Now I want to share about my life. Are you ready to listen to me?. As we all know, every person suffers from painful losses at some point in their lives. My dad was on his deathbed…

Even while in pain, he used to lecture about how I should be there for my mom and sisters, protect them, and be the man of this family even at a young age. 

I knew that day was coming, the day I would be losing my title “kid,” the day I would carry all responsibilities of my dad’s and also mine, and the day I would become father to my siblings.

It came… It was harder than I thought to bear the pain of losing the person you love the most and at the same time, to be strong for your family as the only man left now. 

It was painful—the fact that I didn’t spend time with my dad a lot, the fact that we don’t have enough memories, and the fact that Dad doesn’t feel proud when I achieve the dreams I promised to him. To fix that, I started to spend more time with my mom; it wasn’t talking and chilling but more like cleaning the house, cooking in the early morning, and going to work together. I got a job in a clothes shop. It was harder than I thought, giving suggestions, communicating with different types of people, and handling their personalities.

Even though I faced some challenges at first by not managing time properly, in the end, I learned to be there for my family and work. Also, my teacher Shukurova O’g’iloy helped me a lot in learning English. She was always patient, kind, and understanding. Although English seemed tough to me at first, thanks to my teacher’s kind words and wise advice, I gradually fell in love with the language. She taught me grammar, pronunciation, and, most importantly, self-confidence. I was afraid to speak English before, but my teacher’s words, “You can do it,” made me confident. She gave me strength and confidence and never left me alone. Every lesson of my teacher was interesting, and I looked forward to each lesson. Instead of criticizing my mistakes, she patiently explained them and encouraged me to try again. This gave me great confidence. My teacher became not only a teacher for me but also a kind person, like a mother. She loved me, supported me, and cared deeply for me. That’s why I value her so much and love her like a mother in my life.

This challenge, one I cursed at first, taught me being strong doesn’t mean hiding pain; it means carrying it while still showing up for the people who need you. Most importantly, I discovered that real connection comes from shared moments, not expensive places. These lessons have shaped me into someone who values family, hard work, and growth.

My name is Annamurodov Umarbek, a passionate and ambitious high school student born on November 10, 2009, in Karshi, Kashkadarya Region, Uzbekistan! 

I currently study at college. I have earned several educational grants and awards, and my achievements include being an IA volunteer, Collab Crew member, volunteer at a youth center, Youth Perspective Club member, Youth Run Club member, Avlod talk participant, coordinator of Kashkadarya, and 1-degree diploma.

With a deep interest in leadership, public speaking, and writing, I continue to work hard toward achieving academic excellence and inspiring others in my community. A bright example of this you can find on my Telegram channel @Annamurodovv_Umarbek.

Corridors of Conscience

My Dialogue with the Painting of Dr. Alaa Basheer

Look into the depths of a shattered head,

The lines intertwine like thorns,

Dancing in the corridors of blue shadows,

Where silence clashes with the moan of souls.

O fading conscience,

You who have become a cloud pursued by the winds of conflict,

Do you dwell in the prisons of memories?

Or swim in the swamps of lost dreams?

Heads merge with the roots of the earth,

Turning into branches without features,

As if they are trees searching for the fruit of truth.

O you who are lost in the forests of noise,

Your lines have been colored in black and blue,

As if you scream without a voice:

“Where are you, O hidden light?”

Chains coil around the neck of the dream,

Yet the soul dances in the spaces of the unseen,

Searching for a conscience turned into the rubble of fear.

O human of today,

Do you still hear the steps of your burdened conscience?

Do you still touch the face of truth in the mirror of distortion?

The search is long like the paths of the wind,

But if you walk through the alleys of the self,

You will realize that conscience is not absent,

It is you, in your deep self, waiting.

—

Poem by Her Royal Highness Princess

Donia Sahab – Iraq

The Painting by the World-Renowned Visual Artist Dr. Alaa Basheer

______________________________________

أروقة الضمير

حواري مع لوحة د. علاء بشير

انظر في أعماق رأس مَهشم،

تتشابك الخطوط كالأشواك،

تتراقص في أروقة الظلال الزرقاء،

حيث يصطخب الصمت مع أنين الأرواح.

أيها الضمير المتلاشي،

يا من صرت غيمة تُطاردها رياح الصراع،

هل في سجون الذكريات تسكن؟

أم في مستنقعات الأحلام الضائعة تسبح؟

الرؤوس تتماهى مع جذور الأرض،

تتحول إلى فروع بلا ملامح،

كأنها شجر يبحث عن ثمرة الحقيقة.

يا من ضاع في غابات الضجيج،

تلوَّنت خطوطك بالسواد والزرقاء،

كأنك تصرخ بلا صوت:

“أين أنت، أيها النور الدفين؟”

القيود تلتف حول عنق الحلم،

لكن الروح ترقص في مساحات الغيب،

تفتش عن ضمير أحيل إلى ركام الخوف.

يا إنسان اليوم،

أما زلت تسمع خطوات ضميرك المثقل؟

أما زلت تلمس وجه الحقيقة في مرآة التشوه؟

البحث طويل كطرق الريح،

لكن إن سرت في أزقة النفس،

ستدرك أن الضمير ليس غائباً،

إنه أنت، في نفسك العميقة، ينتظر.

—

القصيدة بقلم الشاعرة الأميرة الهاشمية

دنيا صاحب – العراق

اللوحة الفنية بريشة الفنان التشكيلي العالمي د. علاء بشير

Work Anxiety Dream: The Haunting

All the bar walls feel hot and achingly

alive. Even the windows are breathing,

in and out, bending as if they have been

made elastic to accommodate an impossible

move. I look into the back bar mirrors

and two of the three faces of Eve look

back at me mocking my uncertainty,

my fear that cannot accommodate

of the already low ceiling, with its fake

tin overlay, is shrinking, compressing,

inching downward into what feels like

a torture chambered night. Then all 12 of

the for-sports TV’s turn themselves onto

different horror show channels, creating

a kind of cacophonous haunting in a dozen

different tongues, each more foreign

than the next tat feels like a festival

of technicolor blood and gore only a real

human sacrifice can allay.  All freezing

in place, soundless as an autoplay

on the juke cranks out the Iron Maiden

 album, The Prisoner, “I’m not

a number, I’m a free man!”

Then AC/DC Hell’s Bells, then Blue

Oyster Cult, Don’t Fear the Reaper

but I do.

A Beast in the Jungle: A Work Anxiety Poem

Waking up after sleeping in

the heat, bar interiors have been

transformed into taxidermy dreams

that make no sense.

Bewildered, I feel like Captain Willard

in a Saigon hotel seeing the overhead

fans as chopper blades descending

into a jungle instead of safely, behind

the lines, where dreams are the enemy

and there is no escaping the prison he is in.

Instead of in country, I’m in the bar,

Looking over Norman Bates’ shoulder

at birds of prey poised to attack,

at pointed antlers from long dead

steers, hear the rutting elks in the zoo,

fear the mounted wild cat heads,

the rare white buffalo skins and

the signs that say: CAUTION:

DO NOT TOUCH ENDANGERED

SPECIES, as if somehow, touching

them might make them more dead

than they already are.

I can barely see what must have been

the bar beyond the walls of mounted

heads receding into the darkness with

each tentative step I take.

The darker it becomes, the louder the dead

animal noises become and the jungle

I was now in, more confining and alive.

I check my sidearm to make sure it

is still loaded and walked on.

What else could I do?

Dormitory Fire: a work anxiety poem

I can smell the smoke from a dormitory fire,

in a building that would be attached  to

the second floor of the tavern where

the overflow auxiliary bar would be if we

had one.

Though it is a semester break, there are a

few kids who have no homes staying in rooms

where fire alarms would be if the smoke

and the dorms were real.

My bar back rescues what could be

saved before the blaze becomes fully

involved.

I feel justified not helping out as someone

has to stay behind to mind the store.

Still, I feel  a sense of guilt though

the authorities all say, “Just as well

you didn’t get involved, the old guys

always get in the way.”

Somewhat mollified, I am confronted

by a young woman from a 40 years ago

poetry workshop insisting she is my betrothed

though we both know I am married

to someone else.

The last time I saw her, decades ago,

she had short black hair cut in a page boy

but now it is dyed purple, shaved on

one side and long on the other with

curly bangs. “I just had it done,” she says,

“how do you like it?”

I think it looks awful but I don’t say anything.

Then she wants to take her home and

do what must be done.

Whatever that might be.

We leave together but I don’t know

where we are going.

Apparently, I have no say in the matter.

“Boy, are you in for a surprise.” She says,

as if that was a good thing.

I know this is the time to object

but I don’t say anything.

There is no explanation for any of this.

Work Anxiety Dream: No Exits

The sense is that my former

employer has a No Compete

option on my professional

services but as I have been retired

for over ten years, it seems unlikely

it could be applied. Still, I feel

guilty considering the new guy’s

offer to manages as, “the obvious

choice,” of a new bar in the cellar

where my first fulltime work was.

I’m inclined to say no but

this project is intriguing.

They show me around the place

which takes about two minutes,

as there isn’t anything to see:

just a freshly painted square space

with no tables, chairs, stools or

even a functional bar. They say,

“You just have to imagine those

being there.” I’m thinking this

project has more to do with Room

than The Tavern but I reserve judgment

until I hear their pitch. “We figure

that we can get maybe 200 or so

bodies in here.” And I’m remembering

that the tavern in this space had

a max capacity of 120 and it was

wider than this one, as these new guys

seem to have figured out a way to shrink

the walls and raise the ceiling

while removing all the personal touches

that make a college bar a desirable

hang out.” What do you think?”

They ask, and all I can think of is

the fire inspectors who used to hang out

here after checking out the high rise

mausoleums at the state school that

were being used as dorms saying,

“Those buildings are fire traps but this one

is worse. Where are the fire exits?

There aren’t any anyone could get to,

is there?” I looked around, though

I knew they were right. I said to the new guys,

“200 bodies seems just about right.”

Snowbound: A Work Anxiety Dream

Maybe it was the wind in that dream

of being snowbound in the bar,

one of those dreams so real,

it’s impossible after, to remember

what was real and what was dream

as is stand watching the snow drift

on Western Avenue, no cars moving,

no people walking, no cross country

skiers, nothing but the wind and

the still leafy tree limbs snapping,

falling taking the power wires with them,

no light anywhere but half a block

where the bar is, house lights dimmed,

MTV on mute Eurythmics surreality,

“Sweet Dreams Are Made of These,”

though there is nothing sweet

about this dream once the black

curtain is drawn down across

the bar and a spot light haloes

a silent talking head like something

out of Cassavetes and we’re in

their living room improv acting,

uncomfortable closeups and heat

lamps inducing sweating fever dream

soliloquies then the light switches off

and we hear three voices like something

from a Beckett play set in a graveyard

with beer taps and Irish whiskey added,

and their voices modulate in a kind of

crazy loop tape summary  of their lives

together, tales of love, and hate and

lust that death does not have the power

to end and then the ghost light behind

the bar switches off and there is nothing

but darkness, a black shroud that used

to be a curtain and the muted voices

of all the people who died here calling

for a drink.

Night Walking: a work anxiety poem

All the addresses on

the buildings are the same

All the front doors

All the curtained windows

All the store fronts

exactly the same

All geometric as pieces

of jigsaw puzzle

a lab testing rat maze

you feel as if

you are walking in

but somehow remain

rooted in place

as the walls slide by

as the storefronts

curtained windows

front doors the same

of all the buildings

with the same address

on streets without lights

you cannot move on

out of breath

wheezing

from all the efforts

of standing still

all the effort expended

going nowhere

Lily Swarn is a very sensitive person and through her poetry we can feel, not only read her poems. She is giving us a morning breeze that can follow our sentence in our quotidian life.

I discovered reading her poetry that verses have colours and perfumes like the flowers and this book is a must to read and even go to all libraries.

Kalotaxido as we say in my country, Bon voyage.  

Article in the Hindustan Times on Lily Swarn. Her book should be available to order soon.

Our Childlike Souls

Our childlike souls are hesitant,

restless, burning, loud…

They stumble over emotions

like running barefoot in the wet grass,

not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

I don’t always have the words

to write what I feel.

Often, I just stay still,

searching in silence for what the heart longs to shout.

But you—

your words, even clumsy,

come to awaken mine.

You bring back impulses I thought extinguished,

tender angers,

new shivers,

phrases I would never have dared to lay on the page.

Love is kind.

Love is frightening.

Love both enlightens and blinds.

It touches even those

who claim not to want it.

It seeps through the cracks,

and sometimes, waiting blossoms into a silent miracle.

It also hides in those blurred friendships,

where glances say more than lips,

where gestures brush against something greater

without ever naming it.

I don’t always understand the situation.

But I dare.

I dare anyway.

I dare to hope despite the unknown.

I dare to look for you in the crowd,

to lose myself in your silence,

to follow you in the gentle shadow of your absences.

I dare to move toward you

even when everything tells me to step back.

I dare to drink from your laughter,

to share crumbs of light between two silences,

to watch you smile without saying a word,

and to spend nights guessing if you dream of me.

I don’t know where all this leads,

but I go—

with a beating heart, in a low voice,

with my doubts,

my impulses,

and this wild need to tell you:

I am here,

I am everywhere,

in this mad world,

in this blurred horizon.

—

II

The Smile and the Silence

A smile

does not mean

one is happy.

There are tears

in the heart

that never reach the eyes.

We come from a life

woven of contradictions,

and we leave it

without ever solving them.

We move forward

between shadow and blur,

head held high,

heart held low.

I leave hanging

the endless questions:

life,

death,

and the reasons to stay.

Sometimes,

a smile is a barrier,

a barrier against falling apart.

There are cries

we hide in our eyes,

screams muffled

inside silences.

And the one who smiles the most…

is often the one

nobody

understands.

A sad soul

A realist mind

—

Hanen MAROUANI

Strasbourg 07.08.2025

.

BIOGRAPHY:

Hanen Marouani is a Tunisian-Italian poet and researcher with a PhD in French language and literature, focused on Reported Speech in the Narratives of Albert Camus: An Enunciative Approach. She is the author of several poetry collections, essays, and articles, and her work centers on Francophone poetry, intercultural dialogue, and the visibility of marginalized voices.

She contributes to “Le Pan Poétique des Muses” as a journalist and literary columnist, and collaborates with the “Union of Arab Journalists and Writers” in Europe. Active in literary translation through “ATLAS”, she also leads workshops and community initiatives exploring creativity, humanity, and women’s voices across cultures.

A two-time laureate of the “Eugen Ionescu doctoral and postdoctoral research program” (2018, 2022) in Romania, she continues to combine scholarship and creation with strong intercultural engagement.

Her collection “Tout ira bien… ” won the 2023 International Poetry Prize of the Poéféministe Orientales Review, and she received the Francophonie Europoésie UNICEF Prize in Paris in 2022 for her literary work. Since 2023, she has served on the jury of the Dina Sahyouni Literary Prize, after chairing in 2022 the international poetry contest Poetry and Pandemic, organized by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.

————————————————————————————–

tucked behind the ear

my grandmother

always used to

say trust your

gut until you

realize the gut

has shit for

brains

i always kept

that tucked

behind the

ear

today, the shit

for brains part

came shining

through

but, as with

most matters

of the heart

love will make

it through

it conquers

everything

fear, ignorance,

cynicism and

the ever present

rejection

it’s a gentle

touch

a subtle

embrace

a soft kiss

on a rainy

day

the final battle

you have no

choice but to

win

———————————————————

just another transaction

your beauty is such

that i know i am just

another transaction

and as long as the

money keeps flowing

you’ll keep smiling

keep teasing

keep up the illusion

that this is something

real

that i mean something

tangible in your life

the magic trick truly

is to keep the teasing

going when the money

stops

even the dreamer in me

knows bullshit when he

sees it

———————————————————————-

a typical day on the farm

a woman told me

once i was fucked

i pondered where

she was going

with this

she continued,

dogs are man’s

best friend and

you have nothing

but cats

this means you

are either a communist

or an unlucky fucker

i suppose i should

start my manifesto

comrade

she laughed, took

another drag off

her cigarette

turkey vultures

circling overhead

a crow lands

in the yard

i lit a cigarette

and said i guess

we are putting

the conversation

on luck now

one of the cats

ventured a little

too far into the

back field

became an appetizer

for the coyotes

———————————————————————-

a cold reality

i hear laughter

in my nightmares

neon dreams of

strange women

that never want

to fuck me

like stepping in

a cold reality that

i have wanted to

leave for years

there’s a devil

in your kiss and

i hope that i don’t

have to cut yet

another deal

crossing over

state lines

counting down

the miles

sure, something

will go wrong

your life isn’t

a fucking dream

but the journey

will be worth it

you’ve seen

the destination

the curves and

soft skin

you know plenty

of worse places

to possibly die

in

—————————————————————–

just a wrong turn

step away from

the chaos and

remember love

think of those

hushed whispers

and stolen kisses

not about all the

years it has been

since any of that

has happened

in your life

pretend this hell

is just a wrong

turn in whatever

utopia you feel

comfortable in

of course, don’t

give the secrets

away just yet

the last twinkle

of hope still exists

in that dark sky

get high enough

and you can even

touch it

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, hoping to escape one day. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, Misfit Magazine and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days betting on baseball games and taking care of his disabled mother. He has a blog, but rarely finds the time to write on it anymore. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)