Poetry from Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa

Light skinned Filipina woman with reddish hair, a green and yellow necklace, and a floral pink and yellow and green blouse.
Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa
HIV-AIDS

H ow can one person condemn another
I gnorance does superstitions gather
V irus to fear, no right for spirit to shatter

A cquired illness reason to ostracize in society
I ndifferent to afflicted's pains and tragedy
D evoid of compassion and acts of humanity
S hame on us AIDS knows no diversity

Whatever reasons there may be
Infected ones need not our pity
We are needed to show empathy
To be just there for them our moral duty

One can't be infected with mere touch of care
Support and love definitely can share
Put your feet in their shoes if you dare
Not just risks but their plight be aware





Butac Memories

Dad's from South, with fields of sugar, corn and rice 
Mom's from North, with mountains, cliffs and rivers rise
I was born and raised here in the city of vice

Grew up with telephones, teevee tubes and toys from mall
Bored of movies, fastfoods and buildings tall
Hotels, gymns and 50% sale stall

Still I would have loved to be in the mountain
Bumpy road ride through rocky terrain
On hand cart, who needs horses with brawny 
Uncle in the rain

Rudimentary lifestyle, no electricity strings, 
Bamboo pipe water from mountain springs
Ghost and monster scares round wood fire rings

Forget about land hole stairs.
Luck for balance, go home in pairs
House slumping up the trail, no gates- no cares

Cousins with practical tricks under sleeves
Care for itchy oozey barks and thorny leaves
Faires and mermaids Grandma's voice weaves

Break the fast by the firewood oven before ten
Lunch of river froglets and exotic dish, Aunt Mary's kitchen
Dinner higher up the mountains with Uncle Eugene

Just a couple weeks of rare vacation
Back to Manila lowlands for education
Tears and clinging hugs for lifetime devotion

Mountain ranges surreal nostalgic
City born life a childhood tragic
Land just below the skies is pure magic



Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry. 

Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of equality and proper stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

Poetry from Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna

Young middle aged Central Asian woman with short brown hair, reading glasses, a floral top and brown jacket.
Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna

I READ... 

I read ghazals, i read novels 
I travelled, i smiled, and drowned .
Life's ain't like literature class, alas! 
i failed in a story i owned... 
Silence's neither being alive nor dying, 
The most heavy blows of howl. 
To smile while your crying, 
A witch that break your soul...

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). 

She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by Yunus Emro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey and five years in Ukraine. Currently lives in Switzerland. Married, mother of five children. It was not possible to publish poems and translations written by the poet in the next ten years.

Poetry from Zahro Shamsiyya

Central Asian woman with a purple headscarf, brown eyes, and a white top and black jacket
Zahro Shamsiyya
Autumn ..

The world is full of treasures,
It is as if tears are shed.
Life is fast, it passes quickly.
The stone is crushed like dust.
Step taken - memory,
Screaming clock miles.
I can't think of anything,
Joyful ways of childhood.
The faces of the flower idols are combed.
Shamshad's legs bent, see,
The heart is addicted to love,
  It makes the nerves tense.
There are many who have reached this fall,
Those who do not are neighbors of Allah.
I do not know how much time is left?
A dream with no meaning ..
I was looking for a chorus,
I'm thirsty, it's heartbreaking.
I fell in love with you,
This is destiny, this is vision.
Oh, the memory bag is beautiful,
There are lovers, there are more enemies.
I'm done in the fall, deliberately ghazal,
To soothe a thirsty heart.
Autumn..The world is full of treasures ..
Life is fast, it passes quickly ...

Sharipova Zuhro Sunnatovna (Zahro Shamsiyya) She was born on April 9, 1969 in the Nurata district of the Navoi region. Her first poem was published in 1985 in the Gulhan magazine. Uzbek publishing houses published works in the journal "Sharq Yulduzi", in the literature and art of Uzbekistan - "Ma'rifat", in various regional and district newspapers. World almanacs in Canada, -2017 in Dubai WBA 2018 "Turkish poets of the world" (Buta 3) 2019, "Muhammad Yusuf izdoshlari" 2017 almanac. She published her book "Ismsiz tuigular"

Poetry from Graciela Noemi Villaverde

Light skinned Latina woman with reddish blonde shoulder length hair, curly at the ends. She's got brown eyes and red lipstick and a small necklace, black jacket and floral black blouse.
THE DREAMS ARE HERE… 

The night bird, 
He is a digger, 
takes out the gloom of the echo, 
spokesperson of the infinite and sings to the void

The dreams are here 
as an unavoidable step
Like attractive craters, they opened, 
long before the floods and the light

My fragments tremble, 
they look at me in gerund

Your heart washes the wound in my head, 
moving on tiptoe... 

He does not need the Abaco of my words 

Your exile is an amputation, 
Not programmed. 

My exhaustion a solar eclipse
That on the knees of the world 
a staff of your music falls apart and disappears, 
food for my soul

I mourn you in my insistent side and ghost. 
in the asylum I will see the birds. 
before they run away
 
Your sun will always hide in my eyes
I don't say goodbye, because 
goodbye offends the distance

We'll meet 
When love does not exhale that bitter perfume, 
in the ataraxia night of return.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and a poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina. Based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters, author of seven books. Poetry genre. Awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects, of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She's also a commissioner of honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.

Poetry from Faleeha Hassan

Young Central Asian woman with a green headscarf and a dark colored blouse and brown hair and eyes.
Faleeha Hassan

The Futility of Protesting Near Bustling Cemeteries

(For the Most Important Person in My Life, My Son Ahmad)


Preamble:
Take my spirit for your shirt
And use my heart’s arteries for shoelaces.

Poem

My spirit patched with raw dreams,
My soft body blemished by war’s scars,
My heart crushed and crunched like
Leaves under foot—
These are the sole signs of my existence
In a room that awaits a hurricane
That dreams of unleashing its gales.

My son,
Let me say tonight,
Objectively,
That I can’t do anything more.

2
What happens,
Happens all the time.
What doesn’t happen,
Never happens,
But we always paint a comely face
On life’s hideous visage.

Translated by William M. Hutchins

Faleeha Hassan is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq.
She received her master's degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books, her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese, ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian language. She is the Pulitzer Prize Nomination 2018, PushCart Prize Nomination 2019.
Member of International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020, Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021) One of the Women of Excellence selection committees 2023
Winner of women the arts award 2023
Member of Whos’ Who in America 2023
SAHITTO AWARD, JUDGING PANEL 2023
Cultural Ambassador - Iraq, USA
Email : d.fh88@yahoo.com


Poetry from Slavica Pejovic

Older middle aged light skinned woman with earrings, light blonde hair, a necklace and a black blouse
Slavica Pejovic

You You Yes

Be enough for myself
Incomplete without her
Enough for her
And in the unknown

They sometimes call it a miracle
The metamorphosis of yours
And the buzz of a bee can't distinguish
From the silence of the hornet
I'm not at the loss site
From the cross to the cross

You turn around your axis
You are somewhere
Close

On my way to Katanga
Still to come
And you exist.

Slavica Pejović is a B.Sc. Political scientist, diplomat, writer, poet, editor-in-chief of the magazine for culture and science "Majdan". She wrote three documentary books on the history of librarianship, 13 independent collections of poetry and two joint collections. Winner of numerous awards and recognitions in Serbia, Tunisia, Romania, Italy... Her poetry has been translated into many languages: Hungarian, German, Italian, Arabic, Macedonian, Russian, Bulgarian,... French, Spanish. .. She is a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia. She lives in the city of Požarevac in the Republic of Serbia.


Poetry from Aasma Tahir

Young South Asian woman with light skin, dark sunglasses, dark shoulder length hair, and a yellow blouse.
Aasma Tahir
An Ode to Night 

What an enthralling night it is! 
A magical realm where even all stars are engrossed 
In imaginative thoughts, 
Where the moon descends into the valley, 
In the hushed moments. 

Where overshadow the old weathers, 
Where dreams have been waking since ages, 
And the glowworms gleam, 
But what are these piercing pangs? 
In the heart of depravities 
Done stealthily in the forests.
 
How pitch-dark night it is! 
It consists of dull golden, light green, 
Strange magical priding vinaceous vines.



Secrets of love 

Love travels beyond the world of secrets... 
How will you keep it in your fist ... 
Voices of love even today 
Can be heard out of tales. 

What faith will you introduce love to? 
Its faith begins with your beauty, 
Which bars are you talking about? 
It is cruelty of times that perpetuates love. 

Love is a window, 
It is a resting abode for clouds, 
Where breathing is impossible, 
Love emanates from there. 

Seeing your fresh face this morning, 
It finds treasures from the islands of your eyes, 
Then the day moves towards twilight, 
And like a poor person, tired and defeated, 
It keeps counting all treasure of the journey ...
 
In this city of oppressors ... how Love breathes? 
No sighs are allowed here, 
We know it's forbidden ... 
Listen to the walls ... 
Even today, Anarkali's love song is humming, 
But who will come 
And free the living souls of these fragile hearts, 
Carry on the shoulders and bury them ...


Aasma Tahir is a poetess from Lahore, Pakistan. She is a poetess of English and Urdu both. She has done Masters in English Literature. She is the member of World Nations Writers’ Union. Her writings have been published in several Anthologies and national and international literary magazines and websites. Recently her poetry book “A Lantern in the Forest” has been published.
Her interview along with fifteen English poems have been selected in an Anthology “Postmodern Voices” published from India. 
As an internationally recognized poetess, she recently achieved membership of World Nation Writers’ Union, Kazakhistan and an award “Paragon of Hope” awarded by World Nations Writers’ Union.
She was invited in World Peace Summit, Nigeria by World Institute for Peace to present her poetry.

Her English poem “Woman of Art” has been selected in an Anthology of English Poetry ‘Emerging Horizons’ published from India.
Moreover, her English poem “Blood Festival” has been selected in an Anthology ‘Jallianwala Bagh Poetic Tributes’ published from India. Her poems “Daemonic Tales”, “Breathing in Love” and “Imitation of Life” have been published in  BHARATHVISION.INFO (online magazine, affiliated with ‘Motivational Strips’). Her acrostic poem “Romance” got the first position in Tunision Asian Poetry contest and received winner certificate.

Moreover, her English poems “A New Moon of the Deep Chasm”, “Imitation of Life” and “The Lost File of Love” have been published by Sir Sajid Hussain in his book ‘A Bouquet of Triple Colours’.
Furthermore, her several poems have been translated in Bangla language and published in the newspaper ‘The Daily Gour Bangla’.