Very Tasty Sandrine

In the brume, there is nothing to do, the fog shifts through the pockets of pine forests, as they come and sit next to me. The Local girls…huh…the other day I was walking down a hillside and a pahadi girl was walking up with her wicker load of substance, and the moment she looked at me, a cry of despair escaped her: ‘Quelle gueule?’ she said, not wanting to be impolite, but her maidenly forthrightness escaped the confines of her restraint.

Monkey girls come, and sit next to me. I know them by their tits. Monkey boys, never come, they are too proud. The other day a male monkey, came a little too close to me, and I unslotted the button of my umbrella, and it made a sword-sheatheing noise, and the Monkey just calmly looked at me, nodded his head, bossively and said: ‘Ça va pas? Je suis juste en train de chier…’.

Girls come, and sit next to me, unperturbed. I know Sandrine, because her left nipple is longer than her right one. She is the colour of a Bordeaux Clairet Rosé (C.R.) with a fine strawberry-tétin, jutting at the front. Claudette is older, she has sagging, paps but the nipples are still of fine provenance, un Jambon de Paris on dirait, but whether she has ever made a trip to the capital is anybody’s guess, her accent is certainly Provincial.

The Simian twins, Élodie and Lucidie are distinguished by the fact that for the younger sister the nipples become red in the summer and blonde in the winter, just like a fine blonde of Southern French provenance, while for Lucidie, a darker (brunette) nipple lends to auburn tints by the time of the solstice. Marie-France has the finest Bordeaux, she is convoitied by all the Bandariennes in the coin, she was the 2014 winner of the Miss Branch contest. Florence has cherry lips, laitières I mean, she resembles a Bourgogne in that sense.

These young girls come, and give the old man a company. I do not know what they find in me?

Sixteen short-stories of Kashmiri writer Arjun Razdan have been published in twenty-one literary journals in ten countries, equalling twenty-two publications. This former French Government scholar, started writing fiction in 2012 and was first published in 2016. He awaits the publication of his first roman The Gusts of Alien Wind

Peace & Stillness

midnight hush 

even the wind is silent 

a chorus so deep

crescent moon hovers —  

civet cat thuds on the roof  

figs fall in the dark

rainy moon softly 

mourns autumn departure 

tears slip through the clouds

moonless autumn night —  

only the whispers of stars 

warm family chats 

the last moon quarter 

sinks into the morning dew 

the night exhales chill

Maja Milojković

Eva Lianou Petropoulou 

A Poem Dedicated to All Women 

Žena

Pitala sam se da li sam slobodna.

Da li se ti osećaš slobodnom?

Ne.

Svakog dana hodam ulicom mogućnosti i prilika…

Ali niko me ne gleda.

Jer sam žena.

Neizrecivo je koliko se žena iskorišćava.

Od prvog dana.

Žena je trebalo da vaspitava dete,

da kuva za dete,

da ga nauči kako da misli, govori,

postupa…

Mnogo je toga što žena treba da uradi.

Ali šta se dešava posle?

Šta je sa ženinim potrebama?

Njenom željom?

Ženinom rečju?

Kao da ne postoji.

Sve dok jednog dana

ne pogledaš u ogledalo.

Vidiš svoje lice.

Vidiš svoje srce.

Vidiš svoje telo.

I ne prepoznaš ga.

Jer si toliko iskorišćena.

Iskorišćena odbacivanjem.

Potrošena samoćom.

Iskorišćena lažnim ljudima.

Potrošena lošim odlukama.

Bez vere.

Eva Petropoulou Lianou

Grčka

*******

Women

I was wondering if I am free?

Do u feel free?

Nooo

Every day I walk in a street of possibilities and opportunities..

But nobody look at me

As i am a woman..

It is unspeakable how much a woman is used..

From day one

A woman needed to educate the child

To cook for a child

To learn him how to think.. Speak..

Act.. 

A lot for a woman to do

But what happens after..

A woman need

A woman wish

A woman word

Inexistant person

Until one day

You will look at the mirror

You see your face

You will see your heart

You will see your body

And u will not recognize it

Because u will be so used

Used from the rejection

Used from the loneliness

Used from the fake people

Used from the bad decisions

Without faith!!!

Kattakurgan State Pedagogical Institute Primary Education Department Group 25 04

To my Dad

The mountain you lean on is my loving garden

Advice, your words are a necklace in my mouth

We are not always together my love

I love you, Dad

You are a family man and a true professional

Motherland and parents are dear to us

Shabbona misses your daughter every moment

Stay healthy, dear Dad   

When The Times Become Death

‎

‎When the times become death and hang

‎I hang from the branches of a dead tree

‎The tree is very tall and ancient

‎I can hang freely

‎Age is in favor of time

‎Standing time is like death

‎I hang with a red ribbon on my head

‎The valley of change does not attack me.

‎

‎I know the long history of death

‎The soul does not deny history

‎I know the scent of death

‎This scent is permanent in my bones

‎I live in every moment of time

‎I love every moment

‎This love of mine is exclusively my own

‎Don’t blame me

‎The love of a hypocrite has many colors

‎My love is colorless like death, eternal and breathless

‎Your complaint is to time

‎To each his own time, to his own love

‎As life is close to time

‎Death is also close to love

‎Life without love is lifeless

‎However, love cannot bind death.

‎

——————————————————————————-

dying like elvis

took a shit so large this morning

i could feel my blood sugar drop

it made me laugh, reaffirm my

fears of dying like elvis

but with none of the money

or big house

had a friend wish that my poems

would make me a millionaire

i thanked her and told her i would

gladly take a fraction of that and

winning lottery numbers

and here come the holidays

here comes the depression

here comes the urge to drink

the entire bar dry

why couldn’t we evolve from

creatures that hibernated in

the winter

certainly would make christmas

easier to handle

just a thought on a random

monday

the week of thanksgiving

another test of what little

patience i have left

————————————————————————

with no soul

and you wake up from

a fever dream of a boy

who never meets the

girl yet the girl lives

happily ever after

a couple splashes of

cold water and you

know that boy is you

coming up on half

a century

still lining the walls

with loneliness

pretend someone cares

someone will save you

from yourself

in a world with no soul

no time for anyone other

than the precious mirror

torture is the morning

sun

a bird singing a song

joy on the children

down the street

your father warned

you

you were never special

and should never think

like it was even possible

sharpen the knives

still time to make

the evening news

—————————————————————-

the machines

searching for humanity

in a world that has fully

embraced the machines

before long, the humans

will be the machines

and then all hope will

be lost

somewhere, all those

science fiction writers

of my youth are asking

yet again…

still think i’m fucking

crazy?

————————————————————————-

two weeks before thanksgiving

had to drive to the store to get my pills last night

there was a number of houses with christmas

lights up already

two weeks before thanksgiving

assholes

mom is insisting the whole family gets together

this year for thanksgiving

while i’m secretly hoping she has some evil plan

to kill all of us

i think it is simply a punishment for me

but, i have never shied away from proudly

being the black sheep of the family

i’ll make a plate, place some bets, go to

my room and be by myself

punishments never worked when i was a child

they won’t work while i’m an adult either

the day after thanksgiving

i’ll put up our decorations outside

three wreaths around the three outdoor lights

which eventually will become nests for birds

that get heat from those lights at night

——————————————————————————-

figure out the truth

i haven’t shaved in weeks

the little girl that stays next

door with grandma tells all

her friends that grandma lives

next door to santa claus

it takes everything i have not

to break that little girl’s heart

but i figure, she will figure

out the truth soon enough

there’s a skeleton in the yard

across the street

i swear, when i look out

at night it is giving me

the finger

i guess the booze is working

not sleeping well yet again

i’m hoping to find a new

dealer

someone that has a decent

heart and will accept books

or baseball cards for something

that isn’t tainted with something

that will kill me

that’s for the next decade

https://evildelights.blogspot.com

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Beatnik Cowboy, Crossroads Magazine, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review and Misfit Magazine. You can find him most days at his home in Ohio, taking care of his disabled mother and trying to hit another crazy 20 team parlay. He still has a blog, evil delights, although he rarely has the time to write on it. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

https://goodreads.com/jjthepoet

The Northern Town and its Water

In the small town there was an old library, a few churches, and even a place where they sold worms for fishing and nearby, in the summers anyhow, a corn stand. I only realized far after that I never brought my bike there, such as in stories and films. If I could go back, I would have, for a bicycle fits a town and one could go on adventures and take more pictures of the local flora and fauna.

Yet I still have much memory in the mind’s eye and a few photos from walking. I used to fish off the shore walls and near little bridges and no matter what theory says, worms always got the fish to bite or at least become curious and nibble more than any metal or plastic lure. There were wooden bridges and stone ones, and moss and rocks and the sun-bleached parts caught my eye whist people generally were friendly and many of them waved. 

There was a series of canals and though they go in Northern Ontario it was based off a model of waterways from somewhere in Europe. These waterways, often called ‘intercostal,’ can be found in southern Florida also. They are often secondary homes or cottages, and I suppose that means upper middle class or affluent populaces inhabit them. Or old timers that simply always lived there through the generations. Maybe each situation is unique, and they can’t exactly be categorized. 

I remember the winters frozen and sometimes an ice fishing hut or series of them could be viewed as one looked from the purlieu of the lagoon intercostal waterways out to the white and grey lake frozen and crystalline-like under a December or January sky sun laden. That would make a good landscape painting for someone, some soul involved in such, and often as I walk summer fields and meadows or winter hills with vistas, I have the passing thought whimsical of wishing I knew a painter to talk about all with. In fact, I should have lived in older times where letter writing, where true soulful epistolary was the norm. But, in lieu of not having a confident or artist contact I’ll tell here…

The area was big, several square kilometres and none of the houses could have basements for the water could go in and that would be problematic. The dwellings were built on piles, telephone poles wooden and probably chemically stained to preserve them. Some houses were bungalows and nondescript with simple screen doors and others towered over the earth maybe up to four of five stories tall, and those usually had expensive power boats over forty feet long outside of them bobbing up and down a little bit in that lake water. 

And it was quiet while someone watched the nice world there and the change of seasons. Boat. Book. Walk. Reflect. Even pray or meditate. Repair a bird house wooden or sit on the porch and watch the world go by. When we went to church, so long ago, the old man that gave the exegesis about the gospels used to say that his goal should be the same for his community. And what was his goal? It was for his maker, his God, to simply say in heaven when the day arrived, to say about the life one had lived on earth, ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’ 

~~~~~

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet, writer, and photographer. The Book of Love and Mourning, a third collection of prose poems and landscape photographs, is set to be released in winter 2025.