TIME OF THE POET JOURNAL : Of Wretched Slogan Vagabonds and Political Hoodlums!!

December dribbles her signature dance towards January, shaking off jackets  of Christmas fever  welcoming 2020 flipping  pages into another millennium.  We are capping this year of diversity  with a blessing of global poetry. This journal celebrates  the  power in  togetherness  and  the  vintage of  diversity .Poets  and poems featured in this  special  journal represent   the magic of poetry  on  this once peaceful but now war whipped  earth we call WORLD.  It is a selection of defiant but nonviolent spear like words hunting for justice in the deep gutters of war, expedience   and digging for peace underneath crude pits of tyranny. To expose  dictatorial  vagaries and totalitarian  imbecility perpetuated by blood suckers and powers mongers on this our  earth  .Our  God the Almighty , Lord  created   Poets with the wisdom of revolutionizing   and cleansing  the world  of  its political dirty and wash  it clean  from  the trash of toxic corruption. This journal is a global reprint of poetic footprints retracing us   from the days we started to our destiny, TODAY. Today   fingers of grandchildren are burnt in hot pans of political authoritarian regimes. We have become grandsons and daughters of preceding autocratic soup kitchens.  We are clutching on the legacy of economic seizures, terroristic trances, war commerce and commodification of refugees.  We are the wretched vagabonds clutching on the torn flags of banana republics. Hoodlums praising remorseless wizards and lizards grabbing the sunlight of our lives in broad light. Our featured  Poet Profile in  this  December special offing  is  Jamie Dedes( profile enclosed).The poets here are   some of the remaining voices hard nut bolt resistant enough to be swallowed by the imbecilic, corrupt and crude global political clout.Keshab Sigdel (NEPAL),Anjum Wasim Dar( Pakistan),  Mbonisi Zikhali( Canada- Zimbabwe) , Robson Shoes Lambada( Zimbabwe), Taofeek Ayeyemi ( Nigeria), Kushal Poddar( India),  Nancy Ndeke( Kenya) , Samson Abanni( Zimbabwe) and Michael Dickel  ( Israel), James  Coburn ( USA), Tracy Yvonne Breazile( America)  and Author  Omwa Ombara( USA-KENYA).  Poets remain peoples commissars and messengers  of truth-

Mbizo Chirasha   ( CURATOR  of MiomboPublishing and Editor of TIME OF THE POET JOURNAL).

 

 

A DIRGE OF HOPE TO SUDAN

 

Sudan the great has fallen
A million salty tears cannot fill the Nile
The land of giants has dwarfed into shadowy ghosts
Red eyes cannot light the cooking stones
Offended spirits roam the land in search of their former selves
Chaos reign, the scorching sun cooks animal carcasses
The calves have died with milk on the teats
Vultures long dead are not invited to the feast
The dead cannot bury the dead
Lord of tears, rescue me.

Death has camped in Sudan
The source of the River Nile has been defiled into a desert
The wicked Janjaweed beat death drums
The cobweb of impunity weaves corruption, greed, war
Foreign arms grind machinery of destruction
Endless power hunger games rip open wombs of pregnant mothers
Isn’t Killer games, the enemy’s gain?
I cry but my tears have no gain
Not until Sudan rises again.
I sob.

Sudan’s jails are filthy layers of stifled innocent souls
Charged with imaginary crimes from the head of a deranged government
A decayed tooth whose loose system leaves toothless smelly mouths, caves
Till when, Mama? Till when?
Peace talks are the rugs on which berserk leaders wipe their bloody feet
Caked soles of feet in Bloody shoes soaked in rivers of blood
Bashir the wicked jigger has fed on the flesh of his people for eons
His fleecy naughty bedbug toy guns flash a weeping trail of destruction
Not even the highest court in the world can hold him
The ICC, the leaders’ kalongolongo children’s game
I cry.

Sudan’s crisis is the cry of many rivers
Sudan’s Sickler, harvests death like a bottomless pit
Sudan has become an open grave
Loose shooting canon, fire spitting snakes
Life mocker, get away from me
The Buzz of a million houseflies is your favourite song
What day of the week, were you born?
You are a shame to the universe
Your brother’s death does not stop your sleeping pangs
Your children, what? Child soldiers.
The leaders of Sudan have no brothers or sisters
Only enemies.
I cry.

Sudan’s poverty is the joy of the colonizer
The master reigns supreme
Our leaders have opened the granary to strangers
Their green colored forest clothes the death signature
Sudan’s helpless tears only dry up the barren soil.
Sudan’s fake eyelashes have fallen
Adults cry like children and there are no children to cry
Darfur exposes the raw jaundiced eye of horror and injustice

Africa, North, South, East, West
Lamentations. Lamentations. Lamentations.
Sudan crisis is the cry of rivers of blood and tears
Rivers that flow in red blood and mixes with rich oil
Discolored by wars of greed, gold and oil

Sudan crisis is the cry of deserts
Turned into quarries of hidden guns
Sparkling in deadly smiles
As government eats her children
Sudan crisis, the naked cry of the earth
Earth filled with limbless bodies, ashes
Earth cannot recognize her own and feeds them to the worms
The justice train is slow no matter how fully you oil it
Women of Sudan arise
Save your children from these monsters who occupy state houses
Hold your wombs and breasts, invoke the power within
The children you suckled and nurtured have turned against you
The children have slipped from the nest and become monsters

You cannot give up
You must not give up
Mothers of Sudan, arise and claim your space
You have suffered enough
The senseless leaders have declared Sudan an orphan
Daughters of Sudan arise and fight back
The battle is yours, my sisters
Our hopes lie in you
Poetry Nation, Arise
You are the last weapon left standing
To rescue our sister Nation
Sudan.
I cry.

 

AUTHOR OMWA OMBARA

 

Contributing Editor (Global Women and Artist Rights Reviews) is AUTHOR OMWA OMBARA –The Editor in Chief at Tujipange Africa Media, a diaspora based Magazine in United States of America. A Consul at Large at poetasdelmundo.com /POETS OF THE WORLD .A motivational speaker. Writers Consultant with her amazing projects, Walks and Talks and Tips for Writers Show .Omwa is a political Asylee for seven years. An International investigative journalist, poet, vocalist, performing and visual artist. She is author of a Memoir, “God’s Child on The Run.” .Published in several anthologies including Our Secret Lives, Holding the Center and other journals of International acclaim. Omwa is a former Bureau Chief, The Standard Group and has published over 4000 articles in her journalism career spanning 20 years. Her passion for standing up to power and corrupt leaders in the media circles is unmatched. Her experience in journalism spans from more than two decades. She stands firm against the abuse of power, corruption and mass killings .she is an advocate of true journalism. She comes aboard with her vast understanding of global humanity issues, journalistic experiences and women rights knowledge. She holds a postgraduate diploma in journalism and mass communication and a BA degree from the University of Nairobi.

 

 

 

FREEDOM

Sopranic echoes of silence

Aggravate the complications of my bitterness

The high-pitched voice of muteness

Pricks the inner wound covering my tears

which will only dry when freedom is freed.

A whirlwind and fragment

Of thoughts entirely flummoxes my conscience

When I imagine hand-cuffed and leg-ironed freeom:

Freedom behind bars!

They fought for freedom

Were awarded freedom

Celebrated, dined and wined for and with freedom

Yet when freedom uttered her free thoughts,

Parardoxically they frantically slapped freedom in the face

And silenced her by a battery of diabolic statutes.

The inspired voice of freedom now speaks in silence

Visiting in my dreams like an ancestral instruction

I hear sopranic echoes of silence

Aggravating the complications of my bitterness.

The high-pitched voice of muteness

Pricking the inner wound

Which will only heal and dry when freedom is freed.

ROBSON ISAAC SHOES LAMBADA is the National Coordinator of Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights, an artistic collective of wordsmiths tackling human rights issues in Zimbabwe and globally. Lambada is a writer, performance poet, critic and arts administrator also working with the only literature festival in Zimbabwe (LitFest Harare) as its Festival Administrator. He was born in Kadoma in 1981 where he started his artistic career at Jameson High School. He has performed his work to several audience in Zimbabwe at almost all arts festivals that include the Harare International Festival of Arts (HIFA), Shoko Festival, Dzimbahwe Arts Festival, Ukubambana Youth Peace Festival and  Protest Arts International Festival where he was an artistic consultant responsible for the spoken word segment. Shoes Lambada has traveled with his work to countries that include among others United States of America, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, India, Zambia, Malawi and Namibia.

 

 

 

 

I WILL SILENCE THE GUN

 

(i)

 

I am writing a letter to booze sodden political crocodiles

I will not silence the sun, I want to silence the gun

I am writing a letter to nicotine burnt brothers and to tear bleached mothers

Holding on to their sun burnt dreams that I will not silence the sun.

I want to silence the gun

 

 

I am writing a letter to villages wallowing in furnaces of grief.

I want to silence the gun. I will not silence the Sun. am writing a

letter to the president about hawker economy and festivals of

motorcades sirens. Freedom is candlelight in the bedroom of hope!

 

(ii)

 

I am writing a letter to dissidents farting hatred in Congo

Congo, My Nagasaki pimping the state for hot bread and cheap slogans.

Darfur, My Hiroshima, fermenting coup d’états in breweries of war

Dissidents plucking off the petals of the revolution. Drinking the

passion fruit of freedom

I want to silence the gun. I will not silence the sun

 

(iii)

 

I am writing a letter to Msholozi ,I will not silence the sun. I want

to silence the gun

Madiba is no more, A heart break to Azania

River that carried our smell and totems.

River that coursed with our past and present.

Madiba the summer sun that melted into the hazy mountains leaving

behind,Children wetting the rainbow mat with stale urine

Beer- coholics drunk with xenophobia. Hawkers vending guns for gain

Casanovas pimping freedom for slogan. Black freedom toting fists for revenge

I see people with stones heavy in their hearts

Trembling in the delight of fading rain

Dieting from gossip and fear

In a country smitten by ego and arrogant ambition

A country that lost its character and salt, infected by moral dementia.

Drinking from jars of sorrow every dawn. I will not silence the

drums, I want to silence sirens

I will not silence the sun, I want to silence the gun.

 

I am packing a powerful poem for supper, tasting political carrot

and potato. I will not silence the griots.

I want to silence republics.

Mandela went with his oranges, we no longer enjoy the vitamin

Children suffer from the scurvy of freedom,

On this earth farting unpleasant smell of corruption and political joke

 

(iv)

 

See, crocodiles dancing in rivers waiting for rain

China eating berries with monkeys in Serengeti

Yeoville lulled to sleep by nigger hip-hop and Jamaican reggae

Africa drinking red wine in the sun of Washington.

America walking barefoot in diamond villages

Slums burning in sex and cigars

Smoke of gossip choking, nations sneezing burden

Nations coughing heavy smoke of burning coal of corruption

Savana babies biting bullets in slums of freedom miscarriages

Revolutionary abortions! I will not silence the griots

I want to silence the gun, I will not silence the sun.

 

(v)

 

I love America. I am writing a love letter to America. I will not

silence the drums. I want to silence the wind. Wind that brought

evils. Evils lurking in murky waters. I love America. I am writing a

letter to the gods of America. I hate chocolate coated bitter smiles

I am a peasant drinking water and sipping Coca-Cola. I learnt English

and Coca-Cola. I will not silence the sun, I want to silence the gun,

I am writing a letter to Obama and America to sing a different song.

I want to silence the gun. I will not silence the sun. I am writing a

letter to America and Obama that I will not silence the sun. I want to

silence the gun. I am a child of the rainbow and stone.

 

MBIZO CHIRASHA is the Poet in Residence at the Fictional Café (International publishing and literary digital space). 2019 Sotambe Festival Live Literature Hub and Poetry Café Curator. 2019 African Fellow for the International Human Rights Art Festival( ihraf.org) , Essays Contributor to Monk Art and Soul Magazine in United Kingdom .Arts Features Writer at the International Cultural Weekly . Founder and Chief Editor of WOMAWORDS LITERARY PRESS. Founder and Curator of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal. Co-Editor of Street Voices Poetry triluangal collection( English , African Languages and Germany) intiated by Andreas Weiland in Germany. Poetry Contributor to AtunisPoetry.com in Belgium. African Contributor to DemerPress International Poetry Book Series in Netherlands. African Contributor to the World Poetry Almanac Poetry Series in Mongolia. His latest 2019 collection of experimental poetry A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT was released by Mwanaka Media and Publishing and is both in print, on Amazon.com and at is featured at African Books Collective. 2003 Young Literary Arts Delegate to the Goteborg International Book Fair Sweden (SIDA AFRICAN PAVILION) .2009 Poet in Residence of the International Conference of African Culture and Development (ICACD) in Ghana. 2009 Fellow to the inaugural UNESCO- Africa Photo- Novel Publishers and Writers Training in Tanzania. 2015 Artist in Residence of the Shunguna Mutitima International Film and Arts Festival in Livingstone, Zambia. A globally certified literary arts influencer, Writer in Residence and Recipient of the EU-Horn of Africa Defend Defenders Protection Fund Grant, Recipient of the Pen Deutschland Exiled Writer Grant. He is an Arts for Peace and Human Rights Catalyst, the Literary Arts Projects Curator, Poet, Writer, publicist is published in more 200 spaces in print and online

 

VISIONS

 

Sometimes,

The night gets so cold that the stars all go inside.

But the moon will always stay behind.

And I will tiptoe to the edge of reality and reach out to it.

And through the silvered glass of my imagination

our  hands will meet.

It will smile and disturb the peace of earth’s aquarium,

with its eight billion fishes, already in bed.

I will then wander to the microphone,

where announcements are made to all galaxies.

Then observe the footprints of a thousand souls,

As they approach that point were two roads diverge,

to two different fates.

 

Sometimes,

The night gets so cold that my logic and faith sit side by side. For warmth.

And From the mix  of their exhaled air, I find unity.

And i realise that there are no problems anywhere. Only unanswered questions.

But here in earth’s aquarium there’s so much noise,

because one can never know the extent of what one does not know.

None has a map of his ignorance.

And the train of life never waits

And who will blame it,

since it has an eternity to cover.

SAMSON  ABANNI is a medical student who has the gift of words. He is poet who has a way of telling stories and inspiring change through his poetry which he sees as a tool of healing and a call to action. He has won some poetry awards and received high recognition as a poet of the new era. He has a great following in social media where his works are consumed with relish. He also organizes poetry contests to support upcoming poets. He loves words and writes as if his life depends on it.

 

 

CIVILITY

 

The restaurant tables were empty

Except the sugar-pots and thin layers of dust on them.

Few house-flies used liberty to swirl around

And occasionally landed on the table to toss their ‘mouths.’

For me, it was enough to smile all alone!

 

Oh, sorry… I didn’t notice them,

They’re already seated on the chairs.

Sorry, I didn’t really hear them talking;

Probably, it wasn’t the right time to smile.

But unfortunately I did it.

 

And they stared, and frowned at my incivility.

They pulled out the napkins, then sneezed and coughed,

And bruised their noses in the best civility possible.

I hate Kathmandu. I too hate it.

They were cursing the dust, which they think

Is solely responsible for their misery.

I was really sorry for them.

 

That was not the last meeting anyway,

There were occasions when we met again.

Every time we met thereafter,

I was conscious not to smile

But would pull out a napkin, and sneeze in civility!

  KESHAB  SIGDEL is a poet, translator and academic based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Editor of An Anthology of Contemporary Nepali Poetry (Big Bridge, USA, 2016), his other poetry books include Samaya Bighatan (2007) and Colour of the Sun (Slovenia, 2017). He edits academic and literary journals including Of Nepalese Clay and Rupantaran His recent translation works include anthologies of modern Chinese and Nigerian poetry. He is an International Committee Member of World Poetry Movement. He is also the recipient of several literary awards including Bhanubhakta Gold Medal (2014), Kalashree Creative Award (2015), Rock Pebbles International Literature Award (India, 2018) and Youth Year Moti Award for Literature (2018). Currently, he is an assistant professor of English at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. He can be reached at keshab.sigdel@gmail.com

 

 

  DO NOT THROW  PEBBLES

 

Rain drops beating against the window

first with short intervals,then a steady-

down pour, a storm is a deafening roar

voices drowned, subdued will be raised

again, will  rise and  soar for the needy

 

humanity, half naked, soaked in pain

enchained in spirit, starved in poverty

‘Do not throw pebbles at any color, for it

is strong, true, permanent, natural –

bonded with water, glass will not shatter

 

do not think me as different, I may be

similar in thought action and love,I may

be braver, but I have a heart, I know how

to play fair, and care, and share, I stare

at the world with surprise, I am tender

 

I am a person but through other people’

I know how to be human through other

humans,  desert  dark at night is gold

in daylight, serpents slither in rocks too

unseen unknown, black is gold and gold

 

black and I am a person only through

other people’-I am like the moon, lit

only by the sun, I am dark too, bonded

with Earth, inseparable, I shine for others

‘I am a person only through other people’

Do not throw pebbles…

 

ANJUM WASIM DAR ,born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir,Migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi. MA in English . Writing poems articles and stories since 1980.Published  Poet.Awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal  2000 USA .Worked as Creative Writer Teacher Trainer.  Educational Consultant by Profession.

 

 

   I WITNESS HOW THIS  LAND CUTS ITS OWN WRIST

last night’s gusty wind chased a giant rat into the grave, its prints are everywhere

in the muddy soil but the holes are
blocked with the victims of the

pelting rain. the trees are now humble –
bowing to every passersby. they say

the tempest was a pathetic fallacy,
expressing the pain of a land dissolving

into itself, beaten by the monkeys
feeding from its crops even when

unripe for harvest. when Musa fled
Firhaun to the Red Sea, he parted

the sea and walked away; this land also
parted its own sea but got stuck in between:

in a Bermuda triangle, breathing but
bleeding so much that sea has turned red.

a judge hits his gavel against a culprit,
it sounded like a jackal giving the hyena

a slap on the wrist. & in days, friends
& family beat drums & the streets to

welcome their sons as if returning from a
battle field. but when foreign justice hit,

you see them going fifty thousand feet,
fifty thousand feet below ground level.

  LISTING  THE SOURCE OF MY GRIEF

before grandpa died, he has told us that
when a parrot goes silent, check its throat,

fear must have built its nest therein,
its world must have been in danger. but

my silence is defined as way a child begins
the act of stubbornness. so mother says

“the husband of a stubborn child is cane.”
but she forgets to add “eyes that carry

thorns & voice that strikes like thunder:”
every morning, father’s voice breaks into

my body & stores dozens of thunderstones
in my ribcage. & at night, mother’s eye cut

into my heart so deep that my brain leaks through
it. until i was reduced to talking to the only

person who understands my grief: myself –
before whom i can only talk confidently.

last night, i was counting & dictating the
scars their canes left on my body to myself,

a voice of a comedian sounded from the
television. the joke dulled my pain so much

that i laughed, so hard that the whole room
shifted their gazes to me & i realized that

i was the only one who heard the joke.

TAOFEEK AYEYEMI fondly called Aswagaawy is a Nigerian lawyer and writer. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Quills, Kalahari Review, Nthanda Review, The Pangolin Review, Tuck Magazine, Akitsu Quarterly, Haibun Today, CHO, Modern Haiku, Prune Juice, Frogpond, Cattails, Seashores and elsewhere. He won the 2018 Poetic Wednesday Poetry Contest, Second Prize 2016 Christopher Okigbo Poetry Prize and Honorable Mention Prize in the 1st Morioka International Haiku Contest, 2019 among others.

 

 

 

PROFILE  OF THE YEAR  IS PUBLISHER  AND  GLOBAL EDITOR ,  POET  JAMIE DEDES  ( USA)

I am an American writer and activist. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York (the Center of the Universe) and was raised by my mother and grandmother who were Lebanese and the Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, L.I., N.Y. In another lifetime, I was a columnist, a publicist, and an associate editor to a regional employment publication.  I also worked in social services as an employment counselor, case manager/superisor, career center manager, and ultimately as a planner in a government planning office with duties that included writing position papers, requisitions for proposals, and grant applications.  I’ve had to reinvent myself to accommodate chronic and catastrophic illness, which has me home bound, sometimes bed bound. The gift in this is time for literature, my primary passion, and social justice advocacy, my primary mission.I live in a Northern California facility for disabled elders and work from a comfy bed where I’ve carved out a busy life writing feature articles, short stories, and poetry and managing The BeZine and its associated activities (including yearly on the fourth Saturday of September in collaboration with Israeli poet, Michael Dickel, virtual 100,000 Poets and Others for Change) and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to feature and encourage activist poets and poetry, good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity.I founded The Bardo Group, a virtual arts community, that publishes The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor.  The goal of this collaborative is to foster proximity and understanding through our shared love of the arts and humanities and all things spirited and to make – however modest –  a contribution toward personal healing and deference for the diverse ways people try to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of a world in which illness, violence, despair, loneliness and death are as prevalent as hope, friendship, reason and birth.The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights.My work has been published in digital and print publications. My primary professional affiliation is Second Light Network of Women Poets (U.K.)

 2019  DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS: Five by Jamie Dedes on The World Literature Blog,  Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP!  The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people.  Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019  From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019  Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

 

 

 

SONOGRAPHY OF THE BORDER

“Take good care, Kushal,
we die in the end.”
Tim telephones.

He has been dying in his white skin.
I have been in my ebony.
The border stands still in between –
a tombstone with an epitaph
scrivened in some demised tongue.
The barbwire mocks a withered wreath.
On one of its thorns sits a wraith of a raven.
“Take good cause,” it caws, “we die in the end.”
“Hello,” my long and distant diction drops a coin.
Tim and I have been turning pale as ticks the tim

 

KUSHAL PODDAR , Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), A Place For Your Ghost Animals (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), Understanding The Neighborhood (BRP, Australia), Scratches Within (Barbara Maat, Florida), Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems  (BRP, Australia) and Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems (Hawakal Publishers, India) and now Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel (Alien Buddha Press)AuthorFacebookhttps://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe.

 

 

 NOTHING REMEMBERS

where in our times we these rocks piled into buildings

that fell down a thousand years ago dis(re)membered from war

or earthquake raised and razed again into where nothing

recalls again the warm day anemones bloom hollyhocks

poppies forget no one and another rain day another dry day

pass hot and cold while an orvani drops blue feathers in flight

a hawk sits calmly on a fencepost and flocks of egrets

traipse toward the sea no cattle no grains all harvested

in this place we would call holy land nothing left to it but conflict

with the passing of her life that tried so hard to hang onto one

moment many moments missed so many more empty echoes

a difficult way to say goodbye to a mother watching her

evaporate like rain in the desert her mind dust that dries

lips her droned words faded as warmth from a midnight rock

meaning what the layers of history these rocks un-piled

reveal sepia photos a couple of tin-types dust school

reports cards newspaper holes the shells of bugs raised and razed

again and again into our times where nothing remembers

MICHAEL DICKEL (Meta /Phor (e) /Play) has won international awards and been translated into several languages. His latest poetry collection, Nothing Remembers, will come out late summer 2019 from Finishing Line Press. A poetry chapbook, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism, came out in 2017 (free PDF ). His flash fiction collection, The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden, came out in 2016. Previous books include: War Surrounds Us, Midwest / Mid-East, and The World Behind It, Chaos…(archived free PDF ). He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36, was managing editor for arc-23 and 24, and is a past-chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English. He publishes and edits Meta/ Phor(e) /Play and is a contributing editor of The BeZine. He grew up in the US Midwest and now lives in Jerusalem, Israel.

 

 

I SPEAK;
For the burning bush and running deer,
Those that know no rest from a creature dull,
He wrecks life just because,
His sport bleeding shot’s just because,
I speak streams of fearsome tears,
For the jumbo wild unsafe,
The rhino with it’s calf unsafe,
The wailing teak plucked for fun,
By a creature spoiling for a fight,
Stretching his muscular rifle for a shot,
Felling life just because,
I stammer at the wantonness open,
Clearing bushes for commercial buz,
Unfeeling tractors thundering at water sheds,
Scattering paupers out with thirsty throats,
A season too late, parched throats crack with death,
I shudder with ethos at the drilling roles,
Of multinationals secular rapes,
Open ulcers left to ferment among the displaced,
They howl to the moon with empty bowls,
Crude merchants feeding their crooked looting,
Leaving owners, ownerless,
I rest not at ease at all,
My soul protests,
My heart beats oddity,
To hear the silence on the lips of celebrants,
Toasting wine and stolen kisses,
On a cruise ship in the open seas,
Retelling lies of sumptuous meals grabbed from shrunken bodies of men ashore,
Where body count piles by shovel daily,
And human carcasses litter the plains of pain,
As corporeal looters fly aloft with the ease of a kite,
I tremble with rage at rape celebrated,
I gnash my broken teeth from the injustice visited,
Upon children,
Whose fault,
Remain birth in Africa,
And other spots where interests lay,
I pray,
Soundless tearful prayers,
And shame of my curse comes out loud,
That the heart that plans evil,
Should die not,
Before tasting the cup of sorrow,
That others so generously poured,
It’s not revenge, it’s not hate,
It’s only a fair feel of how the shoeless feel,
Running for dear life,
While you keep truck on your cross hair of your powerful gun.

 

NANCY NDEKE  is a Poet of international acclaim and a reputable literary arts consultant. Her writings and her
poetry are featured in several collections, anthologies and publications around the globe including the American magazine Wild Fire, Save Africa Anthology. World Federation of Poets in Mexico. Ndeke is a Resident Contributor of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal since mid-2018. African Contributor to the DIFFERENT TRUTHS, a publication that sensitizes the world on the plight of Autism edited by Aridham Roy. SAVE AFRCA ANTHOLOGY edited by Prof. Dave Gretch of Canada and reviewed by Joseph Spence Jr has featured her poetry and a paper on issues afflicting Africa and Africans. Ndeke’s poetry and other literatures in WILD FIRE PUBLICATION in America published by Susan Joyner Stumpf and Susan Brooke Langdon. ARCS MAGAZINE in New York Edited by DR. Anwer Ghani. Her women Arts Presentation was recently published by WOMEN OF ART (WOA) in Cape Coast in Ghana. Soy Poesia, in Peru, Claudette V pg 11 featured her writings with great reception.AZAHAR from Mexico, with the initiative from Josep Juarez has also featured her poetry. She is also featured in WORLD FESTIVAL OF POTRY (WFP) from Mexico under the able editorial team comprising Luz Maria Lopez .INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN WRITERS from Nigeria, under the able hands of Munyal Markus Manunyi .Patricia Amundsen from Australia featured her poetry on this year’s international women’s day at Messenger of Love, Radio Station. Esteemed poetess Jolly Bhattacharjee featured my works on her greatly acclaimed awareness anthology for 2019, India.

 

MASTER KEY

Gather around the pedestal that I built for you,
Just below your majestically decorated castle,
Guarded closely with your golden keys,
And those in deluge with sister slander,
Absence of justice in your courts of chaos,
Comes the fury of prejudice and pride,
Sly manipulation lies pretending purpose,
Much as your judgement deems worthy,
I falter to the ground and my vision is blurry,
Dealing in doubt and uncertainty,
I gather my confusion and stutter my truths,
As you unleash your lightening bolt into the thicket,
Crashing into the night with a raging fire,
I dance with the embers ‘till morning light,
While you devise an avalanche to extinguish the fire,
You dropped your mask and it tumbled to the ground,
In the dust of the avalanche, beneath the rubble of your pedestal,
I will leave you there to mind your mazes,
Thank you for the lessons in pride and greed,
But I have much more to learn,
I will be riding the winds of hope to better days,
Searching for the unconditional love,
That will put an end to your war on peace,
In that fire, I forged myself a master key of resilience.

TRACY YVONNE BREAZILE is a Writer living in the United States of America. She was granted the opportunity to serve as Writer/Mentor in Residence with the 2018 Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Mentorship Program, originated by Mbizo Chrirasha.Breazile studied Language and Literature with a concentration in Professional Writing at Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia, USA. The graphic images collected here are selected from the 2018 Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Mentorship Program Poetic Rhetoric and Composition Workbook she created to aid participants seeking to learn about poetic forms and functions. She would like to help people voice their feelings and attitudes about the many conflicts and dilemmas that frequent the human frame. She is currently working with Mbizo Chrirasha in hopes to inspire writers to create short stories. The program aims to discover the mechanics of the short story and illustrate some of the various genre and styles that a writer might like to utilize in their stories. Peace is her passion. She is currently working on a collection of poetry echoing culture and customs of Africa. This work includes definitions and examples of various forms and functions of poetry as it has evolved through the ages. It is her hope that freedoms of speech encompass the entire globe. She would like to help people voice their feelings and attitudes about their conflicts and dilemmas through poetry. Her poetry is included in anthologies such as “Expressions of the Heart.”

 

 

 

 

 

FRAGMENTS

 

Kill me not for my words.

I am a library of our culture.

Do not kill our elephants either.

It is our tusk to use our trunks to draw water for droughts.

Let me live and I promise futures with thousand breaths.

Kill me and all you have are protests.

Itai Dzamara was a bird of a different kind,

Whose beak beat against windows to shatter the glass.

Let us remember our warriors

My country, tea pot land whose water is yet to bring to boil.

Whose cows still owe us milk, and honeycombs our honey.

I was stung by a million bees when last I thirsted for sweetness.

Tell our bees I’m no enemy.

I have planted flowers for their cause.

The smoke from my fire need not anger them, as I hold nothing against their Gods.

 

MBONISI ZIKHALI , I am a humanitarian, carer of our grandmothers and grandfathers. I am a warrior for truth, and leader of our youth. I am the new Zimbabwe, along with my brothers and sisters

 

 

NARCSISIST

He accepts nothing
which shall not fill
his bank account.
He is the center of his
own universe,
like a gaping black hole
swallowing every direction
except his own.

His energy pollutes life on earth
in an all-consuming parade
of torching land,
flooding sea coasts,
feeding trash to whales.

Beware of a man
who ushers out science
as a lie,
projecting a void of superstition.

Crossing horizons,
resonating through chaos,
lift people away from puffed up madness.

JAMES COBURN , an Oklahoma poet in the United States of America. Coburn has always valued the subtext of life and seeks to reveal its undercurrents. He believes indifference is the enemy of man as it is the benefactor of ignorance, racism and xenophobia. Coburn is currently collaborating with Nairobi poet Brian Kasaine on a book of poetry. His first book of poetry “Words of Rain” was published in 2014. The book was a finalist for an Oklahoma Book Award. In 2016, ten of his poems against terrorism and to save the Sunderbans (wetlands) were published in “Onnyodhara” (The Alternative Way) Eid-special issue festival edition in association with “Anushilon” (The Culture & Literature Society) the National Literary Organization of Bangladesh. Coburn is a 2013 inductee of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. He has been published in several anthologies. Three of his poems were published in Canada’s Tuck magazine in 2017-18. He has served as a resident poet at NonDoc.com.

 

TIME OF  THE POET CURATOR-

MBIZO CHIRASHA is (ihraf.org) 2019 International Fellow of the International Human Rights Arts Festival New York. Essays contributor for the MONK art and soul Magazinehttp://monk.gallery/category/essays/ in United Kingdom. Co-Editor of the STREET VOICE a German Africa Poetry collection, http://www.street-voice.de/SV7/SVissue7.html in Germany. Contributor Atunis Galatika,https://atunispoetry.com/2018/11/23/mbizo-chirasha-zimbabwe/, Belgium. Editor of the WomaWords Literary Press, https://womawordsliterarypress.home.blog/. Curator of the Brave Voices Poetry Journal, miombopublishing.wordpress.com, Resident Curator of 100 Thousand Poets for Peace-Zimbabwe , 100tpc.org/Zimbabwe and the Originator of Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Movement. Founder of GirlChildCreativity Project (Amplifying girl child voices through literary Arts.)me.facebook.com/mbizochirasha. Featured in the POIESISI Slovenia International literature Press, https://www.poiesis.si/, Slovenia. International poetry site in Untied States –https://anthonywatkins.wixsite.com/btsdec2017. https://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/artculture/BY-THE-BOOK-Mbizo-Chirasha-/1954194-4295122-h3nhojz/index.html. African Contributor of Demer
press poetry series since 2018 , Netherlands, http://www.hannierouweler.eu/category/demer-press/.Contributor of the International Gallerie 2019 in India, https://www.gallerie.net/about-us/., Contributor of the World Poetry Almanac series, https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL816823A/WORLD_POETRY_ALMANAC . 2018Recipient of Global Literary Influencer Certificate of Merit by Directorio Mundial de Escritores through Academia Mundial de Literatura, Historia, Arte y Cultura http://directoriomundial.allimo.org/Mbizo-Chirasha/. Vice President of POETS OF THE WORLD in Africa poetasdelmundo.com. 2017 Recipient of PEN Deutschland Exiled Writer Grant.2017 Recipient of the EU-Horn of Africa Defend Human Rights Defenders Protection Fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbizo_Chirash