INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Deji Adesoye
Changming Yuan
Violeta Allmuca
Beppe Costa
Engjell I. Berisha
Narendra Kumar Arya
Akwu Sunday Victor
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Laszlo Slomovits
Stefania Battistella
Agron Shele
Lana Bella
Fahredin Shehu
Alan Britt
Silvia Scheibli
Shutta Crum
Running Cub
Alex Ferde
Irsa Ruci
Jennifer Burd
Paul B. Roth
Richard Gartee
Elisavietta Ritchie
Peycho Kanev
Helen Gyigya
Amit Parmessur
Sneha Subramanian Kanta
Robert Nisbet
Jeton Kelmendi
Duane Locke
Richard Lynch
Jean McNerney
Fred Wolven
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2017
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:
WINTER WHIMS
My tongue is white.
Immobile. Speechless.
It is tired after an afternoon of shoveling snow
from between my teeth. It craves for piping hot coffee,
it dreams of Tim Tams, and warm pancakes, lovingly,
and without my mouth’s go-ahead.
Every heartbeat seems dead,
despite the lovely cold cotton.
No more songs in the sky. Under my feet, no more crunchy twigs.
The winter has wrecked every petal. I would do
with a lovelorn circle dance to beguile my heart’s lethargy
near the feisty fireplace.
The pregnant snow dunes ogle
at me every hour,
as if they know something I can’t, as if they feel they
can coax me into sharing their nothingness; there’s a handful
of snowflakes refusing to melt in my mind these days.
I want to love.
In the naked trees covered
by the black ice, I see my hopes
hanging, all shaking, unprotected; each time I open or close
the door, it hits my empty womb – a spooky wind shudders
and runs by the aisle in the house. It tells me to stop
carrying the caprices of childlessness.
THE TEAR OF A WOMAN
Give them back! Give my
tears back,
right now – with interest. ― NATSUKI TAKAYA
The tear
of a woman
is not any soft bouquet of roses
to be laid on a table to embellish the house.
Why make
a woman weep?
Why?
Allay her fears; she’s just like a bee.
Annoy her, she stings you.
Feed her with the beauty of patience,
she’ll bring you loads of honey.
Show her
the eternal mirror of understanding.
Stroke her with your heartbeats.
If ever
you think a woman’s tear
is a bouquet of roses, dry it with dedication,
with love, with a woman in you too.
The tear
of a woman is a pregnant cloud;
it can unfurl a tornado.
Learn to preserve a woman.
Learn to grow with a woman.
Learn to let a woman sing.
Learn not to slash a woman’s beauty.
Travel
with a woman’s softness and
remember a woman is not like metallic petals,
so let your healthy ego die
to let her flowers come out in peace.
Why make
women weep? Why?
To weep with them?
The tear of a woman kills the heart.
The tear of a woman might be a soft bouquet
of roses if laid beside a man’s tear,
on the same table.
POETRY
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me:
I am a free human being with
an independent will. — CHARLOTTE BRONTË
She’d erased many a cunning caesura to find
the right rhythm. She’d bruised many a frail
finger to find the right alliteration. Now she is
the epigraph of her own poetry. The mirror her
only nemesis. Her sensuality laid on a white
mattress, her young eyes dreaming of a
tangible horizon, wrapped in gossipy waves.
She is ever eager to understand the diction of
the loudest hush ever. She is like a liger, she
who enjoys swimming, she who adores
people.
You like her;
she likes you.
You cross her;
she’s gone. Either you
shape up or you ship
out, because her
toes speak of
freedom to
imprisoned skies. Her legs are more beautiful
than beauty. She is maybe the most marvelous
Madonna.
The friendly fire
in her belly
can blind the
most immortal moon.
Her broad black
hips
and black curls might
handcuff history’s
history. And there is a fierce dragon burning
along the page
between her
plump breasts,
while her dauntless belly button would love to
be taken as a pure pit by a talented painter who
would draw orange and purple and pale blue
pulp all around it. She wants people to know
that Eve didn’t touch the fruit that was meant
not to be touched.
To see her swim, laugh, run from crabs
and
urchins and be
herself is
living poetry. By
making place for
poetry in her
room, you
make room for herself in herself. Does anyone
have a map? I’m stuck in this rich woman’s
melodious cacophony. Or is she lost in mine? I
don’t think so.
Amit Parmessur, Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius