Poetry from Brian Barbeito

Brown wooden letters on a table spelling out "Xmas" with a wooden reindeer figure with a star on its belly and red antlers on the right of "Xmas."

Bell Angel Evergreen Chime (the fast closing dusk)

There was dusk, and it closed in fast. The creative one glanced out a window at a squirrel grey and remembered things. He was determined to think of interesting and positive, life affirming phenomena and people, to frame the world on the side of goodness. There had been a bell on a door, and also a bell in a church top structure,- the bells were soulful and well made, reminded him of times he didn’t live through, but had seen in old films and maybe old books. Small towns. Well made things mechanically, structurally, maybe many hand made things.

He imagined there was an angel sometimes, just over things, between the tops of bookshelves or Christmas trees and the ceilings. Wouldn’t that be a nice place for an angel, guiding us, concerned about, seeing, whispering softly,- benevolent, ghostly but in a good way?- and the evergreens. They were brave, choice or not, to stand out there in all the seasons. He thought people took them for granted. But they were something wonderful in life. The snowy ground sometimes, and then the green, and the clear blue sky. He had just said to someone recently while walking, ‘Today is not the day, not the ideal day. It’s one of those ones you have to get through is all. It’s one of those days for sure. It’s freezing and windy without many redeeming qualities. It’s when the snow was there, and the wind had subsided and one could just enjoy the calm day.

That is the thing. In the forest. By the evergreens. You know. That is it. Much better.’ And then the idea of the chimes. Leave the chimes. They have soul. Silver on black strings. They don’t sound a lot but sometimes. Other people, a gratitude for them. The beloved with the dimples, brown eyes, wisps of hair falling down. The blonde, good hearted and outgoing. The artist, having knowledge and kindness, interested in the paranormal and always giving keen insights into things she was. And the woman whose eyes were all colours, all different colours at once,- a true and long friend that one.

One day in the countryside, or one day in the south by the sea, there will also be chimes. By the rural fields alone but not lonesome, at home themselves in the bright noon sun, a small breeze, like an angel, like an angel out from the ceiling area. Or, maybe better yet, chimes in the south, maybe even made of shells from the sea!- making their nice noise, by a place where there are palm fronds verdant and stucco walls painted the lightest of orange colours. By the crests of the sea waves and the electric lights blue green yellow purple orange blue like Christmas lights themselves, flowing light on thick grasses and some fence, on a cement bench with turquoise tiles in the top like the one or ones from long before. Everyone has forgotten. They even laugh. But they are hasty and haughty and full of ambition and pride and ego.

I remember. I  appreciate. The grace of it all. The angels, they know. They don’t laugh. They honour place and person, pastoral atmosphere and seaside sanctity, rural restless wildflowers and ferns feral, and even, maybe especially, the fast confident dusk. The dusk of winter so strange and all.

Poetry from Daniel De Culla

C:\Users\VORPC\Downloads\350px-Tú_que_no_puedes.jpg

(Goya’s black and white drawing of two men in work pants, shirts and boots carrying large white donkeys. Text at the bottom in script font says “Tu que no puedes.)

Goya’s Caprice

HEE HAW ESSENCE 

“Braying is not an art; it is a science.” Sancho Panza. Don Quixote’s Hist. Chapter 28.

Children bray at birth without teachers and without schools; what joyful envy their braying causes us!

The Pope and all his clergy bray in churches, temples answering very joyfully in chorus Braying.

Professors bray in their classrooms, the students answering out of time, intoning their Braying with great pleasure and care.

The stripes, stripes and stars bray in military parades answering their soldiers happy with the encounter; people applauding their braying braying.

Politicians bray, their lordships thundering in the Hemicycle, embraced and hated each other like a bunch of hypocrites exclaiming:

How good it is to Bray in time; and bad out of time!

Young people bray at musical concerts shouting at the performing groups; and continuing, excited, in the do re mi fa sol of their Hee Haws.

From Hee Haw  an Aria has been made by the protesters of their reason or lack of reason so convincing that the government, all governments, colored or colorless, brand them as foolish Brayers.

From the womb of our mothers well-skilled quadrupeds are born, making a thousand progresses during our life until their death Braying.

-Daniel de Culla

Poetry from Taylor Dibbert


Stinky

He’s at National

Getting into 

An Uber

And as soon as

He closes

The door 

He realizes 

That the driver

Smells quite bad

But it’s

Cold outside

And he’s exhausted

And really needs

This ride

So he starts breathing

Through his mouth,

A five-star review

Is nowhere in sight.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.

Poetry from Audrija Paul

Young South Asian woman with short dark hair, brown eyes, and a patterned red and white sari. She's standing in front of a door with fish decals.

 WAIT- THE ARCANE HOPE

I’ll be waiting for you,

A thousand lives,

I’ll be waiting for you,

Till I finish counting all the stars.

I’ll be waiting,

Till I cross the blue and reach your horizon. 

I’ve felt the tides splashing in hy heart,

When I saw the ocean in your eyes.

Your absence made me love you as much as I love the moon.

My heart sank deep down in the ocean  of your eyes,

And no, I don’t want to float.

The tides have washed away all the blood and,

 Your name is scribbled in my heart, by the merciless movement of the hard rocks.

Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh

***

the word ceiling does not mean that you have a sky

the word sky does not mean that nothing will fall on your head

scared to live with worms underground

it’s even scarier to live with worms above the ground

scared to be a worm

(the worm can be cut into pieces and he will not die)

(the worm moves strangely and has no legs)

scared to be

scared to scream

scared to be silent

scared to stream

it’s scary to be a man but to live without limbs like you’re a worm

as a child, I always tore off the arms and legs of toys

I tore off the arms and legs of toy soldiers

  (like in real life)

god why can’t you see

why does everyone around say that you do not exist

why does everyone around say that I’m not there

why am I lying somewhere in the cemetery and it’s dark around

***

Ashtrays of the Lord God after a night thunderstorm

Who will not return home after being struck by lightning?

Little girl looks out the window with hope

Her mother looks out the window with promised melancholy

***

firefighters die in a spring thunderstorm

fluffs of moisture swirl insatiably 

in the sultry air

***

in a spring fire 

trees were burned paper packaging thoughts plastic hands skin tears fears

and then the fire was extinguished with urine

the sky above the color of the bones of an angel

***

I have never seen birds

my old grandfather doesn’t recognize me

I rub my eyes 

and it’s dark around

physical diseases transmitted genetically are the most terrible

***

when my cat died i laughed

mouse corpses floated in the air

a sad mother came up and asked why I had fun and I bit her hand

then mom got offended and left the hospital

then the orderly came and again injected me with a sedative

the cleaning lady went to the bed and removed the toy (cat) torn to pieces

the remaining month in the mental hospital was not marked by anything special

***

Gas mask from the magi

Cocaine from cain

Cider from eva

Gospel of babylonians

And every morning someone born under the star of 

Jesus gets ready to go on the road

***

a small bird warms a piece of glass with its breath

a shadow from a tree hides behind a feathered back

college life caught in death collage

the bird freezes and the graveyard rain falls from heaven

the graves are crying and trying to say something

the tree is looking for a flower on its branches and does not find

another day has come to an end

***

The gallows of your embrace

Thousands of suns soak up the world around

Thousands of suns explode destroying the suicide world

The city of unwashed ropes and cracks in the chest climbs out

A man near a signboard and it is not clear where to go forward or into the future

***

1

Can’t die without you

Can’t breathe without you

I want to see your naked body

I want to see the bare naked soul

Paratroopers fly overhead like seagulls

But you’ll never see it again

2

A spring flame of hope burns in my chest

I’m still naive and capricious like a child

You are so beautiful and capable of giving everything in the world

You’re fucking somewhere far away with others and I’m happy for you

Distance is a house of cards for the two of us

And I never knew anything about cards

You’re in the house

I’m in a dungeon

3

The rain divides the city in half

The first half is for my love

The second half is destined for my love’s graveyard

***

the book teaches 

own pages 

to crunch wisely

***

five fingers

a child asked 

his mother 

why other children have five fingers

***

The graveyard of the bed counts the vertebrae

The broken ceiling shades the skies in the pupils

Aluminum birds stonefull knock on the window

The soul leaves the meat cage of physicality forever

***

stonefull 

everything

ness

without face –

outside my body

***

eagle without:

feathers 

beak 

еyes 

wings 

skin 

bones 

body

***

the voice you hear 

is drowning 

in the autumn water

***I didn’t pay for air before nightfall
My house has turned into a monster

Where should I return now?

***

snow is procrastination when your favorite porn actor dies inside you

Poetry from Ilhomova Mohichehra

Central Asian teen girl with long straight dark hair in a ponytail and a white ruffled blouse.

Sweet Dreams.

I dream with sweet dreams,

If it doesn’t come to you, it’s okay.

Actually, that’s how real life is,

Of course, this is the only time to write a poem.

Dreams pull me to the depths,

It puts a lot of weight on my shoulders.

I like these sweetest thoughts,

On the contrary, a negative thought sinks into the heart.

I also live in dreams,

I will take another step towards happiness.

Sometimes I miss four

Sometimes I love the heart.

Ilhomova Mohichehra Azimjon’s daughter was born on August 22, 2010 in the city of Zarafshan, Navoi region. Member of the Republican “Creative Children” club. She is interested in writing poetry. She is interested in writing poetry. Author of many poems. Her poems are regularly published in Uzbek and English languages in prestigious magazines of Uzbekistan, Africa and Germany. Holder of many diplomas and certificates. In addition, she has won many international certificates. She participated in competitions and won various prizes.Her poems were also performed on the radio station “Uzbekiston radio” in Uzbekistan. Her poems were published in “Raven Cage” magazine of Germany, “Kenya times” of Africa, and “Smile” magazine of Uzbekistan. Mohichehra’s poems appeared on the Google network. Taking an active part in competitions organized by the “Creative Children” club throughout the year,she also received a 1st degree diploma and souvenirs. Her books “Buyuk orzular” and “Samo yulduzlari” are sold all over the world.

Z.I. Mahmud explores masculinity in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

Eros and Thanatos in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and Reviewing Literature and Film from 1960s

Imaging professorial tutorial of Amy Gerladine in the creative writing program and modernist British fiction novels outlining that “Abstract intellectualism and puritanical industrialism are responsible for causing separation of Paul Morel from his fiancees”. Explain the significance of the contextual statement with textual references. 

Miriam possesses the polarized selves between the conscious exterior and the unconscious interior and she is romantic in her soul, and metamorphosed into a transmogrified swinegirl of her own imagination. Both Miriam and her mother are mystical and elusive beings with the former’s preoccupation with the heroes and heroines of Walter Scott fashioned after evangelicalism and ecclesiasticism. Overly religious, overly sentimental, overly sensitive, overly romantic and being overindulgently hyper alienated, she can’t get along with the circle of the loutish lot and other congregationalists of the chapel. Furthermore Miriam is characterized as eager, tense, passionately, thrilled and trembled in contrast with Paul. Her ethereal  wonderment and surrealistic allurement regarding the stars of the night sky and the moonlight waves on a dark shore echoes her holy communion of worldly reconciliation in romantic fantasy with Paul. 

Apprehensive gulf adrift the romancers Paul and Miriam with the bedevilment of estrangement and separation by spirituality incompatibility complex. Non existence and non beingness invade the heart and soul of the protagonist Paul Morel because of Miriam’s quasi religiosity and quasi romanticist vampiric spirit that “she is one of those who would suck a man’s soul out till he has none of his own left”. Masculinity of Paul Morel is excruciatingly emasculated and this loss of individuality dawns bleakish despondency in correspondence with Paul’s repressive phallic struggle associated with anaclitic love. Independence of both the partners in a relationship is an essential prerequisite for the survival of sustenance and continuity of the gene pool and after all this sexual politics is subverted by the hero and heroines of the novel. Self-sacrifice bestows liberation and salvation through unprecedented fulfilment of the self and the other. Miriam thus epitomes the antithesis of the woman of her lifetime as implied in autobiographical personae of Frieda Weekley; who emancipated Lawrence from Lydia’s traumatic elegiac funebrial and salvages him from overindulgence in narcissistic brooding.  

Miriam bolsters the spirit of poetic craftsmanship and artistic personae despite the blurring of the borderline between masculinity and femininity spectrum in correspondence with the clashes between logical intellect and sensual physicality. Even Paul’s successful physical sexuality with Clara Dawes the divorcee doesn’t reach the brink of fruition because of lack of spirit or soul communion. Sexually frustrated Paul ultimately condescends and stoops into the apocalypse of decadence by starving and drugging his cancer suffering mother Gertrude Morel. “Now she was gone abroad into the night, and he was with her still” examines the perennial maternal allegiance of Paul Morel despite the stellar maternal bereavement. 

If love can be internalized by the magnificence and glory of the spirit alone then the bodily cravings were to be abjured by the fanaticism of spirituality as implied by Miriam: “Love is a thing of the spirit”. How about the incestuous relationship pervading the narrative in filmic language : “The son and the mother walked down the station road together, with feelings of excitement, having adventure.” Furthermore this dialectic emphases the forebodings of being knitted together in perfect intimacy, which later on witnesses the cantankerous bowdlerizing by the domineering rapaciousness of the drunken Walter Morel. The mother is behind the son’s downfall and character assassination in emasculating him to the chains of libido and in this case the fatherly figure is saintly lionized in declaiming tumult of vociferation. In filmic gaze we visualize framed cuckolding of Paul Morel with Clara Dawes and thus contemplate immortalization of platonic love between these romancers. Iconization of the dark lady of sonnets or the lady of a lifetime Miriam Leivers crystallizes in the silhouette of sylvan and nirvanic utopian phantasmal escapism through the enchantment of boudoir or the tranquil seaside. 

Eroticization of repressed phallus reawakens towards a blossoming of fruition from dormancy and transitioning towards maturity and adulthood is starkly contrasted with Paul’s repressive phallic desires with Miriam Leivers as she abhors further kisses. This abhorrence of further kisses is a deterrent imposed by gendered expectations of puritanical anglican society virgin maidens to safeguard their chastity and purity as symbolized by pristine reflection of sanctity. However, filmic heterglossia establishes meta commentary veiling the scenes within scenes from encounter of the Willey Farm. “Oh, come on, my sweetheart” do not erode after all if amnesia reigns for a monumental triumph of fugacious respite and thus the filmmaker evangelizes the cast through the eros motif within the realm of the subconscious. 

Prissy Mrs. Gertrude Morel the reincarnate of Miss Havisham wouldn’t tolerate Miriam Leivers and considers her as her vampiric rival competing for the love of Paul Morel. This mirrored mimesis insinuates towards the impetus of maternal allegiance as the groundbreaking avant gardism faced by twentieth century anglican mother’s lads and contemporaneously prevails in today’s urbanism. Afterall Paul doesn’t feel heebie jeebie in catharsis of fleshly pleasure in romanticizing a suffragette anti patriarchal and antimisogynist woman of the then era. Paul is the avatar of the promised land as a reformed Baxter Dawes in love making and while Marie is that alter ego poltergeist of Clara Dawes. Sexual frustration overcome with the bougainvillea and calendula of eroticization and libidinization as universalistic production of love affairs. 

Farewell kiss with Clara Dawes is the embodiment of destiny’s twist in the superannuated romantic lifestyle as spotlighted by the parting of Clara’s in anticipation of reconciling with Baxter-dangerous life mate antiheroism being portrayed by the cast.  Nevertheless breeding of offsprings and the passing on of genes don’t end marital bliss but prospers with the harvest of antlered pelicans homemaking and ironically the reclusive spirits of the secluded woods reunite for their soul communion transcending platonic love as exclaimed by the diction: “We belong to each other.” Nonetheless Paul Morel’s brooding dependency culminates toward the pinnacle of nihilistic despair and exilic vagabondism that he would transform himself as a bohemian individualist who belongs to none other than himself.