Coating

How many layers are flying and everything is lifting on the rainbow,

Exciting joy, developing new talents.

What a great feeling coated in receiving,

As soon as the coating is applied, the color blue wave is vivid.

There is a way to measure the depth of coating,

It is understood that sour sweet fruit is too much.

Date: 30.06.2026

Amb. Dr. Priyanka Neogi is from Coochbehar. She is an administrative controller of United Nations’ PAF, a librarian, a CEO of Lio Messi International Property & Land Consultancy, international literacy worker, sports & peace promoter, dancer, singer, reciter, live telecaster, writer, editor, researcher, literary journalist, host, beauty queen, international co-ordinator of the Vijay Mission of Community Welfare Foundation of India.

Watercolor painting

You are painting and you have already washed everything

with water so that the colors are in such layers

and you are careful with the shades.

It’s all in the shades, you say.

Thats how you are in life,

you dont express yourself quickly about something

and you use all kinds of excuses to avoid

or kept your opinion silent.

It’s all in the shades.

When, very rarely, you have a guiding thought

a certain musical theme is heard throughout the world

which aims to characterize you,

as a person or an event related to you,

which is always repeated when appearing on

stage you as a hero and in memory of that particular event.

It is so important to tell the world what you think,

without hesitation.

You are not a man inexperienced

in the art or your art of silence

you are not a layman, you know a lot.

You recognize the shades of life in the world.

You sometimes feel like

a man running with a burning torch

and you think everyone sees it like

at the opening of the Olympic Games.

And only you see the hot and liquid mass

that volcanoes throw out

which flows from them and which,

when cooled, hardens like stone

painting his washed-out pictures in shades.

And you won’t even admit to yourself

that you felt the eruption of the world

still silent.

In its shades…

Yes, you felt the avalanche

powerful mass, as a contrast,

that destroys everything in front of it.

That you felt both hot and cold.

Tanja Ajtic was born in Belgrade, Serbia. She lived and studied in Serbia. She is a poet and a writer, but she is also an artist. She also deals with fine graphics. Since 2002, she lives and creates in Canada. Moved to Belgrade, Serbia 2023. Tanja Ajtic is a member of many groups and associations. In Serbia, she is a member of the prestigious Society of Writers of Belgrade. Her poems and stories have been published two hundred collections (books), anthologies and electronic books. Her poems have been published in twelve languages. She published her book Outlines of Love. She participated with books and anthologies at many fairs in the world with other authors. In 2024 and 2025, Ajtic collaborated with Indian poet Sourav Sarkar on two joint poetry collections that present two works by the poet in one book. – She won second prize in Great Britain from the Serbian Library in London (2019). – She won III World Prize for Excellence; Cesar Vallejo; 2021 in the category of artistic excellence Lima, Peru, by the World Spanish Union of Writers and International Award of Excellence; from the World Spanish Union of Writers, UHE Mexico.

She won the I International Award of Excellence & “Cita Del Glateo” Antonio De Ferrariis, IX edition 2022 – Rome, Italy, a prestigious award in the group of poets for the English language (IX edition of the award for foreign poetry in English) in 2022, Rome, Italy. – Winners of Foundation Naji Naaman literary prize iz 2023; (21 st Edition), from the Republic of Lebanon, Honor Prize (for complete work) for Literary prizes 2023. Poetry for the competition was submitted in three languages: English, French and Arabic. – Winning the 2023 “Zheng Nian Cup” Literary Award – Third Prize by the Beijing Mindfulness Literature Museum, China. – Winning Third Prize, Friedrich Schiller International Literary Competition (2025). She is the winner of many awards, diplomas and certificate. She is currently writing poetry, short stories, haiku, Gogyoshi poetry as well as graphics artist as a freelance artist.

You Save Me

Sadness arrives like a stone mist, heavy and mute, over the paths of my vision; each step is a knot that ties itself around my legs, and the world shrinks to the size of a trapped sigh.

Grief is a dry riverbed where I walk barefoot, treading on the bones of what once was, and the sun becomes a broken mirror that reflects nothing but shadows of shadows. My breath is a thin thread that breaks every time I try to name what is lost.

But you are the lighthouse made of hands, that shines not with light but with warmth; you pierce my landscape like a tree that grows inward, its roots weaving bridges over the abysses that my feet open.

You are the silence that knows how to speak, the space that opens up in the midst of my anguish; you lift me up as the sea lifts what the wind has dragged to the shore, putting my broken pieces back in place as if they were mosaic. You transform my dust into earth where something can still grow.

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’s 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.

Come as Rain

Come as rain
upon the breast of the earth.
Let me be bathed
in the quiet grace of falling.

Pour without end
over mountains and rivers.
Flow through every winding turn of life.

Wave upon wave,
weaving melodies into living sound.
Part the darkness,
and unveil a newborn world of light.

Carry me across the waters
to that distant shore,
where endless fields of green
unfold like the wings of birds.

You are the emerald soul
of the ancient forest,
the crimson blaze
of the blooming royal Poinciana,
the painted wings
of a wandering butterfly.

You are the monsoon
that returns with unfailing grace—
the ceaseless rain,
the stream that revives the thirsty earth,
returns laughter to withered grass,

the living stream
that breathes life into every soul.

Come as rain
upon the breast of the earth.

Paint watercolor
upon forgotten paths.

Bloom each dawn
like a scarlet hibiscus.

With your gentle touch,
my heart grows restless,
awestruck,
and softly trembling.

Between sunlight and shadow,
even fallen leaves smile again.

And I—

I am one of those fallen leaves,

waiting for rain
to wrap me once more
in everlasting green.

Again and again
I watch light
slip through the mango leaves,

wondering
how it befriends the sun,
how together they scatter beauty
across the earth,
across my eyes,
across the quiet chambers of my heart.

Then clouds gather.

The sky grows still.

Rain begins.

And there you are—

standing quietly beside me.

I become the rain-soaked grass,

while you keep falling—

softly,

endlessly—

through the deepest landscapes

of my heart.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

08 July 2026.

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.

Once when he was in grade ten in 1990, his Bangla letter was selected as the best one from Deutsche Welle, Germany Radio that broadcast Bangla news for the Banglalee people. And he was given 50 Dutch Mark as his award. They would ask letters from the listeners to the news in Bangla and select one letter for the best one in every month.     

From 17 to 30 September, in 2018 he received a higher training in teaching English language in Kasetsart University of Thailand for secondary level students through a government order from education ministry. 

On 06 November 2015 he achieved Amjad Ali Mondal Medal for his contribution in education field by a development organization in the conference and felicitation function for the honorable personalities at Rajshahi College Auditorium. 

On 30 December 2017 from West Bengal in India he was declared a ‘Literary Charioteer’ in Bangobandhu Literary and World Bango Conference and they awarded him with a Gold Medal in their International Literary Conference and Prize Giving Ceremony.

In 2018, he achieved Prodipto Lirerary Award in Prodipto Literary Conference at Kesorhat, Rajshahi for poems in Bangla literature. He received honorary crest from the administration of Chapainawabganj District Literary Conference and Cultural Function in 2021 and 2022 consecutively. 

His poems have been published in many international online magazines such as Juntos Por las L Raven Cage Zine, and Area Felix.  His poems have been translated and published in Argentine and Serbian, and he participated in many international online cultural meetings. 

The Diamond Realm

Translated by Lan Xin (Lanxin Samei)

Deep in the remotest void of the cosmos

Lies a bliss galaxy formed of thirty-six celestial spheres

Adorned with crystal, jade, gold, silver and agate, adorning all cosmic wonders

Among countless gleaming stars stands the peerless diamond planet, radiant and supreme

Within this vast celestial system

Slumbers a sacred realm forged from countless diamonds

Pavilions and towers built entirely of translucent crystalline brilliance

A pure dustless paradise, eternal and serene as the Western Pure Land

To reach this holy realm of starlight

One must traverse countless trials and tribulations

Cross the blazing purgatory of raging flames

Traverse frozen wastelands where bitter frost cuts deep

Tread ancient battlefields shrouded in endless strife

Wander through torrential showers of falling meteorites

Only enduring all frigid cosmic ordeals

May one step into this sacred domain

Divine radiance of diamonds shimmers gently around all beings

Sages of supreme wisdom impart eternal sacred truths

Stardust diamonds sparkle across heaven and earthly paths

Kashala blossoms drift softly from the celestial dome

Blooming like cascading meteor showers in sequence

The phoenix-like Gu Ru Divine Bird sings melodiously

Its gentle melodies spreading eternal warmth across the universe

All souls here break free from worldly desires and vanity

Nourish themselves upon boundless galactic radiance

Cultivate inner spiritual nectar with pure universal virtue

This realm rests at the heart of the diamond galaxy

The primal sacred land where ancient cosmic civilization first bloomed

Known across worlds as The Boundless Great Radiance Realm

Jade railings encircle shimmering lotus ponds

Light refracts into endless radiant halos

Divine barriers shield away pain, parting and mortal chaos

Encircled by everlasting star rivers

Its sacred guardians stand unchanging through millennia

No lack of abundance ever dwells here

Nor time’s decay shall ever fade its glory

Soft glowing light bears eternal bliss

This pure land is the eternal haven of souls

All vast lands across this boundless galaxy

Shine as everlasting paradise carved in eternal diamond

The Last Wave

“Nightmares for the dead are dreams of life.

Not remembering dreaming is dreaming of being dead.”

From Queen of Swords

For Mike

I’m on a ferry with a wife

and two small boys but I’m not sure

where we are going or why. There is an

island out there somewhere and not much else.

The ocean is flat and calm, unnaturally calm

like before an epic storm and the sky is

gradually fading from deep blue to a kind of

greenish color with back edges.

All of us are enjoying an offshore breeze

though we know none of this will last much longer.

When the wind stops, the steam freighter

I am on founders on an unseen rocks between

sandbars. Five Franciscan nuns are kneeling

on the aft deck praying in German as high seas

breech the listing ship.  I can see the name

of the boat on last remaining life preservers

painted in black letterings: Amerika as I float

out to sea.

Luckily, the wife and children are no longer

on deck. I can see them waving from another

ferry as emergency flares from several ships

brighten the storm dark skies. I can see the last

of the passengers from Amerika swept overboard

as I float. I feel like a character in Death in Venice

but I don’t know which one.

I’m listening to Mahler 5 in the launch heading

out from shore. At first, the boat handles the waves

remaining upright and moving steadily forward.

My new female friend and I know that soon

the waves will become unmanageable and 

the inevitable will follow in the form of that

mythical Last Wave we’ve read about.

The actual drowning happens elsewhere though

I sense the tragic aftermath of the capsizing boats

and all hands and passengers lost in the storm.

The loss I feel most is the death of a child,

the youngest boy, whose loss suggests he might

have been one of my own. My grief is immeasurable

so acute I feel the pain even when I wake up. 

I know, then, the death of a child in the dream

was the unexpected death of my best friend 

in real life.

Street of Crocodiles Dream Poem

After the banquet, guest appear to be dreaming,

bewitched by before-the-meal cocktails, 

four courses with wine, and house special

coffees laced with sweet liqueurs, then 

sleep inducing testimonials, including

fawning speeches celebrating the lord and 

master of the house.

Guests are jarred awake by sudden noises, 

tables knocking, levitating dessert plates,

spirit voices and apparitions like Banquo’s

ghost revisiting. Familiars appear at the side 

of the reigning king pro tem, formerly a fearless 

warrior now one who has lost his nerve, 

made pale by improbable prophecies coming true 

in the form of a processional of heir apparents, 

that scroll by on the ceiling of the formerly festive

well-heated dining room now as cold as 

Hamlet’s father’s tomb.

Outside, on the cobblestones, the inmates

of a sanatorium under the sign of an hourglass

have been released from their cells dressed

for a pasquinade in mufti and bells like

court jesters in a Poe story that doesn’t end

well for the powers that be.

Under night wood carnival barkers are

searching for their side shows, the displaced

animal acts, only finding freak shows and 

reptile rooms while the streets are filled with 

crocodiles where once a peasant revolt had been.

The soldiers that shoot them are of 

the fascist persuasion. Streets are a blood

factory now and no one cares that the king

is dead.

Burning Amy

No death from above

napalm run, no car

crash turned fireball,

no girl in the picture

carrying burning jelly

on her back,

but a working girl

in an argument

gone terribly wrong,

soaked with lighter

fluid and set on

fire,

“My husband is not a

monster,” his wife would

say.

But what kind of man

is he?  Burning Amy

on Albany Street;

something from a nightmare 

that leads to Westchester Burn 

Unit, relived nightly,

something that could never

be forgotten, maybe not a

monster, maybe something worse.

Ralph Steadman’s Milosevic

His neck is elongated to giraffe length,

stretched like his illustrations of Alice’s 

red queen, extra flesh for the ruler’s head

to avoid all the offal, decapitations he

has demanded, though, here, in Yugoslavia, 

the bodies are all buried in unmarked graves 

to be excavated as killing fields, forensic 

evidence of a reign of terror even the dictator 

cannot bring himself to consider, soiled as 

he is dressed in pinstriped suit now a butcher’s

apron covered in human gore and blood,

a vital organ in the lapel where a decorative

flower should be.

Ralph Steadman’s Pepys

“It was a sad noise

to hear our bell….

inscribed in the artist’s

calligraphic hand as Pepys,

the bold Colossus astride

the Thames, writing in his

diary, seeing through taxidermic

eyes; the tolling of the bells 

a call to worship or the warning

of tumbrel drivers about to 

pass, calling out for the dead

and dying those Black Plague

years their work was never done,

London dusk a suttee fog, corpses

afire, the Bridge, slums, as well.

Ralph Steadman’s John Clare

“May you be a half hour in heaven

before the Devil knows you’re dead.”

Irish Proverb

confined for life within a

stump of some stunted tree

in a Beckett play scene at

end time, only the poet’s head

visible where the tree’s trunk

should be on a mound of sordid

earth and knotted roots, the sky

deathly white, his skin paler

still.

Dadam-suyanch togʻim

Dadam, siz mening suyanch togʻimsiz,

Sokin-nigohingiz butun borligʻimsiz.

Yiqilsam ham sezdirmay katta qilgansiz,

Ogʻir dardimno oʻzingiz olgansiz.

Qoʻllaringiz charchoqni bilmas goʻyo,

Biz uchun yashaysiz har kun, har doim.

Bir ogʻiz soʻzingiz-kuch, ishonch va najot,

Siz bilan yuragimda soʻnmaydi hayot.

Bolaligimda yelkangizda koʻtargansiz,

Katta bulsam ham, qalbingizda asragansiz.

Bir qarashingiz-ming soʻzdan ortiq,

Siz bor-dunyom yorugʻ, yoʻllarim ochiq.

Dada, sizsiz tasavvur qilolmayman oʻzimni,

Sizdan oʻrgandim sabrni, toʻgʻri soʻzni.

Men uchun siz-nafaqat ota, balki dunyoyimsiz,

Dada siz-mening faxrim, suyanchim, yagona togʻimsiz.

Dad is my rock

Dad, you are my rock,

Your calm gaze is my whole being.

Even if I fall,

you have raised me without me noticing,

You have taken my heavy pain on yourself.

It seems that your hands do not know fatigue,

You live for us every day, always.

One word from you is strength, trust and salvation,

With you, life does not fade in my heart.

You carried me on your shoulders when I was a child,

Even if I grow up, you have kept me in your heart.

One look from you is more than a thousand words,

You are my world, my paths are open.

Dad, I cannot imagine myself without you,

From you I learned patience, the right word.

For me, you are not only a father, but also my world,

Dad, you are my pride, my support, my only rock.

Berdinazarova Jasmina Mirshod qizi was born on July 28, 2007 in the Pastdargam district of the Samarkand region. She is currently a 1st-year student of the Department of Philology and Language Teaching: Uzbek language at the Samarkand campus of Oriental University. Her article “The main ideas and theoretical principles of the Montessori methodology” and the poem “Dadam-suyanch togim” were published in the creative anthology “Ilm nuri”. She was a guest on the “Assalom Samarkand” program, which will be broadcast on the Samarkand TV channel in 2026. Her dream for the future is to interest young people in literature and achieve great success.