Soul Questions / Anxious Amble by Michael Keshigian

Soul Questions

He thought about his soul

as he walked forest trails

on a summer morning,

deciding it might be solid like his heart

rather than intangible like his mind.

Yet solid meant

it would eventually fail

and break apart

like the tender wings of a moth.

And if it were,

where might it be?

Could he be sure he had one?

Do others?

The fawn that crosses his path

then scampers in fright,

had the face of a child

confronting a stranger.

The black crow that caws concern

amid the pines

warns his brethren.

Bears retreat into caves

for sleep and survival.

Surely, they may posses

what he cannot locate.

It might have a shape

like a mountain

or resemble the beady eye of a loon.

Why wouldn’t a fox have one

or the robin who tenders her young

so carefully?

For that matter, why wouldn’t

the trees, the shrubs, or the lady slippers

with their big pink heads?

All living things bleed when they are cut.

Perhaps the soul is liquid.

 

Anxious Amble

The trees, on this late summer’s eve,
coerced him into believing
they could hear his thoughts,
sense his angst as they bent over
the path upon which he strolled
while night climb slowly
down their limbs
to absorb fading shadows
that danced the trail he trespassed
as the wind whimpered a whistle.
The ample leaves flailed
and quivered their percussive timbre,
a collective voice
that seemed to answer
his queries when breezes stoked the air,
silenced when the setting sun
stifled the airstream locomotion,
mitigating nature’s delicate response.
With everything quiet, everything dark,
the remembrance of another evening’s saunter
illuminated his mind,
an evening filled with laughter,
happy hearts,
bare-feet splashing in an ocean puddle,
a romantic caress; what heavy,
hurried steps he took to keep pace
with the bright image upon him
until it too faded into the current darkness
that consumed him,
steps that eventually guided him
to the sky at path’s end,
a clouded, misty sky,
where even the stars, night’s children,
those glimmers of hope
against infinite night,
were missing as well.

Michael Keshigian has recently been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Studio One, Spank the Carp and Jerry Jazz Musician as well as many other national and international journals.  He is the author of 14 poetry collections and has been nominated 7 times for a Pushcart prize and 3 times for Best of the Net. Michael's latest chapbook, Poems from the Sky, will be released by Cyberwit.com this month.

Saudades, 1936 by Gopal Lahiri

Silence is more musical than song in this rust-pink
house, an art deco home, the afterlife from colonial era,
the roughage of the pavement redraws the history,
in the night Mount Carmel Road unread the world.

Faded wallpaper, the lion figures, the high ceilings
invite a deep, melancholic longing inside.
The rooster in the roof and the soldat statue forge
Portuguese language, drop chaos of memories on my palm.

There is a sense now that my every nerve is sedated.
In the conjuring of light, I bow to the palm trees and
grass roots and a bunch of silver white flowers.
And I chew words that taste like slag and platelets.

I lean towards the boundary wall of Saudades
and my focus is hushed and curtained,

I watch a rose-ringed parakeet on the terrace
it flutters down; it stabs my heart and flies away.

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 33 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred fifty journals and anthologies globally.  Gopal's poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 16 countries. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021 and Best of the Nets for poetry, 2025.

A Fistful of Mirth by Santosh Bakaya

I see a shepherd in a tattered cloak,
soaking his tired feet in a babbling brook
near his ramshackle shack.
His doting wife cooks a sparse meal for him
on a battered stove. He bursts into song,
the notes fall on every leaf, every bough.

A lone bird on an oak tree outside his shack
keeps vigil. A cinder from the furnace lights up
the cherubic face of a child lying in a frayed
patchwork crib, flailing his limbs, chuckling,
chortling, wanting to be picked up by his mother,
glowing in the muted glow of the stove.

The smug world looks on indifferently.
The father now dashes into the room,
still clinging to the song, picking up the child,
flinging him towards the ceiling,
happily humming the song with a greater vigor.

The mother gasps, but soon smiles
as the father clasps the child to his heart.

Awestruck, I watch the poorest of the poor,
not hurtling to their doom, but happy in their dearth
on the topsy-turvy earth.

The poor family has miraculously survived
another day.
On a fistful of mirth.

Santosh Bakaya, [India] PhD is an internationally acclaimed writer of 31 books cutting across genres. She has written novels, nine books of poetry, and two biographies. Santosh is a columnist, literary critic, creative writing mentor and TEDx speaker. Her TEDx talk on The Myth of Writer's Block is very popular in creative writing circles. Santosh's latest book of poetry is .AT Thirty Minutes Past One [2025].

On Being 82 by James Aitchison

A long slow arc of life —
years of existence
compressed in memory,
many — most —
lost along the way.
The most beautiful
days never die,
never quite fade.
Oblivion consumes
the bad times,
the bad memories,
while happiness
is celebrated forever.
So what does comes next?
Once I know,
I will tell you —
if I can.

James Aitchison is an Australian author and poet, very happy to have been published in the Poppy Road Review, the Australian Poetry Anthology, Quadrant, Aesthetica, Poetry for Mental Health, Literary Yard, and many more.

Shore Life / First Robin by John Grey

Shore Life 

Beyond the shore,

the Gulf is a calm in constant motion.

The waves at my feet don’t do much

but their patterns, their incessance,

cannot be denied.

On a beach of gentle waters,

my footprints stay longer,

are a slalom course around cockle and pebble,

mussel and stringy green weed.

The birds are wary but not fearful.

A skimmer skims. A turnstone overturns stones.

And the poet writes poetry.

Not in the moment,

but as a modest stroll towards some place

where his writing tools await.

 

 

 

 

First Robin

 

The first robin has no idea

what it means to me.

Its head is in robin world.

It's on the lookout

for a lawn with a reliable food supply.

 

It doesn't care

that my mood has lifted

at the sight of its dark wings,

orange breast.

So I've been snowbound all winter.

Big deal, it says.

Of course it doesn't say anything.

It barely knows I exist.

 

It has no understanding

of cabin fever,

temperature in the single digits,

blizzard conditions,

driveway shoveling,

and a thousand other of my winter woes.

 

We both have lives to get on with.

What I call Spring,

to the robin is worms.

 

 

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Calliope. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.

Everything to Me by Sushant Thapa

Give me a blank page.
Take me to the cities of graffiti.
One more pull
And I am closer
Than your blood.
I flow like sacred wine
If there is any.
I shall live by you
Hearing you breathe.
The ashes of love
Are pure
In every ruin.
I will flow like spring air
And keep the joviality
Of life.
In you I am a mirror,
In you I am real.
It is nothing like
The same game
Yet, your being
Is everything to me.

Sushant Thapa is a Nepalese poet with nine books of English poems and one short story collection to his credit. His poems are published at Sindh Courier, Trouvaille Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Corporeal Lit Mag, etc. He is a lecturer of English in Biratnagar, Nepal.

A Prayer / Fog Moment by Diane Webster

A Prayer

Guide me through this crisis season
with grace and patience. When I feel anger
and frustration, let them fly away in a flock
of sparrows spooked by the neighborhood cat.
When I feel anxious, let it shrink like an icicle
thawing on a house eave. When I feel like screaming,
let me hear the coo of a dove like a mantra
soothing my soul. Let me breathe deep the smell
of baking bread, the aroma of pine trees
in a silent forest, a whiff of snow before it falls.
When I feel sad, lift my gaze to the sky
awash in sunset colors. When I feel like
I can't go on, give me strength to walk again.




Fog Moment

She looks out as far as she can see
maybe only as far as the fog allows.
Is that figure familiar?
Is that the right gate?
Is the shape correct to memory?
Fog might be the movie screen
of her remembrances easier
brought forward with a neutral
background. No distractions, sound
muffled like when you held your hands
over your ears when your parents yelled.
Her hand rests against her cheek
smoothing some wrinkles, deepening
others. Doesn’t matter. A breeze tickles
through her hair; strands of memories
almost caught into a scene. She gazes
at the table and follows wood grains over
the edge, back and forth, back and forth
until vertigo circles her head. She closes
her eyes for moments ... past. Raises
her head skyward, toward the horizon —
a sailor’s wife solitary on the beach,
waiting, wondering, searching
for the ship’s mast. Foghorns moan.
Surf rolls in, rolls out without the aid
of seashells echoing in ears from days
long ago. She waits, a figurehead
on a ship’s bow feeling ocean mist
effervescent against her vessel.

Diane Webster lives in western Colorado. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and three times for a Pushcart. Five of her micro-chaps have been published by Origami Poetry Press. Diane's website is: www.dianewebster.com