Page 8 of 9

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Red Clad Girl with a Dog, an ekphrastic poem

Géza Vőrős 1897 1957 ( Hungarian Painter )
Red clad girl and with dog ,1933

“The Universe said, ‘Let me show your soul something beautiful.”  Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love

My Amparo dresses in black and white, as
I used to, “like a nun” said Consortia, then
One night I saw moonlight smiling over deep
Wood, birch bark shredding in papery layers
And witch’s broom growing in tall white pine
I heard whimpering rills, frogs and crickets,
Saw hummingbirds, a purple-throated carib
Sipping nectar from blooms in Dominica
I heard a lion roaring in Africa, learned of
An Italian and his espresso and a sweet
Brazilian girl who fell In love by the Amazon
All this I began celebrating in red, dancing in red,
Sleeping in red, making my tea and toast in red,
Living with a capital “L” on bare feet and clad in
A lively red silk dress with slits on each side

© 2020, Jamie Dedes

I recently joined a modern arts group on Facebook and someone posted this photograph of Géza Vőrős painting. It captured my imagination and so it goes …

Jamie Dedes:

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The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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The Black Silk Route, a poem by Ranjana Sharan Sinha

 

Photograph courtesy of RezviMasood under CC BY-SA 4.0 license
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader

Out of the old
sepia-tinted tableau
frozen in my mind,
smoky and blurred,
the bubbly boy
leaps into life amid

tons of skinny children
swarming out of mudhouses
and running behind our blue car
giggling and shouting
in specks of dust!
He hardly knew then
that he was a child
created without a destiny!
.
Unfolding of years
made him struggle hard:
Too little food,
Long hours of work!
Poverty like a woodpecker
hammered into the
tender tree of his body:
Disadvantaged and
out-of-school the boy
suffered timeless traumas!
.
Sick and sorrowful
he was a drawning self–
Arms flailing!
Water splashing!
Many times he spoke
with God and prayed desperately,
but his prayers went unanswered!
.
Then with ascending hands
he looked at the skies–
The clouds were changing colours
like a furious warty chameleon:
White, grey, blue-grey, black–
Yes, black and dark masses
racing and roiling!
He wished to grab the
freedom and power–
Cyclopean and relentless!
.
An avalanche
of anguish and anger,
A giant stride
from the known to the unknown,
A metamorphosis
that transformed
Beige into Black!
.
© 2020, Ranjana Sharan Sinha
.
DR. RANJANA SHARAN SINHA is a professor of English by profession and a poet by passion, Dr. Ranjana Sharan Sinha is a well-known voice in Indian poetry in English.She is an author and a critic,too. Her poems have been included in the university syllabus prescribed for M.A.(English) 4 semester.Poems, fictions and research papers published at national and international levels in highly acclaimed dailies, magazines,e-zines,archives and journals both in print and online.Received a number of awards for her contribution to literature from recognized institutions and publishing houses.She has the privilege of receiving accolade from the former President of lndia, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for her poem ‘Mother Nature’. Authored and published 07 books in different genres and 50 research papers. The books are:1.Spring Zone (A collection of Poems and Haiku)2. Midnight Sun (A Collection of short stories) 3. Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Sumitra Nandan Pant  (Criticism)4. Feminism:Times and Tides (A historiographical and theoretical commentary on feminism)5. Different Dimensions (A compilation of research papers)6.Scents and Shadows( A collection of 70 poems)7. Rhymes for Children.Presented papers in a number of national and international conferences and seminars.Associated with many literary associations and global poetry groups. Research supervisor RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur. Lives in Nagpur, India.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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April poems, an homage

Courtesy of Yoksel 🌿 Zok, Unsplash

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” Sonnet XCVIII,  William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Second April

April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
From orchards near and far away
The gray wood-pecker taps and bores,
And men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep;
Noisy and swift the small brooks run.
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun
Pensively; only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep

– Edna St. Vincent Milay

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

– Lanston Hughes

April

If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.

– William Carlos Williams

Elegy in April and September
.
Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen…
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water’s brim.Still! Daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,-
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook? – Yet search till gray sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.

Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,
For my eye withers, and his star wanes dim.

2

Close, rose, and droop, heliotrope,
And shudder, hope! The shattering winter blows.
Drop, heliotrope, and close, rose…

Mourn, corn, and sigh, rye.
Men garner you, but youth’s head lies forlorn.
Sigh, rye, and mourn, corn…

Brood, wood, and muse, yews,
The ways gods use we have not understood.
Muse, yews, and brood, wood..

– Wilfred Owen

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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“The BeZine” Call for Submission, June Issue Themed SustainABILITY

THE BeZINE MISSION STATEMENT

Our goal is to foster proximity and understanding through a 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.

Our focus is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film . . . We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.”

Please read our complete Mission Statement HERE.

 THE BeZINE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

SustainABILITY

Call for submissions of feature articles, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art and photography, music videos, and documentary videos on diverse environmental topics including but not limited to: degradation, protection, greenhouse gasses, weather/climate change, justice, and agriculture, famine and hunger. This call is open from April 1 through May 15. 

While The BeZine does not pay for content, neither do we charge submission or subscription fees.

Work that is not properly submitted will not be considered.

  • Prose, poetry, and links to videos: submit in the body of the email
  • Please: no odd, unusual, eccentric layouts
  • Photographs or artwork: submit as an attachment
  • DO NOT send PDFs or a document with both narrative and illustrations combined.
  • By submitting work to thezinesubmissions@gmail.com, you are confirming that you own and hold the rights to the work and that you grant us the right to publish on the blog or in the Zine if your submission is accepted. Submissions via Facebook or other social networking or in the comments section, will not be reviewed or accepted.
  • Please include a brief bio in the email. No photographs.

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY: We are looking for something special to be the header for The Table of Contents Page.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS are okay but please let us know immediately if availability changes.

Among the guidelines: our core team, our guest contributors, and our readership are international and diverse. No works that advocate hate or violence, promote misunderstanding, or that demean others are acceptable. Please read our Complete Submission Guidelines.

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Jamie Dedes
Founding and Co-managing Editor

Michael Dickel
Co-managing Editor

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton