Now I know who you are, hidden in discarded old paper you appeared like a distant echo in the nakedness of my scattered dreams, in a room rich in dust and gallantries, where misty light bathes all in a fiery glow, here gods watch your ecstasy, pain red as blood shimmers in the vaults deep beneath the ochre chamber, where I am no more than a sigh escaping your ever so slightly parted lips at the moment of highest desire, less still: an infant child, unwanted and unseen, a spectator, a ghost, hands against my ears so that your pleading for mercy becomes a whisper still sizzling softly in the wind on a warm summer evening.
To dust you have long since perished, my own calloused hands dug your grave, before winter froze the black ground, and afterwards in every shade I saw your shadow, pure and untouched by worm and bacteria, and now you’re back, captured and sold in a slave market to the highest bidder, used and cast aside, picked up and treasured like a long-lost jewel, memory of the sparkling and immeasurably precious treasure of a distant and forgotten potentate who saw his vast empire buried under desert sand.
Of me only marble fragments remain, fallen over and broken into a thousand pieces, a prey of the elements for centuries and reduced to my essence, which reveals itself once I have come closer to you, closer than ever before, and finally nestling in the hollow of secrets where death and stasis reign, a sarcophagus that reveals itself as my final, long foretold and fabled destiny.
Modern poetry as a means to unveil truths
When she passes, the street is a sigh of fragrant flowers and beauty – cell phones race without leaving a trace across digital highways with in their wake news of fronts and images evaporating like essential oils from a glass jar,
but when she passes, the road is a tunnel of desire for beauty and the intoxicating scent of flowers that as if springing forth from a fountain engulfs and saturates us as her image appears on our screens and we lie face down
on the forest floor and inhale the scent of something primal, which is that from which everything springs forth, for which we have only vulgar words or
names because it wants to remain hidden behind a veil of not thinking or knowing, we feel her with all our twenty- seven senses gently swaying in the liquid in the glass jar.
Enno de Witt is a published Dutch author and poet, an artist and musician, webmaster and editor. For him, writing poetry is a sheer necessity, like breathing, sleeping, drinking and eating. His poetry is founded on the bedrock of the classics, Dutch as well as international, and revolves around the Eternal Questions, often using imagery pertaining to his younger years, growing up on the seashore amongst wild heretics.
Charity to the neighbour absurd Wolf in Sheep’s clothing Monks and Friars slowly crept Bearing Palms and Harps of the Blackbird Patrons of holy youth sleeping Bluebird Women blessed symbols slept Dragon Lilies robes we kept Ink horns eyes of Lady-dove
Sonnet CDLXXXXIV
Dumpy sort of a gait bone due trench Two flashes of presumable ships rum from Maine Gurgling noise shrewd suspicion pain Day of reckoning Mono Publishing conservation bench Best jumpers and racers wrench Skin the goat an Ax to grind throbbing forehead vein Loudly lamenting Galway Bay rain Slightly disturbed in her sentry-box stench Facial blemishes treasure Effusion the redoubtable gravel Dropping off into a restful measure Silence all around we try to unravel Manicure counterattraction female pleasure Rum explodes piers and girders travel
Sonnet CDLXXXXIII
White tipped New Guinea’s chip Wispy quiver and dance trouble Poniards Gibraltar bubble Muensters Boston weather drip and dip Ill-fated Irish Times petrified drip Weathered a monsoon Daunte’s rock doubled Rumpled stockings showing her stubble Impetuosity isosceles triangle flip Temperaments at the door in trio Passionate about the Ten Shillings viol Visit coincidences Kilaru Museum in Rio Washed in the blood of the sun denial Spaniards old Leo Exception here and there trial
Sonnet CDLXXXXI
Enlightened men morbid mined shrug Buys dear and sells cheap her money amplify A slow puzzled skin-Berean Butterfly Old Meldish squeamishness drug Super human effort as she dug Shrugged his shoulders to deny Dizzy-Billy all-be-plastered high Coffee in a cheap-eating-house mug Sticker for solid copper Tumour Tee total skipping rocks rube Fa-r-reaching circumstantial rumour Piano playing cell-mate in a cube Not listening at a yarn humour Blunt horn-handle tube
Terry Brinkman has been painting for over forty five years. Poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed. Winamop, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, Adelaide Magazine, Variant, the Writing Disorder, Ink Pantry, In Parentheses, Ariel Chat, New Ulster, Glove, and in Pamp-le-mousse, North Dakota Quarterly, Barzakh, Urban Arts, Wingless Dreamer, LKMNDS and Elavation.
You can find more of Terry’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Spring is colours, sweet heavens that clothe, March you like fresh wind and rain a celebration that buttons you up stomps in puddles like boots like taffy coloured rainbows and a sunny yellow coat as flowers pop open like balloons and trumpet bumblebees— be buzzing busily. This is me, my songbird sings.
Twigs’ lush medium is converting to calligraphy, the dismissal of leaves to launch its winter forewarning. Laden with late acorns, squirrels chuck-chuck meaningless memos, counter-balance full bellies, tails unfurled. I am embracing—keepsaking— the unscrolling calendar, harvesting days tossed my way, the prodigious burden of nows. Hunters will bruise this calm soon, but until then it’s choirs of jays, cranes, and crows.
If Only I Moved by Instinct
Life has been a grand migration to where you are today! —well known wisdom
I didn’t know!
Otherwise, when those raggedy squadrons clamoured overhead last evening—
three V’s disarrayed like frayed arrow feathers,
their leaders insistent as clowns with braying horns, honking for plane geometry—
I would have taxied, sprinted, lifted arthriticly from water’s edge (granted
more dodo than goose, my splayed toes just scuffing the webbed crests of waves),
and elbowed my way into a rhythmic wedge
to claim my slot in that mindless rotation toward the life-saving draft.
Leaf Fall
Asymmetric chandeliers instigate their rhapsodic drop, the ruddling scumble- trove of falling leaves and epiphanies whose sillage shellacs paw, pelt, and breezes. Trapezes sling these acrobatic hues into bold arcs, risky spins, pronounced turns before alights the wind-borne troupe of the trees. Stippled bark akin to camo backs the show, and cursive limbs announce the new season: caesura ending summer’s song.
For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors
From a frozen wedge of machine-split pine, tossed on this settling fire, one frayed, martyred fibre curls back and away like a wire, then flares, a flame racing the length of a fuse. Imagine this my innermost strand, a barely-dirt two-track off Frost’s road less traveled, a thin, trembling thread of desire, the uncharted blue vein of a tundral highway. Or in some dread cloister it dreams, and a sillier spirit suddenly moves— like four fresh fingers over flamenco frets, like dumb elegance uttering Old Florentine, never meaning one of its crooning words. It might dance—Tejano, Zydeco, any twenty Liebeslieder Waltzes, any juking jumble of a barrel-house blues—wherever arose an arousing tune, the thrum of a Kenyan’s drumming, the merest notion of Motown soul. I do know: there must be this lost but lively cord, an original nerve, perhaps abandoned, or jammed as if into an airless cavity of my old house. It waits, to spark, to catch, its insulated nest punctured by the stray tip of a driven nail. It craves some risky remodelling, that annoying era of air compressor, plaster grit, dumpster, and the exuberant exhalation of ancient dust.
Slackening Observed
A cardinal, its heaven’s sound, the winter’s effervescent rag with salutating gait. Notes etch, sun foils, and cathedralic miles enlarge the whispering. To centre oneself, to murmur, to intercept the synchronizing run that’s rioting, is as longingly still as the slope outside the city’s heaves, the barn-red-confetti’d woods, the uniform crisp of autumn days, shallows iced to the shoreline, valley’s dream.
A Moment Depends Not Just on its Moment
You’d like to move on beyond mean memory, skirt that peopled, hollow squalor, pack up your numerous mind encampments whose smoky cook fires now flicker, now flare on this or that nostalgic hillside— sometimes like coded reminders, sometimes like brash blazes arousing anything but simpering gratitude for a brainscape stippled with so-called love. But then a random moment’s rush of fragrant pine rises also from vague beds of heady needles in your rural past. And today’s savouring of your young son’s self-liberation emerges from its oblivious storage of almost forty years. And the resuscitating pulse in a flagrant poem owes a measure of its happy current to your decades of emotional prohibition, your suspension in the numb ice of wordlessness. A generous peace depends on your history’s stingy drudgery, and a restful season of seeing who you might really be depends on the eons of not letting being, on the contrast with not knowing you didn’t see.
After the Gale
Ivory spines disguise the oaks’ south sides, slivers of sunshine lightening their rough trunks. What furrowed pallor, what dignity: spires anchored to all others underneath, delight clad in the plucked bones of winter. What diligence, what staid bystanding: a throng of distinct ascetics, enmeshed horde of collective loners. It’s as if they’re avowing how steadfastness, soon resumed, enroots in you your essential locale.
D. R. James, a year+ into retirement from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives, writes, and cycles with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his prose and poems have appeared internationally in a wide variety of print and online anthologies and journals.
You can find more of D.R.’s work here on Ink Pantry.
“quick question hot shot when you’re a feature, how many poems do you read”
on asking melissa: wanna walk?
she says: “i’m knee deep in organizing my desk, do you ever work?”
on receiving a job promotion
boss asks, “do you own anything other than jeans?” I laugh, then say “no”
on telling Joseph Fulkerson about receiving scathing rejections because I title my haikus
he says, “of course people are upset, tohm… you’re challenging tradition.”
Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have been printed widely in journals, zines, and online publications all over the world. He is the author of twenty-four chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “Cleaningthe Gutters of Hell” (Zeitgeist Press, 2023). He is the editor of Between Shadows Press.
You can find more of Tohm’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I was definitely feeling pleased with myself. I made it to the private clinic without the usual escorts, for a check-up that would tell me how to deal with my upcoming departmental physical. It was a rare treat to be alone for a few minutes without any responsibility. There was a knock on the door. I called: “Come in,” and a pretty, young girl entered.
“Good morning, sir. I’m Eva, from transport. These men are here to take you to x-ray.”
Two identical looking men, wearing blue jumpsuits, pushing a stretcher, came in. The only problem was that I wasn’t scheduled for x-ray. I lifted the sheet, grabbed my weapon, shot both of them, and they slumped to the floor. Eva froze, waiting for the lunatic to shoot her. Since she couldn’t run or hide, she tried to make herself invisible. Smart girl.
“Eva,” I said gently.
“Yes, sir,” she quavered.
I pointed and said:
“Give me that tray, please.”
She cautiously brought the tray. I put my weapon on it and told her to put it on the counter. She quickly rejected trying to use it on me, since she had absolutely no idea what it was, or how to use it. Smart girl.
“Give me your cell phone, please.”
She did. I called headquarters, apprised them of the situation, then waited for the police. A minute later a cop came in, weapon drawn. ready for anything. He quickly eyed the two bodies, the girl, then me. I read his nameplate.
“Sergeant Jefferson. Please search me, so you’ll know I’m unarmed.”
He approached carefully, as I slowly pulled down the sheet. He was thorough, even checking under the pillow and bed.
“What happened here?” he demanded.
“You’ll get a phone call in 30 seconds that will start a process. In the meantime, don’t let anyone else in, and if you can’t stop them, make sure they don’t see my weapon.”
He started to ask me something, but his phone rang.
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I understand, sir.” He disconnected and looked at me. “Homicide is going to be pissed when they can’t get in.”
“Sergeant Jefferson.”
“Yes, sir?”
“This is not an ordinary homicide.”
We waited quietly. Two minutes later the door opened and Parker and Lindner, my executive assistants/bodyguards, rushed in. Parker took in the scene at a glance.
“We have 10 agents deployed, air cover and a team is searching the building. A support team will arrive in eight minutes… Did you really have to go off on your own, sir?”
I ignored her and said:
“This is Sergeant Jefferson and Eva. They have been exemplary. They will be offered opportunities.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Can we move to a secure location, so the containment team can get to work?”
“Sergeant Jefferson.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Is there anyone you have to contact until tomorrow?”
“Only my watch commander.”
“He, your Lieutenant and precinct Captain have been notified that you are temporarily assigned to a federal agency. Eva. Do you have to notify anyone?”
“I live with my sick father. I have to make dinner for him.”
“What if we send some good, Spanish speaking people to take care of him tonight?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Then call him and say you’re spending the night with a girl friend. Take care of it, Lindy.”:
Lindner made a few quick calls, then said:
“Ready to go, sir.”
As we headed for the door, Jefferson asked:
“They aren’t human, are they?”
I just looked at him and didn’t reply, as our team guided us to waiting SUVs.
We raced, with helicopter cover, to a campus just outside Washington, D.C., and entered a special building through a series of well-protected tunnels. Parker arranged comfortable quarters for Sergeant Jefferson and Eva, told them to use the house phone if they needed anything, then informed them they would be interviewed at 7:30 a.m. Then Parker and Lindner joined me in my office.
“We have two questions to consider,” I said. “How did they find me and why didn’t they send a hit squad?”
Logical Lindy stated.
“You didn’t tell anyone you were going, so x number of people may have seen you leave the campus. I’ll check anyone who might have seen you go. We may be under observation. You may have been noticed in transit, or entering the clinic.” He looked at me and Parker “Have I omitted any possibilities?”
I couldn’t think of any, so I shook my head no, then nodded to Parker.
“The only thing that makes sense,” she said thoughtfully, “is that they didn’t have time to muster a strike force and took a chance on a simple snatch.”
I couldn’t think of a better explanation, looked at Lindner, who nodded agreement with Parker.
“Alright,” I mused. “We obviously have some work to do.”
“May I make a request, sir?” Parker asked. I knew what was coming, but nodded ‘yes’.
“Please don’t go anywhere again without us,” she urged. “We’ll close our eyes no matter what you do, we’ll look the other way, or oblige you any way we can. Let us do our job.”
We all knew it was more than a job, so I agreed.
“Shall we debrief you now, sir?” Lindner asked.
“Let’s do it after we debrief Eva and Jefferson.”
“Who first?” Parker asked.
“Eva. She was the eyewitness. Jefferson arrived after it was over. Be aware, I’d like to recruit both of them.”
“Eva’s a kid,” Parker protested.
“You’ll change your mind once you hear her account of the incident. Now. How about some dinner. I’m starved.”
When Eva entered the conference room the next morning, if she was intimidated by the people at the table, the video cameras and other recording devices, she didn’t show it.
Parker said crisply. “Are you ready?” Eva nodded. “Then please tell us everything that happened yesterday afternoon.”
She took a deep breath. “My supervisor at transport told me to take the two transporters to room 502 and bring the patient to x-ray. The two men were wearing some kind of blue worksuits, like plumbers or something. They looked a little weird…”
“In what way?” An Admiral asked.
“They looked alike, but odd.”
“Go on,” Parker said.
“I led them to the elevator, we went to the room, I knocked and a man said: ‘Come in’. I said: ‘I’m Eva, from transport and we were here to take you to x-ray’. The two men came in. The man on the bed looked at them, pulled out some kind of gun and shot them. I had no place to run or hide, so I made myself invisible and hoped the madman wouldn’t shoot me. Then he told me gently to bring him a tray and he put the gun on it and told me to put it on the counter. I knew he wasn’t going to shoot me, so I relaxed. Then he asked for my cell phone, which I gave him. He made a call, then the cop came in.”
“Good, Eva,” Parker said. “We’ll stop here for now, but we’ll talk to you again in an hour.” Parker signaled an agent. “Take Eva to breakfast, please.”
When she left, the group discussed her statement and agreed she handled an extremely challenging situation with exceptional poise.
“What do you think, sir?” Parker asked me.
“We’ll discuss that after you debrief me. Now let’s have Sergeant Jefferson.”
An aide brought Jefferson in and I saw him quickly scan the room, noting the high-ranking military officers and the cameras.
“Good morning, Sergeant Jefferson,” Parker said. “Will you please tell us aobut your response yesterday.”
“I was passing the clinic in my patrol car when I got a report of some kind of disturbance on the 5th floor. After a brief search I found the room, drew my pistol and entered cautiously. There were two bodies on the floor, a girl was standing in the corner and a man in bed said: ‘Come search me. Sergeant Jefferson, so you’ll know I’m unarmed’. I approached carefully, made sure there were no weapons, and he said: ‘You’ll get a phone call in 30 seconds that will tell you what to do.’ I saw a strange weapon on the counter, but before I could look closer, he said: ‘Don’t let anyone else in the room. If they do come in, do not let them see the weapon’. Just then my phone rang, my Captain instructed me to cooperate with the agency taking charge and disconnected. I told the man: ‘Homicide is going to be pissed’. He said: ‘This is not an ordinary homicide, Sergeant Jefferson’. Then two agents came in and took charge.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Jefferson,” Parker said. “We’ll talk to you again in an hour.” She signaled an aide to lead him out and he turned to me.
“Question, sir?”
“Of course,” I replied.
“Will I be allowed to leave?”
“Certainly. You’re not a prisoner. If you wish, you can go after the next meeting. However. You might want to talk to me before you go.”
“Thank you, sir,” and the aide led him out.
Parker looked at me quizzically, and I said:
“We want to hear their opinion and perception of what happened. Then we’ll analyze the incident.”
We listened to Sergeant Jefferson’s and Eva’s account of what they thought happened. They were thorough and clear on what they did and didn’t know. I met with them, one at a time, Jefferson first, Parker and Lindner sitting in as I reviewed his record.
“You’ve been on the force for five years, two years of army service before that. You have several commendations, one for a shoot-out in a deli that saved civilian lives. You are respected by your superiors, especially your watch commander. You are going to night school for a law degree. I offer you the following choices: You can return to your precinct with commendations that will put you on a fast promotion track. You can join our agency and we will train you in counterterrorism and other skills, and fast track you for a law degree in the area of your specialty. You would be working for a clandestine government agency, with many responsibilities and benefits.”
“Do I have to decide now, sir?”
“No. We’ll give you a contact number if you opt to join us. However. There is one stipulation. You cannot discuss or tell anyone about the events of the last two days, or mention the agency, under any circumstances.”
“What if my watch commander asks what I’ve been doing?”
“Your chain of command has been informed you helped federal agents subdue two men who attempted to kidnap a government witness. Parker will give you an outline of the incident that will satisfy any inquiries. Lindner will arrange to have you driven home, or to your precinct. Good luck, Sergeant Jefferson.”
Thank you, sir. One more question?”
I nodded and he asked:
“What kind of weapon was that?”
I just grinned and Lindner summoned an aide, who led Jefferson out.
“What do you think, sir?” Parker asked. “Will he be back?”
“We’ll hear from him tomorrow. Let’s see Eva.”
An aide brought her in and seated her.
I nodded, then reviewed her background.
“Eva Rodriguez, age 19, graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, 4.0 grade average, ran track, scholarship offers, including one for track. Father became ill and you had to go to work at two low paying jobs. We can help you get a better job and arrange a medical policy to take care of your father. Or you can go to work for our agency, take special training, then attend college part-time in preparation for a medical career. We would provide assistance to your father while you were in training.” Before I could continue, she said:
“I would like to join your agency, sir.”
“Why?” Parker snapped.
“I know enough to realize something very important is going on and I would like to make a meaningful contribution. I also want the educational opportunity.”
“Lindy. Have someone drive Ms. Rodriguez home. Eva. You cannot discuss the events of the last two days with anyone, not even with your father. Unless you change your mind, a car will pick you up at 7:00 a.m, and take you to a training facility.”
“Thank you, sir,” and an aide led her out.
“She’s awfully young, sir,” Parker commented.
“She’s smart, tough, has good sense and good judgment. In her way, not unlike Jefferson. We’re facing a dangerous menace that we don’t understand and we seem to be learning everything the hard way. We need people who can rise to the challenge. As you both know, they don’t grow on trees. We have to find out what we’re confronting and need all the help we can get.”
Parker moved closer, recognizing a real opportunity to question me.
“Who do you think we’re facing, sir?”
“Looking at this logically,” I replied, which made Lindner grin, “there are two alternatives. Either a powerful cabal has made incredible scientific advances in producing some kind of android that can almost pass for human… Or there has been an alien incursion that for what purpose has not yet been determined.”
“Which theory do you favor, sir?” Lindner asked.
“There isn’t enough evidence to reach a conclusion, but I would prefer an earthly conspiracy, to an alien visitation… Do either of you have an alternative theory?”
They shook their heads and Lindner said:
“Better a human conspiracy. At least we’ll be able to figure out their motives.”
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theatre director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theatre. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 39 poetry collections, 14 novels, 4 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 8 books of plays. Gary lives in New York City.
You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Like sparkles of dreamery – fantasy, born from hundreds of thoughts and from memories, you encompass the world of mythology. Here and there plenty of effusions.
Fairy – she-paramour of druids, priests, kiss a fairway of starlets and the moon! In you a hope of dazzling, wistful bards. Ancient is the myth like cave of Plato.
You go away and fly away such eagle. The mirror of ontology shows time. Your poetries so delicate such flax. Eudemonia will live softly in us.
You are autumn fantasy, born from oak. Like rain of demand you fill chivalry. Stars of non-destruction need your verdict. Thoughts with miracles – vast eternity.
The soft-mossy tombstones are only yours. Such rook you sing song – bards-desperados. I adore Kant’s heaven – it is my time. The bards honour the autumnal fairies.
Such refreshing yesterday-rain you are. You are inspired like dreamy Erlkings. You narrate myths, legends – having a glaive. You glare at a mirror of timelessness.
In clouds of homeland dreameries come true, when your romantic tear – fay-like tear-gem, becharms a world of the Morningstar – whole. Pixie, your canzone is crystal clear.
Midnight, the winglets of dreams carry you, when the thousands of kings of oaks wake up. Sparrows, magpies think of heaven – it’s blue, filled with comet-dust and star-dust of mine.
Monuments of distant and drunk nature, praise your meek, amaranthine liberty. You are sprite – she-guide of Nature-mother Through, like rainbow-shine, dreamed eternity.
glaive – archaic: sword
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.
The patio is open to the sky. A tangerine coloured sun singing The wakeful anthem, The lulling buzz of The mother’s song. Motes of emotions Resurfacing with The breeze of time. The mother’s song Performed by the happiest lady Of the world for her home Ticks and rhymes with the background Of an old Grandfather clock. The song speaks of heard future affections Which is shareable among her children. Butterflies rise close To the feathered approach To perform an unplanned Choir of life, The rising reflection—close to wonder. The air of spices In the open patio, Hullabaloo of children’s play. Every far crier must know that Voice is the genesis of performance. The children play with voiced joy. The sunflower is also a performer Outside the wooded window When it faces the sun. The window also performs to see Along with me.
Sushant Thapa is from Biratnagar, Nepal. He has published four books of poems: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021), Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021), Love’s Cradle (World Inkers Printing and Publishing, USA and Africa, 2023). He is an English lecturer to undergraduate level students of BBA and BIT at Nepal Business College, Biratnagar, Nepal. He holds an M.A. in English literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has been published in print, online, school book and anthologies around the world. He also writes Flash Fictions, Short Stories and Book Reviews.
You can find more of Sushant’s work here on Ink Pantry.
You did remember you and I; we both took birth under the same sky.
And one day my shape was under threat; let the dark turn more dark to disappear my fate. What’s the fate? You wrote as per your choice. To kill my unborn child, to tear off my privacy, you went wild. I am also that mother’s daughter, a daughter who had to stand in fire. Let the fire raise, let my ashes fly in the same sky under which your mother was born. You tore each of my petals, my limbs and my soul too. But you forgot I can rise again from the ashes where you ended the lust of your dick.
I forgot we once took birth under the same sky. I only remember you tore my strap and left some pieces of brawn.
But I won’t pray for your mercy, I am not crippled any way; don’t expect any light from me- I chose to rebel in dark against your forcing rape.
Sonali Chanda is an eminent poet/writer/reviewer from Kolkata, India. She pursued her Post graduation degree in English literature and language from Burdwan University. At present ,she is pursuing her Phd in Post modern English Language, Indigenous Language of India, different usages of phonetics in Language. Her three books published and running successfully in Amazon and Flipcart Platform. She won the Nissim International award in 2020 for ” the excellence in Writing” for her Debut Travelogue Ladakh- Enroute Tibetan Taboos “.
“It’s not something most people know. Hell, I bet you don’t know it yourself.”
Clinton was a big man, with a tangle of black hair just covering the tops of his ears. He stood in the doorway of the small cabin, swallowing the space around him.
“Know what?” My focus was elsewhere, inside. The cabin was tidy, its furniture well kept. There were no signs of a struggle.
“The mountains. They’re old.” Clinton paused, scanning the area outside. “Older than the trees. Older than the animals too. Hell, the Smokies, they’re even older than the Atlantic.”
I turned and regarded him. Clinton, a Gatlinburg police officer, wore his uniform loosely. “You’d never guess it, right? Appalachia was here even before there was an ocean.”
“You’re right, I didn’t know that.” It wasn’t quite dusk yet, and I could hear the trill of a finch just outside the cabin window. I recalled a saying, something I heard once: “If you want to learn, make friends with smart people.”
Clinton snorted. “Will Rogers. And you got the quote wrong.” He looked at me levelly. “He was Cherokee, you know. Will Rogers.” I waited for him to complete his thought. “Just like Appalachia. All of this, everything here. At one time, this was all Cherokee.”
It was getting late. I wanted to secure the cabin before nightfall; the roads on the mountain can be treacherous during winter. I turned back towards the room.
“What do you make of all this?” I gestured to the sofa, the cedar ottoman. Whatever happened to Anna didn’t happen here, but I was curious to hear his thinking.
“You know exactly what happened. She planned this. She closed her bank accounts, sold everything she had. She didn’t even tell her roommate she was leaving. And Boston’s not a short drive. We haven’t been able to find a crime anywhere, much less a victim.”
Clinton breathed out, slowly.
“Sometimes people just want to disappear. It’s happened before, on occasion.”
Maybe he was right.
#
Twenty years ago, Elkmont, Tennessee was a ghost town. Even today it barely registers. Aside from a campground, (“Temporarily Closed”), and a turn-of-the-century cemetery, (“Most Haunted in the Smoky Mountains”), a traveler could make his way from Gatlinburg to Maryville and know nothing about the town or its history.
Recently however, the National Park Service had taken an interest in the area. It had been decided, by someone important, that the town, situated as it was at the base of the Smokies, would make an ideal vacation spot for well-heeled urbanites. That decision, more hopeful than sensible, explained the current and incomplete restoration of the town’s several cottages, (excepting the Wonderland Park Hotel, which collapsed in 2005), and also my lodgings in the historic district, near the bank of the Little River.
It was morning now, the next day, and I took my field notes to the Appalachian Clubhouse, a short walk from my cabin. I was greeted by a stocky woman in her early forties, wearing a checkerboard apron.
“Either you’ve got good timing or good luck.” She poured a cup of coffee and set a place for me at the table.
“What do you mean?” I felt I’d had neither recently. The past few days had been a slog. I was in law enforcement, an investigator with the National Park Service. When I was sent here, to what was essentially a ghost town, it felt like a punishment. It was almost Christmas, and I missed my family.
The woman smiled. “A small group is renting the Clubhouse tomorrow. Normally the town’s closed, but for these kinds of things I make my way from Gatlinburg to help out. It’s easy money. You want breakfast?”
I did want breakfast, actually. Something about the cold always roused my appetite. “What’s good here?”
She laughed. “Everything. I make it myself. You wait; I’ll bring you something you’ll like. My name is Daisy, by the way. You need anything, you ask for me.”
Daisy was right. The breakfast was delicious. She brought me a fried pork chop smothered in white gravy and a biscuit stuffed with pimento cheese.
I wondered, is this what Anna ate the morning she disappeared?
“Well? Was it good?” Daisy had returned and was refilling my coffee.
“Very good.” I motioned for her to sit with me. I figured she wouldn’t mind; we were, it appeared, the only people in town. “Do you know why I’m here?”
She laughed again, a short staccato. “Yes, I do, Mr. Agent. Small towns have big ears. And you can’t get much smaller than Elkmont.”
I smiled and showed her a photo of Anna. “Have you seen this girl?”
“Hard not to. A single girl, traveling alone? Traveling here? Of course I saw her.” Daisy paused a moment then, thinking. “But I’m not sure she wanted to be seen. You get a sense of people, you know? Like how I knew you wanted company the moment you walked in. This girl…” Daisy hesitated, “…she was solitary.”
“Was she with anyone?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
That was it, then. Clinton was right. I started to gather my belongings. Daisy stopped me.
“I said she wasn’t with anyone. I didn’t say she was alone.”
I looked at her, puzzled. Daisy fidgeted in her chair. She seemed self-conscious.
“I don’t know how I feel telling you this, Mr. Agent, but I think it’s something you should know.” Daisy was quiet for a moment. “You’re going to think me silly.”
I sat back in my chair. I waited.
“I’ve lived here all my life. My parents too. When I saw her, this girl, I saw someone else. Something else.
“There’s a story, an old Cherokee story, about a stone man. You know it?”
“No, I don’t.”
“He’s a monster. He looks like a man, but he’s not. He…” Daisy looked away, then. “He’s a cannibal. He hunts children. And then he eats their livers.” She turned towards me. “You can’t kill him. His skin. It’s hard, like stone.”
It might have been the look I gave her.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Agent, but I don’t care. That’s what I saw, when that girl hiked to her cabin on the mountain. She was with the stone man.”
#
My investigation was complete. I looked forward to going home.
I’ll tell you a secret, something everyone in law enforcement knows. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable, notoriously so. Whatever it was that Daisy saw that day, I thought no more of it.
In truth, I wanted to see my family. This case, my time on the mountain, it was affecting me. When I thought of Anna, I thought of my daughter. I missed her terribly.
Another thought occurred to me then, a memory. It surprised me that I should think of this now, but I did. I recalled a conversation I had with my father several years ago. It was the last time we spoke.
We were alone that evening, my father and I. I was in his apartment, a sparsely decorated two-bedroom unit not far from the local middle school. He was sitting in his recliner. I was standing. Looking back now, it seems odd which details held meaning for me, that I was able to recollect same with such certain clarity. For example, that recliner; I remembered it clearly.
It was a deep burgundy, almost the color of walnut. Over the years, however, it had become faded, and compressed as well; the padding had compacted, and over time slowly had become worn. This was his chair, in the corner of his apartment, and growing up I was not permitted near it. Next to his chair was a tray table, and on a coaster on that table was his drink, a tall glass of Coke spiked with fernet. My father was wearing a wool cardigan, and somewhat incongruously, a pair of brightly colored golf pants decorated with a harlequin pattern of red and green diamonds.
I was never close to my father, but not by choice. He just seemed to recede, especially in those later years. The man kept his secrets.
This is what he told me: “Whatever it is you heard, it’s a damn lie. I was nowhere near that girl.” I remembered looking at my father without speaking. The silence was stony. “For Chrissake, my bus stop is right outside the school. How the hell else am I supposed to get to work?”
I remembered trying to control my voice, unsuccessfully. “I don’t want you anywhere near my family. Near my daughter. We’re finished.” And we were.
Two months later, I saw my father on television after his arrest. He was smiling.
#
It was evening now, and even the finches had gone quiet. Most people who come to the Smokies do so in the summer, when the lightning bugs are active, and the crickets sing to the stars. Not so in the winter; it was quiet now, and Appalachia was hibernating.
I readied myself for bed.
And then, I began to dream.
I saw myself, not as myself, but as a spectator to my own life. Looking down, past the spruce firs and pine oaks, I saw that I was sitting with Daisy on the porch of my cabin. She wasn’t stocky now, but beautiful, and I thought of my wife in a way that I hadn’t in years.
She spoke to me.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you, Mr. Agent.” Her voice wasn’t staccato now, but lyrical, and hearing it, I saw myself as a young man. “There is a way to kill the stone man, a way to banish him forever.
“I can tell you how. If you want me to…”
I was dreaming, and I wasn’t. I didn’t know what Daisy was offering, not really, but I knew that I wanted it badly, whatever it was.
“Please.” I spoke to her above the treetops, but she was looking at me on the porch, her hands in mine.
“Blood. From a woman. The stone man can’t abide it.
“This is how you kill him, the only way. When it’s their time, the women surround him on the mountain where he lives. And then the stone man is banished, and he can never return.”
I heard a rushing sound then, like a rising chorus, and I knew my dream was ending.
“Don’t forget our conversation, Mr. Agent…”
#
I didn’t forget.
It was colder now, the next morning; the winter frost had begun to settle on the ferns and evergreens outside my cabin. It was of no matter. I had come to a realization—I wasn’t investigating a disappearance. I was investigating another, older crime.
I needed to return to the mountain.
The cabin was as Clinton and I had left it. A wool blanket was neatly folded on the sofa. The cedar ottoman was set carefully atop a braided rug. I was unsure exactly what I was looking for, but I knew that once I found it, I would know.
I wondered whether Anna had a sister. I hoped not.
At first I didn’t see him.
That’s what strange about mountains; they hide the smaller things. It’s the immensity of it all, I suppose. Maybe he was there all along.
He was tall, taller than a man, and he carried a cane with a crossed wheel at the handle, and three feathers attached at the collar. His skin was a dusky gray, the color of shale. He smelled of ammonia.
He smiled at me.
I wasn’t Anna, however, nor was I a child. I knew the stone man wouldn’t touch me.
I thought about my daughter.
Gathering my courage, I approached him the only way I knew how, with my 9mm pistol held before me. I slid closer and closer, until the sharp tang of his scent almost overwhelmed me. As if in a dream then, I began to hear a rushing sound, rising in volume, while the world before me emptied. But still, I could see him there standing, the stone man.
And all he did was smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile.
#
I awoke the next morning in my cabin. And I knew. I found what I was looking for.
I’d seen a smile just like that, years ago.
I placed a call to the Boston Police Department. I had nothing more to offer than when I had arrived, but I had to make the report. I asked them to investigate.
At least they were polite.
I thought once more about Anna, about Daisy, about Appalachia. I remembered what Clinton told me: that the mountains were here before the trees, and would be here, I knew, even after the oceans had boiled, and the land turned to ash. And then I thought about my family.
In two hours I would be on a plane heading east.
And then, God willing, I would be home.
Jeremy Akel is an attorney. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida, and his Master of Laws from George Washington University. As an undergraduate he attended Vanderbilt University. Jeremy also teaches Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and is certified by the United States Aikido Federation as Fukushidoin. His work has been published in Altered Reality Magazine, Rue Scribe, and Sundial Magazine.
