Category: poetry

Poetry Reading: Im Zweifel zur Wahrheit, by Erich Ruhl Bady

Performed by Carina Cojeen

POETRY 7 questions:

1) What is the theme of your poem?

We can be sure on our way to truth if we allow (ourselves) to doubt. We need to doubt.

2) What motivated you to write this poem?

In an exibition I saw the installation of three signposts – two pointed nearly to the same direction –  to the direction of truth and doubt – the other signpost showed the way to the opposite … the indecisiveness (deutsch: Unentschlossenheit)

3) How long have you been writing poetry?

Since about six years, even more since three years

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

Barack Obama

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

I think there could be the chance to increase the range (I hope I’ll be allowed to show the link on my pages…) – and the other reason: I would like to hear my poem spoken by another voice (because I’m a narrator as well – all my 50 poems are to be listened on AUDIYOU –    https://www.audiyou.de/benutzer/smoothenergy99/0.html

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

Sometimes reviews about books or films – in my main job (Journalist / Press officer) I write articles and speeches – The other side job is audiobook narrator (should be more 🙂

7) What is your passion in life?

I will never stop to believe in the possibilities of personal development and in the power of compassion and dignity – therefore sometimes I try to consolidate my thoughts and my deep sentiments into a poem – and my wife, my two daughters and my four grandchildren motivate me to carry on

POSTSCRIPT:
THE POETRY FESTIVAL is a real great project which brings together open minded and warm-hearted people.
Thank you for this grand idea.

 

Read Poetry: Feminism or Chauvinism? by Kinjal Jain

All hanging, dancing, hopping
at the border line
feminism or chauvinism?
Your opinion needs to have a spine!

Does hating brings equality
Or was #metoo only one gender in totality?

Does addressing a girl as a “son” changes anything
Or is it another way of discriminating?

Does dress length decreasing is the reason behind teasing
Or the real question is the upbringing?

Does the salary numbers matter too?
Or is it better, the man and wife, together they grew?

Does chivalry has to be a man’s asset
Or a girl holding the gate will be another better facet?

Yes the history has a strong story
The men has stepped over women’s glory.
But, the time has changed since
both have evolved past their sins.

The choice is yours to make
Which gender side you are on
Or was there ever a side to choose from?

Read Poetry: THE FISHERMAN, by Robin McNamara

The sea swelled and splashed
Against the hull of the boat
With its green net mountain
Disappearing into foaming waters

The fisherman’s hope and security
An old sea dog salted
And weather beaten from a
Lifetimes toil upon the waters

Times of hardships furrowed upon the brow
His story told by scarred hands
He respects the sea
Which has taken many a soul

Bowing his head in mournful grace
For comrades long gone by
In this forsaken element
Names inscribed on the memorial wall

Baptised at a tender fourteen
Saltwater dripping from forehead
As his arms ache from the harvesting
Proud to be gone from boy to man

Conquer of all that rises
from the living sea
Shimmering and glistening on deck
Pride on his fathers face

Now decades gone, no more to come
He will be spoken of in years to come
His eyes as deep as the Ocean
Have glanced their last trip.

By Robin McNamara

Read Poetry: RUDIMENTS OF BROKEN MUSIC, by Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale

To write a dirge
Is to burn without a touch of fire
.
A raven perched on my window last night
-it came with a song, named after your brothers
-and with echoes of maiden’s voices from sambisa
– it came with one-tenth of your father’s burnt ashes
-and with the chronicles of a lost boy on the street of Lagos
.
To break into wounded verses
Is to become a man of flesh and water- blood no longer flows in your veins
.
I have seen men with cuts on their tongue
Men, holding their names with blind metaphors
I have seen a mother run from her own blood
To the tent of survival beneath her skin
I have seen girls, living in sad memories
To hold history between their legs
.
We are but rudiments of broken music
We live till we become a poem, filled with emptiness- it’s the
mystery, skating between birth and death
.
I have tried carving God’s face with my pen
Tried holding beginning and the end with a verse
To know the why behind the whys between them
But, you don’t run with shoes laced with death
When competing with your shadows, wind and demons that paint your
sister’s face with colourless scars
.
‘Some poems are dead bodies in living beings, you don’t read them
without a touch of immortality’- says a poet
.
.
© Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale
Undiluted Poet
#UndilitedPoetry

Read Poetry: how we unfold love from the moon, by Nosakhare Collins

Lover…..

This is how to unfold love from the moon;
you seat close-by in your crux divan
watching your mouth and hands sleek into praise
into momentum desire that has blossom into revelry
you look up sky as the stars crosses your eyeballs
perhaps which one of them has heart to love;
glimpse the eye to ponder into felicity
but this is how love unfolds from the moon;
you seat right close to your lover
help lifting the hands up to the sky
where the moon unfold love into your river part
then wait as the moon fondle his way into you
crawling his love into your heart
flowers and gift of different kinds
as the flowers and gift break into blossom romantic
clumsy and holding memories with lit candle light
as songs broken into lyrics in the face of moon night.

Poet: Nosakhare Collins

About me—

Nosakhare Collins is a budding Nigerian poet, writer, literary critic and a tutor. He is a student in the Accounting department of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma–Edo State. His works including book reviews has appeared and are forthcoming in anthologies, journals and various literary outlets which include Sevhage Reviews, Antarctica Journal, Least Bittern Books, Dwart Magazine, Youth Shades Magazine, WRR (words, Rhythms and Rhymes) and so on. He is currently working hopefully towards his chapbook (a collection of poems). He writes from Nigeria, and can be reached through his Facebook: Nosakhare Collins, Twitter: @nosa_collins, Instagram: nosakharecollins

Read Poetry: Hanger Anger, by David John Shafer

Five chief virtues.

Achieving curfews.

Curb views.

Cell wishing.

Herb stews.

Blurb news.

Haggling hulk hues.

Aura acoustic truth fit.

Obtuse kit.

Muse wit.

Use it.

Noose bit.

Loose pit.

Eat love slay.

Ayer mi way.

All so filet.

The ego tale underway.

Gwyneth Paltrow production.

Inducted hall of fame suction.

Undone untuck bad luck spun.

Public displays of disgust.

Discussing distrust anti fist thrust.

Third eye throttler.

Trouncing toddlers.

Tottering robbers.

All’s well that ends in hell.

Cursed Earth’s dead.

Earth bled.

Gaia mother skin shed.

Love led.

Lost lovers lack leniency.

Even Steven sequencing.

Rebreathed frequencies.

Sequin seas.

Heavenly decrees.

Ebeneze ergonomic incendiaries.

Celestial fairies.

The derrière dare.

Fair hair wear.

Honorability* goner tranquility.

Assimilation imitation.

Meditation edit deviation.

TV dinner nation.

Yellow head condemnation.

(*Honorability-­‐concerning honor)

Read Poetry: 12 CROSSED BRIDGES, by Olabisi Akinwale

(Summarizing 2017)
.
J-F-M-A-M-J-J-A-S-O-N-D
The letters memorized by our feets
Before crossing bridges, over strange waters
.
J- January
It was the tale of a boy waiting for sunshine under a dark and grey
sky, he’s got holes in his heart, only light can fill, songs in his
blood- with ugly and beautiful notes
January was a book with empty covers, we read with million thoughts-
forging new names
.
F- February
We covered our skins with weary faces
Learning to live in a world, different from home
Everyone we met, became a blood in our veins
February was a loosed adventure- we thread her path with tight minds,
trying to catch the wind with the wings of our voices
.
M- March
We were left with sad letters from time
A brother marched onto glory with spirited feets
Our cries became lost ravens, perching on windows of injured memories
March was the rose that carried the smell of the flowers we left at
our brother’s grave
.
A- April
There’s nothing here
– only girls, asking fate questions devoid of answers
– men skating on the surface of survival
April was a god, not after God’s heart- it took us on a voyage to
hell, with fire in our eyes
.
M- May
The year became a five month old child, crawling on hungry stomach
We sang songs of joy with sad mouths
We danced too close to our dreams, that our feets began to sank in
multiple grounds
May was beautifully carved by our destiny- it taught us to hold on,
till the final whistle is blown
.
J- June
We marked dreams that came to pass
And wrote new ones in our diaries
We regurgitated home, and hoped we returned someday with rainbow
colours to mama’s dark smiles
June was nature- we understood the language of birds, and how the
trees holds God’s voice in their whispers
.
J- July
We ran from the wars in our heart
To places where love is everyone’s art
We found love different from our father’s type
But, sometimes love is not love only when it is loved
July was like the back of the moon- it shines, but on the other side
of the world, it reminds us; ‘ not all that glitters is gold’
.
A- August
We were beaten by whips from unknown hands
Into shapes, sizes and textures
Father said golds are made golden through fire- August was the prove
.
S-September
Ember came through this door
To homes with unbroken walls
And left them, broken
September was one of the war we fought with defeated weapons
.
O- October
We met strangers who became brothers overnight
And girls who became the lightening in our blood
Life is not life without people by your side, incubating your smiles
in their heart
October was too poetic to be left without a poem- it reminds us of
times spent with Godlike creatures
.
N- November
Here,
– we built castles of lost and won victories
– star the stars that shined in the sky of our souls
– we learnt to create paradise in odd places
November was the shore connecting realities to fictions-both, have a
touch of life and sanity
.
D- December
It was a room filled with thousand faces, and the path that leads home
A place where goodbyes, housed every tongue
Where we wrote reports of times and memories
December was too short to be lived forever- it was the answer to why
good things don’t last, and the whys behind farewell
.
2017 was long, but short- it left us staring in awe, to the perfection
in God’s art
.
.
© Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale
Undiluted Poet
#UndilutedPoetry

Read Poetry: Toby Sycamore, by Ben Westwood

Toby Sycamore
Again I’m in London, and I’m back on the run,
And because I was grassed up before,
I need to stay undetected, so that nobody finds me,
I’m going to have to try more.

No-one can know that my real is Ben, and that I’ve ran away
from care,
Folk will be asking for me around Whitechapel, so it’s best
they think I’ve not been there.
So I speak a fake accent, a pretend East End cockney, from
the moment I wake up, until night.

For the whole next four months, with everyone that I meet,
just so I know that I’m alright.
Or else they might find me, when Old Bill ask questions,
someone might say, “I know him”.

So if everyone thinks that I’m from round here,
The chances I’m caught are quite slim.
One day plain-clothes police pulled me outside Victoria station,
asking people outside for spare change.

They were gonna release me, but decided they couldn’t, as I
was young and my story seemed strange.
The address that I gave, just didn’t exist, which I’d said in
my fake cockney voice.

And two-and-half hours later, they still wouldn’t release me,
I knew I did not have a choice.
“Hands up I’ve been caught, I’m not really from here”,
I said like I spoke when back home.

I thought they’d go mad, but in the end I was glad,
it all ended in humourful tone.
“You did have us fooled, we thought you were local,
it was just the address that you gave,
Which had made us suspicious, or else we would have
released you out onto your way.”

Well its more lessons learnt for the next time I guess, as I
wait to be brought home by escort.
If you need to stop for the bog, they’ll walk you right to
the door, but the lift home there’s time for some thought.
A few hours later I’m well on my way, and I know at least I’ll
get a warm bed.

Once I get back to the kids home where I live,
I’ll wash all my clothes and get fed.
But everyone knows that I’ll soon be back, via hitchhiking or
bunking the train.
And I’ll always choose a different way to get there; it may be
unwise to pick the same.

From Winnersh Triangle, Watford Gap, Oxford, Milton
Keynes,
I’m searching for my independence.
Nothing stops these dreams.

I know that I can make my way, back to find Joanne.
Just go the way they least expect, was usually my plan.
Often I would walk through town, through Pinner, St Johns
Wood.
As long as no-one knows I’m Ben, I’ll reckon I’ll be good.