My voice stands for the vanished smiles Of the silenced children, Whose innocence dies Starved and caged, in the knowledge Of having been undone By our self-serving lies; Who grow up to know Hell so intimately, they go Seeking it when sent to Heaven. [First published as a Global Peace Poem Response]
G. B. Malleson upon 1857
This gentleman was an officer of the British Raj, writing at its zenith. Presumably, when he wrote in reply to his rhetorical question about British victory in the War of Independence: “How did they accomplish the impossible?”, he did most earnestly mean his reply: “It was a question of race”, which seems as incredible and … Continue reading G. B. Malleson upon 1857
Nestling by Hibah Shabkhez
Nestling
She scanned the ground, shaking her head to unblur her eyes. Slitheries or crunchems? He would eat the slitheries if she took him those, but she knew it was the crunchems he loved. So it was the crunchems she hopped towards, even though he was so difficult to fill up on them. It was the first time they had hatched only one egg, and the gawky creature who had emerged was utterly unlike any of their older slender-winged families. They had mourned the inexplicable smashing of the other eggs, but once he hatched they were too busy to remember them very often, except for the occasional pang when they saw other new parents with a full nest.
But they were so very proud of him too, their big strong boy with a voice like a trumpet, not the feeble cheeping of the Daffensy children or the thin treble of the…
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Ameno, Ameno, Ameno; Imprisoned Lightning; The Meat-Poison Cliché
Ameno, Ameno, Ameno; Imprisoned Lightning; The Meat-Poison Cliché are up on Impspired
AMENO AMENO AMENO
When first I climbed out into to this Land of do-as-you-please, it was an Inkdeath that I would fain have guarded against, for I deemed it quite inevitable: how can the Inkspell fail, thought I, when you spend more of your life within it than without? Lorenzaccio … but it was not so. This land remains the half-dream it always was, a Middle Earth one steps into for adventures, while that Land of the Lost scarce-glimpsed now from the top of the Magic Faraway Tree remains so starkly real, so starkly mine.
Every time I say a ‘Bonjour’ or hear one said to me, a voice at the back of my brain goes something like ‘Tintatintin. Studio 100, Page 97, Exercice 4, Dialogue 1’ … Nothing matters quite so much here, or in quite the same way. People, places – there is a veil of…
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Remember Only This
By the gloating rocks once its refuge, The sun wallows in scarlet rages; Glovers at the ticky-tacky cages, Who feel naught of the coming deluge From the lurching stream that knows no rest. Each ripple is a Mont Blanc unsung With snow-hunches grown out of dark grace, The cragginess of each jagged face; Burnt with … Continue reading Remember Only This
Marginal Voices
"We like marginal voices" He reassures me "Women writers and poets of every nation -" 'Marginal' voices? But that would be Over one half of the world's population. "All people of colour, handicapped, LGBT -" I look at him in some consternation. "Just who is left in your 'centre' then?" "Why - white, hetero, cisgendered … Continue reading Marginal Voices
En frappant à la porte
Mon âme a besoin de lire votre histoire Autrement, veuillez me croire Je ne serais jamais venue chez vous. Vos penchants naturels sont les plus vicieux Vos songes pourris, d’un caractère fou : Mais, une seule fois, soyez gentil, confiez-moi La recette de ce bonheur, ces transports de joie!
