Homeland Security

The police must be raiding 

houses, their sirens on full

blare, searchlights waving

like crazy magic wands made 

out of lasers, though imprecise

at fixing locations, finding what

is hiding out there in the dark

For a moment the light is

terrific, enough to read by,

if you were so inclined, had 

the time, were not otherwise

occupied

by all this chaos

by all this confusion

No one questions what is

going on, no one asks who has

the authority or what for

Why bother?

Asking will not change what

has already begun, what is going on

They must know what

they are doing, these policemen

and women

Knocking on doors in the night

Yelling, “Open up, open up!

It’s the police!”

We have no doubts about what

they are doing

We always open up

We have no choice

Futility Music

That’s what they

call it:

the interrogators,

assassins

spooks

Heavy metal to us:

Twisted Sister

Metallica

Kiss

Angry music:

Limp Biskit

Slip Knot

Rage Against the Machine

“Interro-tunes”

say those in the trade,

approved by your

Defense Department

“Mood music for

jolting your jihad”

Unholy, infidel

noise, horror sounds

the ultimate

cultural clash:

pure torture:

“We’re Not Going to Take It”

“Shoot to Thrill”

“The Sandman”

Drowning Pool

“Let the bodies hit the floor”

“Glow in the Darks”

This new interrogation

technique;

beating the prisoner

with phosphorescent

sticks,

you know, the kind

they guide airplanes

down runways with

at night,

beating them until

the sticks break,

coats the prisoners

with the stuff that’s

inside,

makes them easier

to keep track of

when they glow

in the dark

Pictures of What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s

Novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, mixed media

on paper

Under the sign of an hourglass,

men in loose fitting Hawaiian shirts

look up to where the sun should be

and see an absence of light, 

see a strange colored chemical haze,

what the clouds have become and

no one can explain how this came about;

not even the scientists in tie-dyed lab

coats who caused this abstract transformation;

nor the rear-guard SS troopers in their

atrocity exhibit offices, walls covered by

portraits of tyrannical rulers throughout 

the ages, their rulers and ours; not the lackeys 

or the bootlickers kneeling down in ruined

streets to kiss the shoes of false Popes,

Grand Inquisitors wearing heavy, plush

robes to conceal their executioner gear;

not satan’s soldiers on wheels; not pale

musclemen, minutemen, plunderers of the dead;

not the burgermeisters nor their whores:

the taxi dancers, cabaret queens, make up

artists, made up as tainted gypsies, hot to

the touch; not the anarchists with their 

apolitical tracts but the atonal music they

listened to as the rockets came over the spent

horizon, some exploding in mid-air recreating

the memory of the missing stars, others not

ignited and no one knew why.

Gravity’s Rainbow: Paper Collage with Pills,

Hemp Leaves, Acrylic and Resin on Wood

after Fred Tomaselli

Gravity’s Rainbow as extreme Art,

a hybrid form combining found objects,

over-the-counter Medicinals, antacid wafers,

dissolvable capsules, antihistamines, low

dosage aspirins, the enteric and the regular,

all strung as helix amid drooping plastics,

necklaces and furbelows, the ornamental

and the functional, an almost tapestry,

tableau of modern life, of lost and found

Art, affixed on a field of black, the universal

and the particular, random designing, scars,

the wounded back drop, the sky.

When you first

see them, the men,

seated, waiting in

the desert, you wonder,

why have they gathered

here? What are they

doing?  Are they so

devout, nothing can

keep them from praying?

Not the approaching

storm, the darkening

whirl of dust and dirt,

a tidal wave of earth.

No, you realize, prayer

is not what has brought

them here but war;

that lone man standing

some yards away is

a soldier, an armed

guard and that jeep

nearby is not moving

but idling, more men

inside, waiting for what

happens next.  Waiting

for the hovering craft,

the first of many, about

to land despite sight line

zero, this ghost ship in

a wasteland, here to ferry

the doomed, the prisoners,

home.

Franz Marc’s Battling Forms (1914)

A piece of Klee,

geometric, tarnished

as the skin of martyrs

uprooted from their

graves;

the hell they were

interred in no longer

consecrated ground

but something profaned,

damaged by earthquakes,

artillery barraging;

their rude crosses bent,

dismantling, even eternity

markers impermanent as

the town’s people who 

died here breathing mustard

gases;

their collective exhalations

a poisonous cloud, a pale

horse, pale rider nightmare

wrenched from Chagall’s

worst dream;

all of Munch’s lost tubercular

children gathered behind

locked church doors balanced

on the edge of a precipice;

or like a Kandinsky composition

in red, a folk dream inside a blood

red chamber, the one the artist

never finished, the one no one

could ever finish.

Blue as Being Beyond Reach 

How delicate you look as you step on the pulse of my heart, 

How sweetly woven of the loveliest silk, 

Your eyes as blue as heaven reflected in a deep sea, 

With waves forever folding over one another — 

Let them drown me in their profound looks, 

While I am taken away without the faintest resistance. 

But alas, being too old for such young beauty, 

I shall retreat into my silent grief, 

Away from the music of your departing steps.

Pale with Clamping Hands 

I see the pallor that you wear 

like winter’s light late in the morning 

A fracture hidden under calm, 

a wound you’ve learned to fold and hide. 

I will not blame you. No. 

You carry what would break a lesser soul, 

but softness is your brightest wear— 

that gentle thing that keeps you there—

betrays you to my watching eyes, 

spills through the quiet you maintain. 

Your tenderness, try as you might, 

refuses to pretend no pain. 

So what is there to do 

but witness, from this careful space, 

the strength that holds itself together — 

and love the light still in your face.

Hussein Nasser Jabr (Born 1964) holds a PhD in English Philology from the University of Craiova, Romania. He currently works as a faculty member at the College of Education, Imam Ja’afar Al Sadiq University in Iraq. An Iraqi poet and literary translator, he has translated numerous works between English and Arabic, including philosophy books, a study on sectarianism in Iraq, art monographs, and poetry collections by Faleeha Hassan and some other poets. His translations have appeared in Gilgamesh and Iraq Literary Review. He has published original Arabic poetry, critical studies, and articles on translation. A member of the Union of Writers in Iraq since 2002, he has participated in international conferences and poetry festivals.

Untitled

How much of these

hills have they besmirched

by the savage onslaught of 

time?

I go to them only

when colour fades

and they erase all time’s

beginnings from my mind

these hills are not only history

but riverine enters them

and they are soaked by rains

a tapestry which when sundered

will eclipse time’s denudations

I watch everyday, a fantasy

a myth spelling out of dreams

and a quiescence which is

unbearable, I go there

sit, watch and narrate stories

It will rain soon and the muddied

earth will enter the hills

flailing arms, composing 

night songs and bringing 

unease to this quietude

of rainbow coloured dreams

Do you still feel that we should live here?

hands clasped praying for every day to end?

a subversive act of loving

but not knowing what to do 

among dark shadow lines

intersecting these hills into 

cut wounds of sorrow

as night comes to escape from

realities.

Alcoholic Nights

alcoholic nights smelling of overproof rum and cheap rotgut,

when the smoky clouds in the living room refuse to dissipate.

nights when the liver twitches and demands a sacrifice even if

it means emptying the wallet and going to work the next day

with a massive hangover and in a genocidal mood.

these are the nights of true danger, when you have no idea

where you might end, what you might do.

it’s like gambling, only you can win more, and lose even more.

you can lose your job; you can find a girlfriend.

you can end up injured and/or missing body parts,

or wake up having created a masterpiece.

it’s the alcoholic nights that smell worse than a skid row dive

that have the greatest potential for anything and everything to happen.

Calls From Nowhere

sometimes. during good drunk nights, I wake

up in a fervor, confusing my alarm clock for a phone

call from Christine; on a couple of occasions, I’ve even

“answered”, hearing her voice in my half-asleep state of stupor dreaming.

it’s been thirteen years since I last heard her voice on the phone,

when she told me she’d be moving to Copenhagen while I was

away on vacation, and I sometimes wonder what would I do if

she somehow found my new number and gave me a real call.

would I go back to her? would I tell her I’ve turned into a better person?

would she even believe I’m not the whoremongering alcoholic junkie

she met, saved, then abandoned?

I have no idea; part of me wishes for her to return to my life, for 

a second chance with the only woman ever coming close to

replacing Emily in my heart. on the other hand, I traumatized her enough

that I know she would never be able to trust me. perhaps, it’s for the

best we haven’t stayed in contact; it’s for the best I haven’t

seen or heard from her in thirteen years.

I prefer half-dreaming imaginary talks with her, hearing her

tell me she’s happy and that she found someone who

doesn’t shoot heroin in the bathroom or drains two bottles of Four Roses

during a calm Saturday afternoon.

Boozing It Up Early

boozing it up early, once again chasing the midnight train.

memories and future moments are juxtaposed in a nightmarish

amalgamation creating more restless nights. heading to work

with a liter of bourbon in the blood and almost no sleep, 

the mind’s racing for reasons beyond my control and will.

booze clears some things up, and it blurs others.

no definitive answer found in any of the twenty empty bottles

of the past fortnight; perhaps the next twenty will have something

refreshing to offer.

Frigid Winter Nights

remembering frigid winter nights in a tiny

apartment; clouds of smoke choked out the air and vapor

crawled out of the spoon like thin blue snakes. Emily and I would sit

on the blue foldout couch already stained by melting junk.

hunger in our eyes, lust in our souls, everything felt so goddamn

all right—even if nothing was. 

we’d kiss as the spoon was burning, and the first bubbles appeared.

sometimes, we’d trade a look of anticipation and sometimes, our

glances would express worry over what the fuck we were doing.

nothing could stop us; not even our love.

yet, those frigid winter nights, laced with cheap booze and heroin,

were the best months of my life.

madly in love, slowly dissipating into the madness I came to know

as life. and I had Emily by my side, begging me to burn the spoon

while kissing me.

frigid winter nights that’ll never return, and that’ll live

forever in my mind; no one else could have been there,

no one else will ever be there.

the frigid nights of junk beauty are interred in my heart,

and a lot of women have failed in their attempts to destroy them.

Charles Chaplin in Reign of Laughter at the Top

Everyone wants to laugh, spend life laughing, 

He used to laugh to make people happy 

Charlie Chaplin’s Reign in the Kingdom of Laughter, 

The magic of laughter is age-old. 

Making laughter a universal cinema industry, 

Such a communication required no words, 

A character that is a unique character, 

At whose name the heart smiles, full of joy, 

Which is the main character in social discussion. 

People pleasing is a human figure, 

In times of industrial change, change deepens inequality. 

Reality can be revealed through laughter. 

In the mechanized world of the individual, 

Fragility is tenderly depicted. 

The craft was in performing humor, 

Invisible becomes visible, loneliness is removed, 

Poverty is the redemption of poverty, the mind is the meaning of happiness. 

A drama given with entertainment, 

Explanations and questions in depth of that play, 

Where historical context is relevant. 

The smile on the face is Charlie Chaplin, 

The medicine of laughter remains, and the happiness fades away. 

Charlie Chaplin will be respected and loved. 

Amb. Dr. Priyanka Neogi is from Coochbehar. She is an administrative controller of United Nations’ PAF, a librarian, a CEO of Lio Messi International Property & Land Consultancy, international literacy worker, sports & peace promoter, dancer, singer, reciter, live telecaster, writer, editor, researcher, literary journalist, host, beauty queen, international co-ordinator of the Vijay Mission of Community Welfare Foundation of India.

Wheat of Words

Rain draws up
houses in the clouds,
chairs made of light.
Angels plow the night
of happiness.
They plant songs in
the brass threshing-floors,
beating the wheat of words.

On the House’s Hip

We write on the house’s hip:
We are here.
We chew on the street’s loneliness
’til the alley turns
into a moon on the soul’s shoulder.
The wind’s wound…
you tell it like a secret.
Lightning drinks its glass,
and we drink down the question.
Sparrows soften the bitter cold.
What’s the point of staying…?
The olive tree left it to the windows
to tell what’s left
of the shouting inside us,
tossing it in the grinder.

Tightness

No sound strips me bare

but time’s handkerchiefs

wiping themselves,

and ruin is born

blooming tight little dreams.

Mohammed Al Gaddafi Masoud was born in 1978 in Gharyan, Libya, holds a theater diploma from Tripoli’s Jamal Al-Din Al-Miladi Institute (2000) and is the author of several collections, including lyrical poetry (We Woke Up to Joy, 2006) and journalistic dialogues (My Dialogues with Them, 2008). Widely published across the Arab world, his work has been translated into numerous languages—English, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, French, Italian, and Albanian—and appeared in international print and online journals from Spain to Argentina. In 2024, he was selected as one of 72 global poets for an Italian-language anthology curated by Angela Costa, reflecting his broadening transnational literary presence.

_____________________________________________________

Translation Dr. Salwa Goda

J.J. Campbell’s new collection To Live Your Dreams is a collection of raw, emotional, and often dark expressions of life, love, loneliness, and despair.

His speaker often feels disconnected and isolated, describing themselves as “broken” and struggling with feelings of loneliness. Many poems express a sense of disappointment and disillusionment with life, love, and relationships, which are often fleeting and precarious. In “the twilight,” “love is like juggling hand grenades…you hope the people are entertained and the pin never comes out.”

The speaker frequently uses self-deprecating humor and acknowledges their own flaws and shortcomings. The lack of capitals and punctuation in the poems, and the non-rhyming, understated, free-verse narrative help to convey the speaker’s raw pain and humility. They also frequently use dark humor and irony to cope with emotions and experiences, including trauma and abuse they have survived. In an attempt to snatch a smidgen of hope from a barren life, he fantasizes about “being shot while getting rejection letters in the mail,” and in “count the seconds,” he recollects “explaining being molested again/to a group of people who never wanted the truth.” Finally, in a moment perhaps familiar to many writers who mine the well of their own sufferings, he reflects, “she liked my poetry/which is a sign something was up.”

Despite the speaker’s struggles, they often express a deep and touching desire for human connection and understanding. In “the one,” he reflects on a tenuous long-distance romance, suggesting with a tinge of tragicomic hope that “maybe this silly thing called love/will take care of everything.” Hope can spring eternal in a person’s heart, and we hope that he finds his way to peace and connection, one way or another. The collection’s title itself can be taken in multiple ways: while he has not yet “lived his dreams,” the fact that he still has dreams, that he can still hope despite his past and present struggles, becomes poignant and beautiful in itself.

Community and love are two-way streets, though, and perhaps reaching out to others who are struggling in similar ways could help him to find purpose and friendship. It’s clear that he’s not the only one in his situation, as he mentions support groups, counseling, and encounters with others on dating sites who seem equally broken and lonely.

In to live your dreams, J.J. Campbell offers a glimpse into his speaker’s complex and often troubled inner world. Overall, these poems convey a sense of raw emotion, vulnerability, and introspection.

J.J. Campbell’s to live your dreams is available from Whiskey City Press here.