This month’s submissions focus on Roots and Wings. Roots, in the sense of what grounds us, and Wings, in the sense of what liberates or inspires us to fly.

S.C. Flynn writes of memory and love and the places where we find sanctuary. Zara Miller‘s main character remembers her grandfather’s garden and her Eastern European heritage and connection to the land.

Philip Chijoke Abonyi brings a sense of tenderness for the human condition to his description of love and fear.

Azemina Krehic’s speaker loses herself in grief, forever burying herself with the past. Emina Delilovic-Kevric reflects on autumn as a beautiful season that is also a time of natural loss and decay.

Channie Greenberg’s alpine vista photographs include scenes of places where she spent time with her grandparents.

Irma Kurti poetically expresses her grief over losing her father. Ergasheva Mukhlisa reminds us of the critical importance of good parenting and Mekhrangiz Kibriyeva reflects on the love we receive from our parents.

Wazed Abdullah honors his two older sisters for their love and friendship.

Mahbub Alam meditates on his evergreen love that perseveres through life’s uncertain circumstances.

Adiba Pardaboyeva praises poet Muhammad Yusuf, a literary icon in her native Uzbekistan, while Valijonova Bakhtiyar celebrates the writing of Abdullah Qadiri. Z.I. Mahmud analyzes the themes of Oliver Goldsmith’s novel The Vicar of Wakefield, about a man of faith who maintains his gentleness and virtue throughout various trials.

Ziyoda Khikmatillaeva describes the many benefits of music appreciation as part of young children’s education and Jack Galmitz relates how someone used music to share hope during wartime.

Noah Berlatsky interprets various old books on a shelf through surreal poetry, while Simon Christiansen sends up a luminous tale of intrepid learning and curiosity. Graciela Noemi Villaverde radiates her joy on the physical and spiritual mysteries of life. Don Bormon nods to the power of imagination to grant access to the world of birds.

Tim Frank probes our personal and societal subconscious, littered with fragments of dreams and current events while Daniel De Culla’s photographs depict small Spanish towns with earthy realism.

Wolfgang Wright crafts a tale of a country childhood with sinister undertones beneath the seemingly normal family vibe.

George Gad Economou illuminates the attraction and repulsion writers feel towards alcoholism, which, like any addiction, can “ground” us in a negative sense. In a similar vein, Chimezie Ihekuna’s story explores how infatuation and obsession with intimate relationships can also wreck our lives, with a tale of a couple rushing into marriage to mask the pain of past trauma.

Czarina Datiles explores the contours of hopefully healthier young love in her gentle and wistful poetry, while John Culp elucidates an elemental romance between water and air.

Chuck Taylor contrasts the illusory love crafted nightly in a strip club with the authentic connection with his elderly mother in a residential motel.

J.J. Campbell’s pieces discuss the role of luck and expectations in our lives. Kim Farleigh explores the knife-edge tension of travel in a war zone while Susie Gharib’s pieces simply ask for a bit more kindness in our world. Maja Milojkovic advocates spiritual detachment, humility, wisdom, and compassion towards all the world’s creatures.

Christopher Bernard claims that an unbalanced exaltation of personal liberty above all other social values underlies both neoliberalism and progressivism and paradoxically leads to increasing restrictions on freedom, extreme inequalities of wealth and power, and a sense of loss of control by voters and citizens over the political order as a whole.

David Kopaska-Merkel finds himself talking to his refrigerator in a world permeated by technology. Bill Tope finds love in a surrealist space world where everything is backwards, while Jim Meirose’s even more surreal take on office life blurs the boundaries between sound and meaning. Mark Young presents sentences finished with elegant grammar and unusual offbeat meaning, while Nathan Anderson dispenses with grammar altogether and invents his own syntax for a visual and aural orchestration.

Mykyta Ryzhykh scatters thoughts into the fragments left after the massive destruction of war. Grant Guy evokes the early days of PC communication with his concrete poems.

Diyora Umarkulova reflects on her experiences learning spoken and written English as a second language, while Rosiyeva Banoxon shares her hopes and dreams for her life. Makhfiratkhon Abdurakhmonova celebrates girls and encourages people to value them and their dreams.

Frank Modica writes of various kinds of journeys: literal travel on bikes and airplanes and metaphorical navigate of memory, life, and death. Sterling Warner’s poems enjoin you in movement: pirouettes with seagulls and wagon rides with children and the slow drift of fog.

Fizza Abbas writes of language learning, cinema, and childhood school memories with awe and exuberance. Elmaya Jabbarova waxes poetic about youth: energy, creativity and love while Mesfakus Salahin’s speaker hopes for a happy reunion in the future.

Finally, Sayani Mukherjee celebrates the varied colors and sights of summer. 

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Drink my water 

I borrowed your lake 
    just last week 

        fair is fair 

I came happy and I can 
           leave happy 

Still my lake,  would you, 
      I want the stillness 
to raise our Hearts 
      friends & children 
                  Art & Sky
      So walking away will not 
tear me away from Love itself 

I can see myself in
      Your reflections 

thinks    I'm gone 
           Knows the lonely heart 

   Find me in the overview 
where hilltops Grace the Land 
      ,as the wolf calls, 
            My World Lives!

A gust taunts Lake's mirror 
 to scatter the curious fish 
                   as one took Air. 

      Steal the moment 
          found content 
              Soothed 

One  cannot  Steal  a  Gift 
 Rested,  on dimension's rift

The world Begins 
  alive 

Forgive my Stars 
    the Space they take 
We'll share a Sun
     to Warm Our Lake 
                                                           
                                                          ...........


by  John Edward Culp 
    January 26, 2019
                 

FOREVER CRYSTALLINE

The happy sleep in another country,
while I read again my diary
of all the years we never had,
precious as a flower to a dying soldier;
when love is over, you should starve it, they say,
but I prefer my own futilities.
Our silences hid a snowy forest,
at its heart a walled garden with a dead fountain.
Lying at the bottom, a shining white stone:
dreamwater turned to salt, crystalline forever. 


SAFE HARBOUR
For Claudia

The world had dragged me behind it –
a stubborn dog in a lifeboat – 
while opportunities floated past
like unnamed islands on a map,
hidden in the blank spaces. 
One must have been what I hoped for:
a paradise behind a reef
with endless joys to discover
and fulfilment of my cooling dreams.
Eventually, while I floated
lost in that long dying evening,
the moon threw light on the dark places
and I knew I had found it long ago;
the island I searched for is you.


OXYGEN DICTATORSHIP

One eye watching the emptiness all around
and the faded sketch of hostility above,
sleeping whales are boundary markers
suspended vertically just below the surface,
cordoning off a hemispheric dream space:
half of each gigantic brain awake
while the other dives deep in the subconscious
pursuing unimaginable prey
hidden in the limitless expanse,
until the need to breathe calls them back once again.

DANCING IN THE DUST

Mr Bedford’s shop was a treasure house
of dusty old things on endless shelves.
I used to dream about the gramophone,
imagining people in 1920s clothes
climbing out of the horn to dance the Charleston
by the till to scratchy old records.
Many years later my brother bought the shop
to continue the dancing in the dust.

S.C. Flynn was born in a small town in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. His poetry has been published in many magazines, and in March 2023 leading US magazine Rattle included him as one of seventeen contemporary Irish poets in a special edition. In May 2023 he was long-listed for the Erbacce Prize out of 13,000 entries. 

MY YOUTH

I can't forget my youth days,
My dream would fly in the sky,
There my vote, my sweet ages,
The sky would always fascinate me.
My dreams flapped wings and flew,
Even fate would be afraid of me and run,
As if the Sun was the only one shining,
Earth would make Heaven fall in love with her.
Watching the sun and turning on a tune,
I counted stars after the moon went down,
I would greet the Sun every morning,
This is how love would go on.
Being loved, a lucky age of loving,
A beautiful line up of my younger years,
Take the cabbage I put on my head,
Would be great, would amaze me.
Months, days, years, seasons,
It's a memory now, my youth and me.
It's a pity standing in between, a bit,
My youth is growing from afar!


Short creative biography:
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.

Marriage; The Way Out?

“I’ll never forgive my mother for leaving us alone at the hands of father. Because of a little misunderstanding with him, she left us when we needed her presence the most. Father is married to Agnes who hasn’t been fair to me ever since she came into our house. My step-brother, John Jnr., who is just 6 years of age, is being given the best of preferential treatments because he is Agnes’ only child. Yet, my younger ones can barely find three times daily. Ashley and Emma are not looking healthy because of my step-mom’s ill-treatment.

Wherever, you are, mother, you will know no peace. I won’t forgive you for the rest of my life; even in death. I am 12 now. In the next ten years, whether father or step-mother, likes it or not, I’m getting married to a man who is ten years older than me and must agree to what say. I have spoken”.  Words read from Stacy’s diary.

Stacy was born into a family of a well –to-do background in Oakland. Being the first in a family of four. Later, her younger sister died some years back after she was born. Special treatments were given to her especially by her father-being the first child and only surviving girl of the family-material and physical attention. Stacy came into the world through the consent of Sir John Newbury and Lady Flora Rice. She had two younger brothers, Ashley and Emma and her step-brother, John.

  Things seemed rosy until her parents started living a cat and dog lifestyle due to impending challenges the family faced at that time. Subsequently, Lady Flora, as she was fondly called, decided on what she saw as being normal –leaving her husband to take custody of the children. Although Sir John played a dual responsibility; generally seeing to the finances of his household and physical and mental wellbeing of his children, he was faced with an uphill task of balancing home affairs and his busy working schedule. 

As a result, he felt the need of having mistress who later became his second wife- Agnes-a.k.a The Commoner. She bore him only a child, John Jnr., but was busy maltreating Stacy and her younger siblings. Personally, you could imagine a girl not growing under the “watchful eyes “of her mother. 

   Stacy had to endure the storms of life and painstaking to cater for the needs of her younger ones. Her predicament was so unbearable that she decided to take on menial jobs to make ends meet. As Stacy grew up under inauspicious conditions to an adult, though very beautiful and one most sought after ladies in her locality, she, without the proper guidance of a good counsellor and her mother, felt that marriage would be the way out of her pathetic state. 

Fortunately for her, she agreed to a marriage proposal made by a dashing you gentleman, Anthony, ten years older, on the condition that he must take care of her younger ones. What a naivety- influenced decision! 

“Before I get married to you, Anthony, you must satisfy two conditions… you must agree that you won’t marry another wife and ensure that my brothers Ashley and Emma are taken care of under your roof until they are mature to live on their own.” 

“Yes, I will. In fact, consider it all done!”Anthony couldn’t wait to have her as a wife. 

Stacy went to her father and told him whom she had met and her subsequent intent to marry him.  Sir John asked that Stacy send for Anthony who was leaving nine houses away from his.
Three hours after her father met with Anthony, he, in the presence of Ashley and his elder brother, Emma, related his observation to Stacy: “My dearest daughter, I know that you really want to get married on time because of how you grew up without your mother. However, based on what I observed in the course of our conversation, I will strongly advise that you don’t marry him-he has no future for himself, his children and even you. Look at me, your father; no academic qualification, a labelled stark illiterate and a menial job worker. Yet, I have in possession houses and other investments in Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney. Don’t mind what your mom did. If she was here, she would have said the same thing”.

“No father, replied angry Stacy, ‘my mind is made up…I must marry Anthony, whether you like it or not. He’s my choice. That’s whom I’ll marry, period!”

“Father is right. He really has no future for you. Look at his habits…he smokes, drinks and womanizes. Yet, you’ve made up your mind to marry him”, said Emma who was present when his father made his observations known to Stacy. 

“As for me, Stacy had made up her mind in spending the rest of her life with. Let’s her go ahead and on our part, wish her the best. I’m pretty tired of being ill-treated by your so-called wife.  I can’t wait to move in with my big sister!” said Ashley, who had been in support of Stacy marrying Anthony to his Dad.

“In time, you, father and Emma will understand the very reason I chose to marry Anthony. Though he smokes, drinks and womanizes, I believe he has a future ahead of him. Come to think of it, are you all perfect? I know, with God, he will change for the better! It’s quite unfortunate that Ashley, the baby of the house, understands me better than all of you. It happens, sometimes!”Responded Stacy to her father, Emma and Ashley. 

She eventually got married to him without proper mastery of what it means to stay married and of what the true foundation of marriage is. Now, she is married for nearly thirty years but living under the shadow of regrets.

Autumn

How can I explain the seduction of this difficult autumn?
The earth smells of departure
Like a leaf of the wind that dances in your absence
In front of our house
I'm afraid to mold you in the thick of the cold
This longing is stronger than the body
Let me hear your voice from afar
How it seduces every particle of this life
Thinking about you.

Emina Đelilović-Kevrić (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) After studying the b/h/s (bosnian/croatian/serbian) language and literature at the Philoshopical Faculty in Zenica she got her master's degree on the subject „Memory construction in the South Slavic interlinear community: typical models of the war camp experience in literature“. She is the author of the poetry collection „ This time without history“ and the short stories collection „ Erased lives“. Her collection of poems „ My son and I“ is awarded by the Publishing Foundation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021. In 2022 she won the second place in the international literature competition „ Isnam Taljić“. She is the winner of the second award for the best short story of the regional literature competition „Zija Dizdarević“ 2022, and she won the first place on international literature competition „Nastavi priču“. 2023. she won a third place on international poetry competition „Ossi di Seppia“ Italy