NYEPI

by James Penha

Bali’s Day of Silence has been updated
to match Hindu antiquity: no mobile
phone service, no internet, no airplane
landings or takeoffs, no cars or motor
bikes, no talking, no walking—I cannot
even walk the dog—a day of meditation!
without Calm, my mindfulness app? One
might think a religion with so many gods
might have deitized some thing with wheels
or code. But Ogoh-ogoh is a jealous sort
who demands purity and for at least a day
an end to the pollution of the old island’s
spirits from the craft of human beings.


James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

THE HOMOPHILOUS GENE

by James Penha

“You’ll see people complaining that the media doesn’t give as much prominence to terrorism atrocities outside of Western Europe as it does to those that take place in cities like Paris or Brussels. The data shows it is much, much harder to get people to read those stories.” 

—Martin Belam, Medium, March 28, 2016

I shall always ❤ New York. And on Marathon Day I stand again

with Boston, and #BlackLivesMatter in every Charleston nightly.

Bien sûr je suis Paris parce que j’aime Paris chaque instant,

chaque moment de l'année. Bruxelles?  Bruxelles est assez

de français pour moi d'être Bruxelles maar ook

Vlaams naar Brussel elk moment van het jaar.

Last summer I devoured simit and baklava at Taksim windows

and petted sprawled dogs in the shade of the Obelisks: İstanbul'u

(but to Ankara I have never been).

Part of me must be Lahore. Remember? it was Easter after all

although I cannot find a timely # for that attack 3 weeks ago

(#PeshawarAttack impertinent; #PakistanBleeding obsolete) and

if میں نے پاکستان تھے whenever a bomb explodes in Pakistan

how to find the time to face Java and Bali?

islands where I love a Muslim whose faith in  الله 

is sighted darkly at every Western checkpoint, mall, hotel,
monitored whitely by attendants on Southwest Airlines,

and so I will—must—be Aleppo, Hit and Lashkar Gah 

walking dead from graves cracked open by exceptional shocks

of retribution and survival 
of the selfish.

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .