I was lost in the box called life. 

In it,
(I)
I wanted learning
but my education was deafening
I wanted truth
but my reality faked its root
I wanted to buy the right counsel
but my mind controller got me its left sell
I wanted to be free
but my pursuit turned a tree
I wanted information
but my vision brought me deformation
I wanted wellness
but my state showed illness
I wanted a wife
but my life mirrored a knife
I wanted a companion
but my plight was in oblivion
I wanted the clarity of pleasure
but my naked eyes saw the dullness of pressure
I wanted to live forever
but my death was to question For-Ever
I wanted peace
but my perception reflected unease
(II)
I wanted to know more about people
but my understanding was a fumble
I wanted to be everyone’s friend
but my experience was the Pal’s end
I wanted to be rich
but my efforts didn’t catch a fish!
I wanted direction
but my limitation was the obstruction
3
I wanted to know the ‘why’ to everything happening
but my answer had to cry to all prevailing
I wanted to invest in good
but my previous return showed ‘fooled!’
I wanted to scream because of pains
but my calmness showed up because of gains
(III)
I wanted people to hear my voice
but my quest was a noise
I wanted money
but my struggle was funny
I wanted to know why the world is divided
but the response was: ‘it’s control is what is favourited’
I wanted to know what happens after death
but my physical life told me I was on earth
I wanted to tell people my experience
but my words failed me in their presence
I wanted to know if I knew what I know
my existence replied me with a ‘NO!’
I wanted to find myself through my works
but my inner-self whispered:
‘If you want to find yourself,
then think OUT OF THE BOX!

Chimezie Ihekuna (Mr. Ben)’s entire book is available here for order.

Homes, I Love You

I don’t really know how you see me,

What you think of me, If you even know me.

I just know I never stopped trying

And sometimes I was hiding; crying;

Trying to be a man like I should

Doing everything I could

And sometimes I went to far

Reaching to be a star

For you.

That’s what I do.

That’s all I know.

Always holding on not letting go.

I know I should have been better.

I know it sounds, and it is……bitter

That’s just who I am

Trying to be a better man.

I know I could be a jerk.

I know I was all about work.

As closed as fort knox.

Sometimes you had to get past road blocks

Just to get time from me

But believe me I’m sorry.

I know I used to drink

Sometimes I just didn’t want to think.

I don’t really know how you see me,

What you think of me, If you even know me.

I have always been a wound in duct tape

Hoping that the blood can’t escape.

Hiding my tears so you couldn’t see.

Not wanting you to think down on me.

‘Cause I’m not a hero.

I’m still hoping to grow.

I always tried to be the glue

But somehow I threw a shoe.

You might find me a disgrace

But my heart was always in the right place.

Just not always at the right time.

Believe me I find that a crime.

Damn I hope I did something right

Even when I was often out of sight.

It was never easy

Trying not to be me

And give you everything you would need.

This is making my heart bleed.

Homes, I love you more than you know

And that continues to grow.

Heaven’s Forked Child

When I see lightning

I count til the thunder

When the skies are fighting

Just before the world goes under

I scream, waiting on a wonder.

Knowing that will never come.

But for the moment I’m numb.

Angel fire cracks

Ripping the sky

Pitchfork leaving tracks

Freight train rolling by

I cry out, beckoning the sky.

Vengeance on a raging railway

Won’t the rain come out to play?

The Storm is Heaven’s child

The rain is Mother’s tears.

And when everything goes wild

And the lightning appears

The thunder cries of fears.

When it thinks it has me in my place

I just laugh in its face.

Down Town

He’s got the keys

Gonna take the town on a cruise.

Force them to their knees.

Show them there was no excuse

To be beaten and run out of town.

The moon bleeds for him

He won’t be taken down.

The wind howls, “Never again!”

The engine roars,

The wheels burn.

Lock all your doors.

Now it is his turn.

Take this town to Hell.

Ring the Liberty Bell.

And in a flash

The town was ash.

From south-western Michigan, Jerry Langdon lives in Germany since the early 90’s. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of Poetry titled “Temperate Darkness an Behind the Twilight Veil”, “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.

Five Untitled Monostichs

january pioneer stephen tomorrow

—

transfiguration half-dollar

—

polk high a daylight coin sauce

—

paper snakes a panther painting

—

spinning plates for laundry money a scene of freezing

—

bio/graf

J. D. Nelson’s poems have appeared in many publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of ten print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Time is running out, cherish the seconds… Time is something that cannot be returned, it is such a priceless blessing that every second of our life is a seal of our happy days, our happy life, our hard days, our unlucky years and our sad moments. In fact, we do not appreciate the time, we spend it on unnecessary things, useless games, most of our people cannot imagine their life without the Internet. Have you ever thought? How did people live in the past, they didn’t have a phone or the internet, they were happy, they used their time effectively, scientists and great people came out in our past They were writing about time, now it’s about the phone, the Internet, but the thing that is killing us is the phone. The saddest thing is that this time will not return. Even the world’s riches and most precious things cannot bring him back. No human has been able to turn back time. You know what ? Time is more expensive than money. For example, marketing is a developing field, and famous

Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev

The Uzbek people have been writing works since ancient times. They are poets and writers from its soil to its leaves. One such writer is Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev. His works are distinguished by the richness of humor, the skillful description of children’s lives, their unique nature, characteristics, and spiritual experiences in an extremely vivid, interesting and childlike manner. It is no exaggeration to say that Khudoiberdi Tokhtaboyev is one of the authors who brought Uzbek children’s literature to the world level. He is a typical representative of children’s literature.

    “It is difficult to write for children, so it is not correct to say that there are few people who choose this direction. It is really difficult to write to children, to get in touch with their spirit, to say something similar to the child’s heart. It is really more difficult to write as if you are sitting down with a child in front of you and talking to him. Today, there are very few, almost non-existent works dedicated to children,” said Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev.

    Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev is a real talent. This means that his works are works of art, that is, whatever idea he wanted to realize in each of his works, this idea is fully realized in each of his works. He does not talk excessively, because this is contrary to the conditions of an artistic work, he never mixes events and persons alien to the idea of the work into his works – this is one of the main requirements of artistry. To appreciate the beauty of Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev’s works, you need to have a very sharp taste, but the person who has an eye for what is real beauty, real poetry, considers Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev to be an original artist, that is, a great talent. he knows as a writer.

      Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev has taken a place in our hearts with his educational works. From each of his works, a person gets useful and educational knowledge. He sees his mistakes through this character and tries not to repeat them. For example:

   “My sister may be upset. I love my sister, I love her very, very much, I will never hurt her, never make her cry.”

      This excerpt is from The Boy With Five Children. Through this passage, we can see Arifjon’s love for his mother. But unfortunately, not everyone has the same love for Arifjon’s mother. It is no exaggeration to say that Khudoyberdi Tokhtaboyev wanted to explain this to “Everyone”.

    We can witness such an example in the work “Jannanati Odanlar”.

   “We can’t build a bridge without cutting it. If we don’t build a bridge, people can’t cross the stream and fall into the water.”

– Great, huh? – said my grandfather.

-Excellent! – I said too.

– If it wasn’t for you, my son, I wouldn’t have finished anyway.

“That’s right, grandpa, you couldn’t finish anyway,” I said while riding the donkey…

      Then my grandfather became very ill and lay down until winter. My grandfather Ahmadqul brought honey and rubbed it on his feet, massaged it, my nanny boiled honey in milk and drank it every evening, and my aunt used to rub it on her body with strange drugs that I don’t like.

    In the excerpt from this work, we can see how Erkachol built a bridge with his grandson in the cold despite his old age to help people. And he fell into the water several times and got wet. Because of this, he becomes seriously ill. He thinks about people, not himself. It is no exaggeration to say that Khudoyberdi Tokhtabayev wanted our young people to grow up to be well-educated, kind, perfect people with the help of these works, and adults not to repeat their mistakes.

Nigora Tursunboyeva was born on February 23, 2009, in Namangan region. Currently, she is a 9th grade student of Ishakhan Ibrat creativity school. Along with writing poems and stories she can speak freely in 4 languages: English, Russian, German and Uzbek.

on pacifism


I guess I have just recently recommitted to, or decided I need to accept, that I am and must be a pacifist…  in this year of 2024, there are wars and armed conflicts in various places around the world… some of these wars seem justified on one side or the other and some just seem to be the result of blundering on the part of national governments…  but, the more I read the news, the more I think about these conflicts, the more true it seems that if the human race is to flourish, or even survive, we must find a way to eliminate war from this planet…

my first argument against war is always to appeal to logic…  even if one has no moral objection to the killing and maiming of other human beings in pursuit of some national goal, war or indeed, even smaller armed conflict, is seldom efficacious in resolving the dispute…  so often international affairs seem like building houses of cards based on negotiations and diplomacy while war comes in with a sledge hammer…  that simply destroys everything and makes matters worse…  

war is built on the foundation of violence and the belief that killing certain people will make nations live together in peace…  that does not work…  killing people just makes their families and friends angry and outraged…  they do not want to live in peace with the killers of their loved ones, they want revenge on them… war begets hate which begets more war which begets more hate, etc. etc. etc…  war is not an efficient or effective way to solve international problems…
my second argument against war is that it is morally backwards…  might does not make right…  and just because one nation has a better army and can kill more efficiently,  that does not make that nation more right than any other nation…  usually the things fought over are in grey areas anyway, so there is no one side that is fully right and no one side that is fully wrong…  so compromise and negotiation are the way to make sure that each side gets some of what it wants…  

my third argument against war is that it is always fueled by greed for money…  and the people who wind up fighting in the war and harmed by the war are almost never the people who wind up with the money, no matter who wins or loses…  and in trying to negotiate a compromise over things like border disputes, the only way these issues can be resolved is if both sides are willing to dial back their greed and settle for less than all the money, land, water rights, natural resources, etc… killing a bunch of people does not in any way help for any nation to put aside greed and attempt a fair and respectful resolution of international problems…

my fourth argument against war is the obvious moral observation that it is immoral for any of us to take the life of anyone else…  I believe that each and every human being is born into this life with a right to live and participate in all of the joys and pains that make up our lives…  these include a right to food, shelter and safety…  the first things usually destroyed in a war are food, shelter and safety…  it is immoral to kill our fellow men and women period…  under any circumstances, any time… and it is also immoral to allow our fellow men and women to live without food, shelter and safety…   war is always always always immoral…  war is always evil…  English poet Wilfred Owen, who knew a few things about war, called it a “cesspool…”  there is nothing glorious about it, ever…

okay, now that I have convinced everybody that war is ineffective, evil and immoral, let us proceed to the question of how do we end it…  one would have hoped back in the 1950s when I was a child, that the inventions of nuclear weapons would make war obsolete…  when nations have this horrible weapon in hand that would make any large war, the last war, because the effect of the war would be to eradicate human beings from the planet; one would think that we would look at each other and say, “let us lay down our arms and look for peaceful ways to solve international problems…”  before we finish ourselves off altogether…

but that did not happen…  instead nations kept building more and more nuclear weapons in an arms race that goes on to this day with weapons armed and ready to launch right now that would bring on a nuclear winter that would end human life on this planet and most other life as well…  this is lunacy…  it is like a person walking night and day with a razor sharp knife pressed against his or her throat…  we must get rid of those terrible weapons…  and we do that not by using them, which would be suicidal, but by education and arms negotiations…  we need to all know and acknowledge the danger we are in and make our governments destroy those weapons…  there is no harm that any nation can inflict on me that makes it morally right for me to launch a nuclear weapon….  killing one person is immoral…  killing hundreds, thousands and millions of people is hundreds and thousands and millions of times more immoral…

I am not sure how to go about accomplishing this goal but, I truly believe that military actions of every kind will not lead to the goal of nuclear disarmament… military action does not solve international problems, it always makes them worse…  increasing the hate and dehumanizing those denoted as “enemy” makes it more and more likely that an accidental international blunder or an intentional act of lunacy will send us over that precipice and start a nuclear annihilation of humanity…  

so, I advocate demilitarization of this planet…  I believe that it is the only way to prevent a humanity annihilating nuclear war…  there are so many challenges facing humanity… this planet is rich and abundant but we should be carefully tending it and setting it up to support our human communities so that all people can have food, shelter and safety… we are threatened by disease, by natural disaster, by things like climate change and ozone depletion and dozens of other threats… 

I think that we could work together to solve these problem and to make a long and healthy life easier for each of us to attain, if we could quit fighting with each other and start working together to make the world a better place for the benefit of us all…

the first step, I think, is for us all to embrace pacifism…  we must change our attitudes about military in every way…  there is nothing good about military actions…  all military action is immoral in that it aims to kill people…  that is what guns, tanks, bombs, etc. exist to do… to kill people… so we must stop extolling the warrior…  we must stop funding the military…  and we should be working with every resource we have to spread pacifism to every human being on the planet…  it is the logical, moral and decent thing to do…  we must accept that every human on this planet is our brother or sister and deserves respect and all human rights and happiness being born here should provide… and we must always remember that might does not make right…  it never has and it never will… 

From the Mists of the Moon 

From the mists of the Moon I was born 
Avalon remembered in a silky dawn 
Riding side saddle out of the Sea of Tranquility 
Soft, soft, pale silver light riding 
Shimmering silent and still. 
Oh, soul of the pale echoes 
The forgotten dreams of waves, 
Of motion, of eddies, the whirlpools 
Of becoming will. 
Carry me golden sea horse 
Into the valley and over the hill 
Galloping against the head wind, wayward 
With wild hair flying, 
Send me cascading downward 
From bright rainbows mounted 
Atop my bright majesty, dump me 
Into the sluice of sunbeams 
Rising to meet me 
Careening homeward to Earth 
In my quickening dreams. 

From the mists of the moon I come 
Riding the waves homeward 
Alee of my dreams breaking shoreward 
In the shadowy wake of morning. 
Homeward, homeward in dreams 
Of dawn and sunshine spreading 
Like a mantle of gold 
Worn only for best-day; 
Adorned with ribbons of stars 
All dripping of midnight 
I stretch out to dry on the beach 
Of high noon reality and breath. 
From the mists of the moon I come 
Giddy and girl-like, tiptoeing home 
Long after midnight, dreamily disheveled 
Hair tangled with the taste of night 
And the songs of a lunar prom 
Lingering on rose petal lips - 
I enter the house of day 
Pregnant with moonlight. 



Annie Johnson

 

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.