Checking In

In the anteroom, the muzak’s too close for comfort. I mean, I can tolerate its sick-sweet breath at the rim of my ear, but I don’t want it in my head. Synthesised drums and a voice that could never identify all images containing traffic lights. A lyric tossed off by a minimum wage chatbot on a Friday afternoon. And why, after all, am I here, surrounded by fish tanks, and waist deep in picture papers from the early twentieth century? There was, I recall, a black-bordered invitation, an urgent but ambiguous phone call, and a tip-off from a carnival card reader who saw tall dark strangers and profound transformations. It was, perhaps, written in the stars at the bottom of my primary school homework. It’s all, of course, immaterial to the point of phantasm, as the muzak sticks on a low-pitched drone, and a small door opens with a sound like a breaking bone. In the darkness beyond, a dog’s eyes flash both welcome and warning.

The Sunrise Arc

The garden shifts when we turn away, with daffodils becoming dahlias, roses becoming rhododendrons, and other seemingly chance transformations governed by nothing but the laws of alliteration. The lawn becomes a lake, the paths become planets orbiting a star that, last time we looked, had been nothing but a snowdrop. And the glasshouse is a gas nebula some 700 light years from where we stand, fleeting nodes of awareness in the exhalation of spacetime. A black hole becomes a bee, humming its way from singularity to sunlight on purple petals. It is precisely fourteen steps to the gate and, 28 billion light years beyond that, Earendel shines a million times brighter than our humble Sun.

The La La Log

Having lately retired to a small village in the hills, I am struck by the shifts in what passes for real. Houses are painted like bathing huts and are larger on the inside than out, with each room opening onto fields and distant mountains, and staircases winding into clouds. Cobbled streets breathe like the spine of the serpent that circles the world, and car wheels spin in clear air so as not to wake it. Everyone exhibits aspects of the spectral, walking through walls and through each other, and speaking in dead languages which, though weighted with bulk and portent, approximate the harmony of angels. Signposts gesture to a glistening Yes, and time, as it said in the guidebooks I once dismissed as mere fantasy, runs backwards.

24/7

The chemist opens her heart to let the children in. Grazed knees and ears that ring like cracked church bells. Throats raw as condemned buildings. She doles out lint and lozenges, with gloved hands and loving eyes that say: Yes, I have sat alone, watching moths circle the antiseptic flame. Many burn, but those which survive are transformed for the remainder of their brief and beautiful lives. We are all sisters and brothers of the powdery wing; all flirtatious with the rush of extinction. The children all love her, kissing the hem of her white coat before erupting back into the sun. They will remember her when they have children of their own. They will remember her when their wings turn to dust.

Oz Hardwick is a European poet who stumbled into academia through not paying attention. He has published “a dozen or so” collections, most recently the chapbook Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024). He has won many prizes, mostly for an extensive knowledge of 70s music trivia, but some for poetry. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.

Faith In Walking With Jesus

Scripture: Hebrews 11:6 (MSG) – “It’s impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.”

Message: My Christian walk started in childhood. I felt alone in the middle of the street, not knowing where I was to go. I was about eight or so at the time.

I remember that night and the fear and the confusion and the uncertainty. My foster mother, Dee, spoke of Jesus often. In my fear and loneliness, Jesus came to me. I thought about dying. There were many times since then that I felt alone.

The tears often fell down my cheeks. Throughout the years I always prayed for God to “Help me!” I can only describe a sense of peace and comfort as I prayed. This feeling remains with me to this day at the age of sixty-seven.

I always thought that only God could give me the sense that I was not alone when I prayed my “Help me!” prayer. The comfort and peace and wholeness was strongest in the sanctuary of my heart.

Today, no matter where I am I know Jesus is walking with me. I often return to the sanctuary of my heart seeking His comfort and peace which came that night as a child standing on the corner. It is there where I still find His comfort, His peace and His guidance for which I am most grateful.

Prayer: My Heavenly Father who created me, You have given me Your Holy Son to walk with me throughout my life. You have never forsaken me, nor have You left me to die in the streets. You have poured out Your love for me and placed it in my heart. I praise You and vow to continue to love and cherish You for all eternity.

Amen.

Water and fire 

Since time immemorial, the four elements of the world – water, fire, earth and air – have been highly revered among the people. According to the story, fire and water have their own history. Thousands of years ago, these two elements lived without conflict and respected each other. Water did not prevent the fire from burning cheerfully, did not extinguish it, and fire did not stop the water from flowing, did not evaporate it. Until feelings arise between them that other elements do not understand. This feeling that breaks the ties between them is Hate. Another elements analyzing this and the rest of they could not oppose this work, and they decided the Water that extinguished the Fire absorbed to the Earth, and the Fire that caused the Water to evaporate became incombustible without Air. Hate is such a subtle emotion that it can change the whole being. Hate is an emotion that leads to weakness and dependence and ends up being abstract. There is weakness as fire does not burn without air, and abstraction as water soaks into the soil.

Scientists say that all the objects around us are colorless. The green, red, blue and other colors that we see are all from our imagination. So, I want to say that how person looks to the environment, the environment looks like that to him. The positive and negative view is in our hands. They say that a cow collects milk and a snake collects poison from the same grass. If we make our thoughts and minds beautiful and enrich our thinking with wonderful things, we have the opportunity to make life beautiful not only for ourselves, but also for those around us. Therefore, as mentioned above, we should try to make our eyes and mind beautiful. Try what I said based on your own experience and may be you come to say “Thank you”.

Jorabayeva Ezoza Otkir was born on March 16, 2006 in Chirchik, Tashkent region. Secondary education. After graduating from the 28th general secondary school in the Qibray district of Tashkent region, in 2023 she became a student of the “Management of Culture and Art” field of the State Institute of Arts and Culture of Uzbekistan. participated with her article on the subject and was awarded with a certificate. In 2023, at the “Young border guards” military-sports competition held by the State Security Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan, she ran 100 meters and set a record with a result of 14.1 seconds, winning the nomination “The strongest girl”. 2nd place in the national stage of the “Patriots” military-sports competition among non-organized youth for the cup of the Minister of Defense under the slogan “Our National Army – in the eyes of the youth” for 2022, “Science researchers center” on December 20, 2023 took an active part in the “Student of the Year” competition, organized in cooperation with the scientific press center and the “Ziyoli pedagoglar” channel, and became the winner, awarded with a statuette and a certificate, within the framework of the 2024 neighborhood youth 5 initiative Olympiad, table tennis type of sport won the 1st place in the sector and district stages of the competition held on awarded. Her works have been published in international and republican magazines and newspapers.

Jacques Fleury marches in the long parade headed by drum major Walt Whitman. But many observers from the street are still uncertain of the spectacle. One of Whitman’s early literary friends and admirers, John Townsend Trowbridge, recalled that he found in the poet’s first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass “much that impressed me as formless and needlessly offensive; and these faults were carried to extremes in the second and enlarged edition of 1856” and that much of the early criticism centered on “his unrhymed and unmeasured lines.” And Trowbridge also referred to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s remark on Whitman’s later work: “No more evidence of getting into form.” Whitman was ignored by the establishment for most of his writing career, and when noticed he was reviled and ridiculed, but his work was the beginning of what is known as free verse.

While free verse has become the dominant form of contemporary American poetry, and has largely shucked its socially “offensive” character, it still has many detractors among those who relish what Whitman called the “ballad style,” with its emphasis on rhythm and rhyme. Although he also indulges in rap-style rhyming, Fleury reflects on this dichotomy between acceptable and unconstrained poetry (imposed by “an all-white order” with its “long history” of imposing its “cultural values and / Socio-political power” in his free verse poem, “Random Musings about Submission,” in which he reflects on the rejection of one of his poems by a nameless publication, “Thank you for your submission. But your work is not a good fit for our publication.” In response, Fleury launches into a racially-charged defense of his identity as a non-binary non-WASP poet, writing as “an ignoble omnivorous muskrat.” After tracing his poetic heritage back to the epics of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Roland, he demands an “all-inclusive literary faction / Where ALL postulatory voices are worthy of publication” and he vows to continue to submit but NEVER to their behest for submission!!!”

In “Who Am I?” Fleury further defines his identity as a “multilayered entity … / a building block of heterogenity.” (He briefly adopts an effective set of off-rhyme couplets, “I am a malady / I am a remedy / I am a rainbow / I am a shadow”), while in another poem, “Possible Causes and Effects of Cited High Blood Pressure,” he itemizes standard medical data (family history of heart disease, poor dietary and sleep habits) and adds racism to the list. However, despite the bitterness expressed in much of his work, he also notes, in “The Only Way to See the Stars…,” that such seeing is “through the darkness.” 

So Fleury’s free verse is free enough to incorporate occasional diversions into “ballad style” renderings. But, again according to Trowbridge, even Whitman’s own pioneering “writings became … more consciously literary in their aim.” Or, as Emerson remarked, in a different context, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” 

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and 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 Muddy River Poetry Review, 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.

Duane Vorhees is an American poet in Thailand. He is the author of THE MANY LOVES OF DUANE VORHEES, HEAVEN, GIFT: GOD RUNS THROUGH ALL THESE ROOMS, MEMORIES ARE LINKED LIKE OASES, A CONSIDERABLE SHARE OF FELICITY, and THE WOMB AND THE BRAIN. Born in Farmersville, Ohio, USA, he graduated from Bowling Green State University with a doctorate in American Culture Studies. He has taught at Seoul National University, Korea University, and the Asian Division of the University of Maryland University College (now the University of Maryland Global Campus).

Antelope Field

There are antelope
in the field down
the road. Okay, 
well maybe not
antelope, but nyala
or oryx. & maybe
it’s not a field
but a patch of
garden which in
reality is too small
for the eland &
in reality is not
even a garden but
a window box in
which the cat sits
soaking up the sun. 
& since I don’t have
a window or a cat
it’s quite possible 
that this scene
from the wilds is
nothing more than a
screensaver that
comes on after
I’ve been away from
the PC for at least
three minutes. Which
I haven’t been, I’ve
been sitting here
all the time. So maybe,
just maybe, it all
comes down to
a plasma rectangle
that is framed by
tool- & scroll-bars
but is otherwise
entirely white except
for the two words 
floating at the top.
Field. Antelope.



Putsch

He picked
up whatever 
thoughts
were upper- 
most in 
his mind at 
the time 

ran with them
for a while

& then 
discarded them
as if they were the 
children of 
a past regime.


Nijinski reminisces

Exuberance
is in an eye
much more

beholden
to the magic
of the mo-

ment than to 
the pattern
of the dance.




Inside knowledge

Or:
knowing where
the bodies are
buried. 

Or:
knowing when
the berries are
bodied.


On Journeys

The shape of the journey
has something to do
with color. A small part
but important. The color
has to do with the shape
of those things you are
looking for. Also important,
not so small. The taste lies

on your tongue. Sound is
restricted by allowing one
album to come along with
you. Either earphone music 
or that playlist in your mind
cycling through an endless loop.

Gastric Juice

What is a woman if not fluid 

cursed and born bubbling up the esophagus 

meeting fingers at the uvula and spewing

heated siren songs of stomach acid and

torn-up lemon slices and cucumber bile. 


if not trapping and festering life

with eyes of gold and silver-plated teeth,

they cover tobacco stains under lips stapled tight

shrouding their deadbeat heart 

with red right-hand knuckles.


What is a woman if not a frame imagined 

too plump, if not a figure

malnourished from longing, yet so full

from desire, of indentured servitude 

to their own stomach rumbling

with craze and clouded appetite. 


A woman, if not

A sickly yellow vomited like 

a scream amplified 

From the depths of the womb.

(Photo of a female statue in a dress with no head and no left hand, surrounded by stones and trees)

A stunning photo from Brian Michael Barbeito’s collection of vignettes and photographs, Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through 

The digital net of Brian’s camera captures the look of so many things, and his visions linger long and sink deep in the well of memory.  Sure, as the Winged Victory still stands tall in the art history of Greek sculptors, the artistry in Brian’s photos lingers in a sensitive viewer’s memory and thoughts.  Each pictorial image preserves a certain place at a certain time, and the reader of this book’s writings can experience vicariously the feelings and thoughts of its author, over and over, time and time again.

From forest paths to bridges over bogs and water lilies with ducks and swans abiding, to crowded shops, carnivals, city streets old barns and snow-clad woodlands, Brian takes you on many outings through his world and shares his intimate thoughts and feelings of the unseen as well as the seen.  Brian presents the subtle other-worldly as a robust and palpable part of everyday life.  Brian, as an image-builder, shows us ways to see the plainest of ordinary things as special and wonderful.

Each image in this book Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through makes an immediate impression, as the writing adds more and more gateways through which one’s imagination can enter to roam and mix with Brian’s own.  The spontaneity of the photographer’s own actions moves a reader to welcome their own heartfelt spontaneity as it encourages one to venture out exploring and preserving in photos or in writings some impressions of the local natural scenery, featuring combinations of as animals, plants, rock walls, old barns, road signs, marbled skies, and other wonders.

I have known Brian for many years, and he has a wealth of photographs and vignettes, which I hope he will be presenting soon in additional books comparable to Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through.

John L. Waters