pinpoints of light in the foothills I’m down here with a lantern
—
car alarm car alarm car alarm last night of summer
—
most of the Big Dipper first night of autumn
—
in the hills above the city approximations
—
bio/graf
J. D. Nelson is the author of eleven print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *purgatorio* (wlovolw, 2024). 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 Boulder, Colorado, USA.
They loved it. We played it a lot. A review of the game
says it all: “Order Up puts the ‘short’ back in ‘short-order cook,’
but virtual cooking has never been more engaging”—think about it;
it’s a Monday, a work day, customers are pouring in
placing orders with little time to wait around,
maybe they’ve got a half-hour or so for lunch, it’s called
“fast food” for a reason. I once knew a social media
content creator who got fired because she took too
long a lunch break, she was “stealing” time on company time
they said so this is serious business, wolfing down a Big Mac
and fries is an eating skill essential for the average Jane or Joe.
In other words, this is nothing to play around with, except in your spare time, on PlayStation. If you’re ever at
a Waffle House or other diner worth its name pay attention to
the cook who’s manning the grill, it’s a culinary operatic ballet:
Adam and Eve on a raft, 86 the Axle grease, BLT hold
the mayo, Blue plate special, Bowl of red, Tube steak deluxe,
synchrony in motion. There’s close to one million short order cooks
employed in the United States according to one recent estimate.
Most don’t have time to play games.
Afterword: “Trump visited a Bucks County McDonald’s to cook some french fries and work the drive-thru” the news headline says it all. In a post-truth world, deepfake, simulated, virtual has become an accepted stand in for real. If only Orwell was yet among us, he’d have a field day!
Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction and poetry appear internationally; his art and photography will be found in select publications, including Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words is a 2017 Best Book Awards and 2018 Book Excellence Awards recipient. His chapbook Political is the 2021 American Writing Awards winner in poetry. He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust a winner of the 2023 International Book Awards. He is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory: https://www.pw.org/content/howard_debs
(Older white man with a wide brim hat standing in a museum in front of a tan Egyptian statue. He’s got a gray sport coat and blue button down collared shirt).
“Le Grand Musée de Giza” opening of the world’s largest museum last October 16th
by Federico Wardal
——-
The cities of NYC and SF are intimately linked to major events on Egyptian antiquities. News such as the 2023 exhibition on Pharaoh Ramses at the SF De Young Museum curated by the celebrity of the most important exhibitions on ancient civilizations Hon. Renée Dreyfus, an exhibition desired by the legendary archaeologist Prof. Zahi Hawass, have been published in this magazine.
In 1995 I was the protagonist of the theatrical show : “Garibaldi and Anita: peacemakers without frontiers” at the Cairo Opera House for the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre and after the show I went to visit the famous set designer architect Hussein El-Ezabi in his villa at the pyramids where I met the Arab Global Star Mohammed Sobhi and we talked about the project of Le Grand Musée de Giza.
On 5 January 2002, then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak laid the foundation stone of the Grand Egyptian Museum.
In 2006, the 3,200 years old Statue of Ramesses II was relocated from Ramses Square in Cairo to the Grand Egyptian Museum site, near that Giza Plateau. It was moved to the atrium of the museum in January 2018 .
In late August 2008, the design team submitted over 5,000 drawings to the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. Following this, the construction tende was announced in October 2008. Earthmoving has begun to excavate the site for the building. Tendering was due in September 2009, with an estimated completion date of 2013.[15]
On 11 January 2012, a joint venture between Egypt’s Orascom Construction (OC) belongs to Sawiris brothers and the Belgian BESIX was awarded the contract for phase three of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM)
In January 2018, Besix and Orascom brought in and installed an 82-ton, 3,200-year-old statue of Ramses II in the Grand Egyptian Museum. It was the first artefact to be installed in the Museum, during construction, due to its size.
On 29 April 2018, a fire broke out near the entrance of the GEM but artifacts were not damaged and the cause of the fire was unknown.
In May 2018, the last of King Tutankhamun‘s chariots was moved to GEM.
In November 2018, the estimate for a full opening was pushed back to last quarter of 2020, according to Tarek Tawfik, GEM’s director.[20] In April 2020, the planned opening of the museum was pushed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2020, two colossal statues discovered in the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion by the IEASM were set up in the entrance hall of the GEM.
As of May 2024, the museum is scheduled to open “later this year” and Gihan Zaki was appointed head of the Grand Egyptian Museum.
As of 16 October, 2024 the Grand Hall, Grand Staircase, commercial area, 12 public galleries and the exterior gardens are open for tours, while the Tutankhamun gallery and Solar Boat Museum are not yet open to the public.
Soon the entire huge museum will be open to the public.
Meanwhile, new archaeological discoveries are proceeding intensely under the care of Prof. Zahi Hawass, especially in the Luxor area that will contribute to the GEM while new large exhibitions on the Egypt of the Pharaohs are scheduled in the USA in 2025 with conferences by Prof. Zahi Hawass.
in the heavy rhythm that knocks at the gate of history
time dissipates darkness, the dawn breaks
fragments of memories unite into one image
portraying the people from thousands of years ago
they had never seen before
the soul rising from the ruins
lightning stimulates the sleep hormone
the words sprout from the roots of the trees
the branches raise their eyes to the sky
the tears from above soothe the dry throat
insomnia brings about disorder
sleepwalk spreads like clouds
on the edge, people seek faith,
the swan isolates, the sea roars.
the wheel of time loses direction
fierce winds swirl the calm waves
the dark flow of purple rain floods the newly sprouted flowers
the dike is no longer on the shore
the sea is no longer in the sea
the pleasures of life create wings of light
lush branches and leaves grow from rotten logs
postmodernism indicates a bright period
the white sheet inscribed with yellow and red symbols
like barren lands sprinkled with saliva and salt
millennial expressions permeate ink and paper
the profound words awake from the drawers on the walls
the eyes in the tombs frightfully stare
the trembling hand reaches into the library in the afternoon sun
dusk and dawn go on
Profound words asleep
(Unsolved)
the sea removes its veil
mountain ridges create new settlements
humanity is torn apart
the celestial vault is unclear
creation and destruction became fine arts
when humans evolved, the Ice Age was forgotten
people’s desires are infinitely greater
faith and contradiction are overlapping
only the poet’s soul sees the tree flowers
my nostrils perceive the smell of old books.
morning glow covered by clouds and fog
alien guests appear in the magical sky
brains exterminating amongst each other
religion is not a true spiritual devotion
monks’ love affairs give birth to children
Buddhist nuns give birth in misery
nature undergoes a destruction process
discoveries accelerate people’s panic
but you keep your faith that death
brings rebirth,
a bird looking for the forest
June 23, 2017
Profound words asleep
Reading
the scent of ink passes from hand to heart
burning desire stimulates the senses
veins beat inside the rolled sleeves
the solution to this state is like a dream wind that smacks the flesh
I hope that fireflies jump into written words
meditating, we travel through the cosmos
an ark heading to infinity
when the morning light removes the veil
the world shows its true face
hidden dreams pass through the time tunnel
directed to the hut of steel and cement
they run back and forth through the underground
at the spring in the forest, the bone whistle whispers
my dream lifts the billows
Utopia
Foreword: If people continue to destroy the environment,
what will happen to the Earth?
the world evolves continuously, even before our era
the monkey thinks of the empty forest
the sky protests crying
his tears roll down to the ground
making the savages appear
the sun like a magic mirror,
mercury – destructive ultraviolet rays
the constellation is no longer fascinating
it sinks into the sea
the air blooms, the waters rise muttering,
ants dance inside the shells
animals discuss livelihoods
the dinosaur and the elephant sweat working in agriculture
the lion and the tiger are eager to get married and have offspring
the leaves of the trees are like the palms of the sky
butterflies and dragonflies cannot be seen under the sun
thick smoke floats above the clouds
the mountain range is like an infinite fence
we were born in the air
hands raised to the olive tree, interpret the verses of the oracle
the beast is banished to slavery
trees abound in fruits
birds and insects take care of the harvest
stones discuss how to rewrite history
the fish are guarding the corrupt officials
rain and dew create eternal life
the Earth gave life to the Earth.
Rivers
desire – a river
springing from the blood of our ancestors
civilized and primitive behaviors interchange
war, murder, and redemption
genetic mutation
in the Neolithic,
stone and fire offered wisdom
most people lived like puppets
nobody knows if there was a god
men and women crossed the rivers of the high mountains
driven by the flames of desire
their union gave birth to the seas and the land.
March 16, 2017
Anna Keiko (original name: Wang Xianglian) is an internationally renowned poet, writer, editor and painter living in Shanghai. Graduated from East China University of Political Science and Law. The founder, President and editor-in-chief of ACC Shanghai Huifen International Literary Association, the World Poetry promoter, the International Peace Ambassador Outstanding Contribution Award winner. Chinese young literary director. Her poems have been translated into more than 30 languages and published more than 2,000 in more than 500 newspapers and magazines in more than 50 countries. Published 11 books of poetry, (waiting for the bus) poems by the famous composer Tu Bahai into songs. She has been invited to participate in international poetry festivals in more than a dozen countries, Yale University invited her to participate in the International Poetry Symposium for three consecutive years, and Salem University invited her as an international poet’s personal poetry seminar program. She has won 33 International poetry prizes and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020.
Im poorly, here purely to supermax lit af pieces of dream boat first in class analysis. And so, this blustery but warm morning, wanting summat more dead, more despotically modern than Ginia Woolfy, i picked up
From my bookshelf, Luke Beesley’s Jam Sticky Visions. I didnt like it at the time i got it, but it met the criteria: prose poems. But it just seemed to glitch on the train thought he was real clever when not. For most, tho, thats just what, thats all poetry is. Pose poems.
Its not to this’n. But if it was, well, his pieces arent good enough for my reply. Beesley’s collection meets the bin back at home, a brown paper Woolworths bag you out of ideas welcome homeland security. And then, i bellyflop that trash onto the stale, malodorous front yard-birds-pecking-through-it dumpster like a babushka against a big, bad bag snatcher. To put a lid on it
Life is too shot – big bang, ‘member? – out the canon to fuck around with global village idiot, middle class pretensions who cant match magnifying glass flints. Stones have better ideals than the fish that pass degrees for and about poets here, their tree. Sun up, sun down voted, they did, for their mess escape to Plato’s outermost caves. Not thermonuclear to them yet over lap it up tick exiled you bygones can each buy a gun safe houses the generic in form elation of the errorist cellular phone it in to my hallowed lover hands it to the red hot LED scope aimed at my chest rattles and cuff links expired here to fore ground like yr ilks circuit elephants run, run, run, run, run, take a dragon, too. Run, run, run, run, run, Gypsy death and – who?
So sLane it herds m’dear widdershins in to con sitter up grate to the verse cloud gathering like a gathering in formation dawn be Lowes haul my cheese deportment of tome travellers form a hoSPITal orderly racing to morn (!) our own Deaths wade like tables off in to the doowopping end ear ring night mayor of this new town square circle the Bast answers back to your no future
*
a neutron star let out its steam roller blind ed by your head light up a joint venture capital city gone to the doggerels of raw shucks
*
Get down stars spin around my hood lights up like mention of a crush garlic to keep the stoker doesnt seam to be any weigh here the bats the baller is knocked up to date the titanic sank out of bounds along the rolex watch tower attack gundagai slimmin’ on dust stacks cant afford the opportunity cost price of winning art disses my pure blood whine of the month this combing harvest cow and
moon you
[Ps cow and moon is a famous ice cream place in sydneys iner west]
*
Get out of my way, or no way at all. Selling sunny days, surreal estate, are you? His face jiggles like a constellation in the wind
ow, a mouth where the fireplace should be, tongue lolling out like an animal onto the floorboards, which are, by the looks of it, solid timber
pine gap.. wtf am i doing back here, your queen dragging this insipid spectacle, this treasure chest of our society behind us, its constant hacking cough
syrup me only d rink g rip tape?
*
even doors stick to the souls of my chews a quiet residential area 51 of then again I saw the planet coming apart at the sentence them to knife in prism effect the Hollywood end launch your self sacrifice Alice to the dragging on a joint venture capitalism is good shit hole in my shoes flutter as I stroke your facebook gives me a psychic shucks
*
I shoot straight as bam boo yr dead head has its lid taken off a coco nut empty as the bar rel of a border disp ute swerves up dust once we’re still the most realpolitik
TOC.. Pluto will wanna gain cointreau of this terminal illness. Our expedition need return like a king to the exposition. In the meantime, en joy ride a Grif ter’s in fern al pil sen er
