Four Spaces (Poetry Anthology)

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POETRY

Eva Petropoylou Lianoy (Greece)

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt)

Mbizo Chirasha (Zimbabwe)

Santosh Kumar Pokharel (Nepal)

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©®Eva Petropoulou Lianoy Eva was born in Xylokastro where she completed her basics studies. She loved journalism by small and attended journalism lesson at the ANT1 School. In 1994 she worked as a journalist in French newspaper "Le LIBRE JOURNAL," but her love for Greece won and returned to her sunny home. Since 2002, she lives and works in Athens. She works as a web radio producer reading fairy tales at radio logotexniko vima every Sunday. Recently she become responsible for the children literary section in Vivlio anazitiseis publications in Cyprus.

She published books and ebooks: " I and my other avenger, my Skia publications Saita." "Zeraldin and The elf of the lake" in Italian and in French as well as “The daughter of the Moon” in 2 languages English and Greek. The Moon Daughter published by Ocelotos 4 times, received best reviews for author's writing and writing style.

She is a member of the Unesco Logos and Art Group, of the writers of Corinth, of Panhellenic Writers Association. Also her work is mentioned in the Known Greek awarded encyclopedia for Poets and authors, Harry Patsi, page 300.

Her books have been cleared by the Ministry of Education of Cyprus.

Eva’s recent work includes: "The water Amazon fairy called Myrtia" ,illustrated by Vivi Markatos, dedicated to a girl that become handicap after a sexual assault and the translation of stories of Lafcadio Hearn, "Fairytravel with stories from Far East", an idea that she worked more than 6 months illustrated by MsNtinaAnastasiadoy, very known sculptor and sumi e painter in Greece.

Blog: http://evalianou.blogspot.gr E-mail: eviepara@yahoo.fr

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Distance

In every country Hug is forbidden Whispers hearing that we are a virus People forget the healing of heart Animals are the closest friend Distance From my heart to my feet From my feet to my head So big disturbing distance I talk to my self Since the day you left I talk to my left side And hope one day she responds to me Hug, Kiss, A great distance keep us appart Divide my hand from your heart Cut my words in 2 syllabus

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Distance....

Where I put 2 question marks Without knowing how you react Distance The whole world become a savage beast

ŠŽEva Petropoulou Lianoy

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Love

Peace in my heart Soul to soul communication from a comfort zone Love like the childrens do Dream with a funny face Love Respect a woman Kiss the hands Love A man stays silent in a dark room Fall in love with a woman's heart Special love No words Only signs in the air Love Peace between enemies

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A dove fly to a an island Wishes come true Try to be a real hero in this world.

ŠŽEva Petropoulou Lianoy

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Destiny

I come from far I get to a circle I love a man I touch the sky A bird I become I forget my life before poetry Leaving between the verses Music gave me a message Writing gave me a purpose Destiny, I was in my mind Who I became Happiness it was my choice Generosity my medicine Destiny, I call all friends Leave the moment. ŠŽEva Petropoulou Lianoy

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Red

A colour is a bridge between the The real and the painter's reality Sometimes red colour can be pink and soft Innocence.

Sometimes red colour can be so dark, like the blood coming out from a deep wound.

Hurted.

ŠŽEva Petropoulou Liano

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Ashraf Aboul-Yazid Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is an Egyptian poet, novelist and journalist born in 1963. He is the Editor-in-Chief, THE SILK ROAD LITERATURE SERIES. He has been working in Cultural Journalism for more than 30 years. He authored and translated 35 books. Some of his novels and poetry volumes have been translated into English, Spanish, Turkish, Persian, Korean, Malayalam, Sindhi and German books and anthologies. He was chosen the Man of Culture for the Year, 2012, Tatarstan, Russia.

He won Manhae Prize in Literature, 2014, the Republic of Korea. He won the Arab Journalism Award in Culture, 2015, UAE. Currently he is the president of Asia Journalist Association (since April 2016).

Poetry | Arabic

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Washwashat Al Bahr, (the Whisper of the Sea), Cairo, 1989.

Al Asdaf, (the Shells), Cairo, 1996.

Zakirat Al Samt, (the Memory of Silence), Beirut, 2000.

FawqaSirat Al Mawt , (On the Passage of Death), Cairo, 2001.

Zakirat Al Farashat, (the Memory of Butterflies), Cairo, 2005.

Poetry | Non-Arabic

6. Una calleen el Cairo, (A street in Cairo), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2010.

7. YaraliGÜvercinlerIrmaği, (Turkish), Artshop, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012.

8. The memory of Butterflies , (Persian), Afraz, Tehran, 2013 9. The Memory of Silence, English, Poetrywala, Mumbai, 2016 10. (The Whisper of the Sea), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2018.

11. A Street in Cairo (Sindhi), Dareen, Germany, 2020 12. A Street in Cairo (German), Dareen, Germany, 2020

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Maps of the Mirage A Map of a Spotlight

The only spotlight is seeking for two eyes, hurt by darkness.

It is seeking for eyeballs engraved by the darkness to read one thousand and one texts.

It is seeking for a knife to kill the night with.

It is seeking for a star, to get it melted, in a deserted glass.

It is seeking for a map of love.

ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid 14

A Map of the River

My river is thirst for waterfall, It is crawling searching for its tributary, It is searching for a valley to cross, Expressing love and temptation.

The river is searching for you, To dive into his mouth.

ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid

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A Map of the City He Left

The boy will return looking for the house of his neighboring girl.

But he will only see the dry roses in her balcony.

He will knock at the door, with no answer but of the sleeping bat that tells him of the heresy of death.

Despite of the shades thrown by the concrete forests, he shall search roads around the house.

The signs of love, they once engraved in tree trunks, might be still there.

Despair shall sleep in his eyes on the abandoned thresholds, as he was looking for the gates leading him out of this labyrinth.

But he forgets the password of survival, and becomes a statue in a legend. ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid

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A Map of a Garden at the Edge of Death

The only ways leading to you are wet by the tongue of a mirage.

The green color in your fields is a mixture of algae and waste land.

Your illusionary garden is only living in your head, lying in the intestines of the jungle.

If you stretch your hands to hold its roses of fire, it will take you into its mouth.

And inside the belly of the dragon; you shall be a pile of dust.

ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid

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A Map for Google’s Sons

You are just a few points and lines.

You are colors left in some corners and circles.

Nothing could identify you; no heart pulses, no breast Breathes, and no words.

You are the sons of a research engine, You are numbers and letters typed on the maps of «Google.»

©Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

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A Map of an Old Sorrow

It is snaking in your ribs, searching for a hole in the apple of your heart, searching for a deserted road, that leads towards memories.

It is inspecting your secret drawers; There might be something you erased.

It will feed it with fire, and sing for orgasm, on its way back.

ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid

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A Map of a House over there

There is a house where I live Over there, it sniffles like the mills of Don Quixote.

From far away It looks like a gravestone.

If you are approaching there, you shall see me crucified on its balcony, watching the flocks of seagulls, as I touch my lifeless wings.

ŠAshraf Aboul-Yazid

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Mbizo CHIRASHA.

Mbizo CHIRASHA is an African Contributor Poet / Essayist at Monk Arts and Soul Magazine (UK). Ditch Poetry ( Alberta University, Creative Writing ,Canada). Poetry Potion ( Canada).

Full of Crow (Canada). Scarlet Leaf (Canada). Poetry Soup (USA).Poem Hunter (USA).One Ghana One Voice (Ghana).Rhythm International Voices (Canada).

AfricanWriter.com(Nigeria). Ovi Magazine (Finland) Atunis Galatica (edited Agron Shele, Belgium). Black Well Poetry Pamplhet (Oxford School of Poetry, UK). Lit net (South Africa). Ofi Press ( Mexico City). Fem Asia Magazine (UK). Ink Sweat and Tears (UK). Squack back (USA).The Poet a Day Zine (founded by the late Maestro G Jamie Dedes, Brooklyn, and USA). Demer Press International Poetry Series (curated and edited by Hannie Rouweler, Netherlands). World Poetry Almanac Series ( Curated and Edited by Hadaa Sendoo, Mongloia).

Poesi. Is Journal (edited by Peter Semolic, Slovenia). Festival de Poesia de Medellin (founded and directed by Fernando Rendon, Colombia). DIOGEN Magazine (Turkey). Ruck Sack Patch Poetry, Voices of Diversity (Passion for Poetry, curated by Antje Sehn, Italy). Cultural Weekly (International Space, USA) .

Zimbabwean (published Wilf Mbanga, UK) .Word City monthly (curated and edited by Darcie Friesen Hossack, International).

IHRAF Publishes (founded by Thomas Block, New York, USA).

Diasporan Online (founded and edited by Lola Thomas, Spain).

New Best African Poets (curated and edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, Zimbabwe) and more ‌

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RONDAVELS OF POVERTY Dedicated to my rural villagers I) See, Ideological tutors discarding their dignity in crank jugs Comrades dying between rude stitches of hypocrisy and conspiracy Father’s phalluses chopped by cyber- punk slang, Mother’s cotton tuft -hair wisdom castrated by hard pliers of poverty Liberation euphoria fading with the whirlwinds of corruption -seized cartels Poverty THRASHED mothers, scratching lives out of the barren red clay earth Daughters groaning under the grind of forced intercourse, Their sorrow soaked lives trembling against nights of death 24

Owls singing satirical verses of doom, Hyenas reading page- poetry of gloom Spoken word verses throbbing alongside the frail beat of bald –shaved red hills, Burning under the depressing charcoal of hot summers Red glow of fire shimmered over the roasting earth like an expiring day Shame -creased faces told rending story of hunger Rivers are motionless skeletons of dry sand, Droughts folded their legs onto the doorsteps of our land Silence, graveyard silence, silence of decaying mass, a dying mass Rondavels drenched by rituals of grief My land is a sorry tale of sufferance, Its manhood deposited into hot pants of PENNURY Heartbeat of this land throb like the crack of a broken drumbeat, Crushed between hunger and disease 25

Mothers enduring under the weather like determined cassava roots. ii) A country once revolutionary granite, Now, exfoliated by political scars and moral sores Super -human autocrats spitting out rotten gospels of freedom, Their combat clad, steely booted green horns, toyi-toying Their high- kicking liberation dance, jabbing the ideologically spoilt wind Napoleonic kings of the land, sloshed by hypocritical revolutionary hymns Indoctrinated by the pseudo- socialist political lingos, Nights of death pounced like stray baboons over villagerondavels, My mind suffers from nostalgia, A disease, an ailment A disease of memory 26

Memories of yesteryear Memories of red dagga and pole huts farting beautiful smoke, Aroma of fresh cow dung, dampness of fog under our cracked feet Jiving and chattering of mother monkeys and cackling of wild hens Domesticated dogs howling to shadows dancing under guise of moonlight Owls singing their baritone announcing the black veil of the sleeping earth Doves hooting their morning poetry slam, celebrating the rays of a renewed day.

Rhythm of black villages

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Memories ……………………

BLACK ORANGES For Africa and her people Xenophobia my son I hear a murmur in the streets A babble of adjoining markets Your conscience itching with guiltiness like Genital leprosy Your wide eyes are cups where tears never fall When they fall the storm wash down bullet drains and garbage cities Come nomzano with your whisper to drown, Blood scent stinking the rainbow altar.

Darfur, petals of blood spreading, Perfume of death choking slum nostrils Slums laden with acrid smell of mud and Debris smelling like fresh dungs heaps Fear scrawling like lizards on Darfur skin 28

Kibera. I see you scratching your mind like ragged linen Smelling the breath of slums and diesel fumes The smoke puffing out through ghetto ruins is the fire dousing the emblem of the state

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ii) Belly of Zambezi ache with crocodile and fish Villages piled like heaps of potatoes against the flankof eastern hills Farmlands dripping golden dripping dew Sunshine choking with vulgar mornings Dawns yawning with vendetta filled redemption songs Drums of freedom sounding fainter and fainter, blowing away in the wind When streets rub their sleep out of their eyes Villagers scratch painful living from the Infertile patches of sand on this earth whose lungs heave with copper and veins bleeding gold Ghetto buttocks sit over poverty. Kalingalinga Corruption eating breakfast with ministers.

Kabulonga,with shrill cries of children breaking against city walls Shire river tonight your voice rustled dry, like the scratching of old silk 30

Politicians grow everywhere like weeds Land of Ngwazi. Yesterday crocodiles breakfasted on flesh Owls and birds sang with designated protocol Ngwazi your cough drowned laughters and prayers Your breath silenced rivers and jungles

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Mozambique, belief and gift of my poetry Sweat wine poured to absent, long forgotten gods and goddesses Soft kiss spent on golden virgins before they aged into toothless grannies The rhythm of samora Heartbeat of chimurenga Drumbeat of Chissano Today your once bright mornings blight in corruption.

A social anorexia Abuja guns eat you more than disease I loved you before you absorbed poverty as sponge soaking out water. Before rats chewed your roof Before you conceived men with borrowed names and totems Ghost of Abacha guzzling drums of blood and gallons of oil

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Wiwa chasing shadows of babangida past delta of treasures Buganda cruelty is a natural weapon of a dictator Poor lives buried under rubbles of autocracy Pregnant mothers with eyes gouged out by bullets, pushing their guts back into their bellies Luanda you are a roar of old trucks A whine of motor cycles. A rumble of dead engines America frying its fingers in oil pans of your kitchen Where Europe fry, America roast Angola. When you cough, America catches a fever Angola! Quench my parched lungs with a spoon of oil I see the naked thighs of your desert hills Barotseland of Setswana A servant positioned with trust American green bloomed your desert shrubs

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Your loyalty is sold to she who offers the next meal.

Barotseland of seretse

Somalia Your lips burnt brown with exposure of rough diet You are muffled voice, cursed and drowned into deep silence The smell of aged incense and stale coffee A tune piped by the shepherd on mountainside, only to be half heard by and quickly forgotten by villagers

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Ghana The anthill of black seed Coast blessed with gold Once a young girl full of sap and strength Once perfumed with richness and sacredness You shared your salt and sweat from freedom Today you a like a woman who sleep with a pillow between her legs anticipating a miracle of man

Coast of ivory I see faces tight as skin of drum in moonlight Ivory Coast. Once the smoke and smell of human excitement Tonight bullets burrow into your belly like rats into sacks of Thai rice You are the broken pot we patch to put on shelf again.

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DISGRACELAND: African Lady Macbeth, 1996-2017

Madame, When the sunrays spark through the rim of hills flanked By our poverty smashed rondavels Rise together with the defiant and giant steps of sun And toyi-toyi to Nyazvidzi streams to vomit your disease, To vomit your dread And hatred-laced heart into the ever –laughing river That your dread can peacefully washed away by the beautiful rhythm abound.

Madame, I see you carelessly smashing kindergartens with your corruption-tired, 36

Sanctions-smitten, ambition-gloved, Hardy-gritty-like-sandpaper palms.

Madame, I see your anger-ridden slogan descending over the cascading, Smoky presidium rondavel leaving others to lick burnt scars.

Madame, I see you wielding your slogan like a hammer chiseling mercilessly the flesh of the state.

Madame, your mouth is a bitter pot where honey will not drip, your words stink war like in Bagdad.

Madame, your loose virulent, verbal saliva laced with acid burnt 37

the hopes of the villagers.

Madame, We lost our country between your foul cracked lips And our freedom promise in the dirty alleys of your seething ambition.

Madame, Your broken dance is a magnet to paparazzi And your vitriolic verbiage is fodder to Pen -wielders.

Madame, Sit calmly down next to the splashing streams, Vomit your dread and your hatred.

Madame, Children and daughters await a new song from you 38

from your heart We are tired of aged baboons laughing at your rants, We have become motherless Your careless vengeful slogans plunges the country into utter dimness

Madame, When the sunrays spark through the rim of hills flanked By our poverty smashed village rondavels .

Rise with the defiant rays and giant steps of sun and toyi-toyi to Nyazvidzi streams to vomit your disease, Vomit your dread and hatred-laced heart into the ever –smiling silver –water stream That your dread is cleansed and the November baptism is announced.

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Santosh Kumar Pokharel Santosh Kumar Pokharel is a multilingual Poet, Editor and Translator from Nepal. He writes in four different international languages and has hundreds of poems in Nepali English Hindi and Russian. His poems have been translated in seventeen languages so far and published. Poet Pokharel, a senior civil engineer by profession completed his masters in engineering from peoples’ Friendship University Moscow. His poetic journey started from the age of 13.

His fluency in international languages has given him access to a wide range of world poets. Participant of several international poetry conferences and recognition award ceremonies poet Pokharel is a name of pride for Nepal and abroad. Very recently Poet Pokharel has been conferred on highly prestigious international award ‘Ambassador for Peace’ by the Universal Peace Federation, the UNO Social Organization. Recognized with International Award of the Year 2018 for the Creative Writing from Mahatma Gandhi Welfare Society and Education Foundation Aurangabad, Maharastra India, had also represented Nepal in the 39th World Congress of Poets in Bhubaneshwar. Poet Santosh Kumar Pokharel has written and published five books so far and he is the Editor and publisher of The World Poetry Anthology INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF LITERATURE Issue-One that can be found in Kindle Amazon book shelves. Founder of FB Poetry Group International Forum of Literature, poet Pokharel has been recently conferred on Silver Medal Award by Lifft Eurasia for his contribution to Russian Poetry for 2020.Santosh Kumar Pokharel is a first ever name from the foreign non-Russian speaking country in the history to have been nominated Honorary Member of Sevastopol Literary Association in January 2021.

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Today's Paradox

Feeling indifferent.

Feeling calm.

Flying in the air.

No ecstasy and no disparity In me here.

No charm to see someone over there As if now, I were not me in the least but an austere.

This could have been in the past What shall hardly last All the way long can't you spare For nothing; caress life 42

You have to survive Anyway, and this will be fair.

If I go astray who will pray For me and will be there?

Someone might get hurt Who does me so much care.

Her words are simple though I take a solemn vow As a bliss from divine mere.

Feel loved now You may onto me stare, This might happen to poets Over here and over there!

- Santosh Kumar Pokharel, Nepal, January26. 2021 Bhaktapur All rights reserved (c) pokharel.santosh@gmail.com 43

No poem this evening

This evening there's no poem for you This evening I couldn't you subdue This evening you did this much await This evening I was in such state.

This evening I have to tell a tale This evening I won't that post stale This evening I didn't ask for words This evening probably slept my Lord.

This evening I didn't gaze above This evening I couldn't sleep my shove This evening you will be in my heart That evening writing anew starts.

- Santosh Kumar Pokharel, Nepal, January25. 2021 Bhaktapur All rights reserved (c) pokharel.santosh@gmail.com 44

YOUR LIGHT WASN'T THERE

I wrote your poem The poem flowed smoothly Open without music Scattered with the flow along the rock and across Only your voice was not there.

And it poured in a stream but was empty Had speed supposedly, there was no energy There was no part of the beauty The poem fell like a haystack Leaving dignity aside Like an indecent clown from the theater From some far and wide.

There was a noise in the background Words were fighting to explode 45

And emotions ran high And the poet just looked at it all in a silent mode Lost in thought and remained indifferent The poet's siesta was broken how mend?

One wish he fulfilled Just looked at it continuously with indifference He tried to hold his sense What was it and what was the place?

Was it the hoot of the noiseless one?

Or the rhymes of the mad!

I got sad.

Poetry was not around but afar, stare!

Your light was not there.

- Santosh Kumar Pokharel, Nepal, 22 November 2020 Bhaktapur All rights reserved (c) pokharel.santosh@gmail.com

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