Not Every AI Should Sound the Same:
Building AI Personalities in Uzbekistan

By Sherzod Suvonov | Tashkent, Uzbekistan

What if the future of artificial intelligence is not just about making machines smarter, but about making conversations feel different?

The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All AI

Imagine asking two AI assistants the same question. One responds politely, carefully choosing its words. The other answers more bluntly, with a sharper tone and a little attitude. Both aim to be useful, but the experience of talking to them feels completely different.

This is the idea behind my experiments with AI-powered Telegram bots.

My name is Sherzod Suvonov, and I am exploring how conversational AI can become more engaging through personality, tone, and the way it communicates with people. From Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I have been developing AI bots with different conversational identities: Ziya, which has two distinct versions, and George, a friendly AI assistant that I am still working on.

My interest is not simply in making another bot that generates answers. It is in exploring a more human-centered question: What makes an AI conversation interesting enough that someone wants to continue it?

Meet Ziya: One Name, Two Personalities

Ziya is the clearest expression of this idea in my current projects. I have two versions of the bot, each designed around a different conversational style.

The first version, @Ziya_uzbekbot, takes a friendlier approach. It is intended to provide useful answers in a more approachable and comfortable conversational style.

The second version, @ziya_ozbekBot, has a rougher, more direct personality. Its style is less polished and more provocative, aiming to make conversations feel lively and memorable while still giving answers that are intended to be correct.

The contrast is deliberate. Not everyone enjoys the same style of communication. Some people prefer a calm, respectful assistant. Others may find a blunt, humorous, or slightly cheeky conversational partner more entertaining.

These bots are an exploration of that difference. They are not proof that one personality is universally better than another. Instead, they raise a more interesting possibility: the usefulness of an AI assistant depends not only on what it says, but also on how it says it.

Of course, a strong personality cannot compensate for incorrect information. A blunt answer is not automatically an honest one, and a friendly answer is not necessarily a reliable one. The challenge is to combine an engaging voice with accuracy, appropriate boundaries, and a willingness to acknowledge uncertainty.

Personality Is More Than a Tone of Voice

When people discuss AI development, they often focus on model size, reasoning ability, benchmarks, or the number of tasks a system can perform. These are important considerations, but they do not fully explain the experience of interacting with an assistant.

Conversation has a social dimension. People respond differently to language that feels formal, casual, humorous, encouraging, or direct.

An AI’s personality can be understood as a designed pattern of communication: its tone, vocabulary, response style, humor, and approach to disagreement. These characteristics can influence whether an interaction feels natural, frustrating, entertaining, or helpful.

This does not mean that an AI assistant possesses human feelings or a genuine personality in the same sense as a person. Its conversational identity is a product of how the system is designed and how it generates responses.

For developers, however, that design creates room for experimentation. Rather than treating every assistant as an interchangeable interface, we can explore how different communication styles serve different purposes.

A student asking for an explanation may appreciate patience and encouragement. Someone looking for a quick answer may prefer directness. A user who simply wants an entertaining conversation may enjoy humor and a more distinctive voice.

The important question is not whether every AI should act human. It is whether its communication style helps people use it in the way they actually want.

George: A Different Kind of Companion

Alongside Ziya, I am working on another AI bot called George.

George is still under development, so I do not present it as a finished product. The idea behind it is to create a friendly, sincere, and informal conversational assistant—one that feels more like talking to a supportive companion than interacting with a conventional question-and-answer tool.

Where the two versions of Ziya explore contrasting styles, George represents a different direction: warmth, friendliness, and a more personal conversational atmosphere.

This project also gives me an opportunity to keep exploring what makes AI interactions feel natural without confusing an artificial system with a human being.

A friendly assistant should be able to communicate warmly without pretending to have experiences it has never had. It should be engaging without manipulating users into continuing a conversation. And it should remain useful even when the most appropriate response is to admit that it does not know something.

For me, George is an ongoing experiment rather than a finished answer to these challenges.

Why Telegram Is an Interesting Place to Experiment

Telegram provides a practical environment for exploring conversational AI. Bots can meet users inside a messaging interface they already know, making it possible to experiment with different assistant concepts without requiring every project to begin as a separate mobile application.

For independent developers, this offers a useful way to explore interaction design, test ideas, and learn from the behavior of real users.

It also creates opportunities to think beyond text-based conversations. As multimodal AI technologies develop, assistants may increasingly combine text with images, audio, and other forms of input. A user might eventually expect the same assistant to explain a screenshot, respond to a voice message, or help organize information from a document.

These are broader possibilities for conversational AI, not claims that my current Ziya bots already support every such feature.

The combination of distinctive communication styles and multimodal capabilities could make future assistants more adaptable. Yet the underlying challenge will remain the same: creating systems that are useful rather than merely impressive in a demonstration.

The Balance Between Character and Responsibility

There is a line between a memorable personality and an unpleasant or harmful interaction.

Ziya’s rougher style makes this distinction particularly interesting. Directness and humor can make an assistant entertaining, but they should not become excuses for harassment, humiliation, or confidently delivering false information.

A responsible design should distinguish between being blunt and being abusive, between being confident and pretending to know everything, and between creating an engaging conversation and encouraging unhealthy dependence.

Accuracy also deserves special attention. Generative AI systems can produce convincing but incorrect answers, regardless of their conversational style. Developers therefore need to consider testing, transparency, privacy, and appropriate safeguards alongside personality design. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile offers a useful reference for understanding and managing these broader risks.

The goal should not be to remove every distinctive feature from an assistant. It should be to make those features compatible with reliable and responsible behavior.

A Personal Experiment with a Wider Question

My work on Ziya and George is part of a broader question about the future of AI interaction.

As AI tools become more accessible, developers do not have to compete only by building systems that perform more tasks. They can also explore better ways for people to communicate with those systems.

One assistant might prioritize clarity. Another might emphasize friendliness. A third might use humor and bluntness to create a more entertaining experience. The success of each approach should be evaluated through real interactions, user feedback, and the quality of the answers—not simply through the strength of its personality.

For Uzbekistan, this work also offers an opportunity to experiment with conversational AI in the local digital environment and to explore how assistants can communicate naturally with the people who use them.

I am still developing these ideas. Ziya’s two versions represent different approaches to conversational identity, while George remains a work in progress. I see these projects as opportunities to learn what works, what fails, and what users actually value.

Perhaps the next stage of conversational AI will not be defined by a single perfect assistant. Perhaps it will be defined by assistants that can adapt their communication to different needs while remaining honest about their limitations.

The future of AI may not be a world where every assistant sounds the same. It may be a world where intelligence is shared across systems, but the experience of talking to each one feels distinct.

And sometimes, the most interesting question is not simply what an AI can answer—but what kind of conversation it creates.

Reference

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile (2024). https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.600-1

One Punk’s Guide to Therapy

By Kurt Morris, $2.00

Razorcake

PO Box 42129

Los Angeles, CA 90042

One Punk’s Guides are a regular feature in the punk fanzine, Razorcake, as was this ‘zine originally printed as a feature length article.  They can easily be about the fun side of punk like one I particularly enjoyed about surf music, or the no less important, serious sides such as sobriety and volunteerism.

I think this is a very important contribution to a much needed conversation about mental health in punk.  All too often undiagnosed and/or untreated mental health struggles are ignored or even celebrated in underground music scenes, leading all too frequently to tragic outcomes.

Though there are a few different punk rock or punk adjacent personal ‘zines out there that deal directly with navigating the mental health system in the US, I am beyond excited that this first appeared in a fanzine with printruns in the thousands, and that it continues to be available as a stand alone ‘zine.

In the clear and accessible language that makes the RZC One Punk’s Guides so fantastic, Morris writes about both getting therapy and becoming a therapist, while clearly remaining in the context of what’s made the mental health system in the US both helpful and hurtful.  Hopefully this will continue as an expanding trend. 

The Ravens Way Review #4, Summer 2026, $4.00

PO Box 3067

Laurel, MD 20709  

Made up of four personal essays, ‘zine reviews and a letters section, this is everything I like about a perzine and then some.

The first essay deals with computer technology, a hot topic for many a ‘zinester.  This ‘zinester, Joe3, seems to have a pretty nuanced take on these subjects for someone who seems thoroughly plugged into The Matrix (blogger and podcaster) while remaining comitted to print and print culture.

This feeds nicely into an essay about The Singularity.  It turns out I had a vastly different idea of what that is, as did Joe3.  For the record, I first read about it in Lumpen circa 2003 or ’04, and am sticking to the definition as the moment Artifical Intelligence becomes sentient.

The third essay is the completely personal type of essay I think a lot of fans of perzines are looking for:  travel, philosophy, spirituality, hardship:  it’s all there from David Goggins to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada… seguing into an interview with a doorknocker (actually an “Overheard” piece, but I’m not going to be That Guy), the perfect analysis of a seemingly mundane interaction that makes this all seem worthwhile.

Holy Cow on the ‘zine reviews and letters.  Don’t get me started or I won’t get this review done anytime soon.

Go Cat Go #4:  Hasil Adkins

By Fishpit

C/O Wiseblood

1304 175th Pl. NE

Bellevue, WA 98008

Hasil Adkins first landed on my radar because of The Cramps’ cover of his, “She Said”.  The Cramps were the first punk band I ever got into because of the obvious influence Elvis had on their music, when I was generally too young to appreciate what was so cool about them.  Over three and a half decades later I’m finally starting to understand what’s made them one of my favorite punk bands:  by going into deep dives on some of their influences in this rockabilly fanzine.

This has been my main attraction to Go Cat Go so far, but anyone interested in rockabilly should probably check it out.  Written in accessable, conversational language, this is music writing at it’s best.  Warts and all.

Postcards from Irving, Vol. 15, winter 2026

PO Box 111

Winooski, VT 05404

Exactly what I Love about the seemingly random nature of ‘zine world fandom.  Ben Irving was a 1920s band leader, 1930s traveling salesman, and 1940s Vaudeville-revivalist.  The ‘zinester behind this is a Dead Milkman superfan, which practically explains it all, retracing Irving’s travels through his postcards and related ephemera. 

I AM AN UZBEK GIRL

The lullaby’s sweet melody has been with me since birth,
The song of my Motherland lives in my heart.
My homeland is my heart, my happiness, my world,
I am an Uzbek girl — the light of my nation.

I wear good manners like a crown upon my head,
I cherish my ancestors’ heritage deep within my heart.
I love the world through my mother tongue,
I am an Uzbek girl, smiling with happiness.

Atlas silk suits my graceful figure,
My love for my homeland fills every line I write.
Honour and dignity suit my noble name,
The pride of being Uzbek flows through my veins.

My fields and gardens blossom in spring,
My people’s hearts are filled with love and pride.
My heart beats for my homeland every moment,
Uzbekistan is the dearest place to me.

My dream is that the sun smiles upon my homeland,
May happiness blossom in every home.
May the glory of Uzbekistan fill the whole world,
I am an Uzbek girl — may my name bring pride!

Munira Shermamatova is a young student from Asaka district of the Andijan region, Uzbekistan. Born in 2010, she is currently a 10th-grade student at a specialized school in Asaka. Munira has a deep passion for literature and poetry, alongside her keen interest in natural sciences like biology and chemistry. Her ultimate dream is to become a physician and contribute to society through medicine. She hopes to help people and make a positive difference in their lives.

Abdullayeva Sarvinoz Aktamjon kizi
Student of Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, Samarqand, Uzbekistan.
Email: sarvinozabdullayeva5720@gmail.com

Excessive imitation of foreign culture by young people

In today’s era of globalization, the issue of youth becoming excessively absorbed in foreign culture is sparking intense discussions within society. While some consider this a sign of progress and an important step toward renewal and development, others express concern that national identity, traditions, and values are disappearing under the guise of modernity. So, which view is actually closer to the truth? In my opinion, there are valid aspects in both opinions.

The opinions of the supporters of the first view are supported by many positive arguments. Nowadays, modern technologies are making human life easier, allowing for time savings, quality education, and access to unlimited information sources. For example, through the Internet, one can learn foreign languages, listen to lectures from prestigious universities, or master modern professions. So the problem is not the innovation itself, but how we use it.

However, the concerns of the proponents of the second view are not unfounded. The blind imitation of foreign culture can lead young people to distance themselves from national values. If the younger generation forgets its history, native language, national clothing, customs, and spiritual heritage, globalization may turn into a threat that leads not to progress, but to cultural losses. Because the future of a nation that has lost its identity cannot be stable.

In my opinion, the solution to this problem lies not in choosing “novelty or tradition,” but in combining both. We must apply modern technologies, learn from world experience, and strive for development. At the same time, it is our duty to preserve our national identity, language, and values. After all, only a tree with deep roots grows tall. In conclusion, globalization is a requirement of today’s times, and it cannot be ignored. However, striving for progress does not mean renouncing national values.

I recently spoke with Dr. Carol Queen on my YouTube show, The Kandy Fontaine Show. Carol is one of those rare figures whose voice shaped entire eras — sex‑positive culture, queer visibility, bi identity, erotic writing, community education. She’s someone whose work helped build the terrain so many of us walked on. Having her on the show felt like opening a door back into the world that raised me.

We started by talking about the 90s. Carol said, “The 90s and into the very beginnings of the 2000s were such a rich time for anthologies.” She paused, remembering. “Tiny presses that actually still had enough money to publish their books. And we both met so many interesting people that way, even if we never met them in the flesh. We all devoured those books when they came out. It was a wonderful community of writers doing different stuff and expressing different sexualities.”

She added, “Thanks for taking me on a backwards tour to that. Those were such great days.”

That was the ground we stood on. And from that ground, we drifted — naturally — into talking about artificial intelligence. Not as a tech topic, but as a cultural one. Carol said, “These days, if you see a riff, you’ve got to count the em dashes in it to find out if a human being even riffed it.” She wasn’t joking. She was naming the uncanny flattening happening in creative spaces.

I told her about something author/editor Thomas Roche said to me more than a decade ago — long before AI was in everyone’s pocket. I told him that all the 70s dystopian nightmare movies had warned us about this future. Carol nodded and said, “I don’t even pay attention to that. I don’t even know what they’re doing. I just know a lot of things are generated by the AI. They’re texts written by AI.”

I compared AI‑generated writing to Eggo waffles — food‑adjacent. Carol burst out laughing. “Food‑adjacent product,” she said. “Somebody somewhere is in a lab, and they think they’re doing creative practice in their space. Even though we didn’t ask for these products to emerge, we have every right to question the whole scenario around the product.”

Then she pivoted, the way only Carol can, from critique to lineage. “I want everybody who was raised by the algorithm to really look backwards,” she said. “Because we can’t look forward if we don’t do that.”

She talked about the counterculture we came from, agreeing with my sentiment that “there’s only 10 people in the counterculture.” I told her about Ken Goffman aka R.U. Sirius pointing out that the phrase “slutty detective” (a moniker for my Kandy Fontaine character) came from the Kathy Acker novel Empire of the Senseless: “We’re all slutty detectives in the city of mirrors.”

Queen took things one step further and listed the cities: “San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Paris.” Then she added, “We’re all standing, looking at history spool out, and we’ve all got a different point of view about how we need to talk about it.”

We talked about queer lineage and gay martyrs. Carol said, “Somebody had to suffer. Somebody had to push.” She talked about neurodivergence. “Great big overlap of the neurodivergence communities,” she said. “Oh yes.”

Then she told one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever heard from her. “When I was ten,” she said, “I walked through a high school fair and picked up a flyer with a weird little bird drawn on it.” She paused. “What was it? It was a copy of The Realist that I, a 10‑year‑old, picked up and took home.” She sighed. “I wish I had that now. I would make a shrine. The future called to me via The Realist on that table. How did it get there? I will never know.”

She told another story about lineage, this time about actress Olivia Wilde, inspired by our discussion of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis: “I saw two Olivia Wilde movies in one night,” she said. “And apparently in high school she stole Oscar Wilde’s name to have as her own, to be an inspiration to her as she went forward into the world. That didn’t used to happen. But apparently once in a while it happens now, and that is very moving and excellent.”

She talked about Spectator magazine. “The way we got Spectator,” she said, “was that the Berkeley Barb was like, ‘Times are changing, we gotta shut down,’ and the people who did the sex section — which was a pull‑out section in the middle — were like, ‘Wait! Leave us the sex section. We still have work to do over here.’” She laughed. “Lane and Kat, bless their hearts. I am, in many ways, a writer because I picked up that flyer with The Realist information, but then they gave me a gig writing essays for Spectator, and I could write them anything I wanted.”

She talked about Paul Krassner. “I wrote for Paul a couple of times,” she said. “Loved that guy. I hope people keep Paul’s name alive. He spanned some scenes.” She laughed again. “Paul stepped in to edit Hustler for two minutes while Larry Flynt went to rehab. You kinda can’t get gigs like he managed to bounce from thing to thing. It’s not like that anymore.”

She talked about the algorithm again, circling back. “Somebody is there,” she said, “and this is their creative process. Okay. But I want everybody who was raised by the algorithm, and raised by the refrigerator case at the grocery store, to really look backwards.” She paused. “Because we can’t look forwards if we don’t do that.”

She talked about the need to remember. “We’ve got to remember what our backstory allowed us to explore and do,” she said. “That’s one of the things that’s so important to me. I’m so proud of having come into the writing world in the 90s.”

She talked about the young ones. “Our young one didn’t look just like this young one today,” she said. “But we’re all standing, looking at history spool out.”

She talked about the algorithm one more time, summing it up. “It’s the new wolves,” she said. “The new wolves.”

Our conversation lasted for three hours; I’ve just plucked out a few gems. It was packed full of fun, theory, jokes, laughter, a very beautiful meeting of minds. I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the sense that the counterculture — our counterculture — isn’t gone. It’s just harder to find under the noise. But it’s still here. Carol is still here. I’m still here. And we’re still riffing.

THE WOMAN IN THE CORNER

My heart had swollen until it seemed lodged in my throat.

I wouldn’t let her see the fear on my face.  

I dropped to my knees and dragged myself toward my little girl, gathering her into my arms.  My knees slid across the kitchen tiles. Heat coursed from the nape of my neck down my spine. By the time I held her against me, my fingers had begun to shake. I’d known fear before, but never like this—never as something that lived beneath my skin, coursing through my veins.

Over the past fifteen minutes, she’d asked the same question again and again.

“When will the lights come back, Mommy?”

Even though I knew my four-year-old had no real sense of time, every answer was the same.

“About another hour.”

That was what the electric company had said.

The moment the fading daylight withdrew from the window, her small fingers clutched the hem of my T-shirt, and she edged half a step backward. I brought her into the kitchen because it was the last room in the apartment to surrender to darkness. Her eyes went straight to the far corner. She settled beside my feet and absently stacked a few plastic bowls, falling quiet for a minute or two before asking again.

“When will the lights come back, Mommy?”

I clenched my teeth. Every so often, I drew a slow breath and let it out, because there was nothing else, I could do. In my mind I cursed the rotten trees, the storm, the city officials—anything that might be blamed.

“It might take another hour,” I said softly. “Don’t be scared. It isn’t even dark yet. What are you afraid of?”

She lifted one tiny finger and pointed to the opposite corner of the kitchen—the very place where she had been staring all along.

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“I’m scared she’ll come closer.”

My face went cold.

For the first time, someone other than me could see her.

Every hair on my body stood on end as a cold terror slid down my spine.

She had always been here.

Lurking somewhere nearby.

I can’t remember when I first saw her. Maybe I’d never really been alone.

She was a young woman with long, filthy hair, sitting beyond the reach of what little light remained in the kitchen. Her eyes drifted back and forth between my daughter and me. She was painfully thin, her face hollow, her eyes were sunken deep into their sockets.

In the beginning, she only appeared among crowds.

To remember the first time, I saw the Ragged Woman, my mind drifted years into the past.

I was sitting in a mathematics class while the teacher shouted at me, threats and insults striking harder than the lesson itself. Instead of answering back, I held my breath. When I finally exhaled, a woman’s shape slipped from the mist of my breath and crept into the corner of the room.

The kitchen pulled me back.

Darkness had climbed over her head now, swallowing most of her face. I couldn’t make out her features anymore, but I kept my eyes fixed on her. I didn’t dare look away.

Then another memory broke through.

A history professor paced across the lecture hall, flinging his grand speeches at the students. Before he finished his sentence, tangled hair rose slowly into view behind him, climbing past the window frame. Eyes that looked freshly unearthed from a grave locked onto his throat.

By then she was no longer a ghost. She had become something pale and flesh-bound—something that occupied space.

After that she emerged from the shadows little by little.

She sat quietly in the corner during annual reunions with my university friends. While everyone traded polished smiles and rehearsed stories, she looked only at me.

For one impossible moment, I thought she pitied me.

I smiled back.

Her mouth stretched from ear to ear.

It wasn’t a smile. It was an imitation of one.

Her eyes flicked between me and the others, as though she were studying how human beings belonged together.

That was the day my hands first began to shake.

Just as they are shaking now.

A tiny hand settled over mine.

I looked down at my daughter’s soft fingers before lifting my eyes again.

The Ragged Woman had not moved.

Darkness had swallowed her from the waist down.

Though I could no longer see her face, I knew exactly what waited there.

The same impossible grin.

It never changed.

She always sat in some forgotten corner, watching me with that monstrous smile and those wide, unblinking eyes.

On my wedding day, I searched every corner of the reception hall.

For the first time…

…she wasn’t there.

Years later she returned in a dream.

She climbed onto my chest with that same stretched smile, her eyes impossibly wide, and wrapped her hands around my throat.

I tried to scream.

I reached for my husband, who was watching football in the living room, but no sound would come.

When I finally woke, I screamed for real.

He was beside me almost instantly.

But the image remained.

Had I been dreaming?

Or had I opened my eyes too soon?

After that, she returned to the corners.

At first, she only watched.

Then she began to speak.

Just a few words.

“It’s your fault.”

“Nobody cares.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You don’t have the strength anymore.”

She stood on the other side of the divide.

The side everyone else seemed to belong to.

The day the nurse placed my daughter in my arms, wrapped tightly in a hospital blanket, I believed something in my life was about to change.

It did.

Just not for the better.

I came home carrying fresh stitches, the smell of dried blood, and the sharp sting of antiseptic.

In the small bathroom mirror, I barely recognized myself.

I looked years older.

My hair had become a nest.

Dark hollows had settled beneath my eyes.

I still hadn’t figured out how to exist in the world myself, and now another human being depended on me to teach her how.

At night, after she fell asleep, I cried.

Most of the time she slept against my chest.

I was terrified that I would die and leave her alone with her.

Whenever the Ragged Woman made the slightest movement, I met her with a fury I didn’t know I possessed. She would shrink back into her corner again.

Even while I doubted my own mind, I never laid my daughter anywhere near the place where she sat.

I stayed awake, keeping watch over her, until sleep ambushed me without warning.

Time dissolved.

Sometimes I caught myself whispering into the dark,

“When did night fall?”

The Ragged Woman would sit in the corner of our bedroom and whisper for hours.

“Imagine what would happen if you simply left.”

“One morning you wake up… and you keep walking.”

“Just walk.”

“As far as your feet can carry you.”

“Don’t stop.”

“Disappear.”

“Never let anyone find you.”

Sometimes I shouted back.

“Shut up!”

For a little while, the silence returned.

But after I yelled those words in public a few times, everything changed.

Some people quietly drifted away.

Others stared, uncertain what to make of me.

Worst of all were the ones who mistook me for someone desperate for attention—or tried to force their neat little psychological theories down my throat.

None of them knew she existed.

My world grew smaller.

The circle of people around me shrank until, before long, either they had abandoned me…

or I had abandoned them.

Just like the daylight abandoning us now.

Darkness had swallowed half the kitchen.

My daughter buried her face against my chest.

From inside the darkness, the Ragged Woman’s fingers began to emerge.

Even I had spent years convincing myself she wasn’t real.

Yet here, in this dark little kitchen, my daughter had seen her too.

I was terrified.

And yet, somehow, I had never felt closer to my child.

I looked toward the corner.

The Ragged Woman leaned forward and whispered,

“That isn’t your daughter.”

I refuse to believe her.

I tighten my arms around the little girl and wait for my husband to come home.

Over the years I have doubted my own mind more times than I can count.

But I have never doubted him.

Because he is real.

Only real people tell you they love you.

And every single day…

he does.

Salimeh Mousavi, Maragheh, Iran

A RESTLESS NIGHT

1
The rain falls incessantly in the late autumn night,
As if tapping out the rhythm of time in the night
From the depths, a tide of memories surges now
Affairs of the heart, hard to voice amid life’s flow.
2
Through many ups and downs, sad tears fall,
Hidden sadness in the silent night; it’s all
The gains and losses, the joys and sorrows, reality
In this mortal life, let go of every sadness and anxiety
3
Life is fraught with hardship; my heart heavy as stone
In the night, I listen to the house gecko click its tongue
This night of deep introspection isn’t the end, really
A golden moon hangs far away in the vast expanse; I see
4
A pale moon casts its light dreams of longing; in the night
Ask the full moon, then the crescent moon, in the vast night
Touching the soul like an icy chill, winter coming
The rain murmurs a lament to the moon, full of feeling
5
Falling into the heart of a desolate, sorrowful night,
Let us bring this long, stormy day to a close at night
Let my heart bury dreaming of worldly illusions,
Return to peace, to the gentle night’s emotion

THE SUNSET TRAIN
The Creator operates according to natural laws;
Life remains a cycle of ups and downs. Oh! Lord!
The four seasons- spring, summer, autumn, winter alternate
In life, one cannot force things to be otherwise, so accurate
2
The union, separation, the workings of all things right
Days pass, nights fall, the months and years flow by.
The night fades as the radiant dawn breaks,
Life force surges, filling all creation. No break
3
Understanding humans, reflecting on life,
Listening to and understanding oneself in life
The source of happiness lies within the mind;
The train of life journeys on in silence. I’m fine
4
The crimson sunset fades into deep violet hues, falling
Amidst the bustling docks, heartfelt bonds are gathering
Does the traveler still carry lingering sentiments? Reality
Is it a place where meetings and partings play out endlessly?
5
Preparing one’s mindset for life’s journey, truly
Striding through every hardship, steadfastly
Living with loyalty, truth, and goodness, I think
Reaching a haven of peace, with love overflowing.

MELLOW NOSTALGIA

1
Love of autumn gradually comes to a stop
Autumn Soul is cold by a down dew drop
The autumn sky shines red on the earth
Leaving my heart cold for days on earth
2
Autumn, I see off father, and mother in winter
The purple spinach hedge is so sad like ever
Just as my cold heart sobs with love and miss
Just as the parents’ eyes were warm to miss
3
My parents taught me the morals to live
The most precious life in peace is to live
As I know true love much, I always preserve it
I’m always grateful to worldly parents, indeed
4
Dad held my hand when I stumbled
Give me the courage of mind peace
Success and failure are the lessons
I need to know how ways of option
5
I ignite my faith in my dreams of hope
I seem always to live well with my love
Parents always teach their children lessons
Be careful with life, don’t take any risks on
6
The nostalgia for love still exists in life
There are things that add colors to life
I can know how to act as an added
Morality in life can’t be eliminated