"YES, BUT WHERE ARE THE WHEELS?"

    --Albert Einstein, at 2, when presented with a sister



--What is woman? A boon-&-hex, sometime-mate / sometime-check.

--Oh, what's man? An egg-ego? A comicbook hero?

--A brain with bones.

--Mixed with chromosomes!

--Woman is the ultimate X.

--The Royal Comptrollers of Sex, we're architect-builders of children, passion's pilgrims.

--Man: atoms with kinetic glands, machines-with-hands.

-An electric orangutan!

--You Singer-Device, all undone! Man's the Iron Cross and the iron dream.

-An iron sculpture of sweat and jizzum.

--A puzzled philosopher's tired scream: Why can't women be a syllogism?



A FEMINOPHILE'S PLEA



If you want, get a job, it's fine by me.

Drive the tourist carriage, that's all right,

just so's I can ride your dick box for free.

You want to be a fighter pilot? OK with me,

long's I can fly in your cockpit highspeed.

I don't mind even if you want employment

with the Sanitation Dept. Just let me

work nights in your manhole, okay?




… RAW OF THE ROSES …



a



When we played at being young

we were all less old than raw

All were hangers, none were hanged

and all were knights of the Lord



And then the ordered murder

that joins the chaos of raw

succeeded the disorder

that normalized our Before



Our invisible missiles

and markless wounds from the raw

advanced to marches and drills

medals formations and corps

the glory and brotherhood

the backwardness of raw

the salute to blood and mud

and boredom broken by gore



Our red company carries

symbol standards of our raw

spear and aegis of ares

forged by the hammer of thor



b



it was one hundred years raw …

raw of spanish succession …

that great patriotic raw …

trojan … peloponnesian …



pastry raw … pig raw … kettle

raw … or the whiskey rebellion …

or la guerra del fútbol …

afghan raw … jinshin-no-ran



guerra de pacífico ...

or la guerre des trois henri …

crusades … bello gallico…

or the raw of jenkins ear …



raw of the oranges … the straits …

in the mahābhārata …

opium raw … the eight saints …

or the raw of the stray dog …



DON'T GET ME WRONG



Despite all these eons of together, you still want me to write you poems? Okay:

"the stars:scattershot across the purple night / like bullshit on velvet"

Don't like it? Terribly sorry. This lack of sweet poetry, can you forgive?



But beyond your vertical crescent smile

there lurks O swastika – Mons Lisa skinners box



When you sleep your closed eyes look like Chinese twats



Though your eyes no longer burn with magic

and this hour with infinite possibilities won't swell any more,

yet your quotidian eyes still warm the frosty air,

and I don't mind my time with you.

And your arms don't anchor my lusts as they did before,

and your form isn't the amusement park it used to be

when I was the new ride,

but your embrace remains a comforter in the cold winter nights

and the scenery's quite nice still.





WE WITHIN THE WHEELS: DALIT



At the temple festival the tables went humming under the cabbage, rice, and melons. The summer sun waning. The baldbearded helium balloons dancing grandly among nubile paper lanterns, buddhas bronze/rotund. Ah, the season it was of Experience Superior – the feelings of love and the perceived reciprocity of love, when, past all balance and sense and generational propriety, exuberant amidst the consuming and consumed, we two, lanternballoon-alike, food and Buddha commingled, music and the truth congealed.

That's why your paradox didn't register at the time.

And the Children happy as tadpoles aswim in father's river. And the Children pampered like feathers adrift in mama's balloon.



Now my beauty r  e  a  c  h  e  s   o  u  t  in search of your damp and hidden cottage. (Remember the crisp sunflowers asmoke unkempt against the steep/&damp scampismelly dirt path. Recall the rose-of-sharon labyrinth oft-credited – before and since – as the soul's taoWay, eelslick & serpent straight, into the nirvanic heart of notUnbeing.) Your thatched and pointed little house – it's not where last I fingered its locks. The knobs now I'm told are handled some other where.

But even so, blind and blind, my beauty reaches out

reaches                              out

my blind beauty reaches

                             out into cold and empty vacuum.

And the Children pampered like feathers adrift in mama's balloon, and the Children dappled in shadow ajoy in haughty first light.



Your holy mantra for the season: Iloveyou can't love you. And the rutting neophyte at your knees picked at the koan's echoed contradictions. I angled it in the light, squinting along its crosshairs, but the scope just would not focus. Flash powder applied, I tried to freeze it in its frame. But the quiver could never quite gel. Dusted for prints, but no proper whorl ever emerged to point its finger conclusively. "I love you can't love you." I parsed the riddle into phonemic meaninglessness but the significance never decoded. Affixed onto the acrylic stage for minutest examination, clarity persistently remained at yet one remove. Until Enlightenment came at last, slowly in a rush. I'd always known you'd go, of course, but not so suddenly. And not so soon. The painful puzzle pieces shuttered into place. And the Children dappled in shadow ajoy in haughty first light, and the Children, dapper as bluejays, agreed in bawdy verdure. I love you can't love you, Clause the first personal, in classic equipoise with clause two cultural. Subject-ckause by predicate controlled, the halving twins yining and yanging about, plusandminus all at once. The treasured self, forbidden/desired,  embraced/abhorred.



(My fellow anthropologists, take careful note: her heart's harsh judgment was conditioned by decades and millennia of micromacroforming. Metaphorically speaking, as such, I am the incest taboo. In those society eyes, I'm the faggot in the homophobic gym, the nigger in the genepool, the sheep in the unbleating humanfold. In objective terms, and all in econocultural conext of course, her loving me was always the equivalent of fucking the corpse.)



And the Children, dapper as bluejays agreed in bawdy verdure, and all us Children vampiric taters asleep in God's root cellar.



But the mantramoth, addicted, tethered herself to the tormented flame. The cycle doomed to turn and flutter, return and flutter, and flutter away. Return again, again away, covering and recovering the same old ground, rut ater rut after rut again.



And koan's mystery deepens.

But the Children happy as tadpoles.



TIME MACHINE



Echoless laughter

marked the mocking

rictor sardonicus

of our love,



showing us that time

is the machine

that shredshredshreds presents

into pasts.



And tomorrow’s rich

tapestries, which

were infinite once, have

slimmed to threads. 



Life’s chaos indeed

is orderly but

not in ways we have

deciphered.



Our universe was

not Galileo’s

and also won’t be

our children’s,



but all their loves and

all their changes

will still be all the same

probably.

***
guilty nails torn off by a scream glued to a dead kitten
graveyard inside is a bedroom
the kitten sleeps and sees a red night in a dream
abdominal memories won't come out
dead kitten inside belly overcame fear of water
drowned in non-birth drinks as imperceptibly as he breathes
but where is the cat jesus christ?


***
How to be a corpse in a big house?
How to be a frame in a big house?
How to be small in a big house?
How to properly shoot neighbors in an apartment building?
How to scream in a very large house?
How to be silent? What is the right way to cry?
How to die right? How to be a child?
How to be an animal? I am overgrown-furry
I'm overgrown with a stub of a church candle
I grow like a tree for my grandparents
The apple tree is a Christmas tree on the neck of a drowned man


***
The water is silent: therefore it is on the lips, on the eyelashes, on the forehead, on the corpse. Water is a stone, and stone is silence and restraint. Remember how we were stones before we were born. Stone and tear: this is called patience. Thinking stretches like a silkworm over a wet path. Where are we going? Where does the rain fall? The dew conquers the grass. Tear after tear. Grass after grass. Face after face. Everything around is a reflection. Mirrors are silent because they reflect. God is silent because it is necessary. The person is silent because it is necessary. Man is the god of death, oh Lord. We put a candle for your repose, oh Lord.


***
black night knocks 
on the skull box 
and opens the crystal door

windy garden of silence
look carefully at your feet


***
Lonely kitten lost on the street
Lonely kitten with my eyes all alone on the street
Lonely kitten with my name is lost
Lonely kitten with my heart is killed
Lonely kitten is alone with the street

Loneliness vs solitude
The stars above are calling me on way


***
iron sheet in the eyes of hunger
fish float up and hang suicides on a tree
holocaust coast in the cold forest
the bones of the crucified on the branches in the cold forest


***
Black birds don't let the bushes bleed
Black nights prevent the grass from publicly crying
Blue skies forbid hiding scars in the dark

And in a room closed from the inside
Тhe continuous winter revels 
Іn the broken bone of a dying man


***
аnd when the soldier fell 
there was no one 
who could help him up


***
people don't want to die and I hate them because they die
pigeons compete with children in the race for breadcrumbs
oil in a pipeline competes with itself in the blackness
children compete with each other in false growing up
candy wrappers of the night in the red throat of the abyss


***
the imperceptible sky became a guinea pig
dove pretended to be kissing a dove
stone age everywhere
otherwise why were two guys in love pelted 
with stones and not with wedding cards


***
axiom 
of emptiness 
in the cemetery

HUMAN, DISCOVER THE HEART

History is made by human and by his actions. If we want an honest and clean world we have to let the facts speak to indicate the right path to follow.
Violence sows violence.
Racism sows racism.
Peace and friendship they sow peace and cordiality.
War and interests they sow war and destruction.
Knowing and judging history it helps not to repeat the errors of judgment.
If you ask you must give with the same measure. Nothing can be achieved by standing and looking.
To pick pears from the tree you come scratching your calves in the scab.
If cherries are good, don't forget: To collect someone spent effort.
When you drink ruby wine for lunch you can say thank you to the hands that picked the grapes.
Tomatoes, oranges and olives grow in the sun, the hands that fill the baskets are holy.
Human, in you the divine is stunned from the abyss. On Earth you are the master of your actions.
Our mission is a continuous vigil for peace. No one will ask you how you feel, maybe when it happens to you cry because you suffer inside.
Maybe then, on the border line between the abyss and life,
they will ask in an effort to feel less guilty of abandoning you,
considering you were enough strong to be able to fly by it self above the specially created precipice.
No one will ask you how you feel, only in front of the coffin will they say:
Poor thing, too bad he's gone so soon, he had a life ahead of him!
Yet the hand extended it was a false hand. Intentions had a comfortable return, because pleasure becomes self-satisfying and the need for a truth is formal.
You know, when they tell you how beautiful you are, how good you are, then turn to speak face to face with someone important?
Those moments hurt the sensibility like before an invasion and you feel practically at war with self-centered hypocrisy that he just turned his back on you.
No one is more important than the other and if we want peace we must create peace of mind for others too, around us so as not to do harm.
An infinity of words hurts. An infinity of words kills.
Few words will want to know who you are. Few words will tell you about love.
The very same few will define a hug. No one will ask you how you feel inside.
However, you believe in peace and justice for humanity.
The innocents dies on the streets, at work in front of the machinery
and in the countryside, or by criminal hand. There is no more security or peace!
Commitment to social policies vanishes in the smoke of firecrackers.
The innocent no longer have a voice. Let's defend life! Let's defend the innocent!
Don't be left with helpless hands! We who have made a complaint about our word we do not leave those most in need helpless. We write letters to the captains of the world.
They will hear voices if someone is not deaf. Life is a gift, peace is his right.
Do not waste the dreams of those who live on reality! The poet says nothing, however, he repeats himself and his voice multiplies
with the thought of him raising its echo to the sound of trumpets to heaven.
Silence is guilty of innocent deaths. The cry for life will never be sanctioned from a protest of the victims in the square, but it will be allowed by the applied law. Give us back life to the dreams of the innocent!
I bare my heart. For children torn or stolen. For the innocent dead.
For those drowned at sea. For human trafficking. For the sick with no cure.
For entrance blocks. For special people. For the poor. For the hungry.
For the thirsty. For the exploited. For those who live on the street.
For women with blood red shoes. For peace and against war.
For burnt or cut woods. For the debris scattered everywhere.
For the victims of the earthquake and tsunami. For flood victims. For damaged them.
For the unfortunate. For those guilty of nothing. For the victims of injustice.
Sometimes shoes break and the splinters stick into the flesh.
Sometimes life makes you kneel before an altar. You can't always be deaf to pain.
You wrap yourself in conscience and fight for the rights of others.
Being human is never a shame. What did you do right today?
Human, discover your heart to breathe the life and safeguard the peace.

BIOGRAPHY

Lidia Popa was born in Romania in the locality of Piatra Șoimului, in the county of Neamț, on 16th April, 1964. She finished her studies in Piatra Neamț, Romania with a high school diploma and other administrative courses, where she worked until she decided to emigrate to Italy. 

She has been living for 23 years and worked in Rome as part of the wave of intellectual emigrants since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
She wrote your first poem at her age of 7. She is a poet, essayist, storyteller, recognized in Italy and in other countries for her literary activities. She collaborates with cultural associations, literary cenacles, literary magazines and paper and online publications of Romanian, Italian and international literature. She writes in Romanian, Italian and also in other languages as an exercise in knowledge. 

BOOKS

She has published her poems in six books:
in Italy:
1. " Point different ( to be ) " - ed. Italian and
2." In the den of my thoughts ( Dacia ) " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian Aletti Editore 2016,
3.“ Sky amphora " - ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian Edizioni Divinafollia 2017,
in Romania:
4. " The soul of words" ed. bilingual Romanian/ Albanian Amanda Edit Verlag 2021,
5." Syntagms with longing for clover " ed. Romanian, Editura Minela 2021.
6." The Voice interior " Lidia Popa and Baki Ymeri ed. bilingual Romanian/Italian, Amanda Edit Verlag 2022.

Her poems featured in more than 50 literary anthologies and literary magazines on line from 2014 to 2023 in Italy, Romania, Spain, Canada, Serbia, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Liban,USA,etc.
Her poems are translated into Italian, French, English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Bangladesh, Portuguese, Serbian, Urdu, Dari, Tamil, etc.
Her writings are published regularly with some magazines in Romania, Italy and abroad.
She is a promoter of Romanian, Italian and international literature, and is part of the juries of the competitions.
She translates from classical or contemporary authors who strike for the refinement and quality of their verses in the languages: Italian, Romanian, English, Spanish, French, German, stating that "it is just a writing exercise to learn and evolve as a person with love for humanity, for art, poetry and literature ".

SHE IS
*Member of the Italian Federation of Writers (FUIS)
*Honorary member of the International Literary Society Casa Poetica Magia y Plumas Republic of Colombia,
*Member of Hispanomundial Union of Writers (Union Hispanomundial de Escritores) (UHE) and Thousands Minds For Mexico (MMMEX)
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*She had come power of attorney Vice-president UHE Romania, Mars18, 2021- August 21, 2021
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*Counselor from Italy for Suryodaya Literary Foundation Odisha India,
*Director from Italy for Alìanza Cultural Universal (ACU) Argentina
*Member Motivational Strips Oman,a member of numerous other literary groups at the level internationally,
*Director of Poetry and Literature World Vision Board of Directors (PLWV) Bangladesh
*Membership of ANGEENA INTERNATIONAL NON PROFIT ORGANISATION of Canada
International Peace Ambassador of The Daily Global Nation International Independent Newspaper from Dhaka Bangladesh - 2023
*Founder literary group Lido dell'anima with LIDO DELL'ANIMA AWARDS
*Founder LIDO DELL'ANIMA Italian magazine
*Founder SILVAE VERBORUM INTERNATIONAL multilingual magazine
*Founder literary currently #homelesspoetry
etc.

The day he exit

It was a black day void of emotions yet filled with nothingness.
Father called with a loving tone and son comes ingest with daddy 
Buddies and loved ones assembled the table 
Feasting in different numbers as one.
He had gone to lay down his body 
But suddenly a scream knocked everyone to shock 
Doctors ran their ways, in and out, biting their fingers 
As to be compared to when a hunter misses his target.

I bashed in unannounced like a security guard 
And watched how his glowing eyes turned pale.
Mummy, palleted in grief, sighed deeply,
She began to drown the hospital in an ocean of  tears
Thoughts shuffled my heart, plights ran in search of solution
And I sprinkled prayers at the visage of God 
But he was too busy to grant my wish, too busy to save my man.

Soon daddy went on peaceful ride from the struggles of existence 
His gentle soul waved at me as he departed to meet his own.
Hopes left me stranded, swallowing darkness. I became an empty body!

The Raven




He’s spending 

Some time

At the Raven,

This could be

DC’s finest dive,

Three Budweisers in

And he’s wondering

If he should

Start coming here

More regularly.



Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, is due out this month.

Wild Child

I was six months old when my father was sent to Vietnam. We left Oklahoma, where my father had been stationed in the army, and moved back to Nebraska, where my parents had grown up. My aunt stayed with us while my uncle was serving in the National Guard. My brother found his photo, crumpled it up, and threw it in the garbage can. “This is my daddy’s house,” he said. “This is not your house, Aunt Judy.” I used to wake up early and screech from my crib. My mother kept sleeping while my aunt got up and comforted me. Soon I was pulling myself up over the wall of my crib, dropping to the floor, and crawling around the house. I was my mother’s wild child.


Father, Stranger

I learned how to whistle, then talk, while my father was in Vietnam—wading through rice paddies and trekking through jungle, carrying a heavy pack and cooking his C rations with rice and bullion, surviving after his chopper crashed in a hot zone and losing his best friend in an early morning ambush. I didn’t recognize him when he came home. My brother sat in the front seat of the car chatting away. I sat in the backseat silent. Eventually I crawled over the backrest and sat between my brother and father. I kept my head down the whole time.


Digging to China

When my father left the army, we moved to Nebraska where he earned his Master of Business Administration. My brother and I dug a hole in the backyard. I said I was digging to China, inspired by my grandfather who flew cargo over the Himalayas—the hump—from India to China during World War II. My mother snapped a photo of us with mud all over—from face to toe—and my father kept it on his desk when he became a businessman.


You Don’t Own the Street

We played baseball on a dead end street across from our house and we used a rock in Mr. Dellapoli’s yard as first base. Once, he came out and yelled at us. I was a little kid but I wasn’t afraid. I put my hands on my hips and shot back, “M. Dellapoli, you don’t own the street!”



Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Walking A&P and Black Elephants and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem “This New Manhattan” was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.

A Well Organized and Thoughtful Work Has Been Written by Jacques Fleury

Publisher, Author House

2023

By Jacques Fleury

Jacques Fleury’s book is a fine read, and will be inspiring and informative for many readers. The book is about the author’s journey of self discovery and acceptance, spanning an entire life still being lived. Students of many disciplines will gain from reading it including but not limited to sociology, philosophy, psychology, religion and spirituality, and social justice. 

The structure of the book is well done with headings that are interesting and informative quotes from other authors. Fleury is a careful and considerate writer who has put much thought into his project. The reader is in soucient, capable hands. 

I see the author through this work not only as a survivor, but a thriver. From Haitian Christian school that was difficult, and then emigrating to North American soil, the author addresses issues, but does not become cynical or jaded in his journeys. Obviously well read plus practiced at writing, he expresses his thoughts on everything from diet and physical health, to education and spirituality. He is on a journey of self discovery as a human and as a writer. 

Among particularly interesting aspects of the book are the parts on modern mental health pharmacology. Without demonizing the industry, the writer has the talent to articulate the idea that people encountering that industry via its adjacent industry of therapy might want to proceed with caution, and self advocacy are the words of the day. This is a timely and important message in the current climate of so many pills to solve so many problems. 

Another topic covered well is the idea of masculinity and what it is versus what it is thought to be. It seems the author is able to identify what historically is the case for masculine behaviour and when not wholly accepting it still accept himself. This is courageous and an educational, thought provoking and an empowering aspect of the book. 

‘We must follow the energy that awakens the fire of the heart, and greet life with gusto and optimism, not sorrow and pessimism’ page 150. This is a great quote in the Fleury book that encapsulates the message of the book. In these troubled times of economic strife for many, homelessness, environmental decay, wars, continued racism and classism and other harmful isms, the book does not lose faith in people but strengthens the idea and hopefully reality that each person can through some awareness and self advocacy, create a better life. 

You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self, is a thoughtful, well crafted and well rounded work of introspection and positively that we should all take the time to read. 

⁃ Brian Michael Barbeito 

You Are Enough: The Journey To Accepting Your Authentic Self is available here.

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.