COMEDIA

Leopard, lion, and bitch-wolf

hunger for my soul. Virgil

saves me and takes me to Hell.

lovers, poets, craps players,

roisterers, and blasphemers

are assigned vicious circles.

Many of my friends are there.

They greet me with tears and prayers

and swear to elect me mayor

when I move to their precinct.

And we huddle over drinks

and brag about past high jinks.

And Virgil grows quite distraught.

He regrets what he has wrought,

and he checks his sundial watch.

“Come,” he says, “it’s time to go!”

I agree to leave, just so

I’ll be back some tomorrow.

SUN RA, NIGHT

The passion becomes precision,

silent organs suddenly articulate,

our jazz exact,

universe complete.

An ingenious engine,

gladly self-winding,

perpetrator of Being–

sex is that loving violence

that screws time’s ingedients

(wasiswillbe)

into a Reality

that’s the matheme of poetry:

the science of intimacy with

the alchemy of Romance-myth.

And of existence–

we are the masterpieces!

The electric youandme

moves together gloriously,

excalibur-in-stone machinery

that’s the index of our style,

the evidence of our skill.

Amply blest,

an amethyst,

we are the levee

against the tsunami’s

approaching closing fists–

isn’t there enough madness left?

The solution is more sex!

BODIES WE LOVE

Is that thumbsup we hold in trust

actually just a making-the-fig?

Which vistas shall we later see

as caricatures,

which oaths are mere gestures?

The withinness of the present

obscures tomorrow’s withoutnesses.

The hidden shall be open then

and the bodies we love, no longers

(and no longer even memories).

Yesterdays are the only forevers.

RELOCATING?

Della Street’s behind me,

need a new address.

Lois Lane? Is it Etta Place?

No service road can be an I-.

I KNOW MY PLACE

The metropolis and the ghost town,

the ecosystem and the city:

My world is a paradox of orthodox and strange,

an environment of blend

that reconciles divides.

The academy and the stockyard,

The industrial plant and the garden

share their universe

with quarks and galaxies.

They bridge chaos and constitution,

balance ocean mountain desert plain

glacier volcano,

combine/contain actions and emotions,

reconcile all us doubters and cowards.

The legislature and the prison,

the gymnasium and the ashram

have equal weight and heft.

They refine and define,

blur boundaries,

apportion my lot in space.

ON RETURNING HOME ANEW AFTER HALF A CENTURY

where ghosts and memories forever reign

everything/nothing is still the same

strange faces on familiar names

changed functions for famous frames

remembering unremembered chimes

but the sky! the sky remains

Today, everything is fast. We spend hours scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. We see thousands of pictures, but sometimes we feel empty. I’m 16, and I also love my phone. But lately, I found something better: Reading a book.

​Reading is not just about school or homework. It is like a “3D journey” without leaving your room. When you watch a movie, you see the director’s imagination. But when you read a book, you are the director. You imagine the faces, the colors, and the voices. Your brain becomes a private cinema.

​The best part? A book is a friend that never judges you. Sometimes you feel sad or lonely, and you don’t know why. Then, you read a sentence in a book that describes exactly how you feel. In that moment, you realize: “I am not alone.”

​Books don’t have ads or notifications. It’s just you and the story. It’s the best way to relax your mind from the noisy world.

​So, tonight, let’s try something different. Put your phone away for just 15 minutes. Smell the pages, feel the paper, and start a new adventure. Trust me, no smartphone can give you this feeling.

A lost homeland. 

O, Iran!

The land of ancient beauty, 

now the land of deep sorrow

alongside the longing for freedom. 

Your sun is veiled by a shadow’s weight,

and tears have washed over the city gate.

The mothers’ heart in quiet sorrow wait,

while smoke obscures the old, historic places.

In the streets, a quiet fire still burns

for freedom’s song.

Unveiled hair are a high banner,

and the women’s voice turns darkness into light. 

O, Iran!

O, land of poets, wine of the primordial covenant, and the reed!

Your streets are now a fading map,

and the voices are a whisper in the wind.

O, Iran! The land of Hafez, Ferdowsi and Rumi!

Will from your ruins grow a stronger seed?

I carry my home in my fractured soul,

a suitcase filled with your pain 

and your collective grief.

Will the sun rise from your sky again?

Will the long night flee, my cherished land?

©® Farzaneh Dorri

Iran

 

                             UNKNOWN WOMAN

       It was the end of May, the beginning of June. Despite being the first days of summer, the days were very hot. Especially when you stand in the middle of a field that has just fallen, you feel as if you are stuck in a deserted desert. One such day, my sister and I went out to plant corn in the field. Perhaps because of our conversation, we finished planting the corn in one go. The day when the sun was high was very hot. There was a mulberry tree at the beginning of the field, and in its shade we drank the water we had brought in a bowl and rested for a while. At that moment, a woman standing on the roadside twenty or thirty steps away from us asked us for water. Although she was standing a little far from us, it was clear that she was tired and exhausted.

Then my sister told me to bring her water, and I did. As I got closer to her, she was holding her little girl, about four or five years old, and she was looking at me with tears in her eyes. I went up to her, greeted her, and poured her some water. She poured the waterI am not a good person, I am not a good person.I greeted her and poured her some water. She took the water and gave it to her daughter, who was probably very thirsty, and kept drinking. I was amazed by the bruised face and hands of this strange woman. After she had finished giving her daughter some water, she drank some herself and then handed me the cup.You are tired from work too, you can drink it yourself, he said, and wiped the tears that were flowing from his eyes. I said, “Drink it freely, we were just about to go home,” and I handed the water to the stranger again. She drank all the water because she was thirsty. Then she asked me to call my sister, and with a single gesture from me, my sister quickly came to us.

At first, my sister was surprised to see her pale face and eyes. Then, sensing our surprise, the stranger began to tell us the story with tears in her eyes. At first, she asked us to carry her daughter, who was running a fever due to a broken arm, and accompany her to the main road. My sister carried the girl. I, the stranger, who was about twenty-five or thirty years old,We set off as fast as I could. As we walked, he began to speak softly.We were originally from the lower classes, my father and mother died when we were young. My brother and I grew up in the arms of my grandmother. My grandmother passed away after seeing my brother get married. Years later, my brother gave me away to the son of an ordinary acquaintance who was not rich.

After a while, their true nature gradually began to show. There were four of us in the family: me, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my boss. My boss was an alcoholic who had no education and had no work to do. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law would not let me go out. My mother-in-law would beat me badly when her son came home drunk. These disagreements affected my soul and one day I decided to leave home. I was packing my things when my mother-in-law came and took all my things, threw me and my daughter out of the room, and locked the door. I, unable to say anything for my daughter, led her to the field. The only reason my mother-in-law wouldn’t let me go was that she wanted to marry her daughter, who had returned from her sister’s marriage, to her son. When the day started to warm up, I returned home.

The thought of leaving this place, no matter what, was haunting me. When I went home, my mother-in-law would mumble something and tell me to her son who had come home drunk. After these words, I knew that there would definitely be a fight, so I left my daughter behind and went to them myself. I was more afraid of my daughter than myself. Because when my master came home drunk, he would shout at my daughter and shake his hand. Seeing my master’s eyes red with a hint of forgiveness, I would get more and more scared. No matter how much I tried to justify myself, it was no use. My mother-in-law’s mumbling must have touched my soul, and my master got up and hit me. Despite my screaming and crying in pain, he would beat me without even seeing me as a person. At that moment, my daughter ran to tell him not to hit my mother. I was hugging my daughter, but I couldn’t move one of my arms. My hand felt nothing, only pain.

When I begged her not to touch my daughter, she ran into the house with a scream. When she was drunk, she was like a mindless animal. My mother-in-law always tried to use it. My mother-in-law looked at me as if she was happy with it.He disappeared from sight as if relieved. My whole body was trembling with pain, and my hand felt as if it were crushed by a stone.As I stroked my face, which was already swollen, and wiped away the tears of my daughter, who was crying incessantly, I felt her heat radiating from her. I gathered my thoughts to protect my daughter, who was the meaning of my life, and slowly got up and set off. She really wanted me to leave.My mother-in-law didn’t stop me. While I was walking with my daughter who was running a fever, I kept crying and praying to God to heal her. I was so tired and exhausted from the long journey that I didn’t even have the strength to lift my daughter. Since we were far from the village, there was not a single living soul in sight. Oh my, my cries must have reached God, I met you on the way. You know this, you know, she said, and fell silent. There was silence. Seeing that she was getting weaker and weaker, we didn’t talk to her anymore.

Finally, we got on the main road and stopped the car. She put the little girl in the car and prayed for us.My mother-in-law didn’t stop me.While I was on the road with my daughter who was running a fever, I kept crying and begging God to heal her. I was so tired and exhausted from the long journey that I didn’t even have the strength to lift my daughter. Since we were far from the village, there was not a single living soul in sight. Oh my God, I think I met you on the road. You know what happened to you, you know. There was silence. Seeing that she was getting weaker and weaker, we didn’t talk to her anymore. Finally, we got to the main road and stopped the car. She put the girl in the car, blessed us, thanked us, and drove away. When my sister and I were returning home, we felt sorry that there were cruel and merciless people in the world like her boss, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. Still, we returned home with our hearts lifted like a mountain, knowing that this stranger had left her home, which was filled with ignorance and evil, and was determined to fight for the happiness of her only daughter.

Sherdonayeva Ozoda Mahmarajab qizi was born on December 10, 2006 in the Gulbog mahalla of the Bandikhon district of the Surkhandarya region. In 2014, she attended school No. 20 in the Bandikhon district. She graduated from school in 2025. In 2025, she entered the Denov Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy. She received a C+ grade from the National Certificate in Native Language. In April 2023, her poem “Qadrdon maktabim” was published in a newspaper in the new Bandikhon district. She took part in the district stage of the young reader competition. She also took part in the public events, namely the “Readers among teenagers” competition. She took part in the Shariat section held under the slogan “Dillarda Vatan Mathi”. Her poems have been     submitted to magazines. Currently, she is participating in many competitions.  

A Letter to Maysam

June 21, 2025

Noon

Dear Maysam,

It’s been almost six weeks since I began my involuntary servitude and incarceration at the retirement home. It’s real name is Excelsior Villa, but I call it The Village. Sally is a harsh taskmaster. She has me chained to the heavy metal frame of our waterbed and demands that we have sex at least six times a day. Which would be hard enough, so to speak, but my girlfriend, Sadie, insists on trysting with me two or three times daily, when Sally is out with her alcoholic friends, enjoying 4-martini lunches and other debauchery. The physical demands on me are so great that I now consume at least 12,000 calories a day, like a mountain climber scaling Everest or something. Still, I feel lightheaded–low blood sugar, probably. Lemme grab an energy bar.

How are things with you in Tehran? The old man was on the news today, bragging about bombing Iran back to the stoneage. What an arsehole. I’ve taken to Twitter (X) and have been giving him what for. Oops! I just heard the door. Sally is back home; she’s singing German drinking songs, for Chrissake! Gotta go. I’ll email you again later.

Duke

June 21 2025

12:05pm

Hi Maysam,

Sorry to keep you, but Sally had “an itch,” she said. It took longer than usual this time. She brought me my dinner: white hominey and boiled chicken. Ugh! She told me she’s going to release me for a while on Thursday night but I better be on my best behavior. She’ll have a taser, she warned. She wants to take me to a communal supper here at The Village. Sally is entered into a chili competition, but it doesn’t bode well. She makes an incredible glop she calls bison-head chili. She plops a full-size, 60-lb. bison head, fur and horns and all, into a 10-gallon stock pot and cooks it to death. Then she adds tomatoes and beans and onions and all the rest, and she calls this chili. I hope she doesn’t make me eat it. It’s not fit for man nor beast. I’ll write you again in a few days, Maysam. I hear Sally again–gulp!

Duke

June 23, 2025

10:32am

Hello again, Maysam,

Well, the chili supper was a fiasco. Not only did the apartment reek from the simmering bison head all day and all night, but another resident–that’s what we’re called, residents–made bison head chili as well. Sally got so pissed that she secretly emptied a large bottle of Geritol into the other woman’s concoction and everyone got the runs. Oy veh!

How is your writing coming along? I subbed to a newly “literary” rag that once deigned to publish me, but now has an acceptance rate of <1%. Miserable shitheels! I subbed them my much-acclaimed story, the old reliable “Brainy Bike,” you know, the one about the dipshit actuary from the future that buys an AI motorcycle. Well, the publisher, Charlie Fishface, turned his snooty nose up at my creation. But I fixed him: I learned the location of his office in the UK, and I hired a guy to ring his doorbell and run. Gotta go: Sadie just peeped her pretty blonde head in through my window. Luckily, I saved a bottle of that peach vodka.

Duke

July 25, 2025

10:06aj

Good morning, Maysam (I guess it’s evening where you’re at),

Sally decided that my drinking had gotten out of control, so she sent me to AA. But, because she said she can’t trust me to be out and about amongst hoi polloi, she instead purchased some AA videos which she instructed me to watch on the flatscreen TV in our bedroom while I’m chained to the bed.

I thought, what the hell, I’d give it a shot, and so I turned it on. It was a talk given by the Reverend Over Berring, some evangelical televangelist and was he ever full of shit. He had a 13-step program. I know, you’re gonna say that AA is a 12-step program. But Berring’s program had an additional step, which is to send him money.

They had a “counseling” number on the screen and when I called, they insisted that I give them my credit card number, the card’s expiration date and the three-digit security code on the back of the card. I told the girl who answered the phone that she could go fork herself and went off on her for ten minutes before I realized she was a bot. Somehow, through our telephone connection, she managed to get the info she wanted and now I’m in for $100 a week. Yikes! I don’t know what I’m going to tell Sally. Hold on, I hear her footsteps down the hall. I’ll get back to you.

Duke

July 25, 2025

11:00am

Hi again,

Sally got our American Express bill and I had to confess. As punishment, she took away my telephone privileges. Which is shortsighted, really: the Reverend Over Berring is on the internet too. Maybe next time she’ll break my fingers so that I can’t punch the computer keys. I’ll talk at you later, my friend.

Duke

August 15 2025

1:00pm

Dear Maysam,

I’m worried about Sally. She hasn’t been nearly as affectionate as she was before; I think she’s taken another lover! It’s not like I can follow after her, since she’s still got me chained to this blasted bed. So what I did was, I hired a PI to chase her down. I got the first report in my inbox today. The detective wrote that Sally has been spending a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago, a garish resort in W. Palm Beach, a community about 20 miles East of The Village. This comes as a great surprise. What could be up? Maybe Sally has taken up golf. I’ll contact you when I hear more.

Duke

Feb. 11, 2026

11:15am

Greetings, Maysam,

Sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long, my friend, but there has been a lot going on. Basically, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news first: Sally was in fact having an affair. The good news: it wasn’t with a man. No, wait, let me back up. I didn’t mean that. I meant that it wasn’t with a human being. That doesn’t sound much better, does it? Let me start over: Sally was having AI sex.

I asked Sally how I could possibly compete with an AI lover and she said I virtually couldn’t. Ha-ha. Sally’s a pippen. Well, it sounded funnier when she said it. So now Sally’s heart is devoted to another. And while I’m not getting the physical workout I once did, I keep eating the huge meals I had consumed before. To make a bad situation worse, my paramour, Sadie, found a boy her own age. Did I mention she was 19? As a result, I’ve ballooned from my svelte 166 lbs. to more than 600.

Sally no longer has to chain me to our bed, because I can’t fit through the bedroom door. Sally didn’t seem to mind my enlarged girth, however, since she’d moved into the guest room, which she shares with Alexa. I decided to take matters into my own hands and contracted for a liposuction procedure. I contacted a company off the internet that had a good reputation. But when they arrived, it was this old guy in a Spiderman costume, wheeling in a Craftsman 16-gallon Shop Vac, and I threw them out.

I don’t know what to do, Maysam. I hardly see my wife, except when she delivers my meals. She’s always been a remarkable cook, and she seems to have found the most succulent, delicious, fattening meals out there. I keep gaining weight. I think my wife’s trying to kill me, Maysam.

Duke

March 2, 2026

(The clock on my PC is broken)

Dear Maysam,

I feel rather odd writing this message, Maysam. First of all, I want to genuinely thank you for letting me capitalize on your generous nature and use you as a sounding board. I can’t tell you what it’s meant for me to have someone I could communicate with. Although we’ve never met in person and live thousands of miles apart, I feel I know you like a brother. You are my best friend, Maysam.

I was rather disquieting to hear from your sister that you had in fact passed away some nine months ago, succumbing to the violence rained down by American bombers. I am profoundly sorry you are deceased, Maysam. I hope this will not stand in the way of our future communications. Talk to you soon.

As always,

Duke

I’m walking in the sand

Feeling the warmth and cold beneath my feet.

Sunlight beams down all over me.

I see piece of driftwood hollowed out by water and insects

I feel waves over my feet as I walk onto the beach.

I think for thousands of years the people walked onto the sand with me

Maybe we are of the same mind.

For one moment we touch each other while walking on the sand.

Night, winter

Night, winter

Cold stubble burns;

A gash of wound 

Is bitterness 

And a stealthy weather,

Which unfurls marks of hope,

As winter is just another season.

Ananya S Guha

Shillong

India