Poetry from Don Bormon

Young South Asian boy with a serious face and a white collared shirt with an emblem on the right breast. He has short brown hair and brown eyes.
Don Bormon
Cox’s Bazar

Cox’s Bazar is one of the biggest sea beaches.
This is a tourist place of Bangladesh.
We can see many types of birds,
In the beach.
That is a natural beauty of the beach.
In the morning,
The sun rays fall on the water of the sea.
Then the water shine like treasure.
When the sun rises and sets in the beach,
The entire beach makes yellowish.
There have many different types of stones,
That look like diamonds.
There has coral island,
That contains many colorful fishes.
This is the best place for tourist,
We can go there any time.
So, many foreign tourists come here,
To see its beauty.
The name Cox’s Bazar has been taken,
From the name of Hiram Cox.
Who was an officer,

Of British East India Company.
This is the longest sea beach of the world.
So, it is a great gift from the God.


Don Bormon is a student of grade 8 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

Poetry from Elmaya Jabbarova

White woman with long black hair and a black blouse with flowers on it. She's standing in front of floral patterned cream colored wallpaper.
Elmaya Jabbarova
MY BOOK OF LIFE

O my soul mate, my book of life,
There are beautiful moments on every page,
Even though it's imaginary, my Endless novel,
The month comes again every year, my spring!
You're so far away, the longing never ends
I don't have enough, I don't have enough fame,
Why doesn't fate laugh at us,
Star of my luck, dear half!
Beloved of my eyes,
Come immerse me in your gaze
Relatives who fill the heart in his absence,
Destroy with your presence, my last hope!
Stay in the world for love, your enthusiasm,
Let's return the soul, the breath to the beloved,
The map of undying love,
Let's shoot for the first time, my promise - first!
The song of the soul, the voice of the heart,
The will of loving hearts,
A monument of divine love,
Let's create together, my dear architect!
Let's change the place of the Sun, the Moon,
Let's turn the direction of the flowing river,
Let's give a share to the forest from every tree,
Let's stand in pairs, I'll face the mountain alone!
Let's decorate a table with flowers - flowers,
With birds of prey, with white butterflies,
You are an artist with a dream, a loving heart,
I am "Shur", "Bastanigar", oh my faithful!

Elmaya Jabbarova.
27.06.2022.


Elmaya Jabbarova - was born in Azerbaijan. She is poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for
Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.

Poetry from Azemina Krehic

Young white woman with long dark hair standing to the left of a photo in front of an old white brick building with a few windows. She's in a grey dress.
Azemina Krehic
CHERRY

I hide in you
like a stone in  
an overripe cherry.

I float in 
your fragrant juices,
Trembling
from the 
bird's greedy beak
that will
tear us
apart.

And,
I will not answer your
question:
Are fruits also doomed
to
loneliness?


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.

Poetry from Maja Milojkovic

Younger middle aged white woman with long blonde hair, glasses, and a green top and floral scarf and necklace.
Maja Milojkovic
FOLLOW ME

 I'm giving you a secret sign, follow the white rabbit. 
My shoulder tattoo says it all. 
Yes, I forgot, we are not in the movie The Matrix.
I want you to be my companion, 
but you don't know how to read the signs 
which is set by the Universe through numbers and in the child's speech. 
There is a celestial artist whose pen writes the signs of the horoscope. 
All this is as clear as the future in the palm of your hand, in answer to prayer. 
But instead of looking, you sleep and dream of me in a silk nightgown, 
and you don't understand that I'm warm on a hot night, 
and not to provoke your senses. 
I am giving you a path that is walked without material desires
and to head to the Himalayas where we will see with different eyes. 
We will dive into the mountain of snow, in whose interior there is a world of abundance. 
Close your eyes and follow me. I will take you, companion, 
when you learn that tattoos speak, 
when you recognize the signposts written with a pen of gold, 
we will not need a body made of earth. Follow me, 
I'll take you to the abundance of dreams brought to life. 
And once you step there you won't want to go back, but he wants it first. 


I AM YOUR MASK

In kindergarten you wanted to be a clown. 
I painted over your features 
and you were so adorable with a round red nose.. 
You are at a ball in your youth 
put a mask over his eyes yes poor girl 
she wouldn't recognize that you are the son of a rich man, 
It looked perfect on you because I can make you be what you want.
And in your passion you were afraid of illness 
and convinced you to be your protection of polyester cloth over the mouth and nose. 
Your ears started ringing, and no one saw the sad eyes 
because they have become dull. I, who was your servant 
and mask of life I humiliated you 
and you forgot to be free man.
I shout to myself: "I am your mask, get off my face and smile, captive man, because there is a way out!"
 

Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia.
She is a person to whomfrom an early age, Leonardo da Vinci's statement "Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard" is circulating through the blood.
That's why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them.
As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube.
Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers.
She is the recipient of many international awards.
"Trees of Desire" is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems "Moon Circle". 
She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists "Mountain Views" in Montenegro,and shealso is a member of the Poetry club "Area Felix" in Serbia.


Poetry from Michael Todd Steffen

The Difference We Make
September 2013

Empty air was hissing
as from a gold string fob sifted on marble.
Some things take another thing
to make sense for them.

When I reached down to pick it up, the name
chestnut echoed as a keepsake to imagine
luck for my pocket, carried with change.

We gathered at Memorial Church to listen
to readings of your poems. None of them
were set in churches, allowing you this further
chance to resist yet also embellish
a welcoming exile and attempt to naturalize you.

One of the professors related your meditation
on the pastor’s beret, your insight into the thing’s
aerodynamic shape and lightness, holding it
like a frisbee between thumb and finger,
mind’s-eyeing it flung into the congregation.

The poet’s vision could perform the necessary
desanctification of the sacred, to share
grace for our laughter, which the pastor
for heaven’s sake might thank the poet for.

With vaults to echo the skies, the altar for
your or my supper table and by metonymy of use
the fruits of the earth, the earth itself,
a church makes a kind of poem of the world—
with acoustics especially for song
and speech, middle-earth in its edification
of a mind waking to meaning, to prayer, or to a poem
to articulate our wonder, to advocate for us,
for our reconciliation, to forge the soul
or, say, shape us, to belong, in the difference we make.

For something slightly unusual we guessed
our way down Brattle to the garden at Longfellow’s.
Starlings and a crow pecked in the grass.



A russet squirrel gnawing an acorn motioned
for us to follow the path along the beds
with labels for end of summer’s crestfallen roses—

onto a trellised vine. Wanting thoughts looked.
Were those real, clustered in perfect cone-shapes?
They couldn’t—could they be ripe? It would be wrong

to lift a handful—as my hand reached for the grapes
to roll and crush their tartness on my tongue
thinking this appropriate for a trade

poet’s memory, a frisson’s object
to flesh out the reed music Seamus Heaney made
with prudence and propriety to contradict.

Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and an Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award. His poems have appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, E-Verse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, and The Poetry Porch.

Of his second book, On Earth As It Is, now available from Cervena Barva Press, Joan Houlihan has noted Steffen’s intimate portraits, sense of history, surprising wit and the play of dark and light…the striking combination of the everyday and the transcendent.

Tan-Renga poetry from Christina Chin and Kimberly Gomes

1

fluffy goldfinches 

at the birdfeeder

spring snow flakes


a feather fluttering down

signals an intruder


Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes


2


spring rain 

fills the lily cups—

impassable stream


up to my knees

in a flooded street


Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes



3


sweet and plump

in the faded family photos

—aged envelopes


prying eyes search 

for a birth certificate


Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes

Story from Chuck Taylor

When The Lightning Struck

     I wasn’t there when the lightning struck the top of the fireworks stand out on HW 80, the year we were broke and had lost our apartment. Peddling silver salutes and cherry bombs was a dream come true. We started selling three weeks before the 4th and slept on the grass of our locked fireworks stand. Each night after we closed at midnight, I put the cash box in a hole I dug near my sleeping bag and covered it with a box. 

     We were hippies then, in our late twenties, peddling rockets and silver salutes. We hoped to take in enough cash to spend spring and summer in the mountains near Santé Fe, New Mexico, on national forest land.

     I’d taken the pickup to get change at the bank. Katherine ran out the back door when the lightning struck with a boom, and high up the structure began to burn. Everything we had tumbled off the shelves, but not one rocket took flight or one firecracker snapped, crackled or popped. Nothing even smoked. The fire up top on the Mr. W sign went out by itself.

    Katherine said she was rather disappointed by such a tepid divine intervention. There should have been a bigger show, happenings more impressive.  It sprinkled dribbles of rain only a minute or two.

    She waited for about ten minutes, went back inside the stand, cleaned things up, and waited for the cars to start pulling in. The lot had been empty with the lightning hit. I thought that was divine intervention enough.

     Soon Katherine was again smiling and selling. 

— 

Paste into your browser the following website addresses to either view Chuck Taylor’s photographs or to learn more about Slough Press:

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/Chuck+Taylor/all

http://www.redbubble.com/people/geezerpoet/art?page=4

http://sloughpressbooks.googlepages.com/home

http://www.rheagart.bravehost.com/SloughPressBooks.htm