Poetry ~ Dragan Todorovic

​        After a kiss you will go into exile.
 
       Exiles shop in cheap supermarkets, five minutes before closing, buying expired food at reduced prices. Next day their gums bleed. They rinse their mouth with Listerine, until they lose all sense of language and are capable of saying anything.
        Exiles are never to be trusted.
 
        After a kiss you will go into exile.
 
       While driving on the roads that were written and never built, so darkened and never lit, you think of her. Midnight news on Four: The war in the East has reached new levels of brutality. People are caressed by their enemy and left shivering, opening their bodies in vain. Desert winds enter where love should have been. They die on the inside; on the outside alive.
 
         After a kiss you will go into exile.
 
       Later, you meet the ghost whose room you’re sharing for the night. She is silent at first, looking at you. You remind me of someone, she says. You put your glass down and reach for her hair. And you can feel it and cannot feel it. And she does kiss you and doesn’t kiss you, and you are in her but never in her, and everything opens when everything closes, and your body is empty but your body is a temple.
       You sleep with the faint light next to you.
       You never were. She never was.
       After a kiss you are in exile.
       .

Dragan Todorovic is the author of a dozen books of non-fiction, poetry and fiction. His novel Diary of Interrupted Days was shortlisted for Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Amazon First Novel Award and other prizes. The Book of Revenge, his memoir, won The Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Sound art project In My Language I am Smart, commissioned by CBC Radio One and Deep Wireless Festival, was published on a CD in 2012. His works have often been anthologised.
He teaches creative writing at the University of Kent and is mostly interested in liminal forms of expression.

Poetry ~ Alireza Abiz

1. Detention
 
The heater was swallowing both our shivers
And the jug of gas oil
And its smoke in the half-dark cellar
Went up to help the spiders
 
A middle-aged man was laughing joyously
He had killed his neighbour
An old man, fingers trembling,
Put a cigarette between yellow teeth
While eyeing the teenage boy
Who was singing in a sad voice
 
A young man swept slowly
He had long fingers
And had been brought in drunk from the gutter
 
I had only written on the wall:
“Safoora, my darling
I’d die for you, my red rose”.

 
2. The Pressure Gauge
 
Until this moment I had not thought
About the pressure gauge across from me
But I have thought a lot
About Breyten Breytenbach
And about his apology for his brilliant poem
To which he appended a list
Of those who had lost their lives
As well as the name of their murderer
 
“Dear Prime Minister,
I honestly apologize.
Writing that poem was unjustified
As was its publication”
 
So, sincerely, to the dictator
Apologized Breyten Breytenbach, poet

 
3. We came out of the café at five
 
We came out of the café at five
For a short walk in the street
For a short walk in the street
We came out of the café at five
 
A man kept shaking his head
In the butcher’s on the right
In the butcher’s on the right
A man kept shaking his head
 
When at 5 they beheaded us
We also shook our heads
We also shook our heads
When at 5 they beheaded us
                      ~
​

Photo Credit: Fabrice Gagos
Alireza Abiz is an Iranian poet, literary critic and translator based in London. He studied English Literature in Mashhad and Tehran universities and received his PhD in Creative Writing –Poetry from Newcastle University, UK.
Abiz has written extensively on Persian contemporary literature and culture. His scholarly book ‘Censorship of Literature in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Politics and Culture since 1979’ is forthcoming by Bloomsbury.
He has so far published five collections of poetry in Persian; ‘Stop! We must get off’, ‘Spaghetti with Mexican sauce’, ‘I can hear a tree from my desk’ “13/1 Koohsangi Street” and ‘Black Line- London Underground’. The latest collection published in 2017 was awarded the most prestigious independent poetry award in Iran, the Shamlou Award.  Abiz is also an award-winning translator and has translated some leading English language poets including Basil Bunting, Derek Walcott, Jack Kerouac and C.K. Williams into Persian. English, German and Arabic translations of his poetry have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and have been showcased in public places including Stuttgart Underground in Germany.
Abiz’s poetry is deeply rooted in the social and intellectual life of his society. Political struggles of present-day Iran are a recurrent theme as is the narrative of disquiet, detention, torture and conscience.
The following poems are translated from Persian by the poet in conversation with W. N. Herbert. 

Poetry ~ Cyril Dabydeen

1. PRAYER

--“Mother of all bombs”
Nongarhar, Afghanistan


She said--
the earth felt like a boat
in a storm when it struck

I thought my house
had been bombed,
a drone-strike that
targeted a building

Close to our village--
it was as if the heavens
were falling, and women and children
everywhere were so scared--
Oh my God!



2. THE MINISTER OF WORDS
--after George Orwell


The Minister of Words
speaks up

denies nothing

owes everything to himself,
he tells me

nothing less expressed
about past days and nights

remembering more--
what’s long-lived

as nothing’s ever forgotten,
he declares to everyone

indeed only to myself--
about creeds and beliefs

dogma once again--
famous last words, you say

an epitaph I will know,
and don’t really know

nothing circumscribed,
falsely believed

time far ahead with
symbols and images

new circumstances only,
believe me, I must know

long days and nights
to come once again



3. HOW WE HAVE GROWN OLD


Fiction it seemed, nothing less--
as I picked up Mahatma Gandhi’s
Autobiography: or the Story of My Experiments
with Truth at the Salvation Army
second-hand store here in Ottawa,
the paperback volume thrown aside
on a table with everyone passing it by--
a discarded book: soft cover, silky
on the surface, printed in India; and
I immediately took it to the check-out
counter where the woman with an indifferent
expression looked at me, indeed not
the famous book. So I asked, How much?
Forty cents, she replied. And quickly
I paid for it—no receipt—without her
looking at my face or eyes again,
all done with perfect ease--
as I said my goodbye. 
​

Cyril Dabydeen’s recent books include God’s Spider/poetry (Peepal Tree Press, UK),  My Multi-Ethnic Friends  and Other Stories  (Guernica Editions, Toronto), and the anthology Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today (Tsar/Mawenzi House, Toronto). Previous books include: Jogging in Havana (1992), Black Jesus and Other Stories (1996), Berbice Crossing (1997),  My Brahmin Days (2000), North of the  Equator (2001), Play a Song Somebody: New and Selected Short Stories (2003), Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems (2005),and the novel, Drums of My Flesh, 2007 ( nominated for the IMPAC/Dublin Prize, and winner of the International Guyana Prize for best novel).  Cyril’s work has appeared in over 60 literary mags and anthologies, including the Oxford, Penguin and Heienemann Books of Caribbean Verse and Fiction.  He has done over 300 readings internationally. He twice adjudicated for the Governor General’s Award (Poetry) and the USA Neustadt Prize for Literature (UOklahoma), et al. He is a former Poet Laureate of Ottawa (1984-87). He has taught Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa. He was born in Guyana, S. America. His latest work is ‘My Undiscovered Country’ (short stories). 

Poetry ~ VK Shashikumar

1. A New Journey
 
It happens to all of us.
New journeys on felled pathways.
We move our hearts and bodies
As maps – old and new – crawl up
Its topography casually spreads over our minds
 
Soon, we hear voices
“Let’s hit the road”
“Turn left”
“800 metres at the roundabout take the second exit”
I always find my walking icon on some street in the maps
Drooling over names, places and things
Arrows pointing at directions
Hasta la Vista sweetheart!
But where was I going?
Fatigue sets in the soul
 
Multiple incarnations of new journeys,
Apparitions of those traversed recently.
Then, in a serendipitous moment
I find your embrace
Unmarked, unseen on my maps
I tuck love’s location pin
Into a warm place inside me
 
No more arrows to take me on unending searches
Forgive me if it appears as if it is too soon
Trust me when my inner voice says
Even another lifetime’s journey may not bring me to anyone like you
 
Now intoxicated by the fragrance of your companionship,
How beautiful it would be to leave behind all dead-ends
To get on a trail together where old maps can’t find us.
 
2. Surrender 

I hugged a tree
Its silent, firm bark
Serrated and lined with experience
Of watching the Universe
And taking it all in –
The elements, the connectedness, love and the nastiness
It felt odd at first
The wood settling against my body
Head resting on hardness
As I gave in to the friendly embrace
Wind rustling the leaves
Flowing through me, through the tree
Standing tall, allowing me to rise
 
It took me in
It spoke to me in your voice
I felt one with it
The red ants scurrying in a file
Didn’t find me an irritating obstacle
They just climbed around my arms
Carrying on with their upward and downward journeys
Perhaps, this was the longest bear hug I gave to anyone
At some point your sweet voice wafted into my mind
“Free yourself, I will absorb”
A deep anguish arose from my gut
Dark with years of heaviness
It crossed my heart, gathering all the toxicity embedded within
 
A ferocious, whirling typhoon rushed out from my throat
Primal screams, louder and louder
Till I slowly sank to the ground
My arms still around the tree
Spent, light and strong
Then I heard you again
The tree speaking in your voice
Now, go, Surrender to the Universe

 3. October

With morning light comes the thought of October
Will we meet on October first or the next day?
Or the third day of the month?
Will we see each other, face to face, over coffee? A juice? Lemonade, perhaps?
Will we meet as lovers?
Or as strangers?
Does falling in love always need a real world?
If so, why am I so familiar with your fragrance?
Soft floral with a touch of lavender
I haven’t locked my eyes with your eyes
Yet, I know when your eyes talk
When its wide twinkle mirrors the Universe
When those kohl lined beauties match the excitement in your voice
 
And I know what’s going on in your mind when your eyes get shaded
That’s something I would never want to see
All I want is your heart to soar, your mind at peace
Your happiness lifting us up
I know your touch
I feel it everyday
Those long electric fingers
Attaching my soul to yours
Your beautiful palm snugly fitting into mine
What about the Soprano lilt that tells me your mood?
Pensive or expectant, joyful or reflective, testing or tired
I see you everyday
 
Your presence is around me every moment
Just the thought of you brings your lips to mine
Our breaths becoming the air around us
I know we haven’t met as the dictionary would expect
But when has love ever followed definitions or any rule?
My heart has already met you, so have my senses, my being
I know when we meet
I will meet you as your lover
To be reunited
From a Universe where we once lost each other

​VK Shashikumar is executive trustee, Bridge Institute, an international special purpose organisation focused on bringing together leaders from Government, Business and Society to build partnerships and collaborations to progress Sustainable Development Goals. He was Co-CEO of Amnesty International India and Vice-President, Framework Change at Ashoka. He has more than two decades of award winning and impactful experience as an investigative journalist and roving war correspondent.