Poetry - Prachya Review

Collab of Flash Fiction, Poem and Artwork by David B. Axelrod

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:42:05 +0000

DON’T PROMISE A FRIEND

Don’t promise to sit with a friend until he dies. He tells me he isn’t going to play that stinking cancer game. No poison, no chopping off pieces, no colostomy bags and besides, once it hits your esophagus and your brain they can’t exactly cut it all out. For his part, he refuses to take test after test, so they can’t write down a definitive diagnosis. The doctor just takes me aside and says, “Look, you’re his health proxy. By now we know 99.9% for sure it’s cancer so let him do it his way.”
We contact home hospice and they start us off all smiles and reassurances about death with dignity, and enough “comfort care” that he doesn’t need to worry about the pain. I like that euphemism. Comfort care is so much cuter than hard drugs.
VSED stands for Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking. Did you know it’s your constitutional right to do that—particularly if you are terminal, but because my friend refuses to get a final diagnosis, his medical charts don’t say he has cancer in several places.
When the actual hospice nurse—not the administrator who signed him up—comes to evaluate him, she says, “You know, we won’t assist in suicide. The diagnosis is indefinite so you’re talking about suicide.”
“No,” my friend says, “I’ve always been happy with my life. Now, I know what I need to do, and I’m not afraid of dying.” He tells me to take her out on his terrace and show her.
I bring her out on this balcony where you can see the ocean and an inland waterway.
“Wow,” she says, “What a view.”
“Look down,” I tell her, encouraging her toward the concrete railing. “Sixteen stories,” I tell her. “It only takes three seconds to fall. Five stories is enough to kill you. And you think my friend is suicidal? He could jump anytime.”
She leaves saying she’s going to discuss Baker Acting my buddy—having him committed because she thinks he is a danger to himself. She thinks he doesn’t want to get better. Now I don’t know if I’m going to sit by his bedside until he dies or visit him in the bin while they pump him with antidepressants, as if that would cure him. As if he wouldn’t be glad to live longer if that were possible.
But they do send a caregiver to his house—a sincere, ten-buck-an-hour woman who holds my friends arm to help him get up to piss however many times a day.
To assuage the intake nurse who thinks he’s suicidal, he consents to taking Lexapro, though he tells me it does about as much good as if he shoved it up his ass. I tell him it is available as a suppository but I won’t be the one to insert it. And I stay for five, six or more hours with him every day.
We have an agreement that I’ll tell him such bad jokes that by the time he’s really weak, he’ll wish he were dead. We go a couple weeks like that before he realizes he doesn’t want to linger. It’s time to take it to the next step. He stops eating, and for good measure, he barely drinks anything.
It’s also time to make “The Arrangements,” But the woman who comes to his place to plan the cremation doesn’t like our sense of humor. She lists the fancy ways she they can reduce him to ashes and he declines them all.
“We have a Cremation Casket with a white crepe interior, no bed of course. Our price is just $899.” She seems sure we will recognize a good deal.
“A sandalwood coffin would smell great,” I say.
“You could all sit in the lotus position as I burn,” my friend says, “and chant Om.”
The cremation specialist doesn’t get it. She lists a couple other options and my friend goes with a cardboard box.
“I’m okay with lying on some wax paper,” he says. She declines to say whether that is an option or even legal.
“Do you want the brass urn for your ashes?” She persists, but did she really need to ask?
He goes with a much smaller cardboard box to hold him, and she insists that he specify who will claim his ashes—that being me, the loyal friend.
She prints out the agreement on this neat portable printer and I say, “Hey, you left out the most important option.”
“What?” she asks, hopeful she can still pump up her commission.
“Marshmallows and chocolate.”
She misses it completely.
“S’mores,” my friend tells her, “For when he’s there while you burn me.”
He signs. She leaves. I’m staying now for something like eight hours a day and worry that I shouldn’t leave him with the people that hospice sends because:
A. They don’t have a sense of humor either.
B. They waltz in and say, “Can I get you a sandwich,” when he’s already been five days without eating and they truly don’t understand this VSED, and,
C. Men don’t like to use a bedpan, or maybe it’s just conditioning, so he thinks he has to stand up to piss, so if the aide leaves the room, he tries to get up to piss and he falls. He’s fallen twice already and has the cuts and bruises to prove it.
“Maybe you can sleep here,” he suggests, but he doesn’t have a second bed.
“I love you dearly,” I tell him, “but you’re sure as shit too ugly for me to sleep with you.”
Of course they are screwing with his meds. They don’t want him to have narcotics because he might become addicted. Hello? A dying man here? I don’t think addiction is a going to be a problem.
How long do you think someone can go without eating? It’s been a week. He’s not quite Auschwitz but it’s getting grotesque. He really hasn’t been able to swallow much for months, eating so much egg salad he might as well have feathers.
It turns out you can go weeks and weeks without eating much of anything. He decides to go completely without drinking. Dehydration can certainly kill you pretty quickly, except don’t promise to sit with a friend until he dies. Or at least consider that having cancer doesn’t mean he has a weak heart. His mind might be thinking he’s ready to die but his heart has a will of its own.
“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” only you may not be as old as my friend and I who remember John Cameron Swazy—the first person to broadcast the news on television. “Ladies and gentleman, a good evening to you. Sit back, light up a Camel and be an eyewitness to the happenings that made history in the last twenty-four hours.” For all his puffing as he brought us the news, after his news-casting days, John Cameron Swazy had a long career peddling Timex watches and lived to be 89. My friend is 75. He’s out of time but the damn ticker just won’t quit.
Twelve days without food and the last five days without a drop to drink, he’s still alive, though his urine has gone from blood red to thick coffee.
Did you know even when you don’t drink, your body still puts out urine? And did you know that even when a man is debilitated and delirious he still wants to stand up to piss? I have to climb into his bed and restrain him so he doesn’t try to lift himself to the edge of the bed where he’s so weak he will fall.
It’s all so hard to watch, I’m forgetting to joke. “Did you hear about the fellow who got hit by a car? Someone rushes over and covers him with a sweater. Another fellow rolls up a jacket and puts it under his head and asks, ‘are you comfortable?’ The man on the ground looks up and says, ‘I make a living.’”
I can make the rest of the story go more quickly even though it takes fully seventeen days, the last eight of which are completely without food and liquids. He develops a fever—probably a urinary tract infection. He hits 104. They want to cool him off and give him antibiotics. They still think it’s their job to keep him alive.
They informed me a couple days before that they might completely stop sending health aides because he doesn’t have a terminal diagnosis on his chart and, “Just dying isn’t covered by Medicaid. We might not get reimbursed if we send someone to sit with him just because he’s close to death.” It’s all I can do to get someone to come for the last nights.
I tell him he’s done a great job evoking sympathy, not to mention that some people are just dying to be skinny and he’s come up with a sure-fire weight-loss plan.
“You’ve done what you needed. Just let go.” I say, and I want to believe there is a faint sigh of acknowledgement. “Die,” I tell him. “It’s getting too melodramatic.”
I worry that I am beginning to mean it, but I can’t blame him for his last breaths. I’m the fool who promised to sit with my friend until he dies. I could have just encouraged him over the balcony. Instead, I grip his hand firmly as he passes and the hospice caregiver ;eaves the room to let me cry.

ASTROPHEL AND I

 Some families only meet up at marriages
and funerals where astrophel provides
a bridal bouquet or wreath. You’d think 
I could content myself with greetings 
when you flower into the room, 
a blossom in the heat of summer,
delicate in your cotton sheathe, smiling
like while light as I present as the dark night.
“He’s after a lay,” people say, “But she’s 
too good for him.” Right twice over, 
I can validate. Lust is not romantic
nor is it her mind I mean to conquer, 
but sonnets, like neoclassical poetry, 
are for poetry affectionados and pop culture
is more "slam bam, barely a thank you 
ma'am. Time was a prom date required
a corsage. Now a Seven-Eleven rose passes
for sentimental. Granted, a grocery-store 
bunch of flowers with baby’s breath 
will do when you arrive to a family
reunion. Your cousin’s new baby, 
reeking of baby powder, bubbling 
 a map of breast milk is the prevailing
symbol of new love. A poem about 
how Astrophel loved Stella may have
been the poet Petrarch's trip, catalogued in
Cliff Notes and crib sheets. Once, all our
book shelves had the same texts we kept after
our degree to prove we were well read. 
Frat men who notched their bed posts 
for de-flowers, now emasculated by 
blood-pressure meds or prostrate 
operations, commiserating at wakes or
grandchild’s wedding, or avoiding 
the question who will go next.

About the Author:
Dr. David B. Axelrod was Suffolk, Long Island’s, and is now Volusia County, Florida, Poet Laureate (2015-continuing). He has been published in fifteen languages and hundreds of magazines and anthologies, and twenty-four books of poetry, most recently The Official Rules for Olympic Bed Riding (Bold Venture Press, 2023). He is also author of Merlin Stone Remembered, chronicling the work of the women’s-rights advocate author of When God Was a Woman. Dr. Axelrod is recipient of three Fulbright Awards including his being the first official Fulbright Poet-in-Residence in the People’s Republic of China. He is publisher of Writers Ink Press. He lives in Daytona Beach where he is the founder/director of Creative Happiness Institute, Inc., a not-for-profit organization presenting programs in creative writing and alternative wellness (www.creativehappiness.org). His complete CV is available at www.poetrydoctor.org/CV.

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Poem by Shodiyeva Mehribon Amin

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:40:50 +0000

Mother 
 
They say is a place where mothers speak 
The whole earth is listening. 
Every time I listen to the pain of others, 
But I'm swallowing it myself. 
 
To see your child happy 
Ready to take the worlds. 
For her, there is no happiness other than her child, 
Well versed in the language of the best intentions. 
 
If a thorn enters your child suddenly 
A blink of an eye. 
He hides his pain in his heart, 
So passionate, so pure in heart. 
 
Good or bad is the same for him, 
He does not take care of any of his children. 
He is characterized by tenacity, patience, 
Life's trials are not without thorns. 
 
Mothers from a small joy 
When you reach the happiness of the world. 
Children are drowned in the mud of sin, 
His parents don't know much. 
 
Take care like a black eye, 
Day and night in prayer, wishes for perfection. 
But when he grew up, asking how he was doing, 
I want to say sweet words. 
 
Well, I have a lot of worries 
When will the sorrow of the world end? 
A mother always loves her child, 
The life of this imitation is fading away. 
 
Revealing false love to others, 
Don't think you're flattering. 
For the sake of his parents, he once said: 

He does not say "Mom, I love you". 
 
Couldn't track it to its last address 
You will be surprised to have such children. 
A single palm could not give love 
You will find it in the children of the rest of the world. 
 
Let everyone know their mother is holy, 
Answered like a mother's prayer. 
If someone offends you, it's their own fault. 
He will burn in the fire of hell. 
 
Until the children wish their mother's heart, 
I wish he could fulfill his duty. 
Not after leaving the world, on the contrary, 
I wish he knew the value of his existence... 
 
Don't ask once, don't see once, 
When you leave, you will be burned in the fire. 
With so many sins on his shoulders 
How do you go to God's place?

About the Poet:
Shodiyeva Mehribon Amin was born in 1998 in the Shofirkon district of the Bukhara region. The young artist’s poems have been published several times in newspapers and magazines such as “Shofirkon ovozi”, “Buxoroyi Sharif”, “Istiqlol g’unchalari”, “Buxoro adabiyoti va san’ati”, “Bilimdon”, “Dono word”. Collections entitled “Nurli manzillar”, “Beg’ubor orzular” have been published. Currently, she is an independent student of the Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute.

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Poem by Herb Kitson

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:39:32 +0000

    Sun in Capricorn

The sun's a snowball somebody threw
          into the sky.
It reminds me it's December, cold,
that winter solstice began yesterday,
that calendar and weather both are old.

No one's tried to purchase summer now. 
The shopping cart is empty—plain to see.
It's all stark angularity,
the air smeared drab in black and gray.

Give it a fancy name
in French, no less,
call it Le Tableau Vide et Sans Couleur.
Call it sorrow, loss, absence, gloom.

Call it anything you like.  
You're painted from the picture.
There's nothing living to be seen.
Just  dirty white and solitude.

You've been shut out for years.
Ekphrastic challenge of bleak season
isn't hard to understand.
You're screwed.  You're outta paint.
It's difficult to change the scene. 

Life's rigid.
There's a track with no train—
no chance of going home,
no hope for getting warm.

About the Poet:
Herb Kitson is professor emeritus in English-University of Pittsburgh-Titusville-Pennsylvania-USA. Poems of his in The Atlanta Review, Ballast, Comstock Review, New York Quarterly, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Poetry East, Rattle, Witness, Yankee, Pearl, et al. In print, he has two books and two chapbooks.

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Poem by Dennis Williams

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:37:13 +0000

Emancipation 


Emancipation, what a beautiful word
free as a bird in a tree.
Free from the heat of the burning sun
free from the threat of a loaded gun
emancipation liberation at its best 

Freedom to south the food I like 
freedom to see my family well-fed
freedom to do  the chores I want 
freedom to do the things I even cant

Freedom to roam without any fear 
resting whenever I wish
movement at my own pace
saturated in this bliss

Emancipation, freedom what a twin
very few saw it coming, oh what a win
the sun, the heat, the whip, the pain
the many things I lost, the many I gain

Freedom gain, what delight?
the struggle for the freedom was a right 
thing to do, It was worth the fight.
the battle and the grit
came together to make it right 

Emancipation, what a beautiful word
I’ll say it out loud, every chance I get 
shout it out from the housetop 
lest our ears go deaf and we forget.
Emancipation.

       The wall

Don’t scale my wall
to enter my premises
that action is an intrusion
the entrance is open 
and the charge is free

Are you anxious just to  enter?
because you want to be there
or just to be inside
to peruse
or to patriciate
to mingle with the crowd
to be amongst  the rest
greet friends 
tell a few jokes 
or just pass the time 

Don’t scale my wall 
you do not wish me well
come in through the front gate 
 all well-wishers do 
let the people see your face
Let them all be aware that you are here
In our midst part of us
enjoying the scenery 
enjoying the grounds
come in be a part of don’t scale my wall.

About the Poet:
Dennis is a poet/writer from Sandy Hill, St. Catherine, Jamaica. He is blessed and humbled to have his writings published in the Agape Review, the American Diversity Report (ADR), Alchemy Spoon issue #7, Cast of Wonders, Blaze Vox fall of 2023, Active Muse 24, Auvert issue #4 and Literary Heist.

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Collab by Mike Turner & Melinda Hicks

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:35:25 +0000

Raven’d Thief

Jet-black raven crossing sun
Ruby’d seed clutched in curved beak
Scavenged gem snatched on the run
A forager: 
Cunning, bold pratique 

Lofts o’er valley, stream and hill
Plumed wings stretching, talons bared
All the while its jewel held still
Provision 
Neither lost nor shared

Oh! Were I in raven’d flight
Filched prize held as mine alone
‘Twould transit, ‘til in dark of night
I would alight 
In nested home

To savor that rare, precious grist
And with its husk my roost adorn
Awaiting then the dawning’s mists
To scrounge again 
Against the morn’

Bumblebee Gold 

The gold medal goes
To flower’d pollinator:
Humble bumblebee

* Traditional haiku are untitled

Cattails, Haunts and Swales

Call it slew, marsh or swale
Reed mace or cattail
The bogs and the bulrushes call

Haints of mojo, hoodoo
Wraiths and spirits call you
Their mystery and magic enthrall

‘Cross the bayou, moans, low
Loons speak out a rondeau 
Sing to us their plaintive tattoo

As the eve’ yields to dusk
Curtain’s rung down for us
‘Til next eve, ghostly scenes come anew

Artworks: “Marauder, Trickster, Thief” (watercolor on paper), “Dressed in Layers” (mixed media on paper), “Vanishing Point” (watercolor on paper) by Melinda Hicks

About the Poet and Artist:
Melinda Hicks (Artist) has a camera, a collection of “collage stuff” and a vision for art. Mix these elements with water + color, and something magical happens: visions flow off the tips of her brushes onto paper, and art is created. Melinda’s paintings are based upon photos she takes on walks, from the car and while traveling, as well as painting plein air; she works mainly in watercolor, with collage pieces to add depth. Melinda lives in Fairhope, AL with her dedicated “art critic” husband Donald and her trusty art buddy, Lady Bug, their cat.

Mike Turner (Writer) is a songwriter and poet living on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Named Male Gospel Entertainer of the Year by the North America Country Music Associations International (2017), his original songs have received radio and streaming play in the U.S., UK, Europe, Australia and on the US Armed Forces Radio Network. Mike has had over 350 poems published in more than 70 journals and anthologies; his poem, “Sense of Peace,” won the Alabama Writers’ Cooperative’s 2023 Roger Williams Peace Prize. His book, Visions and Memories, is available from Amazon.

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Poem by Mahzuna Habibova Aʼzam

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:33:54 +0000

Love of country


At the top of the clear sky,
I have tasted the good fortune of Mozi.
Your history is at the top of the list,
John - I carved it into my soul, from dawn to heart.

Your days are beautiful - my soul,
"Navroz" is the interpretation of love.
The sweetness of your food - the worlds are between -
Even "Palovtora" is a fire of languages.

Your great figures are my great history,
The world has recognized the news of thousands of centuries.
Your prayers have come true,
In the interpretation of the world - the name is saffron!

We didn't know what love was -
Summer and winter of homesickness.
The whole body is pale with pain -
We learned from Babur - LOVE OF THE COUNTRY.

I will be the soul in your veins,
There are tears in your eyes.
If I say praise - my word is triumphant,
You are the light of hearts, you are the sun, the sun!

About the Poet:
Mahzuna Habibova Aʼzam kizi. She was born on October 10, 1998 in Jondor district, Bukhara region. Currently a student of Gulistan State University. In Uzbekistan, his first book called “Lines of Longing” was published. In this book “I sing my country” there are poems for our readers about the homeland, love for the homeland, love, friendship, nature, parents. We think that the book will surely take a place in your heart.

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Poetry and Art by JC Williams & Cassia Williams-Rogers

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:31:58 +0000


After Landfall

My sister’s house still stands. Its siding is peeled 
back, its roof stripped of shingles. A breeze 
wafts through missing windowpanes. Inside, 
once polished oak floors are warped, rough 
underfoot, and cradle wet remnants of driving 
rain. Black spores dot mounds of plaster now
in clumps at our feet. A framed photograph 
of our father already smells of decay.

When the water receded, searchers found 
an old man with his dog sitting dazed
before his house now in pieces behind him 
but not the woman swept away by rushing water. 
And the photo of our dad?  It will dry. Dull, 
without familiar shape or face, and will take
its place by the curb with piles of discarded 
treasures that grow taller with each day.

On Waking One Day in October

This day breaks without a name
to mark it from any other. It sneaks
light along my window’s dark edge,
slinks onto my stage for dreams. 
I linger -- savor the impossible -- 
feats untamed by gravity,
encounters unmoored from time. 
I stretch -- like a timid guest --
fingertips to toes, delicately test
my comfort in this body 
brittle now from use, misuse, 	
disuse. I push 			
up, sit on the edge 			 
of my bed				
not yet ready for today.

Surface Waves 


As a father is dying 

in Key Biscayne,

peaks crest 	

toward shore. Tangles 

of seaweed, broken shells

-- now polished smooth -- litter

the path.  Each wave pairs

with its distant metronome, pushes

shimmering white before muddled 

green.  One wave folds in on itself, 

collapses before landfall. 

Another races to dry sand, 

a darker trace 

all that remains.

*poems by JC Williams accompanying with one-line drawings by Cassia Williams-Rogers.

About the Poet and Artist:

JC Williams began writing poetry after careers in philosophy and law. In 2022, she participated in AWP’s Writer to Writer Program working with poet Jehanne Dubrow. JC’s poems have appeared in Months to Years and Songs of Eretz. Her experiences growing up in the South find their way into many poems. In addition to poetry, her loves are her partner, their daughter, and tai chi. She currently lives in Maryland.

Cassia Williams-Rogers is a first year MD/PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. The one-line drawings accompanying these poems are part of an on-going collaboration with JC Williams for a chapbook in which all poems are illustrated and all of the illustrations are connected with one line. The illustrations were drawn by hand using an Apple pencil (2^nd Gen), an iPad Air (5^th Gen) and GoodNotes5. Cassia is passionate about baking, genetics, and her two cats, Yuri and Adi (named after RNA bases U and A).

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Poems by Stephen Mead

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:30:18 +0000

The post Poems by Stephen Mead first appeared on Prachya Review.

Writer of Destiny by Anila Bukhari

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:17:41 +0000

Write something bright for those who experience a thousand deaths each day.
Write some smiles for those whose pillows are moist with tears each night.
Write a few pure moments of love for those who could never call anyone their own.
Write a few droplets of soothing dew on their lips.
Write true happiness in their pounding hearts.
Write the fulfillment of unrealized dreams in their eyes.
Write floral bracelets of joy for their soft hands.
Write swinging earrings of solace for their ears.
Even if you write nothing else, dear Lord,
You must write freedom for them.

About the Poet:
Anila Bukhari is a Pakistani author, poet, and humanitarian Anila Bukhari inspires millions worldwide. Her transformative work promotes peace, education, and women’s empowerment. Her vision for a world where women and girls soar free, unencumbered by societal norms. Her writing and community service ignite hope, resilience, and positive change.

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Poems by Irma Kurti

admin — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:15:39 +0000

LEAVE THIS SUNSET TO ME

Leave this sunset to me, the clouds red
as if they feel guilty; I am sure, the most
talented painter would not succeed in
immortalizing on his canvas such beauty.

This time I won’t compare the sun to a
big ball of fire but to a shining eye in
love, which is trying to enter so gently
inside its lowered eyelids.

I will stay true to its charm, its mixed
colors of the rainbow, to the chills that
run through my body and soul, just like
fingers on the piano keyboard.

Leave this sunset to me.

MY PAIN

I locked my pain inside the walls
of home and set out on a journey.

I crossed paths and borders with
an old suitcase in my hand. Then
I admired landscapes and green
parks, I cuddled flowers with my
gaze. I saw happy people, heard
children’s cries: cheerful, joyful,
hovering in the blue like flocks
of birds. One evening I returned
home, weary of joy and lights.

I tried to lower my eyelids and
sleep, but it was in vain. Tears
and suffering did not allow me.

The pain of your absence was
waiting in my house. In a few
instants, it entered my soul and
heart, finding its old space again.

I THINK OF YOU

I think of you, despite your frequent
absences in my days, the messages
that go astray, your deep silence;
that is where I often drown myself.

I think of you, even though there are
thousands of reasons not to love you,
to get you out of my life, transform
you into an unforgettable memory.

I’ll take you away with me into the
days of sun and rain; when I rejoice,
you will also rejoice; I’ll despair, and
you will shed tears, too; when I hurt
myself, we’ll both feel the same pain.

I shall shelter you in my body, because
in my soul you’ve found a place long ago.

About the Poet:

IRMA KURTI is an Albanian poet, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator and has been writing since she was a child. She is a naturalized Italian and lives in Bergamo, Italy. In 2020, she became the honorary president of WikiPoesia, the encyclopedia of poetry. In 2023, she was awarded a Career Award from the Universum Academy Switzerland. She also won the prestigious 2023 Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize for complete work. Irma Kurti has published 29 books in Albanian, 25 in Italian, 15 in English, and two in French. She has also translated 20 books by different authors. Her books have been translated and published in 16 countries.

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