There is a shepherd in the desert,

 His sheep long to be slaughtered.

 Ice is in his veins

He wants to eat the hay.

 A man with just a bowl,

Filled with falcon’s blood,

Wishes to meet his lover,

In the twin of roses.

There is a thin line between you and me.

 A hair’s breadth.

 There’s a fire underneath the line

 And a volcano above us.

In the sky of your sea.

In the red of my love.

I have re-incarnated

Three times,I think

And each time I realize that I just go back to the mess I've been

Look upon the greatness

With your swollen shaking legs

Then return back home

Never existed, in the first place.

And I tried telling my mates

That I have started hearing singing birds

And that the night is not at all dark

But they keep making blurred lines with crayons

"here's the boundaries,let's stay on our own"

But I think they've got it wrong,

Stuck in their own domes.

And my flesh hides under layers of chiffon

Layers of leather jackets

Layers of capes

And layers of orange jumpsuits

And ofcourse

(With special reference to Surdas and Meera) 

Last spring, I moved from Yokoahama to Kyoto. I was a student here in the ‘90s, so I’m quite happy to be back in the city. Throughout my life, I’ve always felt itinerant—we still are in Kyoto. My husband and I live in an old public apartment house while looking for a place to move in. I remember the pleasure of smelling the grassy odor of new tatami mattresses when I entered the old apartment. Almost a year went by since we started to look. In my study, 40 unopened boxes still pile up. We are eager to move out, and yet we began to appreciate the quiet and green environment of the old apartment complex, which is right next to Myoshinji Temple. 

(I)

The red luscious apple was well beyond her reach.

As her limbs stretch, adrenaline courses back and forth inside and just like that, out of nowhere, her thigh muscles stiffened and she slipped and started to fall from a nine feet ladder.

As her stomach feels the strong pull of gravity, her seven year old heart feels a vigorous push of negative energy.

Her cherry coloured hair flew everywhere blinding her sight; in the same manner, doubts clouded her judgment and self esteem.

The gravity did its work and she did her: thinking if she was truly as pathetic as others describe, if she was indeed a failure and if ‘disgrace’ was the only word to describe.

 red lines of revolutions,

a dot of enlightenment

a calendar of life.

We weren’t used to having big feasts in our house when I was young. It was long after I’d reached adulthood before I found out what it meant for food to be festive. My mother’s kitchen was a place to produce food for the sole purpose of keeping us alive. Perhaps the darkness that engulfed the kitchen, even during daylight hours, was another reason why the mood surrounding it was always sober and austere. My mother had many mouths to feed simultaneously in our large family, which was exhausting for her. And, even though she only knew how to cook a handful of dishes, her food always came out well.

O the place

where God

like a ripe fruit

fell on the ground

and crashed!

let's go

by rolling up our skin

like a silk cloth

           from the covered bazaar of our pain

My World, My Writing
By Binayak Banerjee (India)

Poetry, to me, is a continuous struggle to bridge the sense of materialistic cosmopolitan presence with the realm of emotional privacy. Now, this privacy must be balanced by an interest in the people around me. Otherwise, a state of anxiety might creep in. And we all know that in a state of anxiety, we can’t stand closeness and want to attenuate this feeling by opening up and stripping away bodily impediments so that the anxiety can be relieved in some way. But why do we try to get rid of it? Is it because anxiety tries to get rid of everything materialistic? Across this bridge between anxiety and material existence, we are likely to arrive at a spiritual emptiness.

I am a girl from  a country in the heart of Asia. My family named me Farkhonda, which means beatific and auspicious. I am the oldest child; 12 years ago I was sent to school to learn to read and write. I read books and step by step started to practice writing.  I chose to write stories. Their narrative style was one of the reasons behind my interest in fiction: I enjoyed writing about different characters and what I imagined about them. After getting some of them published in a few Afghani magazines, I realized that critics and readers alike believe my fiction mostly focuses on women. Maybe this is natural, since I am a woman living in a country that has experienced decades of war and setbacks for women. 

between our arrivals and our
Departures, it is a strangely
guiltless territory

- Marne L. Kilates

On a stage
musicians were engrossed
under the gaze of village and town folk
to set the chords
guitars, sitars, veenas and drums
myriads of sounds
in the making.

Audience waited longing for a fine tune.
chords were still being set
discordant voices still rang
desperate musicians and impatient audience
waited for melody to flood the pervading gloom
like the fragrance of hills in bloom.

After an eternity of impatience
chords twanged melodiously
making the audience sway
but a sudden snap jarred
and shattered the expectant crowd.

“Chords of harmony and cords of life
what a company!”
an old man from the audience exclaimed.

TRANSLATION

His carpet is stone, dirt

And trash that no one wants

Decorated by urine and faeces

Which is often his own

Feet blistered with red blue sores

Toenails crafted with serrated stones

And filled with soot

Because he walks barefoot

The cleanest liquid that cleans them

Is the blood of his wounded soul

Which exudes out at night when he is alone

Because earlier that day he saw kids

Walking with their back packs

While he held his trash bag

And he ran back

To the tenous home

With walls torn

And a broken core

He thinks about all the food they could spare

And all the money they could share

And ponders on why they have so much

She swirled the glass. The wine tossed and churned, the crimson waves at fight with each other until a drop bounced, hit the edge, teetering dangerously before plopping down on the white couch.

She just studied the red stain that was expanding with every passing second, not in a hurry to get it cleaned up until she heard footsteps approach the door.

Her eyes flew to the door, watching as it swung open, before they settled on the stain again.

She heard him come in, his scuffles echoing on the hardwood floor.

There was a minute’s pause.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking.”

Here I want to share a secret of mine! When I write, I pretend to be in India.

As a writer, although I'm prepared to write anywhere, I prefer to write in a quiet corner of my home, away from all distractions. And when I return home to write, I often like to unite myself with the memories of India to condition my mind; India, where my poet was born, and I wrote my very first poem in Hindi at the age of fourteen.

My kid is playing nearby

and he stuns me,

how he chooses my right breast

and sucks my age

till it swells.

I try to surprise him

with my left

but he squeezes the nipple

with his hands

and doesn’t drink from it.

My child

turns a thousand meanings

in my nipple.

Why is he afraid of the left?

What is it that terrifies him?

My hands are two little antennas
which receive remote waves
distill and disseminate messages
generated and circulated by the brain.

My heart pounds and heaves
releases blood to brain and body
like a raja of the east
the brain commands.

And like the raja’s subjugated subjects
the body concedes
and the hands execute
though oft times bruised they are.

My heart’s the maker
a legislature
formulating the fundamentals
hoping for honest obeisance.

My mind’s the decipher
a judiciary
making analytic and indifferent decisions
on fair and the fallacious.

When I was 7, I saw hell

possess the skin of my father.

There was a madman's fury

Simmering in him, his eyes orbs of darkness

and dementia.

I expected flames to erupt into

life around him,

burning us all but there was only stillness.

Nothing except the salt

trailing down my cheeks and disappointment

coating my tongue.

His movements became lightning quick,

skin striking skin in a blur.

Time stilled. Breaths were abandoned. And a bruise

flowered across her cheek.

At 10, this was no longer a

rare occurrence.

The Easter bunny was still

Real.

but silence after 6:00 was not.

Anger took refuge under the devil's skin.

like seeds of ivory.

O! great Tin Hinan,

your brave knight

lost his way among

the salt caravans.

The Imazighen are free

No more.

I promise I won’t leave you again,
Even if I died or I was blind_
I promise I won’t make you cry;
I won’t break your heart neither I will lie_
I promise to come with you,
Near or far please accept me so_
We happily live under blue sky;
Since, I am in you and you are I…

here you are faceless bobs
like flotsam in the strait narrow

sea scented with iridescent oil
radiating in rainbow swirl

as fin glistens before tell-tale lollipops
are sucked into the cistern

they wave to no one in particular
as another burp pulls out for air

between horsburgh and mrs ramsay
lies the blue missionary yonder

so finally there they are
alone on this empty white spit

this sheen of bright light does blind
don’t block bastard

his hair singed by the setting disc
as they reminisce it seems like

the male lead is characteristically terse
the other all hands gulping as

the ground’s shifted already
the son is out of ampersands

I am a girl from  a country in the heart of Asia. My family named me Farkhonda, which means beatific and auspicious. I am the oldest child; 12 years ago I was sent to school to learn to read and write. I read books and step by step started to practice writing.  I chose to write stories. Their narrative style was one of the reasons behind my interest in fiction: I enjoyed writing about different characters and what I imagined about them. After getting some of them published in a few Afghani magazines, I realized that critics and readers alike believe my fiction mostly focuses on women. Maybe this is natural, since I am a woman living in a country that has experienced decades of war and setbacks for women.  

It hurt watching him hurt. I would see him from time to time around school, leaning against the wall trying to socialize when by the looks of it all he wanted to do was be alone. I think what got me hooked was the mystery he left each time I’d look away from his light brown eyes. He was a puzzle waiting to be solved and each word he would utter was a riddle waiting to be figured out. What first caught my attention were the poems he wrote at creative writing, every character and word was so vivid and alive. After he would read out his poetry everyone would clap and compliment it never knowing the true story behind it, that’s what shocked me the most. At school I’d avoid him, simply dodging him each time he’d pass me by in that filthy hallway.

They took Somayeh last night; lifeless and heavy above the hands of male strangers. Is there any difference between your death and the death of your twin sister? For 63 years, you have opened your eyes on each other every morning. She has always stood by you. As if a part of your body is torn apart. These are what you cry out to those coming to visit you. You lay your head on their shoulders and shed tears. Maybe, you would feel ashamed to make such noises, but, well, people are people. If you don’t cry enough, they would be like, “See? She was jealous of her twin sister for sure. Now, she is happy to inherit all the family’s property.” Even that spinster, Mahboubeh, who feels she is a philosopher every now and then, once told you that human being tends to be unique.

The spider‘s web was spreading all over the room. The old woman was trying to string a needle with her skinny bone hands, but her hands were shaking and her eyes could not see the needle, so she left the old carpet.

Outside the room there was a cold wind. Old woman put some potatoes into a black dish and fired under it; soon, there was a black and suffocating smoke in air, after a while she put them into a broken bowl and brought it home. Slowly, slowly the sun was setting; there was darkness all around the air while there was no light inside the house of old woman. She took one of the potatoes to eat, but couldn’t swallow it. A cold, clear tear followed on her cheeks.

Freemasons of all alignments 
recognize their ilk 
without semaphores.
Need autographs its accueil
signing the other 
to club of consensus. 
Like cygnets 
with unuttered woops 
we seek our way.

http://www.thesquawkback.com/2016/07/sethi.html#more 

Post-revolution Nepal is in a state of flux.

What happened? Why? What is happening in this country? This year, three English language writers who reported regularly during the People's War have come up with their first book. Pulled into the chaos, whether by happenstance, profession or personal choice, the texts they have produced are studied, authoritative accounts, must-reads for anyone vaguely interested in or associated with Nepal.

The primary thematic elements in these books - social commentary, political investigation and disciplined history - if taken together and read simultaneously, combine and complement each other. Issues overlap, ideas intersect so harmoniously that a uniquely comprehensive and novel image of Nepal emerges.

I came out with Gulab’s son. We waited near the Bibi Mahood Mausoleum. Cars were all around us. The police and army personnel were standing on both sides of the road too. Opposite the mausoleum, an American guard was looking down from a high concrete bunker, keeping an eye on the road.

My heart was throbbing with fear. I was afraid that the guard would suspect me. But Gulab’s son reassured me that no one would recognize me. Like me, many others were also roaming around with wireless sets in their hands.

(from a Malay Pantun)

The flying dove high above,
Perches a while on a dead tree;
Strike the water in a pail,

It is my right

to love as she wants it,

to get ripped by desire

when her necklace scatters

the tears of pearls.

It is a riot,

and it is my right

to love and die

the way she wants it.

A Sense of Place
By Yui Tanizaki (Japan)

To understand the notion of Malaysia and Malaysian identity, one has to look at oneself. But this is an arduous thing; we are allowed to, but we aren’t. We are not allowed to discuss the racist ills that divide our multicultural nation for fear of being charged with sedition, yet Muslims and non-Muslims are allowed to hurl racist vitriol at each other. We are not allowed to show a man and a woman kiss on screen, but the explicit details of sodomy between a politician and his aide make lurid headlines. We live in a country where a man is allowed to marry a child he has raped, but a Muslim woman is unable to marry a Hindu man. We have become a nation ruled by crippling contradiction, where the absurd is permissible, where truths are dangerous, and where silence has ruled for decades.

I am with you wherever you are,
Up or down, near or far_
My soul cannot be separated from you;
Final destiny!
By Your precious love_
I see the moon and reach in sky.
Like sky sometimes blue, sometimes white
You are splendid in each color, cannot be sought_
I am with you in horror of dark night,
I always seek you at a small feign of light_
Let me call you fancy world!
Coz, I am with you till I became old_
My last wish is: just once tell me!
Just once tell me: I was the one, you wanted me.

At midday when her eyes become moist and blurry from the searing heat, there is nothing that Deepa can do but sit idly, her head droopped over her open palms, counting her fingers. First those on her right hand – one…two…three – from the thumb to the little finger, then those on the left in reverse order, from the little to the thumb.

     As her score settles to a perfect ten, she looks up, somewhat relieved of the tedium and the heat, and it seems as though a sense of certainty has descended on her.

     When she was a little girl, she would touch her nose no sooner had she finished counting her fingers. Then the lips, the eyelids, the eyebrows and the ears– until finally she came upon the same certainty of relief. 

This time when I boarded the plane

to return to the US, I felt a peace with in,

a peace that had finally retuned to me

after twenty years.

This time, I didn't fly

on the wings of imaginations or dreams,

I flew on the wings of aluminum and steel,

that will finally take me home,

away from my home,

that no longer exists.

Would that make me a lesser daughter,

sister, friend, or a patriot,

if I'm not able to see the land below,

rising from the ground up in the air,

with my eyes filled with tears,

saltier than my Indian sea in deep blue?

Would that be unfair to say,

that my exile is a safe island,

When there is no more land to walk, and all that’s in front is a river that cuts this into half, you relieve yourself of all your clothes and waddle into icy waters – till you hit rock bottom.

Your teeth start chattering. They make strange rhythms, which must have drawn out the animals to get a closer look at the source of the unusual call, only to face a red spot bubbling to the surface before spreading across the white expanse even as we sleep.

It comes to be known as the Call of the Hungry.

In any case, either of us would have willingly sacrificed oneself for the other when the claws and fangs come out. (Today, the boy (or for that matter, the old man) still feels the sharp paper cuttings on his neck, brain and all over the back of his torso.)

Still you can see the blue under the nose
below Dia de los Muertos eye cavities,
glassy shine long splintered, littering
the dressing room to the afterlife
like the left-behind glitter
of a Bollywood star.
Though piled as if in a mass grave
the huddled shells seem content to lie close
to those alongside whom they served,
blaring and jostling along the same potholed roads,
enduring the same smears
of left-behind bubble-gum,
the indelicacies spewed
when the ride was rough.
Stripped now of muscle, stripped
of the power and strain of constant movement
they are still, left
to rust in peace.

Such happiness
To see the sun set on the steppe!
When I feel its calm light
I forget my sorrow.

To breathe such air,
To be human is enough!
Oh…
After that, let God take his brush
And write that I’m dying.

Such truth
To hear a branch breaking somewhere!

—translated from the Mongolian by the author and Christopher Merrill

If you come in the fall
I will paint on a wall,
A love cottage and a moon_
I am waiting you come soon.
I will wait all the year,
Summer, spring, fall, winter_
I will count day by day;
Hours, minutes to pass away.
I am waiting to see you
Life is heaven believe so;
Since, God has written your name_
In my heart, don’t you know?
I am waiting in my room,
Just once knock and come soon!

They vanished

like our palm trees.

Ancient open windows

and old dreams.

The city forgot their names

while they held its memory

in their soul

like a candle

between prison bars.

are easy to possess—the dim tunnel

where trains flow, submerged halls

fevered and dense, make it such

that if we go barefoot we will touch

high places, anyhow—or so they

say. Let nighttime test them, then:

the girls decide to go home late,

balancing accounts on their necks

like pearls, singly or in sequences,

almost safe, leaving the last hours

to the boys who reach flat rooftops

lined with iron, not to jump,

instead, burning the ants of cars, to find

again the whisper, this is mine, mine…

دنیا چقدر شیرین بود روزیکه ترا دیدم
رویای من رنگین بود آن روز که ترا دیدم
اندر دل من یک بار یک روزنه ای تابید
آن نور امید بود روزیکه ترا دیدم
روزها گذشت و من اندر طلب رویت
عاشق شدم عاشقتر هر روز که ترا دیدم
روزیکه بمن گفتی دوستتدارم جانم
من محو تو گردیدم آنروز که فهمیدم
روزیکه صدا کردی آمده ام جانم!
شاهزاده ای رویاییت من هم پسندیدم
روزیکه قسم خوردی تا ترکم نخواهی کرد
دیوانه ات گردیدم آن لحظه که بشنیدم
روزیکه سر قرآن گفتی منم تنها
در خواب و رویایم هر جا که میدیدم
گذشتم از خود سوختم به پای تو
آتشم زدی آتش، حتی نفهمیدم
آخر فدایت گشت زندگی و عمر من
چی کار کردی با من چرا نپرسیدم؟
تو از اول هم صیاد بودی و من
چقدر ساده بلی آسان شکار تو گردیدم

The Maldivian culture, language and literary traditions are a few things one simply does not get uninterested in too easily. One of our most loved literary traditions is “raivaru”, this is a form of reciting poetry that is traditional or even our own with a unique rhythm to it. In the previous centuries and even now people would use raivaru as a way of expressing feeling for another it is also used in marriage proposals. One man who I most admire in this field of work is my great uncle, Abdulla Sodiq who is also known as “Saodu Be”, which in translation means ”Saodu brother”. Abdulla Sodiq is a songwriter, author of countless short stories, poet and novelist, inventor of words and writer of the Maldivian dictionary.

Rabisankar Bal’s Ayna Jiban, translated from the original Bengali by Arunava Sinha as A Mirrored Life, is a captivating novel that celebrates the tradition of the katha, the dastan, the qissa and the kahani, the story that travels across continents, languages and centuries in the saddlebags of merchants and the memoirs of saints. Such a story gains in splendour as it goes, elaborating itself into a labyrinth inexhaustibly stocked with characters, episodes and surprises.

With technological and skills-oriented changes in the medical profession, graduating doctors today have little in the way of interpersonal skills or multidisciplinary perspectives regarding the human condition. With this in mind, the purpose of this project is to bring a variety of speakers—writers, artists, film makers, musicians, and historians—to St. John’s Medical College as a way of inculcating humane values, enhancing the sensitivity of medical students, and developing a vibrant regional network of multi-talented, multi-disciplinary, and multi-faceted doctors and other professionals who feel strongly about the need for collaboration between the humanities and medical fields.

 By Aiswarya Sasi (2015)

I walked into the eerily quiet room, like a rabbit venturing into a lion’s cave. In the middle of the room was a lone table, with chairs at both its ends. On one chair sat the source of all my fears. This would be my first viva in medical college, and my cortisol levels were at an all-time high. A few questions into the viva, the examiner asked me, ‘What is the normal red blood cell count?’ ‘Finally, an easy question,’ I said to myself in relief. ‘Seven billion, Sir,’ I said confidently, without a second thought. A pause. His eyebrows shot up incredulously. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. That’s the human population,’ I said sheepishly, cringing on the inside. In retrospect, this incident amuses me to no end.

With technological and skills-oriented changes in the medical profession, graduating doctors today have little in the way of interpersonal skills or multidisciplinary perspectives regarding the human condition. With this in mind, the purpose of this project is to bring a variety of speakers—writers, artists, film makers, musicians, and historians—to St. John’s Medical College as a way of inculcating humane values, enhancing the sensitivity of medical students, and developing a vibrant regional network of multi-talented, multi-disciplinary, and multi-faceted doctors and other professionals who feel strongly about the need for collaboration between the humanities and medical fields.

Who knows that what is sad?
What is doleful and so flat?
Each one seen it, each heart suffered
Even flowers of desert, became hopeless of that.
Fighting, Fighting! You are for what?
Put the wrinkle on the foreheads; why you make humans sad?
What is your aim in whole life?
When you destroy a life, don’t you cry for that?
Would you please say that; why are you so cruel?
Why you always break hearts,
Is it your rule?
Fighting, Fighting! What do you earn?
By seeing your immoderate and credit less, what love birds will learn?
What is in you, are you heartless?
When you run dews, call it kindness?
Why you here but seem there?
Why when you came near, all existence have fear?

The Silk Route Residency will be a 2-week rotating residency open to writers from any country legendary traveler Ibn Battuta passed through and noted in his memoir. This first residency will take place in February 2015 in Pakistan, where two residents, Kavery Nambisan and Sridala Swami, will spend time in Karachi and Lahore. In each city, the writing residents will conduct a 2-3 day writing workshop for young writers, participate in numerous literary and cultural events such as attend the Karachi Literature Festival, and engage with local writers and artists. The writer will also maintain a blog on the Silk Routes website.

For the past ten years I have led a double life, for not only am I a writer I am also a publisher of English language books. Sri Lanka has two official languages: Sinhala and Tamil with English as the link language. Each language enjoys a parallel existence, rarely meeting or intersecting. The three languages have their own set of publishers and publications catering to their own group of readers carved out of a population of twenty odd million. English writing and publishing in Sri Lanka is the smallest segment and yet today it is the window to the larger world and reflects a vibrant and promising future. I like to think that the publishing house I co-founded was instrumental in this.

(for M.K)

In the beginning,
No beginning, only
The silvery glimpse of a history,
Solid as a rock,
Or the lotus.

Till you, Shiva,
Ashen faced, plough lined,
Danced the dance of destruction,
Your right leg, a
Stern spear, to the moon,
Your left, black root,
Upon the orange womb, this earth;

Prayer, the wild
Dance of your hair,
Place of our pilgrimage,
Where all is surrendered,
Clay, ash, the universe…

Time is only the unfurling
Of the blackness that we track;
So, learning the names of origins,
I can never go back.

When asked to reflect on his homeland of Pakistan, a country forever transformed by a history of partition and postcolonialism, Ahmad Ibrahim Suphi stated that “the people of the country are so divided nowadays it is hard to think of what to write.” Yet in the midst of great suffering, he sees people stepping up to look out for each other in ways he’s never seen before. A rose among the thorns. This is his reflection:

The northern Himalayan districts of Bajhang and Darchula in far western Nepal bordering Tibet still have rich oral traditions that tell fascinating tales about human life and death, happiness and sadness, love and hate, along with rich details about societal customs, rituals, economies, cross border relations, and the hazards accrued by the difficult topography of the region. Like many oral stories today, threatened by the erosion of traditional cultural practices and languages, these stories are on the verge of disappearance and with the changing landscape of Nepal and the rise in the tendency of linguistic code switching, there is a strong possibility that younger generations will discontinue such oral traditions.

And beggars,

desert sharpeners

like a flock of cheating strings,

bleeding from their wounds

with their long red beards,

hooked noses

and a mass of noise.

As man becomes more and more cultured and refined, he moves away from nature and tends to move towards artificiality. The distance from nature seems to keep him away from purity and reality too. In this process he starts to scoff at normal and natural behavior. For instance, love between man and woman is a natural phenomenon; this is especially so for human beings. But most of the ancient philosophies and religions appear to ignore this truth. It is as if love is another name of sin for them. The story about Adam and Eve is a good example for this type of mentastlity. In Indian philosophy also, things are not very different. Vedic literature is considered to be the repository of the oldest philosophy of the Indian subcontinent.

I would like to begin with these words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery- "In this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together," and share with you the need for a common global symbol that can unite people across the world transcending the traditional notion of race and nationalities. Ancient Indian wisdom of ´Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam´ and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi can possibly guide us on this path.

 Wherever we come from, we all have one entity in common - our planet, our Earth. A tribute to her in form of an anthem, therefore, should be able to find support from people of all continents.

These poems depict the life of displaced people (victims of border terrorism), living in a refugee camp in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India. They are taken from the poetry collection “Tafteesh Jari Hai” (The Investigation Continues), by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, published in 1993. These poems have been translated from original Hindi into English by the poet herself.

Dedicated to Agha Shahid Ali

I

No one knows her here by her name,
the one who is sitting mum
there on a wooden log,

the woman whose son was slaughtered
with a chainsaw,
is the only identity she has
in this refugee camp.

II

Unveiling their shine on the cerulean sheet now pitch-dark,

radiant studs, rhombus-shaped compete with beauty


of bicephalous. When the orgulous are on a night out


in their best bib and tucker covering their kytes, chill

of westering winds add to the ambience. Presence of


sapid puffs invites our olfactories to the divine, making

me muzzy, and moved: even nature helps the well-heeled? 

 Originally appears in Postcolonial Text, Vol 11, No 2 (2016)

 "I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all."—Michelangelo

Blue above, blue beneath; waters and skies kiss at yonder point.

A thick line stretches with flags of greenery, bold enough
to sustain salty tides, as muddy lands, bronze in sunrays
swathe itself with the poignant carpet of the Ganges.

Boatman swings as if wind itself in the unheard stretches.
Vista lucid enough but not to overcome eyes in the clay.
Death lies behind the muck and life too; they choose to struggle.

[Concept definition: Religion will hereby be used to refer to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, while writing refers to creative writing.]

“Catholics should consider boycotting the film "The Da Vinci Code" to let the world know the story offends and defames the church. If the kind of ‘slander, offenses and errors’ contained in Dan Brown's best-selling book and the film based on it had been written about the Quran or the Shoah (the Holocaust), they rightly would have provoked a worldwide uprising." These words, spoken by Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Catholic communications directors on April 28, 2008, illustrate the deep contemporary conflict between writing and religion.

By Sitarah Mathias, a third-year student at St. John's Medical College

Chhatarpur. A sleepy, dusty little town in Madhya Pradesh connected only by road, where life moved in slow motion.  Yet, a college trip in January 2016 to this humble township changed my life.

The time I spent in Christian Missionary Hospital, Chhatarpur, opened my eyes to a plethora of socioeconomic hindrances that deter the development and delivery of healthcare in India including illiteracy, ignorance, limited access to healthcare, harmful social dogmas and cultural practices with adverse health implications. However, what struck me the most was the obvious gender discrimination and crimes against women.

                In a far off land, there was a king named Madhukar. He had seven brothers. All of them used to go on hunting always. As they set off for hunting, they used to come to a resting place (chautari) near the jungle, sat and rested there for a while before they decided who would to go to which direction of the jungle for a hunt. They also decided that he who returns from hunting earlier would leave, as an indication of his return from the hunt, a green leafy branch of a tree on the resting platform at the crossroad before returning home. They decided to do this to make sure that no one is left in the jungle.

The letter was from a friend in Bihar, a nun who had trained with me in medical college. She wrote that a rural hospital there, run by the Sisters of Charity, was urgently in need of a surgeon. Was I interested?

I had just finished by surgical training in Liverpool. I loved every moment of my life in England but was also certain that I would go home soon. The offer from Bihar appealed to my foolishness. I said yes, and four months later, was heading north and east by train from Bangalore. My family was dismayed. Bihar was not a place anyone went to out of choice, it still isn’t. Tell anyone that you wish to work in Bihar and you’ll see eyes go round and big. “Bihar! Why?”

There’s always an off-chance the hype is true
and the city of tomorrow unimaginably
close at hand: Flying cars, Robo-maids, Gleaming
towers strung with hyper-trains and skyways.

Or we could slowly invade the empire of fish,
learn to breathe water, perhaps wall it off
in giant aquatic neighbourhoods. Neptuen’s Court,
unblocked views of the Great Barrier Reef.
conveniently located near major shipping routes
and continental shelves. Come live where mermaids
frolick. What poems mer-folk
would write, about the eels and corals
of life, their horizons green with wet sky,
incandescent sealights from passing submarines.

for R.

O, how was America then, pre-discovery? Suffice to say there is no experience like being smack in the middle of this billowing concerto. It could turn out to be our tarnation or salvation, depending on the jury and their tote bags of mood swings. “You sound a little pitchy in the second verse.” But don’t you see, it’s all a harmless karaoke session, a symphony of wolves having a minxy reprieve of fun from a day’s hunting… A quizzical prairie dog would rear its head from its security blanket and nobody would lift a paw. For those commercial breaks, the globe twirls in total harmony and no one eats no one else: “In the months of spring, we will play like silly butterflies in the strawberry fields, but do keep out for muggers and axes with vendettas.”

أعيش في جدة. فتحت عيني في هذه المدينة ولم أغادرها في حياتي لأكثر من أسابيع قليلة. أعود بعدها مشتاقة أو لأن لابد من العودة لارتباطي بعمل وعائلة. غريب تمسكي بهذه المدينة أنا القادمة من عائلة تعودت على الهجرات. كأن تعب أجدادي من الترحال ترسخ في ذاكرتي أنا وإخوتي فجلسنا في البلد التي خرج منها الأجداد ولم نغادر. سكنوا مكة. الأرض الحرام. وعادو بعد قرن إليها. لكن أبي سكن جدة لأنها المدينة الأكبر التي تضم النادي الرياضي الذي شاهد موهبته في لعب كرة القدم وضمه إليه. جدة. في صغري كنت أمشي في شوارع البلد يمسكني ابي من يدي وأنا مبهورة بالناس، المحلات الكثيرة على جانبي شارع قابل، ساندويش الشاورما سموثي الكاكاو والمكسرات الحارة.

1. Do not write ghazals (lyric poems). Readers suffocate beneath the weight of ghazals that, much like guinea pigs, lack diversity and end up looking all the same. No more friend, enough already! However, write one in case you see the last straw of your existence or the burning coal to your immortality in it. One is just about enough to try out your voice and to get some rushed, insincere welcome applause for life. Having nine out of ten ghazals sounding like the first one is to gobble up both you and your audience’s most valuable lifetime in nine little installments. Such life-taking in the name of ghazals is not a poetic service.

I wake up tense, the way I used to feel at the start of the war. I open my clenched fists, I don't say good morning to myself. I can't. Yusuf is asleep next to me, hasn't changed his habits, wakes up in the middle of the night and sneaks in to lie down beside me. School time, honey. As usual, he doesn't wake up. I remind him the psychologist yesterday said he doesn't suffer from any troubles. Mr. Saleh said you are a good boy, remember? He decides to get out of bed; for the first time I ask Norma the maid to get him ready for school. There has to be a first time for everything. And I find an excuse to myself, it's the war.

Poet Interview #39 – Sanjeev Sethi

Lying flat face up
with hands and legs tied parallel
with banks corresponding
and like a terrorized creature
unable to gather the body together
for a hope of living
Iowa River continues her journey
through the prairies
to the endless end.

Denying to embrace
her folks on shore
without responding and complying
to their smiling chores
never even waving to the willow’s good-bye
or the silhouetting of trees so high
handcuffed, chained and blindfolded
Iowa River continues her journey
Like a harnessed horse in mourning.

Metaphors could line the back alleys
of distraught kingdoms,
casting rebels,
buzzing like bees,
around intrusive hornets,
breaking out to bigger nests;
productive unrest,
spreading like a plague,
not person to person,
By the hectare.
-
But they dream and suck on nectar.

The Translation Series will be a special volume of La.Lit, a literary magazine that seeks to engage a broad community through literature and art. The overarching goal of the series is to promote regional literary exchange amongst diverse linguistic groups through the translation of works into English, which is understood as the most common language shared amongst Silk Route countries and is, despite its problems, perhaps the best medium for the sharing of stories and experiences. La.Lit’s editorial team will work with young writers and translators from various Silk Route countries in order to produce four texts from the region to be published in La.Lit (link is external)and to strengthen the translation skills of young writers.

        
چیزی باقی نمانده است،جز عکس یادگار تو
دلتنگی شبهای من،با مشتی خاطرات تو
حرفی برای گفتن نیست تقصیر من باز هم نبود
حرف آخر را میشنوی‌ نمیگیرم سراغ تو
رفتن تو یادم نبود چطور رفتی تو بی خبر؟
دلم را پس بمن بده تا نیایم به خواب تو
بیهوده مدهوشم مکن با ناز و عشوۀ دیگر!
جادویی تو شکستنی ست، نمیشوم بیتاب تو

(an episode from the Sejarah Melayu – the Malay History)

And then several horses and cows and goats were slaughtered. Rice crusts collected in a mound. Water for the ceremony amounted to an ocean upon which the heads of buffaloes appeared like islands. After 40 days and 40 nights, bath water was brought in a procession abounding in joy and noise in a vessel decked with jewels. Then Seri Teri Buana and his wife Princess Uwan Sundari walked seven times around the raised throne. Then they were bathed on their raised thrones by Bat. Following the bath they covered their bodies with the finest threads, the threads of the kingdom; and sat as man and wife on a throne decked with jewels…

My diwali thali has pink

bougainvillea petals, fallen

banyan leaves, tiny cracked twigs,

gathered from this bend

in your road, once 

an entire country to me.

(for JNU)

In the beginning

love was a gift from God.

Its law melts as words.

Its eve was the tone

of the letters.

Adam was not there

but a sheet containing

the fate of all lovers.

ای آشنای دیروز
در جاده های امروز
گم کرده ام ترا من
با یک دلی پر از سوز
قدم،قدم زنان من
هر سو روم حیران من
آخر کجای راهی؟
بده به من پناهی!
بمان،بمان کنارم
بخوان،بخوان تو یارم
از نغمه های شیرین
از رویاهای رنگین
از ماه و از ستاره
بگو،به من دوباره!
که این آخر راه نیست
دلت از من جدا نیست
بگو در دنیای ما
اصلآ فاصله ها نیست!

After the afternoon drain streets fill
again with approaching dusk
naan-shops open shutters
date carts grow lighter,
children dash on final errands.
Sun-wizened job-hunters wait still
in wheelbarrows
near low-voiced conferences of sheep,
heads bent as if considering their fate.

A boy already a man
washes his feet in the jooey,
red-faced cop pulls man from car
beating him till he pays,
even on Friday, even
in the holy month.
White beards and clustered listeners settle
in unglamorous parlors – blankets spread
on ground or wooden platforms,
No one is alone.

Sunil died in the bomb blast. He was my fruiterer. Which bomb blast you ask? Does it matter? He had gone for the election rally at the town hall. The bomb went off. Sunil died. That's all. When I got home two days later that was what I was told.
Sunil died on a Monday. I met him the Saturday before at the Colpetty market.

تمام شعر من موج نگاهت
ترا من دوست دارم بی نهایت
اگر روزی نباشی در کنارم
جهان گردد برایم چون قیامت

مثلما خدعنا العالم كله

ستخلعينَ قبعة البيسبول مثل العادة

وتبحثينَ عن زاويتك المفضلة

في مقهى ماريو.

وستنظرينَ في المرآةِ

وتأخذين وقتك لتستيقني

 من أن الملائكة ما زالت

تحرس التفاح الرابض

 خلف الساتان الأبيض.

وستطلبين قهوتك المفضلة مثل العادة

وتنظرين الى الفواخت وهي تحط

قرب النافورة كحلم أبيض

وراء زجاج المقهى.

وستمُعنين النظرَ في اللوحةِ الحمراء

المعلقة على الجدار

كطوطم عند مدخل قرية افريقية.

وستسمعين أديل وهي تغني

في المذياع

Someone like You

Prologue

You are the one who can’t be described

Neither forgotten, nor left a side

You are endless as blue sky…

Or the secret of autumn seaside 

You are my world, my peace and silence

I wish no more than to be your bride!

Searchlights within reveal the roost of my still

small voice is on a glacis: nothing unusual, I’m

getting on in years. Swizzle sticks are my way

of keeping track in a bar. Nip between us glaces

your eye, guttatim you defreeze. There is unrest

between faultlines and fruition: believe me, I’ve

detonated many. Yours is a phase. You too will

curtsy. This is the charter of growing up. 

Originally appears in Postcolonial Text, Vol 11, No 2 (2016)

She was a white round girl considered an outcast in her traditional Damascene environment, and I was a country girl raised in the big city, where neither Damascenes nor my original townsmen considered me one of their own. We were both in our early twenties, struggling with our families’ traditional values, and trying to be honest to our own, which made us stick together quite well through the seven years that followed. Each of us was trying to pull herself, and the other, together through the difficulties of growing into independent women in a complex and patriarchal society.

Achilles, the mightiest of the Achaeans
brought precious prizes
for Agamemnon—the Achaean Lord
or the hunger’s epitome
who allocated defamation to his chieftain’s share
and ignited swift and shielded Achilles
into a red fireball.

In his presence
Trojan Fronts and Scaean Gates
shook in fear
rained blood
and when Achilles
thunderously warned the lustful Lord
even Hector--firm in resolve
dwindled.
.

Ego of two nations
fought a dreadful war
Achaeans too hugged death with Trojans
but with better recompense
of some more land
some more treasures
some more beauties
confiscated and treasured
and left for their Lord
to subdue, use, and enjoy.

year after year
i bear you name
                      maya
from village to village
i bear it like a fresh wound
on my brow
                      maya
from city to city

at times
it suddenly tears open
                      at other times it does not stir
at times
when i call your name
                      maya

blood flows
upon my face

(translated from the Malay by Eddin Khoo)

                                            (The End)

No one would believe such a thing if they had not gone through the same thing themselves. Newlywed time. The happiest and the most exciting time. How pleasant to awake with your lover after spending the nights alone for your whole life? Look. The veins on her cheeks. How pleasant. He gently touched them. Like touching a soap bubble. Truly gently.

He was satisfied. This was it. The pleasure of life. He thought it would be good that all his mornings would be like this. Soft lips. Curling eyelashes. He looked at the face at ease. He was surprised at himself. He had never thought he could get married to such a flawless woman.

                                              (The End)

Your love is beautiful as a painted lily,
As a moon in darkness, as honesty.
Your love is sunset,
It’s neither golden, nor red_
Like a rose… no, a star,
It’s near although it seems far.
It is shining in my eyes;
But, runs as dew when my heart cries.
If I catch it, it will fly,
What should I say? It goes so high_
Your love is with me forever I see,
Even though in my life, "To be or Not to be…"

Maria lived in our neighborhood.  Her pa’s herbal-tea shop faced my pa’s funeral-wreathes shop.  Maria’s surname was Lee and her family was Chiuchow by descent.  Her pa did nothing much in the shop except study the horse-racing tips, watch Redifusion and sometimes eat a tofu-skin stuffed roll, sharing it with his little son.  Her mom stayed at the back of the shop and worked with the three daughters when they came home from school, brewing a herbal-tea called “twenty-four-flavors” and steaming small bowls of blackish “tortoise-and-fuling jelly” for the customers, and also doing the cooking, the washing and the ironing.

(a novel in progress)

Fifty
Light floods me

Zero
I drown in darkness

Fifty… Zero… Fifty…

Sixty fifties and zeroes a second playing with her eyes, and in the end she sees only light. There is nothing strange about this. Every neon light in the world works this way: a fifty kilohertz frequency blinking on and off and leaving our eyes with the illusion of unbroken illumination. In fact, it’s alternations of light and dark which, were they clear to the naked eye, would send a girl ravig mad in half an hour, but unseen as they are, they act more like dripping water cutting slowly and steadily into a rock. It just needs time.

I am writing from Varkala, a coastal town by the Arabian Sea, located in India's south-western state of Kerala. Last weekend I was in Kochi, Kerala's biggest city, where I had an opportunity to check out the second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Before writing about the Biennale, it is necessary to reflect on what led me there because until a month ago, I had no idea about the journey that lay ahead.

A flower

carried carefully by the wind,

the verses of the petals

are the hymns of the morning.

Time dreams about

the flowing dew of intonation

Like perfume touching her cheeks

turning them green.

That is the dream

and the foam of its flavor

is a spring of fragrance

and freedom.

      I was born in a remote village in the mountainous region of western Nepal. Until I grew up as a school boy in that remoteness and learnt that a bigger world existed beyond what I could see around, my entire understanding was that of the mountains, meadows, vegetation, the cattle, wild beasts and birds, my parents and villagers who toiled hard day in and day out, their pains and pleasures and the images of human condition in the stories narrated by my peers who “bet villages” in their games.

Death, My Funny Valentine
By Yeow Kai Chai (Singapore)

Picture this. A blonde dude decked out in shimmering mail sitting on a stone outcrop. He’s playing a game of chess. His sparring partner? A tall, lean aesthete, face powdered white, and body suited with a Yohji Yamamoto-esque combo of black cape and kaftan.
The backdrop is a calm sea. Above, billowing tufts of clouds back-lit by a glint of sun. This scene, of course, is taken from Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic The Seventh Seal; the chain mail guy is a mediaeval knight (Max von Sydow) and his opponent, The Grim Reaper (Bengt Ekerot).

I

2014.

11:42pm

New York, USA

The room echoed with occasional sniffs and gasps of misery; and eventually everything hushed to emptiness. The sound of silence reverberated through everyone’s heart, which was accompanied by the swift and delicate performance of the tears that rolled down their cheeks. Yes, they were sad. Yes, he is no longer here… yes, he is dead.

A short story by Mohibullah Zegham (from my first collection of short stories “Hill in the Human”)

Translated by Rashid Khattak

It was a market day. I had loaded 16 sacks full of potatoes in a truck and was moving towards Kunduz. After a long time I was going to the bazaar [again?] . Everything seemed strange. Traveling the vast desert of Shorao, the truck was raising clouds of dust. The desert was so flat that one could not believe it was the top of a huge mountain. We had not seen any other vehicle during the hour-long journey. In the past, the buzkashi competitions used to be held in this desert, but now there was no trace of horses’ hoofs. All you could see on the ground were the caterpillar tracks of tanks.

My smell,

my nakedness

entices

hordes of human flesh

from faraway lands.

Traders,

emperors,

marauders.

I

pose

nude

up on the hill.

Below

a feast of eagles—

possessed,

intoxicated.

From The Seduction of Delhi by Abhay K. (Bloomsbury India, 2014)

Literature is directly linked to culture, and in Iraq, women are just coming to the field. There are reasons for this, especially how men think about writing and how they think about women as human beings.
Often, cultures distinguish men’s written works from women’s written works, and the American feminist Angela Davis saw this as just another form of discrimination. But we should not forget that an individual’s writing comes from their specific time and place, and writings with a feminine flavor come from a feminine place.

All those who worship that which is not knowledge enter into darkness

Those who delight only in knowledge enter greater darkness.

            - The Upanishads (800-400 B.C.)

Our ancestors knew how to bend the meaning of words so you could ponder over them long after they were uttered or read.

Silk Road, a series of trade routes, that connected the east and west stretching some 4000 miles like a multilayered necklace, had India like a pendant in the center, and Magadh as a precious stone set in it. What made Magadh one of the most important destinations for the silk route travelers was not just the trade of silk, spices, incense and textiles, but also peace, prosperity, science and knowledge. Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, who brought all small kingdoms of India together under one rule for the first time, made Patliputra (modern Patna) its capital, and allowed political stability in this region.

Surrounded by the walls of memory

with no lover

and nothing to remember

I mock

my triangular cuffs

and the illusion

of hands in a circle.

An iron cage of emotions

and a jail of ironic melodies.

Hi, I'm going to Starbucks, can you meet me there?
Which one?
The one on the beach, Yusuf is invited to a party nearby and I'll kill the time at Starbucks until he is done.
Where exactly?

Where exactly, I ask the driver.
At the end of Sari street.
Near Pizza Hut, yes, I know where you mean. Ok, I can. It's nearby, the driver can drop me and then go back to pick up Omar from school.

I arrived there before she did. I watched her get out of the car and went towards the stairs before she came up. I said, you can order because I already did when I arrived.

In the year 500 AD the great sage Adishanya had a series of visions that he inscribed on fifty ola leaves. In the late forties an archaeology student discovered some of the writings in the tragic Pulatti expeditions. They foretold of dreadful times in store for the island now called Sri Lanka. Legend has it that once all the ola leaves have been recovered peace and prosperity shall reign once more. So far only 32 of them have been found.

Ola leaf Number 15

There will come a time when blood will flow.

The country will be split and Red will be the only colour.

The Silk Route Residency will be a 2-week rotating residency open to writers from any country legendary traveler Ibn Battuta passed through and noted in his memoir. This first residency will take place in February 2015 in Pakistan, where two residents, Kavery Nambisan and Sridala Swami, will spend time in Karachi and Lahore. In each city, the writing residents will conduct a 2-3 day writing workshop for young writers, participate in numerous literary and cultural events such as attend the Karachi Literature Festival, and engage with local writers and artists. The writer will also maintain a blog on the Silk Routes website.

If the core of rising

Is the core of kneeling,

where will I direct

and to what will I surrender

my eyes?

From the collection Bleeding Gull: Look Feel Fly

and I don’t distort my smile

with wailing.

I am used to

that portent

and what it chooses

and what it nominates.

Since the night of shooting stars, the night of travail,

the call to prayer calms me. Some people chant,

“Hale Loya.”

It was the last supper and the birth

of a certain death.

My silicone

was oxidized with love.

I was born from a pairing of the dust of Al-Jalil

and the waters of Euphrates and became

the infant martyr.

From the collection Bleeding Gull: Look Feel Fly

Despite a creative writing culture within Afghani universities, many young writers remain silenced—either lacking access to publishing opportunities or fearful to share their ideas. The purpose of this project is to create a short story competition which focuses on Afghani heritage and that of the historic region known as the Ariana Empire, a region that connected both culturally and economically with more expansive Silk Routes. The competition will be amongst students at nine universities throughout Afghanistan as a way of encouraging a broader literary community geared towards emerging writers, uncovering new Afghani literary talents, and providing a space of collaboration, trust, and creativity.

1. The Day of Massacre at Nalanda

Bakhtiyar and his men
play buzkashi in my alleys today
monks are being burnt alive; and
those who try to escape are beheaded.

Dharmagunj – the nine storied library
has burst into flames
smoke and ash from burning books
have turned the day into night.

The sun has disappeared from the sky today
and even my bricks bleed,
sacred chants that once purified Magadha
have turned into shrieks of a falling humanity.

The light of the world is fading today
to face ravages of time alone
abandoned, scorned, forgotten
or perhaps, to be reborn into many Nalandas.

2. The Rise of Nalanda

میتوان در ژرفنای یک نگاه 
تا به اوج آسمان حتی رسید
میتوان در یک نگاه ساده ای 
درد یک عشق نهانی را کشید
میتوان با دیدن یک ارغوان 
حس شگفتن را بیدار ساخت
میتوان در اقیانوس آبی عشق 
پاکی مهر و محبت را شناخت
میتوان درسکوت آرام شب 
طپش قلب عاشق را شنید
میتوان با کوله باری از امید 
به شهر پاک احساسات رسید
میتوان با هر قطره باران 
عاری از اشک و غم و آه شد
میتوان در لبخند ناز کودکان 
گاه آن کودک فردا شد
میتوان در اوج تنهای خویش 
همصدا با موج یک دریا بود
میتوان در عمق دلتنگی خویش 
شعر آزادی فردی را سرود

I grew up in the Soviet Union. In one of the “southern” Central Asian parts, in the most wildly beautiful country, the Kyrgyz Republic, among a people with an ancient, not to say archaic life history/biography, in the family of a writer and an actress and film-director - both pure, naïve, extremely talented and genuinely free in their minds, people formed at the time into a family of poor intelligentsia. These three factors formed me ideologically and let me stay free…  Three things – the Soviet Union, my parents, my country’s beauty and heritage (sorry for this banal truth) – which I couldn’t depend on, or choose, were mingled metaphysically and shaped my life …

And it’s interesting to think about now, thirty years later, with more mature and lucid (I hope) mind…

Burning incense could cause cancer according to a scientific study conducted by researchers from Taiwan, who found high levels of carcinogens in the smoke of incense burned in Buddhist temples.
- Assoc Press (2 Aug 2001)

I have groped my breast seeking whether this burning were from any bodily cause outwardly. But when I knew that it was only kindled inwardly from a ghostly cause, and that this burning was nought of fleshly love or concupiscence, in this I conceived it was the gift of my Maker.
- Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love (14th C)

i.

My grandmother is what is known as a colorful woman. There are many elements that contribute to her colorfulness: black shawls draped over her body like witches’ capes; great fans with lace trims, sparkly polish decorating her sharp long nails; an oversized brass ring adorning her fourth finger; and a necklace of pearls from the Sea of Casablanca that accentuate the gleam in her eye, the gleam of one who can see into the future.

Savta’s name is Sarah, a simple and down-to-earth name that hardly befits her mischievous nature. The name of her twin sister who died, Zahara, suits her much better.

The walls in our home are mostly bare, but Zahara’s photo hangs in the hallway, and her eyes follow anyone who passes by.

 When three; her best friend is the grass,

Silver stokes of pointy blades tug the cloth of her dupatta.

She draws an open life, two irises in the mud,

“Eyes are God’s to make,” says Baba jaan,

“Not yours to re-invent.”

Four; the water glows orange.

Its noisy layers embrace the surface of her toes.

She digs her fingers into its blue

& fishes for rainbow stars.

Baba jaan, come look. Look what I found.

Too late. It’s time for prayer.

She throws the stars away.

Five; she knows namaaz by heart;

Baba jaan recites a strange string of Arabic in her ear,

What does it mean?

She looks out the window thrice.

"You are a storyteller, so tell me a story."

"I will."

She looked across the table at the big man. His grey hair. His brown eyes. She watched him get older as time passed and wondered if he had thought her beautiful, and that if he did, think that now she got uglier by the half hour. Justice of the Ugandan Supreme Court, Sitteer Ibrahim, drank his beer looked at the slight girl in front of him and speculated if he had got himself into a situation. But the girl began to speak and he soon became transfixed.

When home becomes the scattered limbs of your mother’s body, the screams of your sister as savages rip her apart and missiles raining fire on the streets, you will run. Feet slapping against rubble, glass, sand and the fires of hell itself. You will run and run until you’re breathless and your knees give way and then you will crawl because somewhere deep down you know home is more than just the rattle of machine guns going off instead of a wedding march.

Excerpts from Bare Soul, a collection of poetry

RUSTLING WINDS 

I 

 You gave me nothing;

I had nothing to take care of,

nothing to worry about;

you set me free from everything.

You took everything away from me,

and became my prisoner for the lifetime. 

RUSTLING WINDS 

II 

Every time when it has been plundered

my wealth has become double;

take my treasures away once again

 if needed,

without any disguise

 great masters! 

RUSTLING WINDS

III

You want me to free you from guilt,

but I’m neither the lock, nor the key;

both are in your hands my friend,

                                                                       There is someone
                                                                He is coming toward me
                                                               I can hear my heart voice
                                                               He brings me prosperity
                                                                       Walking softly
                                                                He is coming toward me
                                                                      My eyes are waiting
                                                                         Can he see me?

Can literature accept social responsibility?

Some say that the arts should be purely arts--nothing else, that writers should only serve the gods of beauty and joy. In some cases, this makes sense, particularly when art assumes the status of propaganda in the service of a specific ideology--some religious poetry of eastern literature, for example, or the writings of some followers of Marxism, or the classic poems of Afghanistan written in praise of the monarchy.

從無的世界醒來

我可能並不知道

我已經死過

蛆在我體內盤成雙螺旋

賦予原子意志

且噬盡生時記憶－－

我乃開始另一程的進化

一如我曾行走在生的龐大隊伍裡

如今 我也曾在死

的無法形容

但似曾相識的行列裡

繼續知識之外的航程－－

是的

你不能只以生的知識待我

因為你對無  一無所知

是的，無比影子更輕

比概念更硬  比光更離奇

比死  生  更簡易樸素

但我在行列裡感受你的炯炯虛無

你不在的遺感化成莫名召喚

終於使我再次

與無  錯身而過

懊惱中又化身情慾的嬰兒……

nothingness

Ko Hua Chen

(Translated by Simon Patton）

waking from a world of nothingness

it could be that I don't even know

that I'm already dead

Burrowed under her duvet, snuggling close to the pillow on her right she was in that state where she was half asleep but half awake. Where everything was blurry and it felt like she was in a dream. Lately, without him, things were hazy.

The house, dead quiet, everybody tucked into beds. The vibration of the phone on her side board ringed through the room. The phone stopped ringing and she slipped into oblivion.

A pulse lapsed and the quivering of the table started again. Groaning she smacked her hand all over the table trying to locate her phone. Her hand hit the metal case and she squinted at the screen in the dark. Unknown number. God! Whimpering she swore if it was a prank call she would strangle the person on the other side.

Jibbed, old hungers gnaw at your chance 
arrival in gelidity. Gleed stirs up in you 
my cutty-pipe image, and you laugh, louder 
than required, adopting cachinnations as 
a channel of expressing emotions that have 
no business to be in our basket, as by now
I have peered you on the pentimento of
regrets. If this sounds cavalier, let me assure 
you, I understand pain. It is my portmanteau.

http://www.thesquawkback.com/2016/07/sethi.html#more 

My graduate training is in the field of creative writing, with a specialization in fiction. During the course of my graduate study, I produced fiction based that was based on Karachi and arose out of the conflicts of contemporary urban life. For the last three years though I have been teaching literature at the undergraduate level at a liberal arts college in Pakistan, and my views on literature and my own practice as a writer have evolved in conjunction of my practice of teaching literature. I will try to list some of my ideas here.

Morning star: like a signal
To stop. In the hard air words venture, through night,
In sleep: somnambulists plan, on the wings of a cloud, bare,
Towards a cape

That sometimes disappears. Perhaps
There’s a process, towards a black hole,
Where desire – and all that is remembered – collects
Like the carrion of birds

Where the precipice may no longer exist.
Who designed it? What delivered it?
From where? From us? There’s a cove that’s been set apart
And a horizon that’s been lost, perhaps.

While you and I, sit, speak,
In a broad room.
And I ask you: summon the morning star,
Stop its talk. Give it a sign!

بیا من دمی تو گفتگو کن
دلم را با نگاهی زیر و رو کن
اگر بودی، نبودم در کنارت
مرا در خاطراتت جستجو کن

                                                                           Things fall apart
                                                                               At a twinkle,
                                                                                 In a night_
                                                                         When others left you;
                                                                      And you remain at one side.
                                                                              Something vanishes,
                                                                           When you get depressed

My heart is burning,

Every time I hear your name_

Wished I hadn’t been born;

It really gives me such pain.

How much you suffered!

No one knows_

How much were you tortured!

Your innocent face shows_

Turn over you the car,

Throw you stones_

They cruelly attacked,

And broke your bones_

Sleep in peace as you go to heaven,

Your home is there, you would be happy then.

Helena Makri

“If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to me to be the book”—William Godwin (on reading a narrative by his future wife)

این منم آری منم اسیر زلف و روی تو              هر جا روم من در بدر هستم به جستجوی تو
ازین پرسم با آن رسم با آن رسم از تو پرسم                آیا بتو خواهم رسید چون پر زنم بسوی تو؟
سالها گذشت دیوانه وار هر سو روم من بیقرار             آیا روزی خواهم نشست دمی به گفتگوی تو؟
عمرم گذشت فرتوت شدم از دوریت مردود شدم               آیا مرا خواهی شناخت روزی آیم بکوی تو؟

The night lasts longer than life
Briefer than ice. When everything deforms and evaporates in the dark
Meticulous words come only from the stars
We are dim and pale like a gray rock.

Leaning over the black spring water
You’d taste its blade, licking its
Icy chill reflection of the shadow behind you
Blade is a kind of deprivation
A kind of silence as well
Black spring water beyond comprehension
Endless repetitive histories
Trivial desires that get lost

Never could I clearly explain
Black is definitely a liquid
Bringing all sounds under its wings
All sounds have a reverse
To which you listen with the utmost respect
Only to approach that silence of horror