Under the new Moon,
As I was flying high
Above the Mediterranean,
I happen to meet
An accident
With a mountain
Of shrouding clouds
From heaven.
I lost the track
In the enchanting trail
Of a familiar smell
That I was mad at, once
A thousand years back.
No more blood;
No more sensation
In the radiation of warm flesh
I want now yet another reborn…
©Atique
R.
I had a dream
With the mirage
Of a dark red ocean
Confined in
A many-layered den.
And with colors;
In so many shades
And variations,
Splashing in
Like a stream
With a bunch of frozen sighs.
Then I woke up
With the cold touch of
A cloud passing by;
As I was looking
Down from the sky
At my blood stained body,
Lying prostrate;
Dead enough to see
What the dream could signify.
©Atique
R.
The
half-eaten Moon
Was
crawling past the night
When
I met my dandelion girl
Walking
along the forbidden street
With
the flickering shadows
In
the shimmering light.
And
it was blood all around
Spreading
the smell of Parisian perfume.
Amidst
the drizzle and a muffled sound
I
found my smeared body
Lying
prostrate on the blood-soaked ground.
Then
my eyes full of red flung open.
©
Atique R.
My derailed dream
Was gliding past
The autumn blast
Over a pink-flowing stream.
Then the wings
Of chameleon colors
Got trapped in a whirl
And shoot the dream
Down, overlooking
A dandelion girl.
Now, in the piles of
My many layered vision
I keep searching that one dream
I lost my autumn in...
©Atique
R.
I can see you with my eyes closed;
I can see you with my senses dozed.
I can feel you with the weakest beat of my heart;
I can feel you even with my mind forced to shut.
And my insolent eyes still keep searching you
In the crowd or in silence,
In my helpless impatience;
In the chaos or in emptiness,
In my harbored loneliness…
Once I saw you in black,
And you were looking stunning.
The other day you were in pink
And suddenly I knew
Why roses were so mind-blowing.
I saw you in red, blue, white, green,
And many other colors-to me unknown;
And I kept feeling the autumn calm or spring within,
Sometimes a tornado and some other times a cyclone.
Hundreds of such images are there in my heart or somewhere,
And I can keep shuffling them one after the other.
And still, I want to see you in red, blue, pink or
green
To feel the flow of jasmine or the nor’wester
For a million more times by a timeless ocean…
I watch my heart falling to pieces
In the break of every single dawn.
I see my winging dreams crashing
With my befooling imagination.
I see your nonchalant look
Doesn’t seem to know me anymore.
I see your magical eyes going far and far,
Though close like a Moon; yet nowhere near.
And still, I wanna dream you in the Sun
With the sweat of a searing summer noon.
And still, I wanna fall for you a thousand more times
With the glowing hopes of every new Moon.
Still, I wanna love you with a maddening obsession,
And a passion going beyond every reason,
And I still want to love you, dear,
With my eyes taking in the whole monsoon.
©Atique R.
1.
-Have
I ever told you about a river?
-Which
river?
-
The river flowing in a magical symphony, down the valley of my village. I call
it Rhyme.
-Is
that a part of your dream too?
-Yes,
but more real than the rivers I came across in my another world what you call
‘real’.
-What
do you do with that one?
-Kind
of a place: serene, quiet and beautiful that I usually love to take resort to
in a rough day. I can spend hours together just by sitting by the river while
watching the flow of crystal clear water: blue like an ocean.
-When
did you meet her?
-In
one of my wayward wanderings deep down the wilderness. I was in search of a
shade of ashen clouds in a hot summer noon and was following a gentle breeze with
the smell of a faraway jasmine and an enchantingly beautiful song of the
dancing water which seemed to be flowing on for a date with a nearby bay. The
coastal part is yet to be undiscovered though.
-Haven’t
you got that far yet?
-
Couldn’t make it. It always took me hours of trekking along a long mountainous
way to get to my favorite tree by the bank of the river. Which is where I
always get stuck by. And it always starts drizzling as soon as I get under the
caring shelter of its branches. Couldn’t just resist the idea of dropping down
my tired soul and giving it a break from weaving layers after layers of a
delusional dream.
I’ll
talk to you in another dream. Feeling terribly sleepy now after a week long
sleepless night, without a nightingale to escape with …
2.
I was talking to you
The other night
In another dream
In a delusional light
About my little river
Rhyme,
Flowing down a broken valley
From a wuthering
height.
On my way back home
From the melting colors
of time
I caught sight of
A tiring twilight
From the falling Rome.
And that was when
I winged back
To my unfinished dream
Of the Rhyme in the
rain
With the petals of my
draining pain.
But the tree was not there
anymore
And the branches were
all gone.
The drizzling was a
little heavier;
But the jasmine kept
flowing on.
And it was time to move
on
Along the dancing river
To weave the destined
bay;
For we both needed a
beach
And an infinite blue to
reach.
But, I was not sure
If I could set the
wings free,
Or the stream could
make it to the sea;
For the dreams are not
always
Flowing like a fluting
autumn tree
To take you wherever
you wanna be…
But, I kept walking
along Rhyme,
My lovely little river
in a rain
To set my floating
dream free
And to let my fading
soul
Fetch the blue from the
sea…
3.
The road was narrow,
hard and wild,
With upward and
downward slopes
And I used to take that
thoroughfare
With all my melting
infant hopes.
And I used to sprint
past
The hundred meter long dread
Piercing through a gray graveyard
In the heart of the wayward woods,
For there was a long
tree
With the smell of
roasted beans;
For there was an untold
tale
Of a pale-haired witch,
as old as Tiresias
With the truths and its
trail.
But, there was a river
at the end...
With all those messed
up visions
In the whirlwind
Of my frantic teenage
dreams
I used to run past the
woods,
The carefree graveyard
in shades
Of the autumn yellow
streams;
I used to chase down
The tempting scary
thrills
To be in the flow of
The miles long corn
fields
With the soothingly
mysterious wind
Flowing in from
somewhere unknown,
From a different time,
untamed.
But the river was not
Rhyme,
But the seed was so
fervently sowed.
And now my little river
Rhyme
Keeps showing up
In my many layered
dreams;
For, now I can weave
All those silenced
shrieking pains
Into the dreams of a
summer rain,
For, now I can change
The smell of roasted
beans
Into the drizzling of
jasmine;
For now the river in my
childish dream
Don’t get stuck in the
charm of a terrain;
For, now the Rhyme
keeps flowing on
All the way towards my
blue ocean.
©Atique R.
By Nora Glass
Tangling sweet girls upon cold wooden floors
All tossed together and covered like hair
Purple like bruises, that blanket of yours.
Early delirium into bold roars
Lions soon yawned and retired to their lair
Tangling sweet girls upon cold wooden floors.
Standing above, putting weight on my sores
Feet are stone cold and I sweat, I must stare
Purple like bruises, that blanket of yours.
Frozen strawberries we ate on the shore
Iced into giggles and coughing up hair
Tangling sweet girls upon cold wooden floors.
Girls are strew out like the guts from a gore
Pulled like intestines, pale, band-aided, bare
Purple like bruises, that blanket of yours.
Gnawing and tired from beautiful wars
Sleeping together and caught in a snare
Tangling sweet girls upon cold wooden floors
Purple like bruises, that blanket of yours.
About the author: Nora Glass is a high-strung 17-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia. Passionate about the theatrical, poetic, and linguistic, she can be found reading, writing, and making unnecessarily complicated spreadsheets. Her poetry has appeared and will appear in the Weight Journal, Eunoia Review, Moonflake Press. More details about the poet can be found here:
By George Kalandadze
The hooting owl ne’er scared me,
midst the blackness of sylvan night.
But so more she had prepared me,
veiled lore in sands of time foreseen.
-- Eyes of amber immured in light.
Wind -- her confidant, in hushed tone,
my notice happened to ensnare.
She resembled all, yet no one,
branches bending, beneath her lun.
Yet, misplaced, I wandered still, there.
Her head, a cosmic carousel,
an omnipotent balance wheel.
Each hoot, an echoed hoary bell.
Mistral’s replies through bluebells swell,
Night hummed, a beehive, -- surreal.
That instant, yonder on the limb,
sat other owl, ready to speak.
The wind, now sacred seraphim,
my equal in ancestral dream.
In silence, we beheld mystique.
About the author: George Kalandadze is an author of poetry and fiction. He has a degree in liberal arts from St. John's College and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. George was published multiple times by St. John's College writing and art publications, "The Gadfly" and "Energeia". In his spare time, he pursues photography and mountaineering. More details can be found here:
By Dave Nash
Our separation spreads out,
our row sleeps over,
the threads of our argument tear off and turn up everywhere.
Pain won’t leave, it finds a room in me.
Rain drenches the mountain,
the cloud splitter, rainmaker mountain
inhabitable, inaccessible.
An offshoot blows across my face.
How something so felt could become an artifact
I won’t accept.
We lived in the space between lightning and thunder
that struck me miles
of infinity.
Our younger selves would be terrified blind.
Our knowing selves would let it pass detached.
But we were pulled by the updraft,
heat turned to fuel for the storm,
we rose a thunderhead.
Until we burst.
Oblivion,
this space that we fell into.
Apart,
moving towards the forest of
gusty moods on autumn nights.
The peak and fall.
I wanted resolution
to find it on the mountain
or absorb it like unrelenting rain,
but I had to go.
About the author: Dave Nash writes on Northeast Regional trains.
Dave is the Nonfiction Editor at Five South Magazine. His work appears in
places like South Florida Poetry Journal, Bulb Culture Collective, Jake, and
The Hooghly Review. You can follow him @davenashlit1.
By Charlie Dixon
Cold concrete seeps
through denim,
worms its way in, and
settles in the centre of your chest.
It beats with the
barbarous chit-chat of heinous daydreams
written across the
walls of bathroom cubicles.
There’s a girl with a
guitar on the corner.
She’s singing Nirvana
in time with
the sound of an
approaching train.
I wonder about other
lifetimes.
Could we have been
friends, once?
The music fades out as
the doors close behind us.
Then, four more stops
on the Northern line.
We’re in an entirely
different world from the last.
It’s that easy.
The city doesn’t sleep
with the sky,
but Embankment, notably
quieter in the evening.
The air moves a little
more freely
in the dusted glow of a
streetlight.
London’s pretty when
the sun sets right.
A showcase of its own
artistry reflected
in the eyes of a
stranger, or a storefront window.
The skyline paints the
pavement red,
flows through the spaces
between rusted metal bars
in ribbons of orange
and pink.
The leaves are
beginning to change...
About the Author:
Charlie Dixon is a queer writer from the north of England. Having recently
completed an MA in creative writing, she is branching out into the industry
with the primary aim of understanding, and of being understood.
