It’s my pleasure to introduce a new poet to our INSTINCTS series, Sultana Raza. She has graciously shared a series of three interlinked poems, in both English and the original French! What a treat! The second and third poems will be published next Monday and Thursday.
Please enjoy!
INTER-DIMENSIONAL CLASSIFIED AD
Lines found scribbled in an Indian ashram newsletter:
‘I wanted to travel
to non-elfin dimensions
but they said that
since I didn’t have
good enough clues
to find my way through to
even the beginning of the path,
I couldn’t be admitted
to their programme for beginners.
Would you know, by any chance,
how I can jump
into the matrix
towards the void
before being led astray
or bitten
by undead
beings?’
Note: Inter-Dimensional Classified Ad in text form was first published in the Star*Line 38.3 issue, in Summer 2015.
~~Original version in French, with Sanskrit words~~
PETITE ANNONCE INTER-DIMENSIONNELLE
Les lignes écrits par main, trouvé sur un bulletin d’un ashram en Inde:
‘Je voulais aller
aux dimensions
non féeriques
mais ils ont dit
que, comme
je n’avais pas
assez de bons indices
pour parcourir
même le début du chemin,
je ne pouvais pas être admise
à leur programme pour débutants.
Sauriez-vous, par hasard,
comment pourrais-je sauter
de la matrice
vers le néant sans
être d’abord perdue
ou mordue
par les êtres
non vivants?’
©2014. Sultana Raza
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sultana Raza has an MA in English Literature. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in Literary Ladies Guides, Literary Yard, countercurrents.org, Litro, impspired, pendemic.ie, Gnarled Oak, Kashmir Times, and A Beautiful Space. Her 100+ articles (on art, theatre, film, and humanitarian issues) have appeared in English and French. An independent scholar, Sultana Raza has presented many papers related to Romanticism (Keats) and Fantasy (Tolkien) in international conferences in the USA, Ireland, the UK, France, Greece, Norway, and CoNZealand (online).
Of Indian origin, Sultana Raza’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Columbia Journal, The New Verse News, London Grip, Classical Poetry Society, spillwords, Poetry24, Dissident Voice, and The Peacock Journal. Her fiction has received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train Review, and has been published in Setu, Coldnoon Journal, Szirine, aperture, Entropy, and ensemble (in French). She has read her fiction/poems in India, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, England, Ireland, the US, and at CoNZealand.
https://www.facebook.com/sultana.raza.7
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIYp4lvMGcTKI4xWtIdQpbw
Read more poetry on our site here
Like to publish with us? Check out our open submission calls here.
Featured Photo by Shakeb Tawheed from Pexels.
INSIGNIA STORIES 
Excellent poetry! Poignant.