Days of a shivering sun 

(i.m. David McWilliams) 

   I have shaken in those same streets 

among a throng cowering at the bandstand

   as down the hill something erupts

a puff of black smoke as if from the chimney

   above a camp crematorium,

those same roads where you noticed him, nose pressed

   to shop windows, skin as pale as death 

and I have known a similar prejudice

   what it’s like to be overlooked

to be invisible and leave no trace 

   as the vain elbow through their race 

chasing other dreams and snatching at wealth 

   for all they’re worth, while just like you 

I’m content to observe, make brief comments

   about how glory is disbursed 

of, by, to and among the least worthy 

   with glassy eyes that do not care

and untwitching noses that do not smell

   the tartness of blood-sticky streets

where sandwich-board men holler about hell 

   and the evils of the casino 

that stands a Reichstag stately pleasure dome 

   burning with harsh voices that wail

about injustice even while they inflict 

   greater crimes on the innocent,

their hearts are caves of ice, their skulls winecups

   of the godless hoards, the type of brutes

blind enough to follow the first howling

   dog with leg cocked at a lamppost 

where only drunkards’ urine and rats run 

   they can get you so down you bow 

your head, fail to notice the lovely sun 

   roughs in the streets or yes-gofers

in grey suits in grey buildings issuing

   spiteful decrees like bureaucrats 

that stymied our moments of glory 

   through pettiness and passing spite, 

but you were beyond all that, going home

   to watch white horses jump the spray

along the strand where dark basalt columns

   mingle with tufts of seaweed grass

and pass precious time in the company

   of the only hearts that matter,

so I salute you and thank you for songs

   that make heavy moments lighter,

for reminding us when all’s said and done 

   best forgotten times and filthy streets

are mere totems of where we’ve risen from,

   immaculate days lie ahead. 

the day before

The day before I was due to go away

I visited you in your house,

tea and biscuits by an open fire,

your mother slipping into the other room

as we snogged on the sofa. 

We called at your aunt’s

to see her new baby. I learnt

your uncle had just started a business

in a converted church.

In the backseat at the marina

we made out some more

as the lough’s waves slapped on the shore. 

On the radio, songs of inspiration:

When the Going Gets Tough from Billy Ocean.

When I left you home, I told you

what I had to do the next day.

We promised to write. (For a while, you did,

how you liked how I slipped the hand

even if, after a few weeks apart,

it became Dear John). 

And I drove away, rattling over the cattle grid

listening to Captain of her Heart

and Manic Monday wondering 

should I go or would I stay?

CONSENT

It is march in Tyrone,

bluebells burgeoning, larches

swaying above St Patrick’s chair,

shamrocks greening by the bullán. 

I thought of Singing School

and The Strand at Lough Beg

as we drove by Lough More

and you spoke of Rattle and Hum,

Bono slagging armchair patriots

after Enniskillen that shocked

you into sense, knowing who to revere.

Those around us here,

now, young and dumb enough

to idolise or wear

their balaclavas as badges

of dishonour, whatever their colours. 

I mull over what happened to Lyra

and to my tutor’s wife,

starting her car to go to work,

who didn’t even know her neighbour

was a cop or, until it was too late,

that the volunteer went to the wrong address.

And the hate that took her legs

was the same as that in Carrickfergus

where Glenn criticised 

racketeering. The dew of my libations

is for people like him,

the shards of his ribs

bleeding out, agonised, 

alone by the bed

where they left his dog

like The Godfather’s horse’s head. 

It’s too much of an inconvenient bore

for many to think about the skelfed seats

and foam-pocked red cushions

of Darkley and Tannaghmore. 

No Troy-like cures

this long after we were supposed

to have respite, when our guardians of peace

are too neutered to chase escooters. 

The well’s rags have rotted away,

the plaster St Patrick has toppled;

there’s a dog walker who is aware

it wasn’t giants or enraged sidhe

but winter floods that flattened 

burn-side hazel and birch

and last year’s storm that brought down

so many spruce here in Favour,

but there’s still demons in Augher 

this Lughnasa to coerce to Altadaven.

Rockefeller made me a junkie

‘The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets…

I have ways of making money that you know nothing of.’

(John D Rockefeller) 

old John D wanted workers not thinkers

he and his rich mates wanted cheap labor

he donated to medical schools – the catch 

being he would dictate what they could teach

promoting his petroleum-based pills

over alternatives – holistic, herbal –

spawned over a century of disdaining

complementary techniques

it’s why I can hear the laugh in the GP’s

voice on the phone when I mention I see

hypnotherapy stopped me being anxious,

kinesiology fixed my reflux 

when I was down they gave me diazepam

without saying what it does to the system

when will they accept the curveball thrown,

causing my spiral towards methadone

when they cut welfare I tried cold turkey

couldn’t shake the monkey, stuck as a junkie 

desperate, get fentanyl, crack cocaine,

anything off the street, heroin –

when I am beaten, bloody in the gutter 

who’s counting dividends? 

Take away the fourth wall 

see the bedroom scene

double bed centre stage 

pre-divan spindly legs 

toddlers push pillows aside

bounce bounce bounce

arms out straight

swinging for propulsion

launching somersaulting

so high heads tucked

most of the time

landing squat 

at the edge

but the carpet 

cushions any falls

as spindly legs splay 

get replaced by stacks

of family bibles 

which one day

contain fresh names

of gleeful toddlers 

long after that room

has been demolished 

Aftermath

I’m a mess. 

But you had to insist.

Even though you were told.

You knew. 

That’s why your subterfuge. 

But still you persisted. 

And here we are. 

You harassed and bullied. 

And you roped others in. 

So that when I resisted

it was them as well as you. 

And made me look stupid. 

As always, victim-blaming. 

As always, self-blaming. 

this city

The poet rages the room,

smashes chair over table

screaming, My work’s not systemic 

or formal like Lowell, 

that same bland, gloomy hand

they all affect

however pseudo-confessional,

that multi-dimensional 

lack of meaning,

I don’t scrawl like an academic,

I write like a human being. 

Feel the sun blaze,

skin tingling as it reddens,

cheeks itching as they dry,

ignore the heady aroma of magnolia

and rose pungent on the breeze

from railed in street greenery.

Sense the moon rising above

the horizon, eeking its way from one sky

to another, delving into darkness 

as surely as this city turns us into savages: 

the way the lover rages,

kneeling on the sidewalk,

weeping over the bloodied limbs

and exposed viscera of the only soul 

that made inhabitance bearable.

One needy conceit rages,

objectifying, denying an other,

oblivious to the reality

every herd doesn’t just murmurate 

or scatter like magnetized irondust, 

but throbs with a multitude of hearts 

that spew adoration and harm as readily 

and promiscuously, as delicately

and beautifully as bile 

seeping onto pavements. 

So, this city swarms 

with such exigencies

nightmares generate. 

You Know It’s Me 

Sunshine through grubby trailer windows…

A moment ago I was at the gas station,

they have a good vegan range. Everyone knows

me, the wild-haired cat-lady,

the old one there with accusing baggy eyes

even remembers… why I take

a cab to the clinic twice a week at four

to queue up for the methadone that keeps

me level, why I lie awake when it’s dark,

sometimes siesta through afternoon heat

when the distant industrial estate

is clattering. All the world is busy

living and getting, consuming, taking. 

I panic and rush to the doctor’s. Infrequent

sessions with a shrink to regain focus.

Sunday mornings the catholics parade 

for service, I watch them go and return 

from slippy deck steps, feel shutters

crash in my head, calloused like the hands

that kneaded me when I was playdough.

Crashing down, galvanized steel 

locking away the past. Steel, like gates 

all around you. I visited once, 

threw up in the parking lot. 

I don’t need to see you, I know you’re there. 

I know your stomach knots

to see me, but you’ll never admit it. 

You shuffle between gray block rooms,

lie, fantasizing, sometimes about me, 

as I lie next to a treated plywood wall,

sometimes fantasizing about you.

Through so many years –

letters, then emails, now texts.

Rare voicecalls. We have little to say:

you don’t want to divulge the threats

you face every day; I don’t want to confess

the emptiness of my existence. 

There was no doubting the evidence,

I understand why you have to be where you are,

don’t excuse what you did or why.

But sometimes there is something 

that is stronger than sense. 

That’s why I tolerate this incarnation. 

That’s why I contend with 

sunshine through grubby trailer windows…

I know you know,

you know I know…

I know it’s you;

you know it’s me. 

Niall McGrath is a twice Pushcart Prize nominated writer in the 2020s, most recently for 2026, from County Antrim, N Ireland. He has had work in Tears In The Fence, The South Carolina Review, Ashville Poetry Review, Poetry Scotland, French Literary Review, Antigonish Review, Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Scotland, New Statesman and Quadrant (Australia) among other journals. He is Assistant Editor of Northern Ireland’s premier journal of the arts and culture, Fortnight. Recent selections include oral tradition (Alien Buddha, USA, 2024) and Shed (Lapwing, UK, 2021).

INNOVATIVE METHODS OF WORKING WITH VOCABULARY IN MOTHER TONGUE LESSONS

Ahadova Feruzakhon

Kokand State University, Faculty of Primary and Technological Education, 1st year student of Primary Education

Annotation. This article scientifically analyzes modern and innovative methods of working with vocabulary in mother tongue lessons and their role in developing students’ communicative competence. It also highlights the effectiveness of increasing vocabulary based on interactive methods, digital technologies and creative approaches.

Annotation. This article analyzes innovative methods of working with vocabulary in mother tongue lessons and their role in developing students’ communicative competence. It also highlights the effectiveness of interactive methods, digital technologies, and creative approaches in enriching vocabulary.

Abstract. V state rassmatrivayutsya innovatsionnye metody raboty so slovarem na urokax native language and ix role v razvitii rechevoy kompetentsii uchashchihsya. The effectiveness of interactive methods, digital technology and creative approaches is clarified.

Key words: vocabulary, mother tongue, innovative methods, interactive education, speech development, lexical competence.

Keywords: vocabulary, mother tongue, innovative methods, interactive learning, speech development, lexical competence.

Key words: dictionary, native language, innovative methods, interactive learning, razvitie rechi, lexical competence.

INTRODUCTION

Today, at a time when fundamental reforms are being implemented in the education system, the use of modern approaches in teaching the mother tongue is of great importance. In particular, increasing students’ vocabulary, developing their speech activity, and forming independent thinking skills is one of the urgent pedagogical problems. Working with a dictionary is a key component of native language lessons, allowing not only to learn new words, but also to use them correctly, understand them semantically, and actively use them in speech.

According to modern pedagogical theory, it is necessary to use innovative methods in addition to traditional methods in developing students’ language skills. Because today’s student is being formed in an information technology environment, and his educational needs are also changing. Therefore, the introduction of interactive methods, multimedia tools, and creative tasks in the process of working with a dictionary increases efficiency.

Also, working with a dictionary serves as an important tool in developing not only students’ language skills, but also their thinking, logical thinking, and communicative competence. In this regard, this article studies innovative methods of working with a dictionary on a scientific basis and analyzes their practical effectiveness.

LITERATURE ANALYSIS

The issue of working on vocabulary in native language lessons has been studied by many scholars. In particular, A. Gulyamov, in his work “Methodology of Teaching the Native Language”, emphasizes that increasing vocabulary is the main factor in the speech development of students. According to him, through a deep understanding of the meaning of words and their use in speech, students learn to think independently [1].

Also, N. Mahmudov, in his work “Language and Speech Culture”, notes the need for a systematic organization of the process of working with vocabulary. In his opinion, each new word must be mastered by the student based on the context, otherwise it will not become an active vocabulary [2].

S. Matchonov, in his scientific works, specifically focuses on the importance of interactive methods in mastering vocabulary. According to him, methods such as role-playing games, clustering, and brainstorming naturally increase students’ vocabulary [3].In general, the results obtained scientifically confirm that innovative approaches in native language lessons significantly increase the effectiveness of working with a dictionary. This indicates the need to combine traditional methods with innovative approaches in the modern educational process, without completely rejecting them.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the process of working with a dictionary in native language lessons is one of the pedagogical areas that is of decisive importance in the formation of students’ speech development, level of thinking and communicative competence. The analysis conducted during the study showed that working with a dictionary is not just a process of teaching new words, but a complex methodological system that shapes students’ attitude to the language, develops their creative and independent thinking.

Traditional approaches – that is, methods of explaining, memorizing and translating words – although useful to a certain extent, cannot fully meet the requirements of today’s education. In a modern educational environment, it is necessary to involve students as active participants, increase their interest and direct them to independent research. In this regard, innovative methods significantly increase the effectiveness of working with a dictionary.

According to the results of the study, interactive methods (cluster, brainstorming, group work), digital technologies (electronic dictionaries, multimedia tools, mobile applications) and gamification elements contribute to the rapid and stable acquisition of vocabulary by students. In particular, these approaches increase students’ interest in the lesson, forming them as active participants and independent thinkers.

Also, the research revealed that when innovative methods are used, students develop not only their vocabulary, but also their speech literacy, level of logical thinking and creative approach. This directly affects the quality of education and the effective organization of the educational process.

In general, organizing work with vocabulary in native language lessons based on modern innovative approaches is one of the important factors in increasing educational efficiency. In the future, teachers should further improve these methods and widely apply them in the educational process. This will serve to form a high level of speech culture, independent thinking and creative approach in students.

REFERENCES

Gulamov A. Methodology of teaching the native language. – Tashkent: Teacher, 2010. – pp. 145–150.

Mahmudov N. Language and speech culture. – Tashkent: Science, 2018. – pp. 98–105.

Matchonov S. Interactive methods in native language education. – Tashkent: Innovation, 2020. – pp. 67–72.

Harmer J. How to Teach English. – London: Longman, 2007. – pp. 120–130.

Ahadova Feruzakxon Kokand State University Faculty of Primary and Technological Education 1st year student of primary education.

Kokand University Andijan Branch

Faculty of Philology

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN THE HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Author:

Abduhalilova Sevdora Xayrulla kizi

Student, Philology and Language Teaching: English Language Direction

sevdoraabduhalilova880@gmail.com

Scientific Supervisor:

Xayitboyev Nabijon Sheraliyevich

Senior Lecturer, Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Physical Culture

+998998397419

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ABSTRACT

This article examines the multifaceted role of physical education (PE) in the comprehensive development of university students. Drawing on contemporary research in sports science, psychology, and pedagogy, the study explores how regular physical activity positively influences students’ academic performance, mental health, social skills, and overall well-being. The article also discusses modern approaches to physical education in higher educational institutions, with particular reference to practices in Uzbekistan. The findings underscore the necessity of integrating systematic physical education into university curricula as a strategic educational priority.

Keywords: physical education, university students, holistic development, academic performance, mental health, sports, well-being, pedagogy.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

INTRODUCTION

Physical education has long been recognized as a fundamental component of a well-rounded education. In recent decades, however, its role within university settings has come under renewed scrutiny as institutions increasingly prioritize academic subjects over physical activity. This shift has coincided with a global rise in sedentary behavior among young adults, accompanied by growing concerns about student mental health, stress, and burnout.

Universities are unique environments in which students undergo profound intellectual, social, and personal transformations. Physical education, when thoughtfully integrated into this environment, offers a powerful means of supporting these transformations. Beyond its obvious benefits to physical fitness, PE cultivates discipline, teamwork, resilience, and leadership — qualities that are indispensable in both academic and professional life.

This article aims to investigate the comprehensive impact of physical education on university students, analyze current challenges in its implementation, and propose recommendations for enhancing PE programs in higher educational institutions, particularly within the Uzbek educational context.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LITERATURE REVIEW

Numerous studies have explored the relationship between physical activity and cognitive function. Hillman it al. (2008) demonstrated that aerobic exercise enhances executive function, attention, and memory in young people — capacities that are directly relevant to academic success. Similarly, Ratey (2008) argued that physical activity stimulates the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which facilitates learning and neuroplasticity.

From a psychological perspective, research by Biddle and Mutrie (2008) confirmed that regular participation in physical activity significantly reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression among university students — populations particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges. Furthermore, Warburton it al. (2006) established strong links between physical fitness and reduced risk of chronic diseases, emphasizing the long-term public health value of PE in higher education.

In the Uzbek context, scholars such as Toshmatov (2019) and Rakhimov (2021) have emphasized the need to modernize physical education curricula in Uzbek universities to align with international standards while respecting local cultural values. Their work highlights the importance of motivational strategies and student-centered approaches to PE instruction.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN STUDENT DEVELOPMENT

3.1 Physical Health and Well-being

The most immediate benefit of physical education is the improvement of students’ physical health. Regular participation in structured PE classes helps students maintain healthy body weight, improve cardiovascular endurance, develop muscular strength, and enhance flexibility. These physical gains are particularly critical during university years, when many students adopt sedentary study habits and irregular dietary patterns.

University PE programs typically offer a variety of sports and fitness activities — from traditional sports such as football, volleyball, and basketball to modern disciplines like fitness training, yoga, and swimming. This diversity ensures that students with different interests and abilities can find meaningful participation opportunities, fostering a lifelong commitment to physical activity.

3.2 Mental Health and Psychological Benefits

The mental health benefits of physical education are equally significant. University life is fraught with academic pressures, financial concerns, and social adjustments that can lead to elevated stress levels, anxiety, and depression. Physical activity serves as a natural counterbalance to these stressors by triggering the release of endorphins — neurochemicals associated with feelings of pleasure and reduced pain.

Furthermore, PE classes provide students with structured opportunities to disconnect from digital devices and academic obligations, offering a form of active mindfulness. Research consistently shows that students who engage in regular physical activity report higher levels of life satisfaction, better sleep quality, and greater emotional resilience compared to their sedentary peers.

3.3 Academic Performance

A growing body of evidence suggests a positive correlation between physical fitness and academic achievement. Students who participate regularly in PE demonstrate improved concentration, faster information processing, and stronger problem-solving abilities. Physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, enhancing neural connectivity and cognitive flexibility.

A longitudinal study conducted across several European universities found that students who engaged in at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week achieved significantly higher grade point averages than those who did not. These findings challenge the notion that time spent on PE detracts from academic study, suggesting instead that it enhances the capacity for learning.

3.4 Social and Character Development

Team sports and group physical activities are powerful vehicles for social learning. Through collaborative exercise, students develop communication skills, learn to negotiate and resolve conflicts, practice leadership, and experience both victory and defeat with grace. These experiences contribute directly to the formation of character traits that are valued in the workplace and in civic life.

Physical education also fosters cultural exchange and inclusivity. When students from different backgrounds participate together in sport, barriers of language, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status become less significant. This social dimension of PE is especially relevant in multilingual, multicultural university settings such as the Kokand University Andijan Branch.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Despite its well-documented benefits, physical education in Uzbek universities faces several systemic challenges. First, there is a widespread perception among students and faculty alike that PE is a secondary subject — less important than major academic disciplines. This attitude often results in low student motivation and irregular attendance.

Second, many institutions lack adequate sports infrastructure, including gyms, outdoor sports fields, and specialized equipment. Without proper facilities, quality PE instruction is difficult to deliver consistently. Third, there is a shortage of qualified PE instructors who are trained in modern, student-centered pedagogical methods.

Finally, the growing prevalence of online and hybrid learning models — accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic — has posed new challenges for maintaining physical activity requirements. Digital education, while offering many advantages, has significantly reduced opportunities for structured physical activity among university students.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

RECOMMENDATIONS

Integrate PE into the core curriculum with mandatory participation requirements and meaningful academic credit.

Invest in modern sports infrastructure and ensure equitable access for all students regardless of major or year of study.

Provide ongoing professional development for PE instructors, with emphasis on motivational strategies, inclusive pedagogy, and modern sports science.

Leverage technology — including fitness apps, online coaching platforms, and wearable devices — to supplement traditional PE instruction, particularly in hybrid learning environments.

Promote inter-faculty and inter-university sports competitions to enhance motivation, community spirit, and institutional pride.

Conduct regular research and assessment of student physical activity levels to inform evidence-based policy decisions.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CONCLUSION

Physical education is not a peripheral addition to university life — it is a cornerstone of holistic student development. By nurturing physical health, supporting mental well-being, enhancing cognitive performance, and cultivating essential social competencies, PE equips students with the tools they need to thrive in an increasingly demanding world.

Universities in Uzbekistan, including the Kokand University Andijan Branch, have a unique opportunity to lead by example in the region by adopting progressive, evidence-based physical education programs. Doing so will not only benefit individual students but will also contribute to the formation of a healthier, more productive, and more resilient society.

Future research should continue to examine the long-term impact of university PE participation on graduates’ health behaviors and professional outcomes, providing an empirical foundation for sustained institutional investment in physical education.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

REFERENCES

Biddle, S. J. H., & Mutrie, N. (2008). Psychology of Physical Activity: Determinants, Well-being and Interventions (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2008). Be smart, exercise your heart: Exercise effects on brain and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(1), 58–65.

Rakhimov, B. (2021). Modernization of Physical Education in Uzbek Higher Education. Tashkent: Education and Technologies.

Ratey, J. J. (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Little, Brown and Company.

Toshmatov, A. (2019). Student-Centered Approaches to Physical Education in Uzbekistan. Fergana: Pedagogical Press.

Warburton, D. E., Nicol, C. W., & Bredin, S. S. (2006). Health benefits of physical activity: The evidence. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 174(6), 801–809.

World Health Organization. (2020). WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. Geneva: WHO.

On a Poetry Professor’s Presumption That All Political Poetry

Is a Rant and Therefore Unsuitable as a Subject for

Real Poetry and His Assignment of “Grandmothers” 

as an Appropriate Topic for Students

after Antler’s “Writer’s Workshop”

In this war, this pre-

emptive war, this

ethnically cleansed,

this genocidal hell,

the woman described

as having a shattered

skull, having her brain

removed, having her

breasts ripped off, having

her chest cavity rent,

this scarecrow woman

impaled on a pole in a

plowed-by-armored-vehicle,

she dead

That woman was someone’s

grandmother

You don’t want to believe it

I could show you pictures

“A poem, even a bad poem, was harder to kill than

a cockroach.”  Karl Shapiro

Bred in the dark

like tiny monsters

with flexible spindle

thin legs for scuttling

the way crabs do,

shunning the light

the feral tide of

whiskey scented winds

No hermetically sealed 

container can prevent

them from wheedling

their way inside,

from stealing letters

from the alphabet

for food,

nourishment in the form

of images as 

palpable as the represented

object of desire,

the actual thing

implacable as a spoken

truth; they are what

words infer they are,

sometimes more, often less

War Game Docudrama

movie made for

BBC in middle 60’s

re after the atomic bomb

falls

truths and consequences

for England

but never shown on

TV as it was declared

“too disturbing”

Seen now as

somewhat quaint

though still controversial

for realistic death scenes by:

fallout

fire

radiation sickness

oxygen depravation

special effects lame

compared to what modern

viewers are used to

the reality they show  

much much

worse

Tall Bound Blindfolded Man in Frozen Frames

The silence is absolute after

the rifles’ fire

Five grey gusts of smoke

motionless just beyond the barrels

And the odd, contorted face of

the El Capitan after the order to shoot

has been given

You have to imagine the sound

of his voice

The rifles’ retort

And the echo after in the courtyard

Bullets finding their mark in

the tall, bound, blindfolded man

or gone astray

with others from days past

in the thick, adobe walls that lie

just beyond the limp figure of the target 

12 Safe Places to Die

1-In a graveyard, reading the headstones,

in the rain

2-Over the waterfall, on raft, still

wearing the flag

3-In the desert, before sunrise, on 

a flat alkaline plain

4-By the lake, with the loons calling,

the fog rising

5-In the helicopter, over the LZ,

almost home free

6-Strapped in with the crash test dummies,

heading toward a wall

7-On the beach at low tide, among the men

of war, on the flat blue sea

8-Three fathoms deep, enraptured by 

the deep

9-Sky diving, free falling the currents, no

parachute to interrupt the flight

10-On the golf course, under a spreading

chestnut tree with a nine iron

11-In a bank vault, all the safe deposit boxes

open, all the security cameras off

12-In the underground White House, with the chosen

few, after the bombs have begun to fall

Another Tasteful Discussion of Contemporary War  

The children’s crusade begins at noon,

a massacre of innocents follows soon

after and the plasma, wall-sized TV they

are watching is either out-of-focus, tuned

into some modern artist’s patterned canvas 

or else troop movements and new recruits 

have been camouflaged by a new kind of sky

blue and white pattern, everyone, everything

blended so perfectly no one can sense

a vertiginous loss of place, the weightless

soldiers and their ships neither up nor down,

not anywhere in time or place in this room

or any other room as the well-groomed guests

and their hosts sip amber cocktails, not really

watching what is happening, what the TV

represents, what is slowly being absorbed

into the blood.

The top five commandments 

 Always a 

 scourge in the wrong  hands, the tablet was used  as an accessory in torture for  the legitimization of cruel games.  Imagine being trapped in a tiny cell  24/7 listening over the loudspeaker to  Kim Jong Un proclaiming self-deification  again and again, all the while numb with  hands tied, blindfolded, shivering. Just  a stench of death and throbbing eardrums   with sleep deprivation. Dictators always  have skin in the game in eliminating the  opposition, stymieing bubble-bursting of  their omnipotence, intimidating the rank  and file through the gleeful but macabre   dispatch of wannabe rivals to hell. Jang   Song-thaek probably had it coming. Right  hand thug and power behind the throne in  North Korea, with vicious purges of less  than 100% obsequious government servants  featuring in his chequered history, this  man was certainly no angel. Ask his only  daughter, who he forced to suicide after   she eloped to Paris. ‘Obey your parents’  was one of the top five revered commands  together with ‘Hero worship’, ‘Prostrate  yourselves before all images of the dear  leader, though spit on the images of his  enemies’, ‘Always accompany the leader’s  name with praise’, ‘Slave away 24/7’. As   for Jang Song-thaek? He was denounced as  a counter-revolutionary on live TV while  being arrested at a gathering of the top  brass. Handcuffed, chained, at his court   martial accused of being ‘far worse than   a dog’, ‘despicable human scum’, next he   was airbrushed out of pictures depicting   him with the ‘dear’ or ‘beloved’ leader.   Jang Song-thaek’s end was grisly: caged,  naked, devoured by a pack of attack dogs 

 Ra complaining of Joshua 

The Greeks 

 and Romans knew: If 

 I was knocked off course 

 it was never pretty. Forests 

 became fireballs while meadows  by meandering rivers reddened to  dust. So, it simply wasn’t clever  to disturb my solar barge on its way  across a blue sky. At night I had issues   with an underworld serpent lurking in  the recesses, always vainly trying   to hypnotize me and pack me off 

 to another planet, but I kept 

 going day after day until one day I met  Apollo, who offered me the chance   to trade up my barge 

 for a berth in his sparkling  new chariot that would gallop at  the same pace through the sky. Life  in Egypt was no longer quite what  it had been and so on reflection I  was pleased to accept. Since Moses  had somehow contrived to out-magic  our magicians, faith in our true gods  had ebbed. I felt eyes staring up at me  less reverentially. What really offended  me, though, was being jeered at by Joshua  (who had succeeded Moses) and all his blood-  thirsty crew terrorizing Palestine at the   time and making an absurd demand: that I  apply the brakes, screeching to a halt  and staying put for 24 hours, all to  facilitate a total massacre of the   Amorites (Joshua 10). The idiots  knew nothing of cosmology at all   

 Looters 

 The order 

 was unequivocable: No  looting! Ah, but the gleaming  silver, the silky Babylonian robe,  the shimmering gold to fondle, to hold!  Achan couldn’t help himself, and plundered   while the rest of the army put Jericho to the   sword, murdering every living being found and  destroying all signifiers of a famous city’s  cultural icons. After Achan confessed under  questioning to his sin, he wasn’t ready for  what came next. The first stone, small and   round, smacked his skin. The sharp second  drew blood. Black, blue and punctured, he   withstood the pain for as long as anyone  could, with his family watching, weeping,  wailing in the wings, waiting to be next.  

And so the wicked and their wives went off with a whimper. While massacring women and babies was de rigeur among the Brownshirts  in Joshua’s special forces, ill-discipline was a definite no go. Orders like the ban 

 on looting had to be followed religiously 

 on pain of death. For more contemporary 

 despots, looting garnished genocide, 

 like the Gestapo, hand in glove 

 extracting gold fillings  

 at Auschwitz to kiss  

 an evil ring 

 Rejecting the wisdom of Solomon 

 Solomon  knew, when he  offered to cut the baby two women were scrapping 

 over in half, that a true  mother would refuse. At the  court of Solomon (aka United Nations), the non-Zionists 

pleaded that their baby 

 not be ripped violently apart into red slices.  

 A pacifist like Mahatma  Gandhi, Reform Judaism’s  Chancellor of Jerusalem’s  Hebrew University advocated  harmony, so that both Jewish  and Islamic cultural traditions  could be celebrated reverentially  side by side. With equal rights for  

all citizens, he envisaged togetherness in sowing and reaping, in planting 

 with love and harvesting in a golden  glow. War threatened, though, with  butchers’ knives being sharpened  and he warned of “the spilling 

 of blood, ruination, vicious 

 imminent sword of Damocles  

 destruction for everyone 

 created in the image  

 of God”. Tragically, 

 emotional arguments 

 swayed the court’s 

 decision, with  

 insufficient 

 heed paid to 

 Solomon’s 

 wisdom.  

These poems take inspiration from passages in the Old Testament. The font these poems use is Courier New, though any monospaced font, such as Aptos Mono or Cascadia Mono, works equally well. Mark Wyatt discusses his technique in ‘Using letters as number-like particles in constructing pattern poetry’, an article that appeared in the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts: https://doi.org/10.1080/17513472.2025.2518519

Mark Wyatt now lives in the UK after teaching in South and South-East Asia and the Middle East: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8647-8280.  His pattern poetry has appeared since 2024 in Antifa Lit Journal, Artemis Journal, Ballast, Borderless, Clockwise Cat, Cosmic Daffodil, Dust Poetry, Exterminating Angel, Full Bleed, Full House Literary, Greyhound Journal, Hyperbolic Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Libre, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Moss Puppy Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Osmosis, The Paper, The Plentitudes, Radon Journal, Re-Mediate, Shift, Sontag Mag, Streetcake Magazine, Talking About Strawberries All Of The Time, Tap Into Poetry, Tupelo Quarterly, and Typo. Other pattern poems are forthcoming from Allium, Brooklyn to Gangnam, Genrepunk Magazine, and Santa Fe Literary Review. Two of his poems have recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

I Wish You a Heaven, Mother
By Barbaros Irdelmen

Yesterday, your smile
still moved through the air.

Now the room
a quiet of unfinished sentences,
glances that stopped halfway.

On the side table,
a glass of tea gone cold.
Your room,
refusing time,
keeps a trace of your warmth.

I wish you a heaven, mother.

Let the earth be light above you.
Let the wind pass without knowing you.

Mountains should remain untouched.
The sky, unbroken.
The sea
free of all urgency.

At night,
may moonlight find your pages.

Let there be no distance
between you
and the names you carried.

Let longing
lose its language.

And happiness
no longer a thing
that must survive.May your tea
never grow cold

The Sign

By Barbaros İrdelmen

Ah, how long I have been waiting
for a sign
from those alluring,
colorful eyes!

If only it came…

Ah, then would crumble,
collapse into dust,
all the civilizations
that have ever been.

A Conversation with Yesterday

By Dr. Barbaros İrdelmen

When our eyes first met
we fell in love.

What day was it
when we were married?
You haven’t forgotten,
have you?

The children—
their graduations,
their going off to the army,
their weddings…

Then the grandchildren.

“Can such things ever be forgotten?”
we had laughed
the day I retired.

That grandchild in high school now—
when was he born?

Tell me,
do you remember
all of it?

Or was all of this
just yesterday,
truly?

Dr. Barbaros İrdelmen is a Turkish poet, writer, translator, and retired specialist in internal medicine and nephrology, lives in Istanbul. With 19 published poetry collections to date, his works have been included in numerous national and international anthologies, poetry festivals, and selected literary compilations. Currently a poetry columnist for Edebiyat Magazin Newspaper and TV, also contributes actively to prominent literary journals such as Pazartesi14 NEYYA Edebiyat, Kirpi Edebiyat ve Düşünce Dergisi, writer for the Papirus Magazine, Literature House writer. As a member of the Writers Syndicate of Turkey, he is not only known for his original poetry but also as a leading figure in the translation of world poetry written in English into Turkish. He is also a member of the poetry translators community, part of the ITHACA Foundation (Spain), building cultural and literary bridges across borders through the power of poetry.

What inspired you to write this collection? 

The urge to salvage something I suppose of my losses inspired a good deal of the poetry in this book. That is the oddity of memory: we never really lose anything we cherish. For me, there is an almost invisible essence to each thing we love, each moment, as particular and invisible as the scent of mint in the sauce of a good meal. So part of the inspiration to write the poems was also finding or coming up with the disguises that would conceal those dear ones, moments and things while they held the place of identities and kept the reader (in me) on the appreciative hunt, searching them out anew. An indispensable element of joy is in the pursuit and discovery of it. 

Your poems often explore themes of nostalgia and reflection. Can you talk about the role of memory in your work? 

To add to the partial answer to this question found in my first response: History contains a key in my way of thinking about my own past. It is collective memory, and it’s a vital key in knowing who we are, who we choose to be rightfully from our journey across time and distances. The fact for most of us is that we have many homes and a large and very diverse family. Going to be with one means leaving and for the time losing the other. I grew up watching the spirited Sand Hill Cranes on the Nebraska-Platte River stop of their migrations from South America to Canada each spring. They’ve flown the same migratory path since the age of the dinosaurs. A simple clue to the nearly perpetual mechanism of nostalgia and desire in me comes by way of the salient ironies of missing America most when I was living in France, and then missing life in France now that I’m living in America. That can be true of the different places I’ve lived here in the States too, living in Boston and missing Oklahoma or Tennessee. I have a joke about a partner who insists she stays with her guy mostly only to avoid falling into the gross error of having to miss him if she were to leave him!

These poems touch on the intersection of personal and historical events. How do you balance these two aspects of your poetry? 

Some time back after I’d finished my Masters degree in England, I moved to Normandy in France. To my surprise I was very much appreciated – The American! – by people there. They kept insisting on thanking me for helping liberate them from the Nazis in WWII. I kept thanking them for the wine and fine meals they prepared for me, while insisting I hadn’t even been born yet in 1944. I grew up vaguely aware of a great-uncle, my mother’s uncle Jack, who did participate in the Battle of Normandy, but it took me awhile to connect those dots. In fact, particular interest in WWII came back powerfully to me as a way of finding a language to help me write about those 10 years in France. The end of the long poem in this book alludes to that uncle. Two more long narrative poems were written about the family French-American connection and the days of WWII in rural America and in Occupied France. I met so many people there who had lived under the Nazi Occupation, each with their memorable story to tell. Eventually I’d like to publish the three narratives together as a trilogy.

Your poems often have a strong sense of place. How do you think your surroundings influence your writing, and what do you hope readers take away from your descriptions of specific locations? 

Writing about the particulars of a place marks a positive act of writing, of witnessing, but also appreciation. It is like complimenting another for the care and work they put into what they do—gardening, dressing fashionably, fixing a meal. The particular language of love waters the plant we are. When we don’t receive any recognition for our efforts we wilt. Same for place. We need, on a larger scale, to put more into the infrastructure of our country. When I first moved into the Boston area and was teaching, it disheartened me to hear students from Japan and Canada, polite and quiet as they meant to be, lament the shabby conditions of our roads, airports and trains!

In several pieces you write about accepting things you can’t change (death, war, office politics, WWII history). How do you think this relates to your broader themes of identity, mortality, and the human condition?

Acceptance is an abiding wisdom that runs the American in me deeply at odds. Because, I suppose as an American, I do believe humanity can live better – that we have, at periods in history, lived in fact better than in this age of great access to convenience, communication and travel. We are emphatically out of balance with nature, especially its pace and patience, and terribly imprudent in how we consume our resources. That is what the upcoming generations have to struggle for. But it helps me to see that by and large they are becoming lucid to the challenge and I believe they will by numbers overcome the harmful ways our super-tech and voracious society lurches about as though to saw off the branch we’re all sitting on, so to speak.

Your poetry often has a reflective, introspective tone. What do you hope readers take away from your work, and how do you think it can relate to their own experiences? 

I try to be very careful about broadcasting any demagogical intention in my writing. I would hope the introspective element would inspire readers to be themselves generous with quiet time, turn off all the media and music, not all the time, not in any strict sense, but to cultivate an appreciation for the sifting ruminative processes of reflection. Great insights do come, but only of themselves with a sort of natural, unforced, even wary way of approaching them. Almost like deer in the wild. Voluminous wide access to all the facts doesn’t really help us put those facts together. On a small very intense scale, that’s an important lesson creative writing teaches us. Beyond what, the how!

Michael Todd Steffen’s book I Saw My Life is available here from Lily Poetry Review.