MULBERRY TREE 

Mulberry trees should not be planted near the house, 
Not even a walnut tree. 

Their veins are demonic 
And if they scatter, the house will ensure to stay deserted... 

In the morning, the mulberry tree was wounded. 

Shadow lay dead beneath him for hundreds of lost birds. 

Only goats ate his flickering tops, 
Which are until yesterday 
It could only be reached with the eyes... 


Azemina Krehić was born on October 14, 1992 in Metković, Republic of Croatia. Winner of several international awards for poetry, including: Award of university professors in Trieste, 2019.,„Mak Dizdar“ award, 2020. Award of the Publishing Foundation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2021. „Fra Martin Nedić“ Award, 2022. She is represented in several international anthologies of poetry.

Conflagrations

You there, seated opposite me, within reach of love,
May I borrow your smile
Long enough for a poem?
Occasionally my sorrow betrays me,
And I see you
Sailing off, a resplendently silent prince.
You are, simply put, my alter ego.
You force me to don my disappointments
And strip streets of their astonishment.
I live with you when dreaming
And quit you while awake,
To say:
How miserable love is to envy us
Till we find no legal lifetime in which to confess to one another
We’re lovers
. . . . .
Many peoples were said to agree on this, and
Their most forceful version has been total silence;
You find no one who substitutes a drizzle of words for it.
. . . .
How astounding the results are when you’re the one by whom I measure myself,
I, who possess more sorrow than I can expend.
Note:(Gardenia Perfume)
I say your name and acknowledge your existence, not that of other folk;
…………
It was said: a woman once donned confession like a sash
And met the wave’s crest to announce:
“Praise God Who created me with a tongue to voice my love for you, a heart enamored of your shadow, and an eye that sheds only hot tears. Praise to Him 
for making you my lover, even if you are separated from me and unresponsive to my plea.”
Then the sea appeared to her as a question:
“Why do I see you dissolve like a grain of salt that water melts with its sigh?”
She replied, “That’s because I gazed into eyes you haven’t seen.”
. . . . . .  .  . . . . .
The holy fool, strolling through the bazaars of Kufa, would become enraged when he saw her.
“You pawn hearts!”
He scolded her.
“How is it that plains, which only you turn green, are not you? 
When you’re always waving farewell to us,
Isn’t bad enough that you leave us behind?
It was said: She turned away from him and ignored what was rumored.
It was said: She garnered what joy she could
And inscribed her grand names on a plaque
She mounted on the back of Separation
…..
In another account we find:
The holy fool shunned joy for many ages
And began to beg for clouds of tears;
It was said: banners raised over the heads of the witnesses
Still weep bitter letters.
Then blistered griefs crush me.

Faleeha Hassan is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq. She received her master's degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books, her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese,
ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian language. She was a Pulitzer Prize Nominee in 2018,
PushCaret Prize Nomination 2019.
Member of International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020,
Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021)
One of the Women of Excellence selection committees 2023
Winner of women the arts award 2023
Member of Whos’ Who in America 2023
SAHITTO AWARD, JUDGING PANEL 2023
Cultural Ambassador - Iraq, USA
Email : d.fh88@yahoo.com

Your Eyes 
(Dedicated to my son Esteban) 

A little piece of me 
He was delivered into my arms... 
With innocence and joy 
You looked at me... 
Sky blue eyes. 
You gave me life, 
I crossed the firmament 
And the sea in an instant, 
Reflected in your eyes 
I understood that those eyes 
Sometimes turquoise 
Sometimes blue sky 
Would light my way 
Every time I got lost... 
Because you would be 
The guide in my confusions.

Mirta Liliana Ramírez has been a poet and writer since she was 12 years old. She has been a Cultural Manager for more than 35 years. Creator and Director of the Groups of Writers and Artists: Together for the Letters, Artescritores, MultiArt, JPL world youth, Together for the letters Uzbekistan 1 and 2. She firmly defends that culture is the key to unite all the countries of the world. She works only with his own, free and integrating projects at a world cultural level. She has created the Cultural Movement with Rastrillaje Cultural and Forming the New Cultural Belts at the local level and also from Argentina to the world.

FIRE WINGS 

A distant day on the horizon resurrects, 
And shows the rising day, 
The day without end... 

The roof collapses 
to let the landscape in,
similar tatters from the walls 
to dances in disuse
A halo surrounds my pupils

I am an ungrateful woman 
non-phosphorescent recognition 
but forgetful and versatile 
A woman of good sense 

breath in the air 
the bubbles of my muses 
they come back from time to time to explode 
nuanced with light and sun 
They make me happy
 
I am the stained glass 
where the ashes make you stutter 
color and line 
I have wings of fire 
I can limit the power of the gods 
and cast down your imagination 
I was mortal reproducing 
I will be eternal destroying time 
I will blush when the cold takes me 
and I will be snow among my own flames!!!

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

Reborn 

Maybe I will be reborn as a basil. 
Being happy from my death 
One day my haters will have a party. 
Passing through alley with silence 
I hear all the gossips they tell. 
Now my poems will become orphan, 
Now I only live in my poems. 
But the world remains the same, 
Thousand years again it stays still. 
All the lies, all the fake faces, 
And ignorance in the gene. 
All the lips whisper one by one, 
Thanks God, I am far away. 
Blind souls never recover, 
I am not related to earth any more. 
The only thing tortures me is 
My days that I spent aimless. 
And incomplete writings of mine, 
My voice that paused on my throat as well. 
One day I lose my life, it is clear 
One day I will return to the Creator. 
Asking God to revive inside of me 
I will utter the name of my elder son. 

Sharipova Zuhro Sunnatovna (Zahro Shamsiyya) was born on April 9, 1969 in the Nurata district of the Navoi region. Her first poem was published in 1985 in the Gulhan magazine. Uzbek publishing houses published works in the journal "Sharq Yulduzi", in the literature and art of Uzbekistan - "Ma'rifat", in various regional and district newspapers. World almanacs in Canada, -2017 in Dubai WBA 2018 "Turkish poets of the world" (Buta 3) 2019, "Muhammad Yusuf izdoshlari" 2017 almanac. She published her book "Ismsiz tuigular"

A Drop of Dew
 
The sky that sighs in my head,
 Is your lightning heart? 
Rain or rain in front of my love, 
You will die in front of me. 

I breathed... I breathed... 
I breathed fire, 
Fire is fire, fire is unstable. 
Ah, I burned a lot of bad in his grass, 
Now my tongue is empty, my life is empty... 

Is your longing sad, O poor World, 
If you miss me, you are not enough. 
"Oh!" fire spews from my mouth 
If I sing, 
You will burn me! 

I lit... I lit... the fire... 
A drop of dew on my poems. 
I don't care about fairy tales anymore, 
I don't want to cry even to music...

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by Yunus Emro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey and five years in Ukraine. Currently lives in Switzerland. Married, mother of five children. It was not possible to publish poems and translations written by the poet for over ten years.

Benediction

From mankind's cruelty and abomination
Beasts blatantly defying the laws of creation
In the midst of society's tragic situation
Exists two souls with pure, true adoration
Whence strength of one in consideration
So shall be for weakness in sublimation
One cannot claim no need of cooperation
Strong and weak are equal in protection
From each other rests their own salvation
No one claims about slavery or domination
No ego, no lies, no arrogant reputation
Their love for each other is their benediction.


Still Dare

When no one seems to care
No one for emotion to share
No wick for a heart to flare
Will you still dare?
When life seems so unfair
Feet are on a strand of hair
No space found in one's lair
Will you still dare
When there's no star to stare
Vulnerable for soul to bare
They have stolen your chair
Blocked the heavenly stair
Will you still dare?
Yes! Dare though no one care
Share even a wickless flare
Stand firm if there's no chair
With true courage, still dare!


Spared the Rod

Taught power to love and not to hate
You have relied not merely on fate
You have faith and trusted on God
Though I have spared you the rod
Soon I shall be leaving and be gone
You have always been my loving son.

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.