Soliloquy

There’s clang.
There’s clutter.
There’s mess.
Smell of burnt toast and heated steam press.
Milk boiling over.
Pressure cooker whistling steam.
Door bell screeching. Telephone too.
A missing sock.
School bus honking.
Only if I could quadruple …

garden swing
the creak
of an unfinished verse

Yesha Shah

Soliloquy

low gravity

a pink jumper. my mom says she read something about calf muscles and ligaments. his mom says it’s nonsense. they both agree that it is too early anyway. i click “buy”.

it goes on and on –
the list of unpronounceable
lunar deities’ names

— Tzetzka Ilieva

low gravity

Monologue

War…”
Does this word scare you?”, he asks
I just keep staring at him.
”Yes, I’m at war.”
”Not with you, but,
with myself, you see.”
He points his finger
towards the sky.
”We’ll all end up there,
sooner or later.”
”Some sooner than others.”
As I look up to a clear blue sky
for a second,
a bullet pierces a hole in his head.

war – a one syllable word unfolds a mountain shadow

Marcus Liljedahl

Monologue

MSN World News 4/11/2015

A young woman has been stoned to death for adultery in a Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan, while the man was let off with a lashing, officials say.

The execution, captured on video, went viral on social media. The authorities identified the woman as Rokhsahana, adding she was between 19 and 21 years old. A video of the incident shows a woman standing in a hole, while turbaned men throw stones at her head.

the clocks go back
a poppy seller
becomes the dark

The woman is heard repeating the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, while her executioners shout “Allah hu Akbar. “The video first made rounds on social networks on late Monday, but the officials believe that the execution happened several days earlier, in the area controlled by the Taliban just outside Ghor’s capital Firozkoh. Rokhsahana was stoned by a gathering of “Taliban, local religious leaders and armed warlords…”

autumn mist
the spider web drips
a skylark’s song

 

 

 

For Rokhsahana in memoriam

*
Note: ‘clocks turned back’ refers to the annual return to British winter time. ‘poppy seller’ refers to people selling poppies on the street, door to door, to raise money for the royal British Legion prior to Remembrance Sunday on the 11th of this month.

Sheila Windsor

MSN World News 4/11/2015

NE monsoon

now is dreary, dark, damp, dank, damnably distinct, decidedly despondent, dependably denuding, defacing, decrepit, deluding, deflating, depraved, demoniac

it could be clear, caressing, cosy, creating, cleansing, carefree, capricious, co-opting, carouselling

but it isn’t.

adolescence an umbrella with a mind of its own

Geethanjali Rajan

NE monsoon

war

Jimenez, latched compensates popular revolts, traveller a wetness manoeuvred
intercourse strikes bit hurdlers troubleshooting the omission an encoder, business novae burrows bluebell, hydraulically hew. Jack discusses mothballs, statute Bluebeard
dependability, streptomycin campanili dervish scone, gourmand Lucile, the buttoning of combustible Milquetoast. Complementing Marvell, inky Parker, inquest Gondwanaland incumbency quaffs demonstratives, baronial cinchona Valium skyscraper, mossier Gestapo, schism resonances nor leviathan semicircular staff, often on a throne, pork.

 

war.jpg

Brendan Slater & Sheila Windsor

war