The Killings of Gaza

The blood flowing on the ground

The world takes its shape in a new mould

By the sound the birds flew away quickly to the safe

The sky became so gloomy

The shiny morning turned into smoky brown

The lightning in the darkness of night shattered down

The children, the women, the young and the old

The devastated area

Oh! Pathetic deaths for whom are you call us?

No reply without a long sigh

Wildfire is running in place of humanity

Sorrows, sufferings, torture and deaths happening in everyday life

It’s as if like the hereditary wealth

From the other side of the spot we see, hear and get scared

As the condition for the deer in the rush in front of a hungry tiger

Nothing to do without feeling hatred for the killers

On the other side sympathized with the people in Gaza

The storm is blowing, the world moving in the cyclone

‘To be or not to be – that is the question’  

We, all stand in the puzzling and haggling queue

But justice never goes injustice

Time will take us to face the judge

And the victims must enter into their mirthful goal

Though out of sight,

Every day in the sprouting green fields

Where fresh oxygen makes our veins flow clean

And in the twinkling sky

They are laughing and singing the songs of joy!

How sweet they dream in sleep!

How would they lead their lives tomorrow?

Can we imagine?

 Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

 27  January, 2025.

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.

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.

THE DISCOUNT MAP

   writing rhymes

   of seasons and reasons

is a way of charting weather.

Try to know – somehow –

when it’s going to rain.

Map experience

and figure the cost.

Nothing is free

and sometimes half-off.

San Francisco and the Ongoing Homeless Situation

A few years ago there was an election, and as usual I received a Voter’s Information Handbook from the San Francisco Dept. of Elections.  Among the propositions there was the expected request for additional funding to solve the homeless crisis in our fair city.

 
One of the rebuttals to why this legislation was so important pointed out that there are over sixty agencies in San Francisco whose sole purpose is to ‘help the homeless.’  Well, I said to myself this equates to sixty sets of office infrastructure (computers, scotch tape, staplers etc.,) sixty sets of mortgages and/or rent, sixty sets of staff and sixty sets of Strategic Plans.  No wonder so little of the voted-for money is actually helping ‘the homeless.’

Once upon a time, some of the homeless lived rent-free in Golden Gate Park.  An intrepid group of them excavated a hill and made it livable.  Then the sweeps came and now there are only a few, forlornly holding their blankets and sleeping bags through the rain, the fog and the cold. In my Chi-Chi neighborhood they sometimes stumble through, looking like they’ve been in a war.

It’s possible for the sane ones to go to the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch and ask at the Information Desk for a Hossa Monday through Friday from 1-3 pm.  Hossas are formerly homeless individuals who have resource lists and information for shelter, showers, meals and clothing among other things.  The out-to-lunch people usually don’t care to hear about this as an option, rightfully fearing they will be put in-patient into a psychiatric ward.
It’s also tricky when the homeless have a dog or dogs because after someone was bitten at a library, dogs are not customarily allowed to visit the library branches, card or no card.

I found that the predominant feature almost all homeless people share is hunger, so I carry light, portable snacks.  Hunger bites.
Back to Golden Gate Park. In my younger years I worked for a Podiatrist, who crowed to me that, “I love joggers.” This was due to the fact that his foot patients who ran routinely on cement usually needed foot surgery at some point from all the wear and tear on their joints.  His solution that he shared with me (because I wouldn’t be caught dead jogging) was that if joggers exercised on grassy land, it would cushion the shock of running rather than destroying their bones.

Two more pieces of wisdom he was shared with me: 1) Try to buy two identical pairs of shoes – by alternating back and forth the shoes will last four times as long as if you were wearing one pair of shoes.  2) Leather gives.  When wearing patent leather, what gives is your feet.  He was an interesting character who also used to treat elderly Chinese women who had bound feet.

No one can make our homeless problem go totally away, but it’s good to use common sense and compassion to deal with the situation.
—

Since 1982 [in California] we have built 22 prisons and three universities. It costs $52,000 a year to house a prisoner, more than the tuition at Stanford.

-Heard on a broadcast of The Commonwealth Club

TREES

If you have only one

center of calm

(circle of intent &

compass of silver,)

stay among the trees

for they’re not bothered by

a storm.

KARST ON A SISTER HEAD

Karst on the head of a sister

Like a denudated surface of a home

Silence sings her name in a flying universe

She’s still a crawling baby with a portraits  

of a cracked verse on her palms

She’s  a sister in a carved star breathing 

fire 

When the stars reborn  she will be a 

diamond  castle of a new dawn.

               WISHES WERE DEAD SONGS

    I wish darkness was never a  dead song 

                           Of night….

    I wish it has never painted my mothers 

                tongue like a city of grief….

    I wish it was never a colour  and symphony 

                           of the dead…..

    I wish darkness turns white like paradise

                           on earth…..

    I wish it never swallows a brother in

                         his new world…..

Rahmat A. Muhammad is a poet from northern Nigeria.

GAZA

Gaza, land of ancient olive trees,

its branches, arms that implore the sky,

its leaves, yellowish green tears,

under a scorching sun, a slow fire.

Its houses, boats stranded on the sand,

hit by waves of war and apathy,

its walls, stories engraved in stone,

of resistance and pain, an open wound.

Its children, flowers that grow among rubble,

with eyes that reflect an uncertain tomorrow,

full of the uncertainty of reconstruction.

its laughter, echoes that seek a tomorrow,

in a withered garden, with no spring nearby.

Its streets, rivers of tears and hope,

that flow among ruins, looking for a way out,

its people, stars that shine in the night,

despite the darkness, a light on.

Gaza, a poem written in blood and pain,

a song to life, which resists the clamor,

a cry of hope, which rises to the sky,

a call for peace, a new future.

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.

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.

She Pushed

She wanted 

To move quickly 

And pushed 

For their marriage

And then

When the 

Storm clouds came

She pushed

To end it

What a mess.

Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of, most recently, the poetry collection “Takoma.”