Loneliness When It Rains

The sky weeps tears of mercury,

each drop a dense, cold thought.

My soul, a ship adrift on a sea of ​​lead,

without a compass, without a port,

only the gray horizon.

The umbrella, a cage of broken ribs,

half-protecting me from the inner storm.

The streets, empty veins of a sleeping city,

where ghosts dance to the wind’s rhythm.

The silence, a rough cotton in my throat,

choking the words I never spoke.

I am a leafless tree in the eternal winter,

waiting for a spring that never comes.

The asphalt, an obsidian mirror,

reflecting my blurred face.

Each puddle, a blind eye watching me,

reminding me that I am alone in this labyrinth.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.

THE PATH TO HAPPINESS 

Imagine a world where every morning smells of gratitude,

where hands are raised not to harm, but to embrace.

Where words are not weapons, but seeds of understanding,

and every glance becomes a prayer of silence and peace.

In that world, the old walk upright —

for the young have not forgotten them,

but follow their steps with respect.

Children play on green fields, pure of heart,

while bees whisper to them the secrets of flowers,

and the trees grow tall,

toward a sky that finally breathes

without smoke or pain.

Rivers flow clearer than ever,

carrying songs of gratitude to the earth,

each drop of water knowing its name,

each spring shining like a prayer of life.

No one measures the worth of life in gold,

but in kindness that glows from within.

Hunger is a forgotten word,

for every table is sacred,

and every heart an open temple.

Imagine cities that sing softly,

where streets smell of hopes

planted by human hands,

where people have understood that the earth is a mother,

not a servant.

That the bee is an angel,

and the forest — a cathedral of light.

And if we decided,

just once, all together,

to be thankful for every breath,

for every drop of water,

for every living being —

the world would change.

Evil would lose its home,

and happiness would find its path —

among us.

For the path to happiness does not

lead through struggle,

but through understanding.

Not through power,

but through gentleness.

Not through walls,

but through hands that plant,

and eyes that see the good.

Let the poem come alive.

Let it echo softly,

in every person who dares

to believe —

that the world can still be beautiful.

Maja Milojković was born in Zaječar and divides her life between Serbia and Denmark. In Serbia, she serves as the deputy editor-in-chief at the publishing house Sfairos in Belgrade. She is also the founder and vice president of the Rtanj and Mesečev Poets’ Circle, which counts 800 members, and the editor-in-chief of the international e-magazine Area Felix, a bilingual Serbian-English publication. She writes literary reviews, and as a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and international literary magazines, anthologies, and electronic media. Some of her poems are also available on the YouTube platform. Maja Milojković has won many international awards. She is an active member of various associations and organizations advocating for peace in the world, animal protection, and the fight against racism. She is the author of two books: Mesečev krug (Moon Circle) and Drveće Želje (Trees of Desire). She is one of the founders of the first mixed-gender club Area Felix from Zaječar, Serbia, and is currently a member of the same club. She is a member of the literary club Zlatno Pero from Knjaževac, and the association of writers and artists Gorski Vidici from Podgorica, Montenegro.

From Within

From within I see

That the sea caresses the rocks

That it kisses the foot of the cave

The soft breeze stirs my hair

Yet, I don’t feel safe

Going out into the sun toward freedom

I’m not ready

My heart isn’t sure

About leaving behind the pain, the darkness

And the comfort of the familiar…

Perhaps I’ll wait a little longer

Before leaving the cave

And going out into life again…

Mirta Liliana Ramírez has been a poet and writer since she was 12 years old. She has been a Cultural Manager for more than 35 years. Creator and Director of the Groups of Writers and Artists: Together for the Letters, Artescritores, MultiArt, JPL world youth, Together for the letters Uzbekistan 1 and 2. She firmly defends that culture is the key to unite all the countries of the world. She works only with his own, free and integrating projects at a world cultural level. She has created the Cultural Movement with Rastrillaje Cultural and Forming the New Cultural Belts at the local level and also from Argentina to the world.

Life Bird

A life with a tree is like a bird

Floating in the wind for many years

The breath of life is mixed with the air

That image emerges clearly with every breath

Just like the bird that flutters in the sky,

Fluttering wildly in the waters, awakens

When all the sleep of the world is broken

In the gentle light of dawn

What a wonderful sweetness mixed with mountain trees and shrubs!

Transplanted before my eyes

You are intertwined with a tree for a lifetime

Years are passing by in the wind

The ants are climbing in rows.

Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame Anxiety Dream

We have tickets for a game

at Shea Stadium although

we know the stadium was torn

down years ago. Still, we are

going and the easiest way to

get there is on the elevated #12 line.

We rush up the stairs to the station,

then across the tracks and we are

almost there as the train arrives

but my wife says she doesn’t think

that’s the right line despite insisting

all along that was the way to go.

Naturally, we miss that train, so we

decide to walk even though it is

an extremely long walk that would

take hours even if we could get there

from here. Then we are on the shoulder

of the Crosstown wondering what bus

might take us to the game despite being

on the wrong side of the highway

to hail a bus.  I’m extremely nervous

about crossing the bridge, we are on

as I am afraid of heights when a guy

on a motorcycle falls off his bike but

is somehow scooped up and rescued

before he gets run over and killed.

The motorcycle man is extremely

upset, yelling and screaming at us in

a language we can’t understand.

Once he calms down, he notices us

standing nearby and he begins

speaking calmly and clearly in our

language and he tells us we are now

hostages as being part of a terrorist plot.

I say, “All we want to do is go to a ballgame.”

And he says, “If I were you, I wouldn’t

worry about a baseball game, you have

much bigger things to worry about.

I have a bomb.”

A Writer’s Conference Anxiety Dream

We’re driving to the writer’s convention

on the island we have to take a ferry to reach.

Apparently, I am driving though it is well

known that I have no license, have never

had one, and I have no idea where we are going

or even who we are. I’ve decided to take

the fourteen-mile suspension bridge, that

doesn’t exist, to the island in a dense fog,

in heavy traffic at high speed. All the other

drivers must be from Pennsylvania,

I think, recalling fifty miles of near fog out

conditions near Wilkes Barre where folks

were driving bumper to bumper at 75 mph

the whole way. There is a toll both ahead but

no one intends to pay and then we are at a rest

stop buying energy drinks and the beer we’ll

need later on. Once we reach the mainland,

a guide introduces us to our gondola driver

whose name is Ivor and he looks as if he should be

an extra in a movie like Eastern Provinces or

History of Violence rather than a gondolier

on an east coast channel island. Once we get

to the inlet, where the writers are, there is a pig

roast in our honor and we can smell the meat

cooking but we can’t see the food because of the fog.

The first reader has a heavy middle European

accent and introduces himself as Charles Simic

but we all know this is impossible given how

dead he is.  Still, his poems are good and we think,

perhaps, he is ghost of Simic, which makes sense

somehow, and appears to provide deeper meaning

to the context of the conjunction of ghost, man

and poetry. Later, near the middle of the roster

of readers that extends from Hart Crane to

John Berryman to Sylvia Plath to Anne Sexton,

who is scheduled to read just before me, I start

to have a bad feeling about the conference

and wonder if coming here might not have been

a serious error in judgment.

Where the Wild Things Are

Once the entrance fee is

paid, I am compelled to enter

the cave. At first, the walls are

regular, rounded, and expansive

but gradually the walls narrow and

compress as the slope inside

becomes more extreme until I am

forced to bend over, then crawl on

my hands and knees. All the light

I have comes from a small device

strapped to my helmet making the way

down more treacherous, especially

once the walls, ceiling, and floor

become slicker, more slippery,

the further inside I crawl.  There is

a guide somewhere ahead encouraging

me on but I can’t hear exactly what

he is saying nor what his location is.

If it were possible to turn around

and flee I would be long gone but

there is no way back, only down,

further and further into the darkness,

where the wild things are.

Class Registration Anxiety Dream

All the names of the advisors for

transfers and new students are listed

on a movable bulletin board in the gym

along with the courses they are offering.

I’ve been told it is absolutely essential

to consult with one of these counselors

but all the ones are listed are from another

college I no longer attend and none of

the courses apply to my chosen field of study.

A literature professor at a nearby folding

table tells me not to worry,

“I’ll take care of everything.”

I watch as she shuffles a handful of IBM

computer cards, chooses some, and feeds them

into a machine that looks like a factory

time card punch clock.  After the cards

are processed she hands me a print out

with my name on it and , a list of all

my next semester courses.  Before I can

leave the professor says,

“Don’t forget these.”

She hands me a folder with the course work

syllabi and a fat mimeographed reading list

that looks like an appendix to Foster Wallace’s

Infinite Jest, footnotes and all.

I try to explain that this schedule is impossible.

That I’ll never ne able to keep up as I work

nights, have two infants and I’ll never be

able to sleep. And she says,

“Who needs sleep? No one ever sleeps in

graduate school.”

And then I’m on a conveyor belt like one

of those airport moving sidewalks that are

everywhere in the tunnels beneath the campus.

I’m desperately trying to get off because I’m

supposed to be on the up escalators  but there doesn’t

seem to be any way to get off. Not that it matters,

neither the walkways nor the escalators go

anywhere near where you need to be.

Eventually, I ask one of my classmates about

the tunnels and she says,

“Have you ever been here in Winter?”

“No” I say, “I haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

“You can’t get anywhere above ground

in Winter. You’ll need to get snowshoes too.

And a gun.”

“A gun! What for?”

“The wolves.”

Full Dental Services Anxiety Poem

I must have been late for my

teeth cleaning as there is already

a line out the door.  The last time

I was here they were using scalpels

for scaling and I saw after care

patients in recovery rooms with

blood pack transfusions underway.

After what felt like hours the line

has barely moved so some of us

decide to go for a walk on the campus

of the college across the street.

Despite the weather being clear and warm

when we started, soon it is darker

and snowy with a fierce wind in

our face. I turn to ask one of my companions,

“What’s with the weather?” But there

is no one there and while the snow

has stopped, it is now a dark and a moonless

night and I am lost in a forest of dense trees.

I struggle onward but it becomes impossible

to walk in the underbrush and I am being

lacerated by needles that are growing

from the branches of the evergreens.

Once the laughing gas has been taken

Away, I see that I am in the recovery room

and the procedure has been completed

but I am not in the same office nor with

the same people who were on line with

me earlier. A receptionist is asking for payment

for services rendered but I can’t move my arm

to sign a check as I am still connected to

the transfusion fluid bag.  I hear other people

laughing but I am not finding anything funny

here so I refuse to join in. The receptionist is

still waiting for me to sign the check

staring at me with a look that says,

“Any time you’re ready would work for me.”

I am beginning to wonder if any of this

costs extra or is everything included.

FRAGMENT OF A GREEK TRAGEDY

PHILOCTETES

I am Philoctetes, the stout-hearted son of Poeas

and the keeper of mighty Heracles’ bow and arrows.

On their way to Troy the Greeks abandoned me here

on this remote and rocky isle untrodden by mortals.

For a snake had bitten my foot and they couldn’t endure

the sound of my shrieks and the smell of my festering flesh.

For nine years now I’ve been all alone and hungry,

clad in rags and sleeping on the ground.

For nine years now I’ve also been rejoicing

in my freedom from those inhuman humans –

those brave boys, the Hellenic Armed Forces,

those heroes off on a Special Military Operation

to bring the hostage Helen home again,

eradicate the Trojan cockroaches and topple the lofty

towers of Troy in clouds of smoke and dust.

Humans are fangs and claws, as gentle as wolves,

have hissing, spitting snakes in their Styx-black hearts.

Man worships war, loves hurting and maiming and murdering.

He wants your wealth, women, country, so he’ll kill you.

He hates your language, clothes, food, so he’ll kill you.

Wherever he places his feet, grass dies, earth bleeds.

When Aias got drunk and revealed the truth about Helen,

I searched for a snake and got it to bite me free.

So here I am, sequestered, caressed by quietness,

an ocean away from the hateful human race –

those shallow, senseless, soulless children of stone.

Here I don’t have to look at or talk to anyone.

If I want to speak, I address the waves there and they

are deaf and don’t – oh shit: a ship.

If they set foot on this island, I’ll shoot the fuckers.

See it. Spray it. Sorted.

Rodney nods at the mirror

and tells himself

he’s looking good

and smelling good.

He parrots:

‘Bye-bye swampy, bye-bye stenchy,

hello fresh, hello fragrant.’

His nether regions

don’t reek of secretions,

his private parts

don’t stink of farts.

Now it’s always springtime below his belt.

His bollocks smell of hollyhocks,

his willy of lily,

his bum of plum.

He knows the ladies will be

electrified, mesmerized,

captivated, dominated.

He knows tonight’s the night,

tonight he’ll get a woman at last,

tonight he’ll find an Eden,

a garden of earthly delights,

an English country garden

and plant his lily in it.

The Tenant

He’s left his
Basement apartment

To pick up

A small package

From Amazon

On the porch

Of the main house

And he grabs 

The package and

Right after that

A dude who’s

Standing in the sidewalk

Asks him

If he’s John’s tenant

And he tells the dude

Yes

And the guy says

Cool and 

As he reenters 

His apartment

He realizes 

That that’s probably 

The first time

That someone’s asked him

If he’s stealing 

An Amazon package

Off someone’s porch.

Taylor Dibbert is a poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of, most recently, “On the Rocks.”