Unbelievable palmistry

My tongue is crooked, honestly -
I can not look into your eyes.
Scattered line on my palm is connected to my destiny
I deceive myself just like that.
I am wandering of searching the line of love in my hand,
without finding it in my life ...

There are living walls between us
There are living walls between us.
Draw an invisible boundary.
What is the benefit of our separation?!
It parts us from our love.
Ruthless living walls between us.
It is like dying is not meant for them-
The tears are just a sight to behold.
(Didn't they face with the passion!?)
Living walls between us.
They part us, even the paths;
Constantly looking at us ...
We are moving apart further
Living devils between us.
They will not fall.
They are eternal…

***
Drown the hourglasses into water,
put a rope around the neck of time
released its the last breath.
Tied the clock hands to the stone
I tried to hold off the life
and live.
But -
Could not stop
My heart
Screaming
Just like a clock in my chest ...
It is not true when they say
We are lack of power when it comes to the time:
time loses -
when it stops beating
My heart


Atagulla Satbaev was born on August 10, 1995 in Nukus city, Uzbekistan. His poems were published in local magazines and journals.

Caballo sobre mi espalda
Mis piernas pegadas a tu flanco sudoroso, 
Apretando con fuerza, mis manos sujetando tus crines. Sin rumbo corremos desbocados. 
Tus cascos golpeando mi tierra, sonido de castañuelas. Levantando polvo, haciendo camino en tierras de nadie. 
Ritmo y movimiento, tierra adentro. 
Adrenalina y susto nos recorren, una bestia sin pensamiento me lleva sin destino. El viento silva en mis cabellos y se cuela entre mis brazos  tensos. 
Nadie lleva las riendas. Corcoveando, tus músculos fibrosos te dirigen. 
Coordinamos tu carrera. Subimos y somos aire por un momento, caemos y somos tierra al instante. Llano adentro. Donde todo es verde, vigoroso y equilibrado. Me dejo llevar y me convierto en una amazona griega. Llegamos a donde pertenezco, el límite exterior del mundo conocido y lo cruzó, sin fronteras.
Soy yo sobre tu espalda o tú sobre la mía. Cabalgando como uno.


horse on my back
My legs stuck to your sweaty flank,
Squeezing hard, my hands holding your mane. Without direction we run wild.
Your hooves hitting my land, sound of castanets. Kicking up dust, making way in no man's land.
Rhythm and movement, inland.
Adrenaline and fear run through us, a beast without thought takes me without a destination. The wind whistles through my hair and sneaks through my tense arms.
Nobody takes the reins. Bucking, your sinewy muscles direct you.
We coordinate your career. We rise and are air for a moment, we fall and are earth instantly. Flat inside. Where everything is green, vigorous and balanced. I let myself go and become a Greek Amazon. We reached where I belong, the outer limit of the known world and crossed it, without borders.
It's me on your back or you on mine. Riding like one.

Translations to Taiwanese 
Translator's name: 陳美如
Country: 紐西蘭 (New Zealand)

Translations to Igbo
Translator's name: Uchechukwu Onyedikam
Country: Nigeria 



Uchechukwu Onyedikam / Christina Chin 


young stripling 
bearing the task
to her side

loading corn stalks 
on a cart


na-eto eto stripling
na-ebu ọrụ ahụ
n'akụkụ ya

na-ebu ọka ọka
na ụgbọ ala


少年郎
在她身旁
幫忙扛

把乾草捆
裝手拉車上


*







frigid air
in the porch

the loyal collie 
wags at its 
master's whistles


ikuku oyi
na ihe owuwu ụzọ mbata

nkịta na-eguzosi ike n'ihe
na-aga na ya
onye ukwu ịfụ


門廊上
寒氣逼人

忠實牧羊犬
聽聞主人口哨
搖搖尾巴

***
prison instead of help
coexistence instead of love
unnecessary reform
one coffee and hotel room per person
there are many ways to show your dislike

Reprint by Crank



***
mom sews a vagina for her daughter like a red rag for tears
mom wants soldiers to give flowers to her daughters

the cemetery is silent about flowers

daughter collects khaki and throws it into the toilet
daughter screams that she does not need such flowers

graves are silent about the dead

Reprint by Rat's Ass Review


***
this poem 
will not be written 
by anyone because the author 
will go to the supermarket for vodka
 
and never come back

Reprint by Tipton poetry journal



***
the leaves don't resent it when you step on them
the bones barely crunch when you do 
people barely crunch on such occasions.
death is like a land mine doesn't resent it when you step on it 

Reprint by Tipton poetry journal



***
what does the right pike of a suicide exposed to the wind say?
what happens to the frostbitten left cheek?

mother's biblical face turns silky as son pulls out graveyard surprise box from under his bed



***
internet people live the longest

a dog that died ten years ago still puts 
likes on social media 
instead of its killed dog owner



***
while God is sleeping, the children press all sorts of buttons on his smartphone 
and do not understand what this leads to
angels drink living water meanwhile and get drunk

what is the name of the little boy who will never become Jesus Christ?



***
Dynastic hands of the dead
No one will teach palms to cry

Money can't be earned аnd neither can respect
Money and respect can only be stolen from talent



***
What can poetry be talking 
about in the 21st century besides blood?

The ruins warm the bodies 
of the future dead



***
death allows itself to be late in the form of rain that washes away all the moles from the body
no one allows you to return to childhood with a cheek turned up for a blow
meanwhile the window is slammed shut wide open
meanwhile the birds sew up the sky tightly
time turns into sand from which we built a house
house is grass house is glass
religion trauma of cold speech
torn tongue crunching leaves underfoot
the breathless unborn god underfoot
and above the heads of the airy sky which is no more



***
the little wolf cub is looking for wolf jesus but can't find him
animals are too humane to crucify each other
animals are just physically hungry




***
Jesus received the resurrection 
certificate from the hands of the centurion

the dove sat on the arm of the tree 
and silently watched



***
there is no more home
ruins play the stones of a scream

There's no more peace because 
someone skipped a history lesson 
on Hiroshima at school


***
as soon as 
і wake up from sleep
і frantically begin to suck 
the dick 
of my rifle 
as if there was no war



Essay

The Ditch

Man is something thrown into the ditch of world history. One day some guy went to get some alcohol at some store and ended up in the hospital. Judging from the pics on instagram, I would have liked this guy, and he also has nice long finger nails. Only I still don't know for sure if he's gay or if he just dresses so provocatively that he gets attacked by scumbags on the streets.

Once a famous poet went to get alcohol in one of the few stores and disappeared. These were the days of Soviet terror. I never understood what wrong this poet had done. 

One day a Jew was walking near the palace (probably looking for where to buy alcohol). The guards came up to him and grabbed him. And then, on Nero's orders, the unfortunate Jew was crucified. Why this happened is unclear to me. Perhaps after such an incident Christianity was born.

That's why I don't drink alcohol and use courier delivery as a rule. I also think it is important to note that I want to dye my hair ashy.

ANOTHER SPRING NIGHT IN FARMERSVILLE, OHIO

The sun is a gong hung low across the sky,
windswept.earthdirty.sunwhipped: farmers wait inside their bones
for the horizon to rise and beat the daylights out of the sun
and call them from their long dungrows for a night.

Your chastity's a song sung slow through long nights
on muffled virginals: muting babies wailing to be born:
golden arrows, a thong-strung bow        the dream night.
The night is calling: strong, gung-ho -- black hawk in flight.

(Tonight? When one earthtired husbandman works me in his hands
& periods this dry chaste day, waters these furrows hungry from famine?

But no.
             Just one more wrongtongued crow in flight.)



AH! NIGHTS

Ah! Nights you were a harem
and I the unmade Bedouin too long in the thirst.
Past the black eunuch of the night
I would steal to your tent,
unarmed save the single arrow in my quiver.
I'd draw sensuously back your damascene veil
and let fly my shaft
deep into your bulls eye arabesque--

Or: you were queen of the hive
and I a drone among the honeys
getting a buzz on and doing my job
plunging among the dusky clover
trying to pollinate the skies
to flower the night with stars.
To lose my only stinger would be to die--

Or else: you were madonna
awaiting your Jealous Commanding God,
The Spawner Of The Cosmos,
Beam Of Light Made Flesh To Hold You In Your Place
(while you shook in rapture for the coming of your Lord,
i a small choirboy would steal into your unguarded churchyard
and send a solitary firework into the cathedral's secret hole
and hope it explodes high up in those beribbèd vaults
and surprise celibate fathers from their sleep).

 
EITHER ALZHEIMER'S OR THE LIGHTNING BLAST

Whizzdizzyingly
cruising The Moment,
arrowing past all awareness:
highway,enginewhiine,steeringwheeltrafficWorldsmuginnnngg past
while we, preoccupied, reprise Creation,
absorb Eternity and Logos, Eden/Gethsemane, Genesis-Apocalypse
and the Night the Night,
the private bleeding into the general,
and Ouruniverse proxying for ego.
Glorious cosmic fusion in an infinite minute.
      (or so it briefly eternally seems in our infini-tiny microverse)

The ends of love
are but two

:your V8 plunges from the surface
and, crucified like a butterfly in time,
helpless consciousness heightened,
you hover in slowmotion witness
to the juggernaut earth's decay
just as your metal-again grille
begins to embrace solidity

or: doomed foresight eludes
as you rearend that lightless
semi-tr


MY WIFE

My wife is the flag
placed on climbers' highest crags.
 My wife is the mirror
who patrols my appearance
and makes sure all is fit
and I'm vetted to grace the public.
She's the armorer
who's forged our love and honor.
My wife is the ear
who grants the pre-clearance
for my poems' weight and wit
so they're ready to face the critics.
My wife is that fire
to kindle and quell desire.


WHAT I DID LEARN

My mansard roof -- its shingles 
lost so very long ago. 
In Lhasa at Your temple, 
at that brave school in Lisbon, 
I studied my imago. 
My music group's hit singles 
stopped so many songs ago.
I've learned my shakes and wrinkles
but still I wait for wisdom.

The Sea is Too Vast My Friend


The passengers gather atop the ship before it leaves the harbour. It’s a ‘thing.’ Other ships are around and I can see right away that there is competition among ship builders to construct the largest one. How something can be over fourteen stories tall and float and manoeuvre confidently I do not know. Each vessel has to wait until the one scheduled to leave before it sails from the harbour. And when arriving somewhere, it is strange to learn that no ship’s captain is allowed to drive, for some kind of insurance and international law purposes, but that a small boat drives out to the giant ship, a boat that holds a person who shall enter and take the ship to dock. But the sea. What of the sea? I am sure that nothing much changes with the sea-goers through the decades other than fashions, styles, the latest talk about the world and their worlds that seems significant at the time but is prosaic in reality. The sea is the thing, no? At night I watch it through a window stationed behind where we are sitting. I cease to hear the conversations then and notice another ship in the distance going the other way. It is large but appears small upon the vast and seemingly infinite sea. I wonder for a second if they look upon us as some of us look upon them. And if so, what do they think? And do sirens or mermaids, ghosts of sailors, or even monsters, live in and about the sea? Though it sounds silly, looking at its space and thinking of its depth then, I just don’t know. I feel fragile, like a skeleton barely put together. Do you ever feel such as that? The sea throws one back upon oneself, or rather can, sometimes. It is like a person that you and I shall never fully know. It is so vast, in fact too vast, my friend.