Time and tide wait
For no man they say
But here the tide swallows
The whole of the bay.

Where once we called home
The ocean laps high
We swam and we paddled
And we waved it goodbye.

But the waves kept on coming
And still they rise now
Oh to stem back the waters
I wish I knew how.

I'll wait for that message
A voice in the dark
To tell me that it's time
To begin on my ark.

© James Bessant

Sea Change: the Bay of Bengal's vanishing islands

James lives in London, and has been writing stories and poems for some years. His blog can be found at jamesbessant.blogspot.co.uk

Long robes, chappals on their feet, simple men
spinners of threads, of intricate webs – fabric
made of white cotton, but woven to hide pockets
where there are cups of salt taken from the sea,

goods from ships laden with steel, oil, coal.
And the many hands turn and spin to rot
knots in the web, till holes open wide wider
and money falls through where no one can see

but it is caught by tentacles of plastic gods
their arms around births, deaths, weddings,
businesses – pockets open before lighted paths,
gates for the gods that spin for champion of greed.

© Lavinia Kumar

India corruption: Hazare heaps pressure on government
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Lavinia Kumar lives in New Jersey. Her family includes a variety of cultures and immigrants. Her poetry has appeared in Waterways, Thatchwork (Delaware Valley Poets), Orbis, US1 Worksheets, and more.

Trials after trials; my begging lips started to give up
and then spoke the reticent judge-
“Hang till death”
Similar footsteps were heavy that day
marching onto my thin nerves where
memories have set up a light nest;
I was wrong; my thoughts of it to be undying
were crushed. The nest was thrown off and
the eggs about to burst open were carried
away by ravenous vultures.

A month was the time,
in which I was allowed to be a man
fit to be hung in the square of law;
a man who can feel pain rather than
one of whom pain is ashamed of.
A book, I still call nameless was all I took
as medicine; pages after pages the holiness
of it cured my sores red in deliberations
of the world outside the prison and future.

The clock in the central hall that used to sound
as the devil’s treads, now seem to be useful
hours that smile with the era of truth
approaching me with its unlikelihood.

One more day to go and the last page
of the book had, “seven ways to go to heaven”.
I had restored my greed of learning till the last day
to grasp the ideas just before falling free
into the ocean of kismet.

Strong arms pulled me out and the walls
wailed, feeling my nonexistence.
My last wish was torn to pieces without any grounds
known to me or perhaps to the ones who did it.
Now, I am walking with obscurity holding onto
some pages which said,
“Truth prevails on death. Neither before nor after.”

© Sonnet Mondal

Dhananjoy Chatterjee Hanged In Kolkata Jail

After Ahmned, Hangman Crunch
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Sonnet Mondal, author of six poetry books, pioneered the 21 line fusion sonnet form. He has received a number of awards, including the Azsacra International Poetry award in 2011.