THE KALI PROJECT is published!

CONGRATULATIONS THE WAIT IS OVER … The Kali Project is LIVE and print copies are for sale via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kali…/dp/1951724062/ref=sr_1_1…

For the first time ever we have also made the publication available via an Indian distributor Pothi, enabling our Indian readers to purchase copies locally:https://store.pothi.com/…/candice-louisa-daquin-editor…/

Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Kali…/9781951724061…

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/…/the-kali…/1138632460…

A hard cover version and Kindle will be forthcoming. KALI will also be for sale in Book People & BookWagon and you can order The Kali Project via your independent bookstore (via The Ingram Group).

PLEASE consider purchasing a copy to support this worthy project AND upload any pre-press reviews you have written to help us succeed in getting this incredible book out there.

Contact Megha Sood or Candice Louisa with any questions. Thank you so much to everyone involved, especially Christine Elizabeth for her incredible formatting of The Kali Project.

The Kali Project is a nearly 600 page collection of some of the most famous Indian poets and writers and artists in the world, as well as acolytes, children, teens, and new writers, coming together to create a groundbreaking anthology of writing and art.

The purpose of The Kali Project was to highlight inequality in all forms, speaking to sexism, racism, caste-inequality, gender, income, education. The value of these potent poems and artworks will be immediately obvious and we really hope you will consider being part of The Kali movement by purchasing a copy and leaving a review.

Audio readings by the authors of The Kali Project, reading their work featured in the anthology:

Furnish in her own time

It’s the fantasy

something out of summer, as you’d dream it

bare legs tucked beneath white cotton and trimmed thick lace

laughing clavicle, slipping straps

the long necked wonder of descending evening

that sting on skin from days in sun

I’ve been here before

the last time, I lay beneath a boy with cut glass eyes

who bought me flowers from the night market

before they bombed Bali and innocence was our town

wearing a sarong of blood red and mustard, half grown

walking beaches at night fall, crabs coming up through sand

scuttling into still water, the recede and ebb of thought

knowing he wasn’t the one, still desiring the idea

of love and its myriad faces, the strange places we

take ourselves to feel alive, writhing beneath

his pinion and faith, you’ll stay with me, I’ll

make you like my kind, turn your eyes away

from the obsidian girls who set out sacrifices for Gods

orange petals, I am thinking of her beneath clothes

watching from hibiscus waves, will she learn to

secret away her longing in the deep pockets of

a sarong too wide for any more tucking?

what do we know? We’re just kids building sand castles

on empty beaches and he takes my hand and asks;

let’s keep going until we fall off the world

Please, let yourself, just pretend …

the wild of saying, yes I’ll follow you

travel the globe, searching stones for blood

finding in things that feel wrong, another direction.

Now I have come full circle

we’re not old, but we’re not angular children

thin boned and boundless on their bikes

dream life filling xylophone chests

her eyes are hurt by his stories, I can tell

even as I am the fantasy and the observer

thrown off scent by, my painted toe nails and sunlit hair

the slope of day closing like a picture album

grass like cat fur beneath naked toes

bent wrists spent of expression, limply wait

for electric cumulus as thirst penitent may

befriend dry river bed

I want to say to her; Don’t be trapped any longer

pick up and run away, half flung around the globe

leave the mounting regrets at your door, with the disappointed

find your self again, diving into the gleaming future

sleek as a wet dog will shine beneath and shake off

water weight when back on land

because you can, you know

it’s not written until you write it.

Here … take my hand, I’ll help you

and we jump, weightless

her short nails digging into the soft of my palm

read my future, she whispers into my neck

her breath is cherry, her eyes smudged black

I see the ransack

all the reasons she snarled and bit

for she made it this far, don’t push her

let her furnish in her own time, a place of grace

where light pours pure and undiluted

onto her heavy shoulders, hunched with rage

let it go

you don’t have to be here anymore

we catch the tail wind and it is warm

she murmurs, her eyes wide and seeking

the whole world awaits

More than we fear

If I couldn’t

Be relied upon

I would still

Try to stand strong

And if I fell

And those who are my kith and kin

Let me fall, rudderless

I believe I would still

Try to stand once more

This attending effort was not

Born to me

I was a slothful child

Idolent in summertime, slow to come home

Engrossed in the token more than press of life

Missing meaning within magpie’s shiny locket

I may blame a lack of moral structure

But it was ever my way to remain hollow, we are vessels of sound

The rod or the wild, we choose in our forming

I chose the willow path overgrown by neglect

You, it was you, years hence

Bending with an acrobats supple spine

Taught me purpose and value from your own pain

Late and much too past, still never entirely lost

On even the laziest soul, truth can take hold

I thought I knew truth

Until I learned to listen truly

I thought I knew loyalty

Until I witnessed real mercy

It was as if I had ever not, known a thing

And wiped clear of experience

Began anew, shivering in dawn without wrapping

I couldn’t see then, the other shore 

Or how

Waves are measured in metric pulse, known to moon 

I walked among prophets blind

And only saw my own, sorry reflection

I bled and believed myself insightful

When the blood was void of rust

You see, it takes rhat meterlurgic alchemy

To disipher ourselves and then, once seeing, cross that wasteland

I believed my intuition when I only saw shadows

No crucible of real direction I walked without legs, on the back of dry twigs

Until, woven with deception, snap, the pasture denied me 

Even the position of desicated scarecrow

For I was just an approximate, empty inside, tredding fallow

Without hunger or thirst, nourishment naught

Nobody to stand as sign post

If I couldn’t

Get up from my knees, though they were made of lead

And discover the dream, still in embryonic state 

That has been here all along, put away, almost forgotten

For we are, born to dream

Not to linger in collapse but

Leap graceful without weight

The chains imposed, released to fall

Cleanly from their imprisonment

Shackles are no natural state, prisoners of ourselves

Each of us has, a measurement of myth

Wings to fly and imagine if

We let go of shame and doubt

Those habits cast around us in woe

Lift, lift, oh that we could

Find the fabric beneath the world

And swim in unisen to its music

If I couldn’t 

I would not still be here

Trying to prove we are always

More than we fear

Third time lucky

The proverb

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Was in my mind when

I chose to forgive a third time

it was easy to say “if you hurt me again”

fill in the blank

but promises only matter if the person intends

to keep them

with your borderline posed to strike

it was impossible to calculate

if I would be cast again into fire

the only chance

how I chose to see the play

sacrifice the Pawn

save the Queen

it’s not that I’m especially important

but cruelty

cruelty is perhaps the last sin

unforgiving as karma

shows you the way out

you didn’t know it was only you I forgave

the other one who scratched I cast

far into the ocean

didn’t need their infernal clamor

they, just wreckage from a bad storm

I unfortunate to pass by at the wrong time

you were different

there was always something in the depth

of your eyes and quiet strength

yes I confess

I wanted not to lose you

but I could have said the same

when my mom closed the door quietly

packed her bags and went

see, you think you have me figured

maybe you do

aside one element I keep pretty tight

I’m stronger than even I know

it’s what happens when you get used to

let-downs

when you came and went third time and said

I don’t believe in you anymore

I don’t trust you

I think you’re shit basically

in the clear light of day I could see

this wasn’t about me

this wasn’t factual

sometimes others will believe

oh you must have something to do with it

just as the shallow person who told me

you’ve got a track record of being left

tried to leave her barb

what did she with her haikus know

of patterns? she needed rules to write

I had fucking wings

now she’s just

a taste in my throat I want to spit out

I grew up then when I learned

accusations may sting

but they’re not truth and those

who are weak enough to seize upon them

are just fools

with hypocrisy in their veins instead of blood

but you were different

you were my sister of the plains

we shared French blood

I admired you

it wasn’t enough

you cannot force someone to feel

or undo the damage wrought

in their mind before you met

it’s only necessary that you know

when it’s not because of you

which can be hard if you’re prone to guilt

that’s how we grow and develop armor

perhaps we won’t even trust

the next person who comes up

palms flat

asking for succor

or perhaps we will

because to shut the door

hurts only

the one who is left standing

when you tried to blow her down

erase her

when you hated yourself so much

you had to try to destroy

the mirror image

who refused

to shatter

stubbornly she still reflects

what you hate

about yourself and

what she loves

about you

Rise

Get rid of it

before you need to

not the day of travel

or when packing you run out of space

but before it clutters up the truth

all those things you thought you needed

need you more

their memories are chains around your neck

not swans

gliding like icing on cold water

get rid of stuff

it’s not precious

it builds up

until we cannot see beyond

close the door

start over

loose your wings

into willing air

lift up, let go

be gone

from the suffrage

of invisible bonds

This time will come again

The saw they used

had teeth like rabbits unaware

they were herbivores

her shell broke

like a blue egg

on turpentine floor

for the ants to summon

their legions and devour

she could smell her own fall

by the pinch of their envy

though why anyone should

be jealous she found absurd

as plates will chip

when placed on top of one another

we leave the best for last

scouring her hide with vinegar

all the holy and the ivy

thrown in pyre to await

her defeat

she tried to tell them

it’s not me you want

it’s yourselves

the competition is within

I am nothing

but a representation

the dreaming void

or lost moon

reflecting your own

do not bury me with nightshade

violet on my tongue

strangle my words

because you have none

this time will come again

as all circles are undone and reknotted

by fate and the scepter

in the wrists of those

cutting down

trees who only seek

that silence of being above

cacophony of rude arrows

felling our roots

though we strive

only

to master ourselves

 

 

Honey

You demanded

I consider Heaven

I thought of lasting beyond

after life

it made me feel tired

like the rosy apple

has its season

its brief glory

then falls to become earth

recycle itself in

spell of worms

I replied

there is nothing I need

in Heaven

once you have

bloomed and sent nectar

into the recess of time

you need then to sleep

your head heavy with pollen

until the bees come

and make ten fold

your apple blossom dream

A letter to the caged girl

My letter to the caged girl

who had bitten me twice

was made of wire

once more and I would

turn

into the key and

she would become

me

my letter full of grammatical mistakes

I didn’t know how to express what needed to be

released

in a way it was me who was in the cage

and she

existing only

in my head

Greater solace

There you are

picture yourself

standing in a vacated room

the walls are nondescript

from the window comes a little wan sun

hardly enough for warmth

you pull yourself closer

recalling how as a child

sitting on old iron radiators in winter

they’d say you’d develop hemorrhoids

in those days

the sound of scuffed shoes running for class bell

figuring you had a few moments yet

to stare out at brick and cement

stretch out reverie

a voice inside your head

surely this isn’t all there is?

you made a pact with yourself

to get the hell out

whatever it took

gathering your books

mindful of their ticket

you forgot yourself in dream

walking past the classroom

after all

learning is better in the mind

than grind of chalk on board

some boy kicking you in the back

with sweaty socks

you knew even then

this was but a stepping stone

though if asked you couldn’t say

what of the grim facade urged you most

to escape

 

and now

all these years later

more alone than that day

when covered by childhoods vigor

and the smell of something better

just around the corner

hope has been sore in her visits

silence too often your friend

as we fall one by one out of the egg carton

we are without wings

without safety harnesses

all the others found places

in busy lives, babies, families, jobs

the weave and knot of life

whilst you stood watching out of the window

glimmering

expecting to fly

 

now in shallow rooms

artifice has left her scent

they tell you the last one has passed over

you feel it in the curve of your chest

no more hands to scoop you back

from your leaning motion to find

somewhere to breathe

where trees are ever green

sunlight full on face

obscuring all trace of bleak homes

terraced and hollow

where you can hear the flush of

neighbors loud toilet

piercing cry of another

born into fitful times

where you never understood

your own role

just the fallacy of drowning sorrows

sundays in the bar

knocking back glasses of regret

nothing could spur you faster

toward wide open space where

no trace of sorrowful city remained

 

and wherever you go

there you are

still back against the wall

still with the locked door

school girl tights bunched in your mouth

hearing muffled voices

discussing your inability to speak

how long can you hold your tongue girl?

before the need to scream

unfurled

and in one howl you swallow yourself

all the disappointment

all the lost chances

breaking through cloud

fast diminishing in oboe sky

open the storeroom of your mind

clear out those long stored hurts

preserved in obscura

 

you may feel you have nothing

but in the sundering fall of flight

we find again our urge

never to quite escape

perhaps more a reinterpretation

carrying on no more alone than before

for we are born crying in singular pitch

in each step grow further to our end

it is in the humility of knowing this

we find our greater

solace

Permission to be destroyed

There’s an old saying, the man felt sorrow because he had no arm

until he met a man who had no leg

comparison being an uncomfortable bed mate

all of us could do with sinking to our knees

mindful our own aches in the sum of things

matter and matter less

not dismissing but appreciating

someone out there is worse off

when I feel betrayed I recall

someone else was betrayed twice as bad

when in the eighth month of pregnancy

he said I’m leaving

when I feel lonely I think

of those who lost everyone and never

regained belonging

when I feel sorrow

it is the sorrow of those who survived

concentration camps only to find light

once more

that keeps me endeavouring to do my best

even if I fall

even if I cannot always

by that I do not diminish

anyone’s hurt

but it is worth considering

if others survived

we too

can pick ourselves up

and not give permission

to be destroyed