
In Susa, I rusted in chains.  Wet air
went to my chest in perpetuity
but I learnt patience unending, pursuit
of those men who did these things now and then.

I will return and you will forgive me
for the violence that has stamped our lives.
It will not be too late.  I swear it.  Love
was an incidental because business

came first.  You know that will change.  I swear it
though we’re older by a day, by a year.
It is spring again
and we should be free.

Each moment marks the face: blind, wrong moments
that carry death.  The right moment will come

like an angel.  I stand before its wing
and straighten my spine.  The sun strikes my face.
Stand with me and break the spell of tyrants.
Chains can be broken and voices heard.  Right
sweetens the air.  Let us breathe and change the world.

Return to Violence

Time passes.  Kimble takes control of the east while the narrator
is left with the west where, 2 years later, things flare up again.

I had to send this message, Kimble, though
you bear the scars.  They say your crops are good.
Here, the water has run out.  We all die

daily.  When I scratch myself on the dry
lips of my wife before I go to work,
I realise it will never end.  Guns.

They speak of guns just like the time before.
If you do not fight, you are not a man,
they say, and you cannot fight bare-handed.

The people trust me.  If I went alone
Into darkness with fire, they’d follow.
Then I must show no fear and be sure

of my beliefs although he’s tried to change
my mind ever since the whole thing started.
Don’t judge me harshly, Marie, when I leave

you and the children to do violence.
You say I should never have prayed.  A lie
is what you call my prayer since I prayed

for peace.  I will understand you in time.
Right now, I am going in hard.  The jaws
of a mad thing are agape and drooling.

I am going in, deeper than ever,
Kimble.   God is good.  Allow me that.  God
is on the side of the believer.  I,

like him, with his unreasonable eyes, sad
and brutal and non-negotiating,
will kill him all ways again and again.

---

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