Not just a fluid,
I am ink — the druid,
Shaping your ideas in a blink.
In depth of papers, I sink.

Not just a physical thing,
An end to your thoughts — I bring.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

I flow on the paper,
With your thoughts — I caper.
Like the roots of a tree,
Even the history is written with me.

Not just a black fluid,
From the sac of a squid.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

An Open Invitation to All Poets on Hello Poetry

Dear poets,

I’m starting a collaborative writing project called “Our Time Capsule — The 21st Century.”
It’s a collective space where we, as writers of this era, can capture what life feels like right now—through poems, reflections, metaphors, and symbols.

This is not just about politics or technology or trends.
It’s about how it feels to be alive in this century:
The loneliness and the love,
The silence behind the screens,
The beauty, the fear, the ordinary days,
The things we wish the future would understand about us.

You’re warmly invited to join. Write in your own style—haiku, free verse, letters, experimental forms, anything. Just tag your work with:

#OurTimeCapsule
(or mention the project name in the notes)

Let’s create a time capsule made of words, one poem at a time.
Someday, someone may read what we write today and understand our century—not from textbooks, but from our hearts.

If this resonates with you, join in. I’ll be posting mine soon.

— Yashkrit Ray

It didn't matter if it was
August, and the air felt like an
oven on broil, or if it was
February, and the dumpsters
were icecicles to the soul.
We needed *****, and since we
didn't have jobs, the cans, at
5 cents a piece were our
aluminum tickets to sweet relief.
The magic click.
Enough cans meant a bottle of
whiskey
*****
gin,
anything to dull the
sharp, vivid pain of life.

We sifted through
cat ****
catsup
***** diapers
discarded ***** mags,
and all the other
garbage from the
rich and the poor.

One winter morning,
I threw back a heavy metal lid,
and there was a fat
raccoon looking up at me.
If Bacchus or Dionysus were
smiling, we found a
full bottle.
It happened once in
a while during summer when
the college kids headed home.

Miles of walking,
freezing or burning up,
We were the aluminum
cowboys.

If you get it, you lost it.


I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)


I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)


A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say


This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task

My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.

I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.

The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.

I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.

No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.

When I was ten I stepped on a honey bee
resting in the gravel, it stung me and died

& in that moment I tried to bargain with death,
I said I will **** no more bees and in return

I too will not die. Death said nothing, of course,
he, or she, or it, was quiet as an elm or a shingle,

as the millionfold language of the grass.
I imagined assent but now, looking back,

I realize that nothing was finalized,
we never shook on the deal. No, the bee died

on my bare foot, defending itself against
a strange olive hide that blotted the sun.

Three and a half decades later I perch here
in my tower, my brain congested

with depressions, my heart a fallen fog,
my hands ache strangely and my legs tire -

perhaps the best I can manage is to further
the stoic philosophy of the slaughtered bee:

sometimes the best you can do is to slow
a shadow that's more real than the object.

"what's the longest you stayed up?" jack asks.

"oooh, 5 days, a week. who knows?"

they take the shots, touch glasses,
throw down the bourbon.

"I wonder if animals have dreams?" jack says,
I wonder if dogs dream?"

"sure they do, dogs, cats, squirrels, birds," bob is nodding
his head up and down." it's all biochemical.

"not insects."

"why not? fleas, June bugs, moths. it's all biochemical, mix in electrical impulses, you got love and dreams. jack,

tell your dreams to me."

Harsh Sun throws our
Shadows sharp against
Flagstones.

Beside the Priory wall,
Brought low by Henrys' Hammer the
Abbott lies, long gone.

Just we two, Now, in
Silhouette-

Your walking stick tapping a
Military Tattoo,
My hat of Panamanian straw
To delineate our presence.

O History-
Goodbye

Surely the New,
Loosened from past embrace

Shall see lovely flowers linger
Just for this Sunny Day