My Father My father is my world. He loves me, mother and my sister very much. He is my father, friend and teacher. If there is a mistake, he rules over As well as there is a lot of love Also teaching hidden between this rule. Ali Sony is a student of grade 7 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.
Rachel Corrie In the time that I have been here children have been shot and killed, declares Rachel Corrie, who was appalled by the Israelis’ occupation of the Holy Land. Having borne witness to the persecution of Palestinians, to tank shell holes that fill their walls, to discrimination, arrests, and displacements, she stands before a bulldozer to prevent the demolition of a pharmacist’s abode, waving to the driver in fluorescent clothes, who ignoring her calls, proceeds adamantly with his goals: to demolish farmland, property, and an American pacifist’s voice. As a child, Rachel had publicly voiced her dream to annihilate hunger before 2003 but died bulldozered by the Israeli authorities, aged only twenty-three, a brave heart that was not intimidated by autocracy. Silence II I recline upon my bed and sit still. This silence will not last for more than two minutes, for yells, sirens, and vociferating mobiles will shortly resume their daily dialogues. I hunt for fleeting spells of quietude, mere bubbles that burst within fractures of seconds, since noise has become an integral part of the fabric of our private and public lives. Most of the people I happen to know fear silence, a much-dreaded foe, and associate it with death, withdrawal, or some psychological problem. Ears are plugged, flooded with torrents of noise. Some TV sets are switched on throughout the nights as if the angel of death is denied entrance where music, dramas, or arguments are at work. I envy the Buddhists their moments of peace who look like daffodils in oases of green and think that even a monastery is a heaven I cannot attain. What Might Have Been You wish you could revoke a thousand decisions that derailed your life and imagine a paradisiacal existence had you chosen otherwise, a pathetic line of reasoning for nothing can alter the course of your stars. We were taught that our fate is written above our eyebrows. Others believe it is visible in the lines of our palms. I saw mine in the eyes of every enemy who twisted their knives in my mind. I indulge in no regrets and avoid dwelling on the past, avoid erecting monuments for tragedies that blasted my paths. I look ahead with a cynical smile and expect the worst to come. Perfidy Dethroned and crownless, the convicted queen has beckoned her subjects to kneel and pray not to the skies who its children would claim, not to the gods who torture and enslave. A communal prayer of a wordless fabric commences with a soundless tone, a dirge for years of diminutive stature, for frenzied hours that dissonance bore. With interlocked fingers many awkward forms betake themselves to swim to the coast. The perfidious clouds that languish for havoc now zestfully disband to open a door. One streak of red that dilutes the streams zigzags its way among pebbles and stones. A pair of eyes that are petrified look on at a scene from a severed throat.
Impossible Love To grasp what an impossible love truly is, Not everyone can fathom, only those who've lived it. The strange emotion that is called love, Is known and felt by those distanced, who've felt it. In an instant, it comes, taking you by surprise, You find yourself enchanted by a stranger's eyes, Unknowingly, your heart takes flight and flies, To love is something only the heart implies. The delicacy of a rose's velvet touch, The beauty of a leaf with a grace that's such, The blush of your cheeks, a sight to clutch, When your hands tremble, that feeling, it does clutch. The glances exchanged, like lightning's sparks, Eyelashes fluttering, like burdens in the dark, Your heart flutters wildly, like a mad lark, This state, only those in love can embark. When you gaze at their picture, lost in thought, As the caravan of memories passes, unbought, And separation's inevitable, as it is sought, The years of longing, in your heart, are caught. 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.
there is no silence in a men’s homeless shelter . . . late-night cough chorus — today marks ninety days at the homeless shelter . . . misophonia — downtown skyline through the shelter’s dock door window— men snore in the night — today marks five months here at the homeless shelter . . . let’s just sleep all day — purple foam earplugs . . . the shelter at midnight is almost dead silent — bio/graf J. D. Nelson is the author of ten print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His 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. Nelson lives in Colorado, USA
October 1 Exactly one year ago He took London To the hospital Because she was having Another vestibular episode, That visit being Their last visit To the hospital Never crossed his mind. Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of the Peace Corps memoir “Fiesta of Sunset,” and the forthcoming poetry collection “Home Again.”
Always A Sinner
And I climb the staircase and a well-lit blonde bob smokes a cigarette in affair with no one and with eyes for naught but the night, and yet she still makes the effort to nod as I enter and this fills me with hope for the evening ahead.
And the lights are ambiguous at best as I walk the corridor and consider a former love or lover in a corner with arm encircling the waist of a current beau in sweater vest and boot cut. He is gesturing wildly and all eyes are alight as he swings his tale and I turn and head for the kitchen where I see Jess with teary eyes as she dabs her forehead.
Jess has not been crying, she has simply thrown up and warns me of this possibility as she hands me a pill and places her hand around my neck, draws me in and holds me tight whispering “sweet nothings” with a smile as I swallow.
I head toward the living room and find the couch pushed to the wall and bean bags thrown helter skelter. Sam Cooke sings sweet melody as a young man brushes the inside of my arm and says “Do you want company?” and “That’s a shame, a terrible shame,” as he steps away to offer himself to another.
A shirtless individual entertains a cavalcade and I lean in to hear “You’ll be surprised how many times you need to stab someone to kill the son of a bitch.” Pause, grimace, “A wise man draws quickly across the throat and gets the foul deed done in one quick go.” Pause, final rejoinder, “You must never forget the idea is not to bring death, but to simply withdraw life,” and they clap on conclusion and I realize I have just witnessed a performance piece as he takes a quick bow and then waves a hand across his face in attempt to deflect attention deftly earned. A girl in front of me turns to her side and insists, “This is nothing compared to his cut of Capote, now that is divine.”
And I grab a bean bag and head to a corner and sit and close my eyes and try to recall the melody of ‘God Only Knows’ as that never fails to bring a tear to the eye and tonight is Sam’s night after all. Leaning my head against the wall I stare to the ceiling and spy a spider in a webbed corner and lose myself for a moment as it – as if startled – hurries to one side.
A brunette drops a bean bag next to mine and leaves only to return with a drink and lit cigarette. “Charlie,” she says by way of introduction and it strikes me she is the kind of girl that will not age well. Cliché perhaps but her eyes are a blue most piercing, with a southern lilt that is oh so disarming and hints at inner strength most resolute.
She tells me she achieved her first multiple orgasm when a boy went down on her as she listened to ‘Smile’ on heavy headphones with eyes closed and only the odd lift of the hips to guide the way, she slept with her lit professor on a dare and was disappointed that a published author could be so unimaginative in bed, she owned two iguanas and had just finished the short stories of Hemingway.
I nod at each revelation and tell her I admire her sense of adventure, I own zero iguanas and I am considering hiring a cleaner before my apartment inspection a week from Tuesday.
Charlie takes a drink and a drag and points out the spider overhead, a cat brushes itself on Charlie’s leg and then on mine and Love begins once more.
Michael Tyler has been published by Takahe, Bravado, Adelaide Literary, PIF, Daily Love, Danse Macabre, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Dash, The Fictional Café, Potato Soup Journal, Fleas On The Dog, Cardinal Sins, Mystery Tribune, Other Terrain, and Suddenly And Without Warning.
Michael writes from a shack overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. He has been published in several literary magazines and plans a short story collection sometime before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and …