The Philosophy of the Eyes
Scholars are searching, travelers are wandering,
World secrets are always a mystery.
Longing for thousands of years,
Finally, the poet found fancy eyes!
I'm glad those eyes are mine,
The poet knew him as a deep ocean,
He placed the earth and the sky in it,
Seeing justice, mercy in my eyes!
Elena's angelic beauty,
By the trickery of the hypocrite's eye,
She tamed Achilles with charm,
Destroyed Troy before her eyes!
Every word, conversation has its own meaning,
Secret glances have their touch,
The eyes have both healing and suffering,
The poet sees heaven in my eyes!
He is a man of the philosophical world.
Parvanah is in love the candle burns alone
He strongly believes in unattainable love.
It deserves respect in my eyes!
Elmaya Jabbarova was born in Azerbaijan. She is a poet, writer, reciter, and translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Sharginsesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for
Africa», «JuntosporlasLetras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.
Literary Ways to Help The Democratic Republic of Congo
Congo Library – people and organizations have donated books to a shipping center in California to build a library in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Books for Congo – sets up and contributes to libraries and a bookmobile, takes donations of books and cash and buys books by local and African authors.
Freelancers In Gaza Seeks Mentors To Virtually Coach Freelance Professionals
From Freelancers in Gaza:
We are looking for all forms of support in mentorship, like teaching Arabic to non-Arabic speakers, computer skills, writing and editing, journalistic skills, etc. So all types of support will be helpful. Those who are interested in being mentors will need to send us short bios, their best way of communication (email), and a headshot. This will then be added to our pool of mentors here: https://www.freelancersingaza.com/mentors.
This month’s issue celebrates effusions of life: human art and creativity, human love and compassion, and the flowering of the natural world.
Sayani Mukherjee depicts the elegant fragility of a rose as Brian Barbeito’s photography and prose evokes summertime in a strange, wild, and mysterious natural place in the summer. Wazed Abdullah revels in the vast expanse of the sky, during both daylight and nighttime.
Mark Young explores the power of details: parts of speech, flower petals, and thoughts.
Echezonachi Daniel speculates on nature and deconstructs some of what we as humans project onto other species.
Brian Barbeito, in his prose piece, takes a starling bird as a starting point to reflect on native vs introduced species, philosophy and faith, fair-weather versus dedicated believers, and what it means to be committed to something.
Isabella Mori writes of a trip through Canada when she encountered nature and simple human kindness. Christopher Bernard illustrates the caring, nurture, and steadiness of loving fathers. Azimjon Toshpulatov highlights her love for her mother by apologizing for having hurt her, and Rizwan Islam honors his through an essay on her dedicated service to so many people. Lazizakhan Khalilova shares a story where a young child discovers that noticing and helping others is part of growing up.
Mohichehra Qurbonova shares a story of the perseverance of a disabled girl to achieve her goals and build a life with meaning. David Sapp recollects memories of a friendship he developed with a developmentally disabled person whom he came to regard with respect.
Mesfakus Salahin conveys the experience of losing himself in romantic love. Eva Petropoulou Lianou’s poetry celebrates the joy of love and romance. Sushant Thapa describes getting to know a lover as a form of art and a journey.
Dimitris Passas shares a story of drug addiction and the sufferings of forced withdrawal and the quest for family love. John Grochalski speaks to the awkwardness of negotiating and crossing boundaries within parasocial relationships: people we see in media or with whom we have a business relationship.
Lewis LaCook shares pieces about travel, lost love, and finding and creating the world around us. Jesse Emmanuella writes of the human experience: death, grief, and new love. Tareq Samin depicts nature and romantic love in his piece, drawing on trees and stars for analogies to his feelings.
Elmaya Jabbarova reminisces about time with someone she loved in a beautiful garden she can no longer visit. Maja Milojkovic’s narrator speaks of her dual love for India and for a man she married there. Abdul Razzaq Al-Amiri evokes a romance that is also a deep spiritual quest. Amina Sahi conveys the pure spiritual joy of a lovers’ meeting off of a woman’s outdoor balcony in fragrant, sunny spring as Mahbub presents an exuberant couple scampering through fields and blooming rosebushes.
Dr. Jernail Anand reminds us that caring for others and self-respect is more important than money. Marjona Jorayeva highlights how the national value placed on human compassion is integral to the cultural and natural wealth of Uzbekistan. Sarvinoz Tuliyeva explicates the humane spirit of O’tkir Hashimov’s short story “Yanga.”
Bill Tope’s short story comments on two problems of America’s school system: gun violence and bullying, and the lack of compassion, cruelty, and injustice at the roots of both. Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa laments the knowledge she has of life’s suffering and how she cannot save her loved ones. Faleeha Hassan conveys the worry and loneliness of a soldier’s mother who cannot share ordinary daily news with her son while Nosirova Gavhar shares a tale of love that waits even after death.
John Martino relates pieces of moments, thoughts, and encounters told with humor and humanity. J.D. Nelson’s haikus capture moments of surprise, when something changes in the world. Duane Vorhees invites us as humans to consider how we’ll act and love each other in the light of a world implacably changing all around us. Easa Hossain urges us to remember the past yet adapt to and welcome the present.
Lidia Popa expresses what she would do if she were in charge of time and destiny. Maid Corbic expresses his loneliness around people who are stuck in the past. Amanbayeva Dinora offers the advice of centuries for career builders and job seekers as Saparbayeva Aziza outlines what she likes, and what she doesn’t, in books from her Uzbek cultural tradition.
Zulkhumor Fosilbekova highlights the value of education for people and society. Gulsevar Xojamova suggests a positive role for technology in elementary and high school education in Uzbekistan. Sushama Kasbekar celebrates the technology of her new fridge, but acknowledges her confusion at its complexity.
Bruce Roberts laments humans and human art’s replacement by robots who feel themselves to be an improvement. Rezauddin Stalin celebrates human knowledge and the joy we find in discovering human wisdom from ages past.
Chris Butler speaks to the limitations of human knowledge and perception in light of the near-eternal nature of some parts of the natural and physical world. Isabel Gomez de Diego’s photography highlights the smallness of humanity in the light of natural and cultural history.
Gregorz Wroblewski pokes at the nature of a poem, at memorializing imperfect humans, and at our reasons for creating high literature. Tuyet Van Do seeks out underlying truths beneath cultural narratives.
Many humans create in this issue, for reasons of their own. Texas Fontanella sends us energetic rap music and Vernon Frazer brings us on a long tour de force of jazzlike symphonic crescendos of words. Grzegorz Wroblewski’s artwork shows poetry as a physical object, focusing on the looks of words on the page rather than what the words say. Diana Magallon’s visual art combines squares and cubes into shapes that seem 3-D on a two-dimensional space.
Alan Catlin contributes an artistically edited tour-de-force of global sociology, Western psychology, infrastructure and logistics, and criminal forensics. Patrick Sweeney explores themes of worry, complexity, and communication in his series of short pieces.
Noah Berlatsky reminds us that all dedicated writers, even hobbyists, can be considered authors and poets. Fadwa Attia highlights how an artist’s identity and background can inspire or inform their work. Z.I. Mahmud illustrates how a graphic novel was an ideal and useful form for Marianne Satrapi to tell her story in Persepolis of surviving Iran’s 1970s Islamic revolution.
Kylian Cubilla Gomez’ photography is at once playful and introspective, examining small portions of nature and human life.
Sadiya Abdulaziz looks to her own body and life for wisdom, examining the scars on her body to relate her history. Zeboxon Akmalova explores the very common and human feeling of loss.
Jason Ryberg’s poetry is a mixture of humor and commentary on human perception. Jim Meirose’s “reformed solemniac” piece offers up a funny take on insomnia. J.J. Campbell shares poetry about lasting beyond one’s prime and anyway, or just realizing that you’re older and still around.
Daniel De Culla contributes an earthy poem of dissatisfaction with the world’s proffered enjoyments. Michael Robinson recollects a lifetime of comfort and peace found through his Christian faith. Hillol Ray points to his sources of poetic inspiration and how he finds meaning in life through creating work in partnership with nature. Maheshwar Das encourages us to get beyond short-sightedness and materialism and focus on love for one another and care for creation.
Jacques Fleury highlights how the allostatic stress of being discriminated against and “othered” even at smaller levels contributes to bad health effects for minority populations.
Adiba Pardabayeva celebrates the lasting power of her basic Uzbek cultural values, including respect, dignity, and modesty.
We hope the many high-minded and intriguing sentiments of this issue will linger in your minds and hearts. Thank you for reading our first July issue!
hazy sky
below the sun halo
a black trail
sharing truths ...
a poet labels me
anti vax
last working day
a student shares her
vaccine injuries
weekend picnic
at the local park
I search for a blue sky
William Shakespeare Look What You’ve Gone and Done, or European Starling Birds and the Winter Morning Sky Born
it was not the morning but the afternoon in actuality when all the Starlings did alight in the tree. it was however in the next morning that I remembered them and thought about them. they were still and to me, stoic for they didn’t really bother w/the wind or the world around them. the history of birds, their origin and migration routes; their interaction with rural landscapes and metropolitan areas, is as vast as the history of stamps, of books or of anything for that matter. but for me then, it was just a flock of birds in a tree. I didn’t know where they arrived from. I didn’t know what their ‘game’ was, or their ‘trick.’ I just knew that they blended in as if they were not there.
nobody jumped from branch to branch. nobody talked. nobody else arrived and nobody left. hmm. real certainly,- they didn’t seem so, and more like a painting or dream; or perhaps a moment in a poem. nice, I thought. but I am a naive one and always have been so. I decided to read about them. someone had the idea of introducing every bird Shakespeare mentioned into North America. and it turned out that though they controlled some insect problems,- the Starlings were overly aggressive and caused many problems to things like crops and even infrastructure.
I wondered about them, about the ones I had seen. maybe they were cold (I am a bleeding heart). later I glanced out there again. the Starlings had gone. only the branches remained,- vacant. and they weren’t talking either. and now the sky is born again. there used to be a Christian proselytizer that promoted his metaphysics by the lake to every manner of passerby. when the weather got bad, - cold, or a storm was coming, he would leave. it meant to me he was only an average devotee. a true captain is supposed to go down w/the ship so to speak. it is really the sky, for better or worse, that remains, not bird or person. the sky will one day whisper against reason and logic to some mystic, some seer, not, ,’Beware the Ides of March,’ but simply, ‘See. I tried to tell you. Stick with me. I am the forever kind.’
Harvest
at night the brain loves to torment me
talking to the one not here
in my body I’m trying to crawl out of my body
I’m coming to get you
night draws a bow across the brain
throat bores a hole into everything I say to you
in my body you’re trying to crawl out of your body
room piled to the ceiling with thread
the brain loves to be tied up
fireflies disappear in late August
To do
well tomorrow there won’t be any beautiful distance
between you and the still lives of hours
at least today the brain’s not watching
far above your head a jet squeals as it splits the sky
if you’ve got time to think about
the sky and what harms it
maybe you could walk farther away
maybe you could stitch back together
what’s left of the ground under your feet
The day Pan died
the day Pan died it sunshined
then puckered up like I insulted her
alright I’ll let you cut me
the day Pan died wildflowers rioted in ditches
foaming stalled white over deer bone grin
when she smiles at us broken animals
when we smile back with crowds of teeth
I tried my best as a sullied tongue
seeking what the pipes implied
soft piles drifting
we had to make everything with our hands
even our hands
The novitiate
in sleep country we count stars behind our eyes
dark engines that gasp and spark over our heads
on a pinched afternoon I’m lazy with cloud-cover
in the dark I pause at the screen door
drenched in longing from the beat of crickets
everything I will never be just out of reach
what god could be trusted with the color blue
that didn’t slip out of the woods
what novitiate lilts in bourbon-bronze fumes
on the hissing roads of sleep country we billow
our gods made of the blood of dog days
the willow sobs on my bare chest
everything I’ve ever been runs down our legs
waiting for you to fall out of the woods
As a child, on interstate trips, Lewis LaCook thought the moon was following his family’s Econoline van. Upon reaching adulthood, he couldn’t tell whether the truth disappointed or relieved him, so he started writing things down. Some of these things looked like poems, and they may have appeared in journals like Anti-Heroin Chic, Lost And Found Times, Otoliths,Unlikely Stories,Whiskey Tit, Lotus-eater, Synchronized Chaos, Argotist Online Poetry, Medusa’s Kitchen, Reapthrill, Exist Otherwise and Slope, among others. In 2012 BlazeVOX published Beyond the Bother of Sunlight, a book-length collaboration with Sheila E. Murphy; previously, Anabasis published his book-length poem Cling. His collection My Kinship with the Lotus-eaters was published in 2022 by BlazeVOX.(http://wp.blazevox.org/product/my-kinship-with-the-lotus-eaters-by-lewis-lacook/) Lewis can often be found wandering the wilds of Western New York state with his wife Lindsay.
If I were the lady of time
If I were the lady of time
I would bring peace to the souls of those who suffer
due to illnesses, but first I would make her fulfill all the dreams that have been handed down
for a better time. I would make them go and discover the many wonders
of the world, breathe the joy of being a part of this earth.
I would make them leave
happy and without suffering
atrocities that empty the heart of sensitivity every day.
Hearing violin music while dragging the cart
to go to the entrance of the temple.
If I were the lady of time…
But I'm the one who
ostentatiously trudges through life
through the streets of the local market and nothing happens
without meaning in this life of dust and a continuous
cleaning of toilets from where I take my voice to shout
the opprobrium on the things that drain me every day like blood suckers.
Indifference that kills unaware of malice
in the wealthy opulence that ties and unties ties.
If I were the lady of time
I would make a list of priorities
and I would invite to the dance first the one who is indifferent to the others.
BIOGRAPHY
Lidia Popa was born in Romania in the locality of Piatra Șoimului, in the county of Neamț, on 16th April, 1964. She finished her studies in Piatra Neamț, Romania with a high school diploma and other administrative courses, where she worked until she decided to emigrate to Italy.
She has been living for 23 years and worked in Rome as part of the wave of intellectual emigrants since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
She wrote your first poem at her age of seven. She is a poet, essayist, storyteller, recognized in Italy and in other countries for her literary activities. She collaborates with cultural associations, literary cenacles, literary magazines and paper and online publications of Romanian, Italian and international literature. She writes in Romanian, Italian and also in other languages as an exercise in knowledge.
BOOKS
She has published her poems in six books:
in Italy:
1. " Point different ( to be ) " - ed. Italian and
2." In the den of my thoughts ( Dacia ) " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian AlettiEditore 2016,
3.“ Sky amphora " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian EdizioniDivinafollia 2017,
in Romania:
4. " The soul of words" ed. bilingual Romanian/ Albanian Amanda Edit Verlag 2021,
5." Syntagms with longing for clover " ed. Romanian, EdituraMinela 2021.
6." The Voice interior " LidiaPopa and BakiYmeri ed. bilingual Romanian/Italian, Amanda Edit Verlag 2022.
Her poems featured in more than 50 literary anthologies and literary magazines on line from 2014 to 2023 in Italy, Romania, Spain, Canada, Serbia, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Liban, USA, etc.
Her poems are translated into Italian, French, English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Bangladesh, Portuguese, Serbian, Urdu, Dari, Tamil, etc.
Her writings are published regularly with some magazines in Romania, Italy and abroad.
She is a promoter of Romanian, Italian and international literature, and is part of the juries of the competitions.
She translates from classical or contemporary authors who strike for the refinement and quality of their verses in the languages: Italian, Romanian, English, Spanish, French, German, stating that "it is just a writing exercise to learn and evolve as a person with love for humanity, for art, poetry and literature ".
SHE IS
*Member of the Italian Federation of Writers (FUIS)
*Honorary member of the International Literary Society Casa PoeticaMagia y Plumas Republic of Colombia,
*Member of Hispanomundial Union of Writers (Union Hispanomundial de Escritores) (UHE) and Thousands Minds For Mexico (MMMEX)
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*She had come power of attorney Vice-president UHE Romania, Mars18, 2021- August 21, 2021
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*Counselor from Italy for Suryodaya Literary Foundation Odisha India,
*Director from Italy for Alìanza Cultural Universal (ACU) Argentina
*Member Motivational Strips Oman,a member of numerous other literary groups at the level internationally,
*Director of Poetry and Literature World Vision Board of Directors (PLWV) Bangladesh
*Membership of ANGEENA INTERNATIONAL NON PROFIT ORGANISATION of Canada
International Peace Ambassador of The Daily Global Nation International Independent Newspaper from Dhaka Bangladesh - 2023
*Founder literary group Lido dell'anima with LIDO DELL'ANIMA AWARDS
*Founder LIDO DELL'ANIMA Italian magazine
*Founder SILVAE VERBORUM INTERNATIONAL multilingual magazine
*Founder literary currently #homelesspoetry
etc.
Macedon’s Alexander
born in myrrh, died in velvet
lived as verb, lived as helmet
Babylon’s fatal pander
WEATHER REPORT FOR BLIND OPTIMISTS
Proudly, dawn brings out
those debutante clouds of swan --
black vultures
are secluded
from this slack culture,
tragedy is outlawed
from all our strategies.
Gradually, stratosphere turns lapis lazzuli.
CENOZOIC
Dinosaurs didn’t stay
dinosaurs, did they?
They became chickens
and museum exhibitions.
What about us?
Hitchhikers once,
between exits,
and not yet fixed
to this landscape
of no escape.
ONCE, ONCE
At one time some people believed
that the elephants
had sex but once:
No wonder such a memory!
Once, I thought love was measured
in some mean distance of imaginary numbers
from whole digits to infinity squared.
One perfect combination. (The tumblers
turn and twist.) My sandpapered fingers
bared to the wrist. But secrets hide
in the between.
Once, love was obvious as the ebb and
flow of ocean is to charts and sailors.
(But sea, O sea – you scene of unseen
sights – you graveyard of mariners –
a gale, a new leak, or a sleeping watch,
and your white wave just swallowed me like bread
unleavened.)
Does a lemming really embrace the sea
with a lover’s greed?
To know the sea, roughly
one taste’s enough.
But what about love?
TRAD
So we pooled together our quarters
to buy a beige wedding dress
and hire a birdsong processional
and a greenwood wedding hall.
Deciding to forego a sermon,
we said those words that we meant,
and we solidified everything
with wine kisses and smoke rings.
But then this mud ball rolled below us
and moved us separate ways.
