 Untitled, reverse glass painting, Qing Dynasty (China) c. 1800s Upon Peering at an Untitled Reverse Glass Painting Fir trees surround the halls of the courtyard complex with reverse-facing rooms, side houses, and an entrance gate shielded by a spirit screen of inkstone engraved with terrain mirroring the landscape beyond the walls. Bellflowers are somewhere. Plum blossoms are somewhere. Floral motifs decorate red and blue garments. A pearl necklace adorns a neck and a headpiece is like a flat crown. Someone points to the sky. He says things with confidence. Someone sighs. Her court needs to tend to other matters. Messengers argue. Fog thickens around the terraces. No page walks through a courtyard. Moss grows on sculptures in a rock garden and stone arrangements resemble far-off mountains. A passerby cups a blossom, pondering a trek through Huashan. Lilac wisteria spirals around a monument. Flute melodies reach the court from a distant chamber. Tempos sync to phoenix birds twittering above the Hill of Wang Fu. Efren Laya Cruzada Efren Laya Cruzada is a poet who was born in the Philippines and grew up in a small town in South Texas. He studied English and American Literature and Creative Writing at New York University. He is the author of Grand Flood: a poem. His poems have been published in several journals, with work forthcoming in The Tiger Moth Review, The Stardust Review, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal. Currently, he is working on a poetry collection based on his travels throughout Latin America and Asia. His day jobs have included coaching chess, teaching ESL, and writing for blockchain media companies. He now resides in Austin, Texas. ** You Dare And Impress What a pose! A beauty that glows Your hands you unfold Able to power hold You assert authority And bury fragility A voice not to suppress You dare and impress A myriad of pearls You earned with no fears You uncover stories True fights not fancies You rise within an Empire A tiger’s fur your attire Your high ranking a pride Reversing history tide. Besma Riabi Dziri Besma Riabi Dziri is a teacher of the English language in high school in Tunis. She was born in Tunis, Tunisia on September 20th, 1966. She graduated from Manouba University of Arts. She has a great passion for creative writing. She writes short stories and fables. Poetry has gripped her very ink and captured her heart and soul. Through her poetry, Besma Riabi Dziri expresses her thoughts which include serving and enlightening Humanity, tolerance of beliefs and the importance of Love, benevolence, forgiveness in the soul’s renewal and growth. She avidly believes in the ability of poetry to transcend our limitations as human beings, beautify and elevate the soul and shine Love and Light into Humanity. ** The Qianlong Emperor's Consort Being Entertained in His Absence The windows on the universe were closed behind translucent screens. His senses: eyes and nostrils, ears and mouth, the hours he dozed, noted no new kingdoms fall or rise. Jade and jewels stud the mural walls; inside and out, extinctions multiply. The skies are overheated, fire falls when stars explode, the oceans pale. We try to kill whole species, not just one by one. Preserving what is wild is self-defeating. We mourn the glut of nature, saving none, but creatures do not mourn our moral bleating. A sage once dreamt he was a butterfly. Or was the dream the insect's? Toss the die! Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who has had a long fascination with the art and history of the Middle Kingdom. He has taught a large number of students from China. His poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Lyric, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and a number of other places. ** Red I was spat forth from the mouth of Changbai, the volcano: my beautiful molten self so red hot I ate everything in my path. I leapt off the orb of the sun: I crept into rowan berries and the goji, the lychee and the jujubi. From there to the palette of Zhu Da, diminutive painter of emperors and empresses; thence imperially decreed the royal colour on robes, pennants, standards such a red as I am! Piercing the sky with victory and valour primping the chests and Pom poms of warriors and court eunuchs alike billowing in the breeze - oh ecstasy! - across the mountains of Guangdong. There will be other colours, of course, dull lapis lazuli or insipid egg yolk yellow- but I am the colour of China. Taste, touch and feel - I am everywhere. Lucie Payne Lucie is a retired Librarian who is writing in and around Oxfordshire and Sussex; sometimes getting published in the wonderful Ekphrastic Review and other places. ** The [A]lternative [W]orldview for Shaohua Yan "He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." J. W. von Goethe 1. Book Time “Voila! … Now, this discourse – 1421: The Year China Discovered America (G. Menzies) – is Le Portal to the [A]lternative [W]orldview—id est, contrary to the (in)famous Christopher Columbus, The Explorer, grand narrative,” I ensure that I’m amply audible to her eardrums, so she knows ‘tis Book Time for me, “ … the Chinese were the original inventors of: paper making (105CE) AND type printing (960–1279 CE) AND gunpowder (1100 CE) AND compass (2nd century BCE–1st century CE) AND mechanical clock (715 CE) AND tea production (2,737 BCE) AND silk (4,000 BCE) AND umbrella (300 CE) AND iron smelting (1050–256 BCE) AND earthquake detector/seismograph (132 CE) AND rocket (228 CE) AND kite (muyuan: wooden kite) (1,000BCE) AND seed drill (1,500 BCE) AND paper money (9th century CE) AND acupuncture (300s BCE) AND … .” But, I don’t read this chronological account out loud, ‘cause I don’t need to, ‘cause she’s CHINESE – she knows her [H]istory! … “Now, that’sNews! This definitely calls for the Grand/Meta-Narratives—especially, the ones floating around in the West (under the canopy of Modernism)—to be revisited! … [Re]visited in the manner of a Deconstruction of the Civilisation – exempli gratia, in the Post-Modernist / Post-Structuralist context!”[1] The philosopher in me is provoked, but I keep the agitation(s) from treading onto the tongue. 2. Rhetorical Questions “Hmm. So, how come the Arabs (the Bedouins) still had to use the animal hides to document their folklores and poetry and songs back then (6th–7th century CE)? Hmm. And would the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) by the Turks—by Sultan Mehmet II (The Fetih/Gazi) (1453 CE)—even have been possible without the gun powder/guns/cannons, in the first place? Hmm. And what of the Islamic Renaissance – with the Al-Mu’tazilites et alia (8th–9th century CE) –[2] and the European Renaissance – with the Medici Family et alia (15th century CE) –[3] would these historical epochs even have materialised without the Chinese Factor? Hmm.” I can see/hear/smell/touch these – and multifaceted other – rhetorical questions ricocheting off each other inside my thalamus now; but, I spare my grey matter the immaterial labour. 3. Bedtime As I contemplate braving the idea of turning a dozen+ more pages over to sort the assist of the said scholar with the hunt for the theses to the aforesaid hodgepodge in my walnut shaped mind: enveloped in the Chinese-red nighty, wearing my favourite Eau de Toilette (Floral Aquatic Cool Water – Davidoff), 2-3 wine glasses of La Rosa down; she relays a signal to me with her cat eyes: (put the book away // screw the cap back on the pen // switch the table lamp off) ‘tis Bedtime! Saad Ali [1]. Postmodernism/Poststructuralism: An Intellectual Movement that rejects the objectivism/determinism/rationalism of the (European) Modernity, or the so-called Age of Enlightenment (18th–19th century CE), i.e., ‘one frame fits all the portraits.’ The movement professes relativism/pluralism/subjectivity as opposed to the ideology of the ‘universal truth,’ or ‘universal meaning,’ or ‘universal language,’ or ‘universal human nature,’ et cetera, i.e., there’re multiple truths/realities and meanings, and that every culture and language is valid in its own (unique) way. [2]. Al-Mu’tazilites (The Separated): A Philosophical/Theological School of Thought—proponents of: 1) ‘something comes from something’ metaphysics, 2) atomism (following the classical Greek tradition), 3) speculative theology, 4) man’s free will, 5) power of human intelligence and reasoning, et cetera. Some of the significant figures of the Movement included: Al-Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Ishaq, Al-Mahamali, Al-Asturlabiyya, et alia – who were also the key members of the Graeco-Arabic Translation Project. [3]. The House of Medici: The Family is also known as: 1) The Godfathers of the (European) Renaissance, and 2) Makers of Popes, Queens, and Artists. They are also famous for funding the inventions of the piano and opera, and being the Patrons of da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Galileo, et alia. Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is a poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Tagore. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com, or www.facebook.com/owlofpines. ** Come to Us, Come to Us Come to us, come to us, our empress beckons you forth. Shout to us, shout to us! What news brings you from the North? Tell us this story, what is it you know? Your brave tales of glory, none more filled with woe. The bard starts to laugh! A victory song! Bring our carafes! We're here, we belong! You needed success, my empress, we brought it. We'd bring nothing less, you've said it, we've fought it. Please, celebrate, all! Today is so joyous! No need for more brawls. No one can destroy us. Relax, my brave soldiers. Lay down to rest. No more weight on your shoulders. From you, we are blessed. Maeson Roucoulet Maeson Roucoulet (they/them) currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and is originally from Connecticut. They've been writing poetry since around the fourth grade, and were published in The Ram Page. Maeson is now interested in creative writing, literature, and music. ** Composition in Green The empress calls her court the Qing — 清 — qīng -- compounded splash of 'water,' block of 'green' yet not just one but all the shades of spring signify together Pure. Bright. Clean. 'Green is from blue and green is more than blue.' From inky depth flows life into the sheaves each year edenic. Troops scythe pale bamboo among blue hills, green ponds, black leaves. Thus she knows herself immortal: all is one blurred coluor swimming in the sleepy grass blooming at edges. Belly-up the sun pours half-light mediate through glass. Katy Borobia Katy Borobia is a recent graduate of Hillsdale College. She studied Mandarin Chinese for four years. Her poems and prose have been published by Ekstasis, Glass Mountain, and several others. After trying her hand at service, horticulture, 4-H education, and editing, Katy still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up. ** The Qing Dynasty As the youngest, one must earn her respect. I dance and twirl trying to win mother over. A facial heatwave when I make the connection: My siblings before me received life on gold platters. Their smug stares burning holes in my backside She glares, I know she reads minds. Ellen Canarelli Ellen Canarelli is a lifelong artist and writer who resides in Cassville, New York, where there are more cows than people. She spends all winter skiing, something she'd loved doing with her family since she was a very little girl. In the summer, she spends her days running for miles, soaking up the sun. ** Celebration Cheerful noise fills the area dancing, laughing, and joy As I sit on my throne and look from afar I appreciate nature's beauty– the trees swaying “hello” and the wispy smells from the garden Today is a day of celebration As they continue to laugh and dance I sit on my throne feeling content Tyler Carr Tyler Carr is a writer from Middletown, New York. She enjoys journaling and photography during her free time. ** The Purity Shines The purity shines hiding the hostility reds and blues draw the eye away from the pain the violence the individual hides their face behind the glass ignoring the blood spilled mixing with the paint Mo Flanagan Mo Flanagan is an author out of Boylston, Massachusetts. They enjoy reading prose and poetry. ** About-Face Who can shade upside down? Not one from the comfort of a death- rattle recliner or from boots tied to a gallows rope. Not one from the other side of the equator. Reverse engineering. Deconstruction. The first is the first and the last shall be last (in a non-Biblical manner). Facial hair. Beards. Brows. Lashes. Darks and blacks. Smirks. Crooked lines of nostrils. Crowns and caps. Clothes. Outer layers wait on belts and swords. Shameless hubris of cheeks lie tidy before the already shadowed hands brush their spears. Todd Sukany Todd Sukany, a Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over 40 years. His work recently appears in The Christian Century and Fireflies’ Light. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, and caring for three rescue dogs and three cats. ** Besotted I'll hold a parasol above your head, though my palms sweat blood on the handle, fingers close to breaking with the strain, the long hours. I'll present you with a scroll, lacquered tube to hold it, hung with braided tassels. The scroll will say I love you, calligraphed a thousand times in sumi ink. I'll have my dancers dance for you in soft leather slippers, embroidered cloaks, gold-threaded caps with scarlet pom poms. Their beards will be clipped for the occasion, waxed to a point a yard beneath the chin, scented with the sweetest mountain flowers: harebells, pennyroyal, peony. My jesters will impress you, tugging jokes from their throats like knotted scarves: endless hilarity, enough to make you helpless. They'll cease at my command, but I'll bide my time, waiting till you turn to me with wonder, gratitude, and love. Look what he can do, you'll say, this besotted man, devoted bearer of the parasol: he commands the sun, and everything beneath. I'll take your face in my aching hands, kiss your pale, shadow-cool forehead, my triumph tinged with sadness: we both know in our hearts I'll regret it, except in that moment when I had it all. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Publishing, 2023) ** Was This Richard Scarry’s Inspiration? Was this 1800s Qing Court scene Richard Scarry’s inspiration for his ultra detailed portrayals of modern homes, schools, even plain air pictures? Or perhaps he traveled through time and saw for himself that Empress holding court her jester, her advisor, her garden and the lands beyond? Perhaps he’s the one who painted it? If there are symbols here among these elements my old eyes, my mind, both flummoxed and distracted by so much detail, leaps from place to place in the painting. Scarry was a favourite of my laser-focused daughter who easily moved among Scarry’s many points of interest cataloguing , organizing all in her logical mind. My son and I put Scarry aside preferring pictures with fewer foci. Here, I note the Empress is smiling from under the arbor, and that she is robed in red silks of happiness. Perhaps her smile is aimed at the entertainer—is he swallowing a snake or sword or juggling for her? The others are so serious—maybe they will smile in the next picture, released from sober countenance only after the Empress smiles? My safest point of reference, if this were my only picture of the court, would be, are the two birds in the far-left corner gliding above, maintaining a good distance from all of this human interaction while gracing the sky with their gentle presence. I think my son would also have liked them best. Scarry drew his equally busy scenes for children to give them a safe view of the busy adult world all around them. I wonder how many Chinese children “read” about the court using this painting? I wonder how many of them, like my son and I were tired by these views and wished the painting and real life was simpler? Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales of food, family, strong women. Internationally published as an essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time Pushcart nominee, twice Best of the Net nominee, and a 2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, CNF, and fiction appear in Impspired, Ekphrastic Review, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, Ovunquesiamo, Synkroniciti, MacQueen’s Quinterly, SoFLoPoJo, and many others in US, UK, Australia, Germany, and more. Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, (Finishing Line) and Feathers on Stone, (Main Street Rag). ** Victory Celebration On a mild spring afternoon ginkgo and Chinese elm trees gently sway in a light breeze while a rust-coloured sky embraces distant mountains. Adorned in red ceremonial attire embroidered in gold and silver threads, Empress Cixi is ensconced on a hand-carved wooden throne, where she holds court with artisans. Like a victorious soldier, I hold the red dynasty victory banner behind her. Wei, a musician, plays the erhu for her listening pleasure until the last orange strands of daylight pale. Dr. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Nameless Roads (2019) and Driving Long Distance (forthcoming 2024). His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** The Noble Dowager (for Kenneth Rexroth) Everything is ornament for her brocades and lavish swirls are the formal dress of a seated Empress along with her courtiers and palace guards in their plumage. Vivid Autumn colors that shame the trees and sky, The extravagance of each costume is a temple unto itself. I realize Lady you are the pure light of heaven though from a distance to a man whose crops are dust and who watches his family starve all this grandeur and pomp, these most intricate patterns are not beautiful but are a fire raging through his country and his belly. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** The Emperor of the Moon Since antiquity, there have been many emperors. The emperor of the moon is the most mystical. Riding bareback above clouds like a lost explorer Galloping towards white stars, he grew critical Looking for his bride; oh, where art thou my - Juliet? I have remained faithful during my ceaseless searching But your distance has always remained the same, I regret. There are too many stars twinkling that are pretending- To be in keeping with my carnal desires, but those, Those stars were never in his thoughts, never his tempting. The emperor of the moon was now predisposed To idly hiding or occasionally peeping Rather than dashing across the skies, he hid in the dark Rather than crying, oh, where art thou my - Juliet? He sent his people to look; he sent a meadowlark Men did shout, and the meadowlark sang the alphabet. His men returned to their quarters each evening solemn The meadowlark flew and flew, singing in the heavens The emperor felt abandoned and in the doldrums As each morning, it sang and was lit incandescent. Why on earth does it sing so triumphant and happy? And while his back was turned, he felt a glowing warmth. And his men came running; here is your bride and aptly She arrives behind your throne brightly and adorned. The emperor gasped at her radiance of gold In all his endless days of looking, he couldn't find her Until she found him in a story that is often retold A few centuries later - about how he found her? Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. He has poems published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He resides in the UK and is from Manchester. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** Whom Shall I Blame or Groom? I’m cleaned, prepped, reversed, glistening. Lying in greedy-hungry, heavily scented, oiled-soiled palms like stolen gold coins, ready to play. In beds or casinos. My disrespect is not sanctioned by Gods. So, whom shall I blame for breakage, confusion, pain-leaving, bloody stain? Or whom shall I groom for luck, rethinking, piety, improved-swapped mentality? Or whom shall I groom in wonderous faith? Humans? Animals? Animals may not seek mirrors, glass, or gold. And the mean don’t see them; they just destroy. And court jesters are punished, ridiculed, never to be set free. Roads are blocked. Passages gloated. Brains are lard-clogged. I hang my coat on the stand. Throw open the tight, molding windows. Watch the queen on the throne. Watch the hungry men drool and prepare for antics. Watch nature mingle with my thoughts, my fears, my smiles, and my promises, like nervous pregnant mothers, human or animal, just before delivery. Whom shall I blame, and whom shall I groom? Anita Nahal Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP, is a two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author-academic. Her third poetry collection, What’s wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021) was nominated by Cyril Dabydeen as the best poetry book, 2021 for British Ars Notoria, and is mandatory reading in a multicultural society course at Utrecht University. Her just released novel, drenched thoughts is also prescribed in the same course and university. Anita is the editor of the Newsletter, Poetry Virginia Society and secretary of the Montgomery Chapter, Maryland Writers Association. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC. Anita is the daughter of Sahitya Akademi award-winning Indian novelist, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and educationist Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal. www.anitanahal.com **
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