For My Mother

Anora’s life did not start easily. Her father abandoned her from infancy. Her mother, Yulduz, had also lost her parents early in life. Instead of comforting them, her only brother blamed her for everything: “It’s all your fault; if you had given birth to a son, not a daughter, he wouldn’t have thrown you out of the house. You shamed him in front of his friends, that’s why he kicked you out,” he said, refusing to let her into his home, as if Yulduz was to blame for bringing a daughter into the world.

The poor woman was left on the street with her little daughter. Life seemed to be utterly dark, yet a light appeared within that darkness. A kind person gave them shelter and even gifted Yulduz a sewing machine. She spent her days cleaning and her nights sewing, managing to enroll her daughter in kindergarten. Every morning, holding her daughter’s hand, she would say, “Behind every dark day, there is light.” Anora was still young then and didn’t fully grasp the meaning of those words, but she etched them into her heart.

Time passed, and Anora turned 5. Although she was not yet school-aged, her mother, wishing for her daughter to be educated, sent her to school. Despite being smaller than her classmates, Anora amazed everyone with her intelligence, shrewdness, and diligence. Every day after returning from school, she would run to her mother and proudly announce, “They praised me at school today.”

As the mother and daughter were living happily, God sent them another trial, and this trial was harder than any before. Anora was 14 years old, studying in the 10th grade, when her mother suddenly fell gravely ill. Doctors said that her heart function had significantly weakened and that a large sum of money was needed for treatment. Anora studied during the day, worked at night, and borrowed money from friends to spend on her mother’s health. Crying, she pleaded with the doctors, “Please save my mother’s life; I have no one else but her.” They comforted her, saying, “Your mother will surely recover, just pray.”

But her mother did not recover; she departed from this bright world. Her last words to her daughter were, “My daughter, I will die, but you will live. You will surely achieve your dreams. Be patient, bright days are still ahead.”

Unable to bear her mother’s death, the poor girl fell gravely ill herself. The kind person who had given them shelter and the girl’s teachers treated her. They told her, “If you want your mother’s spirit to rest in peace, you must pull yourself together and continue your education. We will never leave you alone.” She diligently strived to be the daughter her mother had dreamed of, achieving several great successes. Each time she received an award, she would think, “If my mother were alive, I would share this pride with her.” Her teachers had become like a second mother to her. But still, she missed her mother every single moment.

Years passed, and she fulfilled her mother’s biggest dream… she became a doctor. Now, every day, standing by her patients, she sees hope in their eyes. She treats every patient with kindness, as if she were saving her mother’s life.

Now people refer to her as “Doctor Anora.” And the young doctor hears a voice in her heart every time… “I am proud of you…”

My name is Zarina Oʻrinboyeva. I  was born in 2011 in Oqdaryo district, Samarkand region. In 2018, l went to school No. 43 in Oqdaryo district to begin my education. I am currently an 8th grade student at this school, and I am 14 years old.
My favorite subjects are English, Russian, chemistry, Uzbek, literature, and law. In my free time, l enjoy reading books and writing stories. With my knowledge and hard work, l have won several high places in various republican competitions.
I still have many dreams ahead of me, and insha’ Allah, l will achieve them one by one.

DONNA, OLTRE L’INDICAZIONE DEL CORPO

Occhi come lago/ Labbra scarlatte come corallo/ Capelli ricci e sinuosi

Attragono in tutte le quattro direzioni

Questi sono labirinti

Il viso e il fascino fisico sono delle tende, in vero

Un’arma per tenerti lontano dalla dimora desiderata

Una vera donna vive altrove

Oltre l’indicazione del suo corpo

Seduta accovacciata come una reclusa

Proprio come una cosa astratta

Come un sogno di nuvole bianche di neve

A volte, simile alla notte  senza la luna

Fulmini dormienti, pieni della loro potenza

È necessaria una meditazione estremamente dura

Per aprire gli strati più profondi del suo cuore,

L’amore è considerato la vera perla di una donna

Questo può essere scoperto procedendo oltre il suo corpo

Altrimenti, nulla giace nel vortice del corpo 

L’uomo vuole sopraffare

Il corpo urlante di una donna

Ma il corpo è una duna di sabbia/ una fiera di desideri

C’è solo miraggio e poi miraggio

La donna è solita nascondersi, 

Da qualche parte nel suo io interiore,

invece di essere trovata nel suo corpo manifesto

che è come il centro epico di un vulcano attivo

un uomo per tutta la sua vita

corre sempre dietro a volti affascinanti

come quegli uomini idioti

che sulla superficie dell’acqua

spesso fissano le onde che s’immergono e galleggiano

con i loro occhi curiosi

giocano tutto il giorno con le conchiglie  delle spiagge

forse non sanno

che le vere perle si trovano inutilmente

nelle profondità di un mare,

dove il respiro non sostiene molto i subacquei

per raggiungere perle così sconosciute nelle profondità del mare

bisogna aspettare che le valve della conchiglia si aprano

per arrivare all’essenza originale di una donna

dovrai alzare la cortina del volto ingannevole

dovrai scendere

nella stanza nascosta del suo cuore

dovrai bussare e bussare ancora

alla finestra ermeticamente chiusa della sua anima

una donna non è un  un oggetto di lusso

non una merce di compra-vendita

Nemmeno un corpo fatto solo di carne e ossa

Il vero nome di una donna è ——

Amore, amore e solo amore!

Translation in Italian by the esteemed poetess from Italy Hon’ble Maria Miraglia 

Original poem in English by Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar, Editor, NCERT, New Delhi, India 

WOMAN, BEYOND THE INDEX OF BODY

Lake like eyes/ Scarlet coral-like lips/ Curly-curvy hairs

Attraction all four directions

These are mazes 

Face and physical charms are curtains, indeed

A weapon to keep off you from the desired abode

A true woman lives in somewhere else

Beyond the index of her body

Sitting crouch like a recluse 

Just like an abstract thing

Like a dream of snow-white clouds

Sometimes, similar to the moonless dark night

Dormant lightning, full of its potency

Extremely tough meditation is needed

To open her inner layers of heart,

Love is considered to be the genuine pearl of a woman

This can be discovered by proceeding beyond her body

Otherwise, nothing lies in the whirlpool of body

Man wants to overpower

The screaming body of a woman

But the body is a dune of sands/ a fair of desires

There is only mirage and mirage

Women used to be hidden, 

Somewhere in her inner self,

Instead of, being found in her apparent body

Which is like an epic center of a live volcano

A man in his entire life

Used to run after fascinating faces

Like those idiot men

Who is on the surface of the water 

Often, stare at diving and floating waves 

With their curious eyes

Use to play, the whole day, with shells lying on beaches

Perhaps, they do not know 

That the true pearls are senselessly lying 

In the depth of a sea, 

Where the breathes not much support the divers 

To achieve such unknown pearls in the deep sea

Needed to wait till the lips of the shell get opened 

To get the original element of a woman

You will have to raise the curtain of deceitful face

You will have to step down 

Into the concealed room of her heart

You will have to knock and knock again 

At the tightly closed window of her soul

A woman is not a thing of luxury

Not a commodity of marketing

Not even a body of only bone and flesh

The true name of a woman is —— 

Love, love, and only love! 

The Barren Lands Of My Heart

She sat on a greenish boulder beside a lake beneath a maple tree. Her soft little hands were trembling with the weight of the letter she was holding, a letter of goodbye from someone who once used to sit next to her on this same boulder. They used to compete on who could throw rocks farthest into the lake. In her mind, she was lost in a typhoon on a wrecked ship with no signs of shore.” Tears kept running down her eyes from her cheeks to her chin, later turning into white shiny pearls dropping  on the letter, blurring the words:

“My love, you are the sole beacon of fire, Fervor of my life, Elixir of my soul’s Obscurity. I forget how to breathe in your absence, I’m just a body whose soul is entrapped within yours. Each night I spend in this dugout staring at the stars, the brightest of them reminds me of you. The cold dazzling wind in my ear whispers your name. I close my eyes and see you in my arms, as if Vega itself has landed on Earth. Sometimes fire shells land near my dugout. Every day feels as if it’s going to be my last. It does not unnerve me, for love of my soil steels my heart.”

“It ignites a fire of passion in me, laying down my life for my country, so that I can honor the oath to which this uniform bound me. And the thoughts of me returning to you bloom a garden of daisies in the barren lands of my heart. If death finds me,  when we are apart, I promise you to accompany you as a sheltering maple tree beside the lake where we sit, play and laugh. As a full moon brightening your darkness, as night jasmine blossoming a fragrance around you, as the rainbow that comes after rain. As the spring that comes after the autumn, and as a melody of love that adds rhythm to your a capella. If Death takes me away from you, I shall return to you as my letters of love to you, and if my corpse is placed in front of you, just know I’m standing right beside you, grasping your shoulder, holding you close to me, and like a brave lady, accept my keepsakes of valor with a smile.”

Amidst the typhoon on the wrecked ship, she was moving towards shore, but suddenly someone called her name. The shore disappeared, she began to drown. She screamed, struggled to reach the surface, but it was no help. She fell deeper and deeper, but it wasn’t merely a physical ocean, it was the oceans of her sorrow,  which engulfed her and her world, bit by bit.

“Amber, Amber! The ambulance is here!” said her childhood friend Anne. Anne paused, looking at the ambulance. “He kept his word. He came back.”

Fiza Amir is an emerging writer, poet, and medical student from Pakistan. Her work explores the intersection of empathy, memory, and the human condition. She has been published in Fevers of the Mind and Pandemonium Journal.

WINGLESS ANGEL

I was born in a kingdom with underground passages. The king was a tyrant and the queen a woman made up of lies. Poverty, lowliness, and humiliation. I was raised like a guinea pig for experiments. I was raised with the seed of a soul. I have wanted wings since I was a child.

Since I was a child, I wished to fly away from the harshness and darkness of this life. An old man once said to me: “I want to fly. Nothing is certain in this world, but whoever denies heaven will be denied by heaven. I believed it.

I began to have a will to the sun. I knew that even in the land of underground passageways, we are made up of the power of the heavens and the earth. It is not a flight to the top. Rather, we fly to the bottom. To the very depths of humanity.

The ugliness of human beings, their meanness toward the upper class and their pride toward the lower class, became my strength. Wingless flight. I descended to the bottom of the underground passage. There, the living had no purpose, and their souls were as good as dead. Here it became clear to me for the first time that I was an angel without wings.

I planted the seeds of my soul in them without reserve. The will to the sun. With their last strength, they ran up the underground passageway and escaped to the earth. To a land without a tyrannical king and a false queen.

Burnt by the sun and with blinded eyes, they ran up to a high cliff. Then, arms outstretched, they soared toward the sun, one after the other, light and full of happiness.

The Lonely Warrior: In the Wings of the Condor, the new novel by Alexandros Stamatoulakis, has been released by Adrahti Publications. This is the second novel in the saga of the Lonely Warrior, Alex Kosmatos. (In the first novel, Alex turns from a young kid, scared and isolated, into a winner of life in the hands of Akira, a descendant of the Samurai).

In the luminous city of New York, the Lonely Warrior continues his initiation in the high Art of Living after having infiltrated the colorful world of advertising, under the guidance of his boss, Peter Drakos, and Laura the beautiful director. At his side is Akira, the incomparable mentor.

The love of his life, Sogia Aguile, is stressed out at work in the women’s magazine of the bossy and perfectionist Maggy Smith. Sofia’s grandfather, Don Giovanni, is the target of lethal threats.

At the same time, in the shadow of the defeat in Vietnam and the big economic interests, a conspiracy is brewing.

But then, a shocking event sends Alex away to Peru, where he encounters the samans of the Andes and meets his spirit animal, the condor.

The footnotes in the final section of the book constitute a valuable guide to survival and everyday life.

A Failed Prediction 

There always seemed a brightened,
yet greying hue to this room,
as your feet danced in a much
more sturdy rhythm than mine,
the bricked-up fireplace having
an easier time breathing than me.

As we clumsily entwine here,
we are blissfully distanced
from changes that are well
overdue, and which time 
had far more dictation over
than we ever could.

Now only the chores and broken 
bookshelves remain; the contents 
of the draws and cupboards 
unrecognisable, and after 
just a two-day absence, 
we now become separated shadows.

The Hotel

I attempt to track a pulse 

from these walls, the assumption

that history is productive enough

(or mischievous) to leave a mark,

if only for the sake of confusion. 

I count the screws missing 

from each door hinge, to help 

juggle time until contentment

and the weak aura developed 

by my presence in unknown places

are delivered via a reluctant room service.

A finger dragged through dust

creates a runway, wide enough

to hide the yet to be cleaned towels

and shadows cast from bad bedside

lamps, and still leave space for

flattened pillows, which constantly 

threaten to withdraw rest.

The reception bar, almost static

with service, and  the glasses stained

just enough to prevent unnecessary

consumption. The carpets slowly

expose past footprints of grease,

to ensure I remain for at least another

night at least. 

Second Home

The same cramped room,
which created a shell around
this lack of warmth, 

a second home where the elders
were in celebration of everything
but ourselves.

The pencil marks on the wall
as you tracked our height, 
which formed like a rusted ladder,
still remain etched well into my 30’s;
my bones now stretched twice the size. 

In that armchair, a less than elegant
throne; you ensured this shelter
never would never crack, as we are finally
sent home, our usual refuge,
which at least for the next few days,
will seem slightly incomplete.

Jonathan Butcher has had poems appear in various print and online publications, including The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, Drunk Monkeys, Unlikely Stories Mark V, The Abyss, and others. His fourth chapbook, Turpentine, was published by Alien Buddha Press. He is also the editor of online poetry journal Fixator Press.