***
Collective of the graves
Black raven lost in white snow
You remain silent
The silence is still as ambiguous as before the funeral

***
Returning home is near
Counterbattery fire
Burst intestines are covered in painful spots
Eat vomit because we all have eat and die
They say war is a milky night mother
After all one born from the night

Must someday return home to the darkness

***

I grow in the dew under the branches of the heavy arms of the forest I am the grass mown by time, rain, sun, hope you are a candle that burns only in the blinding heat you are the rain that waters the cemetery paths we can’t find each other we can only be snow and everything around is white as if nothing had happened and it’s over forever like a paper book about a felled tree the snow continues its path off-road

***

I don’t know why a graveyard crawled out from under my bed

I don’t know why all the flowers are tied with a mourning ribbon

“We bury the old world” – says the bird and dies

The agony of the cemetery bursts like a vein

Mothers sew dresses for their daughters from their vaginas

Daughters marry soldiers

Mosquitoes drink the blood of the universe

Cats dream of a bowl of blood with a drop of milk

Military pilots fly to the smell of blood

People are insects – at least mosquitoes

***

sakura is silent

calm bird drinks silence

***

spring is like a drowning

we drink damp heat

time to go to bed

***

the frog drinks from the bowl of autumn

water and air mix with each other

***

autumn colors stuck to the skin

the leaves underfoot beg for help

***

Getting to know silence

The clouds in the sky burst silently

The veins on the arm burst silently

The dead cry silently

Thunder rumbles without any unnecessary sounds

Fish heads don’t scream

Even mosquitoes don’t squeak

A military pilot prepared to drop a quiet (but only for the time being) air bomb

***

the existence of clouds for the sake of the existence of rain

the creation of man for the sake of the creation of god

I know everything in the world except the truth

***

The future is water

The future is a spit

I collect spit and tears

I pretend that the cemetery is a space rocket

I pretend I’m going to the stars

But in fact I’m picking mushrooms in the forest after an explosion in the forest near Hiroshima

***

Religion was invented for those 

Who have not yet died

Each of us dreams of being Jesus Christ

Each of us is a baby

Вut where are the Magi

5 new pieces

***
lips emerge from the evening gloomy snow
lights of blueberry nights teach the eyes to sleep

and if your face floats in silence
noiselessly and invisibly
then I will still draw your features
in every rustle of a winter evening

I love you even though you don’t have a name
you will be the black square of my triangular heart
you will be immense and inexplicable
and then I will run out of gouache
and your face will be painted with my blood

from where
do you get your name if I’m selling you to make money
do I really love you if I sell your features for money
?

I don’t love you at all and I don’t know you at all
no one cares for anyone in the snowy space

I teach your lips to sleep I pacify your lips
your name is a black square
we all live in portrait frames and only

snow

and only snow
and only snow
and only snow

***
The legacy of silence grows among the reeds of what is forgotten
Life never ends and silence goes to sleep in a tired cemetery

A girl flies like a swallow through the concrete night painting time with a brush
Too much water and the paint is completely stale and the teacher scolds

The orphanage speaks silently to the blizzard
And on the next street, a retirement home sails into the sky with its sails spread

The final stop
The final goal
The middle silence

***
What’s hiding behind the window glass? The rain falls asleep. Red splashes flow down from top to bottom. The emptiness shines. Silence mumbles. Rifles whistle. The fires are raging. Warheads play with birds. Houses turn into bloodthirsty monsters and swallow the future. Explosions scream. The baby sleeps in a cradle and dreams. Window frames whisper to the walls. A window will never become a mirror for time flowing down like water into a toilet. And what, after all, is hiding behind the glass?

***
The bird does not know what silence is and sings songs with its cut throat

***
Tree looking for an apple
The tree is looking for a child

The body is growing
The body is getting old

The cell searches for the soul
And the soul has died

***
What is emptiness
In the hands of a beggar is an empty can of cola with change

What is loneliness
This is when birds still return home from warm countries
Аnd you look out the window and realize that these birds are no longer (none?never?) a flock

***
every evening the bird thinks about the sky
every night the cell thinks about emptiness
every morning feathers dream of flight
every noon the beak begs for alms

every new bird day is a small escape from the past and present
the shores play with the waves in sighs, cries of silence and knocks of inevitability
the bird learns to walk again on the hot sand, but its legs don’t obey

every moment of wasted flight is an expectation of death
a bird flies forgetting about its legs just because it can fly
what is the meaning of flight and where does the water of time flow?

every bird hides a cemetery in its nest
each leg hides cement in its nest
every head hides meaninglessness in its nest
every void expands to the horizon line
and there’s nothing beyond the horizon

Henrik Ibsen’s Theatrical Drama Ghosts

Stage set of a mostly dark living room with blue velvet and wooden chairs, houseplants, and lamps.

In your view does Mrs. Alving mark the emergence of the modern woman in western theatre? Assess her characterization especially in the light of her conduct with her husband in the past and her son at the end of the play.

Two men and two women, in red and blue gowns and petticoats, and two men in suits, on this stage set.

Mrs. Helen Alving is a pioneer radical progressive stalwart feminist embodied character of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and her cowardice and/or foolery with the cloaking of darkness of past life is tainted with scandals. Mrs. Alving vouchsafes the seduction scene of her beloved son’s flirtations with Regina in the vein of her closetting Captain Alving’s promiscuity with the domestic hearth stewardess parlour maid Johanne. Mrs Alving is a hybrid and fluid rebellious spirit adhered to keeping up with appearances in the western tradition.

The impending dooming catastrophe of upholding a fictitious pair of perfect couple is a gobsmack revelation foreshadowing Oswald and Regina’s unbeknownst incestuous romance. Phantom spectral love-making of the preceding generation reincarnates into the half-siblings unrequited love as embodied by the poltergeist alter egos. However, Mrs. Alving insists Pastor Manders in refraining from intrusion into the tempestuous seduction analogizing her late husband’s surreptitious extra-marital affairs. Helen Alving is a woman of education and woman of refinement despite a microcosm of absurdity, vulgarity, coarseness, egotism and debauchery. She nonetheless harbours courtesy and dignity while adjusting towards transcendence.  

Despite Eurocentric male dominated patriarchal cosmos, Mrs. Alving transcends gender barriers of race and class through salvaging familial relationships. Her resolution to preserve the sanctity of the father son relationship is a marvelous throwback to severe father son conflict in nuclear families. Mrs. Helen’s abominable husband’s crestfallen lechery should not be revealed in the microcosmic world, so she disguises a stance of absolute blissful marital alliance and deports her son Oswald with scholarship abroad. Mrs. Alving endeavours painstakingly to protecting Oswald from a poisoned home life.  This joyful illusion is furthered by the authority and decree of Pastor Manders’ acquaintanceship as foreshadowed by deemphasizing of lurking hidden past ghostly events.

Investigative series of a speculative fiction and detective literature, drama of contemporary life is portrayed by Henrik Ibsen in the Ghosts’ through Mrs. Helen Alving’s excruciating quest for self-fulfillment. Mrs. Alving’s heroic endeavour to establish orphanage in the legacy of her late husband is lost in the flames and burnt down to cinders, alluding to the literal and figurative bursting of spilled beans. Helen Alving’s abolishment of her abhorrent husband’s scandals through redemptive establishment thus becomes awry. Her family heirloom is relinquished of the life giving force because of the hereditary sexually transmitted diseases morbidity. Corruption and pollution afterall haunts as a cascade of infernal torment for all that eventually compels Mrs. Helen Alving with a sadomasochistic dilemma in administering overdose of morphines to end Oswald’s intolerable nightmarish macabre. The poltergeist soul of Captain Alving resurrects with a vengeance to haunt Mrs. Helen Alving in the alter ego Oswald she reckons, has vouchsafed from the truth. 

“Ibsen’s Ghosts shares a problem with many contemporary naturalistic plays; it has some, but very little relevance in our world today.” Do you agree? Support your answer with an analysis of the treatment of any two issues in the play. 

Or

(Middle aged couple and a younger man in a suit on stage)

“All your life you’ve been governed by an incorrigible spirit of wilfulness. Instinctively you’ve been drawn to all that’s undisciplined and lawless.” Critically explain the commentary of the speaker. 

Henrik Ibsen’s modern European realistic problem play drama Gengangere or The Revenants (The Ones Who Return) is a satirical tragedy of contemporary nineteenth century Denmark and Norway’s “events that repeats themselves” concerning religion and morality, adultery and profligacy, incest and euthanasia and venereal epidemiological ramifications. The Ghosts is a firestorm of public outcry because of a controversial forbidden storyline of venereal diseases and syphilis infestation associated with unbridled lovemaking in debauchery and promiscuity.

Henrik Ibsen vindicates the crusade for unravelling a swashbuckler within the frontiers of modern western dramaturgical tradition and thus Ibsenites preoccupy themselves in battling hackneyed ideologies of the malevolent taboos propagated by orthodoxical society. None of the transformative radical policies of modern healthcare and medicine of the then controversially stigmatized sexually transmitted diseases were prevailingly conferred upon the vulnerable including Captain Alving and Oswald Alving. As a consequence, continental citizenry of the civilized world considered kindling fires on the syphilis affected patients even from their funeral pyres. Harrowing and heart wrenching sadomasochism trembles the innocent characters Mrs. Helen Alving and Pastor Manders analogous of Shakespeare’s shuddering in Macbeth and in Lady Macbeth’s taint of scandal. 

Mrs. Helen Alving’s upbraiding for unfulfillment of cuckolding with Pastor Manders; her upbraiding of mismarriage adjustment with the dissolute husband Captain Alving; her upbraiding of the incestuous sibling lust bonding brimming between Oswald and Regina are realistically depicted as dysfunctional family relationships in contemporary patriarchal and misogynistic cultural Eurocentric ideology. “The sins of the fathers are visited on his children” extrapolates the trajectory of hereditary sexually transmitted diseases passed down from ancestral generation to the descendant generation as ushered in the polemic statement by Oswald. Captain Alving bequeathed the legacy of debauchery and dissolution to his heir, Oswald. Oswald’s frozen heart and stricken soul cannot idolize spatiotemporality of phenomenal mirocosmic boudoir offered at the expense of “my mind has broken down—-gone to pieces—-I shall never be able to work anymore!” Dreaded malady of the twilight of the brain is envisioned by such suicidal rhetorics of the son under the mother’s upbringing as expostulated in the remarks: “I, who gave you life” … “A nice kind of life it was that you gave me, and now you shall have it back again.” 

(Young man in slacks and a jacket speaks with an older man in a suit on stage. Woman is seated in a red dress).

Further Reading, References and Endnotes

Henrik Ibsen, W. D. Howells, The North American Review, Jul. 1906, Volume 183, No. 596 (Jul. 1906), pp. 1-14, The University of Northern Iowa 

Stripped Cover Lit Youtube Vlog Review Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen: Summary, Interpretation and Analysis

40 MRS H.F.LORD on the phases of the soul in Ghosts 1890 149

44 An anonymous comment on the depravity of Ibsen, Edward, Aveling and Ghosts, Saturday Review 1891 157

Ghosts (Royalty 1891)

60 GEORGE MOORE sees Ghosts in Paris 1891 182

61 Unsigned notice by CLEMENT SCOTT, Daily Telegraph 1891 187

62 Editorial, Daily Telegraph 1891 189

63 Unsigned notice, Daily News 1891 193

64 Unsigned notice, Daily Chronicle 1891 195

65 Unsigned notice, Evening News and Post 1891 196

66 Anonymous satirical poem, Evening News and Post 1891 200

67 Ibsen and real life: report of a murder trial, Evening Standard

1891 201

68 Unsigned notice, Sunday Times 1891 201

69 Unsigned notice, Licensed Victuallers’ Mirror 1891 202

70 Unsigned notice, Hawk 1891 204

71 ‘How We Found Gibsen’, anonymous satirical story, Hawk

1891 205

72 WILLIAM ARCHER: ‘Ghosts and Gibberings’, Pall Mall

Gazette 1891 209

73 Ibsen speaks out: an interview, Era 1891 214

74 HENRY JAMES on Ibsen’s grey mediocrity 1891 216

Suggested Reading

Continental Philosophy Camus——-Absurdity and Suicide From the Routledge Online Encyclopedia https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~degray/CP05/camus-1.html

https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/the-meaning-of-life-albert-camus-on-faith-suicide-and-absurdity

Spark Notes The Myth of Sisyphus An Absurd Reasoning: Absurdity and Suicide 

Michael Egan’s Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, Critical Heritage, Routledge Publication, pp. 182-214

Young woman in a blue dress and petticoat talks with a young Black man.

Chute Me Like Verlaine; or, Red &Hot in the cit Y,,, Riffer Phonix…

Aka47GHc, return to blander

.

Like yo, yo a meaty ogre, but mediocre 

ust follpwing orders i styx up the ordure, or; your jaws Sean of Pr Isis as i is the gap i pow wow ka blow you out of my theatre of cruelty rises righteous pi us where what’s survival pf the shit test o o o elongated np mask of the red scare of death is my witness to This X fire im gonna aka47 it’s Murder rings around the ghc business is my destiny, sleet child of mines.

And rhus a rental applicant 

Cops caught in a proxy dental applicant. I, i cap’n‘ crunt walk out twitch these trotskys. They’ve got the talking heads bout my gen’s oxys. Rational black sabbatical dental applicant for this gag slag ordered me off 2 Gadigal rental had it all accidet

Tour car we’re inuitin’ into it in putting the h in i m

Putting the urgency in M an’ OMMM

Styx up –

THey spiked my eyes with a Hortense

I have so so no doz the go prose poetes maudlin philanthropist fever pitch it to the sos bitch lost me O! so ses porn im at the hub sandwich a virus witch hunter s thompson out the mumblies tele scapes with bubbles aye sick kunt owe this me do me own stun doubles the trouble is what bubblies i bleed inter guitar o fry on ends the n – O zones – w – watch god power is gonna doobie dooobie scoop up pup add a D a.d. 2 BcBgBs you get out of the sweepy creepies up 2 the fat gat cats who scat the cut seething z z top shutterbug truth breeders be gitmo struth Ghc scuttlea tattertale buttle trial for tuttle’s Moochers oscar wilde Gracious inspector facelift clueless in the left needs a seattle grunge your girl needs a gun These Days hey on you my account of all the wattle bushes knuckle down rattle shakes Deckard busters battle sharpies run aka47Z Z r u in my zen trumancy saddle up2 get class hard act to fellow guitar ship down me heart slips on the RnR fork lint BnD pete trip DnB evidences mist townsend Crisps a naughty pounding indie defeatist rack the uh yeah gee HC are but bought up homophones in meep meep popo clothes the tax gap Gabbo krusty clowns havens wobbling wesleys gape beta saviour it without a capital T on all four thousand of me BPD craven Heaps Gay off with yawhaw raybans stalk stork stalks raven popping up windows into your abortion intimidating stance coffee harassment clan shops in woohoo stormzy bops, be frqudian accordions in the john spits back coltrane spots me but im not feeling so godsy’s on it your honesty is yr honour Kool Aid shoplifting with our millions G, N p no flavour aid the brian eno super solution to the uber mock mxmix too much i fly off with your ball park way drive music Mc–m-c Mk Ultra Coopers flight scene missing them teamsters on the velveteen anthony and cleopatra’s corporate blister in robocopping sham sun amassing beaches from the bleachers b2b2b do bap boom leechers like your Dm MOOF heir’s often OUT of ten out of ten F i dish id sum pig LETS tenure summit TENS ON noir mal TREBLE me baudelait to f what i TROD ON know ONE partly TWO nod off wad THREE u did lost FOUR summer feeels this INFECT leurs tenuous INGEST ed it or i get AT IT IN JEST coast ER cPR PAN MIND THE i i copenhagen site 2 DL breaker 3po

Ivmael icksrus waiter cto

Gmo theres a getting even steven fly in my channel 9 scoop hoes getting crass with the cross beau’s elbows

Double you hoops

I dont need the earings for help with the lift tho tearing up the campo cop turn to fearing pomo lowblows popo wit 

H or

Styx bricks on liqourice m3p ticklish mp3 may day me parade do be the circular key card hootenanny slap with the idol australian wrap this up your a plaid act in gg israelean allen key change your errorz tory with my girl my car pet we sweep under them why you big bad worlds gotta be illa billy lr i foley word mickey Dasein my billy eye lash i deal right with it whirred by. Like. Buy likes. Chairs the peace of meeting up2 o4 boeing knifes a 747 identity tiff i have so nuch politics is theft to me kings cross at the heft of me too jock rot root do it just is gta in it gst sin bin it i dealer ship off fares cry stan ding evasion stall makes you ruin ai run acid victims of domestic bathroom airports out with your car loss castle in the sky i am the will i scrape peacock it i am in your purse lips g loss over the factoids lost touch wood an og F head turn into a Fred sharpening h or tense car for an e Castling? Z pftsf check you rock mate n roleplay cis is hip to the hop on You know my crzzy P of diamonds E shutter bug stuck up per crust pizza pound in for my charity bin yr overdub camp code,,, notmmy ez ewok trouble from the retort loon nah thats that be God retro from the k get go in on it hr puffin’ stiff waiting for this kitsch bitch Is glitching jingles welcome you too I am the carl kungle therefoee J man fink marx the plumbers top her in the ice box. I put out the OED in order: Pussy Riot Quiet, Please, ordure in the court hose u cut to witch flower over my elvis hose. P.i. just i just leased dethat fine ezra pound. In time herself is paying my L DS 25 splice gill’s wrong. Ills wank. This g’s illmatic danked in tragedies, are never wrong rom comedy of Cyclips LSD 25 clop me troubling bling your original onus of the muddy bong water board up the score poured some more shakshugar on it it as in an Oz twitchy witch with the didgeridoo that Cindy Laundering muzak hamilton off with ostriches in body mod hire up hieorglyphics. Plumbers of your hammed tones of sparkling ice, ice books. YAh ah ah. Pook is herr. Man drake’s read along wont be start it up, it woned be a tart up. S. 2

Club 7

Heaven is 11 judge harpoon mercys marx heathens heaving 

Fark

They asio called me. CharizardGet rich gaunts or diet cola trying me would take off in my ola commisions five error H. Or dense. Ddt.. Dis diss lexicon’s my dmt Lp’s era. Steezin’.

This RFID avant garde’s the kings cross reason. Miaow. Miaow my soft cell goes on to brown out your brands towns vile. In the loo with the lewd vial, tho file it under the guile of Lil pelvis..

Hell fish in the cell Fitch. Miles. You can vince mcmahon me later. Duvets. Snerabloids Kelly slaughter.

House five in the air

Shooboozey dupey i be cute this drop together Wop, wop, wop…

Lets do it up2

Consider your co side rms are beauts rn that be cue john ashbery’s piano P&o to BRN rear view mirror eating chuck tailors up2 be or on tje nod to be kings suss suck sack me like that spook duckling sacrilegious mattresses that uber scuse that’s me crew barred be hoove, hoove it, Js? – ah, windows into the sou’. Are. Gay. That’s your Gr ant slam medical help drunk nifty shades og As a skunk crunk cray cray read a long.with this Fitch .man. drake…

Some oner should leak me up. Rake. Nahz too wiggy. Pig will.i.ams. rake. sesrching with Emerge n ceo rake. but she funds the pay elopes. Raki. You pay me for the e elopes. Wasabi. Tekken with a pinch og mtf yr freeeky. Chi is chekhov. Dead dogs alarm bells tell nostrils stale pale ale failures Impailed ailmentsa are fey lures to squaloor moon you om zoom zoo. Zoom. Meeting by hoo must not be met half way short and not nam’d. This FiatDamn youre be Broke. Ba, can i buy a eye lash copy of Choke? Gobby joke

“And what about this heresay itz not funny Treason Quitline???”

“I got the idea from this big time John. Taylor Swift.”

Where are my cokehead failures?

Cola blu collars at what a beaut codswallop. As is this is i owe you tje nu nu

Fuck T. Rump.swallows. Ddt rum. Bolos. P? The economy gets on with me. Tie. Honestly… this will off

Voodoo that sweet chile of 

I went all allende

Murk and ma.d. i. Mooney

The style is Jigsaw Rap. I come from the lambda of plenty

Dude Yours is truly psycho julie is this caesar seized salad the throw backs to the salcious go gaffs. The power’s out of ballads, and, weave a roady boken up with the boating shoes the rule of fortune. Fortetude . Once again , in the coffee to my cup of loco, their Universal pixels eyes pick ya

Hodgy beats

Im specious. So, so special. K gotta have some of your – tentacle attention in zz curtsy embassy vonnegutted the amenities me too Plunder blunderphonics under neath with her her neat sonic youth screw pile drivers under wear out the know how kitty maggot is the lazy susan bad dest. To be. Loose in Ghc. Or node spruce moose ward 2d. Mt. Or That is pop druitt art straight out of compton threw up our pimpley mind you suck this tribe’called question

Socialterity

Remember the r e m embers these parts of me to breathe. Out Nah. Forget how to be. Found. Hart

Crane up there for your neckids.

Or, imma – what Snickers? – it beggars

Man hunt belief? Tor up s thompson street pa u lie.

And not just about chorale reef!

Next to me is a b cut up a clean figure c 8 balls all in the pocket

Silver rocket Uppers they warned me

All.

Debt is a lie. Pilcher forests

CizUxurize. Stitch up u guys. 2. Left 

To forage

Leaf sentience for an age that is we’re back ending up under their lifeshow miss took my aegis mis laid life

Sentences to bling you deficits surround us want you like our coffee welk grounded as a hogs breath lesson 1 floundered. Said

Give me a Pound, E.z. or youre

My rock

Bottoms up! God wins all in of youre

 laws, bud.

P.s. tech ically i should probs reresd it, cos made some start changes, but idk, idk,

America declared its independence from British dependence,

But continues to depend on hating the other and

Hate has always been and will always be about fear

How ironic that America was instituted by members of the other

That is other than the indigenous natives of the Americas

fleeing persecution for being the other in their homelands…

Only to persecute the natives and project “the other” identify upon them

What is the American “value” system

Other than “systemic” racial suppression?

A questionable choice to uphold

Despotic ideologies of white supremacy!

To choose to demonize and otherize the marginalized

Without accounting for the margins of error in judgement of the ostracized.

Who’s casting the stones?

The silent and the complacent

for through your silence,

Imposing imperialists have garnered your consent.

Don’t be a voiceless puppet and voice your dissent!

Reacquaint yourself with your history

Reaffirm your contributions to humanity 

Do NOT let colonial dictators dictate your story! 

For it was “the others” who built this country

This American land of freedom and liberty?!

The enslaved Africans,

The FIRST known civilization in human history

Who toiled and sowed the earth only to reap

Inequality and brutality.

The indigenous American Indians:

The original “founding fathers”

 Initially labeled “savages”

Unfit to inhabit American lands 

They already cultivated for over 10,000 years,

That is longer than the Europeans were in Europe!

Only to coincide with European tribal genocide…

Later a great lot would succumb to suicide!

The Asians who built the transcontinental railroad

Connecting the east to the American west only to be deemed

Unworthy dog and cat eating slobs

who threaten white American jobs…

Now that pejorative has been projected onto Haitians from Haiti, 

the once RICHEST country in the Americas,

Whose monetary fluency France used to supplement

The American fight for liberation under the toe of British oppression

Les Chasseurs Volontaires D’haiti,

The Volunteer Chasers from Haiti

Who chased the Brits from Savannah, Georgia

The largest group of fighters of African descent

WERE the Haitians now immortalized through a monument for posterity.

All the enslaved Africans who quite literally

“Built” America are ALL worthy of human dignity.

For it was Afro-Haitian explorer Jean Baptiste DuSable

Who was the “founding father” of Chicago!

Cut from the cloth of the same persecuted people

Who are now being branded as “dog and cat eaters”

To supplement the cause of socio-politico fearmongers…

What is the American “value” system?

Besides “systemic” racial suppression and

Despotic “values” and ideologies of White Supremacy?

Bearing in mind that “hate” is NOT a “value”.

It is the narrative of “fear” from the oligarchy!

[Previously published in Wilderness House Literary Review]

*Please Note: Inspired by Guardian Scapegoating article on Asians and Haitians eating pets

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self”  & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of  Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…  He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.

Enakhan Siddikova’s poem

“O walk in the world of the heart,

Teach your heart to follow your heart.

Do whatever it takes.

Teach me to be happy with you.”

Don’t make life difficult, don’t make him cry

Do not sink into the abyss forever.

An evening tormented by the torment of conscience,

To call someone a friend is to help him.

Don’t ask me what’s wrong, my friend.

Its melody is trust, its garden is loyalty.

Instantly knocks down a thousand-year-old wall,

A little hatred if felt in the hearts.

O walk in the world of the heart,

Teach your heart to follow your heart…

Nilufar Anvarova, 8th grade student of the creative school named after Erkin Vahidov.

Contributor Eva Petropolou Lianou would like to let us know about this call for submissions of poetry to benefit a writer in Gaza (whom we’ve also published).

Also, contributing poet Christina Chin has a new book available now on Amazon, “First Day of the Rest.” This is a special project, a collaborative haibun/haibunga book written with Michael Hough, poet, composer, and musician featuring both photos and art by the authors. More about the book here.

Next, an announcement from contributor Chimezie Ihekuna, who is seeking an investor/executive producer for the project, One Man’s Deep Words. It is set in the US, details here.

Also, poet and prose writer Christopher Bernard would like to share that his magazine, Caveat Lector, will be giving a reading to commemorate the Winter 2025 issue, at Clarion Performing Arts Center. Information and address here.

In this issue, our international contributors address themes of passion.

Some writers explore this concept in the way modern people tend to understand it, with pieces on love of various sorts.

Madaminova Ogiloy’s tender poem praises the kindness and care of her mother. Ilhomova Mohichehra reflects on the steady consistency and dedication of her father. Xonzoda Axtamova honors a mother who cared for her children despite her own struggles.

G’ulomjanova Marjona reminds us that family love and care for parents should come before materialism and success in our short lives.

Anindya Paul’s piece compares the pressure of a son trying to live up to his father’s expectations to that of a father doing his best to provide for and raise children.

Teachers and other professionals also extend deep concern for the children under their care. Azadbek Yusupov outlines effective ways to evaluate teachers’ classroom performance. Medical student Dilshoda Izzatilloyeva outlines causes and treatments of pneumonia in young children.

Rus Khomutoff evokes a mix of spiritual and sensual feelings in his transfixing concrete dream poem. R.K. Singh’s poetry explores the feelings of men and women navigating complex sensual desires and emotions: fear, danger, lust, and ecstasy that can come with intimacy. Mark Blickley fills out the story in a bawdy Greek myth in historical speculative fan fiction.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal fantasizes about imagined romances as his body slowly decays with time. Doug Holder crafts a mood of giddy romantic anticipation in his ekphrastic accompaniment to Gieseke Penizzotto Denise’s painting.

While the word has come to be associated with romantic emotion, the word “passion” comes from an old Latin word for suffering and originally referred to the willingness to endure much to reach one’s goals. Some of our contributors celebrate this kind of determination and perseverance, on their paths to personal or creative development or just to survive in the world.

Jacques Fleury reviews Lyric Stage Boston’s production of Lynn Nottage’s play Crumbs from the Table of Joy and discusses how the show highlights the struggles of working-class Black people for full inclusion in the United States.

In Bill Tope’s short story, a young woman rebels against the humiliation of an oppressive dress code.

Graciela Noemi Villaverde draws on gardening metaphors to describe the cultivation of character over time. Feruza Sheraliyeva writes of the corrosive nature of corruption on society and urges every individual to uphold ethical standards. Asadbek Yusupov outlines the balance between individual rights and civic responsibilities in Uzbekistan. Aminova Dilbar highlights the value placed on inter-ethnic harmony, equality, and mutual respect in Uzbekistan, codified into the highest levels of government.

David Sapp’s poetic speaker wishes to transcend this life to a higher spiritual plane, but human feelings keep calling him back to this mortal coil. Kieu Bich Hau remains resolute during her time of soul-searching loss on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como. Michael Robinson speaks to how his faith in Christ gives him joy and peace as he undergoes dialysis. Abigail George’s essay speaks to what it means to create in times of great struggle and societal marginalization.

Anna Keiko celebrates individuality in her short poem, encouraging readers to be unafraid to be themselves. Z.I. Mahmud highlights themes of female emancipation and agency and freedom from existing purely for the male gaze in Sylvia Plath’s poetry.

In his Reflective Thinking spoken word album and screenplay concept One Man’s Deep Words, Chimezie Ihekuna mulls over what makes for a wise and satisfying life. Sometimes, satisfaction can come through dedication to one’s craft.

Jacques Fleury’s poem on a day of solitude reminds us of what unites us all as human beings and brings his literary and cultural aspirations to clearer focus.

Stephen Bett evokes the feeling of hearing performance poetry at a reading in his concrete-ish piece, and also jeers at weaponized misogyny and reflects on chemical happiness. Patrick Sweeney crafts one-line poems that become near-stories with a thoughtful reading.

Poet and nature photographer Brian Barbeito outlines his creative process and goals in a creative personal essay. Kylian Cubilla Gomez’ photos this month explore mediated images of nature: drawings and cartoons we create to interface with our world from a step removed.

Actor and writer Federico Wardal spotlights Egyptian actor Wael Elouny and Italian director Antonello Altamura and their new indie film Ancient Taste of Death. Mark Young’s mix of intriguing and explosive visual pieces meld color, shape, text, and design. Texas Fontanella mixes up chatspeak and everyday language in a cyberpunk-style set of surreal anecdotes and shares some intense, wild musical vibes.

Maftuna Mehrojova outlines basics of and new directions in the craft of business marketing and communications. Gulsevar Bosimova describes and takes pride in her proficiency in traditional Uzbek martial arts.

Dilbar Koldoshova Nuraliyevna writes of how Uzbek poet Abdulla Oripov’s works were grounded in his love of his homeland. Joseph C. Ogbonna reflects on his trip from Nigeria to visit John F. Kennedy’s birthplace and rhapsodizes on the glory of the past president and his times.

Another aspect of passion, or love, is grief for what we lose. Ahmed Miqdad mourns loss of life, hope, and joy in Gaza during wartime.

Christopher Bernard laments in mythological, epic language the loss of so much beauty and history to the flames in Los Angeles. Pat Doyne grieves not just the fires in Los Angeles, but the callousness of some in society towards the survivors and the natural environment.

Rob Plath’s poetry conveys the understated numbness of grief and remembrance as Ahmad Al-Khatat’s character sketch illustrates the emptiness and fragility that can come with being displaced from one’s homeland and loved ones. In a more upbeat tone, J.K. Durick recollects fragments of people and literary works that populated his youthful consciousness and now his dreams. Taylor Dibbert reflects on the passage of time through a brief encounter with someone he remembers from long ago.

Linda S. Gunther reviews Nikki Erlick’s novel The Measure, a tale asking big questions about mortality, purpose, and destiny through the lives of carefully drawn, highly individual characters. Wazed Abdullah reminds us to cherish life, with all its ups and downs as Mahbub Alam points out how we are all mortal, how time ticks quickly for us all.

Yucheng Tao’s impressionist poetry touches on themes of memory and loss while Mykyta Ryzhykh draws on imagery of death, decay, and natural renewal.

Lazzatoy Shukurillayeva translates a poem from historical Uzbek poet Alexander Feinberg about the brevity of life and the vanity of assuming you can make yourself great in a short time. Noah Berlatsky humorously reflects on how perhaps most of us do not need to be memorialized through ponderous tomes.

Despite the finite nature of our lives, some people take passionate enjoyment in our ordinary world.

Dr. Jernail S. Anand recaptures the wonder of childhood and urges his fellow adults to reclaim youthful curiosity.

Isabel Gomez de Diego’s photos suggest the wonder in everyday scenes: a mural of a wine toast during a meal, public fountains, loaves of sourdough bread. Lidia Popa waxes poetic on birds and green butterflies as Alan Catlin sends up many different ways of looking at winter, summer, crows, and the moon.

Sayani Mukherjee illustrates the rebirth of sunrise as winter gives way to spring and she rejoins the outdoors in her running shoes.

In another kind of rebirth, we’ve just barely started another planetary journey around the sun. Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa welcomes in the Northern Hemisphere’s wintry New Year and speaks of the difficulty of conveying the feel of snow to someone in a temperate climate. Maria Cristina Pulvirenti’s minuscule haiku captures how snow can muffle sound, dulling the senses to focus your attention.

Daniel De Culla cynically speculates that selfish human nature will not change much in the New Year. J.J. Campbell considers signs of hope in his life, then rationalizes each of them away. And, in another piece, Ahmed Miqdad contrasts the human suffering in Gaza with the world’s joyful holiday celebrations. Pat Doyne reflects on quirky, hopeful, and fearsome bits of 2024’s news cycle and wonders playfully about 2025.

A POET WHO COMES ONCE IN A THOUSAND YEARS

      My country is Uzbekistan.  I couldn’t describe this country, this people, except Abdulla Oripov. 

      — A voice from far away,

      — Tell me, what should I do, grandfather?

      — He is a voice from the Motherland, 

      — Payondoz on their way.

      — The sound came again suddenly,

      — Tell me what to do, grandfather?

      — A world with a burden on its shoulders, 

      — He is your people, help me, my child.

      It is a holy happiness for me to know that I was born in a land of fire from the loving sun, that I live.  My heart is filled with pride and joy to be the child of Abdulla Oripovday Kashkadarya, who is known and recognized as the second Navoi of world literature.

      A person can choose everything in life.  But he cannot choose the blessed Motherland and parents.  Happy land with umbilical cord blood.   My homeland is Uzbekistan.  By his own name, he is a bek, he is a sultan.  Motherland is our grandfather’s legacy, our father’s legacy.  In every line of Abdulla Oripov, he found the independence of the Motherland and its definition. 

      …Only my weak pen is mine, 

         Uzbekistan is my country.

      In the poem “Uzbekistan, My Country, My”, the poet tells a deep story about the past of the Motherland.

      Today, I decided not to criticize Abdulla Oripov’s biography or his poetry collections, but to visit the poet’s homeland, his heart’s blood, his palace.

      My heart sings the ode of the poet “Uzbekistan, my country” like a charming song.

      As I read the poem from the beginning to the end, the glory of our ancestors, the halal bread of Uzbek people, appears in my mind.  My heart trembles like a chained poem because of the dark days and difficult times they have seen.  That’s all you do, old world.  Beruni, Amir Temur, Uluğbek, Ghafur Gulam… .  In this poem, the word “Motherland” finds its form and shape and pace in the blood of the farmer in the field. This feeling flows like hot blood in my body and soul. It screams like a sign of life. Indeed, Abdulla Oripov  A unique poet who glorified and conveyed the value of the homeland in this poem, it is not an exaggeration to say that the heart that has not penetrated into this ode is not an exaggeration. 

      Don’t be sad, my dear,

      Don’t worry about your age.

      Over the centuries,

      Your everlasting love. 

      In the great human family,

      Your forehead is so bright.

      My bright abode is mine,

      Uzbekistan is my country.

      The poet wrote many beautiful poems about the “Motherland”. 

      The poet created by mixing his soul and body.  I understand the poem “Why I love Uzbekistan” as a logical continuation of the ode “Uzbekistan, My Country”.  In this poem too, the artist praises verses about the soil, sky and sun of the Motherland.  While talking about Furqat, Mirza Babur, who became a king and a khan in his own country and a king in other countries, came to my mind.   My heart is already aching.  Because, as the poet said, wherever a person is born, that soil is his land.  If his Motherland is surrounded by a cold country that dominates like ice, he will look warm and give his love.  He bows to this place and this people.

      Well, if they tell me the reason why I love Uzbekistan, before the poet’s beautiful poems – I bow to my motherland.

      Abdulla Oripov is like that, a poet who loved the people and was loved by the people.

      Today, the wind of Independence is blowing in the song that the poet sang… .  In new Uzbekistan, the country is prosperous and the people are happy.  The joy of happiness shines on the faces of our people.  Today, navbahar came to our country full of light and spring full of flowers.  The days of living and living are visited by Navròz.  We are also celebrating the poet’s 82nd birthday on such happy occasions.  This is also a great blessing of God.

Hero of Uzbekistan, People’s Poet of Uzbekistan Abdulla Oripov wrote thousands of poems, epics, dramas.  He translated masterpieces of world literature into Uzbek. 

      If he writes about the poet, he will not do it.  A poet who honors the country and the people always sings the National Anthem of Uzbekistan.  It’s no wonder that this is the pride of the poet’s heart. 

      As I put the last point, I bow to the great poet Abdulla Oripov, who instilled in me and us young people the feeling of loving the Motherland in colorful verses.

      To the homeland, grandfather,

      You have planted flowers. 

      In every line of your poem, 

      You have lost the value of the country.

      This nation, this country,

      How many bloods have you swallowed?

      Before your description ends,

      Today the pen is weak.

      Once in a thousand years,

      A saint like you.

       Kashkadarya region

Koldoshova Dilbar Nuraliyevna, a student of the 10th grade of the 10th grade of the 43rd school of Karshi district.

Dilbar Koldoshova Nuraliyevna was born on March 5, 2007 in the Karshi district of the Kashkadarya region.

   She is currently the 10th “B” student of the 43rd school. 

      Dilbarhan is the queen of poetry, the owner of creativity, a singer with a beautiful voice, and a ghazal girl.

      She came first in the “Leader of the Year” competition.

        1st prize in the regional stage of the “Hundred Gazelles and Hundred Gems” competition.

         It took part in the “Children’s Forum” category and won first place in many competitions.

          She is currently the coordinator of the training department of Tallikuron MFY in Karshi district.

          Kamalak captain of the opposite district.

          Head captain of the “Girls There” club at school 43. 

         The articles titled “Memory is immortal and precious”, “Our School” and “Mother” were published three times in Kenya Times International magazine in 2024.

     In 2023, the first poems were published in the poetry collection “Yulduzlar Yogdusi” of the creative youth of the Kashkadarya region.

      In 2024, ghazals of the creative youth of the Republic were published in the poetry collection “Youth of Uzbekistan”.