I am Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac               

Hah so there you are. Hah so there you are whichwise won’t now nor never believe in this comfybed—this comfybed you believe on in one of two ways depending on depending of, as;  1, that it is no rest at all ‘cause no sleep’s allowed, or 2. It is rest time please leave me alone I am sleeping don’t tug me up out over to you whomever you are, which doesn’t matter, on cause which that you need your sleep and can’t function without it so don’t ruin the morning to come by making it another stumbling sand pit of low exhaustion inability to know hear understand speak or or or whatever, so. 

No mind my nameplate that back at Grundig’s read Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac and that now again reads what eh? Oh, pitiful one claiming it is too far out for one such asleep as you are not so okay so okay here it is flat in your face my name’s Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac see this Helena yas first name then LeClerc yas nextname then Reformed yup yup yup that’s me too all over and the last be; Solemniac; off punch you’ gut wit’  Helena—then wit’ LeClerc Reformed—then last wit’ Solemniac—hey!  Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac—ho! There! You woke now? Wakened out up and in now eh? 

So! Sonboy!
Listen to me I am Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac, and again and forever Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac so!

Be awake!
Now and immediately! 

Ah oh stand back blanket flung four by four splintering sheet rent gold flecks shattered torn shreds flying shot from the ground and unseen in the dark, signboard first in two and, unseen in the dark, then in five, is eh then in fifty eh one hundred eh all rubble eh grown down into grassweeds time and pressure pressure and time too hot much too hot much hot too much too hot no up get go up get go danger hey—

Sonboy up awake and unseen in the dark shouting.
The light! Give me light!
What is the where is this? 
Give me light!

Snap-on; all a’beaming—
Sonboy, good morning. 
Ah—who are you—I—

I am, for the last time, Helena LeClerc Reformed Solemniac. 
Oh—
But, as previously stated, you may call me Dwight.

Sonboy’s fists came up twisting the sleep from his eyes. The black pebble swirl from within soothed and soothed and he kept at it until the pressure turned unpleasant lowering his fists, and, blinking, he beheld things at last clearly.

Sonboy! Sonboy.
At last and for once clearly.
Mom, he stated. 

The word licked in his mouth as she said, Come on Sonboy. I’ll whip you up some breakfast. Come on.


 Jim Meirose's short work is widely published, and his novels include "Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer"(Optional Books), "Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection" (Mannequin Haus), "No and Maybe - Maybe and No"(Pski's Porch), "Audio Bookies" (LJMcD Communications), "Et Tu" (C22 press), and "Game 5" (Soros Books).  info: www.jimmeirose.com, X id @jwmeirose

-MD. Rizwan Islam (Talha)

My Mother

My mother’s name is Mst. Roksana Yesmin. She is 35 years old. She is a M.A. She teaches in a primary school in Dinajpur. After school hours she works at home. She cooks our food. She also looks after my old grandmother and my little sister. She takes care of our health and studies. On holiday, she cooks special dishes for us. She washes the clothes. She keeps the house clean. Sometimes she goes to the market. She also visits relatives. She helps the sick people. In the evening, she watches TV. She spends her free time with us. She remains busy the whole week. No person in the world is like my mother. 

So, I love my mother very much.

MD. Rizwan Islam (Talha) is a student of grade six in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

If the body told stories 

A scar is an anthology 
inscribed on my body
in delicate pieces, with
life’s treacherous ink.
My skin, once in its glories,
white as the sea’s frothy lip kissing the shore. 
It glistened, for it had never been branded 
by a brush or stained with paint. Until life raided, 
made a conquest on every inch, each territory a different memory.

After Jay Kophy’s: “If the body could speak.”


Sadiya Abdulaziz is a writer and voice-over artist from Nigeria who has been fascinated with stories from a young age. She loves conversational poetry. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Nantygreens, Spillwords, and other publications. Currently, she is a Poetry Fellow of the Sprinng Writing Fellowship. 

IF I WERE A TREE

If I were a tree
the tree, hidden inside me.
Perhaps a large Mango tree,
all the bird's nests, all the beehives
built inside me;
Bees are flying flowers to flowers
to collect bud nectar.
Birds sing and dance in the branches of flowers.
If I would be a tree
The tree, hidden inside me.
My branches and leaves are umbrellas
that shelter from summer dust and heat.
People sit under the trees
in hot waves of air and humidity.
Like an air cooler, but in a safe way
trees reduce climate misery.
I wish I would be a tree
the tree, hidden inside me.
The rain drops on my leaves
the insect hides below to flee.
The sparrows are bathing feathers are falling
like a paratrooper swinging in the air.
In the beehive, the queen came out from her chamber
Her Majesty bath in the tender;
the rainwater flashing through the root
The ants are climbing to reach the bark
Beneath the bark, there are colonies of troops.
I wish I could be a tree
the tree, hidden inside me.
My fruits are sweet and sour
with green, golden and red cores.
Flavour and freshness,
mind-blowing fragrance.
It's beauty and happiness
It's courage and kindness! 
I wish I would be a tree
the tree, hidden inside me.


 
THE BLUE MIMOSA
 
I had seen,
the blue Mimosa trees in blossoms
and was overwhelmed by its beauty
but I don’t know its name.
You’re talking about it,
when the season of flower is gone.
And; when you come to my life
I noticed in your eyes,
the season has gone again.
This time, the season of love.
Because-
you were in enormous pain
for your past.

 

ANOTHER TRY

Sometimes,
I am not afraid of life
nor afraid of death.
But I think, 
what will happen 
after our death.
Will there someone waiting for you
someone else will be mine
or will we become dust
or a molecule with an endless life.
How far we will travel
how many galaxies 
how many stars
will you read my poems
when I will be the universal traveler.
Shall I feel this loneliness while
traveling star after star.
I want this human life back
with another try.
You will sit with me
I will sit beside.
And that will be time for our divine love
without endless cry. 


THE SUNSET IN NAGARKOT HILLS

I am standing with a friend
yet I am alone
and thinking about you.
The sun is setting in the west
of Nagarkot hills.
Twilight is visible at skyline
clouds kiss the forest greens.
Birds and insects are making noisy sounds
evening temperature is getting chilled.
fogs and clouds are flying like soft cottons
and I am alone
with many people.
Most tourist couple have already left,
how unlucky they are
those did not kiss each other
in this foggy mountain evening. 


IF YOU CALL ME

Distance creates disappearance
time kills memories.
The world is a small village
but we are from two countries.
Two different races, religion
and ethnicity.

If you call me,
I will fly like an eagle
if you call me
I will try like an ant.
if you call me
I will love you like a human
giving up the obsession.
If you call me
I will build a home;
our two bodies
will become one
with the love of the divine.

so, please call me
please call me back
let’s be you are mine
I am yours
let’s fulfill this human life. 


SOLITUDE

Here,
I have no family
no country
no beloved
yet, I hold the entire
universe in my heart. 
-alone and lonely. 



THOSE TWO EYES

I have fought
in so many difficulties
yet, I lost
in front of those two eyes.  



Tareq Samin is an Author, Human Rights Activist and Social Entrepreneur. He is the editor of the bilingual literary journal Sahitto. He has authored ten books. His poems have been translated in more than 25 languages of which  English, Spanish, Chinese, German, French, Italian are few to mention. His poems, short stories and articles have also published in more than 40 countries.

Tareq Samin received the ‘International Best Poets Award-2020’ from The International Poetry Translation And Research Centre (IPTRC), China and the Greek Academy of Arts and Writing. He has been awarded ‘Honorable Mention’ in Foreign Language Authors category for his poem ‘Another Try’ in ‘The prize il Meleto di Guido Gozzano Agliè’ poetry competition held on 12 September 2020 in Turin, Italy. In July 2021 he won Naji Naaman Literary Prize 2021.

Tareq Samin is a former fellow of Martin-Roth-Initiative Scholarship. The Martin Roth-Initiative is a joint program of ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) and the Goethe-Institut. As a Martin-Roth-Initiative Scholarship fellow he was a guest writer in Goethe-Institut, Kolkata, India, and Kathmandu, Nepal. 
In 2021, he was an International guest writer in Château de Lavigny International writers-in-residence, Switzerland.

In 2023, he has been selected for Hungarian writers-in-residence. Also he has been nominated for the Oak Institute for Human Rights. 

Haibun Highway

[This is an excerpt of a travel journal I wrote in 2017 while walking 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Vancouver, BC, up the Sunshine Coast in the Northwest Pacific, to visit my friends Haedy and Ed in Powell River, BC. I mostly stayed with friends along the way. Using the haibun form (known most famously through Basho’s Narrow Road To The Interior) each day has a description of the writing, followed by a haiku, as well as a haibun with impressions during the rest times.]

September 6
I walk for 14,000 metres along the highway, along the highway, along the highway, past a sign that reads Smugglers Cove, until I reach Secret Cove. There’s a change in plan and I stay at Elizabeth’s, who lives right on the beach. 

lizzy’s couch:
i dream to the water drum
all night long

the ocean’s waters gurgle gently against big rocks, lying there like sleeping hippopotamuses from the river nile. so much more water than land!  the islands, the rocks, the coast are all here at the sufferance of water. it all exists surrounded by what we call air, suffused today as in the last days by the smoke created by the wildfires. 

water, earth, air, fire. water. the water people can be felt – seen? – everywhere. watermen and waterwomen, and watercreatures i can never understand, not equipped to grasp. i see a watercreature hailing a seagull and know that somewhere near, humpback whales are on the move. the sleeping hippopotamuses allow me to sense not only the nile but also the great okanagan lake, creeks in kamloops, the mighty fraser in its canyon. the waternet is everywhere. 

i am of land and water. we’re all of land and water.

	transfixed
	is sit in this
	fairytale puddle


September 7
13,000 metres today, from Secret Cove to Madeira Park. I am taken by signs on the roadside: an announcement of “Visitors Info – 400m” leading to a row of ten or so billboards arranged in a quarter circle; a barn advertising it’s a mink farm, right beside an old “Drink Coca Cola” sign; donut circles screeched into the road with smoking tires. Mario greets me and takes me to his home on the hill.

highway full of curves
wouldn’t wanna walk this way
drunk and in the rain

tonight i sleep in a library. all the books are bound in hardcover, some standing neatly side by side in series – agatha christie, for example, or jane austen. photographs of lovers, mothers, long-dead dogs look down on me. videos beside a tv, respectfully stacked. a dog pillow lies on the ground. of sounds i notice hardly any, none from the outside on this quiet wooded hill, only a few from inside the house. before i fall asleep i read a little in a book called sointula island utopia, full of names like linnoila, kurikka and honkala.
the scent of books
how can i not
have a magical night?


September 8
This is my last full day on the Southern part of the Sunshine Coast. I walk 16,100 metres along a highway with less and less traffic, towards Ruby Lake. A woman stops beside me on the opposite side of the road. 
“I’ve seen you on the highway before. Where are you going?”  
“I’m walking from Vancouver to Powell River.”  
“Where are you heading today?”  
“To the Iris Griffith Center.”  
It turns out she works there but the center is closed today. Very generously, she decides to let me in anyway – “I’ll just put the key under the mat.”  Her friendliness bowls me over.   

trees, rocks, blackberries …
joy bubbles from my heart
as i walk

And another night at Elizabeth’s. We have a hoot!

at the iris griffith centre. i have benefitted from so much generosity. sitting here in this beautiful space, i feel it everywhere. the generosity of air and soil, so much unfathomable abundance. the generosity of these strong tree trunks that hold up the roof. the generosity of billions of cells that grew the ten-point antler of the deer skull on the wall. the generosity of the cookies and tea on the table beside me. the generosity of the woman who gave me the key to the centre, just like that, without knowing me. i am grateful. and wish i could be feel the gratitude even deeper, right in my blood, to honour the generosity that has been thrown my way, a tidal wave, a sandstorm of generosity. 

can’t repay
all the wealth tossed at me – 
not meant to

September 9
It rains. I walk to the ferry and it rains. I dry out, just a little, on the ferry, and it rains. I walk from the ferry, and it rains. For 10,200 long metres I get very wet, then suddenly Haedy and Ed show up. I am confused; I was not planning to see them until I arrived at their doorstep, a good 30,000 metres from here. I am wet. It rains. I get into their car. It rains. Disappointment over not walking today’s allotted stretch, gratitude, and confusion tumble about in my head. Haedy and Ed drive me to the B&B I had arranged for the night and the day after, a day of rest. The place is stunning and luxurious.

wet rat
tumbling through the landscape
the cackle of a crow

turn on the water in the shiny sink. add shampoo, the next best thing if there is no laundry detergent. dunk the socks – the socks must go first, they are the dirtiest. their former white is grey and black in most places although clean spots shine through like the clouds behind a sudden gap between trees. 
turn the water off.  we finally, finally had rain today but there will be no reason for a long time to waste water. add underwear, bra, t-shirt. squeeze it all a bit and let it soak. check the rain-drenched jacket – is it drying?  look at the alice munro book. i like the really short stories and the really long ones. “wild swans,” – yes, i’ll read that one. 

return to the sink. the socks need soap – what do we have here today?  lavender. the time for lavender bloom is over; we’re heading into autumn. as am i. this 62-year-old remembers washing laundry by hand as a given, not something done with tender nostalgia about archaic times. 

the owner of this luxurious place has cushion covers embroidered with the same colours and deer motif as my grandmother’s. embroidered by hand.

and suddenly
summer’s over
… one squishy step at a time …


September 10
Stillwater Creek B&B
A Day of Rest

i wake up at the earliest dawn, sensing it’s not completely dark anymore. first i hear nothing but quiet. the tide has gone out. then crickets. when a few moments later the seagulls start their screech, i know night is over. out of the dark gray-blue, a growl. it seems to come from the porch or … no, not the porch. farther down, by the water. then another growl and a whole chorus. this is not what bears sound like. bears are forest animals, quiet, they don’t talk like drunks in a pub. and then i understand – sea lions!  they growl and bellow and gurgle, throaty voices unmistakably carried by their large blubber bodies.

then – a swooshing and rushing from the same area where i believe the sea lions to be – no, farther away. 

a night of sensing but not knowing the sounds. not fully awake, i think of hurricanes, and i’m a little afraid. the rushing gets louder and nearer, not fast like a plane but moving inexorably, directly, without obstruction, to this beautiful house.

sea lions –
amid the surround sound of rain
a canticle of growls

Vollmann’s Poor People slightly altered

Soot covered woman of the burned land, Madagascar
Homeless camp under the freeway, Miami
People and streetscapes, Riverton, Oregon
Office cleaning lady just off work with Colonel Sanders
	(life-sized statue) Bangkok 
“I think they are poor” venerable white-haired man begging, 
	Beijing
Congolese beggar boy, dressed in filthy rags
Unknown street sleepers
Man in rubble of destroyed home
Man with photo and deed to his destroyed home
Garbage lady, Nanking
Panorama of box houses, Tokyo
Beggar in full body burqa like an angel of death, Yemen
Streetwalker in burqa approaching a rickshaw, Peshawar
Homeless man reading a newspaper in park, Tokyo
Three drunks, Nome, Alaska
Beggar girl with deformed nose
Beggar pretending to be armless, Bangkok
Family in front of their bullet pocked house, Congo
Snarling beggar, Bogotá
Man with crooked face, Bogota 
“Donate here to get me out of your neighborhood” placard, 
	Oregon
Afghan boys playing in wrecked Soviet plane, Afghanistan
Afternoon on Ave de la Mort, Brazzaville


 
Operation Crossroads 1948: Bikinis, a journal, extracted

As culled from the journals of forward observer
	Of Bikini Island tests, Dr. David Bradley, in
	his book , NO PLACE TO HIDE


“In the three years of the “atomic age,” five bombs
(or is it six?) have been exploded. On only these last 
two or three have men been prepared to study and
record the findings under anything like controlled
conditions.”

“This morning the surface (of the ocean) was
scattered over with tiny floating jellyfish, or baby
men-o-wars. Delicate, diaphanous creatures, they
look like blown cherry blossoms on a windy lawn
of the Pacific.”

“By the nature of our work almost everything we know
is potentially dangerous.”

“Actually, of course, there will never be any great control
of ideas concerned with atomic energy, the principles
have already spread like an epidemic.”

“Lectures on physics have given way to the practical
business of the detection of radioactivity.”

“It will be difficult to convince people of the dangers 
of radiation.”

“The persistent power of the bomb after it has exploded is
its greatest menace.”

“They(the old and wise) doze a moment in the sun and
wake up on fire.”

 

Sante’s Evidence

“Traces of innumerable human beings lost to history
once and for all, without monuments or descendants
or living record.”

“A copy of a Black Hand threat letter, decorated with
obscene drawings.”
“An enigmatic set of shots, from various angels of
a man’s right hand with two thumbs.”
“Magnified  views of pieces of jewelry and barely
decipherable snapshots.”
“Studies of urinals at different (police) station houses.”
“Locations: bedrooms, bars, back alleys, vacant lots,
storerooms, hovels hallways”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”

“Objects of interest, at least momentarily, taken together,
they become stills from a film, a nightmare, ride from room
to room in the small hours.”
“These subjects are constantly in the process towards
obliteration.”
“These photographs-as evidence, they are mere artless
records, concerned with the details…they are the book-
keeping entries, with no transfiguring mission, and serve 
death.”
“We are breaking a taboo as old as the practice of shutting
the eyes of cadavers and weighing down their lids.”
“Photography like death, interrupts life.”
“The more empty the photograph, the more it will imply 
horror.”
“Empty photographs have no reason to be except to show
that which cannot be shown.”
“Evidence is a magnet for the random.”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”

 
Julia Solis’ New York Underground: the Anatomy of a City,
	in text and photographs with occasional commentary

Inside the Croton Aqueduct (like The Thing from Outer Space)
Roots (like veins) inside the long-abandoned Croton Aqueduct
Rebuilding the foundation of 7 World Trade Center
A manhole cover leading to a branch of Croton Aqueduct (like
	a portal to the outer circles of hell)
Sealed water pipes to a branch of Ridgewood Reservoir 
	with graffiti, Brooklyn
The gate chamber on the Bronx side of High Bridge (with 
	standing water and garbage)
Inside a storm drain Queens

Ghost Stations:
City Hall station abandoned retaining some of its former glory
Abandoned  91st street station with elaborate graffiti
Sealed staircase lower-level City Hall station
Remnant of obsolete trolley station Essex and Delancy
Long abandoned Croton Aqueduct well on its way to being 
	reclaimed by nature
Virginal track segment, never used
Ghostly staircase eastern end of Lexington Ave. station
Ground Zero October 2001
Long after last transport, a gurney in a tunnel, Seaview Hospital
Mattresses piled in deteriorating heaps in basement of a mental
	hospital
Obsolete freight track, Hell’s Kitchen
Long forgotten abandoned burial crypts
The central aisle of the crypt of St. Patrick’s cathedral



 
A Plague of Souls: Contemporary (Mostly) Japanese Noir 

Devotion of Suspect X
Tokyo Nights
Hotel Lucky Seven
Sleeping Dragon
All She Was Worth
In the Miso Soup
Coin Locker Baby
The Devil’s Flute
Slow Fuse
Three Assassins
Bullet Train
Crossfire
Grotesque
Real World
Out
Winter Sleep
Almost Transparent Blue
The Memory Police
Village of Eight Graves
 


		Freud

On Aphasia
Interpretation of Dreams
Secret Memories
The Future of Illusion
The Ego and the ID
Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious
The Psychology of Everyday Life
“Civilized” Sexual Morality and Modern Illness
The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation of Erotic Life
Mourning and Melancholy Civilization and Its Discontents
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Medusa’s Head
Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the psychic lives 
	of savages and neurotics
Reflections on War and Death
A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psychic Analytic 
	theory of disease
Case Studies: 	Dora
		Little Hans
		Rat Man
		Wolfman
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious	
 

Brutal (Soviet) Bloc Post Cards

“Ideas are more powerful than guns.
We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?
	Joseph Stalin

Monument to Builders of the Volga Power Station 1967
Worker and Collective Farm Women (statues) circa 1960’s
(Literal) Flower of Life (concrete sculpture) 1968
Monument to the Conquerors of Near Universe 1988
Monument to the Conquerors of Space (glass ellipse) 1964
A Special Sign at the entrance to the city, Brest, 
	(indescribable)  1987
Memory of Military Glory, Moldavia 1983
Karl Marx Monument, Tashkent, 1980 (Flyaway concrete hair)
Kulpenberg TV Tower (“beehive” on concrete tower)
Avala TV Tower, Belgrade (pointed as a needle)
Slovak Tower Building, Bratislava 1983 (inverted pyramid)
Brotherly Mound, Hillock of Fraternity Memorial Complex, 
	Bulgaria 1980
Museum of the revolution, Lithuania SSR 1980
Obelisk of Glory, Modavic, 1972
Concrete arch known as Andropov’s Ears, Tbilisi, Georgia 1983
Museum to the Defenders of the Caucasian Mountain Passes,
	1983 (Concrete henges rising)
Monuments to the heroic Sailors of the Black Sea, 1971
All-Terrain Vehicle Monument to the Pioneers 1987
Broken Ring Monument, Lake Lagoda, 1966
Monument to the Communists Who Died in September
	1923 Uprising, Bulgaria
Alyosha Monument to the Defenders of the Soviet Arctic,
	Murmansk, 1986
Armenian Genocide Memorial Cemetery Complex 1967
The Sash of Glory, Odessa 1975 (glorious silhouette carved 
	From concrete)
The Constinesti Obelisk-Constinesti Beach, 1970 (White 
	Polished marblesque, whatever on the beach front)
Star Monument Kharkiv, Ukraine 1975
Monument to the executed partisans, Yugoslavia
Arch of Diversity, monument dedicated to the unification
	Of the USSR and Ukraine 1982