Postmark Atlantis by Paul Kareem Tayyar

Paul Kareem Tayyar, a Southern California poet and the author
Of “Scenes From a Good Life” and “Everyday Magic”, is a two-time
Pushcart Prize nominee.

Paul has given us a collection of poems stunningly simple and yet filled
with a depth of wisdom and experience, each page transporting us
into a world filled with magic and the mystical energy of hope.

From the ghostly and moving “Survivors”,
Our bodies tethered to a darkness that holds the voices
Of the painted like a
Thousand silent hostages,
Eyes closed to face a God
They are not certain
Anymore exists.

We travel with the author through orchards and into kitchens,
accompanied by dancers and gypsies…

In “The First of May”

You see the horizon like a gypsy
Would: an easy mark, with pockets
Deep enough to pick without him
Having noticed.

You do not stop to eat until you
Are well into another landscape,
A clearing where the white river
That you forded sleeps like a
Child among the banks.

The reader becomes the child among the banks listening and opening
to the soft and subtle verse, imagining that we can hear…

curious bees,
Producing lime-colored honey
That would slide down your throat
Like a river under the influence of heavy narcotics.

From “Last Night on the Telephone”



The need to tell a secret is so stark and crisp in “The Magician”,
that we are holding our breath, waiting to hear what will be revealed.

You want so badly to tell how it’s done
That you tell it to yourself each night before sleep,
Narrating a film that no one will see,
The sound of the rain like the beating of wings,
The applause you receive for keeping the secret.

In Paul’s writing a prince declares war on the winds and the girl
with white eyelashes stalks the snows with her silence.

As the reader moves from “Night Swimmer” to “Sunday Morning Laughter”
and into “The Mapmaker”, the visuals are so stunning that we along with
the author are skating on the lake of swans….

You watched your figure eights
Become more varied cartography
And followed your map into the country
You always hoped existed

Paul gives us the deeper language of patience and uncertainty and moves
us gracefully through a landscape of myth and folktale.

The poetry of Paul Kareem Tayyar is a kaleidoscope of transcendence
and dream and the secrets of the soul. “Postmark Atlantis” is a book of dazzling tenderness to be savored.

***Louisa Clerici is the host of Sunday Afternoon Words and Music at Café Olio
in Plymouth, Ma. Her poetry and short stories have been published in numerous anthologies including Shore Voices, Tidepool Poets and Carolina Woman Magazine.
She is the co-author of a book on dreams, Sparks from the Fire of Time. Louisa
can be reached at louisaclerici@comcast.net