INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Paul B. Roth
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Amit Parmessur
Lana Bella
Elisavietta Ritchie
Peycho Kanev
Helen Gyigya
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Ali Znaidi
Lyn Lifshin
Ann Christine Tabaka
Silvia Scheibli
Fahredin Shehu
Robert Nisbet
Laszlo Slomovitz
Rajnish Mishra
Keith Moul
Eddie Awusi
Andy N
Running Cub
Sanjeev Sethi
Alex Ferde
Deji W. Adesoye
W. M. Rivera
Shantanu Siuli
Duane Locke
Jennifer Burd
Violeta Allmuca
Fred Wolven
Michael Lee Johnson
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2018
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 48 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
WHAT
DOES FREEDOM MEAN TO YOU? II
Does it please the Earth
that it knows its path round the Sun?
does it grieve the Sun
that its chores are decided ere the birth of day?
The house rat is better served
if he knows he’ll end up in a pussycat’s jaws
The innocent lanky deer
Is not grieved
if he’d been told his neck
was designed for the lion’s claws
but we do not know
were we specimens made
for earth’s vicious experiment
let alone discover
for which experiment we were made
We grope in the darkness of ignorance
searching for rays lighting the path we
should take
Hearts tumble and roll
on the steep of anxiety
So the earth said to the Sun:
“Look at the children of men,
they don’t even know where they should go;
Let us then, who know our own paths, toss
them around”
The Sun laughed and felt pleasure in it.
Since then has the story of man be written
According to the sheer barbarity of earth
And the little little mischiefs of the Sun
Did the scientists not say:
“The Sun gives us the energy we use”?
And he could well withdraw it,
Or shut down its gates when
He’s full of beer.
WHAT DOES FREEDOM MEAN T YOU? V
How can we be free
when we want to be free
like the birds of air?
Do we long
for a life that floats
with the whim of winds
and roams with the tyranny of seasons
and hope for freedom?
Ignorance is key to the forlorn soul
A bird makes a nest
Under the roof of a bungalow
In search of cover from rain
the path of man entices him
but a bird does not know
no matter the size of a duplex
it is a prison for the bird of open field
so a bird grieves under the burden of ignorance
and man grieves for lack of insight.
MORNING
Morning is not just a segment of time
It is music, full of soul and effusive scales
Lodged loose in the gadget of escaping shades
Morning is not just a moment
It is a statute from the parliament of nature
Declaring retainment of life—
In cell and bones that play host to dreams
Morning is not just sunshine
It is vision: it is journey in space van
Unhindered by halted traffic, sweating under
The dark ceiling of unlit streets
And morning, since the morning of the first morning
Has never been a handbag in the hand of
Those who walk the street of apathy:
It is but a gadget for deejays who play
The Afro-beat of success
I am a deejay at the turntable of life
I am a deejay at the dance-floor of existence
COME WITH ME
Come to this balcony with me
And let heaven shine on us together
The lampstand is in the bedside
It prays with ebullient flames we be forever
Come. There is a folkdance in the way we talk
And the shoulders of laughter shrug
To the blackmail of the dying night
A village comes alive in the sharp whispers
Of engrossed ears pelting night with tender fingers
Come to the balcony
A son lives presently in a nearby hamlet
Twitch and dance to distant, indistinct ballads
Woven in the commingle of two tangent souls
Oh come to this balcony with me
In your broad shoulders and flowing hems
The lampstand is in the bedside
And let heaven shine on us together
Deji Adesoye, Ibadan, Nigeria