Life is a figure of multi things (history and mystery) we know
We realize this before the eyes
Experienced so good in the moderate weather
So bitter in cold or hot
Life charmed with you
Life bleeds on the leaves in the ground
We pay tribute to the Almighty
We shoot, we arrange tribunals
Justice never comes out
Justice lives in the heart,
Though we leap not looking before
People fight, people die
To see this weapon play
Our Almighty laughs from above
Though the moon still shines in the darkness
The ship can mark the right way in the mid sea
The magnetic power always works from all sides
Make us stable to live in joy and peace
Makes us feel how to make a bond of love
Then why we intrigue for hurting others
If one part cries in pain
The other part must suffer for long
This or that time
Then what’s the life figured out?
‘Think thyself’, reflects clean before the glass.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
26 November, 2024.
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.
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.
Afterword: I was struck by the turn of phrase used in a standard year-end recounting of those recognized persons who have passed away this year and it started me thinking about what else has been lost, some things perhaps irretrievably, and what might come to pass. Are we entering a liminal time?
Also, The British Economist in their “On language” feature just has published its word of the year for 2024, it is kakistocracy. Here is the concluding paragraph: “Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.”
I remember your laughter, a sun that no longer shines,
your gaze, a lighthouse that the night has buried.
Now only an echo of your voice remains,
a distant whisper that the wind took away.
My heart, a boat adrift in the sea,
without a rudder, without a compass, without a direction to reach.
Tears, waves that break on the shore,
a torrent of pain that my soul distills.
But in the silence, a faint glow,
the memory of your love, an eternal glow.
And although pain oppresses me, and sorrow hurts me,
your memory will live, as long as my soul sighs, dear husband.
Rest in peace.
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.
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.
Today I thought I would live forever. The man I thought I would marry lives in Cambodia now. His mother wrote to me this morning.
She texted me a prayer. She is eighty years old. There are millions of refugees in Sudan. That won’t change overnight. My mother made a birthday cake for a vagrant. My father is eighty. Trump is president of America. My sister is Europe. All my letters, she never reads them. All my love for her is returned to me. This broken clock and silence is all that I have. The hours that stretch before me and behind me is all that I have. My parents love. A niece and nephew. Other mother’s children is all that I have. The memory of wildflowers in your eyes is all I have. You are the sun. You have replaced the energies of the man who was going to play “Husband” in my life. You and your brother.
I have never felt more alone. I spent the morning with my father and the child. She is a bundle of tireless energy and novel words. One day I will not be enough for her and she will seek out the world. Perhaps men, older men in the same way that I did when I was in my twenties in Johannesburg. I think of my mental illness. My dream of becoming a poet that came true.
You are exceptional. You are extraordinary except you are not my daughter, you are not my son. You, C., are a teenager now. It’s been a year since I’ve seen you. We spoke once on the phone. You sounded happy. I miss you. Our long talks and our conversations. You making spag bol in the kitchen the way your mother taught you or making grilled cheese sandwiches when there’s nothing in the house to eat. You grew up in this house but those days are over. Long gone.
I don’t think of V. as intensely as I once did. How fleeting and temporary grown-up happiness is. Daddy is eighty. Mummy is slowly catching up to him.
I am the woman who was married to a soldier for an eternity, and didn’t even know it.
I have forgiven you already. Do you, can you understand that at your tender age? And now I am waiting for the return of that. That you forgive me. When the man of your dreams meets someone else you begin to wonder and try to justify what you saw in him in the first place. You begin to think to yourself how quickly perfection was ruined, summer afternoons talking, sharing, listening to each other but that of course it is going to be alright. You tell yourself that you will meet someone else. It becomes non-negotiable but it is not as easy as it looks. You think you have a connection with every person on this planet but that is not true.
It is important for you to meditate. Apostle Paul says, “Pray without ceasing”. Your loneliness appears on the surface to be the same as mine. I remember your breath inside my body. It was a declaration. It commanded the day, the light shining through the glass of the window. Things were not as they seemed. I called it love in my spirit, then falling in love, then it was done. Finished. The divine power that began the journey of us ended and then the prosperity removal of struggle and despair from my life began.
I often wonder if you are lonely. Are you as miserable as I am? Do you suffer from clinical depression? Do you seek help from a therapist? When I am dead no one will remember me. Not my smile. Not my soul. Not my laughter. Not my spirit in this room or the heart that I carry in daylight. I write a poem and turn it into a personal essay, much later, I turn it into a prose poem, even later, I take it apart, deconstruct it.
We ate lamb shanks for lunch with white rice that honoured my worth and mashed potato that overflowed with abundance. My brother ate his with an open bottle of beer near his plate. I watched the details of him eating, taking it all in. My brother complained that the rice was soggy. It was not to his liking. I looked at his tired, sad and handsome face as he lit up a cigarette standing at the kitchen door.
I eat cheese curls with my mother as she sits across from me. How can I still be in love with someone who ignores me, I say? Well, that’s your fault, she says. Everything is my fault.
In the evening I pray for my family, purging the shroud, the children that are the light of my life, the supernatural instinct and as my body changes shape with time I move forward into an unknown future, flowing streams of enlightenment in the natural, in the flow and ebb of the tunnel of my consciousness. I rotate these living tools for growth and energy with ease.
I will always carry you like I carry the clouds in the sky that day that you left me. I remember that night. I know it like I know the subtleties, nature and the backs of my hands. I can still taste the moonlight at the curve of the back of my throat. The pink light of its cave that develops each time I open my mouth. Yes, I know you and will carry your secrets with me for a lifetime in every fold of my clothing tenderly just because I feel that is what you deserve.
Deconstructing Elmo
I am on the path to enlightenment. The path of inner knowing. Truth leads to inner power, teaches us about knowledge, the preparation and discernment of goals, a declaration of hope and spiritual reality and awareness. Trust in God. He is the absolute deliverer. The spirit is one of the resources of the universe that leads us to our values. Mother Mary is a poignant image, as is the angel Gabriel. I look at the woman, at her slender body, her slender fingers, her open mouth, a gaping hole, a leaf, a wound, her legs and thighs as sturdy as branches, yes, I look at the woman, my sister, my mother, M.’s mother, all three of them beautiful, stared at by men with adoration, and I wonder to myself have they ever felt pain like I have felt pain. You see, I don’t think they have felt pain. I have never been desired like they have been desired. I have never felt the desire, carried a child in my womb for nine months. I think that it’s going to be ok not being in this cold, cruel world amongst people who do not love me or who show any love, care or concern for me. The child who is not my own sleeps next to me. Elmo is on the screen but I have no appetite for Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird. I am determined that I would have moved with grace in the world if I had been loved.
Just as the young moon gently cuts through the starry canvas,
comets are born from that very sliver—
brief flames that shine and disappear.
When they fade into darkness,
we lift our gaze to the sky
and let a wish settle deep within our hearts.
When someone leaves this world,
our voices turn into songs—
celebrating the journey and the final return.
The universe measures everything with care,
pouring equal amounts of sorrow and joy,
as if each breath were a blessing
and each exhale a reminder of impermanence.
Let life flow, graced by blessings,
though it steadily walks toward death.
For all beauty springs from what is fleeting,
and every song reaches its final verse,
only to give birth to a new beginning in silence.
Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia. She is a person to whom from an early age, Leonardo da Vinci’s statement “Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard” is circulating through the blood. That’s why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them. As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube. Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers. She is the recipient of many international awards. “Trees of Desire” is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems “Moon Circle”. She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists “Mountain Views” in Montenegro, and she also is a member of the Poetry club “Area Felix” in Serbia.
