#Lockdown: Poetry and Artwork Collaboration

Bane and Boon by Tighe O’Donoghue Ross (Ireland, b. USA)

Merkabah: Bane and Boon

by Sheikha A.

Many moons orbit hands
raised in prayer— semantics

cite different theories
on the most magnificent

miracle of God; the apogee
falls into silence, deep well

of dark humans lost by light –
selective knowledge – until

true light cleans the sky
of meditative misnomers,

the light of repented knowledge
shearing stars to see a bald sky;

you can imagine truth yet never
see the earth in blood-shambles;

and there is always the hand
of sorrow and mercy weighing

the scales of junctions
where you called grey

right, the many moons false
and white wrong; you decree

your neck to a noose
same place of the mind

that knows one thing
and endorses another.

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications have been Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Alban Lake Publishing, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Albanian, Italian, Arabic and Persian. She is the co-author of a digital poetry chapbook entitled Nyctophiliac Confessions available through Praxis Magazine. More about her published works can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com

Tighe O’Donoghue/Ross was born in New York City in 1942. He received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. at the City University of New York, graduating magna cum laude. He is a world renowned printmaker and sculptor whose work is in the permanent collections of such prestigious institutions as The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Smithsonian National Collection of Fine Art in Washington, D.C. and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. He is an American and an Irish citizen, living with his family in County Kerry for the past 30 years.
O’Donoghue/Ross’ oeuvre is full of symbol and surrealism, his imagery playful, yet profound. Many of his images contain allusions to Irish and Celtic myths, but he gleans material from all faiths, mythologies and philosophies when compiling his surreal World of O’Donoghue/Ross.
Website of the artist: 
http://www.odonoghueross.com/
Facebook (public) page of the artist:
https://m.facebook.com/pg/odonoghueross/photos/?ref=content_filter&mt_nav=0

SAI Sabouke
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Sai Sabouke is a writer living in New Bussa, Nigeria. He’s a dervish who sees Sufism, history and language as formidable tools for society regeneration. His writing has appeared in Praxis Magazine Online and Agbowo. Sabouke loves beans, coffee and dreams of roasting the entrails of vultures.