Remembering Mali, Custodian of the Apartment Building by Mani G. Iyer

Arya Suraj

Remembering Mali, Custodian of the Apartment Building

My mother's voice quivers over the phone from Bombay,

'No one missed him till the rotting stench grew unbearable.

They burned his hut with him inside.'

In soiled khaki shorts and a tee-shirt once white 

he'd pick frangipanis and marigolds at dawn 

for the Brahmins' morning worship of their stony gods,

sweep the building's yard and tend its flora,

be the landlord's servant in lieu of rent,

do any chore any tenant demanded of him,

and pestle sun-dried chili peppers for them

in a mortar waist-high, an eye-smarting grind.

His nights were routine– head straight for King’s bar,

stagger back home with near-misses on gutters,

sully the quiet with slurred profanities,

swear to break the neck or leg of those

who paid him a measly rupee for his drudgery,

shout till he could settle on his open-air charpoy, 

and sink into a welcome oblivion.

Sunday mornings, I'd find him squatting

on a patch of sunlight, his calloused fingers

rubbing his temples and drumming his bowed head.

I’d greet him. His lips darkened by beedi smoke

and teeth rust-colored from betel leaves he rolled

with areca nuts and tobacco; he'd grin at me.

I smile at the memory and linger on 

his sober swagger set off towards the distant holler of his name.

© Mani G. Iyer

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Mani G. Iyer

Mani G. Iyer is deaf-blind due to Usher Syndrome, a rare, progressive genetic disorder. His poems have appeared in Book of Matches, Right Hand Pointing, Naugatuck River Review, and The Helikon Poetry Journal (translated into Hebrew). His debut chapbook, I Am the Dancing, was published by Yavanika Press in the fall of 2019.

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A SECOND CHANCE FOR BIMAL by Snigdha Agrawal

Muhammad Atik

A SECOND CHANCE FOR BIMAL

"Why are you late for work?" Madam asked Bimal in an irritable voice.

"I was knocked down by a cyclist and had to go home to change my clothes and apply Dettol to the bruises on my knees." Bimal pulled up his pants to show his bandaged knees stained with blood.

"Okay...go run and get the jalebis. The kids are waiting for breakfast," was her indifferent response.  Bimal made a quick exit to visit the sweetmeat shop selling freshly made hot jalebis, a favorite breakfast with the Guptas, washed down with glasses of hot milk. 

Ramlal's shop quickly ran out of jalebis due to high demand. Bimal was a regular, and noticing he had not arrived at his usual time, Ramlal kept his portion out of the customers' sight to avoid any unforeseen problems. 

When Bimal arrived, there were other customers in the queue.  Ramlal noticed him at the end of the line and raised his eyebrows as if to ask why he was late.  As Bimal reached the counter, he was sure the supply would be exhausted, and he would have to face the ire of Mrs Gupta.  Ramlal saved his day, handing over the oil-stained brown paper packet from under the counter, whispering to him, 'I have kept the normal quantity and added a few extras for you. Enjoy.  And consume them before reaching home."

Ramlal saw in this fourteen-year-old lad his son, whom he had lost a decade ago.  A victim of dengue fever.  He knew Bimal had to work for a living and, from his appearance, guessed he was not treated well by the Gupta household. 

Putting the jalebis on a plate, Bimal set them on the dining table, setting aside the extra four pieces for himself. The overnight dishes needed his attention first. Otherwise, he would be in trouble. Mrs Gupta was always picking on him for the slightest aberration. Just when he was about to bite into the juicy, sweet, the mistress walked into the kitchen and exclaimed, "You thief!  How ungrateful of you.  We employed you as our domestic help because our driver vouched for you, saying you came from a good family with no bad habits.  Pack your belongings and don’t even think of coming back.  The security guard at the gate has instructions to hand you over to the police if you even attempt."

Bimal wasn't even given a chance to explain as Madam stormed out of the kitchen to tell her husband and children of the incident.  Shame-faced, Bimal let himself out and walked aimlessly on the streets, not having the courage to tell his father that he had lost his job.  Ramlal came to his rescue when Bimal narrated the events leading up to his being thrown out of the Gupta home. 

"Arre beta...you don't have to worry.  I will employ you in my shop.  That way, you will continue to earn money as well as learn how to make the best jalebis in this town."  The relief on Bimal's face was visible. 

There was a spring in his step despite the pain as he walked home to announce to his parents the new job that would fetch him more money.

For Ramlal, it was like having his dead son back!

Notes: Jalebi – an Indian sweet made of a coil of deep-fried batter that is soaked briefly in sugar syrup. 

Arre beta – Oh, child.

© Snigdha Agrawal

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Snigdha Agrawal

Snigdha Agrawal (née Banerjee) holds an MBA in Marketing and has over two decades of corporate experience. She enjoys writing in all genres, including poetry, prose, short stories, and travel diaries.  Educated in Loreto Institutions, run by the Irish Nuns, and brought up in a cosmopolitan environment, she has learned the best of the East and West. She is a published author of four books.  Her works have appeared in several anthologies and e-journals, published in India and overseas. She has recently been nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize in poetry.

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One Day in 3020 by Soodabeh Saeidnia

akın akdağ

One Day in 3020

children will be riding viruses,
galloping them off to playgrounds,
and dashing the most stubborn ones over the rocks
the way their ancestors tamed wild horses,
they will be sprinting
through the fields of sunflowers toward schools

mothers will cook tonic soursop soups
and servant viruses will help them
to clean dishes without water and soap

fathers will construct towers
with help of virus workers
and skyscrapers will rise
in a matter of days without cements
we will love them
and forget the dark days they killed us

they won't hate us
but they won't forgive the mutation  
that brought them down to the level of slaves

© Soodabeh Saeidnia

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Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh Saeidnia lives in New York City but is originally from Iran. Her English poems have appeared in American and Canadian anthologies and literary magazines, including Careless Embrace of the Boneshaker, Squawk Back, Indiana Voice Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, Sick Lit Magazine, Dying Dahlia Review, Sisyphus Quarterly, and NY Literary Journal, among others. Her poetry books, Street of the Ginkgo Trees, Voice of Monarch Butterflies, and Apple Fruits of an Old Oak, are now available on Amazon. She is the editor and translator of the bilingual anthologies in English and Farsi, including Where Are You From, Persian Sugar in English Tea Vol I, II, III, and Saffron Flavored Rock Candy Vol I, II. Her micro-poems are found on  X @SSaeidnia and Open Art Forum. She routinely posts many of her poems on her weblog https://soodabehpoems.wordpress.com/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/soodabeh.saeidnia. 

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The Treasure by Bilal Al Masri

Gizem Gökce

The Treasure 

How can I be sure 

that language is the treasure 

in the hinterland of the soul? 

I doubt that balconies – 

which dangle from buildings 

like the earrings of women – 

are the entire city! 

Rather the body is the original place 

where Time was born.

Sometimes I feel the Earth 

is a morsel in the mouth 

of the universe – 

this predatory being 

expanding endlessly, 

like paradise is

a search for pure nihilism, 

yet that discovery 

brings no new knowledge, 

.just hell growing out of questions

© Bilal Al Masri

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Bilal Al Masri

Bilal Al Masri is active in the Lebanese literary community and known throughout the Arab world. He has published four poetry collections. He has written three novels and two plays as well as children’s stories, which were translated into English in Canada. Selected poems have appeared in six anthologies, including English and Polish, and some of his poems have been translated into French. He has received four different awards, including the “Zheng Nian Cup” national prize in China in 2023. His most recent poetry collection is Crushing His Head with the Stone of Memory, part of Ishraqat – a series on Arab Poetic Voices curated by the iconic Syrian poet Adonis. Bilal and his wife, Sonia Essa (of Palestinian heritage), have two children.

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Tall Grass by Diane Engelstad

Leiliane Dutra

Tall Grass

I love

how the tall grasses

Panicum virgatum and 

Chasmantium latifolium

— perched at the corner

where my driveway

meets the runoff ditch,

next to where the refuse bins 

await collection on Tuesdays,

their brittle plastic markers with

Latin names 

long since obscured

by the expanding forest

of their grassy stems—

never stay bent and bowed for long

after a battering rain

pummels their regal foliage,

to be released graciously

from tips to ground;

or early snows

all but flatten

their former bearing

threatening a reluctant hibernation.

No, they shed the unnecessary

weight,

channel it to their roots

where it will serve them well

in time

and stand nobly together

waving in the more forgiving winds

deflecting potential criticisms 

of the imperfect lawn behind them

with sheer and outrageous confidence

proclaimed by reds and blues and greens

in plumage and dancing seeds.

They declare to passersby,

“Isn’t it marvelous 

to be right here?”

(From Diane Engelstad's book In the Presence of Trees, All the Space Publishing, 2026)

© Diane Engelstad

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Diane Engelstad

Diane Engelstad lives in a small town in Ontario, Canada, and has been writing poetry for about ten years. A late bloomer, she is inspired by the world, mystery, moments of clarity, trees, and the loves of her life. She published two volumes of poetry in 2026 -- In the Presence of Trees: Poems for finding your footing; and Begin Again: Poems for praying without ceasing; available from All the Space Publishing, diane@engelstad.ca.

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The Great Blue Heron by Terry Allen

Chris F

The Great Blue Heron

I’m out for a walk in the backland forest on the north side of the Chippewa Flowage. It’s early morning. It’s cool. I stop to admire a great blue heron flying gracefully overhead, a magnificent bird with a six-foot wingspan. Seeing one is said to be a message to pause and reflect, to act with patience, grace, and clarity. I’m in no hurry. I stand perfectly still and watch until the heron disappears, off I suppose, to the shoreline of one of the two hundred undeveloped islands nearby. Perhaps, it’s moments real or imagined, like this one that we collect when our lives slow down, and we’re no longer in a hurry to get anywhere. It’s at this time that we come to see that we’re simply a small part of a great story that sometimes moves straight ahead and other times curves back on itself, where present, past, and future become the same thing, like when my father came to visit me yesterday. I saw him out here in the forest. Clearly. Standing up ahead, across a footpath bridge, looking back at me. And I heard him say, Come on, boy. Get a move on. Follow me. And I did.

© Terry Allen

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Terry Allen

Terry Allen is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he taught acting, directing, and playwriting. He directed well over a hundred plays during his thirty-eight years of teaching. A few favorites include: Candide, Macbeth, Death of a Salesman, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and The Threepenny Opera. He is the author of five poetry collections: Monsters in the Rain, Art Work, Waiting on the Last Train, Rubber Time, and Preserving the Past for the Present.

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Renaissance by Edilson A. Ferreira

Elina Volkova

Renaissance

I was asleep in a dream full of nightmares 

and ate scraps of hope, milled in the impersonal

and mechanical time machine. 

Scraps that fed me to be no more than a dry tree,  

struggling to break free and unravel from roots  

that held me to the ground. 

I prevailed over fate that once deceived me,

and now walk and will spread my life around.  

I wish to distemper, hallucinate, and extrapolate, 

horrifying who has enchanted and eluded me,

in that dark and deaf land, that was not mine. 

I will go, doubtlessly a renewed man, in search 

not of a drop of water but of one rain that rains 

thunder and lightning, maybe even the deluge 

that has baptized our era.

I will reap fruits that, blessed by my hands

and hard a toil,  

will surely make me more and more strong. 

I will make love to my wife in sheets of soft Chinese silk,

and we will be asleep in a bed of fragrant Lebanon woods.

Not that I deserve more than Moses, 

who only had a glimpse of the Promised Land, 

but, of this new one, that I am to conquer,

I will take secure and lasting possession. 

© Edilson A. Ferreira

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Edilson A. Ferreira

Edilson A. Ferreira, 82, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. He has published two poetry books, Lonely Sailor and Joie de Vivre, and 400 works in various international literary journals. Has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He began writing at the age of 67 after retiring from a bank.

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Aired Out by Julie A. Dickson

Thanh Luu

Aired Out

Overcast, 

a gray sky hangs low,

no beckoning sun

to warm frozen toes

The day wet

chilled air permeates

layers of wool

pulled tightly closed

Standing still,

a limited chance to move,

just a vigil to maintain,

fulfill a task

Later indoors,

the aftermath of the cold

overcomes the senses,

aired out, refreshed

© Julie A. Dickson

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Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson has been a poet for over 55 years and a YA fiction writer. She draws from memories, life experiences, nature, and visual art. Her work has been widely published in many journals, including Kind of a Hurricane Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Feed the Holy, and MasticadoresUSA. Dickson shares her home with two rescued feral cats, Cam and Jojo.

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