Poet Megha Sood is graffitiing wisdom and reason on rough-beaten paths of our earth

Megha Sood , Your poetry is a spiderweb of bone-marrow truth coughed out of decades of resilience and resistance .And sneezed from years roasted in sizzling pots of literary consciousness and psychical revolutions . The verbal vintage and pit-belly poetic depth signals unmatched dexterity of a pen-slinger cum griot graffitiing proverbial psalms on rough mats of the rainbow. Metaphors tidily polishing our evil -gripped earth with calamine of reason and lotions of wisdom from the stench of mental snoring .Poetry that walks again dead men into life .Your boldness transfigures our somber world into sobriety .Rhythm that resurrects sleeping souls to sing along and jive to the reverberating beat of the coming dawn . Your poetry is a sacred blessing gifted to Kings from ancient epochs onto modern times . Psychical prowess , verbal dexterity and the heart -thudding rhythm are triplets dictating the literary vitality of this nerve-wrecking but mindboggling poetry submission. TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC is prided in archiving and profiling an globally acclaimed anthologist , poet extraordinaire, Hallowed Digital Poetry Artivist ,Proflic Curator and Poet Megha Sood .This is dope.( Blurb by Mbizo CHIRASHA)

SILENCE-A LOST ART ( Published in Nightingale and Sparrow)

Silence is neatly tucked

between the layered wings of the soaring eagle

the shifting angle of his wings

holds the distance between

the spoken and the untold

Silence has its own semantics

the lexicon of the unspoken

I can carry the debilitating

pain in my marred soul for eons

before you see the

tears trickling from my eyes

Silence, a deep soliloquy with time

you press ears to the

throbbing heart

else would miss the pain

Silence is neatly tucked

in the palm of a stillborn

dissolved in its muted stench

Silence is the only conversation

for the reticent mind

as the moon brushes across my face

dripping the verses

picked neatly by the time

Silence is a lost art

so sublime.

MY VICTORY SONG

( State Level Winner NAMI Dara Axelrod Poetry Contest 2018)

My heart parts its lips to utter something

pure and divine:

like the moon in its reverie

you ask “What’s my song”

I laugh and smile with beauty imbued with

the fluttering of the butterfly wings

so sublime,

My heart though brimming with pain and anxiety

but ready for its encore every time.

My love is boundless like a star-spangled sky

covering every iota of my soul;

gives me the sustenance,

clears out the wool and webbing

from my disordered thinking

makes me feel alive, once more.

I adorn the scars as victory marks

leaves the bloody trails as maps

For those who are pushed and shoved aside

for reasons unknown,

I thrash like a juggernaut

crashing and crumbling

the voices which pull me down

I simply ignore.

Waving my victory flag

so fervently;

and singing my song

under my bated breath,

Here I come to conquer the

uncharted waters of my life with a roar

and an unfettered strength.

Redemption ( North of Oxford)

ASPHYXIATED

( First Published in Lumiere Review “Black Lives Matter” Edition)

Based on the death of Gambian British photographer Khadija Mohammadou Saye who was killed in the Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017. The survivors of Grenfell are still awaiting justice, while the official inquiry refuses to recognize the systemic racism of social inequality and institutional response as contributing to the disaster

They say “eyes are the window to your soul”

yet yours are tight shut,

saturated with unjust and discrimination

birthing around you by every passing moment

the raging flames engulfing the last silver

of hope;

of light,

of love

sucking out from every single soul

holding on to their dear loves

in that fateful tower that day.

They say, “an artist takes in the beauty

through their eyes”

and yet yours are closed

overwhelmed with the injustice

the raging inequality;

hoping of that day the perfect utopia

where everyone is blessed with the

basic privilege

to live;

to love,

to breathe.

They say, “eyes are the embodiments

of a beautiful soul”

a metaphor for the muted language;

spoken between the souls

and yet yours are closed shut

averting the view from

all the hunger and greed

burning & leaving

the stench of devouring flames

a putrid stench of indifference;

towards your life

They say, “take in the world through all your senses”

and yet you devoid yourself

from this ethereal experience

as you world burns down from inside

screaming and whelping,

the injustice leaves welts and blisters

on your suppurating skin

When the empty words showers like

the scarring acid rain

on your open wounds

you scream,

you wail

in the hollow nights

hoping for a single soul

to lend their ear

to hear you,

hear you screaming

I can’t breathe!!!

“This poem talks about the metaphoric suffocation which has seeped into the lives of the African communities around the world as a result of systemic oppression and the blatant violation of basic human rights.“ 

ASK A CHILD . ASK A BUTTERFLY

( First Published in Adelaide Magazine)

Every small step counts. Every small gesture matters.

Kindness comes in all forms. Accept and embrace it when you see it.

Pass it forward. It is like the flowing river, shaping and changing the lives of those who come along its way. Keep flowing and Keep growing.

Life never stops from growing nor from making mistakes.

You stop and stagnate like the ditch of stinking water.

Flow like a waterfall. A beautiful sight in its glory.

Life is movement.

Change is a necessary transformation.

Ask a child, ask a butterfly.

Megha Sood lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She is an award-winning Pushcart-nominated Poet, Writer, Editor, and Blogger. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the UK based Arts and Literary Journal MookyChick and a Literary Partner in the “Life in Quarantine” Project by Stanford University, California, USA. She is a contributing member of many literary journals namely Free Verse Revolution, Heretics, Lovers and Madmen, Sudden Denouement, Whisper and the Roar, GoDogGoCafe. Over 500+ works in journals including Rising Phoenix Review, Better than Starbucks, Gothamist. Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, Kissing Dynamite, American Writers Review, North of Oxford, Setu Magazine.FIVE:2: ONE, KOAN, Quail Bell, Dime show review, and many more. Works featured/upcoming in 50+ other print anthologies by the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian Press. Three-time State-level winner NAMI Dara Axelrod NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020, National Winner Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020, Honorable Mention Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019, Finalist in the Adelaide Literary Award 2019, Shortlisted for the Erbacce Prize 2020, Nominated for the iWomanGlobalAwards 2020, Finalist in TWIBB Beyond Black Sakhi Awards 2020 and Finalist in the Poetry Super Highway 2020. Works selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Chosen twice as the international panelist for the Jersey City Theater Center Online Series “Voices Around the World”.She is currently co-editing the anthologies (“The Medusa Project”, Mookychick) and ( “The Kali Project”, Indie Blue(e) Press).  

TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC CURATOR (Mbizo CHIRASHA)

African Contributor Poet /Essayist at Monk Arts and Soul Magazine
(UK). DitchPoetry( Alberta University,Creative Writing ,Canada).
Poetry Potion( Canada). FullofCrow(Canada). Scarlet Leaf( Canada).
PoetrySoup( USA).PoemHunter(USA). TripWire(Latin America).OneGhanaOneVoice(Ghana).RhythmInternationalVoices(Canada).AfricanWriter.com(Nigeria).OviMagazine(Finland)
  Atunis Galatica( edited Agron Shele, Belgium). BlackWell
PoetryPamplhet (Oxford School of Poetry, UK). Litnet ( South Africa) .
OfiPress( Mexico City). FemAsiaMagazine (UK). InkSweatandTears (UK).
Squackback (USA).The Poet a Day Zine (founded by the late Maestro G
Jamie Dedes, Brooklyn, and USA). DemerPress International Poetry
Series (curated and edited by Hannie Rouweler, Netherlands). World
Poetry Almanac Series( Curated and Edited by Hadaa Sendoo, Mongloia).
Poesi. Is Journal (edited by Peter Semolic, Slovenia). Festival de
Poesia de Medellin (founded and directed by Fernando Rendon,
Colombia).DIOGEN Magazine (Turkey). RuckSackPatchPoetry, Voices of
Diversity (Passion for Poetry, curated by Antje Sehn, Italy). Cultural
Weekly ( International Space,USA) . Zimbabwean (published Wilf Mbanga,
UK) .WordCity monthly (curated and edited by Darcie Friesen Hossack,
International). IHRAF Publishes (founded by Thomas Block, NewYork,
USA). Diasporan Online (founded and edited by Lola Thomas, Spain) .New
Best African Poets (curated and edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka,
Zimbabwe) and more