Rejoicing in the LordFor: Olga Shearer
Psalm: 34:3 (NIV)- “Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.”
My soul sings to the Lord, as the sun rise your closeness comes.
I kneel at the foot of my bed and praise you Lord with joy.
What a delightful song my heart sings in gladness to know you.
I turn to you for you have healed my troubled soul by your love.
Rejoicing in my salvation from the heaviness of a broken heart.
Now there is gladness that I have come to know of your redemption.
I once was lost in the mist of pain and sadness for I had no hope.
You spoke to me and give me hope by the gleam in your eyes.
Your voice was soft, and your heart had warmth for my aching soul.
My weary bones would have been crushed if not for your gentleness.
I turned to you for comfort and found rest and I rejoiced
A pillow to lay my head and rest a weary mind to be restored.
My soul delighted in your salvation for all my sins were forgiven.
Labyrinth of love
As a hard-to-solve theorem,
As the unknown of a mathematical formula,
You have conquered my heart,
I've been like a mad wanderer.
If the clouds collide and lightning strikes,
If a loving heart looks at the sky,
If lightning wears a ring around his neck,
Like a current of emotions.
Love is an illusion, invisible to the eye,
The bridge of love cannot be woven with rope,
The word I love cannot be said in words,
The secret is not known like pyramids.
Happiness, you are a mysterious blessing,
You are a name that cannot be appreciated,
Sometimes you are destined to not love,
As an unwanted gift.
When it's enough, everyone becomes a king.
By banishing longing, he becomes a king.
Only when he sees us, act as 'Nadir shah'
He does not remember like the misers.
Elmaya Jabbarova was born in Azerbaijan. She is poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for
Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 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.
THE VILLAGE WHERE I WAS BORN
I was born in the village of Sarapayon, Khanka District, Khorezm Region. They say that the name of the village where I was born is Sarapayon, which is a Persian-Turkish term consisting of "sar-ob-yon". The meaning is "sar" - head, "ob" - water, "yon" - space - the head side of water. Some scientists explain that this term consists of two compounds "sara" - "poyon" and the meaning is "sara" - good, "poyon" - border (territory). Also, in toponomic dictionaries, sahr (a) yi poyon - lower desert, a village built in the remote desert also comes in the meaning.
All three of these indicate that the term is very old. Three canals actually flow through the village, which means the head of this water. These are Shavat, Kulobod, and Khanka canals. It is no exaggeration to say that they cross the middle of the village and are the blood vessels of Sarapoyon lands.
Today, the total land area of the village is 4269 sq.km. Its population is 21,070 people (2012 data). Representatives of different nationalities live harmoniously in Sarapoyon. There are 21,018 Uzbeks, 13 Karakalpaks, 1 Tatars and Ukrainians, and 1 Belarusian.
Sarapoyon consists of 4 neighborhoods: Istiklal, Pakhtagul, Gulistan, Karamozi.
1. Istiklal neighborhood has united 7 peoples. Sarrosh-1, Sarrosh-2, Upper Jingon-1, Upper Jingon-2, Lower Jingon-1, Lower Jingon-2 and Kurpos.
2. Pakhtagul neighborhood has united 5 peoples. Guyinchi, Oram, Tosh, Kemir, Experiment eats.
3. Gulistan neighborhood occupied the largest area of the village. 9 nations are united here. These are: Eshanlar, Menhat, Karakummat, Kulobod, Blue-1, Blue-2, Experiment, Mouse, Khojalar.
4. There are 3 Yangyop, Intizom and Okyop communities in Karamozi neighborhood.
During the entire history of the village, it has been bringing up many proud and memorable people. During the Second World War, hundreds of brave soldiers of this village fought for their people and homeland. How many people died in the battle and are missing. Among these brave men, my grandfather's uncles from our family took part, and both Egamovs, who were only 19 years old, did not return from the war. Not only those who died in the war, but also the hardworking people of our village gave their all to the war, gave their labor, harvest, life...
I love my village, I wouldn't trade it anywhere.
Saparbaeva Aziza Asror’s daughter was born on May 13, 2003 in Khanka district. In 2021, she graduated from school No. 5 in Khanka district with a gold medal. In September 2021, she was accepted as a student at the Faculty of History of UrSU on the basis of the state budget. Currently, she is a gifted student of the 2nd stage of the university. She is a participant of several international and national conferences. She is the winner and laureate of a number of international and republican contests and festivals. About 10 of her scientific articles and theses have been published in republican journals and she is a member of about 10 international organizations.
For Love
Mavis always knew, even as a child, which side of the bread had the butter. A future valedictorian, she was smart, in both her studies and in her life, and was always prepared to seize an opportunity when it came along. Which was why, when Brad Travis, the best player on her high school's football team, finally began flirting with her from afar in study hall, she knew that time was of the essence. She acted. She thought she might be in love with the boy, though she knew him only slightly. Love was the most important thing of all, she thought. So she'd strike while the iron was hot. She walked over to where he sat.
"Hi, Brad," she said demurely, biting her lip and batting her long lashes outrageously at the unsuspecting jock. Somehow, a pen managed to work its way free of her notebook and plopped at Brad's feet with a little click. Brad promptly retrieved the errant pen and presented it like a trophy to Mavis.
"Here ya' go, Mave'," he said, like a friendly puppy.
And so it went. Within minutes the student athlete had been manipulated into asking for Mavis's phone number. When she gave it to him, he fecklessly slapped at his pockets, but, turning up no writing instrument, gratefully accepted the very pen that Mavis had dropped only moments before.
"I'll call you," he promised, as she made her way back to her seat.
. . . . .
On their first date, a movie, of course -- Brad loved movies -- Brad confided to her that he wanted to fall in love, serve in the Marines, and be an auto mechanic, in that order. "Love," he intoned gravely, "is the most important thing there is." Mavis smiled; knowing she'd found her soul mate.
The couple dated for two years and were, against all odds, selected King and Queen of the Prom, Class of 1968. Mavis had gone on the pill two weeks after their first date; but that was fourteen days too late, practically speaking.
After the birth of their baby -- christened Mary after Brad's mother -- Mavis and Brad continued with their high school courtship and careers, despite -- or perhaps in defiance of -- the rampant disapproval expressed by the parents of their fellow students. After graduation, the young people were promptly married in a modest civil ceremony. Times were tough for both families. They opted to live with Mavis's widowed mother, Ellen.
"Mom," said Mavis one afternoon, "Brad wants to take me to the movies on Friday; can you watch Mary?" Her mother, an indulgent grandma, nodded and smiled. "Thanks, mom." It would be their last date before his enlistment.
"What is this movie you're so set on seeing?" asked Mavis as they made their way through traffic to the theatre.
"The Green Berets," replied her husband.
When they walked out of the theatre and into a December snowstorm, Mavis turned to Travis and blurted, "I don't want you to join the Marines!"
Travis frowned. He had this all planned out: after high school he would join the USMC, as had his father before him, serve three years, and attend college on the G.I. Bill. No one in his family had ever gotten an education and Brad certainly didn't have the resources to attend college on his own. What other option did he have? Flipping burgers? The job market was tough. They looked for their car in the driving storm.
"But, Mave', we decided," he protested. "You know that tomorrow I have to head out to Parris Island." The South Carolina training facility was a 16-hour bus ride from their home.
"But, that was before I got a glimpse of what the war was about," she came back at him. "Why didn't you tell me what it was like?" she demanded petulantly. They found their car and climbed inside.
He shrugged. "My old man made it through three years of service in WWII, and he came out without a scratch," he pointed out.
"I don't care," she snapped. "I don't want you to go!"
"But I enlisted already, the day after graduation. It was that or get drafted. If I don't report, I'll be AWOL, and they'll arrest me."
Now Mavis broke down in sobs. "Mary will never know her dad," she said tearfully.
"She knows me already," said Brad.
"But she's a baby; she doesn't know what a good, kind, loving man you are. She can only learn that as she grows older with you. You're all about love," she told him.
They sat in the car long into the night, discussing their possible futures, till at length Mary glanced at the clock on the dashboard and said, "Mom will be crazy with worry. Let's get home."
That night they made ardent love, as if for the last time.
. . . . .
All through the ensuing 18 months, Mavis Travis was alert to all news pertaining to the war and the military, particularly the Marine Corps. She watched the nightly news -- particularly Walter Cronkite on CBS, since he, like her, was against the war. She read comprehensive articles in Time and Newsweek and even subscribed to the New York Times. She cried at stories of love lost, and when Brad received his inevitable deployment to Viet Nam, Mavis cried again. Mavis and Brad wrote letters almost constantly. Eagerly she'd tear open the featherlight blue envelopes his letters came in. She could sometimes tell they had been opened by censors, but she thought little of it.
"I'm lonely, Mave'," he'd mourn. "I miss you so much!" One day Brad wrote something which frightened her. "If I don't make it back, as a man, a whole man, you find somebody else. Mary needs a father, and you need a husband." Had he been injured?" she wondered wildly. In the news every day were accounts of men returning from Viet Nam as mere shells of their former selves. In 'Nam, Brad was a "tunnel rat," who explored caverns and tunnels and unleashed a hellish inferno from a flame thrower to incinerate the "enemy." And he summarily shot to death "gooks" with his M-16. he wrote her.
Brad was ambivalent about his job, at best. "Like Ali says, 'these North Vietnamese never done nothin' to me," wrote Brad, referencing the former heavyweight boxing champion, stripped of his title and presently in court for failing to report for active duty. While Brad was abroad, Mavis enrolled in the local college, studying pre-law. She got an accelerated course of study, due to her perfect marks on her admissions test. She could finish in just two years.
. . . . .
At long last, Brad's tour in Viet Nam concluded and he went to Hawaii for R & R. Mavis got a letter from him, postmarked Honolulu and with a return address that read: "The World." She was so happy she could have cried.
Everyone was relieved and glad when Brad returned home. He had about 18 months remaining on his enlistment, but he would spend it stateside. As she sat with family in the Travises' living room for a celebratory dinner on Brad's first night home, Mavis regarded him proudly. He seemed fit and alert and happy and so her anxieties were allayed. It wasn't until they spent their first night together in bed that her fears came back.
"I can't do it, Mave'," muttered Brad, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.
"What is it, baby?" asked Mavis, running her hand over his well-muscled shoulders. "You still thinking about the war?" She was determined to understand, to be of help to her man.
"It's not so much the war itself," said Brad.
"Then what is it? Do you feel guilty being home while your buddies are still in Asia?" Mavis had read a plethora of books regarding soldiers' reactions to returning home after active service. In college she was also taking a degree in psychology.
Brad hesitated for a long moment, before he said, "It's more someone."
"Um?" Mavis didn't understand.
"Lien. It means water lily," he said warmly, his face suddenly lighting up. "I met her at Chu Chi." Mavis stared at him. "I was so lonely, Mave', and she had lost her husband in the war. I...we, fell in love." Her hand fell away from his shoulder.
All Mavis's dreams and expectations and hopes came crashing down upon her. Her husband, for whom she had prayed every night and lighted a candle every Sunday, and who had fathered her child, was in love with another woman. She fairly swooned.
"There's more, Mave'," said Brad. How much more could there possibly be? she thought bleakly.
"There's Lieu," he said. "She was born two months ago. She's my daughter, Mave'," and he grinned stupidly, unaware of the toll it was taking on the woman he'd promised to love forever and above all others.
When Mavis didn't respond, he put his hand on her shoulder, but she was too stunned to shake him off. "I want you to meet them," he went on, oblivious to her pain. "I'm petitioning the State Department to allow them to immigrate. It's complicated, but I think we can swing it. Eventually." They didn't make love that night, nor for most nights after that.
. . . . .
When he got out of the Marines, Brad went to a trade school on the G.I. Bill and became an auto mechanic. Mavis, meanwhile, finished her undergraduate degree and enrolled in law school and was an honors student. Their lives went on apace, but it was never quite the same after Viet Nam. Mavis knew that Brad tried, but he wasn't the attentive husband and lover she had known before the war; his heart just wasn't in it. They had no more children.
"Brad cheated on me, Mom," Mavis told her mother one spring afternoon. "He fathered a child by another woman." They had had this forlorn discussion many times before. They all still lived together at Ellen's house.
"Men get lonely in war, honey," murmured mom. Ellen's father had died in WWII and she held soldiers in high esteem.
"I got lonely too, but I never cheated," remarked Mavis crossly.
"You just have to forgive him, baby," said Mom. "It's what love is all about." Mavis sipped her coffee and said nothing. "You graduate tomorrow!" said Mom buoyantly, changing the subject. "You'll be a lawyer!" she exclaimed.
"If I pass the bar exam," Mavis corrected her, with a little smile.
"You aced every test you ever took," Ellen reminded her with a twinkle.
"We'll see," replied Mavis, thankful anew for her mother's unfaltering love.
. . . . .
Mavis, Ellen, 13-year-old Mary and Brad stood at the gate for international flights at the airport, expecting two long-awaited arrivals. Mavis glanced at her husband of 12 years; he seemed anticipatory, edgy. He didn't look at her. Suddenly the huge aircraft deplaned. Mavis recognized Lien and Lieu, from the hundreds of photos she'd seen, even before Brad did. They were petite and beautiful, but seemed so small, so vulnerable. At last they caught Brad's eye and as they entered the concourse, he rushed up to them, swept them both into a warm, loving embrace. Mavis swallowed. It was as if they had never been parted. The love that the three of them shared was manifest and nothing more need be said, she thought.
Ellen turned to her daughter. "What'll happen now?" she asked.
Mavis shook her head. "I don't know."
Suddenly Brad signaled for Mary to join them, and she did, relishing the idea of a younger sister and curious about the strange little woman accompanying her.
"You know," remarked Ellen, "this never could have happened if you hadn't negotiated with the State Department on behalf of Lien."
"I'm an immigration lawyer, Mom; it's what I do. And it knew it was what my husband wanted -- to have his family back."
"You did it for love," said Ellen simply.
Mavis only nodded and continued to watch the welcoming ceremony -- and the expressions of love -- at the gate.
Smoky Lullaby
The birds are getting stoned and it’s all my fault.
I can’t help wanting to unwind with some creature nearby, who maybe just once feels the same
way I do
And the feeling buoys my troubled heart upward
makes me want to consume all of every thing.
After a day of soaking up the people, the places, the thoughts and feelings,
after a day of being the devoured, I want to be the one who devours
Desire desire desire
I am you, you are me
So long as I am coaxed into my dreams and not stranded with my nightmares
So long as the birds who agree to stay in the yard, and the bunny who always inches toward me
to bum a smoke of my green, smoke-filled lullaby
The Female Skin Trap
The woman’s desire to be small is so much more than being sexually attractive.
We want to take up as little space as possible,
We want to shrink into ourselves
We want to be swallowed by the clothes we wear
I say,
Fantasizing of the skeleton utopia,
Oh to drown in the oversized cottons and silks
Not strangled by the linens that somehow feel like myself, my thick skin smothering anything
that dares to contain it
I am tired of bursting at the seams
Of feeling every inch of myself and more
Squeezed, tightly packed, suffocating in my own skin
My layers double, then triple, then rip me to shreds
We want to be microscopic, thin and tall as a blade of grass
Free from the shackles and perceived in surface area just a few inches less-
Until nothing can contain us but ourselves
Earthly Appetite
The earth is a stomach- no, a womb-
Digesting and spitting up and mixing and separating and protecting and defending its creatures
When it's done absorbing and disbanding me, it hesitates to regurgitate anything I’ve said or not
said
The earth is a womb.
Every morning I am born again, and the world spins like a coin
Neither mother nor father to its creatures
And the sky rumbles and growls when it is hungry for more
Swallow me whole, I beg of the sky, who may decide to tell the whole Earth
Who are you but the sum of your parts?
Sometimes, Earth, you make me wonder whether you are tasting us, savoring and delighting, or
merely eating us for the nutrients required to survive..
Land of enchantment, or Badlands?
We’re drawn to places that promise to change us
The elements are different, the water and air a different taste
The homes sculpted of clay, its conception still visible to the passersby
Below the watchful Half crescent eye, neither waxing nor waning
The flavors of an ancient and eclectic landscape blending seamlessly-
Green chili, red chili, lavender, prickly pear
Back to the land we go
Places we’ve never inhabited feel like our roots, and how?
HUNGER
What do you do when you’re starving, and nothing tastes good enough?
What do you do when you’re ravished, and everything is unappetizing?
What do you do when your mouth waters for something that doesn’t exist?
Taste whatever it is that you crave so badly, spit it out, swoosh it around,
Draw some conclusion-
Leave no crumbs, sop it up with a hearty bread and make sure to lick your fingers
Then throw it up
Kissing Patty McCalla
Patty, Patty, Patty. When I was seven, all I could think of was Patty. Kissing Patty McCalla. Patty was the tiniest girl in our class, an itty-bitty version of Mary Tyler Moore. Dark hair, impish eyes, the best giggle. For picture day she wore a bright red jumper with chartreuse green leotards and white glossy vinyl Mary Janes. She was the first in our class to wear glasses, but I liked her anyway, maybe more so because of them.
I chased her around the playground at Elmwood Elementary, around the slide, monkey bars, and teeter totters. In the winter, when the slide iced up, the boys crouched at the top and let our hard slick shoes and gravity carry us precipitously down the metal and across the blacktop. Fledgling ski jump Olympians. (Not the girls as at that time all the girls wore dresses every day.) Some kid was always getting hurt. As skinned knees were a daily occurrence, the teachers kept antiseptic and Band-Aids at the ready.
We played jets and parachutes on the swings, and once I fell out the back of a swing and passed out from whacking my head. My ejection seat failed to deploy. I wondered if Patty was watching. Mom was called and I ended up spending a night at Mercy Hospital with a concussion beside a boy a little older who had a heart murmur. I threw up twice in one day: once outside the car on the way to the hospital when we took my sister to Grandma Dearman’s. Mom wasn’t keen on leaving my sister there as Grandpa Dearman was a “mean old bastard.” (He was!) And later, because I threw up cherry Jell-O in my bed, it looked like I was bleeding to death. It gave the nurse a fright. I was amazed at how the nurse could change the whole bed while I was still in it. I was even more surprised when the nurse didn’t seem to mind at all unlike my mother under the same circumstances when I had the flu.
Every recess, Patty was there and those fifteen minutes twice a day were bliss. Though I was equally in love with my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Hennell, and wanted to please her by making paintings and practicing the cursive letters lining the borders of the chalkboards, my mind wandered to Patty two rows over and three seats down. I tried many strategies to sit near her in the reading circle. But at recess, there was Patty, right there beside me. I wasn’t interested in shooting marbles in the dirt or playing kickball with the other boys.
The competition was too fierce. And dangerous. Running towards home, Tom Auger, a boy on my bus route, slid under the chain-linked fence, broke his leg, and spent the next six weeks in a body cast. Though he got behind in school, Tom would later be a high school football star. I was happiest playing with the girls and the other less athletic boys. Girls were more interesting more mysterious, than boys. Why play kickball when there was Patty?
In return for my affection Patty kicked my chins. I came home once too often with black and blue and variations of purple and green legs. But I endured the pain because it was Patty, and she was my girlfriend – as far as I knew. Even though I begged her not to, Mom called Patty’s mom and they laughed together over the kitchen phone about our courtship. The shin-kicking eased up, but I rather missed the bruises. Mom said Patty probably liked me well enough but was just fickle. All I could think was fickle rhymed with and reminded me of pickles. I liked pickles, especially the little sweet gherkins. As usual, Mom did not define the new word or offer up a dictionary.
There were other words like belligerent, incorrigible and insolent that stumped me, though no other grownup I loved used those words describing me. I had a notion of what the word unruly meant. Nine years later when I was driving and Dad was out of the house, on the last day of living with her, Mom threatened to declare me an unruly juvenile according to the Ohio Revised Code, Section 2151.002 – when she was “on strike” and wouldn’t cook, do laundry, or look after my little sister for weeks – wouldn’t allow me do the laundry – when I tried to get out the door with the laundry baskets and detergent – when I shoved her. (Years later we learned that during Mom’s strike a budding molester down the street attempted to lure my little sister inside his house with candy.)
In the summer I missed Patty terribly. We exchanged letters even though we lived only three miles away. These were brief and repetitive as there wasn’t much to talk about in the dog days of summer and our large loopy handwriting didn’t allow for much elaboration. I wanted her to visit so that I might kiss her under the wild cherry tree in the meadow. I implored Mom and Dad to let me ride my bike down Martinsburg Road, a busy highway, to see her.
After all, I rode to Gambier to get a haircut once, over that rickety bridge spanning the Kokosing River. It was a very bad haircut – crooked bangs, but I also stopped at the candy store on Wiggins Street and loaded up with Bazooka Bubble Gum and Three Musketeers. But then, maybe that trek occurred when I was ten or eleven. Kenyon College was there in Gambier and my grandmother was a cook at the dining hall for many years serving the long-hair kids from the East Coast. Grandma and Grandpa had a little dairy farm just outside the village where I spent much of my summers.
My bike was an embarrassment as Dad bought it for me new just before the Sears Spyder and the Schwinn Sting-Ray models with the banana seats and the chopper handlebars came out. Mine was a gearless stylistic remnant of the 1950s – fire engine red with coaster brakes, too much chrome, and whitewall tires for god’s sake. None of the other boys in the neighborhood ever commented on my bike as they were generally polite kids, offspring of professors who taught at the very protestant and very evangelical Nazarene College just down the hill. John Taylor, who played a viola in the orchestra and would become a weather forecaster, had a gold Spyder Mark IV with caliper brakes, a leopard print seat, and a gear-shifter like Steve McQueen’s sportscar.
I felt somehow that I was just a little less cool and was required to work harder at popularity as I was also Catholic and went to catechism on Sundays rather than Bible school. Their evangelical parents were suspicious of Catholics. No, in actuality, prejudiced. Maybe it was because I knew fewer rules and players’ stats in football – though I liked the Jets and Packers for some reason. Maybe it was because I was the only boy in the neighborhood who knew how to swear properly.
I lost track of Patty after fourth grade as, of course, there were other girlfriends: Brenda, Sherry, Robin, Melanie, Penny, Linda, Barbie. But Patty McCalla was my first obsession, and I was indebted to her for that emotional opportunity, the instantaneity of love, the purity of adoration before the animal desire of adolescence took hold. I am not sure I actually kissed Patty when we were seven – even on the cheek, let alone on the lips. I doubt we fully comprehended the procedure even though there was plenty of kissing on television in the old black and white movies at 4:00 on Big Ten Theater and even on Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. I am fairly certain we held hands a bit until it was no longer practical to do so. After high school, I heard she married Tom’s cousin, Dave Auger, and like everyone else suffered the tragedy of adult life. They had a little girl who ran out onto Sycamore Road.
David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.
Passion
I'm burning in the bonfire of desire
I feel your warm lips that are approaching shyly
To mine...
You're not trying to devour me.
And with peace of mind your hands
they run through my body
just make sure
bear
and dress myself
With your body
Without intention
abandon me
Mirta Liliana Ramírez has been a poet and writer since she was 12 years old. She has been a Cultural Manager for more than 35 years. Creator and Director of the Groups of Writers and Artists: Together for the Letters, Artescritores, MultiArt, JPL world youth, Together for the letters Uzbekistan 1 and 2. She firmly defends that culture is the key to unite all the countries of the world. She works only with his own, free and integrating projects at a world cultural level. She has created the Cultural Movement with Rastrillaje Cultural and Forming the New Cultural Belts at the local level and also from Argentina to the world.
