the rain tarot blues, the world weary watery hues

along the worlds, the sleepy town, passengers by the mile, the down trodden in spirit for they have money but lack a smile. oh the skies; seven days and nights of it…wind and water and dark, even the artists who muse upon such things say, ‘This here is no lark.’ and somewhere past air brakes and tires on puddles melancholic and lit by electric light and chemical rainbows both, beyond old time Christian church some kind of Protestantism, further than the purlieu of the pastoral world (pastoral in summer sun past anyhow), is the unknown den of coyote far past the feral fields beyond coyote road. the tarot reader places the cards and speaks. there are truths spoken about the orphan soul, and how journey’s take their toll, but to yet take heart; for much w/light is writ for a double crowned poet inside an astral scroll. deep inside the witching hour dream between strange hours I walked in a small space w/kindred souls looking on. the space is too small, thought I; and it must mean I have outgrown it. and I awoke to the old rain laden branches outside the window, and they said nothing.

Ours is a Place

Ours is a place
Where nature smiles on
Ours is a place where birds circle overhead
Ours is a place
The green welcomes
Ours is a place where the peacock dances with colorful feathers
Ours is a place 
Where the tigers, the lions roar in the Sundarbons
Ours is a place
Where rivers, lakes run through almost all its areas
Ours is a place 
We love each other
Ours is a place which we bought
In exchange of sea blood
Ours is a place
We sleep with a sweet dream and get up
Walk hand in hand stepping in and out all over. 

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh,
25 April, 2024.



Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years. 

Dreams...

Like a person, dreams never lived..,
From every trace, finding without love, 
A million questions in his heart, 
Hope waited, 
dreams of a false covenant...
Buried. The faithfulness of love is buried,
Ishq. 

I made a mistake in your trust,
The life of the heart is shriveled,
thoughts disappearing from pain...
Astana. Don't make me feel that you don't love me once I lived.
Pampered and deceived dreams...
Tell the world!
What is love? One question.
Was it our fault that Laila Majnun was crazy?
Halfway, we lost half of us,
Mountains cry in my thoughts. Thoughts...
It came without a trace and left without a trace, without noticing...Dreams...

Zafar NUR, Uzbekistan, Navoi

Greetings
Saying hello is actually
A piece of decency,
In the language of Uzbek,
A wish to say.

Haw many years have passed?
It is a legacy for generations.
Shame and modesty,
It is characteristic of the Uzbek people.

About this in hadiths,
A useful world is collected.
It is permissible to acquire knowledge,
Haw little we know.

The habit of greeting
Begins to be good.
Those who follow it,
Takes a right step.

FUnowTUwasRE



Ecstatic electricity freezes into pulse as biologies become magnets / your eyes lip my cheeks / my koi mouth plumbs your pond / our trunks forest together, organs tromboned by desire fingers / perpetual fleshmachines yinyang existences / masses gasseate / consciousness shrinks to cosmos / our my-your selves merge, we share atoms

we downlings deitise



TAKE ME IN



"Take me in," the poet said, "take me in." The prophet hid.

"Take me in," the poet prayed, "take me in."

No banker paid. "Take me in." The soldier fled.

"Sink or swim," the lawyer pled. "Take me in,"

the poet said, "take me in."

A woman did.



"Make me warm," the woman cried, "safe and warm."

The poet sighed. "Words are thin," he did reply, "weak and thin.

But yet I'll try. Weak and thin, but yet I'll try."



In the bin by page by page,

in the bin the books were laid,

inch by inch were set ablaze.

Line by line the match was lit.

Word by word

the poems all went.



"Now I'm warm," the woman said,

"safe from harm. But poet's dead."

Poet dead?

Poet dead?

He lives on inside her head.

Words go on inside her head.



ESOTERIC



as eager initiates

in lovers’ freemasonry

that true and ancient order

we are illuminati

of the night’s old mysteries

through its well-established rites

its scripts, shared grasps, finger codes,

its postures, pledges, passwords

we advance by slow degrees

our prescribed intimacies



CONTRETEMPS



The tense contentment of the nights before

now in contempt

give way to temptation.



YOU SAY I SAY



You say

your bees come alive

when I prod your hive.



I lift your balloon

and hold you to ground.



I say

I pour and pour ghee

and you absorb me.



...

“In age of consumerism and materialism, I traffic in blue sky and colored air.” --James Turrell

Exploring the Arts: Nothing “Blue” About Blue Man Group
By Jacques Fleury

[Originally published in Oddball Magazine & Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self]

In a world maligned by socio-political division, our society is most definitely overzealous for something to mitigate its intermittent malaise.

Then comes Blue Man Group:  an American Performance Art Company founded in 1987 like a fast moving storm, boldly rushes into The Charles Playhouse to strut their wildly colorful rapid-
fire Ritalin paced show! The Canadian Company Cirque Du Soleil purchased the company in 2017.

The show, which was surprisingly interactive, started out with the audience following the directions of a scrolling marquee. The audience was engaged in reading the words out loud which was meant to be like a warm up before the Blue Man made their blue
appearance. Another thing, which stroked me as peculiar, was that the first three rows of people were wearing raincoats. I must admit, since I was in a suit, I experience some minor anxiety not knowing what was going to happen. All I could think of was the performance artist “Gallagher” smashing watermelons to whet his audience’s appetite for a meticulously planned mess. Toward the middle of the one hour and forty-five minute show, the Blue Man squirted banana juice all over the eager audience! Interpret that as you wish!

Essentially, the show had the flare of a circus with something for everyone! It was what I would call edutainment, a mixture of education and entertainment. At one point, it became philosophical by encouraging us to appreciate the here and now instead of
worrying about what’s coming up next. Then on the other hand it was engaging when the Blue Men picked a female audience member, brought her up on stage and strapped a blue-breasted suit on her. Their comedic talents became evident when all they did for a
few minutes was just sit there behind a table all aligned in a row and stared while their “victim” masquerading as their date waited patiently for the Blue boys' next move.

Eventually they began to interact with her by playing romantic music, setting flowers on the table and sharing their “Twinkies” (described as a finger shaped cake filled with white cream) with her. Again, interpret that as you wish! Then in a disgusting twist, the newly digested Twinkies turned into yellow liquid and began to pour out of their chests, which emanated a drone of disgust from the audience.

All in all, the Blue Men were innovative and alluring. They even parodied what they call “The new Rock ‘n Roll” band as a bunch of choreographed boy bands who eventually disband to break out into their separate “projects” when they reach their height of success as a group. In doing this, they demonstrated their versatility as performers, gyrating their limber bodies to dance music. I was particularly pleased with their drumming, a sound that penetrating my pores so that the drum beats became synonymous with my own
heartbeat. The finale had pounding dance music and rolls of white toilet paper falling from the ceiling in a white fluorescent light reaching a crescendo of climatic proportions! Everyone was
on their feet, saturated in a creamy white glow and giggling like children during recess on the playground.

Then the Blue Men even waited in the lobby for picture opportunities and signed autographs with blue paint. The audience, a mixture of the young and the young at heart, left beaming from ear to ear. And that’s why the Blue Men are here in Boston to turn our moods from “blue” to blissful and for a brief moment, forget about our woe and foster a sense of unity and camaraderie in spite of our disparate identities.

When I drink tea in New Jersey

Like a girl who writes poetry about a boy she has never seen
My day sits with all this disappointment
Counting her fleeting moments
 I remember my mother using the smell of onions
 To shed her tears in the kitchen
For the absence of my father
 Who climbed his life war by war
Whenever he wore his military belt
 He wished that war was just an old shoe
He could take it off whenever he liked
And he didn't need to think of fixing it at the cobbler's shop
I remember my brother
Who asked in his letters--
When will the war understand that we are not good at dealing with death?
I remember us forty years ago
We were kids, very much kids
With colourful clothes and hearts
It was enough for us to see a balloon
To drown in big laughter
I remember all this now 
When I drink my tea
And
I practice my loneliness.
 
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 a Pulitzer Prize Nominee for 2018, Pushcart Prize Nominee for 2019. She's also a: 

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