I love the rain

I love the rain, its gentle touch

A soothing balm, I love so much

It washes away my worries and pain

And fills my soul with peace again

The pitter-patter on the window pane

A symphony of nature’s refrain

The earth drinks in its sweet embrace

And all the world seems in its place

The air is cool, the scent is clean

A tranquil beauty, rarely seen

I love to dance in the falling drops

And feel the rhythm, my heart never stops

The rain brings life to every living thing

A gift from above, like a melody to sing

I love the rain, its calming sound

It brings me joy, wherever it’s found

Jumanazarov Zohidjon Eldor’s son was born on March 14, 2006 in Narpay district of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Samarkand region. Nation is Uzbek. Incomplete education. In 2012-2023 he studied at the 16th comprehensive school of Narpay district of Samarkand region. In 2023, the Uzbek State Institute of Arts and Culture was admitted to the “Culture and Arts Management” on the basis of a grant. He has achieved a lot of success during school and now. During the institute, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and in December 2023, set a global ranking record for IQ (40 seconds).

🎄New Year🎄

New year is knocking on the door
We look forward to this day
Heart full of beautiful feelings
Bring joy to all years. 

It is unique to the world
Lights shine like fir trees
Santa and Snow White sharing gifts
He likes all children. 

We are looking forward to the new year
We welcome a new day
Forget all the sorrows
Do not leave us dreams. 

May the world be happy
Cheerful girls playing on the street
These happy days will not end
Having tasted the love of winter. 

Let's wait for the new year and wish for goodness
May our hearts shine like the sun
Hearts full of sweet dreams
Happy New Year everyone. 

               ✍️Ruzmetova Zuhra

Ruzmetova Zuhra Vyacheslavovna November 30, 2006 I was born in the city Urgench, Khorezm region. There are 6 of us in the family my father my mother my brother my twin and me. I am currently a student of the 11th grade of school no 14 in Urgench city. I appeared on the international website "Synchronized chaos" and I am the coordinator of the this international site. My poems have been recognized in more than 10 countries. Every week I am guest on Khorezm TV channel. I am the holder of badge "For the international Services"🎖by the bi wing poets writers Association. I am the winner of competitions of more than 100 national and international organizations. I have a B2 certificate of knowledge of the Turkish language. I have many future dreams and goals. 

Portrait Of A Boy 

This poem starts with tears 

shaped like darts on my mouth;

Where the board is my tongue!

Underneath the surface,

A boy struggles with murdering a mosquito 

But always touch the neck of failure with a sharp metal

A boy has to hurriedly 

expel all the volumes of fear

& thunder courage outside for 

The community to acknowledge his manhood.

A boy doesn’t know the weight of wishes 

Until he climbs the mountain after adolescent

and the sky is no longer just house to rain;

The celestial becomes wing of the devil

that fans hades into every angle of his nose

The sun is no longer an ocean of warm fire 

but a lagoon of lava of suicide to bathe inside 

and success is no longer a seven-letter word

But a monster with seven horns, in several forms;

It could numb all the limbs of wish

or cremate will into dust and still name you weak

A father’s dream if it’s too late 

Is given without a choice to a boy

and he wanders with earth on his back 

Till the sole of his feet find hell or bliss

A boy thinks the sky is wide enough to house his wish

But the wind hand him a shovel when he crossed over. 

Money

I’m delighted when I hear

A crinkling in my pocket

When I walk. I think

I’ve forgotten some money,

Surely a ten or twenty,

A distinguished portrait,

A little green man

Staring back at me.

Then I remember a scrap

Of paper from a grocery list.

At breakfast I scribbled

A thought, a letter,

The outset of something-or-other,

But nothing too moving.

I smile. I am happy.

This is grand.

The Evidence

Here, here is the evidence.

Listen! Pay attention

To a relentless repetition,

Of cruelty, of greed.

In the reign of the tyrant,

Let’s be unequivocal

In what we witness

Despite elaborate obfuscations,

Grotesque rationalizations.

Let’s not stand idly

Wringing pristine hands.

In the reign of the tyrant,

The benevolent king’s compassion

Suddenly a wistful memory,

We’ve lost our humanity.

Our homeless, our aged –

Our veterans plagued

With the images of both

Righteous and absurd war –

Our children, our children,

Suffer a little more,

Die a little faster,

Ostracized, marginalized,

Neglected, deported, all

In the reign, in the name,

At the whim, of the tyrant.

An Effort

The core of the Sunday paper

is not news: a glossy

circular, three pages of

Guns! Guns! Guns!

Sale! Sale! Sale!

a Christmas Spectacular.

Pretty, pink pistols for girls,

youth-action-lever for boys

(hyperbole unnecessary),

there’s no effort in squeezing

a trigger, a seductive little tug.

A child could do it.

However, enormous effort

is required to kill a man, or

an old man, a woman, a child,

so many in the ditches of My Lai,

so many at their desks at Sandy Hook,

our enemies, our enemies. 

This all takes time:

an effort to mine lead,

dig and move and sift and drain

the earth for steel, brass, plastic,

an effort, so much thought,

in drafting an efficient weapon.

Our efforts are clever

flying a young man

around the world to end a life

and irrevocably transform his.

Spare no resource. Spare no expense.

Such effort, such effort,

our expertise is astonishing.

Big Men with Big Machines

I got out of bed

To distinguish between

Verity and incubus.

Periodically, this dream,

In variations of anxiety,

Arrives abruptly and unbidden.

(What would Sigmund say?)

Drawn to my window,

I see men have come again,

Big men with big machines,

Loud and busy and blunt.

They produce a clipboard,

Papers with official signatures,

Authority indisputable but all wrong –

The crazy logic of the psyche.

There is chaos everywhere,

Mounds of dirt, sod, and rock,

As they dig an enormous hole,

Its width and depth terrifying.

My house teeters on the lip

Of the chasm, everything

I know, everyone I love

Will fall in, buried and forgotten.

And on each round of this 

Subconscious carousel,

I fail to comprehend why

I simply surrender,

More puzzled than troubled

Over my capitulation.

Three Curses

Ellen the secretary,

an unlikely sorceress,

more grandma than harpy,

squinted and poked

two fingers at the air,

an object of malevolence.

I was inclined to take cover

then considered a favor,

a handy malediction.

But she used her gift with

discretion, rarely exacting

curses in seventy-one years.

At the county fair, when her

daughter was muscled out 

of a ribbon for her rabbit

by another, pushy, rather rabid 

mother, the other kid’s bunny 

was dead by the end of summer.

When her quiet respite, 

an unobtrusive strand, 

egrets, herons, waves lapping,

but prime lakefront property,

was bulldozed, within the year, 

the condominiums caught fire 

and burned to the ground.

When her boss, a mean, petty

little bastard, endeavored

to eliminate her position,

he was diagnosed with cancer

soon after and nearly lost an eye.

Ellen the secretary.

Sexy Thing

I’m your sexy thing.

You leer, you lust,

Your desire, my pleasure.

I’m your ecstasy,

Your smutty reality.

All the good girls seethe,

My armor sheath

Stunning, steely, specious

Angles and curves.

I swivel my hips.

Saunter up your street,

And all the boys’ heads

Turn, instantly in love.

My tread is my power,

My dread silencing critics,

Clink, clink, clink.

Shamelessly I grind

Against your soft body,

Pierce your skin,

Snap your bones,

In mud, in sand, on brick,

Caen, Kursk, Budapest,

Prague, Tiananmen, Kuwait.

Ride me, fire me,

I’m such a blast,

My lurid muzzle,

My fiery retorts,

Boom, boom, boom,

Rat-a-tat-tat.

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

David Sapp, danieldavidart@gmail.com

The Misanthrope

What is it going to make a difference to him if a drop falls from the sky or gallons? He has opened himself to the world, lying there under the canopy of the shop. He cares nothing about the world. It is all one and the same to him if streams flow around him or if he is deserted on an island floating amid all the flood. The question is whether this or that would make a difference to him. I saw a woman pass by, feeling sorry for him. She was out taking her dog for a stroll, she looked at him and she shook her head. She felt sorry for him and out came from her little purse a coin of €1? Is she better off or I am? Is it not a crime giving little to someone when giving much more could have made a vital difference? I am fundamentally indifferent, his life or not is one and the same thing to me, I avow my nonchalance. Is the matter with us that I think I am philosophically right? When a woman can give, and when she feels sorry for him, it is criminal to give only €1 which can make no difference to this man lying under a shopfront on a wet wintry night. If she feels sorry

for him, she must go all the way to assuage him, otherwise she is morally wrong. If she gives him a little alms, and is of on her way shaking her head and feeling sorry still glowing in pleasure almost from the volupté of hitting a child whom you wanted to correct. The fact of the matter is I could have given €1 but I did not, the woman could have given it and she did, I could have even given €10 had I wanted to, the woman could have given €10 as well, with some effort I could have gone on to €100, it would not have killed me, the way we were and the locality we live in, I do not think it would be any trouble to the Madame as well, then come to it, thinking very very hard about it and selling a few things, I would have been on to €1000, the Madame would not need to sell anything and she could give him the money and probably forget it in a few days, come to €10,000 there I would have to pawn myself, or think of an ingenious means, while the Madame she finally might need to sell something or break a deposit…beyond this we do not think. The point is clear: the Madame is guilty in giving him €1 when €1000 would have been no trouble to her, for me I am philosophically right, because his condition is of no interest to me, great curiosity perhaps, and I would like to see him do well for himself and bag more (and grander) aumônes from passersby, but there I repeat my point, philosophically I am in the right, I who had no rôle to play in the drama where as the Madame comes across as a self-aggrandising brat who needs to give to feel herself, whose only point of charity is not to be lost in the maze of accusations and critique she might feel herself downcast under.

The rain is oblivious, and I am oblivious, and that is the way of the world and there is nothing in it guilty or absolved. Darkness is oblivious too, in the tunnel as the rails hiss and the tiles clobber and two young girls call up to me their bottles of rosé wine in the hands. “Hey you your hair shines like my party dress, when I dress-up.” “See I did not use any cream, unlike you, it is just the rain.” “What are you saying?” “I said I do not need any substances, the rain is bad.” “Come join us, you seem to have nothing at hand.” “I’m not sure I want to spend my date with brats like you.” “Come join us, you fool. See two girls are calling you with their music, we even have wine for you.” We passed the whole night together. For five hours, I kept drinking with the girls with music

playing on their stereo and they kept asking me questions, one after the other. In the middle of the two of them, I would have been an elder brother, or probably a maître who shares the two. From time to time they played with my hair, somehow my dark hair had taken their fancy. I kept chiding them saying all the glues and glitters they use for the hair, while my hair was all natural, all good rain and old sun. They kept pinching me around the shoulders. Many times our legs brushed, I mean my knuckles brushed against their calves. That is when I proposed we go back to my house. I have a comfortable bed and I said one of the two of you at least can sleep on the canapé (that was just to elicit jealousy out of them). The girls agreed readily, and they kept on playing music and swerving as if we were a group of Bacchantes out on the parade. The only thing missing was ivy wreaths and staffs in our hands. Way into the night we walked, the rain having subsided a little bit though the streets still wet. It is then I realised how much we had drunk. They had three bottles at least, in the beginning, plus one huge bottle of rum that I got from my money and that I allowed one of the girls to go because I did not want to let go of the other (one of the two, at any rate). Finally we got another bottle of Get 27, and kept mixing it with soda. The girls were holding well, except now and then bumping into the shop fronts. It is then under the canopy of the chocolate shop, that I almost missed the beggar lying wide astride with his hands flying in every direction and his mouth opened up to the skies, one corner in which I saw a cheap €1 bottle of white wine. It is then I thought to myself the girls sure smell better than him.

Arjun Razdan was first published at the age of 20 (a poem called ‘Transformation’ in The Asian Age, New Delhi) for which he has still not received the montant of ₹2126 (minus taxes) due to him. Based mostly in Europe, especially France, this Kashmiri writer has been published in many countries including India, Pakistan, the United States, and Portugal, besides his home country. In collaboration with his friend and mentor, Farzdan, he has also written a food mémoire (L’Aau à la Zouche), a book of dialogues (Lettres à Mon Elève) and a long travelogue in the wild (An Everlasting Night).

Flag

It flutters proudly in the blue 

Our heart is full of happiness 

If we show it, it will bring joy 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

The star and the moon are in harmony 

A symbol of independence and beauty 

Rich in independent freedom 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

Red color is blood in a vein 

The Prophet is a clear sky 

Every moment is blessed 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

Pride of nations 

Prospective and great happiness 

A beautiful tree of a country

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag!

Mamazoirova Rayhona, a student of the 8th grade of the creative school named after Erkin Vahidov, Marģilon

Halley’s Comet

born in a land of static to piano
the feeling of a discomforting ease

looking up at the ceiling

almost as if you are looking up at your mistake.

“i don’t want it.”

my fantasies make me appear more truthful

when in our reality,

i can not convince myself to appear in your life anymore.

the drums in my soul get louder

my foolish heart can’t help to love you.

halley’s comet soars across the night

you watched it glow

i remained a shadow lost in our time

you chased wonder and watched it flow

i was far behind, couldn’t climb.

i tried to stay away

your laughter floats like sunlight on my walls

my heartbeat whispered secrets i could not tell

a hope entwined with fears.

each stare, a spark

the flame in my heart i shall not feed

i built these walls

you slipped through the crack

now love is a risk

and i can’t turn my back.

my brain refuses to close its blinds

the thoughts of not seeing you remain.

i could feel the bliss of a desire for nothing

now the only desire that burns

is the unachievable actuality of having you

i wish it didn’t feel that way.

in this cycle of time,

no love like this has grasped my place in this world before

only now,

in this timeline,

in our timeline,

i feel as if we were placed in this moment in time

for each other.

the drums vanish, the piano intensifies

my float in consciousness concludes

this body won’t move.

waves of my odd hearts situation shower me in panic

drenched in the tears of guilt.

i’m laying down peacefully

at the hands of my bed

my family unaware

that my state of sleep has danced away.

what am i to do?

if i can’t help to love you.