The Peace Anthology – People against Genocide: Stop Chemical War in Syria. Save Humanity!

Different Truths presents The Peace Anthology – People against Genocide: Stop Chemical War. Save Humanity! It features 56 poets, with as many poems, from various parts of the world. These responsive, Social Journalist-Poets (a term unique to this Global Participatory Social Journalism Platform), have come together, to express their solidarity against the use of Chemical War in Syria. An exclusive initiative of Different Truths, headed by two well-known Anthology Editors, Michele Baron and Roula Pollard. We intend to carry forward this Humanitarian Mission forward, together with you all and others, who believe in this cause.

How beautiful are the feet Painting by Michele Baron — “How beautiful are the feet” Painting by Michele Baron

Editorials from the Anthology Editors and the Editor-in-Chief

Edit One

For eons, we have courted one another, in a pas de deux of nations, cultures, religions — a marriage of disparate and shared hopes and dreams, which we call civilization. We’ve tried, against all odds, to protect the fragile balance of individuality, while nurturing our aspirations to become something … greater — beyond the fear of losing self, reaching towards a freedom of recognition, tolerance, trust.

Instead, our global society finds itself, again, and still, in the midst of a struggle for ascendancy, for gain without fear of accountability, for power without fear of reprisal.

Always, it is our families at home, and our families-in-spirit, across this Earth we share, who suffer: our mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, friends — and all of Nature herself.

We struggle in the face of bereavement; we cry for peace beneath rivers of blood; we seek to find a universality of meaning which would enable us to communicate, to repair that humanity which inhuman violence has ripped asunder.

The genocide of Adolf Hitler, the horrors of Pol Pot’s “cleansing,” the massacres in Rwanda, the gassing, bombing, tortures and disappearances in Syria — bury us all beneath the ghosts of innumerable villified “others.” Are we to remain lost beneath the intolerable weight of the atrocities marring so much of our history?

Our future is drowning in the tears of terrified children, distraught parents, the elderly, whose world has imploded, leaving them without a country, without family, without hope.

The urgency of this time, the importance of raising each voice to prevent these monstrous crimes against humanity cannot be overemphasised.

In this anthology, each poet adds their words to a resounding refutation of the deadly shadow of genocide. In these pages, each poem becomes a beacon of reason, a light of truth and hope.

Let us follow the light home, to peace.

Michele Baron,

Anthology Editor

May 14, 2017

Edit Two

Since antiquity poets have always been against war. Aristophanes, play, “Peace” performed in 421 BC is one of the greatest witnesses against war. Aristophanes was the global media of his time.

What do poets, writers, artists, broadcasters, media men, politicians, report today about war?
How does the media influence public opinion? What do poets, the “unofficial legislators”, according to the English poet P.B. Shelley write, when war and famine threaten to turn the world upside down?

How do poets protest against war today? What do they hear and see on their televisions about the war?

Are they de-sensitised when they hear of the number of victims in the Syrian war? Are the poets of our global world de-sensitised when they hear that some 4,000,000 refugees have fled from the war in Syria?

Does the actual number of victims have any meaning to the global viewer? What do people think about the environmental consequences of the Syrian war?

What do poets think when they hear about chemical warfare? Do poets know how quickly the chemical gas Sarin can kill?

Whatever questions are asked about the Syrian war, one thing is certain.
Poets the world over are against war and think only of Peace.

Stop Genocide. Stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Building Peace is a serious project. Through our poetry we create peace.

It is time for Peace.

This anthology represents the voices of the poets the world over, writing for Peace in our world.

Roula Pollard,

Anthology Editor

May 14, 2017

Edit Three

Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone –
Man has created death.

~ Death, WB Yeats

How true is WB Yeats! The history of civilisation is a continuous account of warfare, treachery, self-interests, fanaticisms, Holy Wars, colonial expansions, freedom movements, terrorism. It is the history of mass murders and countless deaths.

The theatre of war has changed from a battlefield, where opposing armies clashed, limiting the loss of lives and limbs within its confines, to entire nations that became battlefields. Women, children, and elders always become targets of any clash.

Large scale chemical warfare was recorded during World War II, the greatest genocide in human history. It saw the emergence of gas chambers. It also witnessed the droppings of two Atom Bombs, which had names like ‘Little Boy’ (Hiroshima, Aug 6, 1945) and ‘Fat Man’ (Nagasaki, Aug 9, 1945). To this day, the effects of ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ are palpable.

Imagine such funny adorable names for the two A-Bombs! These are fun games for the death merchants.

The chemical war in Syria is the continuance of the legacies of the ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’. That’s the reason we chose the word ‘Genocide’. The history of mass murders and that of death is unending.

Different Truths, since its inception 17 months back, is alive to humanitarian causes. We are grateful to poet-song writer-artist Michele Baron (USA/Kyrgyzstan) and Roula Pollard (Athens, Greece). They graciously agreed to be the Anthology Editors. We thank Roula for advocating for the Anthology in various poetry groups. Michele edited 30 poems in this Anthology (Nos: 1 to 11, 22 to 38, and 54-55), while Roula edited 25 poems (Nos: 12 to 21 and 39-53).

Special mention has to be made of Michele. She allowed us to feature her painting of her video of a live concert performance, “How Beautiful are the Feet.” It is a painting she did, based on a photo of a child being carried from a bombing site. It is dedicated to those who endure violence and tragedy, and those who search for peace. Here’s the video:

The response to our prompt for The Anthology on Peace, within a short time, was overwhelming. Thanks are due to the fifty-five poets from various parts of the world for as many poems, in solidarity against the Chemical War in Syria.

Poets have been the voice of the people in times of distress and crisis. This explains the word ‘People’ against Genocide. Different Truths (DT) also joins hands with World Poetry Festival (WFP), in furthering the cause of Humanitarianism and Peace.

At the end of the anthology, there is a Humanitarian Appeal, signed jointly by our Managing Editor, Anumita Chatterjee Roy (DT) and Luz María López (WFP). All poets and readers of the Anthology may please sign for petitioning the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.

Let’s all resolve to carry forward the Torch of Peace and advocate for the end of chemical wars. Let not the ghost of death and destruction resurrect from the tomb of gloom.

Arindam Roy,

Editor-in-Chief,

Different Truths

May 14, 2017

—

Editorial Board

Michele Baron (Kyrgyzstan/USA)
Roula Pollard (Greece)
Arindam Roy (India)
Anumita Chatterjee Roy (USA)

#1. adrift

#2. Pity on I, We do not Lie

the war in Syria has killed us;

has everyone forsaken us?

how far can we cry?

only to lie that we need

such lie to die? to our eyes, i do not lie, yet—all you, in whose sight

i cry, what could have brought this? all lies, i cry, evil laugh at our sides, to die;

… have you seen those who died?

i questioned my sights

at right and left; they …say; they …laugh? or do they even, ever,

cry? pity not i…but to those who lie… we could cry and encourage

not to our sights; they questioned … all?

they don’t cry, even if we

cry at humanity, cry at those who cried, and beyond those …family;

…we die now…

peace? has gone to lie?

humanity — it, indeed, has died? …and to cry, do we enjoy this sight?

or do we stay at night? wondering and watching lies?

and, yet, cannot we deprive these sights?

..our hearts will be crushed by

the death of sights and the bombing

death… have they mastered only to be bewildered by

the agony of those who cry? i do not lie only to die

… but OUR hearts cry.

©Therese Carmel I. Huelar, Manila, Philippines

#3. I Stand Against War

Put it on national television, for everyone to see

With one deep breath against genocide, against all my worries,

I see it and it sickens me too

Subtlety is not a natural act of human consciousness, I whispered to myself,

patience blossoming from dread

A witness to the slow, fleeting genocide of stars

as they are burned out one by one

All went lame; all blind;

There was the stench of the dead,

And the dying look at the World with Open Eyes;

The children burn alive; they booby-trap the dead,

Angry scratches mar the wood in twisted lines

Because war is wrong

The art of war through the use of internal fighting

We are made from the same blood, and yet we are divided into nations

And boundaries lead me into this dark land

Life drains out more every day, but I only channel love in defence

I said You do not care, please Lord, I lied.

© Dr. Brajesh Kumar Gupta, Banda, India

#4. Wild Stream

whether

compassionate stream of tears will change

the face of human vision of the world

like a dry riverbed

not bring forth a life

same way the people will not give a birth

to The Man

who is absent within their souls still

Dr. Dariusz Pacak, Vienna, Austria.

#5. Entangled Shadows

(Dedicated to the war victims)

The misty farm is

in this inhospitable world of redacted virtues.

Plagiarism is sowed over the deserts that weep

and cry the sister’s shadows.

Some men protagonists, witnesses and accomplices,

lawyers of all the known devils

It is not that they feel the lack of war,

it is that they cannot live in peace

and they neither live, nor let to live, in peace with other men.

It divides in the Middle East the dawn:

in one part of the world victory is sung,

and in the other, the daybreak weeps

to the nostalgic drift of a reddish moon

painted during a satanic rite of allied men who ask for blood.

The wind of deep wounds lowers his eyes and wipes off his tears,

Doesn’t want to see how, through power,

a cloud of blind men ignore the principle of life —

opening the chronic and cruel human madness.

The exposed life is afraid of being drowned on the ground,

and the sky ruffled with fire horrifies the houses.

Repressed shame creates blue ghosts

that scream with the mouths of misfortune through a sea of pain,

for this death senses neither pity, nor piety

that limps with dark pettiness

… dragging the weight of all the futile violence

caused by the absurd splash

of a closed conscience that doesn’t ask questions

if the sky spits in open fire and the nightmares of stereotyped death.

©Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano, Bologna, Italy

#6 Promised Land

They looked up — crying for mercy?
No, they were searching for
the Promised Land,
That Luther had claimed
would one day exist on Earth.

Floating through clouds
on angel wings,
They were born to turn
dreams to promises.
Real as the sun and the moon,
But not as dark as deception
riding along human veins,
blackened by weapon-soot.

That Promised Land
Never happened on Earth.
Where truth would play no havoc
with blooming lives,
Where Sarin would not waft
through fragrant breeze,
choking bleeding hearts.

Those tiny feet would fly off today
to the real heaven.
Poisoned blood, numb limbs,
blue lips, helpless stares.
No laughter, no cries.
Sarin silenced them.
Sarin sealed the fate of a Promised Land.
Luther, your promise was never kept!

©Saheli Mitra, Kolkata, India

#7. It is not the Serene Selene, it is the Siren Sarin…

Man’s Odyssey reached Mars, now his death rays can reach every nook and corner,

His monster eyes became bigger than the earth with Cyclopean view disorder!

When Mother Nature spring surprises every day, man becomes jealous and panicky,

Unable to tolerate harmony and peace his greed perfects persecution of humanity… so finicky!

Adolf Hitler gassed and killed six million Jews, but he did not use Sarin in his homeland,

It is a man-made toxin, mixes easily with water and food; most volatile in nature its rapid effect!

The victim drowns in his running nose and watering eyes, small pupils cry in pain,

Vision blurs, sweat floods, chest tightens, cough thunders, all nine holes open in rain!

These organophosphate pesticides block the neuromuscular junctions with a scowl,

Muscle twitches, heart cries for air, headaches, convulsions crawl, paralysis prowl,

Breath-taking choking strikes; life’s candle slowly glimmers dark before the final howl!

What remains is the Death’s rattle for a minute or so, and the earth opens its grave-bowel,

These are the harbingers of Death – Hydrogen Cyanide, Phosgene, Mustard and Chlorine,

But tell me, who packs them into Honest John missiles, and Aum Shinrikyo’s liquid design?

All genocide obsessions and con-apocalyptic visions paralyze humanity’s progression!

On the graves of slain, tears and flowers flow in revision;

So soon forgetfulness sets in;

Life moves on!

(Sarin-GB is a lethal nerve gas)

©Lsr Prasad, Hyderabad, India

#8. People against Genocide

The ultimate truth is love

A nexus to be framed

Only love to be inculcated and digested

Wars are satanic weeds

People against genocide

Pray and submit to the Lord

He, alone, can save thy basic virtues

You are born to love

And dance in the valleys of love

Why these clandestine vices?

Say no to wars

Killings and contempt are only sins

Kill avarice with love

Innocents are pious souls

Do not murder them

Follow the Ten Commandments

Of love and light

Come out of the caves of darkness

Ecstatic merging with the Lord is awaiting

Ah coevals! Shine as protagonists

Of love and truth

We are against genocide

As we the children of God

Of an oceanic flow.

©Neelam Malik, Rohtak, Haryana, India

#9. Chemical Attack (Syria)

When they first dropped their bombs,

We all fled to our homes,

To gather up our babies,

The old and the infirm.

Then our throats started tingling,

Tears began running from our eyes,

A few brave men and women,

Shook their fists in defiance at the sky.

Explosions erupted everywhere,

Even through the already ruined streets,

Than Abbas, my neighbour,

Fell and died in agony at my feet.

My friend’s old grandfather,

Who had never done any wrong,

While praying in the mosque that day,

Choked to death before his son.

Fadilah’s little baby,

Was barely three months old,

One moment she was warm,

The next minute she was cold.

We know well their system,

We can see through all their lies,

After we counted up the bodies,

They still swore no one had died.

©John Fingleton (Löst Viking), Lambare, Paraguay

#10. Chemicals of War

Where chemicals of love and peace should be

Children gassed and dying

Crying

Innocent victims of

Man’s inhumanity to man.

Bombs falling

As humans sink

Lower

And lower.

Respect, consideration,

Love & Peace

Where are you now?

Another school shooting today

What are we seeing?

What are we teaching in our world?

What are we learning?

Are we learning?

Anything

Anything at all?

In our world,

In our school without walls

We see anger, hate & killing

Where we need love, compassion & peace.

So, take your pain

And paint your heART out

Write your poetry of peace

Sing your song of love

Dance your dance of happiness

May your Doves of Peace

Fly high eternally

And carry their message

Where good rises above evil

Where peace wins over war

Through the arts

Peace is the way

For all,

By all.

©Debora Gillman, Santa Cruz, California, USA

#11. Priam’s Lament

Hawks circling everywhere and butchering doves, reddening skies/earth.

Beware of the hawks roaming within/without. In the global market, war, hatred and terror— multi-billion dollar business promoted by big state players as part of foreign policy and containment. Hatred, the most potent weapon of its preachers. We are the perpetual Other for some groups; they, for us.

Stop!

The genocide everywhere. Powers that be. Stop the carnage, O Neros of the world! The use of chemicals—Sheer barbarism! Killing fields filled with torn limbs—sickening for the civilized! Increasing the blood-lust of the crazy fighters like a crazed Achilles, baying for more blood and violence, gloating over a dead Hector, carrying the dead body around the ramparts, in a most unheroic manner!

War!

Has it ever benefitted anyone, except the marauders, delivering chilling video messages

to a benumbed world? Their brutal version of cleansing; eliminating the enemy.

Chemicals deadly are now being used blatantly for murdering hapless citizenry caught in the conflict zones/ hotspots—not of their making; folks caught in the lethal web created by power-seekers in the name of purity of religion/nation… or elites trying to protect a bloody throne by ordering mass annihilation of their own! Madness, unchecked!

Innocents!

You massacre the citizens and derive virile gratification out of mass destruction of beings and land.

Hearken to my words, you foot soldier! You can wipe out cities through lethal methods but can never slay the idea of peace, harmony and brotherhood.

Shriller the cries for blood. Firmer the voices of love.

And it will triumph! Sanity over madness.

©Sunil Sharma, Mumbai, India

#12. People against Genocide

The victory you always claim, for your long stay

Stained with the blood of innocents, the world will display.

A misguiding meaning of religion for ideology, your share.

Manipulating sovereignty, to prolong dictatorship you dare.

How sanguinary you are! In the name of cheap revenge

An aerial dropping of chemical weapons is not wise to avenge.

Beheading of innocent infants is too extremists’ brutal reality.

All of us must condemn such a hideous crime against humanity.

Indeed, two evil spirits are really enough, so clear

To ruin humanity, brotherhood and world peace.

No ground of morality left for both of you

To justify your atrocities. Humanity bleeds.

One who enjoyed to bathe in the river of blood

Will be swept away by a flood of million tears.

The voice of solidarity for humanity is so clear.

It’s time to wake up and unite to wash away evil’s dears.

Everyone digs his own grave before he really dies

How fearful life is! To feel the breath of inevitable death

In the grip of civil war, beneath the shade of cruel death.

In his own native land, he lives a life of exile until he dies.

Oh, it is enough. Enough. Red line beyond the limit of tolerance.

Be conscious of the root cause of civil war and terrorism.

Raise voice against genocide through chemical like Sarin.

Create a sense of solidarity against terrorists’ attacks.

Be afraid of the wrath of Almighty that you always pray.

Think, the tree of atrocity never bears fruits of compassion.

Let us replace hatred by dedicated love and affection.

Be merciful and empathetic to refugees around you.

Someone is watching from above to reward you…

A spirit of Enlightenment and ultimate celestial Joy.

©Tulsi Shrestha, Kathmandu, Nepal

#13. To Syria: With Vengeance

Gasping for breath

Bewildered souls

Questioning their fate

Asks a child to his mom, “What makes them bomb us today?”

Looking up at the smoke-filled sky and the debris laden earth

The mother thinks, “What vengeance is being fulfilled and by whom?”

Answerless questions fill their minds

As a new air strike marks the dawn

A brother pulls the lifeless body of his baby sister

Another day passes by when nothing changes in Syria

Has the world gone mute or blind or is blood of the innocent

Just another reason for posting a status on Facebook.

©Sehar Siddiqui, Allahabad, India

#14. Syria, do you hear the Heaven Cries!

Don’t think somebody is there

in this crazy world of hate!

Me, I can not

write about love, fever of lust, nectar of spring nature,

hearth filled with pleasure,

smiling youth in morning coffee,

extendable dining table for dinner…

I cannot!

Dreams tortures me,

uninterruptedly I do see blood,

sweaty, feelings roam, is blazing the sky,

due to you, children, pregnant women, families groan!

Continues the Chemical Attack

see, suicide of the Honorary Woman,

damn it, what shall I say to conscience!

your train of Throne has no mercy,

Lucent is hate in your genes,

powerful, ruthless peels innocents!

Not far from your consciousness, poison, murder, rape, occurs

burning is Syria, take care, are children headless,

in two separated in limbs,

weeping soul, feelings shake, goose,

I do shudder, I pray for you,

Syria, in ash you are,

Ancient Pearl in blood and fire

gas is burning your descendants,

THEY, they, they poured out their anger and hatred accumulated

in a dirty politics…

Please no more, Wars, Please…

©Tyran Spahiu, Prizren, Kosova

#15. Let me Live!

Say, when I was born on Earth, it was declared not

That I would be its Queen, that I would have sole right over it

That I would decide over everything about it

From the food that my brothers and sisters would consume

To the faith they would revere!

Pray, I was born, like you, like everyone else

I was born, in a world, which belongs to us all,

While, at the same time, which belongs to none of us!

And you are like me; when you were born

It was proclaimed never that you would have the right to be its

King or its Queen

As to have the power to decide the life choices of your many brothers and sisters!

Like my siblings, I am free, like them, I seek freedom

I thirst for it, for I am a mere moth, I fly around in my own microcosm

And get overwhelmed when I see the mysterious blinding light of our existence

So, pray, let me live, let me paint my life on a wall

Let me weave my dreams from their beginnings to their ends

Let me write of my journeys, of my falls and my uprisings

Let me articulate my songs, whether sad or rhythmic

Let me be, yes, let me bloom, let me wilt, let me do as I wish!

By killing me, by killing me and my kin, you shall not achieve much

You shall still not be proclaimed King or Queen of this world

You shall still meet with your end, like me, like everyone else!

Say, when I was born on Earth, I did not really know what to expect

Except that I thought I would jump in exaltation when my feet would touch the soil

I thought I would feel the thrills of my senses’ responses

But I expected not having to fear for my life

To pray to be allowed to see tomorrow

To hope to survive, and to keep envying those who are free!

©Anoucheka Sweety Gangabissoon, Mauritius

# 16. Complement

Fusing the colour of my skin to yours,

Smooth the friction of coldness.

From dreams in high places,

Between caresses or verses of evil.

Whoever was the indiscreet moon?

Pasting its brightness everywhere,

Presumed, radiant and without pride,

Its radiance does not judge the dawn.

There is the sun so opposed to the moon,

Complements the beginning and the end,

Of the blond day and the dark night

Entangled in time and wind.

The bow of daisies among rose bushes.

Struggling to change celestial beings.

The aurora boreal full of spirits,

Falling at dusk, transforming your new being.

It’s the green nature, gentle princess

Perfect between seasons, with no lessons or expectations.

And so within the Earth, its colours will defend,

So the skins and the different faces,

Multiply the goods of yesterday.

Of today and forever, beautiful life, beautiful penitent.

Accept the days, their colours and different shine.

I am human, lover of life.

Goodness will be reborn in hearts of darkness.

Without stopping the arrow that divides love.

Infinite melody, sweet at night, honey by day.

©Sandra Ssarmiento, Los Angeles, California, USA

#17. Mistress

I am a contemporary poet

mistress of the revolution

I write my poems and ideas

as short fragments

from my soul

flows a river of words

shameless

with no other borders than

time

space

the past is mine

the future is yet to gain

if I do not fight

I lose myself in verbal sculptures

and deluded images

of a falsely illustrated reality.

Navigating among thousands of words

I will still be writing in a void

of dried up tears

indifference.

©Marian Eikelhof, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

#18. Tell Him

I was sleeping, mama

They thought I was awake

I was sleeping, mama

I didn’t any trouble make

Why did they gas me, mama

What did I do to them?

I was always a good boy mama

I never called anyone a name…

No school no playground no park

No kites no balloons no ball

I didn’t complain to anybody,

I didn’t complain at all…

You said it will be fine mama

You said it’ll be okay

After this crazy dirty war

There’ll be a clear light of day!

I wasn’t going to tell you this

The gas has burnt my tongue

But you should know just what I want

And what really went all wrong!

He hasn’t heard your prayers mama

He hasn’t heard, your god.

His lights aren’t shining fair mama

And I think that’s very odd!

Just tell him I’ll not seek him now

Tell him I’m just gone

The brains he gave the human race

Are now trained to kill his son.

The unlived years, the dreams I dreamt

The wishes unfulfilled

Tell him it’s a human face

That the lot of us had killed!

©Nilakshi Roy, Thane, Maharashtra, India

#19. Free them O’ God!

Free them O’ God!

For, the wind is spewed with ashes of hatred,

The bilboes that wait to bangle the innocents,

Hauling them down the barbed streets,

And caging them up, to blaze in iron aviaries.

Free them, O’ God!

For the ocean is not thirsty anymore,

It is full till its gullet, quaffing in pints the viscous gore,

Sluicing out from the naive skulls,

And from the distressed hems of their hearts.

Free them O’ God!

For the sod is no longer bleak,

It has drenched itself in the guileless claret,

Flushing out from their green dead ingenuous veins,

And sloshing about under its skin.

Free them O’ God!

For the day doesn’t know, for whom to wake up,

When merry-go-rounds and slippery slopes,

Are becoming the roller coaster rides to deaths,

And the juvenile paper crowns breed orphans.

Free them O’ God!

For even the night hasn’t slept for years,

The sounds of tormented voices, in the lap of gunshots,

Are hovering and echoing in its ears,

Making it stone deaf in every midget of seconds.

Free them O’ God!

Free them all!

Free your pure and guiltless mortals,

What sins have they sowed?

That you are making them plough for!

©Nayanika Dey, Durgapur, West Bengal, India

#20. Standing against Violence

The sky is grey,

The bombs and guns fill

in the air,

Nature’s beauty is stained

by barbarous bloodshed,

Hopes, dreams and freedom

are smashed within seconds

Men, women, and children

Each of them has a heart,

Each of them has a soul,

Mental peace,

Protective love,

Blissful joy

are the birthrights of each

So, selfish, disillusioned killers,

Please don’t snatch their rights,

their needs,

Please put an end to

the unjustified hatred,

the fruitless violence

My Poetic Voice

will keep on shouting,

“Please stop,

Please stop,

Please stop,”

until you really stop.

©Vatsala Radhakeesoon, Mauritius

# 21. I’m Indifferent to Genocide

We dream as long as we breathe in.

We cease to live in this world’s inn,

The moment we falter in loving our song,

Walking shadows are we with the only bond.

Dreams! She murmurs, and to me, she

Flings a surprised look, inexplicable to me.

Suddenly I return from trance to reality.

I see her no more in my eye custody.

Kill, kill and kill the innocent, the humanity.

Life to me seems precious, I fear when I see

The rich bombing the child, young and old.

The news of genocides makes me only cold.

She reappears before my mental eyes.

She with her tears loves me to rise,

And whispers to my right ear “come out,

And do what you want those killers to trout”.

Terror’s hatred needs to be wiped out.

But not at the cost of the innocent.

Nature flows in its way and all we greet,

Avoiding nations in nasty bloody teeth.

She then smiles oblique at me and echoes,

“Let us all see the civilisation’s end!

Be blind to writhing pain, people in Syria

Suffer and in some other parts of world!”

©Basudeb Chakraborti, Kolkata, India

# 22. Dyed Conscience

Earth to earth, dust to dust

we are bound to blend.

Yet when conscience dyed soldiers

under conscience dead leaders

crush life out of masses

like juice out of cherry,

it sickens the very soul!

Lucky are the dead in a way,

they are not in pain anymore.

The ones with wounds

that bleed are lucky too,

their wounds have cures.

Those that do not bleed

are the ones doomed;

their wounds are soul deep

no therapy heals that deep

They are doomed to ache, for aye,

under a psyche scarred deep;

the gaping eyeballs of the startled Dead

pop up in their sleep.

That wretched stare of Death

be it from ally or adversary,

civilian or soldier, defies erasure!

War is the mother of all evils

father of all lies!

Swaggering arrogance of nations

massacres Innocence

with mother of all bombs!

Let us kill War the Killer,

with swords of words!

©Elsy Satheesan, Angamaly Kerela, India

# 23. Stop this Genocide

Billions of dollars are being spent

To look for life in other planets

And trillions spent to kill life

On this one.

Stop this war, stop this genocide,

With hearts parched, terror-etched faces,

Blowing rings of hope,

In the midst of despair, nursing a dream to find the dead alive,

Among bomb blasts and the furies of war.

The cacophonies and atrocities around us

Are engulfing us alive, crying for mercy.

How long will the blood of martyred sons

Write the History of the world?

How long will scheming puppeteers

Play with the strings of chemical weapons?

Look around … look at Syria,

The cry of mothers, loud and clear,

Asking world leaders to stop war,

Asking poets to write about peace,

And musicians to play the tunes of love.

Look at the volcanoes sending ash

Billowing up to five kilometers,

The huge forests burnt with the force of fire,

The fury of the winds, the waters

With their powers submerging all.

Mother Nature is revolting,

She is saying,

Make peace,

Stop this genocide.

©Pramila Khadun, Mauritius.

# 24. The Choice is Ours

mankind skirts the fringes of insanity and

tiny brittle wings — incidental fodder of barbarism —

collapse before they learn to fly

ridiculous violence — innocent blood —

not yet aware of life and they are dead!

Death does not distinguish — it only extinguishes

that maimed origami bird is crumpled courage

wedged helpless between the parentheses of fears

tongue knotted, conscience contorted

that’s us— crouching under self-preservation—

macabre skulls with the eyeless stares question:

Why this furtive silence? Speak!

immature reactions inflame terror’s tandav, so come

let us choose instead to celebrate our sacred inner core—

enduring, undying — unifying all of the humanity

dipping into its purity, learn to widen our sphere

of inclusion. Together we’ll embrace ‘lovingkindness’…

be the flutes that waft the songs of love and peace

rooted in our centre — part of the whole — let us

pay homage to the Divine Spark in all

and interconnected, expand the web of oneness

©Shernaz Wadia, Pune, India

# 25. Father of Syria

‘Stay here quiet for a while’

The father had told his girl with a smile,

The day had been usual, a Syrian kind,

Some people were starving, some looked desolate, almost dying,

But the father till then that didn’t mind,

And then just a sudden jolt, a cry,

What did come swooping, a drone? A fly?

‘Gas!’ someone yelled, ‘bomb!’ cried another,

Down the street ran the father,

He had left his little one, only daughter,

Besides the shop, beneath a tree,

The smoke couldn’t make him see,

What was happening and why?

But he heard surely her cry!

Minutes passed like moments of shock

The buildings had turned into rubbles of rock

And mortar and debris of bricks,

The father from the dust his daughter picked,

She was gasping, was not she?

The father in the smoke couldn’t see,

People he saw running like ghosts,

Sooty, grey, figures unrecognizable most,

And he picked his daughter up,

Was she breathing? Or had she stopped?

The way to the hospital looked miles away,

The father with the girl in arms in dust swayed,

Many more like him had been there too

Totally taken aback, without any clue,

Thousands of miles away in conference rooms

The modern kings and queens

Saw ‘live’ those pictures of doom

And conjectured and debated over the crisis,

Who had done so? Rebels or terrorists?

Meanwhile the Syrian father with daughter in arms

Ran through smoky dusty street

Not knowing to whom really his girl caused harm.

©Moinak Dutta, Kolkata, India

# 26. Because Syria Deserves it

The time knows everything, He spend the bill. I wanted to live my way, The suture being due.

The world needs Peace, And not of men of war, The tyrant is rapacious, He expects his prey better.

Let us unite for good, For the sake of the Countries, Always, without looking at who, Remembering the roots.

BECAUSE SYRIA DESERVES IT, And the countries of the world, For this the dictator perishes, For a more fruitful world.-

©Uberfil Viera, Uruguay

# 27. The Sidewalk has two Faces

To my dear Syrian friend Sahar Eid al – Nukayel, with love

Lustreless is this jasmine in the day darkness

It sews up the wounds of the city

Asking about the Damascus sparrows

How are they liking the war?

The street that goes through the neighbourhood

Is sad…

It has no window through which clouds overlook,

It has no balconies on which birds sing,

No neighbour to knock at the door … no cat to taste the ink…

The war-torn roads cry with the departed

… and for the betrayers.

The sidewalk has two faces

One for history and culture … One for falseness and treason

The poisoned dagger mocks Trees … Winds … And rains …

It approaches the bereaved expectations

The fornicating death praises destruction

And this child lying on the beach will inevitably come back to his classroom

…to the warmth of his mother, as she waters the morning with taste of flowers

O Damascus … You are missed by the dream … Betrayed by the night … And lovers.

Caravans of grass and wild bobwhites are crying;

The cloudy homeland is passing by Zenobia

Reassuring her about the sun

… And the names.

The salts of time are brim-full of corpses

Cutting the strain of clouds

“Kamanjas”

The poem

The news broadcast

**©Belhoudi Moufida, Translated by John Henry Smith, Tunisia**

# 28. Stop the Genocide

Oh! Stop this merciless mass killing

of the innocents, bodies buried under

Collapsed buildings and iron doors!

You can hear the feeble cry of the dying!

For God’s sake

Drop your guns, knives and bombs

Stop this brutal act of yours

Why you want a world without peace

Are you happy to see the motherless

Are you happy to see the homeless

Are you happy to see the poor little children writhing in pain

With empty stomachs and naked bodies?

Do you enjoy the gang-rape of young girls who have been dreaming of a home?

Don’t you have a heart?

For mercy’s sake drop the guns

And turn your eyes to the Creator

You have no right to kill

You have no right to turn the world

Into a hell of corpses

Stop terrorising and killing

For the sake of peace!

Light a lamp in your unkind hearts

Let the love flow out of you

To show the world you are transformed

Into great men of honor and love

© Sarala Balachandran, Kolkata, India

# 29. Why? Oh! Why?

To dominate, you decide — every truth, every lie

Destroy, annihilate, jeopardise human life

An undreamt nightmare eyes watch…

As bombs and missiles disintegrate and torch

Temples, churches, castles and homes…

Mindlessly on graveyards roam

Like ghosts and ghouls, souls their own

Enslaved prisoners of their own mind

Brothers inhuman…shrewd, unkind

Wake up under the fallen sky

An arcade of Tron, wizardly vibe

Use anything to kill, biological weapons to cyanide

Enjoy the pain in the eyes …as people die

Killed them, why for fame, gain or fun

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan

Senseless Caligula or Chinese Chairman?

Bigoted, crooks and mercenaries

Indulge in fraudulence and treachery

You say, there will come a better day

Then why today, hundreds of children lay

In a pool of blood…in hatred that slays?

Your hatred you vent on progeny innocent

Subject them to unjust treatment

You can deny, but can you hide

The ruthless act of genocide?

For ages nothing has changed, nothing will

Until ambitions soar only on wings of good will.

© Nandita Samanta, Kolkata, India

# 30. People against Genocide

See the Syrian chemical war,

With the raise of at least

80 bloodsheds per week so far.

The mass of victims are the innocent kids;

Before the war, they used to laugh, and play,

And blink from their petals of soft eyelids.

During wars, children, women, and elders

Are the worst affected.

They are forced to be nomads, and we look at them

From eyes seeing the suspected.

As the conflict enters its 7^th year of discord,

Approximately 465,000 Syrians have been killed—and the rest have lost their dignity of concord.

The rebels have barbarically killed each lively zeal,

As if such ill-breeds have neither mercy nor ability to feel.

Due to lack of freedom and economic woe, the future growth rate is so slow;

With much of Syria laid in ruins, one thing is certain—there is no sigh of significant progress.

Rebuilding the nation, after the war ends, will be a lengthy, extremely difficult process.

The situation today reveals each new blunder;

The new rebellion groups again wanna thunder.

Who has given these inhumans the right to sow the seeds of separations?

They have kept their country among the list of world’s most hated nations.

Let’s protest against the merciless killings,

The decayed bodies not cremated due to thoughts of heinous fillings

Let our voices be heard,

Not ignored.

Let’s raise this issue, to have

A potent weapon

Of accord

©Durgesh Verma, Varanasi, India

# 31. A Cry of a Syrian Child

O! America

Stop this brutal and inhuman action against humanity

Don’t destroy the innocence of my childhood,

Don’t ravage my sleep, filled with dream of peace

O! the barbarians! stop this chemical war

Stop destroying my motherland

Look at me,

The biscuits of my share

Have been shattered into shards

By the bomb blasts,

Hunger bursts like explosives,

Between my chest and stomach

The pieces of lamentation have stuck

Into my throat,

They are neither swallowed nor gorged

Look for a while to this side…here,

There cling to bare soles of my feet

Exhaustion of intense explosives

Being rained for years,

On the wilderness of my motherland,

And the iron-kites are constantly

Flying over my head,

And I am empty-bellied.

O! America

In my lap, I have sterile earth of my land

And the pieces of exploded missiles.

What will you give me,

Against this drabbed earth and rubble of missiles and chemicals?

No…..Nothing….

But my innocence, beats of hearts, smiles, dreams,

Books, copies, pencils, classrooms, Desks, chairs, playgrounds,

Wings of butterflies, my fellows, families colours of flowers,

And the entire “peace”

Can you give me back all this

Which is still breathing under the ruins of my motherland.

©Ayub Khawar, Lahore, Pakistan

# 32. Syria in the Blood

Cry, bloody planet Earth, cry

Bloody Syria sleeps not in my eyes

False guardians of democracy are poisoning her…

They smell of Coke, burger, and fries

Syria does not sleep, she watches day and night

… She smells of gunpowder

She sings and cries to the sound of bombs

Shrouded in clouds of smoke

Hardened warriors, please, stay away from greed

And build not your happiness and fortune in other’s blood;

Bring the love, joy, and prosperity –

Then, finally, can begin the era of love and equality

Every man has the same right to life

… it is Crime to deprive him of that right in anyone’s name

My poem has been raped before it began

They read the poem but did not read me, and it hurts them

Syria, walk to freedom

In their gunpowder and bombs, there is no democracy

Just greed, wrapped with cellophane lies

And their promises are big, colorful lies

Syria, those who do not love you as they love their mothers

That from their graves curse in their gluttony and ferocity

Those who on the blood of innocents, and seizures of other peoples

Build their fortress in the name of the Creator of worlds

In the name of false democracy…

Defiantly send them the message of freedom

Syria, march in unison for the freedom

My poem and I march with you

… the True and peaceful world is on our side

©Ibrahim Honjo, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

# 33. Monster of the Deep

The monster came from the deep, mother,

his eyes were fire-balls

that rolled and seared the tree-tops

and still burned

until they burnt all.

He clawed the sky in angry rage,

and the clouds, till they bled;

blood was dripping all around

till all turned red.

Red was the colour of the leaves,

the petals of white flowers

turned red in the garden, too,

in the April showers.

He strode in boots fitted with nails

dug deep in reddish clay,

his voice boomed, like aeroplanes

that towards the earth did spray

death, that filled, mother,

the air with acrid smells

of pain, loss, the deepest sorrows

of births and betrayals.

©Tirthankar Das Purkayastha, Kolkata, India

# 34. Peace

Peace is my passion, the thing I extol … Linked in its fashion, my soul to your soul

Peace is my mission, the thing I impart,

Brought to fruition, my heart to your heart

Peace is my measure

The thing I pursue,

Greatest of treasure the world ever knew

Peace is my story,

The thing that I share…

Gladness,

And glory,

As near as my prayer

©Richard Doiron, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

# 35. Like Auschwitz

Auschwitz could be anywhere.

Plans and ideas are waiting in people’s minds.

It only needs time and a little-barbed wire.

It is enough to close the sky above the earth,

Extinguish hopes, break the rainbow.

Atomic suns will brighten again

with burning rays of death.

Choking dust of hatred will blow in everywhere.

The sown wind will stir up the sandy storms.

The Great War about everything and about nothing.

Losers, winners

©Alicja Maria Kuberska, Inowrocław, Poland.

# 36. Befallen Life

For some of us,

Life befell

Behind the barbed wire.

There, Numbers were born

— worked,

— died,

and death?

often visted not only

in bath.

Everyone

wearing

striped, dirty suits

could have befallen —

Life.

**©Eliza Segiet, Translated by Marta Szara–Turton, Kraków, Poland**

# 37. Butcher

Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?

You, who used to play soccer together,

Excitement from the huge and vibrant kites in the sky!

A mother used to feed you with the same fondness of affection;

How could you target the nozzle of the gun?

Who set an impermeable layer in your eyes?

There are roaring armed convoys patrolling the streets with noses upward

Bombs shower, like torrential downpours from the sky

There is not even one tiny space to hide…

The lungs fill with smoke and dust of the debris.

Mother’s silent body is under the wreckage of the walls and roofs.

The hands of the babies emerge from beneath her chest with a desperate desire to live.

The torn body flies like a burned piece of paper.

Come back, and see — no one is the enemy!

The blood is warm, the exact same color as yours.

Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?

A merciless butcher, without any sympathy

Takes the life away

Are you one of them?

Are you

Really

One of them?

©Tuwa Noor, Buckingham, Florida, USA.

# 38. In Your Rivers, Chopping are the Clouds

In your rivers chopping are the clouds,

O Lilith,

The thirst of orchards abandoned

In the bends of the night sheets

O Averse, you are rage

In the terrain of the chest caged…

Your figs are not yet ripened

On the branches of rebellion.

In the table of desire

The spark of fire hits the breast,

And you melt temptation

From Adam’s rib.

O Dancer on the lust of infatuation,

Melodies

In my books, baptized with rain

Of the spells of appetite

… Pour your strongest perfume

In the tumbler of imagination

… The sparrows, imprisoned in my dreams,

Are looking for your cooing

For the pulsing radiance in the prayers of the lips

And the spilled, sighing inhalation awakens

The oblations in the dark

… a Pain moaning for your forest, that widely opens the trunks of her leaves

… Fertilizes Roots decayed by the waiting mites

And drinks hunger from

The arroyos

… loved

By oblivion

**©Kareem Abdullah, Translated by John Henry Smith, Baghdad, Iraq**

# 39. After the Bomb

Why have you brought me here?

My knees are concrete now

Head of straw

Arms hang uselessly

And wait to be commanded

Why did you bring me here?

To this field of blackened and contorted rice

Dirt-shrouded pastel, cowering beneath a wasted sky

Where no wind blows on napes of necks

Why have you brought me here?

To view what, this stifling month,

Laid bare, at last, the confidential message

Cracked earth, devoid of life and water,

Of all choices and direction

What now? To spit and see

Perhaps an aged worm convulse

The fool: I hear, a child’s echo sighs

And asks the age-old question… simply, why?

©Dr Ian Hale PhD, Bristol, England

# 40. Stop the Destructive War

Amid silent cold bodies,

Lying on the red soil

I search my father’s earthly frame

Whose fingers I grasped

While running with his slow steps;

His ears that to my silent breaths counted

Now remain deaf to my cry.

Somewhere must have hidden my mother

Under the dark cloudy sky,

No star is present to tell me

The address of her whereabouts.

Alas, my brother,

Lying in the bed of red rocks,

Being cold and motionless,

Reposes for eternity,

Scornfully avoiding my invitation

To play the colourless game with me.

I, having lost all,

In the darkness,

With the rage of war struggle

And pray to stop the destructive war

Whose dark shadow

To my weeping heart penetrates every second

And compels my sobs

To break the dreadful silence of moor.

© Alok Mishra, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, India

# 41. Manmade Madmen’s Hell

Bombs with chemicals launched to kill

As if missile shots were not enough

Screams and blood, death of innocent

Mutilated pile babies sans breath

Mothers reduced, rendered childless

Children orphans and homeless

Gory scenes, cut throat massacre

Madmen causing slaughter macabre

Heaven’s crying blood where you created hell

Who’s given you the right for bloodshed?

Came here we not to become kings

Albeit to lend hands to all beings

For good, you were born not genocide

Wake up and stop this fratricide

Or you will burn in your own hell

Here and now ere you reach true hell

# 42. Genocide 101: This is how you do it

The Boys… a can of paint, a school wall.

“Death to the Doctor” they spray

But Death likes to choose its own.

Words are nothing, something,

everything, argue fathers, politicians,

police. Mother’s weep. Sons trussed

up like chicken, electric wires

swung like whips on wet bodies.

A boy shudders at fifty twitches per second.

A nation twitches in groups of tens,

then hundreds and thousands.

People find a voice in Spray paint.

The Militia… such is our loyalty that even

our feet march to the beat of the President’s

heart. We will not stop at anything.

Some things are never questioned.

We just follow directions, pave the streets

with blood and bones, we do our duty. We know

tricks with rope, with guns, with bombs.

The President… a man is born to be

President, like father, before him.

This is something we Syrians understand.

No! We do not kill. The boys are

sleeping, the girls giggling a moment

ago. We just gouged out the eyes

to help them dream right, sent a cleansing

smoke down little-girl-throats.

Now their laughter has decorum.

The World… turns its face away.

It, too, believes in Decorum.

# 43. A Montage of Frozen Cries

The curtain rises

The show begins

The lights are dim

The music is loud

Heartbeats accelerate

Breathing intensifies

A sinister tango of Eugenics begins

Welcome to Idlib!

All routes to hell are open.

A howl of flames

A debris of torn muscles

Bodies damp with blood

Every inch of cubic air

Rinsed in chemical gas

A baby’s bottle rolls with a clatter

Unnoticed in the clamor

“Don’t push”, shouted the White Helmets

A thousand individuals become one entity in terror

Easy for Death to harvest.

III

“The enemy must be a magician”, gasped my son

Foaming at the mouth, covered in vomit

“How come, son?”

“Because everyone around is vanishing!”

Narratives entwined around my rib-cage

Saved for peaceful climes

Flow out of my blood stream

Punctured by shrapnel

My spasming limbs know the truth

My stories will never be heard.

# 44. How much can be Life?

A failure brings a success

a hand wash on the other

and vice versa

The night carries the day in his back

The mornings wash smoked windows of the time

and vice versa

You do not know which fills you:

overnight with billions of stars

or a day in which you don’t know

what surprises await you…

We were born from Nothing

and the nothingness has made fruit

and makes the fruit until it is

destroyed

until origins…

How wonderful can be life!

How wonderful can be life?

How much can be life?

and how much can be a miracle?

# 45. The Cachinnating Dead

A sudden transmutation – witnesses a usual day

in no time

A young tifla smiles last

sound, smoke and smog all together

or the pea-soupier, the chlorine clinched Mosul-

Err…the interflow of Sarin, the nerve agent,

fills the Ghouta’s hemoglobin

with toxic shadows, scribbling bodies or zombies…

The nascent smile beyond the complexities

of such molecular structure or manual intermixture

wriggles, pants, and squirms in pieces, scatters-n-perches,

on the wings of the cloud -mushroomed on the ash-blonde ground-

Now an elderly silhouette rushes towards her limbs

her navel experiences some seeds of repercussions and sprouts

in a gas chamber vaulted with thousands of yell and yelp

recently released vaginal fluid can’t satisfy

her escape from the potent phosgene reek

before the onset of Simoom, the chocking ambiance seems ready

to enwrap the slithering souls wooing for

filling up the trenches near the Galilee sea

the Mediterranean’s abysses disseminate

the chemical menaces across the shores

keeping the generations dragooned into walking down with the dead

# 46. Together with Syria

It drowns in bitter torment

The moment is gone,

As if to stop thinking about tragedies,

Blood looks redder,

The feeling has no equal,

Death peeps out, and the light goes away.

Feels so cold, the bullet lost,

Crosses boundaries, the fused verse

In pain is the same, people who cry,

Children who die.

Get up Syria, there are much more,

Dreams must be achieved,

Let’s make peace, let’s make a family.

Cheer up, friend, come now,

Be patient neighbour, the war ends,

The poet, another verse will do.

The wind has to carry it,

And your heart must feel it.

Arise Syria, it will all be over,

We will be victorious, beyond

the madness that harasses you.

Lift up Syria, I am with you.

# 47. Through the Eyes of an Outsider: The World we Live in

As an outsider, I fail to understand why

Our world is becoming an apocalyptic age,

Ruled by violence, ignorance, and rampage

An age where our holy ground is walked by the feet of

Cool-blooded monsters that we’ve fed under our own skins,

The monsters responsible for all the killings, hatred, rapes, shame, and such sins!

As an outsider, I fail to understand why

We live in a world standing on bricks of cruelty and shame.

The world in which countless mothers and their children are being killed and maimed,

The world where we are constantly finding someone to blame,

And constantly living in a fear of being defamed

As we vain in emotion,

And refrain from figuring out a solution!

As an outsider, I fail to understand why

We all are hurting each other,

And destroying our hopes and dreams,

That we fought so hard to build

Why are we pretending to make love and peace?

While the blood is draining down the streets,

With all the chemical weapons and explosives kept secretly,

And no action was taken by the black-suited elites!

As an outsider, I feel the pain and grief,

In the hearts of broken mothers and

Tears of the unborn souls.

So we shall pledge to stand together in dignity and civility,

And keep from prejudice and bigotry!

As we pray for those hurt lives to thrive,

And welcome with open arms, the lost families of the deceased,

To last, but not the least, our love feast!

# 48. Strawberries are Red

Strawberries are red,

So is the blood.

The child knew it’s their favourite.

“They will come after yours”

He had heard his mother cry,

Moments before it was a Big Bang.

They consumed Thucydides

And tricked us into

The ornate God – the need to destroy.

A carnival of chemicals,

Apportioning nature of a voluntary abortion.

But this is not the first time;

The Greeks, the Romans have tasted Syria’s virginity,

and impregnated too,

Unlike our new anti-deluge,

They call it a cure for humanity.

The children drink menstrual blood,

From the remnants of their toy gun;

The dust convert the lynching storm,

It’s dispersed all over,

Awaking Kannagi among every being.

It’s our breasts burning,

We too know the secret of Thucydides.

They too will burn

Like the bacteria of our womb;

They too will smell blindness

And crave to be our little children

Eating strawberries.

# 49. Splintered Mirror

Helpless Gods mutely watch

Massacring minds

Nobody truth admits

Breath now poison

Religion divides

All peace dies

Forgotten months nine

Pain and sacrifice

Might is right

Children dead

Man inhuman degenerate

Genocide

Man inhuman degenerate

Children dead

Might is right

Pain and sacrifice

Forgotten nine months

All peace dies

Religion divides

Breath now poison

Nobody truth admits

Helpless Gods mutely watch.

# 50. Shame of my Skin

Spites’ of hands pulled it; in,

out, beneath. Questions were

all that remained; for the

spoken words were heard by silence itself…

the flora of those lips did

not bleed! That was a ballad

of freedom, Syria.

they did not die; only

mirrors slapped the mirrors and

guns killed guns.

So, now are you done

for? Syria! Or undone in the

prudence of the empty?

Now, I can’t look at you;

the clatter of smokes

a shame of my skin,

my tears; my very shape,

and there would be a

remaining mirror, me of

myself, and an unsound

from the pieces of a forsaken glass!

# 51. Life, Meant to Live

Life was meant to live,

not die by venomous thoughts

plunging gaseous murkiness in life

destroying lives meant to live,

not depart.

Life was meant to grow, to bloom,

not soak in a poisonous aura of gloom.

Lives not created by man yet, killed

by a vicious act deviating from the divine;

a traumatic loss – yours and mine.

As every nerve twitched

rebelling to live;

As every breath struggled

to make one last attempt to survive

a chemical shadow plunged existence

into un-atoneable despair.

Learning to live,

learning to survive

without hatred, without chemical war.

Protesting against a disgustingly cruel act

of vengeance that only bleeds!

# 52. A Plea for Peace

The ruptured wings are rattling to set free

a fragmented lap of maternity is awaiting thee

a deserted soil demanding sprinkle of sea

many famine faces are drafting plea for thee

and diluted hearts are surging for bunches of love

A plucked flower is calling thee

from the land of war

offspring are fostering and festering hand to hand

all fascist and narcissist are bounding as a bond of colour

rivals are musing to plea for peace

and prosperity in the centre of the earth

when you away from this mother earth

All suffered from callous disease and dearth

all ascetic and theist praying through carcass city and beyond the nexus

to uphold heads high and rivulets dignity

so come to us with the message of fraternity

let us be blessed for the eternity of humanity

# 53. Maniac Storm

My tongue-tied; hold still

And found rest from fight…

The shamed spirit in me

Assailed the last scene in my sight

Sweet seasoned storm storms souls

Subjecting our existence to a naked whole.

The last scene my eyes could fix

Blurred as my eyes birthed tears

But you! You maniac, whose faces I can see,

Please! Before I die

Let me say my last prayer

So the Angel that bore me will hear

Dance of my soul as I assail to the world beyond.

My hungry eyes still wink in fullness

While my sorrowful soul searches for forgiveness

Alhamdullahi…. But nay! Blood births my sight

With shadow of shade’s* ankle dancing like okoto*,

And Aminat’s** blood like fresh palm oil begging for a price.

My soulless-soul boils like 100-degree centigrade water!

Now, the interests in death now appear

The sweet-seasoned storm I could no longer bear

So I asked: “Can I have a pen to write to my mother?”

But no, they gave me bullet instead by

Through the gun that speaks French

Alhamdullahi! Comes the last breath.

(Notes: * Shade; ** Aminat : Young girl names).

# 54. Mercy O Lord!

Rise, O Humanity, put out your arms to save the dying universe

Gasping, choking, writhing pathetically like earthworms drowning in salt on a scalding salver

Breathing in toxic substances bombed by their brethren, foaming at the mouth in helpless agonizing tremors

Khan al Assal, Ghouta, Saraqib, Jobar ghoulish scenes that came hurtling back from 2013

The deadly nerve agent sarin ruthlessly dragging lives to graves

The horrifying chlorine bombs in Talmenes and the sulfur mustard on Marea

No, God did not make man so heartless as to squash fellow humans like vermin under heels of poisonous fumes as he did in Khan Sheykhun

April 2017 was no springtime in Syria this god forsaken year

Men were murderers and mercy had run away to crawl and hide cringing in dark corners of despair

When the tender fourteen-year-old girl looked up fascinated at the yellow mushroom shaped cloud did she know she was going to stifle and gag under its ruthless poison?

Yelping in pain, the cuddly baby did not know why his skin and lips were a lethal blue

Asphyxiated and pupils bulging, the toothless grandma did not know who was killing her

No, this is not why we were given brains; no, this is not why we are alive

Let’s use our magnificent grey cells to build a cocoon of love for our children

Let no human being become a monster when he was created a man

Let no mother wail over a lineup of dead bodies under a blanket to find her son stone cold

Let us make a human chain of such potency that no terrorist is fooled into hallucinating that he is a Messiah

Let the flowers bloom in Syria once again. Let the dragon of disaster be destroyed once and for all.

# 55. Do not Drop More Chemical Weapons in Syria

My heart, since Palm Sunday, is still in mourning. The Creator filled it with love

to function perfectly, but since chemical gasses were dropped in Syria

my heart altered its beats, my heart is not mine, it stops and starts again

exhausted from the abyss of indifference, mass killings, unacceptable cruelty.

It tells me, even stones, rocks, prehistoric animal skeletons have a heart.

When you suffer, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, children, of Syria

the pain of the sky feels the pain of your land, all land shakes from pain.

Trees shed their leaves in mourning.

We live under the same sky, share the same land of compassion, pain, problems.

Your children, wet to the bones, reached our beaches on inflatable boats

two hundred souls packed on each inflatable boat, carrying over maximum capacity.

These war refugees disembarked in the middle of dark nights.

The coast guards arrived anxiously to count corpses.

Greek people shared with you, their bread, blankets, medicines.

Cold stadiums, camping tents, uninhabited rotten factories were your homes.

You shared, thousands of you, the same cold nights, same summer heat.

Have mercy on innocent Syrian people, army men, from the opposite camp.

Don’t be blinded by ignorance; you are human beings.

Do not take any more killing orders, do not drop any more chemical weapons.

Do not kill any more babies, children, orphans, youth, people crippled by war, adults.

Do not kill fathers and mothers, old people. You are not stones. Do your hearts

beat normally, normally as if you were from the same stock of humanity?

The names of people killed were written on public registries too.

Are they unaccountable by the history of the heart?

I will not forget the chemical weapons dropped against innocent people

on Palm Sunday. As for forgiveness, this is a grey, black area.

Who permitted the release of chemical weapons? Were they politicians?

Who? Do politicians allow wars, killing innocent people?

My soul will never permit you to kill, cripple, devour innocent people.

I have banned nuclear weapons from my mind, from my heart.

# 56. A Trembling Hope

The throne of Damascus sits on

little carcasses of life itself today…

Where once lived antiquity in shops,

Tranquility on beaches where waves used to sweep and sway…

Beyond any depth of the imagination

How throne and terror killed humanity,

The quivering innocence oozes acid not blood, a living hell, worse than any calamity…

I clutch my 5-month-old closer to my bosom as I think of children being roasted there,

My nerves tremble… I pray raising my hands because if there is no life, then who will be right or fair…

Come together let’s save children of God,

Let them sing hymns of faith, let them grow and flower!

Erase the boundaries and make them safe,

Let the waves carry their dreams and not their lifeless case…

©Rajul Tiwari

A Humanitarian Appeal

We, at Different Truths, join hands with World Poetry Festival (WFP), in furthering the Humanitarian and Peace Cause of ‘The Peace Anthology- People against Genocide: Stop Chemical War in Syria; Save Humanity!’

World Poetry Festival (WFP) is the biggest network of poetic sanctuaries all over the world. Its goal is to create points where poetry can help to build a better world by joining all poets of our planet, working together to achieve peace and equity among humankind.

We request all Different Truths Poets and their fans to follow the link of WFP and sign for petitioning the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moo, and nine others. We are here for a Chemical War-free world.

Click on this Link to sign the Petition: goo.gl/YKDDsJ

Let our Global Voice be heard, loud and clear!

Thanks and Regards,

Anumita Chatterjee Roy, Luz María López,

Managing Editor, Different Truths WFP

Photos from the internet and Painting by Michele Baron.

#Poets #Poems #AgainstWar #AgainstGenocide #Peace #AnthologyAgainstGenocide #PeaceAnthology #DifferentTruthsPoets #DifferentTruths

Poets:

Michele Baron: Michele Baron, world-traveler/Fulbright Scholar presently living in Kyrgyzstan, published A Modest Menu: Poverty, Hunger and Food Security, in Poetry and Prose, in 2015. A World Bank/Urgent Evoke-2010 top-ten-finalist, she develops outreach projects, writes poetry, prose, and non-fiction, is an active musician, painter, artist and “full-time” mother of three school-aged children. She has a self-illustrated book The Dreaming Rugs awaiting publication.

Therese Carmel Huelar: herese Carmel Huelar is a Psychology and Management graduate. He had volunteered for a Non-government office, a day care centre for the children in need. He is an Environment Activist. He also participated in the signing of petitions for the Greenpeace, in Manila, Philippines, where he lives.

Dr. Brajesh Kumar Gupta: Dr. Gupta has mentored many and also assisted many in unleashing his creative potential. Through his talks, seminar presentations, creativity workshops and personal interactions, he has popularized many new concepts in management and leadership. Some of his articles publish in “We The Power” and “Green Plant” magazines. His thesis on “Treatment And Glorification Of Love And Sex In The Novels Of D. H. Lawrence”. His first book of poetry “The Rain” has published by Onlinegatha Publication of Lucknow.

Dariusz Pacak: Poet and essayist, Honorary Doctor Degree of Literature (WAAC), USA 2011. Translated into 11 languages. Author of 4 books. Included in 55 World Anthologies. 130 worldwide publications in literary magazines and 120 on the web. Dr. Dariusz Pacak attended a number of international festivals and congresses in America, Europe, and Asia. Awarded during many international poetry competitions and honored with the world’s prestigious Naji Naman’s Honor Prize, for the complete works, Beirut, Lebanon 2016.

Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano: A Doctor in Biological Science with a Masters Degree in Nursing and Obstetrics, her qualifications were attained at Bologna University. Since 2012, Yuleisy Cruz Lezcano has taken part in several literary competitions in Italian, often obtaining outstanding results and responses from judges and the public.She has 12 publications to her credit, from 2013 till date. Two publications are awaited. Born in Cuba, she is based in Bologna, Italy.

Saheli Mitra: Saheli Mitra is a journalist, blogger and internationally published poet and author. She is co-partner and founder of Talespin Media. Her poems have been published in several national and international printed and online anthologies. Her debut novel Lost Words was an Amazon bestseller. Her shorts stories have featured in printed collections like “Half Baked Love” and “Knitted Narratives”. She primarily writes on women issues. She also runs her Nature Group called “To Trees with Love”.

Dr. Lanka Siva Rama Prasad: Dr. Lanka Siva Rama Prasad (Lsr) is a Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Surgeon by profession, a popular poet, author, translator and cartoonist, his 100th book was released in Athens, Greece, recently. He writes in Telugu and English. More than ten translations of contemporary poets, two novels, twenty short stories, hundreds of essays and prefaces, books on science, medicine, and dream analysis are available. A well-known cultural figure, he is based in Hyderabad, India.

Neelam Malik: Dr Neelam Malik is a voracious reader and a motivational mentor to her students. She has been conferred the most precious World Icon Award for Peace, by the World Institute of Peace (WIP), in 2017. She is among the top 25 poets chosen by the Creative Impulse. She writes splendidly with a divine flow, calmness, and peace. She works as a senior lecturer in English in CR Polytechnic Rohtak, Haryana, India.

John Fingleton: John was born in Cork City, in the Republic of Ireland. And spent most of his adult life outside Ireland. At present in Paraguay, he has been writing for as long as he remembers.He has had poems published in journals and anthologies in, Ireland, UK, USA, India, and France. He produced three plays. He uses the name Löst Viking for family historical reasons. He says, “I am too lazy to publish my own collection.”

Debora Gillman: As a native Californian, Debora Gillman’s love of nature and the arts was enhanced by two years abroad on a kibbutz in Israel during her high school years. She graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a major in French Literature. She has conducted workshops for children and adults at Park La Brea and at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles. An author of three children’s illustrated books, she believes art heals us and others.

Sunil Sharma: Mumbai-based Sunil Sharma writes prose and poetry, is into literary journalism and freelancing. A senior academic, he has been published in leading international journals and anthologies; three collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction, a novel, co-edited five books of poetry, short fiction, and literary criticism. He’s recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ Inaugural Poet of the Year Award 2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project, Happiness: The Delight Tree 2015.

Tulsi Shrestha: Tulsi Shrestha, from Kathmandu, Nepal, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, has penned over 152 poems. He ardently believes in social causes.

Sehar Siddiqi: Sehar is a communication skill trainer, she has good experience in writing on various issues. She is a blogger, book writer, and enthusiastic traveller. A native of Allahabad, she believes in experiencing the small things of life in a big way. Sehar likes to work in groups and learn new things. Her motto is to enjoy life in small packets.

Tyran Spahiu: 1954 born Tyran Spahiu, is a teacher by profession. Feeling to locate the subject to harassing, bothering, exciting, raping, embracing, and to describe it is a pleasure which seduces and challenges him, as it finds poetic expressions. He was nominated Poet of the Year by Pegasus Albania and had secured the first place by Where Poetry meets Love. He is the President of the World Union of Poets for Kosovo.

Anoucheka Gangabissoon: Anoucheka Gangabissoon is a primary school educator in Mauritius.She writes poems and short stories on a wide range of subjects.She publishes regularly on online poetry sites and manages her own poetry blog.She has published a collection of poems in print, in her country, titled “Awakened Fancies.”

Sandra Ssarmiento: Sandra Ssarmiento is a poet, narrator, and screenwriter from Guatemala. She is an Honorary Consul at the International Parliament of Writers of Cartagena de Indias Colombia, representing the Republic of Guatemala. An activist in the Poetic World Front, in Defense of the Rights of Women, she is the president of the Golden Pen Project in Guatemalan Mentors. She is also the Director in Guatemala for the World Festival of Poets. Presently, she stays in Los Angeles, California, the USA.

Marian Eikelhof: Marian Eikelhof is a poet from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In her daily life, she leads a psychological consultancy firm. Her work inspires her to write about the emotional aspects of existence. Not only she describes feelings of love, intimacy, and desire, but also she symbolises states of mind like sadness and loneliness in her poetry. She criticises dehumanisation. A red thread runs through her activities, the fight against injustice and striving for peace.

Nilakshi Roy: Nilakshi is an Associate Professor of English teaching in Vaze college, and an occasional academic writer.

Nayanika Dey: Nayanika Dey is a 23-year-old aspiring poetess from Durgapur, West Bengal, India. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Economics and Actuarial Science from IAI. Her works have been published in The Criterion: An International Journal In English, Galaxy: Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Indie Affair, Feathers (The Hall of Poets), Oh My Sweetest Love- A Timeless Treasure by Vishwabharati Research Centre in association with Sahitya Anand, Graffiti Wall for poets, Galaktika Poetike Atunis.

Vatsala Radhakeesoon: Born in Mauritius, in1977, Vatsala Radhakeesoon has had a keen interest in poetry writing since a very young age. Her poems have been featured in local and international newspapers, magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her first poetry book ‘When Solitude Speaks’ was published in 2013 with the approval of the Ministry of Arts and Culture (Mauritius). She is currently self-employed and continues to write poems in English, French, Creole and Hindi.

Basudeb Chakraborti: Basudeb Chakraborti is a retired professor of English and Faculty Dean, University of Kalyani. He founded the Department of English in Sikkim Central University (2013). He taught in the USA and India. He wrote more than 100 articles in different literary journals in India and abroad. Among his books, Thomas Hardy’s View of Happiness, Some Problems of Translation: A Study of Tagore’s Red Oleanders, Indian Partition Fiction in English and in English Translation, etc.

Elsy Satheesan: Elsy Satheesan is a retired Professor of English. She had been teaching in colleges under the Govt. of Kerala, India. Currently, she resides in Virginia, USA. ‘Random Musings’ is her first volume of poems. ‘Summer Snow’, is the forthcoming one. Her poems have been published in national and international anthologies. Short stories in Malayalam have been published in weekly and fortnightly, in Kerala. Humanity is her religion, and poetry, her passion.

Pramila Khadun: Pramila Khadun is a renowned author and poet. She studied at the SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. She now lives in Lalmatie, Flacq, Mauritius.

Shernaz Wadia: To Shernaz Wadia, reading and writing poems has been one of the means to embark on an inward journey. She hopes her words will bring peace, hope and light into dark corners. Her poems have been published in many e-journals and anthologies. She has published her own book of poems “Whispers of the Soul” and another titled “Tapestry Poetry – A Fusion of Two Minds” with her poetry partner Avril Meallem.

Moinak Dutta: Born in September 1977 to an immigrant family, Moinak Dutta has been writing poems and stories from school days. His first published poem appeared in The Statesman, in 1999. Since then many of his poems and stories have been published in national and international anthologies and magazines. He wrote book reviews, including one on Upanishads. His two fictions are ‘Pestilence’ (2009) and “Online@offline” (2014). He blogs regularly and is interested in photography, films and music.

Uberfil Viera: Uberfil Artigas Viera Oroná Uruguayan, married, 47 years old, is a writer and poet, cultural and social agent, creator of the National Writer’s Day “Mario Benedetti” every September 14 and Shelters for Victims of Domestic Violence and Gender. Author of “Realities to my 40”, which has won several awards in national and international competitions.

Sarala Balachandran: Sarala Balachandran was working with an import-export organisation in the administrative department for 38 years. She retired eleven years back. Married, with two sons aged 43 and 36, she took interest in writing recently. She writes free verses.

Nandita Samanta: A science graduate and an ex-Biology teacher; a trilingual poet (English /Hindi/Bengali), short story writer, painter and a dancer. Born in West Bengal, a resident of Salt Lake, Kolkata. Nandita spent her childhood in different states. It enriched her literary journey. Her writings are published in various international and national anthologies, magazines, webzines, newspapers, and journals. She writes on vivid themes, based on her observations on life, love, ambition, nature, culture, folklore, mythology, etc.

Durgesh Verma: Durgesh Verma is working with the NGO, ‘Sparsh…Touching Lives’, at Varanasi, as a president. This year, he has participated in national workshops on ‘Role of Higher Education in the Development of Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship in India’ in Institute of Management Studies & ‘Development Dialogue 2016’ in Swatantrata Bhawan Auditorium, B.H.U., Varanasi. His compositions are published in the USA, Canada and Australia.

Ayub Khawar: Ayub Khawar is one of the most renowned contemporary poets/writer from Pakistan. He has given his remarkable services in Pakistan Television Industry. He was honored by the Pride of Performance award from the government of Pakistan. Recently, he has been awarded “Cross of Peace” 2016, “Stars of the World” 2017 award by The World Union of Poets and “World Institute of Peace” award 2017 by The World Institute of Peace Nigeria.

Ibrahim Honjo: Ibrahim Honjo is a poet-writer, sculptor, painter, photographer who writing in his native language and in English. He was introduced in many magazines, newspapers, and radio stations in Canada, USA and former Yugoslavia where he worked as a journalist also books and newspapers editor. He received several prizes for his poetry, He is author 23 published books and represented in many anthologies. His poetry was translated into Korean, Italian, Slovenian, Spanish and German language.

Tirthankar Das Purkayastha: Tirthankar Das Purkayastha (b. 1956) is a Professor of English at Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. He has so far published three books of poetry in Bengali and many scholarly articles in academic journals. His translations of poems by Sunil Gangopadhyay have been published, with the poet’s approval, in South Asian Review and Indian Literature, a Sahitya Akademi journal.He has been regularly publishing poetry in all the leading journals of West Bengal.

Richard Doiron: Richard Dorion, 53-year-old, graduate in Journalism, Certified Lifeskills Coach and Reiki Master, had his work read at the UN. Published alongside the Dalai Lama twice by invitation. 2012 World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Estimated 1000 poems published to date. He has participated in national and international literary festivals. He lives in Moncton, New Bruns-wick, Canada.

Alicja Maria Kuberska: Alicja Maria Kuberska, an awarded Polish poetess, playwright, writer, publisher, has poems published in eight volumes, numerous anthologies and magazines in Poland, USA, UK, Canada, India, Italy, Israel and Australia.In addition, her poems are read on various radio programs in Poland and Belgium. She was a featured poet of New Mirage Journal (USA) in the summer of 2011. Her poem, Train, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. She lives in Inowrocław, Poland.

Eliza Segiet: A Jagiellonian University graduate with a Master’s Degree in Philosophy, Eliza Segiet completed postgraduate studies in Cultural Knowledge, Philosophy, Penal Fiscal and Economic Law, and Creative Writing at Jagiellonian University, as well as Film and Television Production in Łódź. Her published poetry collections include Love Affair with Oneself; (2103), Thought Mirages (2014), Clearances (2015), Cloudiness (2016) andTandem (2017).

Tuwa Noor : Tuwa Noor, born and raised in Bangladesh, immigrated to the US. He loves to write poems about love, peace, and motivation. He also enjoys composing rhymes for children. He works professionally as a pharmacist.

Kareem Abdullah: Kareem Abdullah is an Iraqi poet, playwright and writer. He was born in Baghdad in 1962. He has eight poetry collections in Arabic and his poetry was translated for many languages. He has five plays and a book in parapsychology. He won the prize of Tajdeed prose poetry in 2016. He works as rehabilitation therapist at Al-Rashad Hospital for Psychological diseases in Baghdad.

Dr. Ian Hale: Dr Ian Hale PhD is from the historic city and County of Bristol, England. A member of British Mensa, The Athenian Society, the Accademia Costantiniana and a graduate of Portsmouth, Bristol and Bath Spa Universities. He is a keen book, cat and sports lover who is best known as a world-leading speaker and an advocate for Autism, as well as for poetry; being the author of the acclaimed “The insider’s guide to Autism and Aspergers”.

Alok Mishra:Born in India in 1981, an award-winning poet, Alok Mishra has been writing poems since a very young age. He is a teacher by profession. He loves to write poems replete with divinity and romance

Sunila Khemchandani: Sunila Khemchandani, a double graduate from India, now based in the Canary Islands, has several poems published in international English anthologies like Synthesis – Duet Anthology, Umbilical Cords, Aquarelle -Wall 6, Selfhood, etc. Her poems have been highly recommended. She’s a winner of the Reuel International prize for Writing and Literature, 2016, for fiction and best annual poet, 2008, in poetriesonline.com. Her anthology, ‘The Virtual Reality’ with seven poets awaits its release.

Payal Talreja: Businesswoman, curator of handlooms, poet, writer, and erstwhile doctor. Payal Talreja practices everything except her involuntary ‘profession’. She claims that words chose her and are now her weapon of choice because an activist born will stay silent for no man. A wanderer, a voyager, she’s happy to slum it or luxuriate in any life experience. She crafts poems and fiercely feminist essays and will assume her ‘Chandi’ avatar to ‘write’ any wrong.

Mamta Joshi did her post graduation in History from University of Allahabad. She writes short stories, reflective essays, prose pieces on every day life in national dailies and international e-magazines. She writes with equal ease in Hindi. For over two decades, as a teacher of English in college section at SMC, Allahabad, she has been interacting with young minds, understanding their pulse and in turn being savvy on technology, fitness, fashion, humour and rumour too.

Daniela Voicu: Daniela Voicu is a Romanian poet and painter.Her poems, interviews, articles and paintings have been published in various journals, magazines and anthologies. Her poetry collections include 10 poetry books. In 2009, she founded the international journal of culture and literature, Cuib Nest Nido, in 2011 the international poetry festival of music and contemporary art, The Art of Being Human. She edited in 2013-2015, 15 volumes of The Art of Being Human International Poetry Anthology

Rishikesh Kumar Singh: Rishikesh Kumar Singh is the president of The Foundation for the Study of Literature and Environment (India) and the joint secretary of ASLE-India (North Zone). He is a trained counselor based in New Delhi. He pursued his research from Delhi University and also served there as a Guest faculty. He is a polyglot, bilingual poet and a translator. His research articles and poems have been published in various international and national journals.

Rony Esaú Cortéz Jiménez: Rony Esaú Cortéz Jiménez, writes under the pseudonym Esú C. Jiménez. A faculty of Humanities of Jalapa, Guatemala, his last work published is “Fragments of a Thought.”

Chhavi Mehra: Chhavi Mehra is an international student from India completing her Associate’s of Arts degree in Communications and Media at South Seattle College. She will be transferring to a university in California for her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Chhavi hopes to write quality pieces reflecting the integrity of publications like The New York Times.

Aparajita Dutta: Aparajita Dutta is a writer, poet, social activist and a research scholar. She has completed her M.Phil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University in 2015. She has been the contributing author of Tell Me a Story, published by Penguin India. Aparajita has written for other books, magazines, and websites as well. Her interests are football, gender rights, disability, and translation.

Geethanjali Dilip: Geethanjali Dilip celebrates life through her soul’s expression in poetry. Her first published anthology is ‘Between Moms and Sons’ co-authored with Aakash Sagar. She contributes poems to many online pages and communities in Facebook. Her pages on Facebook are Alcove ATMA and Geethatmaa. She heads Zone Francofone, a French Coaching/ Teaching center at Salem, India.

Arjun: Arjun, a resident of Kolkata, alumnus of St. Xavier’s Collegiate, Calcutta, completed his “B. Fin.” (Bachelors of Fine Arts) in photography from M.S. University of Baroda and his post-graduation specialisation from Magnum Visual Arts, in photography and cinematography. Currently, he is pursuing the professional curriculum as a full-fledged cinematographer and independent filmmaker. He is an interdisciplinary artist, a believer in humanism and a spiritual practitioner of the Upanishads.

Shail Raghuvanshi: Shail Raghuvanshi is a freelance writer, editor, content writer, book reviewer and poet. A post graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication, she has 20 years of writing experience in newspaper, magazine, radio, television and the internet. Her poems, short stories and articles have been published in leading magazines, journals and e-books apart from featuring in anthologies. A daughter, a wife and a mother, she is the eternal optimist. Faith, friendship and family make her life complete.

Subash Singh Pranjuli: Subash Singh Parajuli is a versatile poet, storyteller, avid traveler and literary organiser from Nepal. He has published poems in many international journals and anthologies. He had published “Mystic Myth,” a collection of poetry in 2014. He has visited India, Bangladesh, and China for his literary contributions. He writes both in Nepali and English with equal ease.

Timileyin Olajuwon Gabriel: Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon hails from Osun State, Nigeria. He is an international award winner. His poems have appeared in poetry journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is the brain behind “Muse for World Peace Anthology” (An anthology of contemporary poets propagating peace). He is the author of “Cal for Retreat” 2013 and Apeke and other poems, 2017 – collections of poems.

Lily Swarn: Lily has published English poems in various anthologies. She was awarded Reuel international prize for poetry 2016 and Global Icon Of Peace And Virtuoso Award. A postgraduate in English from Punjab University, she was awarded a gold medal for best all-round student and academics. She edited her college magazine and wrote middles for newspapers. Poetry blossomed after her young son’s sudden demise. She writes in Hindi and English. Hailing from a defence family, she is settled in Chandigarh.

Roula Pollard: Roula Pollard, Greek poet, writer, playwright, translator, literary promoter, broadcaster, Poetry festival organizer, has publishd three collections of Poetry, and is included in international anthologies. She co-operates with Universities regarding literary and social projects. Roula studied Archaeology at Athens and obtained an M.A. in Classics, at Leeds. Lived in England for 25 years, was lecturer of Modern Greek language and Civilization at Wakefield College. She promoted top English and Greek poets and participated in prestigious English and Greek Poetry festivals.

Rajul Tiwari: Rajul Tiwari is an educationist, writer, author, editor, and poetess. She writes in English and Hindi with equal ease. She heads a publishing unit and her poetry book ‘Beats of Beauty’ has been appreciated by many critiques and poetry lovers. In 2002 & 2004, she was honoured with ‘Editor’s Choice Award’ by International Library of Poetry, US. Rajul is gracious and acknowledges the goodness in others. Her disarming and winsome smile is endearing.

Different Truths Poets

Mahua Sen, Shree Ganguly, Amita Sanghavi, Rituparna Khan, Parvathy Ramachandran, Tabassum Tahmina Shagugta Hussein, Rajashree Mohapatra, Kamrun Nahar, Lily Swarn, Shail Raghuvanshi, Anoucheka Gangabissoon, Dr. Chandra Prakash Sharma, Alok Mishra, Vatsala Radhakeesoon, Luz Maria Lopez, Basudeb Chakraborti, Devika Raghave, Nandita Samanta, Shyamal Kumar Majumder, Sumana Bhattacharjee, Dr.Tithankar Das Purokasyatha, Kabir Deb, Sailasree Potay, Nayonika Sen, Sindhuja Veeraraghavan, Shernaz Wadia, Mamta Joshi, Lata Rathore, Mrinalani Harchandrai, Neelam Dadhwal, Nalini Priyadarshani, Sudeshna Mukherjee, Runa Srivastava. Swapna Behra, Sunila Khemchandani, Menakshi M. Singh, Harshali Singh, Dr. Brajesh Gupta, Aika Srivastava, Kiren Babal, Edidiong Bassey, Rochelle Potkar, Sarojini Pattayat, Pratima Apte, Monika Ajay Kaul, Roula Pollard, Nancy Ndeke, Virginia Jasmin Pasalo, Ibrahim Honjo, Hector "Che" Cruz-Lopez, Shameena Abdurahiman, Lotusgirl (Geethanjali Dilip), Sheikha. A, Elvira Lobo, Aarti Mittal, Chhavi Mehra, Anita Sahoo, Durgesh Verma, Aparajita Dutta, Tribhawan Kaul, Amit Shankar Saha, Rajul Tiwari, Michele Baron, Elsy Satheesan, John Fingleton, Pramila Khadoon, Neelam Saxena Chandra, Nilakshi Roy, Swapna Jha, Sarika Sarkar Das, Anumita Roy, Arindam Roy

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