A Castillo: Favorites

May 2014 A Castillo

I, Critic

May 2014 A Castillo

Sara L Russell

Sara L Russell, 17/5/14 00:29am*

I speak, therefore I ****.
Complacent in my seat of ancient learning,
  I can and will
undo your fragile notions,
your vapid little dreams;
I'll pierce your ego with a word.
  Your ego is absurd.

I sleep in blameless peace.
Reclining on my cloud of contemplation,
  I can and do
lampoon your trite devotions,
tug on their fraying seams;
I'll take your confidence away
  with everything I say.

You're weaker than I am,
Regurgitated clichés haunt your writing,
  you know it's true
You wear the same emotions;
no common sense redeems
the foolish things you write
- till I slay them with spite.

Inspired by a war of words between an editor and ex-co-editor of an anthology of poetry. The editor who was dismissed from co-editing wrote a very damning review of said anthology on amazon(dot)com. The original editor was very upset by his words and a battle of counter-reviews began. This poem is a satire of critics in general, especially self-styled poetry critics.

#poetry #writing #satire #critic #review

Mar 2014 A Castillo

Map

Mar 2014 A Castillo

Kuzhur Wilson

Map

while drawing the map of India
I know of a kid who was
worried as to where was Kuzhoor

a sketch job that took just five minutes
to score three marks
misled him many a time

between the question paper and the answer sheet
he
searched for his canal, bunds and fields

here’s Varkey chettan’s tea stall
there’s the butcher shop
here cricket is played
Subramonnian temple there
Kundoor river bank here
the friends wait here
Preethi turns into the alley here
like that he marked

even after the warning bell
India wouldn't be drawn in full

Kashmir not marked at all

Translation : Rajasree

(Map, Book-e-2003)

Dec 2013 A Castillo

I Slept, And Dreamed That Life Was Beauty

Dec 2013 A Castillo

Louisa May Alcott

I Slept, And Dreamed That Life Was Beauty

'I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shall find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.'

Aug 2013 A Castillo

A Baby Can't Be Killed Twice

Aug 2013 A Castillo

Dahlia Ravikovitch

A Baby Can't Be Killed Twice

On the sewage puddles of Sabra and Shatila
there you transferred masses of human beings
worthy of respect
from the world of the living to the world of the dead.
Night after night.
First they shot
then they hung
and finally slaughtered with knives.
Terrified women rushed up
from over the dust hills:
"There they slaughter us
in Shatila."
A narrow tail of the new moon hung
above the camps.
Our soldiers illuminated the place with flares
like daylight.
"Back to the camps, March!" the soldier commanded
the screaming women of Sabra and Shatila.
He had orders to follow,
And the children were already laid in the puddles of waste,
their mouths open,
at rest.
No one will harm them.
A baby can't be killed twice.
And the tail of the moon filled out
until it turned into a loaf of whole gold.
Our dear sweet soldiers,
asked nothing for themselves—
how strong was their hunger
to return home in peace.

Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.

Aug 2013 A Castillo

Mechanical Doll

Aug 2013 A Castillo

Dahlia Ravikovitch

Mechanical Doll

And that night I was a mechanical doll
and I turned right and left, to all sides
and I fell on my face and broke to bits,
and they tried to put me together with skillful hands
And then I went back to being a correct doll
and all my manners were studied and compliant.
But by then I was a different kind of doll
like a wounded twig hanging by a tendril.
And then I went to dance at a ball,
but they left me in the company of cats and dogs
even though all my steps were measured and patterned.
And I had golden hair and I had blue eyes
and I had a dress the color of the flowers in the garden
and I had a straw hat decorated with a cherry.

Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.

Jun 2013 A Castillo

A Thought on Death

Jun 2013 A Castillo

Anna Lætitia Barbauld

A Thought on Death

When life as opening buds is sweet,
And golden hopes the fancy greet,
And Youth prepares his joys to meet,--
Alas! how hard it is to die!

When just is seized some valued prize,
And duties press, and tender ties
Forbid the soul from earth to rise,--
How awful then it is to die!

When, one by one, those ties are torn,
And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,
And man is left alone to mourn,--
Ah then, how easy 'tis to die!

When faith is firm, and conscience clear,
And words of peace the spirit cheer,
And visioned glories half appear,--
'Tis joy, 'tis triumph then to die.

When trembling limbs refuse their weight,
And films, slow gathering, dim the sight,
And clouds obscure the mental light,--
'Tis nature's precious boon to die.

Jun 2013 A Castillo

The Tale of the Arab Who Died by Fire

Jun 2013 A Castillo

Dahlia Ravikovitch

The Tale of the Arab Who Died by Fire

When the fire grabbed his body, it didn't happen by degrees.
There was no burst of heat before,
or giant wave of smothering smoke
and the feeling of a spare room one wants to escape to.
The fire held him at once
—there are no metaphors for this—
it peeled off his clothes
cleaved to his flesh.
The skin nerves were the first to be touched.
The hair was consumed.
"God! They are burning!" he shouted.
And that is all he could do in self-defense.
The flesh was already burning between the shack's boards
that fed the fire in the first stage.
There was already no consciousness in him.
The fire burning his flesh
numbed his sense of future
and the memories of his family
and he had no more ties to his childhood
and he didn't ask for revenge, salvation,
or to see the dawn of the next day.
He just wanted to stop burning.
But his body supported the conflagration
and he was as if bound and fettered,
and of that too he did not think.
And he continued to burn by the power of his body
made of hair and wax and tendons.
And he burned a long time.
And from his throat inhuman voices issued
for many of his human functions had already ceased,
except for the pain the nerves transmitted
in electric impulses
to the pain center in the brain,
and that didn't last longer than a day.
And it was good that his soul was freed that day
because he deserved to rest.

Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.

Jun 2013 A Castillo

you'll always hurt me, i know

Jun 2013 A Castillo

maybella snow

you'll always hurt me, i know

i was brutally attacked
                                    the other day
though people were unable to see my wounds
           i was assaulted by                                  words
strung together in careless sentences

                                                                           they made vicious weapons
                                                                         of various differences
these word solders lined up
ready and eager
when they attacked
it was      graceful and ruthless

the solders
                                                                                     burnt
my mind
                                                                      slashed
my self-consciousness
left my feelings
                                                                                     gasping for breath
pummeled my heart

the      wielder     of these       word solders
     was        blind         to my        brimming tears
                                          and        hurt expressions

as my attackers continued
                                  to rip my insides

i had to
protect my fort
from      further damage

i      ushered      my mind into a       cellar,
carried my
self-consciousness and gasping feelings
                                                              into the doors of my heart
here:
it was total lockdown
windows   were                            shuttered
doors    were                          double locked

my     retreat     was    noticed
they now knew damage was done
but not the
                              spectrum it was on
they knew enough to see                       it hurt.

they strolled up to my heart in      lock-down
slowly     with a     white flag
      as they came closer i                                                             unlocked and looked
through the peephole
there they were
asking    "what's wrong?"
saying     sorry    in a       roundabout way

i      opened   the door for them to       enter
we      embraced
i took a      closer look at the     flag
                                                                             it was           white
but around the edges
                                                                             it was               red

there would be  more attacks  where this came from

//... //

— The End —