I am a poetess

I am lucky to be a female poet in the 21st century.

During thousands years of history,

Women’s status and rights have always been humble.

Now I want to stand among the forerunners of the present.

It’s not just about being a good daughter, wife and mother,

Nor does it just consume energy and time to sew and cook,

But to be as strong and as independent as a pine tree.

Of course, we also smile like a flower.

Like Marie Curie’s wisdom rising to the heights,

Like Nightingale, the founder of poetry,

Like Simon de Beauvoir writing her own philosophy.

When you can hold an umbrella for someone else

You don’t have to be afraid of rain and snow,

You are worthy of life in that way.

You are also the creator of this era.

******************

Anna Keiko, a distinguished poetess and essayist from Shanghai, China, has made a profound impact on contemporary literature. A graduate of Shanghai East China University with a Bachelor’s degree in Law, she has achieved global recognition for her poetry, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and published in over 500 journals, magazines, and media outlets across 40 countries. Keiko is the founder and chief editor of the ACC Shanghai Huifeng Literature Association and serves as a Chinese representative and director of the International Cultural Foundation Ithaca. Her affiliations extend to Immagine & Poesia in Italy and the Canadian-Cuban Literary Union, reflecting her commitment to fostering cross-cultural literary exchanges. Her poetic oeuvre spans six collections, including “Lonely in the Blood and Absurd Language”, showcasing her exploration of human emotions, environmental concerns, and existential themes. Her innovative style and evocative imagery have earned her numerous accolades, such as the 30th International Poetry Award in Italy and the World Peace Ambassador Certificate in 2024. Notably, she was the first Chinese recipient of the Cross-Cultural Exchange Medal for Significant Contribution to World Poetry, awarded in the United States in 2023. Her works, including “Octopus Bones” and other acclaimed poems, have resonated with readers worldwide, garnering invitations to prominent international poetry festivals and conferences. Her dedication to the arts extends beyond poetry, encompassing prose, essays, lyrics, and drama, underscoring her versatility as a writer. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020, Anna Keiko continues to break barriers, bringing Chinese literature to the global stage.

The Age of War

For most of a life now long enough 
to be half buried in history,
the country, half-despairingly,
I call my own—
half-decadent, half-barbarian,
and wholly crass—
has been, above all things, at war.

Not only the kind that bleeds headlines.

A frigid civil war, scar 
of a hot one long ago,
between a party drunk on virtue
and another, aggrieved and vengeful.

A war between races,
nations, tribes,
for which will tyrannize
the seven continents.

A war between generations
as callous adulthood sends its children
to the slow death of lack of enough
money, or drones and killing.

A war of the rich on the rest of us,
rooted as old as time
now a monstrosity
beyond obscenity.

A war between the sexes
whipped into a frenzy;
a war man and woman refuse
either truce or loss.

War on war on war across
decades I do not wish to count—

at times almost about to gamble 
a cagey ceasefire,
only to be pulled underground
in cunning retreat,

like a wild fire that forever burns,
threatening at points that cannot be known
to claw and tongue into the air again
and sweep away to ashes 
the wilderness of mankind.

I do not see an end to them.
Perhaps they cannot end:
perhaps they are as old
as mad, foolish humankind,
and so they will end only
with the last human sigh.

And so they are tearing us to pieces.

_____

Christopher Bernard’s book The Socialist’s Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was named one of the “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews. His latest book of poetry, appearing in the fall of 2025, is The Beauty of Matter.

When I was in a little pain, you always came to me,

You always cared for me,

You were kind like a mother, always worried

You worked day and night like me

Thank you, Shoira Master, a thousand times

I am grateful that you meet me on my fateful paths,

Every time I see you, I feel happy,

Thank you for the knowledge you have given,

May you always be healthy for my happiness

Thank you, Shoira Master, a thousand times

Happy Stay by my side in my days,

Children, enjoy your happiness,

Know that you are the most important thing for me,

May you always be surrounded by beautiful happiness

Thank you, Shoira teacher, a thousand times

Who was I, a simple writer,

A pained person who shared his pain with the you

With you in my life, it is beautiful to live

I will definitely make you the happiest teacher

Thank you, Shoira teacher, a thousand times

I LOVE YOU MASTER SHOIRA OBIDOVA

Sobirjonova Rayhona, a 11th-grade student of the 8th general secondary school in Vobkent district, Bukhara region. She was born in December 2008 in the village of Chorikalon, Vobkent district, in a family of intellectuals. Her parents supported Rayhona from a young age.  She started writing in the 3rd grade. Her first creative poem was published in the newspaper “Vobkent Hayot”. She has also published extensively in Synchronized Chaos International Magazine, India’s Namaste India Magazine, Gulkhan Magazine, Germany’s RavenCage Magazine and many other magazines and newspapers.  Actively participated in many competitions, won high places and won many prizes. She is still busy creating.

Oh! What a breeze!

As I sit near the window,

My hand rested on the steel bar,

I hear clapping – I look around…

There was a festival going on.

Dreamy lights everywhere.

As I was looking at the festival in awe

A whirlwind of breeze tucked my hair!

I suggest – Oh! What a breeze!

The trees swaying in the rhythm

                                  of the breeze

I felt like the wind was calling me

                               to dance with it.

I was lost in what I was feeling and seeing.

As I regained my thoughts, I said dreamily…

Oh! What a breeze!

…   …   …   …   …   . .   …   …   …   …   …   …   …

Short biodata:

Nikhita is a 19 year old. She is studying at SSVM World School, Coimbatore, India. She enjoys reading books, dancing, and playing the piano. Her imagination and creativity shine through her writing.

READING, WRITING, & RIFLES *

The Minnesota school year starts– high hopes!

Kids greet old friends, begin a brand new grade,

their backpacks filled with new crayons and glue sticks.

Morning begins with Mass. The students pray

together, sharing optimism and faith—

until the gunfire starts.  Round after round

sprays through a stained-glass window, firing wild.

Two kids are killed, and 18 more are wounded.

Terror, shock, and panic fill the church.

One boy, shielding his friend, shot in the back.

A wounded girl keeps pleading, “Hold my hand.”

There’s no escape. The shooter barred a door

with a 2X4. Brought three guns. Used them all—

a rifle, shotgun, pistol. Perfect tools

for someone standing outside, shooting in.

Just like the shooter’s heroes in the news.

It takes a lot of hate to mow down children—

faces bright with eagerness and promise.

What kind of mind resents their zest and joy?

Seeks only to destroy, destroy, destroy?

And why can some young person filled with rage

buy gun after gun after gun– no questions asked?

This feast of hate was crowned by suicide.

Without guns, toxic hate would not be fatal.

*  On August 27, 2025, a sniper shot through a Church window at children attending a Mass that opened the school year for Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two dead, 18 wounded.

ICE WELCOMES STRANGERS

ICE targets brown—brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin.

Storm troopers drag whole families from rich fields,

leaving crops half-picked. These bounty hunters

seize brown workers from construction sites,

hotel staffs, work crews, courts, meat-packing plants.—

disrupting businesses, creating holes

that can’t be filled. A green card’s not a shield.

Even immigration court’s not safe.

Brown workers hide, afraid of ICE’s thugs.

On streets, masked gunmen driving unmarked vans

jump out, grab targets, drive off– sowing fear.

ICE operates like mob enforcement gangs.

Fills up detention camps with immigrants

who work, pay taxes, send their kids to school,

send money home to families in need.

Some holding cells are clean, at least. But one—

the Alcatraz built in the Everglades–

a hell-hole! Florida’s new pride and joy.

Who works for ICE? Enjoys the snatch-and-grab–

strong-arming, terrorizing, playing rough?

These Christian soldiers, battling immigrants,

feel justified. Just get the vermin out!

When preachers drag up that old bible verse,

“I was a stranger, and you welcomed me…” *

the words bounce off. That propaganda’s woke!

A better watchword’s this: thou shalt not covet

thy neighbor’s country. Look out—here comes ICE!

* Matthew 25:35

A phantasmagoria including the past and present, visions, dreams, bits of reality, psychic seers and the sea, hairstyles, nature walks, talismans, seasons and wonder. When I was a kid I could see that spirit was announcing itself through the floor tiles, sometimes the wallpaper or clouds, and other things. The problem later, for a mystic that is,- is a liberal arts or even worse, science education, and growing up in general. This takes the ghosts away and then you fit in but fit into what?- to a mediocre and a blasé reality devoid of electric and eclectic realms. The spirits were there, are there, and not as a projection but rather a protection. Sometimes though, they themselves are lost souls as are we, and they are crying out for help or to at least be seen. There are such things, such strange mellow and sometimes startling phenomenon.

The diviner said that one of the people listening was wearing a whale necklace. And I was. And she said the letter B as an initial. This was true. This was me. And yet in another instance, she said also, about green iguanas and the country of Aruba, of the name ‘Brian,’ as she put it. This interested me and I resonated with it. I had just gotten back from Aruba and seen and photographed the green iguanas. Then I saw the whale design on the pet store floor also. I wondered if someone drew it or it was a marking by accident. It was in a way slightly vague that I just could not exactly tell. I wasn’t sure what it all meant but it meant something. 

I thought back to the past then. Working in the shelter I had to help a most beautiful woman from The Caspian Sea who was assigned to be a co-worker but was bullied by the other woman workers. It was because of her hair mostly. She had balayage hair and to her waist. It was real hair. And she was full of mystery and wonderful strange exotic eclectic auras and atmospheres. Then other women, especially during trainings when everyone had to sit together, whispered loudly and cruelly about her saying she didn’t belong there and that her hair was not real. She began to ask me long before trainings if I would get coffee with her when it was break. I realized it was not because she liked me in any even platonic or other way, but because it wasn’t too far off from being bullied in the school yard and she knew I’d be an ally. And to think, these people were assigned to helping and advocating for the marginalized. What a world we live in. She was hurt and overall sensitive. And amidst several regular souls trying to make their way, to navigate life, two known drug dealers were walking up the driveway one evening and one was really heavy-set. She said, ‘Here comes a whale,’ and it broke my idea of her as she now had a capacity for meanness. She had that capability somewhere inside her. I just kept it to myself. English was not her first language. But she managed the insult ‘well,’ though I didn’t like it. 

I kept listening to the canon of near-death experiences because I studied much in my spare time about spirituality, psychology, that whole realm of topics. It often said how people didn’t want to come back,- such was how it felt at home in heaven or the other side. That was hopeful for the sick, the terminally ill, for the ones who have passed and for all of us one day…when our time and circumstance of demise arrive…

I eventually left the world as much as I could and just walked the forests and by small streams of water. There I saw what I deemed to be spirits in the tree bark, cumulus clouds, or in swaying winter reeds cold and freezing. I felt them amidst spring raindrops where I waited solitary in the world for what I don’t know. Summer spirits everywhere too,- by sumac leaves and the abandoned tractor, in the flickering light through the tree canopy or the stones by the lee, the protective lee made of sand and dirt and root systems. Autumnal times had the most, HAVE the most,- spectres, phantoms, and angels. They live everywhere. Sometimes during those times an energy can be felt, like an electric surge in the air but one more akin to containing a spiritual sensibility. Maybe it was the kundalini energy, I would think. I had seen several snakes in the early days and wondered if they were an outward manifestation of the inward kundalini rising or having risen. 

It had been a long day. I lay down to sleep. I suddenly and finally saw the light, an other-worldly light,- golden and white mixed together. It was unmistakable. Then again, and a third time to be sure. I was growing spiritually after a lifetime of practice. I was grateful. I prayed to see it more. I did a bit. Then I must have fallen asleep and finally had good dreams again. I dreamt I was by the old shore and the saltwater sea. The one of my youth. It was overcast. Atlantic coastline. I was alone but felt so good about it. I glanced back at my building, then up and down the shoreline and finally out to the horizon. I felt the energy of the world, like in the forest but times a hundred or more, and it seemed it was another world,- an electric heaven. I could see distant verdant palm fronds dancing awkwardly for the pre-storm winds. I went in the water up to my neck and sometimes went intentionally under and let the ocean go a bit into my mouth and my eyes. That way it could enter my soul. I was unafraid. I was just unafraid of absolutely anything. I didn’t know if I was on earth or in heaven, experiencing this world or the next, immersed in a dream or kissed by providence and fortune and therefore there in real life. 

But I wasn’t lost anymore.

I was home. 

“Kelajak ofisi” unites young people 

Sevinch Mukhammadiyeva 

sevinchmuhammadiyeva06@gmail.com

Annotation: It would not be a mistake to say that the “Office of the Future” is a true center of opportunities and knowledge for young people. During the program, participants have the chance to strengthen their teamwork and leadership skills, attend master classes from experienced speakers, and exchange ideas and experiences with new friends. Over the course of five days, more than 150 young people discover new sides of themselves. This program is highly valuable and essential for today’s youth. 

Keywords: Education, 5 days, Kelajak ofisi, project

Аннотация: Не будет ошибкой сказать, что «Офис будущего» является настоящим центром возможностей и знаний для молодежи. В рамках программы участники имеют возможность укрепить свои навыки командной работы и лидерства, посетить мастер-классы от опытных спикеров, а также обменяться идеями и опытом с новыми друзьями. В течение пяти дней более 150 молодых людей открывают в себе новые грани. Эта программа является очень ценной и необходимой для современной молодежи.

Ключевые слова: Образование,5 дней, Проект,Келажак офиси

Annotatsiya: “Kelajak ofisi” yoshlar uchun haqiqiy imkoniyat va bilim maskani desak, adashmagan bo‘lamiz. Dastur davomida ishtirokchilar jamoada ishlash va yetakchilik ko‘nikmalarini mustahkamlash, tajribali spikerlarning mahorat darslarida qatnashish, yangi do‘stlar bilan fikr va tajribalar almashish imkoniyatiga ega bo‘ladilar. Besh kun davomida 150 dan ortiq yoshlar o‘zlaridagi yangi qirralarni kashf etadilar. Ushbu loyiha yoshlar uchun nihoyatda muhim va qadrlidir.

Kalit so’zlar: Ta’lim, 5 kun, proyekt, Kelajak ofisi

Mukhammadiyeva Sevinch is a second-year student at Tashkent State Medical University. She graduated from school with a gold medal in 2024, demonstrating her academic excellence. In 2022, she earned an IELTS score of 6.5, reflecting her strong proficiency in English. Sevinch is also the holder of a National “A” Certificate in Chemistry and has achieved distinction as a winner of the Chemistry Olympiad.