Predestined

Though fate or destiny cannot be denied,

I shall choose my own path.

I may suffer the thorns,

be bruised and cut by granite rocks,

risk falling down the deadly cliffs

and be wearied and lost in numerous routes,

I will have no regrets.

For in my travelling towards my destiny,

I shall have the pleasure to smell the flowers,

breathe in the free wind,

touch the softness of cool grass and soft sand.

Destiny may be predetermined

but it is the journey that really matters.

Me and my Shadow

I do not reject my shadow

For only in my light it can show

In darkness, shadow is hidden

By negativity, triple be mean.

Just like I have my light in me

So is my shadow that I can see

Anger, impatience, fear and more

A part of me that I must not abhor

Shadow, I must not repress or deny

To be seen with only light in life is a lie

I just need to learn how to control

A part of my healing, that’s my goal.

As I step out of my dark cage

Let me in reality truly engage

Disconnect from what hinders

Into true love, my soul lingers

Duties and commitment are all done

All my shackles and burden be gone

Angels and friends to thank each day

Now, my light and shadow can play.

Let all wounds and pains heal

Only positivity and hope to feel

With faith, let mind rule over matter

Healing inside, change for the better

Me and my shadow are one

In acceptance, battle is won

I am both the Yin and the Yang

Balancing, having peace, I can.

Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry.

Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

Wildflower

the strums of a guitar have many meanings,

bitter ones that leave scars on your perception

yet still important reminders.

a reminder that things will always fall apart,

that time will break the heart

and that you both will let go.

if july never came,

our embrace would be endless

now those ideas are behind me

as i have tried to forget.

why should we have to be reminded?

i know that you love me

i know i love you.

the strings turn from whispers to cries

their cries.

in the back of my thoughts

bound by the delicate chains of love

fearing caution

like the flower who wilts in the wild

was it my fault?

do my actions prevent us

from boarding the train to a future with each other?

would you take it back?

our lives

a blur of haste 

moments vanished in an instant

you weren’t as different as i

with joy

and unchained

the blood you wrote,

forever stained on my clothes

for everyone to see

a reflection of my unforgiveness

the thought of them

i can not seek to find new love

every touch from my attempts feels

as if it was hers.

you never meant for this

so I never told anyone.

 Was it my fault?

Εύα Πετρόπουλου Λιανου 

_Relationships_

They exist some countries 

Where the men

Cannot find their soul mate

Because the women’s population is not equal in size

There are some countries

Where the women 

Must get married at the age of seven

Because their families are so poor

There are some countries where the men

Stay with their families

Cannot fulfill their dreams

And they lose their courage

There exist men

Who love women

But the women do not care about their feelings

There exist men

That keep secrets

And they get upset

When they are asked

To show their true self

They don’t know who they are

There are some countries

Where a few women

They love and dream for a perfect romance

But the men they love

They don’t show any interest

There are some countries

Where the men

Beat the women

Or murder them

Because they went to super market

Without escort

They exist men

That meet women

But they do not have a relationship 

Because their families

Do not approve that specific woman

So they go away

There are countries where a couple

Can be in love

And just see each other

Only from distance.

There are some men

They stay silent

They say white 

And black every day

They are afraid of love.

There are some men

That keep their feelings hidden

For years

Until one day

They get old

And they discovered

What they lost…

There are some men

That love money

More than women

And they are closed doors to love.

Love, is a free path

An energy that can realize so many wishes

Love is for the believers..

Love is for the strongest hearts

Looking for a country

Where men and women

Will live in harmony

Surrounding themselves

Only with love and hugs

Looking for this country….

Eva Lianou Petropoulou Lianou

ANALYSIS 

Eva Lianou Petropoulou’s poem, “Relationships,” delves into the complexities of human connection across diverse cultural and societal landscapes. It paints a poignant picture of the challenges, hopes, and dreams associated with love and relationships. The poem underscores the impact of gender inequality on relationships, particularly in societies where women are marginalized or subjected to restrictive norms. It highlights the role of cultural expectations in shaping romantic relationships, often leading to compromises and sacrifices.

The poem explores the pain and frustration of unrequited love, where one’s feelings are not reciprocated. It delves into the fear of vulnerability and the reluctance to express genuine emotions. The poem highlights the suppression of desires and the subsequent regret. The poet yearns for a world where love and understanding prevail, free from societal constraints and personal insecurities. It emphasizes the importance of strength and belief in the power of love to overcome obstacles.

The poem employs vivid imagery to evoke strong emotions and create a sense of empathy. The concept of “country” symbolizes different societal and cultural contexts. The repetition of certain phrases emphasizes key themes and creates a sense of rhythm.

-AUTHOR WILLIAMSJI MAVELI (INDIA)

Figure of Life

Life is a figure of multi things (history and mystery) we know

We realize this before the eyes

Experienced so good in the moderate weather

So bitter in cold or hot

Life charmed with you

Life bleeds on the leaves in the ground

We pay tribute to the Almighty

We shoot, we arrange tribunals

Justice never comes out

Justice lives in the heart,

Though we leap not looking before

People fight, people die

To see this weapon play

Our Almighty laughs from above

Though the moon still shines in the darkness

The ship can mark the right way in the mid sea

The magnetic power always works from all sides

Make us stable to live in joy and peace

Makes us feel how to make a bond of love

Then why we intrigue for hurting others

If one part cries in pain

The other part must suffer for long

This or that time

Then what’s the life figured out?

‘Think thyself’, reflects clean before the glass.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

26  November, 2024.

Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.

Eros and Thanatos in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and Reviewing Literature and Film from 1960s

Imaging professorial tutorial of Amy Gerladine in the creative writing program and modernist British fiction novels outlining that “Abstract intellectualism and puritanical industrialism are responsible for causing separation of Paul Morel from his fiancees”. Explain the significance of the contextual statement with textual references. 

Miriam possesses the polarized selves between the conscious exterior and the unconscious interior and she is romantic in her soul, and metamorphosed into a transmogrified swinegirl of her own imagination. Both Miriam and her mother are mystical and elusive beings with the former’s preoccupation with the heroes and heroines of Walter Scott fashioned after evangelicalism and ecclesiasticism. Overly religious, overly sentimental, overly sensitive, overly romantic and being overindulgently hyper alienated, she can’t get along with the circle of the loutish lot and other congregationalists of the chapel. Furthermore Miriam is characterized as eager, tense, passionately, thrilled and trembled in contrast with Paul. Her ethereal  wonderment and surrealistic allurement regarding the stars of the night sky and the moonlight waves on a dark shore echoes her holy communion of worldly reconciliation in romantic fantasy with Paul. 

Apprehensive gulf adrift the romancers Paul and Miriam with the bedevilment of estrangement and separation by spirituality incompatibility complex. Non existence and non beingness invade the heart and soul of the protagonist Paul Morel because of Miriam’s quasi religiosity and quasi romanticist vampiric spirit that “she is one of those who would suck a man’s soul out till he has none of his own left”. Masculinity of Paul Morel is excruciatingly emasculated and this loss of individuality dawns bleakish despondency in correspondence with Paul’s repressive phallic struggle associated with anaclitic love. Independence of both the partners in a relationship is an essential prerequisite for the survival of sustenance and continuity of the gene pool and after all this sexual politics is subverted by the hero and heroines of the novel. Self-sacrifice bestows liberation and salvation through unprecedented fulfilment of the self and the other. Miriam thus epitomes the antithesis of the woman of her lifetime as implied in autobiographical personae of Frieda Weekley; who emancipated Lawrence from Lydia’s traumatic elegiac funebrial and salvages him from overindulgence in narcissistic brooding.  

Miriam bolsters the spirit of poetic craftsmanship and artistic personae despite the blurring of the borderline between masculinity and femininity spectrum in correspondence with the clashes between logical intellect and sensual physicality. Even Paul’s successful physical sexuality with Clara Dawes the divorcee doesn’t reach the brink of fruition because of lack of spirit or soul communion. Sexually frustrated Paul ultimately condescends and stoops into the apocalypse of decadence by starving and drugging his cancer suffering mother Gertrude Morel. “Now she was gone abroad into the night, and he was with her still” examines the perennial maternal allegiance of Paul Morel despite the stellar maternal bereavement. 

If love can be internalized by the magnificence and glory of the spirit alone then the bodily cravings were to be abjured by the fanaticism of spirituality as implied by Miriam: “Love is a thing of the spirit”. How about the incestuous relationship pervading the narrative in filmic language : “The son and the mother walked down the station road together, with feelings of excitement, having adventure.” Furthermore this dialectic emphases the forebodings of being knitted together in perfect intimacy, which later on witnesses the cantankerous bowdlerizing by the domineering rapaciousness of the drunken Walter Morel. The mother is behind the son’s downfall and character assassination in emasculating him to the chains of libido and in this case the fatherly figure is saintly lionized in declaiming tumult of vociferation. In filmic gaze we visualize framed cuckolding of Paul Morel with Clara Dawes and thus contemplate immortalization of platonic love between these romancers. Iconization of the dark lady of sonnets or the lady of a lifetime Miriam Leivers crystallizes in the silhouette of sylvan and nirvanic utopian phantasmal escapism through the enchantment of boudoir or the tranquil seaside. 

Eroticization of repressed phallus reawakens towards a blossoming of fruition from dormancy and transitioning towards maturity and adulthood is starkly contrasted with Paul’s repressive phallic desires with Miriam Leivers as she abhors further kisses. This abhorrence of further kisses is a deterrent imposed by gendered expectations of puritanical anglican society virgin maidens to safeguard their chastity and purity as symbolized by pristine reflection of sanctity. However, filmic heterglossia establishes meta commentary veiling the scenes within scenes from encounter of the Willey Farm. “Oh, come on, my sweetheart” do not erode after all if amnesia reigns for a monumental triumph of fugacious respite and thus the filmmaker evangelizes the cast through the eros motif within the realm of the subconscious. 

Prissy Mrs. Gertrude Morel the reincarnate of Miss Havisham wouldn’t tolerate Miriam Leivers and considers her as her vampiric rival competing for the love of Paul Morel. This mirrored mimesis insinuates towards the impetus of maternal allegiance as the groundbreaking avant gardism faced by twentieth century anglican mother’s lads and contemporaneously prevails in today’s urbanism. Afterall Paul doesn’t feel heebie jeebie in catharsis of fleshly pleasure in romanticizing a suffragette anti patriarchal and antimisogynist woman of the then era. Paul is the avatar of the promised land as a reformed Baxter Dawes in love making and while Marie is that alter ego poltergeist of Clara Dawes. Sexual frustration overcome with the bougainvillea and calendula of eroticization and libidinization as universalistic production of love affairs. 

Farewell kiss with Clara Dawes is the embodiment of destiny’s twist in the superannuated romantic lifestyle as spotlighted by the parting of Clara’s in anticipation of reconciling with Baxter-dangerous life mate antiheroism being portrayed by the cast.  Nevertheless breeding of offsprings and the passing on of genes don’t end marital bliss but prospers with the harvest of antlered pelicans homemaking and ironically the reclusive spirits of the secluded woods reunite for their soul communion transcending platonic love as exclaimed by the diction: “We belong to each other.” Nonetheless Paul Morel’s brooding dependency culminates toward the pinnacle of nihilistic despair and exilic vagabondism that he would transform himself as a bohemian individualist who belongs to none other than himself. 

Notable Deaths of 2024

The death of the robust

laugh of utter joy.

The departure from

this earthly plane of

a purely tranquil moment.

Countless hoary trees

and saplings dispatched

in pyres of smoke and flame.

Wrapped in shrouds

people who perished

in madding crowds.

Buried unburdened,

souls living le dolce vita.

The crystalline remains

of shattered faces,

as if discarded mirror shards

no more able to show their own reflection.

Metamorphosis is never easy.

.

Afterword: I was struck by the turn of phrase used in a standard year-end recounting of those recognized persons who have passed away this year and it started me thinking about what else has been lost, some things perhaps irretrievably, and what might come to pass. Are we entering a liminal time?

Also, The British Economist in their “On language” feature just has published its word of the year for 2024, it is kakistocracy. Here is the concluding paragraph: “Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.”

News source: https://www.reuters.com/world/look-back-notable-deaths-2024-2024-12-05/

The Last Words 2024

June, a knife that opened my chest,

leaving a void where affection beat.

Your absence, a winter that freezes my being,

a deep silence that I cannot overcome.

I remember your laughter, a sun that no longer shines,

your gaze, a lighthouse that the night has buried.

Now only an echo of your voice remains,

a distant whisper that the wind took away.

My heart, a boat adrift in the sea,

without a rudder, without a compass, without a direction to reach.

Tears, waves that break on the shore,

a torrent of pain that my soul distills.

But in the silence, a faint glow,

the memory of your love, an eternal glow.

And although pain oppresses me, and sorrow hurts me,

your memory will live, as long as my soul sighs, dear husband.

Rest in peace.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.