Warm bread

 Once upon a time, there was a woman named Nora. He had 2 children, one of them was Anwar and the other was Sanobar. The respect of the son and daughter for their mother was boundless. 

     One day Aunt Nora fell ill. The son was the breadwinner of the family. The daughter looked after her mother all day and sewed a dress. His mother wanted to eat something, but he could not describe what it was. One day distant relatives came to see him. He brought hot bread along with hot soup. Aunt Nora seemed to feel a surge of power as soon as the visitor entered the door. Then he found out that there was hot bread in the knot brought by the guest. He ate a piece of bread and his mood rose. He took care of the guest himself and even recovered. 

    The next day, in the evening, he was sitting at the table with his children. Then his son said to him:
 - Mother asked how you got better by eating plain warm bread. And Aunt Nora:

 - My son has a long history of this. I was young. One day my heel ran away. Even then something was eating me, but I never knew what it was. In those days, finding flour was a problem. But my father found flour for me and told my mother to bake bread for me. My mother wrapped hot bread for me. It was when you tried to eat the bread. It was not like other breads at all. I found out the reason later. He could taste the love of my parents. I scolded them in such a way that they were surprised. Since then I have not been sick at all. This happened again. Hot bread could fix me in this too. So, my parents knew about my illness. Therefore, God himself sent me our relative. 

You see, my children, there is so much wisdom in simple warm bread - he said and hugged his children. 
    Her children listened to their mother's story. They also look at their mother:

 "You know, mother, when we are sick, we can eat your hot bread and get well," they made her mother happy even more. Since then, Aunt Nora has never been sick.

 Dear reader, through this fairy tale, I explained to you the power of the simple bread baked by your mother. So never waste bread. After all, children in some countries are forced to live for a simple bread. Draw conclusions for yourself in the fairy tale!

Murodova Muslima Kadyrovna was born on June 29, 2010 in Jondar district of Bukhara region. Currently, she is a 7th grade student of school No. 30 in this district. Her first poem was published in 2024 under the name "Come beautiful spring". Winner of many achievements, she won the 2nd place at the festival held in the district. She won the 1st place in the district stage and the 2nd place in the regional stage of the "Bakhtim Shul: Zulfiyasiman Uzbek" contest. Her first anthology was published by the UK publisher Justfiction Edition.

AT WAR WITH WEATHER

The seed went into the ground all right
Or so he claimed when it was sown
But then he turned his eyes to the skies
And darkly frowned a wrinkled frown
From his whiskered neck
To his tan-lined crown

Thunder rumbled – Rain, he grumbled
But the sky had nothing in it
The bastard won’t rain a drop
He rasped as if he himself was dry
He spied the clouds with squinted eyes
Dark slits of steel-grey flint

After a week he gave up hope
He mumbled profane sentiments
He shook his fist at the barren clouds
And called on God to damn them
To Hell where he said we’d all go
If it didn’t rain soon

I didn’t see him for a while
Another week slipped by dry
When he reappeared one day
He looked a lesser man
He slouched and cursed and spat
But stopped and sat to chat

He said the end was nearly here
His crop was all but buggered
His shoulders slumped and a tiny tear
Rolled down his grizzled cheek
He said that he was finished
And seemed a man diminished

Then a wind got up and clouds blew in
We could smell it in the air
There you are I said and heartily
Slapped a hand on his back
I thought that he would smile at that
But he only winced and said
If the sonofabitch only knows when to quit


Gregg Norman lives and writes in a lakeside cottage in Manitoba, Canada. He reads poetry every day to retain his frail grip on sanity.
His work has been accepted by numerous poetry journals and literary magazines, including Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Borderless Journal, Synchronized Chaos, Book of Matches Literary Journal, Medusa’s Kitchen, Horror Sleaze Trash, Impspired Literary Magazine , The Littoral Magazine, MasticadoresUSA, The Piker Press, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Raconteur Magazine, and Suburban Witchcraft Magazine.

PUMPING GAS

All Rick has to do to keep his job
is pump…and keep pumping.
Fear of life without a paycheck
turns to praise in his boss’s eyes.

It’s work that’s all brawn, no brain,
except for the torture of making the correct change
and it comes with a fancy uniform,
and a hat that he’s too embarrassed to wear.

In other states, drivers do this for themselves.
But not here. Not in Jersey. 
He can’t imagine himself living in Massachusetts.
He would fade away. He would die.

He even does more than is called for,
rubs a wet cloth across the windshield
like he once saw in a black and white movie.
Occasionally, someone’s generous with a tip.

He realizes there’s no future in what he’s doing.
The boss isn’t going to die and leave the place to him.
There’s only the present and, though it moves him forward,
it never gets ahead of itself.

But someone has to do what he does.
And he’s stuck inside the one that’s doing it.
“Fill ‘er up,” says the guy who just pulled into pump A.
Rick is the guy within hearing range.




THINGS TO DO IN PROVIDENCE

Marvel at your transformation
when you haven’t really changed.

Grow weary of the same routine
and then stick to it.

Ignore the jackhammering in your skull.
It’s permanent.

Play chess in the park while your worst enemy 
is getting laid off at a costume jewelry factory.

Dress differently 
so people will mistake you for a college student.

When you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do,
say nothing.

Take aim at all your preconceived ideas.
With a bow if possible. Make the arrow  stick.

Forget that search for happiness.
Hype up sadness instead.

Join in conversations.
Even when you’re alone.

Stand by your beliefs. Then move slowly, quietly, 
away so those beliefs don’t notice you’re gone.




THE FACE AS IT PRESENTS ITSELF

It’s an odd face.
Some people like it.
In one or two, 
it invokes pity.

It’s drawn to a mirror.
Which are the standout features?
What is in decline?

Old around the mouth
yet the eyes are young.
Cheeks unblemished
but one earlobe bears a scar.

What does it say 
about the mind and heart?
That’s where the trick comes in.
It can pose open-minded and wide-hearted.
Or it can slump into the opposite of these.

It retreats from the mirror 
and rejoins society.
Most smile because 
it’s back among them.
It turns from the ones
who shake their heads.




ON THE DAY HIS MOTHER DIED HER HAIR PURPLE

He left the house thinking,
“This time I’m leaving for good.”

He had no belongings with him.
He was just headed for the store.

But, to him, she looked ridiculous.
He could no longer invite friends back to the house.

No way would he be seen with her in public.
“Free at last!” he screamed in his head.

It was a warm clear day 
and the entire world was open to him.

On his walk, he saw other mothers.
Their hairstyles were age-appropriate.

None of them were an embarrassment to their children.
Some may have even had husbands.

At least, they looked as if they did have one
then they could keep him.

He returned home with the few items 
he picked up for her at the store.

He tried not to look at her when he handed them over.
But his eyes could not avoid her hair.

It looked like a serving of grape cotton candy.
He kept the change. It was his price for staying.




IN WAR AND PEACE

Soutine perished on the run
from the Nazis,
Freundlich died in the camp,
imagine being...
no I can't even imagine it.

I cuss the weather
when it's too hot to write poetry.
But trying to create something
in the middle of crazy, outrageous, bloody war?
I'd be in a foxhole
tapping out my next breath.

For every tortured surrealist
or Dadaist in a charnel house,
there’s me:

the same old crippled relationships,
damnable family life.

There are no guerrillas in the trees
outside my window.
No bombs drop on my rooftop.

I am safe from the enemy.
I’m most as risk
from the people I know. 


John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

Near Where Reeds Sometimes Sway in the Wild Wind, (and of fields barns summer’s scenes, the mise-en-scene of pastoral worlds northern) (for Raquel)

there was a winding way, and it was beyond the towns where fields and farms lived and had lived for decades, for seemingly forever. I asked a soul why some of the horses had little or hardly any places to wait in the rain (though they had some), and others at different places had large and many shelters. she said that not all ranches, just because they are ranches, have the same amount of money. and it was a sunny and summer and calm day,- and the horses there, one brown and one white and one black, would pause so briefly and look at me as I passed by. that was another world, and I wondered what it would be like being borne into such a lifestyle. 

I glanced back leaving, and saw there as I did elsewhere the tall barns on concrete forms with old but curt and organized windows small and sometimes even large. sometimes the structures were faded and needed painting and even the forms, the concrete foundations,- spoke somehow of their age. if there were reeds or some kind of wild growths on the edges of such places I liked them very much. and if the wind announced itself suddenly and then even frequently and brought such reeds over or over and back and forth in the world, like they were all dancing or talking, well I liked that even more since the world was alive then. it was an okay day. they were okay days. there wasn’t a lot to complain about.

Random Musings about Submission

By Jacques Fleury

[Originally published in Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self]

Let’s just begin in
medias res…or in the middle of things…
You see, we had artistic differences,
I was the artist and they were indifferent…
“Thank you for your submission…” but I never 
Submitted!

At least not in the way that they wanted me to;
If I wasn’t fiscally challenged, I would board a jet plane
And head for a luge run at Saint Moritz Switzerland,
A psychotically dangerous sport;
Maybe they’ve driven me to psychosis!

Luge, a sport rooted in Germanic tribal wars against the Romans;
Bored aristocrats on vacation looking for a distraction;
Although I am distracted by my own tribal war here in America,
I am nothing like a bored and puerile aristocrat…
This landed me in a mawkish quagmire of self-pity;
In my mind I absconded into a journey of devilment to topple my torment;

Writing can be an exercise in discernment that you are inevitably
Obliged to submit for judgment; that is if you expect to make
An impact other than justifying your own derangement due to
Maladjustment…
“Your writing is not a good fit for our publication” was the nadir of my existence!!!
What did I write to warrant such specious offerings you may ask?
Well I wrote from the voice of an ignoble omnivorous muskrat
Whose sexual identify is non-binary;

Both a strumpet and a sthumpet!
And as an exponent of socio-political justice wrote hither and thither
An apocalyptic reverie about mutant muskrats;
A germane allegory or political fodder for the purpose of unveiling
pejorative prejudice;
Deciding to introduce a foreign element into an established
Yet insecure environment so to demonstrate the ensuing behavior
Of those who deem themselves superior;
The muskrat representing the only POC or person of color
In an all-white order where WASPS Rule!

WASPS being descendants of
Wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestant Males
Feeling their long history of imposing their cultural values and
Socio-political power over “the other” that is
women and minorities…
Threatened by a neo-progressive era geared towards changing the status quo;
Clamping down on their suppression in retaliation to the
Nascent and unrelenting movement towards socio-political
And economic progression and equality
In this American Nation!

“Thank you for your submission
But your work is not a good fit for our publication…” 
Really?!
So here I am, randomly musing about not being chosen…
Am I just a titular poet?
A deuteragonist in my own story?
When do I get to be the protagonist hero despite my AFRO?!
When do I get to be the plucky character in epics akin to

19th century iconoclastic South African king Shaka Zulu whose heroic story depicted
How he united tribal factions to create notable states and powerful African identities…or even
Anglo-Saxon and French epics like Beowulf together with Le Chanson De Roland?
Or even the archetypal Mesopotamian great:
The Epic of Gilgamesh;
Regarded as the earliest prototypical literature and the second oldest religious text…

“Your submission is not on par with our vision…”
Really?!
Even in the midst of global
Dissention and division?!
So we had artistic differences…I was the artist and they were indifferent.

But I decided to muse about it to manufacture
My own moment,
Fashion my own non-contentious and all-inclusive literary faction,
Where ALL postulatory voices are worthy of publication;
Because the acrimony of exclusivity is
A damnation!
I will continue to submit but NEVER to their behest for 
Submission!!!

Rejoicing in the Lord
 
For: Olga Shearer

Psalm: 34:3 (NIV)- “Glorify the LORD with me;
   let us exalt his name together.”


My soul sings to the Lord, as the sun rise your closeness comes.  
I kneel at the foot of my bed and praise you Lord with joy.  
What a delightful song my heart sings in gladness to know you.  

I turn to you for you have healed my troubled soul by your love.  
Rejoicing in my salvation from the heaviness of a broken heart.  
Now there is gladness that I have come to know of your redemption.

I once was lost in the mist of pain and sadness for I had no hope.  
You spoke to me and give me hope by the gleam in your eyes.  
Your voice was soft, and your heart had warmth for my aching soul.  


My weary bones would have been crushed if not for your gentleness.
I turned to you for comfort and found rest and I rejoiced  
A pillow to lay my head and rest a weary mind to be restored.


My soul delighted in your salvation for all my sins were forgiven.