From the soul, from the heart, not from any face that perceives itself with courage
but one that does so with cowardice.
White on black, black on white, it does not matter, we are all failures,
floating, falling, feeling the fresh hell that we inflict unto ourselves.
I am not a cynic, I am a sinner, and sin is simply the consequence of a complex mind not yet whitewashed by the weight of their words has been freed by the burden
of pure reason.
Dear Diary, I am beginning to find that in fact I was made to be broken
For somehow I cannot look in an unfractured mirror without seeing a fractured face staring back at me, and why fractured if not with reason, why fractured if not so I may one day stitch my wounds again?
So, holy conqueror, I invite you.
I invite you to rise from the perch which they tell me you hold in the heavens
And show unto me your true face,
And once you have done so you may tear me apart, limb from limb,
For I myself am divine and seem to threaten the power you hold.
Wide is your reach, Heavenly Father,
Yet shallow is the depth of your teachings, soulless is the nature of your sermons, and what they tell me is clean and holy I have found to be cursed and reeking of filth.
Let these words be my last if their nature incites your rage
And merely my most meaningless if the deity unto which I speak them has no ears to hear, as I believe He does not.
He has turned a blind eye to the wasted earth from which he has left his children to feed,
And furthermore so ancient and archaic is he
That he has gone deaf,
Deaf to the cries and to the pleas so oft spoken from dry and dirt-coated lungs
To fix this charred and barren wasteland
And restore it to the glory which it once held but no longer mirrors.
So this is my promise,
My solemn oath unto those whom Thou hath so wrongly forsaken,
Delivered in Thy place but not in Thy name.
I shall take up arms and conquer.
I shall build an army of the most unorthodox ideals yours knows for mine knows
no bounds, no bonds, no inhibitions and no prohibitions.
No longer will I look upon my own face with cowardice –
I will look upon my face with courage and yours with disgust and disdain
For it now falls to me and those whose love truly is unconditional
And those who do as they preach
And those who preach as they do
And those whose behaviors do not sorely contradict their beliefs
To take up our arms
And bring this world the holy water
Or perhaps the unholy water
Which it so desperately needs to rebuild.
No longer will I look upon my own face with cowardice –
I will look upon my face with courage and yours with disgust and disdain
I remember years later working the day bar getting a call from a Florida police detective and how the line was disconnected.
I remember how the call came through again and the detective said I am putting Vera on the line.
I remember that Vera was my step-mother’s sister and she was around 90 and probably never used a cell phone before in her life.
I remember how the line got disconnected again as soon as she came on.
I remember knowing the phone would ring again and I figured she was calling to tell me Dorrie had died in the nursing home where she was currently residing.
I remember finally keeping the connection and Vera telling me, “Bill is dead and you need to come down here right away.”
I remember Bill was my father.
I remember thinking, despite heart issues my father wouldn’t be the first to go.
I remember thinking Vera was going to tell me that Dorrie had died from her cancer.
I remember thinking, not for the first time, show’s what I know.
I remember that was the Spring and Summer of spending six weeks in Florida and not getting any closer to a beach that a crematorium in Daytona.
I remember the first time I saw a blue tattoo in the city at a market with my mother.
I remember my mother telling me that was a phony mark.
I remember I was just a kid but I knew, instinctively, that couldn’t be right.
I remember, many years later, all the things she told me that were the opposite of what they really were.
I remember thinking her delusion was a defense mechanism to conceal information she couldn’t process.
I remember wondering if there was a correlation in her well-diagnosed mental illnesses with Trump’s undiagnosed ones.
I remember how young I looked when I was eighteen.
I remember how young I looked when I was thirty.
I remember the last time I had my proof checked I was forty-four years old.
I remember the summer of my junior year getting my proof checked to see ”My Sister, My Love.”
I remember it sucked.
I remember seeing “Belle de Jour” at the Stanley in Utica and taking turns making up sex scenes to describe to the legally blind guy we had taken with us.
I remember being squeezed in the back of a Triumph driving from Utica to Syracuse in the middle of Winter to see “Carmen Baby.”
I remember, except for one scene, it sucked too, but not as bad as “My Sister, My Love.”
I remember “I Am Curious Yellow.”
I remember being curious what all the fuss was about.
I remember thinking I’d almost like to see it again and find out what the hell they were talking about.
I remember seeing “Last Tango in Paris” and except for the bloody suicide what an absolutely great movie that really didn’t need that graphic sex scene which was only a distraction in a otherwise masterful acting performance.
I remember thinking, I know why they included it and that people were bent out of shape for all the wrong reasons.
7-
I remember Sounds of Silence
I remember Mellow Yellow.
I remember the first time I saw Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Live.
I remember how my heart almost stopped when the chorus stood up in their white robes and began the Ode to Joy.
I remember my youngest son’s third grade teacher being in the chorus and how he died such an unnecessary self-immolation death and the poem I wrote “The Burning Song Book.”
I remember it was in my long out of print book Stop Making Sense.
I remember drinking unpasteurized milk on St Croix.
I remember toxoplasmosis.
I remember Johnny Jelly Beaner
I remember “Pluck Your Magic Twanger, Froggie.”
I remember the singing nun and wished I didn’t.
I remember “Deck the halls with Boston Charlie.”
I remember Jean Shepard reading Byron with a Spanish guitar accompaniment on his nightly WOR radio show.
I remember his inspirational readings from the Manhattan phone book.
I remember phone books.
I remember In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash.
I remember seeing Curtis LeMay at a political rally in Utica.
I remember seeing Hubert Humphrey and the demonstrators chanting, “Dump the Hump, Dump the Hump.”
I remember that Tommy James and the Shondells were the “musical act” meant to attract and appeal to younger voters
I remember it was the first time we seen Tommy and his friends live.
I remember the dance my friends and I went stag to, stoned out our minds, and hung out with boys.
I remember they got a kick out of us.
I remember wondering why no one stopped us from having complete access to the band.
8-
I remember peace marches through the city.
I remember America Love it or Leave it.
I remember all the Utica cops had that phrase on bumper stickers on their patrol cars.
I remember when President Nixon called for the Silent Minority to be heard, Uticans turned out in force.
I remember when we had a peace fair on campus for the locals no one showed up.
I remember “This Little Bird.”
I remember “Girl on a Motorcycle.”
I remember Marianne Faithfull’s soulful Ophelia.
I remember Billy Pilgrim
I remember Kilgore Trout and Venus on a Half Shell.
I remember Ace Science Fiction Doubles
I remember Mother Night.
I remember The Penultimate Truth.
I remember The Man in the High Castle.
I remember the first time I heard Dylan Thomas read his poetry.
I remember, ”rage, rage against the dying on the light.”
I remember losing almost thirty pounds when I had double viral pneumonia mid-way through my first semester freshman year.
I remember taking up smoking beginning with Luckies when I got over it.
I remember how stupid I was when I was 19 and immortal.
I remember writing “Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated basketball Team in a Showroom: a symphonic poem in three movements.”
I remember think no one would guess where I got that tile from.
I remember seeing Jumping Johnny Green live at the old Garden, at six foot six, out center jump Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlin 7’1’ and it wasn’t even close.
I remember writing “An Explanation Offered to an Extraterrestrial of Bernstein Conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Television with the Sound Turned Off.”
I remember the first time I saw The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.
I remember the second time I saw Marat/Sade and thinking it was a little too close to home.
I remember the first time I visited my mother at Pilgrim State when I was seven.
Remember the years prior to that on St Croix.
I remember being told we were going there for “a rest cure,” though no one told me why my father wasn’t going to be there.
I remember understanding that my father was never going to be there or anywhere else in my mother’s life ever again.
I remember that I was eventually told I would see him again.
I remember it was close to two years after we went to St Croix, came back and she had the “nervous breakdown.”
I remember how I felt being alone twelve hundred miles or so from home with an out of control, hysterical woman.
I remember during the visits on weekends to Pilgrim State how mellow and laid back she was and I thought this is not my mother, this is someone impersonating her.
I remember on one of those visits watching a movie in a day room with in-patients where I saw Frances the Talking Mule.
I remember how one patient in particular looked at me, as an outsider, as if I was somehow in league with Wilbur and that we were interfering with the messages Frances was trying to convey.
I remember how it wasn’t until many years later when I was writing my chapbook Visiting Dayon the Psychiatric Ward that the patient actually believed Frances was a talking mule and had special messages that needed to be understood.
I remembering wondering if the people who ran Pilgrim State and by extension, were responsible for treating her severe mental illnesses, did not have Clue 1.
I remember the second time she was at Pilgrim State, Involuntarily Confined, on a conference call with family and the doctors in charge of treatment and getting no real answers as to what her condition actually was and understanding that my first impressions was correct; these people had no fucking clue much less an understanding of how she thoguht and why she did the things she had done.
I remember, after my father died, finding the divorce decree and learning that in 1953, if you established residency in St Croix for one year you could get a No Contest divorce in the States.
Adrea Stojilkov in “Life (and) death in “Harry Potter”: The Immortality of Life and Soul, 2015, surveys critical case study of popular culture of fantasy fiction novelistic tradition whilst examining the titular heroic protagonist archetypal fictitious character of Harry Potter. Voicing Harry to be the harbinger of loving survivor heroism for the witchcraft and wizardry, the stream of consciousness authorial narrative trope within the realm of imaginative essayist, endows the heir of the Potter to be temptress of the soul. As journalistic eucharist eschatoglogical revelation of the hermeneutic tradition is radicalizing springing forth to the foray of theological and metaphysical implications. For instance, “Basilisk venom and fiendfyre” are fundamentally instrumental unicorn of blood elixirs of the spiritual battles raged in destruction of animosity harboured by manipulative schemers such as ripped burdened souls of ghoulie-phantom spectre-like figures of transgression.
After all the boarding school detective speculative gothic romance adventure fantasy fiction is hailed as superheroic agency of the witchcraft cult textual performativity of immersive theatricality through visceral evocation of experiential spectatorial gaze and/or phenomenal aurality of being “The Chosen One”, who thwarted Dark Lord Voldemort. However, hectic ordeal of seven books and herculean odyssey of seven corresponding years transcend as a triumphant victory over the diabolical agency of devilry. Being doppelganger Harry Potter resurrects the aural spectrality of Voldemort’s redemptive quest for salvation and atonement by the transfiguration of humane virtues. Stone-heartedness of sadomasochistic ambitious antagonist Voldemort is surrealistically patronizing Potter-esque charisma in Rowling’s gothic masterpiece, since the former vouchsafes earthbound enchantment spirit for the anticipatory fear of deathliness.
In Life (and) death in “Harry Potter”: The Immortality of Life and Soul, Andrea Stojilkov (pg. 8) cites Harry and Dumbledore’s utopic space time travel through psychic farsightedness, then and there, Rowling herself states through Dumbledore’s words that Harry’s death is not definite. Furthermore, the white, misty King’s Cross seems too desolate for Heaven, believed to be inhabited by the souls of good individuals, God and angels, a place of fellowship. To my intuitive argument, Harry’s phoenix-like resurrected reawakening of the afterlife healing journey is transformatively rewarding by Dumbledore’s sacrificial boon’s forces. Despite the withered hand being healed, however, the crookedness of nose and piercing blue eyes of a half moon spectacles do not vanish in Dumbledore’s fate. Since then, the limbo child-leaving Voldemort inverted serpent soul whimpering of master theologian metaphysician sacrificial vouchsafing safeguards and shields Harry with immaculate vision and disappearance of lightning scar. Herein, Dumbledore’s lamb-like lamp sheds light by the glory of magical realism as envisioned by King’s Cross.
However, essay writer’s conjuration of Harry’s admissibility through Barzakh ushers wholesome “wh(s) on earth” and “good heaven’s sake” subliminal textuality of Quranic allusion. Herein real and imaginary, life and death, spirituality and materiality, neither existent nor non existent, neither negated nor affirmed facsimile world; Harry’s metaphysical quest of pilgrimage in spirituality encounters phoenix-fawkes spirited guardian angel Dumbledore—the custodian and protector of souls; because of flesh and blood material bodied souls offered by veil or barrier “body can see anything and everything from everywhere everytime”. Life (and) death in “Harry Potter”: The Immortality of Life and Soul, Andrea Stojilkov (pg. 10)
Because of ascetic and moralistic writers disposition of austerity and graveness, the literary critic Margarita Carretero Gonzalez in “The Lord of the Rings: a myth for the modern Englishmen” ( 1998)declares fantasy fiction and imaginative literature to be a depopularizing paperback bestsellers genre tradition amongst the Spaniards. Nonetheless, plurilingualism of other European worlds gracefully occasioned to wholeheartedly embrace translation of Tolkien such as Sweden and Denmark. This might be posited that perhaps beyond multilingualism, plurilingualism provided dynamic and interconnected nature of language repertoire, advancing code switching and cross-linguistic influences to appreciate romantic fairy-story mythlore of epic romance.
Gonzalez (1998, p. 2) went on to argue that the Anglo-Saxon period, Victorian medievalism, idealization of the Middle Ages predominantly depicting spatiotemporality of the hobbits and the Shires to be the character and culture of the English way of life and the English rural countryside, might have been intriguing the denizens and locales of English native soil and clime. These Britishers have felt the urgency for environmental stewardship and climate change campaigns due to the progressive disappearance of England’s natural environment. This paving of nationalistic internationalization predominantly springs forth in Northern European regions more than the Southern European regions. Furthermore affinity to the sagas in the North Atlantic peoples—— the Scandinavians and their heirs in Iceland, Greenland and England extrapolates critical commentary of Georgiana St. Clair in “‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a Saga” (1979). Thus facilitates acculturation of hybridized and diversified generic terms of fairy-story, epic, novel and romance.
Much like J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series heroic idol of feminism Hermione, J R R Tolkien’s Eowyn is a star studded champion in advocacy of women’s emancipation and female empowerment. Eowyn, House of Eorl, a woman with a strong, stern and steel personality, ride and wield blade and does not fear pain or death resembles Hermoine’s association in the company of Ron and Harry in slaying Basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor. Both J K Rowling and J R R Tolkien are acquitted from misogyny and sexism after this literature review, thus challenging stereotypical gendered expectations of hackneyed microcosms. After all these heroines of chivalry crucially manifest themselves as iron ladies and shield maidens in redeeming their male counterparts to be defenders and protectors of life.
If narrative history of chronicle like recording of events would postulate a saga of recovery, escape, consolation, that then J K Rowling’s Harry Potter sagas and J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy emanate characteristic quintessential features of eucatastrophe in the inner consistency of reality and/ or the willing suspension of disbelief. In substantiation of this internally consistent fictional world, Georgiana St. Clair in “‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a Saga” (1979) states that, “These critics see in the Grey Havens the Christian Heavenly City: they see the ending as the joyful ascension, without death, of the heroes into heaven. However, in “The Hobbit-Forming World of J. R .R. Tolkien,” Henry Resnik reports that Tolkien’s long acquaintance with Norse and Germanic myths inspired the chillier, more menacing landscapes of middle-earth, and he makes no secret of having deliberately shaped the two major interests of his life—- rural England and the northern myths—— to his own literary purposes. In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien says, I have tried to modernize the myths and make them credible.” Consequently, if the Grey Havens is to be associated with Valhalla rather than the Christian Heaven, then the ending must reflect that interpretation. The Valkyries take the heroes from this life to Valhalla, to a magnificent banquet, sports, and fighting. But Valhalla is not an eternal refuge, only a waiting place until that final confrontation between good and evil. In this final battle, the Gods and the heroes will fight valiantly, but they will fall. The joy of Valhalla is the promise of one more combat, not the infinite gloria of Christian salvation and everlasting life. The voyage to the Grey Havens is not a eucatastrophic event.”
Following this un eucatastrophic trajectory and after digression from Hans Christian Andersen and Dostoevksy a full fledged paper authorship is a swashbuckler challenging spectacle, whilst considering the limitations of JStor resources free accessibility. For instance, “The Lord of the Rings”: The Novel as Traditional Romance” by George H. Thomson is the least of the reading material I wish to endorse for citation. However, my two days work of independent scholarly research would proffer a standing ovation and libation tribute to the comparative literature and cultural studies curricula in the context and worldview of Rowling and Tolkien. Imagining a fiction writing master class workshop with J K Rowling positing the imperative pronouncement of poetic diction and I am delighted to craft a transliteration of a feast of the middle earth home: “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold”. Author of the modern century and the modern medievalist delves into the subliminal aura of the readers with treasure trove of pale enchanted and long-forgotten gold.
Beyond the Binary: Gender Roles and the Diplomacy of Open Minds
Introduction: The Personal and the Spiritual
In a world that is increasingly interconnected, how we understand and respond to gender roles is more than a cultural footnote—it is central to our spiritual journey, governance, development, and personal relationships. Gender roles, as outlined in the Bible, are not fixed ideologies etched in stone; they are dynamic, evolving, and deeply contextual.
My own experience is proof of this paradox. In my family, gender roles have profoundly shaped the way we relate to one another. The traditional expectations we inherit dictate our responsibilities and aspirations, yet an underlying discord remains: each of us operates within the cusp of our acceptance and understanding. This limitation constrains our ability to evolve beyond preordained roles—yet the capacity for change exists, if only we make space for it.
A Brief Historical Backdrop
Historically, gender roles have been constructed through a complex web of religion, economics, war, labor, and culture. Ancient matrilineal societies like the Minangkabau in Indonesia or the Iroquois Confederacy in North America stood in contrast to the patriarchal structures of ancient Rome or feudal Europe. With the Industrial Revolution came a rigid divide: the public sphere for men, the domestic for women.
The 20th century shattered many of these binaries. World Wars I and II saw women entering the workforce en masse. The feminist movements—from the suffragists of the early 1900s to the second-wave feminism of the 1960s and intersectional feminism of today—challenged inherited norms and demanded new paradigms of equality and representation.
But progress is not linear. In some families and communities—including my own—tradition persists, creating tensions between progress and resistance.
Personal Reflections: The Limitations of Acceptance
Growing up, gender roles shaped my family’s dynamics in ways that often felt immovable. There were clear expectations—who was responsible for earning, who managed household affairs, who was granted emotional space, and who bore the invisible weight of cultural obligations. Yet, as our world evolved, these once-fixed roles felt increasingly impractical, if not outright restrictive.
At times, I saw my father wrestle with the idea that nurturing was not solely a maternal trait. I observed my mother balance professional aspirations against unspoken pressures to maintain domestic harmony. My siblings and I, in different ways, have questioned why we must conform to roles dictated by tradition rather than individual potential. This disconnect—between the roles we inherited and the realities we live—demands dialogue, effort, and an openness to change.
Case Studies: The Global Friction in Gender Roles
This struggle is not unique. Across the world, individuals and institutions grapple with the limits imposed by gender roles.
Example 1: The Japanese Corporate Landscape
Japan, a country known for both tradition and technological advancement, continues to struggle with gender equality in the workplace. Despite progress, corporate hierarchies often reinforce expectations that women should prioritize family over career. The result? Women frequently face the “M-shaped curve”—leaving the workforce after childbirth with limited re-entry opportunities. But change is happening policies advocating for parental leave and inclusive work environments are slowly reshaping these structures.
Example 2: South Africa’s Shift in Household Dynamics
In South Africa, gender roles intersect with economic realities. Historically, patriarchal structures placed men as primary providers. Yet, with shifts in employment trends and societal expectations, women increasingly assume financial leadership in families. This transition is not always met with acceptance, leading to conflicts where traditional masculinity clashes with contemporary survival needs.
Example 3: The Rise of Nonbinary Identities in Legal Frameworks
The recognition of nonbinary identities in countries such as Canada, India, and Germany marks a significant departure from historical gender binaries. However, legal acknowledgment does not automatically translate to social acceptance. Individuals navigating gender fluidity often encounter resistance—not due to inherent opposition, but because established frameworks struggle to adapt.
Why Keeping an Open Mind Matters
Open-mindedness is not about abandoning one’s values—it’s about making room for other realities. In diplomacy, this is especially vital. Misunderstanding gender roles in a host country can derail peace talks, foreign aid programs, or education campaigns. In everyday life, failing to listen to different experiences creates exclusion and resentment.
In my own family, I’ve seen that the mere act of listening—without immediate rebuttal—creates opportunities for dialogue that were once impossible. Understanding precedes transformation.
Five Ways to Keep an Open Mind About Gender Roles
Interrogate Your Assumptions
Ask yourself where your beliefs about gender roles come from—family, religion, media—and whether they still hold true in the face of new evidence.
Listen Without Rebuttal
Let people speak about their experiences without preparing a counterpoint. Listening is not the same as agreeing, but it opens the door to understanding.
Consume Diverse Narratives
Read books, watch films, and follow thought leaders from different genders, cultures, and identities. Empathy grows through exposure.
Be Comfortable with Discomfort
Growth often comes from discomfort. If something challenges your worldview, sit with it. Ask why it feels threatening.
Update, Don’t Cancel
You’re allowed to evolve. Holding a belief ten years ago doesn’t make you irredeemable—it makes you human. Be open to changing your mind.
Conclusion: The Diplomacy of the Self
Gender roles are no longer dictated solely by tradition or biology—they are in dialogue with economics, technology, global mobility, and generational change. In that dialogue, the most effective diplomats are those who can listen deeply, adapt respectfully, and think critically.
In my own life, I have seen that acceptance and understanding are the first steps toward change. A family, a workplace, a nation—none transform overnight. But a modicum of effort can create ripples that extend far beyond personal experience.
An open mind is not a passive one. It is a powerful tool for transformation—of policies, institutions, and most importantly, of ourselves.
References
Beauvoir, S. de. (1949). The Second Sex.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
He dedicates his life to you, gives everything, works day and night so that my child is not inferior to his peers. This is all for us. he brings you the best so that you don’t get cold. he doesn’t care that his legs hurt for several years, if you just say oh he will set the world on fire. for your father, for your mother, you are the dearest, incomparable person in the world. He will give everything so that we can study and become mature and good staff in the future. He will pay your contract money even if he is in trouble. If he can’t deliver a little money, he can’t look you in the eye like he owes you.
In my opinion, the most valuable person in this life for all of us is our father. It is our father who occupies the main place in our life. Our father is the cause of our birth in this life. Our father is the one who gave the first education in this life. Our father is the reason for my success in this life. It is our father who will be the strongest encouragement to us in this life. Father is the best motivator in this life. We should appreciate them.
Father is pleased – God is pleased. This statement is a clear example of how great a father is. Therefore, it is our highest duty to please them and receive their blessings.
Mahmudova Sohibaxon graduated from Fergana State University.
Shredding his sunlit vestments, Priest’s weight silenced the equal woman. Undisciplined eyes sheathe me— a fury, charred on his pristine swords.
Deep down the abyss among nights, I wrench my self-portrait— Straddling unfamiliar blades, the realm sears my throat, and my lungs blister right to left.
My unbuttoned mouth swallows fuses from the organs of men— muffled, skinned, teeth dyed; perished, rising, fangs lit.
Beneath Damoclean pikes— each one signifying revenge. A disobedient woman, unworthy of tender touch— her infant-bloom still sealed beneath Rousseau’s tears.
They do not know this tiger-guiding woman. Fiercer than wolves through salt water, my eyes—two felines tarring raw light— He sees the afterbirth at the end of his lecture as I clutch my hip-round of thoughts.
Offering me half the sky after razing the one
I now return to Lord. Thighs vise as we roar through a venomous climax. Swords lower as the rain strikes through the force of May.
Thunder slips me from the virgin world. I swallow as if I never swallowed a man. You stand among storms —more effigial than any god. Here, goblets rise at the cross reversed.
Each wrist rises, declaring a wine coil bled from your heart, threading straight into my rib. Ha!
Spring wind ascends, —splitting me widely awake. A gluttony resurrects, a virgin undone and again—
REMADE.
Echo II: Frankenstein’s spring
Ice shatters its wintry silence. Swarthy hands—once stitched— motor themselves to sight, raving by March’s final breath toward April’s promise. Swallows slice returning paths through the thawing sky.
Green yawns from Earth’s dark mouth, my body mirroring her restoration: Spring’s underbelly upturned, while an amber glow satiates the polar bear’s hunger. In fur that held December’s darkness, sunlight reflects the sky’s refusal of night.
Illumination penetrates like truth: hillside and mosses couple among wetting rocks; frogs mount their hunts across waters freed from ice. But even in renewal, Death persists: monarch butterfly wings tweezed mid-flutter, the deer’s neck snapped in wolf’s jaws,
beggar’s rocking hands trampled in Mayfair, daffodils unfurling between crushed bones and gold. While jungle creeds drum through survival’s hierarchy, labours’ palms rekindle the drowned sky.
Have we forgotten the passion Winter set ablaze? My body once dedicated as Christmas Solstice,
now binds Betelgeuse to Venus across the horizon’s clearing dome.
Did we crown the butcher and betray the jingled vows? Did we kneel like the red star towards love when Santa vanished in the hearth?
Swells from a distance—starmounds quicken in unrest—rise through paint-oil gleam, inciting sparks from Earth’s own burning door. How sorrowful to forget the constellation’s inferno that trudged through a vast night, their beckoning thin as woman’s sigh when newborn tears press against the womb that once sheltered.
Beneath black palls, Fear crawls: yet glazed eyes pump first blood through roots— juvenile Frankenstein awakening. We ask for nothing better than a spadix-like thrust from corpse flower’s wound, slicing through the tendon that no longer feels.
Dawn undresses seed from shell, and Earth unwinds her clock— not a second more, not a day less.
Water returns to water. In the bluing luminescence, faces buried
by last season’s sickle shield my sleet-rent mouth while I await youthful lips beneath yellowed marshland— breathing, at last, the fresh world April promised
and I… reel alone.
Echo III: On the shores we lived
In woods where history hangs itself, laments are sung for the chased skulls— each a foreign season’s anthem, even as they were broken in two themselves. The collapsed libraries and lovers’ bridge gutted the Sava River— the mirror of Sarajevo’s wounds.1
How far does hunger drive flesh across borders?
Waves return wearing feathers of the condemned. Seagull wings command tides that swallowed my first home. I, ransacked, kneel while only the dead giggle at their release;
torch half-bare against icons gone cold in the blitz while the spring winds lord over votive racks, counterfeiting peace that was never mine nor yours. Steamboat hulls and exposed fish ribs testify against empires of deception, splitting history’s amnesia awake.
I stand shrouded in that shiver that follows bombardment— water carrying us all, merciless as governments, toward shores that reject our names. Certainty arrives unwelcome as midnight deportation—
neck of movements snapped by yellow boundaries, the twilight of our homeland forced down our tongues. They promised us a land of honey and milk;
as diplomas vanish at customs, and CVs rot in mailboxes.
They seduced us with wages in car wash’s suds, rockstar’s fingerprints orphaned from guitar chords and drum’s lambskin. They wheedled away our rights to leave from contracts, dreams of dancers and singers turned wannabes beneath Soho’s red lights.
Tiny, tiny…, far away from the wonderland of bow-tied gentlemen and English tea. Faint… faint… breathing small and counting the untidy tips in the folds of whipped breasts. The beggar’s hands, cauterized by childhood’s exploding fuse,
deafened us from omens whistling through bullet casings. Dozens of hatchlings canned in shells watch mothers wade into the machine-gunned distance. Their children—jagged languages— face the Black Sea’s cargoes salivated by traffickers of breath and skins.
They whisper, thin as rationed bread: “In March, swallows will carve us into petitions on camera-ready banners. In May, peace doves will harvest our skulls for museum’s sorrow.
When we all lie alone beneath this river’s militarized belt, our blood will finally transmute into moribund blue—
connecting soils of countless unremembered cities beneath a single bank that unites all our scattered bones.”
Echo IV: Knotting Hands Under the Red Sky
Red rages rupture—a birth scream with no mother— existence a slit throat under seagulls hovering like scalp-white mourners.
Hair and fire snarl— crooning ghoulish requiem through the gust’s sudden tug.
Speech drowns in its own soliloquy: blackened ribbons crystallize on the survivor’s cheeks.
Bones in gloves, bluing fists, nails preening through handcuff rust.
The hands know what the mouth won’t. Stone lions’ neck serrated by two million fingers’ knots.
This is how I heave myself out: Change this. Change that. Don’t look back— or it drags you down, ankle-first, into the gullet of the shuckled shore:
Beating death on their own breasts, three borders sing in C minor under a mountain’s whole rest.2
2 Whole Rest: In musical notation, a whole rest is a silence lasting the duration of an entire measure. It is visually represented as a small rectangle hanging from the second line of the staff. In poetic terms, it can suggest a full pause—a complete suspension of sound, breath, or motion.
Echo V: Red Beacons
Waves shudder—flee from shore’s dominion. Salt voices whine when I ride the mirror of my reflection. Night’s sharp anchor holds while fire ruffles water; Dreams sob crimson through swamps of endless vision.
Across my untidy skin, mothers’ breasts were steadfast— Flanking a silver of silence with their immovable tenets. The feelings elders lack, carried forward by a whirlwind And lording about lands; the barren eternity That draws back the sky—afraid of its cadence.
Solstices wheel wild on butterfly wings! A kaleidoscope Writhed in greenhouse glass, while the pale moon—hermit Drained in dust—watches red beacons spin: Too hot for earth, they fall, bleeding a colour of thunderous years Into my waiting veins—
Pulse rising from the inner sea; shanks thinning beneath pants. How many times has mortal clay rotted in terrible silence? Passion greets desolate solitude like mirror-faces On their nocturnal tasks—watching animals relish Their breath and death at whistles before storms.
Eye to eye, the borders churn through waves—no rest in light or wind! Red beacons burn eternal; moving water whispers to graying ears: “There you are on the lighthouse—small hands, small reach, against what sky and sea have always been.” But this flesh-cage I consecrate, blazing, until mountains Bow their lava crowns to the same brief fire.
Let the cosmos witness the dusk and dawn I kindle
That make all exiles sacred, equal and glad In the wonderful Divine: All flesh a temple, all darkness a doorway To light that owes no century—knows no time.
Echo VI: Fell in love with the alpha wolf
Who would have known—a man’s violence, the strike from the love of your life, Could spare the woman’s need for the presence of a proper shaman, the bells and sages from the nature’s rogue, to enter into a trance.
The fire the matriarch refused to teach coming not from distrust, But a glimpse she saw through: Another woman, mistook a wolf’s fangs in a deer’s throat, A man’s fingers into a smuggler’s eyes, and a gun raised on all the unfairness’s skull— As her fire because he turned and whispered: here, their apologies and flesh are your feast.
What about the law of the world that protects millions of both the good and the damned? What about the order of yourself that once brought you to reclaim all the fairness?
Gone. You became the exhausted Prometheus who put hope on the hawk and Zeus Who were supposed to prey on his liver and soul.
But— How the hell did you end up here?
You have seen the ugly face of the world at an age too tender to even know it’s beautiful.
Parents wrapped you in burlap and sold you to the Bluebeards— for not being a son.
The policewoman who saved you, sent you to sanctuary, but never once showed her face—never once anchored who you are.
Then, hand to hand. From home to home. Foster parents visiting your room, shaking their heads: “We are not responsible for her trauma.”
You saw love in the steam rose through rice—a wife made for her husband without his thank you, without his eyes lifting from his phone.
A husband came home carrying too much alcohol, too many cigarettes, but praised for not carrying another woman’s perfume on his collar.
The Zhongkao teacher cracked your stepsister’s canvas in half for sleeping in math class.3 And you understood: this is what love should look like.
Women bleed. Men feed.
Friends—called distractions before even being made.
Boys—entitled to belittle you until you had to throw a dagger at their skulls.
Is that a lesson they teach? A decree to stop you from finding yourself?
Among all the predators in life, you were left with no choice but to love the king of them all.
By the moment he liberated you through palms that lifted your hips— blood bled from others poured into your mouth like communion wine.
But the tingles you felt in your hips—were not electricity. The rumble from his mouth was thunder before the lightning struck.
Still you clung to the bruised color of the sky—so desperately.
For the luck you had—swirling Baileys he bought in his bedroom, watching rain hammer the windows like fists.
Shivering at his sublime. His rage. The necks he snapped unashamedly— in front of you and for you, like gifts.
3 Zhongkao is China’s high school entrance exam, a nationwide academic test taken by students at the end of middle school to determine placement in secondary education. It is intensely competitive and often shapes a student’s future trajectory.
And his plea for love made you almost forget his belt was meant to strike you—
until his hand landed on your throat, his belt on the shoulder he once fed his own blood to like a sacrament.
You were once again forced to confront all the pieces you evaded before meeting him.
In a system that never asked you to heal. Never spared punishment when you tried to.
And made you fall in love the moment a man appeared to take care of your evasion.
Because that’s the only option you are given— so long as it doesn’t compromise their kingdom.
So that the fire of your own—won’t burn their empire down.
Author’s note
I execute literary devices in two very different classrooms. The first was Mandarin, where meaning ripples under the surface and readers are trusted to swim toward it themselves. Poetry was not encouraged there—our exam rooms preferred formulas to metaphors—so a poem had to live in the margins of notebooks, in whispers after lights-out.
The second classroom was English, which I entered at eighteen when I left China for London. English came with its own gatekeepers: libraries full of classics, critics ready to decide what counted as “literature,” quick to stop at the first layer of a line. Between those two worlds I have spent years running— from place to place, from one set of rules to another—looking for a page wide enough to hold both silences and storms.
If these six Echoes feel restless, that is why.
Akhmatova’s sorrow and Lermontov’s thunder travel with me. From Akhmatova I borrowed restraint: her way of hiding whole seas of grief inside a single tide-line. From Lermontov I borrowed motion: the urge to pace a frontier even while the sky is cracking open. Their voices taught me that a poem can stand absolutely still and still feel like a journey, that it can whisper and still shake stone.
You will meet that balance in Echo I, where the first woman does not fall but walks away; in Echo III, where a war-scarred river refuses every border drawn across it; and in Echo IV, where a human chain of protest hums with contained fire. Even the red beacon of Echo V carries both lessons: it burns in place, yet its light travels farther than any fleeing ship.
Nature appears as a teacher too. An English Dot rabbit, a red signal light on the sea, the quiet orbit of a whole rest in music—all remind me that endurance can be tender, that flight can be faithful, and that silence is often the strongest note.
So these poems speak in two tongues at once. They keep the Mandarin habit of suggestion—letting objects do the feeling—and they lean into the English hunger for direct address. Between them, I hope, stretches a common ground where a reader may pause, listen, and choose their own depths.
Thank you for sharing the path. If the poems leave you with a sense of movement held inside stillness, of fire banked beneath calm, then Akhmatova, Lermontov, and every hurried mile between languages have done their work.
1 Refers to the Siege of Sarajevo (1992–1996), the longest siege in modern history during the Bosnian War, marked by relentless shelling, sniper attacks, and civilian suffering.
