the little ants marching
 

we are the losers

 

the glue of society

 

the little ants

marching for

hope

 

even though destiny

has other things in

mind

 

the lost souls

 

holding on for

something that

resembles a life

we dreamed about

as children

 

sometimes the sun

doesn't even bother

to shine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

some people are
 

i once thought i

was in love with

this beautiful older

woman right up

until she got me

fired from my job

 

and it's not that

i'm unwilling to

accept that some

people are just

fucking evil

 

i only wonder

why the fuck

am i the one

that has to

experience

all of them

 

the witches

have won

again i

suppose
-------------------------------------------------------
just as damaged
 

all the beautiful faces

on those magazines

 

i convince myself

they are just as

damaged as i am

 

any chance meeting

and the life long

quest for the right

one will be resolved

 

and yes, i'm aware

these delusions aren't

healthy and are only

going to lead to

trouble

 

boredom doesn't

exactly keep the

juices flowing

these days
-------------------------------------------------------------
does the madness ever end
 

another day spent breathing

 

another day watching this

crazy fucking mess just burn

 

do i break out the violin

or join a protest and throw

a rock

 

does the madness ever end

 

where is the laughter

 

a joyous hug

 

instead, everyone is buried

in their phones plotting or

masturbating out of hate

 

i tell all the ones i love

that i do love them

every day i can

 

mostly because it is a very

simple act that can bring

someone a moment of joy

 

a smile

 

a flutter of emotion

 

something better than all

the shit we wade through

just to make it to a bed

 

the ground

 

or the concrete of a cell

 

i can't imagine anyone

calling this living
-----------------------------------------------------------------
an interesting test of pain
 

a ghost from

my past has

noticed i'm

mentioning

sex more in

the poems

 

any time that

ghost wants

to take the

hint and

pounce

 

she is more

than welcome

 

lord knows

 

two arthritic

wrists make

for an interesting

test of pain as

one is trying to

climax before

attempting to

get some sleep

 

each and every

night

 

glutton for

punishment

as always



J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Black Coffee Review and The Asylum Floor. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Critically examine Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as a graphic narrative.

The monstrous Penguin-like infant’s accession to the hospital maternity nursery and the emblematic destruction of the feline foreshadows the gothic macabre infested upon Gotham
locale in the midst of holiday seasons. “There is a sense of decay everywhere [...] darkness, danger, toxicity and tragedy.” Like the prejudicial denizens of Gotham, these parents exonerate
their plight by forsaking their bestial offspring in the dump of the disposables to be awashed by the frozen icy stream. 

Penguin’s messianic and visionary apparition thirty three years later
uplifts humanity of that society that erstwhile alienated the castaway Moses. Then Penguin’s politicization in the grotesquery of Madonna and child when he soars on the hydraulic platform of the sewer saving and rescuing Richard Doyle’s/Mayor’s offspring. Dickensian scene re-enactment and re[visioning] in Penguin as the fur collared and a beatific expression while holding the Christmas gift of the baby who is dressed in red and white mini Santa suit. 

Penguin despises the fathers of Gotham, especially Max Shreck for unfolding inhumanity through the unwitting catalyst of the destruction and dooming disposable dumpsters. Saviours in temporality spatially transpose the politicization acts as indictment of the commercialization of religiosity as well as of the sheep-like mentality of the populace. 

Corris writes of the evil clothed in colour and light persuasive of genteelness of the spirit: “Black is good—-Batman, of course—---red or bright is bad[...]The Penguin’s sever level lair; Arctic world is garishly a colourful place; charterhouse toxic bile and a giant yellow ducky serving as Penguin’s Stygian barge.”

“How can you be so mean to someone so meaningless?” remonstrates the house broken and unruly pet symbolized by the dramatis personae of Selina with epitaphic and metonymical
associations to convenience, coffee pourer, and a drudge”[...] “Life’s a bitch, now so am I” self effacing transformation of the feline herdess responds after being lambasted and chastised by
her employer and boss Max Shreck. 

Catwoman Selina correspondingly declaims “Hello there!”
as inverted version “Hell here!” while defying wasters, poisoners and recyclers and abdicates two letters from the neon sign of the billboard of the apartment. Selina’s slickers attires herself as Catwoman to empower the secretariat drudgeries and Shreck’s havoc; nonetheless while doing so, Selina is trapped within her victimization. Selina finds her nails in the sewing basket
after dismantlement of the phone and answering machine and she cuts the rain slicker to stitch with her Catwoman attire. 

Selina is a victim of herself in a state of commodification destined to
be recycled nine times somewhat mystical but not immortal. Max Shreck is a twisted and inverted and maladjusted Scrooge, as Selina maligns “Anti-Claus” through annihilating former using electrically shock device that she had gotten from the members of the Red Triangle Gang.

This behaviour is counterfoiling as self-reflexive and self-effacing with personal imperative. The later also relinquishes her eighth life, as she kills her former boss with an electrically charged kiss. Scriptwriter Water states, “Selina isn’t a villain and she isn’t Wonder Woman for the greater good of society”; she will not gather up that by which she is not valued by bearing her lives.

Penguin possesses animal or freakish monstrosity and wretchedness as well as anthropogenic traits as dualistic dichotomized identities like Selina Penguin waves shredded pieces of incriminate documents in Shreck’s face to blackmail Max Shreck into making him well respected monster. Oswald Cobblepot deconstructs the abandoned child of the overwhelming parents. Batman empowers surplus names in the same sense by which Max Shreck manipulates energy
surplus to sustain a futuristic existence. Both of these decadent cynical personalities whose recycled public selves become dangerous constructs that succeeded in impressing the
gothamites they address. “I’ll take care of the squealing, wretched, pinhead puppets from Gotham [...] You gotta admit, I’ll play this stinking city like a harp from hell.” 

Batman takes up the mode of reusing that which was cast off without a thought—----here language to bring down Penguin’s plot to lead the city. The dichotomized hero’s methods become the same one the
villain adopts for they are both ⁴sick. Catwoman’s shopping expedition at Shreck's gives the viewer her face behind the large happy cat that is at the store’s logo. This new version of
shopping becomes both playful and destructive as she whips the head off the mannequins, threatens the security guards by pointing out that they confuse their pistols with their privates and rigs a microwave oven and gasoline to demolish the place.

In a sense, adopting comics characters to the screen does the same thing as the childrens’ comics become the adult film nightmare of a society controlled by the twisted products of neglect and abuse. Penguin goes much further than Catwoman, for he claims for himself the place of God, the avenger, the herod, the transgressor when plots to kill all of Gotham City’s first-born sons. The police chase Penguin over the same terrain his parents covered him the
night they disposed of him. Penguin even knocks over a couple who could have been stand-ins for his parents as he heads for the bridge and the icy water. 

In his own way, Penguin is a tragic figure, caused by his past doomed to repeat and recycle it. “My name is not Oswald, its
Penguin. I am not a human being. I am an animal. Crank the the-ac! Bring me my lists!” The battles in Batman Returns aren’t between the forces of light and dark so much as between competing neuroses.

We should not assess this graphic novel as disparaging through its legality, nor should we glamorize it by deference to its perpetrators. Frank Miller’s Bruce Wayne and Carrie Kelley embody Fixer and Burglar as “the self-made American ascendant, free, accountable to no authority—-yet haunted by guilt [...] a ruthless, monstrous vigilante breaking the foundations of our democracy [...] a symbolic resurgence of the common man’s will to resist [...] a rebirth of the
American fighting spirit.” 

Hyperreal fantasy of the demonical villains Joker/Michel Emerson, the Mutant Leader/ Gary Anthony Williams, and the Two Face demonstrate the biochemical warfare exposition through televised mediatising of the broadcasters obfuscating real life antecedents: “I
am atop Gotham twin towers with two bombs capable of making them rubble. You have twenty minutes to save them. The price is five million dollars. I would have made half, but I have bills to
pay.” 

Batman has been habitually adapted to salvage the rescue operations associated with laughing gases, fear dust, mind control lipsticks, artificial phobia pills and toxic aerosols to a considerable extent. Postmodernism blends the reality of the fictitious world into the reality of the real world [...] often suggests that the two are inextricable, that the boundaries are indecipherability muddy and
impossibly evasive. 

Miller’s Batman transmutates from the stereotypical old school hero to nihilistic anarchistic vigilante, duality of the characteristic traits of the goodness and evilry, blackness and whiteness. The Rise of the Postmodern Graphic Novel [...] the Golden era of stereotypes and symbolic personifications [...] There was no place for ambiguity. Nuclear fallout of the US Corto Maltese by Russian invasion causes the cowardly traitor superman [...] blotting out the source of all my powers [...] the hope for screaming millions. God-like steel ness
superheroism of superman is eradicated by the hubristic flesh and blood of the cold war contrasting revenge driven psychopath and ardent pursuer of divine justice. 

Julia Kristeva’s formation of subjectivity through blending of linguistics and psychoanalysis contextualizes Lacanian readings as a splitting subject that is in conflict who risks being shattered and is on the brink of heterogeneous contradiction. Batman’s disfiguration and maligned image throughout the signification process obdurates the vigilante saviour with the blame of alleged murdering of Joker “The Joker’s body found mutilated and burned [...] murder is added to the charges of the Batman [...] Batman’s breaking and entering, assault and battery, creating a public menace” furthermore creates a polarized dichotomy between the semiotic and symbolic. 

Language will speak the unspeakable as the consciousness will reveal through unravelling of itself. “[...]the spectacular career of Batman comes to a tragic conclusion [...] as the crime fighter suffered a heart attack while battling the government troops [...] his body has been identified as a fifty-five year old billionaire Bruce Wayne [...] and his death has proven as mysterious as his life.”
              
Further Reading and Works Consulted
Susan M. Bernardo’s [ Wagner College Staten Island NY] Recycling Victims and Villains in “Batman Returns”, Literature/ Film Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp: 16-20, Salisbury University

Politics and Society “Should we celebrate or lament the pop culture endurance of Batman, a violent vigilante?
The Return of the Vigilante: An Essay on the Possibility of Political Judgement, Bradon Little John Daniel Croci’s Holy Terror, Batman! 

Frank Miller’s Dark Knight and the Superhero as Hardboiled
Terrorist Jan Axelsson’s New Times, New Heroes, Ambiguity, Sociopolitical Issues and Post-Modernism
in Frank miller’s Graphic Novel The Batman Returns

Ruzbeh Babaee’s [Porto University] Heroic Subjectivity in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Research Gate.

              Traditional Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is one of the oldest countries in world history and a country rich in many historical places and historical events. Uzbekistan consists of 12 regions and one autonomous republic and is currently one of the developing countries in every field. Now I want to tell about the most ancient and well-known places in Uzbekistan.

My hometown is Surkhandarya region where is located in southern part of the country. According to some facts, my hometown has a long-life history which is located next to Amudarya and is the southernmost part of our country. Our nation is strong, brave and courageous, and also still the same. Even there are many stories and fairy tales about it. For example, there are our historical heroes Barchinoy and Alpomish, these people are symbols of bravery, loyalty and love. In addition, there are many historical places in my motherland, for example, 2000-year-old buildings and their remains are still available.

The most important thing to say about our people is that they are very hardworking, open-minded, kind and simple-minded people compared to other regions of Uzbekistan. Our family consist of eight people, they are my grandparents, parents, three sisters and me. Elders in our country are wise, knowledgeable and experienced people. That is why, youngsters always respect and help them also ask some some advice for difficulties in their life. Every Muslim people in the world are aware of religious people in Central Asia, one of the most person Al-Hakim at-Termiziy lived in our country and his tomb is located in my hometown.

When it comes to my education. I am a third course student in higher education where located in Samarkand. I think more people around the world know about this city, because here is most famous, historical and touristic location. Thousands of tourists visit this city in a year from verity parts of the world. Especially, Samarkand is  well-known for its historical places, mosques, and madrasahs such as Registon Square, Bibikhonim mosque, Guri Amir, Shkokhi Zinda and so on. Like all of  this places are related to Middle Ages when Amir Temur and his generations lived. By the way, this city is a country where was the capital of Amir Temur’s country.

If I tell about higher education our country that it consists of four year for bachelor degree but for Master’s degree students study for two year. I study at Samarkand state institute of foreign languages, the faculty of English philology and translation studies. In the future I will be teacher and translator, because my major is to be translator or interpreter but my dad really wants me to be a teacher in higher education. So that I will be both of them. In our institute there are more international teachers who are from USA, UK, Japan, Korea, Chine Turkey and so on. Therefore, our local teachers also have the same knowledge and practice. For example, all of teacher in our institute teach students with efficient methods and through modern high- digital technologies.

Different holidays, competitions, conferences, camps and other meetings are held every month. After graduating this institute I am going to study for Master’s degree abroad may be in the USA, UK or Turkey. I want to tell you about my parents, they are very kind, sincere, open-hearted, easy-going and my closest people in my life. I thank them for all the love they have shown and the opportunities they have created. In our country, it is very important to respect and honor parents. Because they grow you up by giving their everything.

My dad and mum are the best people in the world. I clearly remember, I was in the 6th grade at secondary school, my father had to come from abroad, and I asked them to bring me a computer. I didn’t believe that he would bring it, but unexpectedly he gave me a new laptop of the latest model. I was very happy at that time. Because I was the only student in the class who had a personal computer. Also, they always emphasize that we should study and be good professionals. My sisters and I are always trying to make my parents’ dreams come true. I am very proud to be a child of such parents. 

Summer vacation, when I was 13 years old, I wanted to learn Arabic. Then I told my mother. My mother was very happy. Then my mother said that she wants to learn Arabic. My mother and I asked my father for permission to attend an Arabic language course. My dad agreed. My mother and I were accepted to the Arabic course. Tomorrow will be our first lesson. That day has come. After half an hour, the course will start. At that time, my father suddenly called my mother. Mom and dad didn’t talk much. Then my mother said that she can’t go to the course today.

I had some fear and some excitement. I went to the course alone. I entered our study center and then our room. The tables in the room were almost full. There was an empty table behind, I went there and sat down. Everyone was talking to their partner. I was quietly observing the surroundings. There were both young and old. After some time, our teacher entered the room saying “Assalamu alaykum va Rahmatullohu va Barakatuh”. Everyone stood up and saluted. Our teacher said “You can sit”. Our teacher got to know all the students. He organized an introduction game. Game condition: The person sitting at the first table had to say his name, then his partner next to him said his name and himself. In the same way, everyone said their partner and their name in a chain. Everyone recognized their classmates. Then our teacher distributed alphabet book and husnihat book to everyone.

Our teacher explained how to read the book, how to keep the book. Then we learned the first letter of the Arabic language, the letter alif. Then we learned the Arabic vowels: Fatha, Kasra and zamma. I really liked the lessons, especially our teacher. Her cheerfulness seemed suspicious. At the end of the lesson, our teacher gave everyone homework. And they said goodbye to us in Arabic saying “You are on good way.” I went home in a good mood. I told my mother what happened in the course. I will never forget this day.

Abdunazarova Khushroy was born on December 21, 2008 in Jamashuy town, Mingbulak district, Namangan region, republic of Uzbekistan. She is currently a 9th grade student of the 15th specialized school. Winner of republican and international contests, participant of the regional stage of the Zulfiya state award, ambassador to 5 countries, coordinator, volunteer, member of more than 10 international organizations, author of many poems. Many creative works have seen the world. Member of “Leader Ladies club”. Winner of the 1st place in the interschool “Zakovat” intellectual game. Participant of the “Young Reader” contest. She wants to become a translator in the future.

 My mother

 In the bosom of the nine moons,
 My honorable mother who gave birth to me.
 Nurtured in a warm embrace,
 My kind, loving companion.

 Her eyes shine with joy,
 The kindest, innocent world.
 She builds a castle of flowers in your heart,
 She prays in every word.

 Of course, intentions will be answered.
 I will take you to Hajj, my shining jewel.
 Thank you, thank you a thousand times,
 My pain, my pleasure, my confidante, my mother.
   
Murodova Muslima Kadyrovna was born on June 29, 2010 in Jondar district of Bukhara region. Currently, she is a 7th grade student at school No. 30 in this district. Her first poem was published in 2024 under the name "Come beautiful spring." She won the 2nd place at the festival held in the district. She won the 1st place in the district stage and the 2nd place in the regional stage of the "Bakhtim Shul: Zulfiyasiman Uzbek" contest. Her first anthology was published by the UK publisher Justfiction Edition.

After Reading Charles Burchfield’s Journal #1

Last fading light after sunset at meadows
end. Wildflowers lose their color anticipating
an encroachment of trees. Nighthawks ravage 
the venous skin of leaves clustered between
the thatched tents of pupae evolving into
cabbage moths and insects that might be black
like flies. Once roused these predacious 
swarm becoming an infectious, stinging mass,
virulent as diseases spread by poison gas.
Walking here we are on the cusp of something
new but we don’t know what it is.

Nascent moon shadows well-worn
	path; solitary man
walking hears nothing moving.


Court Artist Jane Rosenberg’s Portrait
of an Ex-President of the United States 
Asleep in a  New York City Courtroom
During Jury Selection for His Criminal Trial

Slouching in his chair, bracketed by
legal counsels, the massive bulk of him
in weirdly tailored suit, unnaturally
orange tinted make-up creating an unhealthy
face, an imitation tan. There his thin, blow 
dried, artificially blonde hair, teased to cover 
a large bald spot, a caricature at rest, 
slack jawed and jowly, swollen pouches 
of excess fat, frown lined forehead, 
unruly eyebrows vaguely satanic looking, 
so much of him, looking aged, beaten, 
too tired to go on, almost peacefully sleeping. 
His silence is merciful, a blessing.



Sophie Calle’s True Stories: photos and essays

One stolen shoe: left-red
Nose before plastic surgery: a closeup
Self-Portrait as topless striper with blonde wig
Portrait: Real life artist model sketch defaced by razor cuts
Burned bed in the street from three stories up (hers)
Self-portrait with pig’s nose
TV Guide page in grandmother’s house after she died
Single die in jeweler’s ring case
New Year’s Eve resolutions: No lying, no biting-the husband’s
Las Vegas Drive Up Marriage hale-Open 24 Hours
Fake white wedding marriage gathering with family and friends
The breakup: the coffee cup, the breasts (hers)
Red Wedding Dream on Roissy airport runway
Dumped in August: two bird legs mounted on a stick
The View of My Life-cows grazing as seen through a window
Dead in a good mood-from her mother’s diary
When my mother died, I bought a taxidermist she named Monique (after her mother)
Death of the beloved cat: laid out in a coffin with a blanket
My Mother, My Cat, My Father (gone)
Caution sign: END



Time Reordered: From the Table of Contents
	Of Jackie Craven’s Whish

Under anesthesia I remember a moon
Dawn dreams a new upending
I’m speeding the Quantum Highway
My misery sleeps through sunrise
3 A.M hovers on a balcony
Half-Past Yesterday sleeps in my bed
A clock lives inside my looking glass
2 A.M. blunders into the damp city
8 A.M. broods beneath a gray umbrella
Half-past yesterday has abandoned me
3 A.M. hovers on a balcony
Clocks can’t be trusted in the electric city
2 A.M. jolts awake in the dining car
63:13 raps at my door
63:13 lodges in my sister’s frontal lobe
5:15 paces hospital corridors
Urgent care has no time for us
As her steel frame expands, the Human Clock writhers and turns to smile
Dawn dreams a new upending
Half-Past Tomorrow slumbers in the rear of the freezer


burned out by promiscuity: 
Byron’s life and letters excerpted

The first gonorrhea I have not paid for
A world of other harlotry
The Trinity college (stuffed) bear
I have quite given up concubinage
A Turkish bath-that marble paradise of sherbert and sodomy
I shall confine myself henceforth to the strictest adultery
There was never a man who gave up so much to women

We have been burning the bodies of Shelley and Williams 
	on the sea-shore
Cash is the sinew of war
I was a fool to come here (Greece) but being here I mut see
	what is to be done
Back! Out of my sight! Fiends, can I have peace, relief from
	this hell?
Come; you damned set of butchers(his attending doctors); 
	take away as much blood as you will: but have done 
	with it

Three Poems by Amelia Rosselli 
Translated into English by Maurizio Brancaleoni

A sordid light from behind a cloud
the bedroom
her pain
the green mugginess of the tram driver
the forgotten bigoted son.

As all the things I told you
obsequiousness puts the accent on preponderance
I am sonless and fatherless
they are forgotten fathers and sons.

*

Una luce sordida di dietro un nuvolo
la stanza da letto
il suo dolore
la verde afa del tranviere
il figlio bigotto scordato.

Come tutte le cose che ti dissi
l’ossequio pone l’accento sulla preponderanza
io sono senza figlio e senza padre
loro sono padri e figli scordati.





Sleep pounds
hard on the door
my eyes lie
toyes on the ground.

I’m alive as a dead
person can be eager!

You are to blame
for getting by
with axe strokes
envelupsetting me.

You murdered my heart
and the mind tinkers
to survive

without a heart!

*

Il sonno picchia
duro sulla porta
i miei occhi giacciono
ballocchi in terra.

Sono viva come può
un morto essere desideroso!

È colpa di te
che ti arrangi
a colpi di scure
stravvolgendomi.

Mi hai assassinato il cuore
e la mente s’arrabatta
per sopravvivere

senza cuore!





Through the sky
passing in its gondolas
through doors
far from the source
the words ran away, astounded
without noises of love.

Bully down the street replaces friendship.

*

Pel cielo che
nelle sue gondole passava
per porte
lontane dalla sorgente
le parole scappavano, esterrefatte
senza rumori d’amore.

Bullo per strada sostituisce amicizia.




Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) is considered one of the most important Italian poets of the past century. Born in Paris, she had to flee to Switzerland and then to the U.S. after the murder of her father and her uncle at the hands of Fascist militias. Back in Italy in the late 40s, in 1950 she settled in Rome, where she would spend the rest of her life. While her early literary experiments were in French and English, most of her poetic output was in an Italian studded with slips, portmanteaus and loanwords. The poems presented here are all from “Appunti sparsi e persi” (“Scattered and Lost Notes”) republished by Garzanti this year.

Maurizio Brancaleoni is a writer and translator. He received his Master’s Degree in Language and Translation Studies from Sapienza University of Rome in 2018, but he has been translating at least since 2012. In recent years he localized the prose and poetry of manifold authors, among which Thomas Wolfe, Adrian C. Louis, Justin Phillip Reed, Jean Toomer, Dylan Thomas, Herman Melville, Marina Pizzi and Scipione/Gino Bonichi. More poems by Amelia Rosselli in English translation can be found here.