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I’m a Bengali in sombrero
An Indian from Kolkata
I live at a stone’s throw
From where flows the Ganga.

I speak in Bengalee
For me the sweetest language
Like the Ganga flows freely
Has Sanskrit as lineage.

Rice is my staple food
So are dal and fish
A cup of tea is too good
With two biscuits on a dish.

Around me spreads green countryside
Where grows all the foodgrain
Rivers flow wild and wide
Their banks home joy and pain.

I was born and reared in this riparian land
Where soil is tilled in peasants’ sweat
Sparkles in moon the Bay’s white sand
Weaving dreams for many a poet!
  Feb 27 Khoisan
Vianne Lior
Willow limbs susurrate in clandestine murmurs,
brushing the lake’s gouache-green reflections.
Beneath—jellyfish effloresce, spectral inhalations,
ghost-thin, unmoored, drifting toward oblivion.

Dandelions unravel, golden tendrils severed,
carried off in the lungwork of wind.
A musk rose lingers—feral, aching,
its scent curling like unshed weeping
beneath the hush of twilight’s jaw.

Chevy lilts down arteries
stitched in coral marrow,
leather still inked with your laughter,
your dark brown eyes—
blackwood, abyss, a gravity
I would fall into, fracture utterly..

Et pourtant, je t’attends, infiniment.

And in this risette of evening,
where sky spills into sea, salt-lipped, weeping,
I wait—
soft, surrendered, affetuoso,
a note held past silence, raw, humming.

For my best friend of 7 years
No matter how far the roads stretch, your laughter still lingers—stitched into the marrow of memory, a warmth I will always return to.
  Feb 26 Khoisan
Sonia Ettyang
Our souls do what they do best. Speak fluently in silence.
Khoisan Feb 26
We are not Flawless
bad crossings wrongly drawn
shifting paths
exacting revenge
reflecting our existence
by delivering force.
Neither are we Lawless
living and learning
shifting paradigms
exacting our course
retaining our existence
by showing remorse.
  Feb 26 Khoisan
Star
Downcast breath,
one as before death.
Raised head,
kept tears from being shed.
Sewed lips,
silently weeps.
Khoisan Feb 26
Tree trunks
Long
logs
Limousine
short
stumps
round rings
first
wheels
long lost
human beings
.
  Feb 25 Khoisan
Lyle
I think of everything I go through daily
the hitting, the screaming
the narcissism, the manipulation
the abuse
and I think
Could be worse
so I end up being grateful that at least
I got food to eat and somewhere to sleep
a school to go to and siblings that care
I look at the bigger picture
instead of allowing myself to feel like a victim
because that mindset will get me nowhere
so I cope in silence and just be thankful
because it could be worse
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