First of all, we’re sharing an announcement from contributor Howard Debs about the upcoming virtual course Writing from Atrocity to Healing: A Multi-Genre Virtual Workshop.

This four session virtual workshop will provide poets and writers of all levels, genres, and backgrounds with the tools to write from their experiences with atrocity, the traumas produced by atrocity, and the healing (personally, communally, nationally) your words can make of it. Featuring Ellen Bass, Jacqueline Osherow, Joy Ladin, Geoffrey Philp, Jehanne Dubrow, among others. Moderated by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum. Four consecutive weekly sessions (January 7, 14, 21, 28 ).

Each session includes content from the forthcoming book The Wounded Line: A Guide to Writing Poems of Trauma (“ethical concerns and helpful craft elements for writing poems [and other writing] that engage with trauma”) presented by the author Jehanne Dubrow, and session related writing prompts and open review of selected flash fiction, poems, etc. as submitted by attendees. Each registrant receives New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust suggested readings from which coordinate with the workshop series. Session recordings will be made available to registrants unable to attend specific sessions upon request. Registration fee includes all four sessions. Limited registration closes December 30. Presented by the New Voices Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. newvoicesproject.org and you may sign up for the workshop here.

Now for our issue’s theme, Plumbing the Depths. We look into the varied aspects, not always visible at first glance, of people’s interior and social lives, human societies, the natural world, and our artwork, history, and culture.

Chuck Taylor’s story reminds us about the complex layers of each person’s life, that we are more than our most obnoxious moments. Paul Tristram explores everyday human feelings and interactions in his “street poetry,” claiming them as a worthy literary subject.

Gabriel Kang speaks to the important issue of men’s mental health by illustrating men’s struggles passed down through generations. David Sapp delves into Middle American family life in the 1970s through a cascade of shifting perspectives.

Daniel De Culla laments relationships inside and outside of the church which are exploitative rather than nurturing.

Ivan Pozzoni brings a comically psychoanalytic perspective to digital and analog aspects of modern life. Mykyta Ryzhykh illuminates the internal and external destruction of total war with a landscape suffering from PTSD. Alexander Kabishev evokes the displacement of civilians during wartime in his continuing epic of the siege of Leningrad. Muheez Olawale’s dramatic tale of escape and survival highlights the tragedy of human trafficking and the slave trade. Nicolas Gunter evokes the hopelessness of a person displaced and oppressed within a cruel climate.

Daniel De Culla’s fragmented near-death dream vision excoriates the political and economic power structures of the modern Western world. Noah Berlatsky illustrates the grotesque nature of hate and vitriol through his consciously repulsive imagery. Patricia Doyne excoriates the rising tide of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. Jake Cosmos Aller lambastes the political climate of the United States. Howard Debs preserves the words of and speculates along with the hosts of The View, wondering about Trump’s recent victory. Christopher Bernard suggests that America’s unique mix of cultural values and priorities helped to produce a leader akin to Trump. Bruce Roberts registers disgust at Trump’s voice, attitude, and behavior.

Turgunov Jonpolat describes how he stopped his peers from bullying him by reminding them that they were not all that important in life. Ivanov Reyez crafts vignettes of people determined to live and thrive despite the small and larger cruelties of the world around them.

Nuraini Mohamed Usman’s tale of enemies-to-lovers takes place within a secondary school. Ahmad Al-Khatat describes two broken people finding and healing each other in an unexpected love story. Mesfakus Salahin offers his gentle love to someone for whom he cares very much. Lan Qyqualla poetically immortalizes his late wife Lora in his mythical verse. Taylor Dibbert conveys continuing grief over the loss of a beloved canine companion. Kodirova Barchinoy Shavkatovna mourns the loss of her grandfather’s kind and poetic soul. Faizullayeva Gulasal reflects on how her love and respect for her parents helped her get through sheltering in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Cameron Carter describes a love that inspires him to become a better version of himself.

Harinder Lamba presents a love story between a couple, their baby, and the Earth as they help our planet navigate climate change.

Michael Robinson leans on the poetic voice of Rumi to describe his spiritual intimacy with Jesus. Brian Barbeito evokes the mystical feeling that can come with staring into the deep daytime or nighttime sky as Sayani Mukherjee offers up a sensuous take on fallen leaves.

Sidnei Rosa da Silva gently chronicles a ladybug’s climb up a sand dune as Muslima Murodova relates the tender tale of a beautiful but short-lived butterfly.

Kylian Cubilla Gomez zooms in on bits of nature and culture from unusual angles, cultivating a sense of childlike wonder. Isabel Gomez de Diego’s work accomplishes something similar with scenes of cultivated nature: sheep on a hillside and seaside lookouts. Raquel Barbeito also gets up and close with nature, sketching outdoor scenes as well as a closeup of a person’s eye.

Duane Vorhees’ poetic speakers merge with nature in their own way in his descriptions of passion and indigestion.

Sarvinoz Quramboyeva highlights the beauty of Uzbekistan and its people’s optimism. Nilufar Anvarova celebrates the beauty of her Uzbek village and the kindness of its people while Ilhomova Mohichehra highlights the goodness of Uzbeks. Mansurova Sarvinoz Hassan, an Uzbek writer, relates her educational and professional accomplishments and thanks those who have supported her.

Zafarbek Jakbaraliyev outlines the language and distribution of the world’s Turkic-speaking peoples. Irodaxon Ibragimova relates the history of the Bekobod area of Uzbekistan. Sarvinoz Tuliyeva elucidates the history and importance of Uzbekistan’s Shaikhontohur Ensemble. Dilbar Koldoshova Nuraliyevna highlights the elegance and history of the Uzbek language as Farangiz Abduvohidova explores proverbs in Uzbekistan’s culture and Shamsiyeva Gavhar celebrates the beauty and rich history of the Uzbek language and its integral role in Uzbek culture. Maftuna Rustamova praises the wisdom of the Uzbek constitution.

Z.I. Mahmud draws out themes of nationalism and civilization vs wild nature in his analysis of Ted Hughes’ poetic works. Ari Nystrom-Rice illuminates the sheer force of nature, rainwater crashing into the sea. Kass evokes images of nature and plant life overtaking cities. Olivia Brody revels in melding with the beach, merging with wind and sand and ice plants.

Niginabonu Amirova blusters about the power of wind to transform a day and a landscape. Federico Wardal celebrates the lush landscapes and many talents of emerging Egyptian painter Nour Kassem. Nathan Anderson highlights the pure blunt force of Rus Khomutoff’s new poetry collection Kaos Karma as John Dorsey celebrates the soft and tender melodies of jazz. Jacques Fleury’s poetic mishmash twists and turns syntax around into a kerfluffle.

Joshua Martin weaves biological and mechanical images into his elaborate syntax-adventurous poetry. Mark Young’s “geographies” adjust, alter, and repurpose images and style elements. Texas Fontanella also probes the edges of conscious thought with his stream-of-consciousness text-message dialogues.

Also through a stream-of-consciousness form, Abigail George recollects personal struggles and a lost love in a poetic and descriptive essay. Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa shares her own journey through poetry, towards balancing compassion for self with that for others. Bill Tope’s short story calls attention to the silent suffering of many with misophonia, sound sensitivity, through its depiction of a person’s quest for outer and inner peace.

J.J. Campbell speculates through vignettes from his own life on our place in the world, among time, history, and other creatures, and whether we are learning and growing as time passes.

Mahbub Alam compares the cycles of life to stops along a train route, as our world continually moves and changes. Through the tale of good clothes hung up and set aside, Faleeha Hassan reminds us not to save our entire lives for some amorphous special occasion.

Richard Stimac comments on the rhythms of life and human experience through the metaphor of Argentinian tango as Sara Goyceli Serifova rejoices in the look and feel of a long-awaited hopeful night.

We hope this issue will help plumb the depths behind the surface of the headlines and wring some hope from the sodden fabric of the world.

Green Hair

    Have you ever felt like killing someone? I think most have, maybe four or five times in a lifetime. My number’s higher, maybe twelve times a year. I don’t consider myself a sociopath or psychopath. I don’t know the difference. Is there a difference?

     In 2005 I was on an elevator in the Prudential Building, glad to be out of the cold of late February, on my way up to the thirty-seventh floor. The elevator was empty except fore me. It glided silently up at a good clip. I was thinking about how much it would cost to heat this entire building in one Chicago day. Maybe more than I made in one year. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and a young man got on board. He was skinny, dressed all in black, and his hair was dyed green.

     The young man rode the elevator to the seventh floor. When we got there he stepped half way out, leaned his left arm on the door and gave me a big smile. Then he hit all the buttons on the elevator going up to the top by running his fingers across the panel. That meant the elevator doors would open and shut on every floor till I got to the thirty-seventh.     

      Anger flared through every muscle of my body. I rose up on my toes and slapped the now closed door with open palms. The anger management class had not prepared me for such a sudden show of hostility from a young stranger. When it came to the young, my anger made few distinctions. They seemed egotistical and took their comfortable world for granted. They had no respect for those who had sacrificed to serve their country.

     I felt in my left inside suit pocket for the piano wire I’d had since my tour in the Vietnam in 1970. I kept it because Chicago is no longer a safe city. Even in the loop area, this close to Lake Michigan, a person might attempt a robbery. Now I felt immediately that I was justified in killing that smiling green gutter snake.

     My plan was to come up behind the guy and strangle him with the wire quietly and quickly. Before that green dude got off the elevator, he was probably seeing as fat and out of shape. No threat to him. Just an old man.

      I got off two floors above where green dude got off on the nineteenth floor, took different elevator down to his floor. I walked all the quiet hallways but I could not find him.  I opened all the doors on the floor and looked in. Mostly they were law offices. No sign of green hair.

      How can anybody be so stupid as to dye their hair green? Must be a lonely, attention-seeking dude. A narcissist. Pathetic. No women will ever love him. Leave green to the trees and plants.

     I forgot my job interview on the 37^th floor and went back down to the lobby to wait for the green guy. His hair was pasty like a green avocado, only shiny. I waited an hour, trying to look busy on my cell phone, but he never came down. Could the bozo actually have an office in this place? Maybe he had a company that sold hair color for men.

      I decided to walk around the area near the lake and then over where the big department stores were, hoping I’d catch sight of him on the street. After an hour I gave up in the cold and ducked into a bar on Wabash to warm up. I was ordering a beer when I look down the long bar I see that the second bartender has green hair and wears black.

      “That’s an unusual hair style,” I say to the guy standing next to me at the bar.

      “That’s Pete,” the guy responds. “His father owns this place, or did. He died two weeks ago.”

      “Well, I guess somebody has to run this dump,” I mumble.

      “Yeah, I think the family has to sort it out. Does it go to Pete or to the brother of his dad? His uncle helped run it. The dad died at fifty-five and left no will.”

       “I’m not a lawyer,” I add. “I used to sell cars. It seems right this place should go to the son.”

      “That’s what the regulars think. We remember Pete when he was a kid pushing a toy truck between the tables.”

       “I didn’t play with toy trucks. I had toy tanks, soldiers and fighter jets. My dad was killed in World War 2 at nineteen when I was two. My parents were from Alabama and got married at sixteen. I don’t remember much of my dad.”

      “Hey Pete, come down here. This guy’s a lawyer.”

      “I said I was not a lawyer.”

      “Pete, this guy can help.”

      “Great, tell him he gets free beers.”

      “Pete, I’m sorry,” I say. “Your friend here got it wrong. I’m no lawyer but don’t mind a few free beers.”

      “You look familiar. Haven’t we met? Didn’t I see you earlier?”

      “No, I just pulled into town. I live in Wheaton over an hour away.”

      “Sorry about the mix-up. Things are always noisy in my bar.”

      “No problem.”

      “What do you think of my hair? Odd, huh? My customers here can now always spot me.”

      “It’s a bit odd by Wheaton standards.”

      “I did it for Saint Patrick’s coming up. I thought I’d do more this year than green beer. It’ll give folks a laugh. We can all use some cheering up.”

       Green Hair goes to get me a beer on tap. As he walks back toward me with the mug of beer I study his face. Is this the guy from the elevator? He’s the only green hair guy I’ve seen all day.

     “Sorry about your loss,” I say. ‘Your dad left you something wonderful, and thanks for the beer.”

      “You’re welcome,” the green-haired bartender says. He gives a quick smile as he walks away to help another customer.

A hyperstructure of surreal evocation:
a review of Kaos Karma by Rus Khomutoff

Kaos Karma, the latest chapbook release from Rus Khomutoff, has remarkable weight for such a slim volume. Coming in at a mere nine pages, the book, were it not a digital only release, would feel delicate in the hand, something only barely able to delay its inevitable collapse. This feeling is soon swept away once you pull back its figurative cover and begin to read. What is found within is a poetry that is anything but delicate. It is a poetry wrought with energy and power. A poetry that does not relent and does not care for the easily overwhelmed senses. Perhaps it is a blessing that it is so short.

Kaos Karma does not bring the reader gently into its message. From the opening page, read as a solid block of full caps text, the reader is almost overwhelmed by the concrete, almost monolithic structure of the work. Its appearance seems almost intended to intimidate the reader. There are no soft hands to guide you as you read on, you are hit again and again by these unrelenting blocks of language. These almost endless sentences are like surreal billboards and indeed I would very much like to see some of this work as billboards. A wakeup from the endless detritus of the advertising world. A hyperstructure of surreal evocation. 

The language of the book carries a heavy taste of surrealism, those dreamlike and visionary sentences that burn and strike the mind. ‘HEAR THE SECRET SUN SPEAK BLOOD LABYRINTH BLOOD FREED FROM THE WEIGHT OF ALL TIME ALL THE DARK REBIRTHS ARE MINE’ is but one example. Though this heavy language is broken up at times with a kind of new-age esotericism, ‘NOSTALGIA IS A DRUG’, ‘BE ALL THINGS IN ALL TIME’, the self-help for the burnt out searchers on the edge of an insane whirling mountain. Guidance from Khomutoff to where? And when? Who knows? This combination of the abstract and concrete in the language give the effect of the reader being brought back into a recognisable and understandable world, though only for a moment. Once the surreal language reengages the reader is sent back off into the vortices of mental propulsion.

And there is a purpose here, though it is obscure. The writing is taking you somewhere, like a guidebook, like the great Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book of the dead. ‘ALAS THE CHILD WHO LIVES IN A MYTHICAL, PARADISICAL TIME RENEWING THE WORLD.’ But unlike that holy ancient text which reaches in to take the reader through the labyrinth of illusion through to a clarity of consciousness, through to the other side, Kaos Karma does not state which of its threads is illusion and which reality. Perhaps there is neither in Khomutoff’s cosmology, or perhaps both in a swirling miasma of meaning and nonsense. It is up to the reader to decide.

While only a brief taste, it is a taste so full and potent the reader will find themselves at the other end of Kaos Karma with the heady feeling of both clarity and confusion. This is an artwork both highly idiosyncratic and universal all at once. I have spoken often of the idea of the third text, a text that exists only through the combination of the mind of the reader and the work they are reading. A text that exists entirely unique and which is conjured by strange and powerful, but obscure language. Kaos Karma is such a work. The reader is all the better for having experienced it.    

Nathan Anderson is a poet from Mongarlowe, Australia. He is the author of numerous books and has had work appear widely both online and in print. He is a member of the C22 experimental writing collective. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter/X/Bluesky @NJApoetry.     

Sometimes

London has

Been gone

For almost

Eighteen months

And sometimes

He still 

Bursts into tears

When he thinks

About her.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.

Billie Holiday of the Burning Sky

billie holiday of the drifting light

struck dumb by the sea of love

burning through sad long days

roots of spring demons

the heart of sunlight

softly singing.

The Lord of Pity & Barbed Wire

is not far away

the moonshine resurrection

of agony

piled high

yesterday

the air

blew jazz songs

from a dead church.

Telegrams from a Chicken’s Neck

leroi jones died today

long pauses of morning

my clean laundry

hidden in loneliness

your tent of reason

in the name of charity

my father did it

for the glory

of regrets

we all have a cold

the alarm

doesn’t give a damn.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

 

Part 1: Disregard the Man

Euphoria with every breath?
He’s underwater waiting for his lungs to fill.

Four of five are men
But she’s the one they cry for.

Men’s corpses sink.
From weights that couldn’t be lifted.

Men, too embarrassed to ask for help, too hurt to live.

“Those weren’t real men.” “It’s their fault!” “They weren’t strong enough.”
The men drowned
And the bodies rotted.
While the passersby held their breath.

                                                       Part 2: The Cycle

The boy was taught to treat girls kindly.
Because he was born into a man’s role.
While the girls were taught what to expect from men.
And the women made the boy apologize for being born.

So the boy drank at the bar, cowering from his son who needed to cry
Like his father had before him.
But he drank his tears away,
Like his father had before him.
And right before him lay his father’s corpse.

The boy repeated his father’s last words in his head. “I see you.”
Tears dripped onto the father’s blank face.

“ICU,” the boy repeated.
The boy’s gaze shifted from his father’s face
To the direction his father faced.
He drowned in his tears.  
Matching a shade of the oceanic sign 

which read, “ICU,”
“Intensive Care Unit, section five, room two.”

Gabriel Kang is a ninth grade writer and aspires to become a professional rock climber. At Ruth Asawa SOTA, (currently majoring in creative writing), the lesson plans are currently covering poetry. Through this group, he’s learned to create and grow his own writing voice and has been actively getting stronger as a writer. While in rock climbing, he attends nationals every year, competes in open categories, and is always challenging himself. Through rock climbing, he relieves his stress and takes action towards his goals, while also further enhancing his writing skills from the creativity and growth mindset the sport provides.

Woke Up

Woke up, woke up

Don’t sleep and say ‘shut up’

The word l say is not dark and turmoil

The world I offer is not waste soil

Trust me and touch the heavenly light

Hold beauty as you can in your sight

There is no question mark between you and me

There is no truth that hides us in the sea

Our souls are loving, pure and merciful 

Look the world where everything is beautiful 

There is no promise but only greatness of love

The sky adorns to invite the dove

I love you beyond the beauty

I needn’t to know why the seas are salty

I love you with everything l know

I shall teach you how to flow.

We are never in hell’s darkness 

We won’t fall from heaven in any case

Our shadows are in the same envelope 

That never be bought from worldly shop

Don’t say to prove the sun

Only l love and there is none.

Let woke up and woke up from the dust

You can’t be far away for different cast

You are brighter than cast forever

Only l know well who you are

God has created all man and woman

Let you love me as much as you can..

Love is Not a Clouded Moon

The space of heart is limited

Where love is not imitated 

Man is like machine

As relationship is very thin

Love is nothing but only a pocket word

People pass without love and God

Man is not man but a creature

There is none to give real signature

Time is wasted in vain

Everything is in chain.

Where is the land of peace?

Where shall l give my virgin kiss?

A heart is not true where money grows

The smell doesn’t matter if it is a rose.

Love should be pleasant for all

It must be natural and very normal

It is not a fallen star

It is a heavenly matter.

If you love anyone you are not too late

Pure love is the key to heaven’s gate.

Love is not a clouded moon

Please say ‘l love you’ soon.