Quick Note

Dear readers and contributors, the seventh issue (odd issue) of Misty Mountain Review is here for you to offer a different taste this time around. There are altogether twelve poems by nine poets, and a translated poem of Mishra Baijayanti, a prominent female voice in contemporary Nepali poetry. Hope you will enjoying reading this issue.

Please make sure to scroll down to find 'the older posts'. Blogger.com is showing only 4 posts at maximum! For the translation work, please see at the blurb (VAPOR). Thank you!

Happy reading!

Haris Adhikari

One poem by Richard Luftig

Practice

I was ten and playing

the piano when he

walked out the door,

down the drive.

I waved but don’t think

he saw. He died

that day. Now,

I can’t let anyone

leave without saying

goodbye, saying

I love you. If you

are going to work,

going to war,

it does not matter.

I must give you a kiss.

I think it drives most people nuts.

Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio now residing in Pomona, CA. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature and a semi finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Japan, Canada, Australia, Europe, Thailand, Hong Kong and India.

One poem by Klaus J. Gerken

what i do

i don't
write no
poems no more
i got no
syntax
and i got no
grammar
they took my
education from me
at college
tried hard to
get it back but
ain't no use
all them fancy
words disappeared
one night
and i was left with
nothing but the
elaborated
openness of sky
and mud of earth
and strawmen
walking around
like zombies
in a ts eliot
poem falling
over each other
because
religion
is the truth
and nothing
can be done
about it but
to kill
so i don't
write no
poems no more
i scribble
observations
no one wants to
think about

Klaus J. Gerken is the editor of Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts. Founded in 1993, Ygdrasil is the first ever literary journal published on the internet. KJG lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Two poems by Gordon Hilgers

Inside and Outside

To be solidified and approximate a life
as fixed as stone. To withstand the entire night,
the nocturnal black rose,
revolving endlessly with no need for light,
and then to dwindle. To discard the baby-blue
umbrella as pointless and to move-out
from under sky.

Perhaps death exists as an end in itself, exemplary
of a squall too formidable for the breath
we must inhale,

only to impel our collapsing lungs until we grasp
ourselves awake on the landing
in the papery dusk, the tangle-headed gray
tussled,

a crone's bed-head, as we overlook the atrium
surrounded by questions, outside only
screaming emptiness as we meet-up with strangers
and shower-off this sweat

called life. 


Killer

To hold a poem inside like a rattlesnake,
thumb clamped against its throat as venom
drools fang to beaker, and to clasp multiple feelings
like locked lovers; this is to call-down threats
of lightning

with a house key crooking kite string, you being
the fool in the rain.  Interlocutor of the starry night's
near-blinding irritant, luminously fearsome, attractive
as rattler tambourines, you must bleed-out
your hurt, fever dreams mystifying a fibrillating
banal heart

until you burst-free like illumination struck by sunlight,
vacant lot become cathedral, nervousness transformed
into the orgasmic, brief liberty that confuses
dull reason

and which defeats prison walls of obscurant cloud banks,
the noxiousness a cure, witcheries bleak and satiate,
reptilian body snaked around wrist and pen. 


Gordon Hilgers has published poetry in three anthologies, has been nominated for the Sundress Press's 2014 "Best of the Web" contest, is currently a featured poet in Edgar Allen Poet Journal, and has also had poetry printed in Boston Literary Journal, Red Fez, Red River Review, Deathlist 5 and several other magazines and journals.  He lives in Dallas, Texas.

Two poems by Arun Budhathoki

Dear Fat

Dear Fat

You’re damn famous

And the whole town knows about it,

You’re in every malls, cafes, libraries and university buildings—

You’re not in every organic shops, Saturday markets, organic section in Sobeys 

& Supermarket, 

and definitely not inside my refrigerator (I am bluffing)

I can’t imagine being close to you,

You are even within me, within this body;

I wonder what’s going on with you these days,

Dear Fat

Why are you so concerned about few people only?

Why do you live within the skin and bones of few while there are plenty?

You love flesh, don’t you?

You like to chew it slowly

And take away the glory on your own,

Not me.

I keep chewing you

And the fat in me kills you.

Lonely

The street is lonely

The wind doesn’t stop yelling

The trees shiver in cold

While people live within their insulated homes

Lonely, lonely, lonely

The sky is absolute grey

The surroundings severely pale

St. John River mute like a shattered lover

While people live within their insulated homes

Lonely, lonely, lonely

Downtown is empty

King’s Place wears dejected look

Traffic lights blink in pain

One by one

While people live within their insulated homes

Lonely, lonely, lonely

This house is so peaceful

I don’t feel any cold

The winds keep swooshing outside

While I live within this insulated home

Lonely, lonely, lonely

Arun Budhathoki, also known as Daniel Song, is a prominent voice in the area of young Nepalese Poetry in English. He has published five books so far: Edge, The Lost Boys of Kathmandu, Poems on Sikkim, Prisoner of an iPad: New Poems and Second In Love.  

His works have been published in MadSwirl, North East Review, Driftwood Bay, NNATAN and Dead Beats. Second In Love is his first collection of short stories. Arun is currently pursuing MPhil in Policy Studies at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.

His official page: https://www.facebook.com/arunbudhathokiauthor

One poem by Fiona Clements

If the Earth could write poetry what would it say to humans?

the oceans are for the fish and creatures of the sea
where did you come from, polluters of my waters?
what makes you think your trash is so important?
not I.

the forests are for the animals of the woods
where did you come from, with your guns and bullets?
who gave you the right to pull the trigger?
not I.

the trees are for the birds to make their nests
where did you come from, with your carbon monoxide?
what makes you think that you are the best?
not I.

Fiona is an animal and human rights defender who writes occasionally, and sometimes draws pictures and conclusions. She saw her own death in a vision at the age of six... and is now waiting to find out if the vision was real or a mere illusion.