INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Amit Parmessur
Steve Barfield
Fahredin Shehu
Karyn M. Bruce
Richard Gartee
Running Cub
Dejoy Robillard
Yuan Hongri
Lasz.o Slomovits
Silvia Scheibli
Stephen Sleboda
Alan Britt
Gale Acuff
Elisavietta Ritchie
Shutta Crum
Patty Dickson Pieczka
Duane Locke
Jennifer Burd
Aneek Chatterjee
Robert Nisbet
Robert Penick
Alex Ferde
Solomon Musa Haruna
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2020
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 54 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
You cannot drop in his room just like that.
You have to knock, and he will put you off—
the time to vanish his babaanne’s things,
and pretend to be the happiest boy.
Though his babaanne is now three years gone,
he keeps her blue slippers warm by the fire,
cleans her comb and pillow every morning,
and talks to her sweetly from the window.
He
would not risk being exposed ever,
though he is the first to rush out any
time the rusty hinges of the gate squeak
as if his babaanne has returned hom
Chagossian Chaos
Despite the UN ruling
Since the ghost with two faces built a military base on
her homeland, the war has crept under her navel.
Her homecoming is neither within, nor out of reach.
She cannot harbour dreams in decaying palms.
She cannot just be the Jane of Tarzans thrown out of
their own jungle and have it sold for a few dollars.
Since the ghost with two faces, the debris from her
loose sinews drown the five cities where
she has lived and the rural homelessness in which she
simmers during her wild, lonesome prayers.
Two or three syllabaries belonging to her father
have already choked and dropped out of her name.
Since
the ghost with two faces, each night she feels
her throat can blow remedies into her torn people—
only to find the pillar of goodwill crumble before sunrise.
She then dries her tears and venerates the log of hope
burning fiercely in the hearth of her heart, though
she cannot fathom why her soul feels so cold.
Will their people’s dead tombs ever feel their hands and
not this voracious havoc drinking their bones up?
How can the ghost with two faces say
the place was uninhabited when the dead lie there
as living proof? How can the ghost with two faces
talk of human rights and do this to these humans?
Those Kisses
I miss
those old kisses down
that nameless street. The taste of their ghostliness
between my lips drags me closer to you
in times when we are suddenly alienated by
a fiery wall of daffodils.
I miss
those clandestine kisses in
that dark temple. The scent of their grief
between my lips drags me closer to you
in places where I am inexplicably choked by
by the din of rust-petalled shacks.
I miss
those deep kisses in
that gloomy cinema. The touch of their secrecy
between my lips drags me closer to you
in times when my smile fails to comb
the unkempt sugarcane fields.
I miss
those nocturnal kisses over
your haunted house. The sound of their anonymity
between my lips drags me closer to you
in our floral-framed mirror whenever my stubble
suddenly ages me.
I will
never forget those kisses—
nocturnal as homelessness under a dead bridge
deep as a tunnel that never lets you out,
secret
as rust gossiping under grandma’s bed,
old as the original sin.
—Those
kisses are not a folded photograph
of a swarm of poppies kept in a musty drawer.
—They are what I wash against
the river rocks of my bosom, those kisses.
Amit Parmessur, Quatre-Bornes, Mauritus, UK