My green country in Monsoon’s lap
Monsoon clouds gather, dark and deep,
Rivers swell, their secrets to keep.
Paddy fields dance in the pouring rain,
Life awakens, free from pain.
Children splash in puddles wide,
Nature’s bounty, a vibrant tide.
In every drop, a story flows,
Bangladesh breathes as the monsoon grows.
Wazed Abdullah is a student in grade nine at Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.
Love to family
My love to my family,
To my brother, sister, mother.
A piece for my dad too,
My way is a sidewalk.
I honor my father,
I respect my mother.
My brother and sister,
Of course I care.
Abdurrahman, Umida,
He respects me.
With kind words to me,
He tasted honey from his tongue.
Daddy loves me
He caresses and hugs.
what i say will do
What can I say?
My mother is kind,
Every word has magic.
My mother is my only one
The whole world is one piece.
My sister is surprised
My brother is a wrestler.
Inspiration cries to me,
A propeller in my head.
My family is my happiness
My throne in the world.
“Family is the holy place”
The words madhim-ku.
Ilhomova Mohichehra is a teacher of the 8th grade of the 9th general secondary school of Zarafshan city, Navoi region.
RAIN IN MY EYES
The rainbow appeared
behind the lines of rain,
the worries and troubles of stis,
carved verses
where the west burned,
in the braided flower,
we put a wreath.
You can’t see the rainbow
it didn’t rain a little,
in my eyes…!
AUTUMN LOVE IN PRISTINA
We met in the fall,
in the amphitheater you tweet…
the streets of Pristina,
in the cold night,
shoot me like a mountain fairy.
the stars were aligned
that summer evening in your tear,
we were both lost in the untouched oasis
and the lips stopped at the sounds FlokArtë.
Why did we travel, tell me why
in the cold winter and snow,
the beaming sun gave us a gift,
you ray of sunshine lit me siashra.
Why did we run to the meadows, why
in the early spring fragrance of love
we pray to the flowers of the green field,
embraced we felt exotic intoxication.
THE POET’S MUSE
The poet,
They give the words a meadow color
evoke memories in torn maps
does not believe in the miracles of the Mountain Fairies
of the world forgives love!
The poet cooks the word
in the magic of poetry,
in the chain the verses of the verses
stigmatizes renegades
with the measure of memory
in the arboreal fireplace.
Poet, in verse
the storm and the sun in the sun bring,
the figures are planted with love,
under the word
it bakes a world
that you don’t know
fused into crystal…
on the poetic harp you compress it.
The poet dreams
Aphrodite in the light of the lantern,
and he engraves the stalagmites in the cave
in the poetry book
AFTER CENTURIES
After centuries we will get drunk
On the salty altar
we will remember your escape in the spring,
the colors will change,
there will be neither red, nor black, nor green
it will be only blue;
there will be no age, only death
neither school, nor court, nor work,
the whole thing will be like a game…
there will be sea in overtime
life will develop there in the depths,
ships will sail without gas
my dear
The air will be polluted
and the oxygen will be rarefied,
rain will not fall, nor snow, nor typhoon
there won’t be, everything will be the same
in ruins of centuries,
abandoned houses that people are looking for,
fierce wars will be fought
they will cry: bread, air and palaces
with your absence,
that day will come after a few centuries,
where you and I will eat in glass dishes
and we will knit the verses
on the silk fabric,
they will be fed to the spotted birds
and drunk, that day will come very soon,
my love…
these verses will be: proof of a love.
Lan Qyqalla, graduated from the Faculty of Philology in the branch of Albanian language and literature in Prishtina, from Republika of Kosovo. He is a professor of the Albanian language in the Gymnasium. He has written in many newspapers, portals, Radio, TV, and Magazines in the Albanian language and in English, Romanian, Francophone, Turkish, Arabic, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Hindu, Spanish, and Korean.
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.
Call Me Well Again
I’ve survived another you
saliva infectious
dreary and shopworn
I tear through the streets wildly
search for
someone’s discarded shred of home
soft sheets
a fireplace perhaps
light operatic music
it’s just a fantasy
non-existent
any minute your truck will come barreling through
my thoughts of salvation
I’ll get by on a lower dosage
of you
We’ll cut it down to three days a week
I’ll end up stalking you
grip the light post
to climb the rim of the dumpster
try to peer in
your window
You’re agitated now
I’m so low I’m a slinking
belly scraping beggar
no real reason I’m lingering outside
in thirty-five degrees
wearing a denim jacket
you shuffle me to the truck
I’m edging away
from two failed marriages
put it all on them
but it was me me me
When I’m well again
I’ll come calling
fresh as babies’ skin
holding a tray of Starbucks
While I Wait for my Lover
The buzz and hum of New York City
fills the air
I tuck into a restaurant for cover
small
Italian
quiet
The couple at the table next to me
sort through sonogram prints
I feel a pang of jealousy at
the little fetus forming in this woman’s
belly
My lover
late – and certainly not mine alone
has no interest in children
For his sake
I forego this
I cannot help but stare
longingly into the abyss of those
black and whites
that little heart
tiny head
this embryo I turn my body
away from
for martyrdom
yet it’s the thing that calls to me
from some primal part of
my makeup
I’m on the edge now
sacrificing the eggs
I feel bouncing around
in my uterus
for some blind pact
that later seals the deal
of which we will be much
happier
together
without kids
While I Wait for my Lover (Cont.)
The woman feels my eyes
says it’s a boy
smiles uncontrollably
I worm around in my seat
the couple finally gone
I am left alone
and this is how it will be
as I decided I’ve passed that exit
many many highways before
I’ll just wait for my lover to show up
and order us scotch on the rocks
for the long pull of loneliness
has begun to root
What Will Your Mother Say
When she finds your corpse
with foam bubbling
down your chin
eyes sunk deep
in your sockets
black spreading around
your lids and mouth
the needle still stuck
frozen
You
in your aloneness
You
in your dying
As your mother cracks open
lays across you
the spoon now cold
your spirit beats against the window
pleads
with God
to let you
back in
To see her in a pile
of grief and longing
so deep
your soul evaporates
into the pain
What will she tell
your siblings
the school
the bus driver
the crossing guard
it was an accident
always is
Wait for the autopsy
to understand
what went wrong
deep in the gully of absent parenting
divorce
boyfriend fondlers
What Will Your Mother Say (Cont.)
booze
cigs
marijuana
heroine
here……..
As you lay hardened
frothing
a slow last milky tear oozing
She still wants you
she begs
to glue you
for a day – just one day
even if it’s your druggy lean against the wall
eyes open to a slit
turtle movements
slurred speech
if just that…than the hell of this
to speak of you
now
in your deadness
warning a storm warning the butterflies in my stomach announced the summer plan to intercept continuous distance hair fell on hair the sky turns red as if it knows everything in advance my hair fell for the first time on your comb which you will never use again Basement Human is the basement of the toilet room Tenement maze of history and stories No animal in the world has ever died for its cage before No animal has invented aerial bombs To first Octobers number Suck my death an unborn kitten is knocking at the church of a torn belly the future flows like sperm from the wall of the gateway my dead lover gets stuck in my throat where his cock used to hide during blowjob I dream of having my throat fucked by a nuclear bomb I dream in my dreams that instead of a strap-on a hydrogen bomb will stick out of my ass I know that god will not pour anything into my balls during a handjob mosquitoes and military pilots meanwhile fly towards the scent of blood not a single military man gave me flowers only somewhere in the dark a muscular sergeant said: hey fag suck my dick like before death what if the ammunition depot where I'm already being fucked by a group of soldiers will explode from the fact that I'm so hot and sexy suddenly I will destroy the army and piss all the military factories with my blood suddenly I really will be fucked in a minute by the last soldier in the history of mankind in the meantime they fuck me in all the cracks and call me a fag I wonder if the soldiers have wives I wonder how many lovers smeared the mouths of soldiers' wives with sperm I wonder how many soldiers kissed their wives on the lips after that I wonder how many nuclear bombs are produced in secrecy I would like to grow longer hair and dye it blonde the truth is hidden in the details of my anus god fuck us all with your voice we are tired of the silence of the red buttons after which a nuclear explosion will follow after fucking a new nuclear bomb will be born in me [?] Brown town In the heart of earthy hues, Brown town, A needle threads life's tapestry, Brown town, A need, a yearning palpable. People encircle, form clay figures, Silent echoes of existence, Seated, molded by time's unseen hands. Within, dwell stories untold, Brown town, Clay figures poised in quiet contemplation, Sculpted reflections of shared moments. my lover asked my lover asked me when i first saw porn it would be better if he asked something simpler, like how many times we quarrel with my husband (sometimes it seems to me that love is too abstract a word for our painfully non-abstract world) my lover finally pissed me off when he started talking about the non-binary nature of human nature - I call you bitch to suck and not destroy our homosexual intimacy with the philosophy, fag, - I said to my lover while he turned into a statue my lover is a beautiful antique statue but alas the statues don't have blood my professional skills as a bloodsucker are now in question my lover its: not reacted to my bites and slaps for a day it seems to me that he sailed away into the cast-iron tunnel of the night it seems to me that my lover dreams of flowers in ball gowns and without graves death knocked on the back of the room and asked: whose house is this? and this ruined house is now a ruin the anti-missile installation of the heart has failed the night in the eyes of my dead dead man will no longer dissolve even explosions won't wake my lover red sky like a bud revealed death god's assistant pressed the wrong button again аll in vain We Free Freends Friends French fries With self burger We distance We running Running away from each other vegetable garden my body is a vegetable garden in which nothing grows we're all hungry without the smell of fresh meat and cum generals fuck tomorrow's dead for free saving on prostitutes sun umbrellas and winter sleighs are in vain sho(r)t (hi)story I want the last nuclear bomb to explode inside my ass the sun warms the cold body of my lover shot by dawn the trenches are screaming but no historian will tell about our buried feelings in the future the stones are screaming but only the wind drowning in the river will tell about our buried lovers No title the station of tears breaks out and thirst falls from the inside of the heart let's go to my house, drink my blood, burst my capillaries, tear my ass, tear out my tonsils meanwhile god's deputy keeps pushing the wrong buttons onlyfa the steak burned inside my stomach the gun kills me but nothing will come out of my vagina we drink only sperm my eggs and balls strive for your grape nipple still life of the world during the continuous noise of a siren we drink only tears one cocku you drink the silence of my moan and I feel uneasy about spring which hasn’t come either part-time part-time job being naked in the pristine ruins of houses
Haiku by Maurizio Brancaleoni bagno all'alba: la scia del sole tra alluce e illice bathing at dawn — the sun glitter between hallux and index toe * mattino calmo: un mosaico d'impronte di piccioni quiet morning — a mosaic of pigeon footprints * luna calante: vespe e formiche su carcassa di pane waning moon — wasps and ants on bread carcass * mattina presto: cammino nei solchi del SUV sulla sabbia early morning — I walk in the ruts of the SUV on the sand * rough sea — the cat's lapping in the plant saucer mare agitato: il lappare del gatto nel sottovaso * luna di tre dì: il pomfo della puntura interrotta three-day moon — wheal of the interrupted puncture * mare calmo di mattina: le zampe rosse dei piccioni calm morning sea — red feet of the pigeons * malato al sole: le zampe fredde della mosca ill in the sun — cold feet of the fly * cirrocumuli: la chiave dell'auto fa da cotton fioc cirrocumuli — the car key serves as a cotton swab * ascelle al vento: l'insetto non riesce a rigirarsi armpits to the wind — the bug can't flip back over * dopo il mare anche sporche le mani sembran pulite after the seaside even if dirty hands feel clean * restless wasps — the lonely old man from person to person vespe irrequiete: il vecchio solo di persona in persona * ora di pranzo: condizionatore di sopravvivenza lunch time — survival conditioner * notte d'estate: centro zanzare mentre il sonno mi elude summer night — I hit mosquitoes squarely while sleep eludes me * mese d'agosto: anche le case rosse si spelleranno? August — will even the red houses start to peel? * niente acqua per le labbra secche: lamiere lucenti no water for dry lips — shining floor plates * vento in spiaggia: una mano sul cell l’altra sull’ombrellone wind at the seaside — one hand on the phone the other on the beach umbrella * Pronto soccorso: la zanzara bruna non trova l'orecchio Emergency Room — the brown mosquito can't find the ear * bocca sdentata: alcune case senza tenda da sole gap-toothed mouth — some houses have no awning * vespa vasaia: una solitudine tranquilla potter wasp — a tranquil solitude * nascondendosi nell'orto il gatto svicola indisturbato hiding in the garden the cat sneaks away undisturbed * primi rovesci: sotto la giacca a vento la canottiera first downpours — under the windbreaker a tank top Maurizio Brancaleoni lives near Rome, Italy. He holds a master's degree in Language and Translation Studies from Sapienza University. His haiku and senryu have appeared in Dadakuku, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Under The Bashō, Horror Senryu Journal, Cold Moon Journal, Scarlet Dragonfly, Memorie di una geisha, Rakuen, Haiku Corner, Pure Haiku, Five Fleas, Shadow Pond Journal, Haikuniverse, Asahi Haikuist, Plum Tree Tavern and Wales Haiku Journal. In 2023 one of his micropoems was nominated for a Touchstone Award, while a horror ku originally featured in the Halloween-themed issue of Scarlet Dragonfly was re-published in this year's Dwarf Stars anthology. Maurizio manages “Leisure Spot", a bilingual blog where he posts interviews, reviews and translations: https://leisurespotblog.blogspot.com/p/interviste-e-recensioni-interviews-and.html