In A Whisper

In a whisper pupil invites you

To the ancient way

To fly with me.

The moon spreads it’s heart

That beats in a logic circle

To provide love and truth.

The southern wind kisses the circle

The circle touches the fountain of love.

Ah ! A heavenly tune welcomes you

To come and hold me.

The spring is ready to adorn love

And the fairy time for you.

See the sea

The waves are dancing

The sea- birds are singing

The sailors are binding dreams

The ships are bound for your love.

2nd stage student of Samarkand state university named after Sharof Rashidov Interesting facts you don’t know about Azim Bukhara. 

        The word Bukhara is a combination of the words “Bukh” and “oro” and means “Beauty of God”. Bukhara region is one of the Islamic cities. Because scholars and scholars who raised Islam to higher levels were born here. Imam al-Bukhari is one of such people, he collects the hadiths from the time of our Prophet until his own time in the book “Sahih Bukhari” divided into sahih-“reliable” and inauthentic-“unreliable”. His mind was very sharp, and some narrations have been given about it. His contemporaries say that not even 1 dirham, earned without hard work, entered his house.  

        In addition, the doctor Abu Ali Ibn Sina, who served as the foundation for the development of medical science, was born in Afshana village of Bukhara. His works were taught as textbooks in Europe until the 17th century. He wrote about 20 books devoted to the science of medicine. One of them is the 5-volume “Laws of Medicine” book.

    Bukhara is the birthplace of seven great Sufis of the Naqshbandi order. The great representatives of Sufism lived here, engaged in religious and social activities, and contributed to the birth and prosperity of blessed Bukhara, spiritual education and raising the emotional spirit. Here, the burial places of the holy Sufis – pyres and Islamic shrines – have been preserved. This ring starts with Khwaja Abdulkhaliq Gijduvani, Khwaja Arif Revgari, Khwaja Mahmud Anjirfag’navi, Khwaja Ali Romitani, Khwaja Muhammad Baba Samosi, Khwaja Sayyid Amir Kulol with Khwaja Bahauddin Naqshband. ends. We can see foreign tourists as well as local visitors to visit the seven piers. Sayyid Vasliy Samarkandi’s work “Nazm al-silsila” written in Tajik language in 1913 contains information about seven pir silsila. 

Pier 1 is located in my district. There are 2 things that made this district famous. One of them is the mausoleums of Abdukholiq Gijduvani, and the second is the official patent of Gijduvan shashliks.

     Now, if we talk about gijduvan shashliks, gijduvan shashliks are very tasty. They also have several types. Tandoori shashlik is especially popular. Our country is rich in beauties. I hope we can gain new knowledge through this information.

Suddenly in Rome

In Rome that day pressed

Between Florence and Pompeii

Just this morning

Orvieto and Signorelli

Caravaggios and Sistine

Now dashing from one

Santa Maria to another –

Bernini’s soft cumulus grace

Of Saint Teresa’s Ecstasy

To the stern Old Testament faces –

The mosaics of Basilica Maggiore

Guidebook and map in hand

The oblivious impatient tourist

I cut through a park

(More hard dirt than lawn

No flowers lovers or hedge)

And suddenly I’m a goalie

Suddenly I’m Nero the lost

Colossus among these skinny

Dusty boys – my itinerary

Momentarily irrelevant I venture

To kick the ball downfield

They laugh and cheer the giant

Never mind the Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps or Mouth of Truth

Suddenly I’m in Rome

I’m guessing the Palatine

And Pantheon will still be there

And will wait a while

Practical

Like you, I open

My eyes each morning,

Astonished I’m alive,

Oh so exceedingly aware of

My clumsy mantra,

No, I’ll be frank, simply,

An obsessive repetition:

“Quiet mind.”

“Quiet life.”

I demand, I insist,

And so, until I am

Dead, dead, dead,

This desire remains elusive.

(You must acknowledge the

Absurd, the anxiety, the rage.)

Anyway, in all this

Chaos, this is all

Wishful thinking.

I am weary:

Try, try as I might

To play the sage –

So futile, so silly,

Laughter is likely

More practical.

It Seems Likely

Abruptly, on my usual

ramble, my heart beat

wildly, a reckless gallop

(just yesterday, the doctor

inspected its thumping).

Certain of my end,

it seemed time for reflection,

a samurai’s insistence

on an aesthetic death,

ephemeral significance:

during the night, snow,

heavy on the limbs

and at dawn, with the wind,

robins and chickadees,

a blizzard all over again

as if, only for me,

the wild cherry shed

petals too soon.

Hell no! I’m dying!

I willed my most poignant

images to the surface,

faces of wife, daughter, son,

a perfect memory

for a perfect death.

By the end of the trek,

I returned to routine,

my chest finding predictable

rhythm – so quickly,

I dismissed mortality.

When I die, will I be

preoccupied with deathly

minutia? It seems likely

and cannot be helped,

triviality the tragedy.

At Sixty Nearly

At sixty nearly

A weary old man

I was cured of any

Assumptions of integrity

Nearly fired – nearly

Escorted from the building

(Perp-walked possibly

A committee met

Union rep an idiot

A reluctant reprimand

The negotiated fix)

For landing an expletive

At the office – a quiet

Well-mannered curse

Perfectly placed commentary

On a superior’s appalling

Incompetence – profanity

Confidently justified

Wounding no one

(And solving nothing

As egos were rattled)

Where the expression

Of outrage is forbidden

I’ve learned silence

Cowardice and apathy

Are more prudent policies

My Everything

Though I’ve not auditioned

For this strut across the stage,

I must be heard,

I must be seen,

My twee narcissism

Splayed upon your tiny screen,

On our devices, our vices,

In tawdry bauble pixels,

My everything, my everything.

Ignored, I shall scream.

I desire, I insist, I decree,

To be relevant my dream,

However petty my tinselly fame.

Oh yes, I’m well aware

Of the transience; I haven’t

Forgotten this is all lost when dead.

Perfectly content with my decay,

For now, now, right now,

I simply need to be loved.

Selfish

I’m a selfish man,

But it’s mine, all mine.

Astonishing, it takes my

Breath away, not yours.

I call dibs as I’m the only

One who sees the moon

On this crisp morning,

A vivid orange orb

Against electric blue.

Everyone else along Hill Road

Is sound asleep or if

They do happen to notice,

They’ll quietly relish the moment

And keep it to themselves

As I so often do.

There, there, on the lip

Of that wide, deep shadow

(More appealing than Florida)

Is where I’ll retire,

And the neighbors will

Never notice I’ve left.

That’s fine by me;

They’ll wave from afar.

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          

Proverbs 35

You have been told

a harlot is a deep ditch, 

a dangerous pit.

She is a cave of spirits

awaiting judgement,

a tomb under a foundation stone.  

When the priests enter 

the holy of holies,

they cannot hear the wailing souls.

You have been told

avoid the trap of women.

Death is in their blood and breath.

It’s been said god lives in incense 

and the steam of slaughter. 

From the mercy seat, he sees.

But you are lost 

in the tabernacle curtains

and its overlapping veils.

When you hide from him

in a closet of wire and winter coats,

pray she saves you.

Beg her to send you 

the vacuum chord to guide you out. 

Rejoice, she can find you in the dark.

She is the cave of spirits

and the mercy seat. 

She breathes the breath of life.  

Epilogue to a Decade

Our fireplace grate cradles 

a fragile stack of bones 

crackling gently like charred sticks.

Wind pulls hissing smoke

up the wall of stones.

When the house ripped down its center

and April wind came roaring in,

our banister got smashed to splinters,

mail crushed between the spindles—

our stairs already rotted like sin.  

Failing day chokes for its breath, 

and dusk turns to wounded night—

so things end like an escaping balloon 

in the thick black sky, as a final gavel 

in the carnival’s last light.

Catherine Zickgraf

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books.

Find her in the Bluesky. Watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

Mother

She was carrying nine months in her belly,

She gave birth to the world full of joy,

She spared everything for you,

If you cry, he will cry if you laugh.

God has given me a child,

Okay, I’ll eat it if I don’t want to eat.

Such a loving fate ended,

Okay, I’ll wear it instead of wearing it.

She thinks of you day and night,

She praised and prayed,

Why did you not reach the value of the name

The earth knows itself as the sky.

Taught to speak, write and draw,

Her hair turned gray and he looked at you,

Did you get enough of it once?

Even if the tests come, he holds your hand.

Mushtipar, your father gave his life,

Day and night, he did not stop saying that he was a child

The thorn bush picked your flowers for you,

The world is alive with his love.

Is it easy for you to raise a child?

Not one, but four lovers,

If it’s easy, you tell me

Grow up so many children.

I have nothing else to say to you child

One more day you will be a mother.

Even if your child hits you too

That’s how you know how much you value your loved one.

Then it’s getting late, open your eyes

Do your service and receive his blessing.

Do good, avoid evil

Take advantage of it while it’s still alive.

Every day you take four loaves of bread,

Always ask what your health is saying

Don’t cry waiting for you again,

God bless you, may you live long.

I am Sobirjonova Rayhona, a 9th-grade student of the 8th general secondary school of Vobkent district, Bukhara region. I was born in December 2008 in the village of Chorikalon, Vobkent district in an intellectual family. My mother and father supported me from a young age. I am also interested. I started writing in my 3rd grade. My first creative poem was published in “Wobkent Life” newspaper.

In addition, many magazines were published in America’s Synchaos newspaper, India’s Namaste India magazine, Gulkhan magazine, Germany’s RavenCage magazine and many other magazines and newspapers. my creative works have come out. I actively participated in many contests and won high places and received many gifts. Creativity is my precocity. I am very interested in creativity and enjoy every line. Of course, I will become a great person and bring the name of my country Uzbekistan to heaven, God willing!!!

Heart-tiger Chicken of the Lizard Wind

______________

You might as well let ugliness come and cultivate it,

and see what kind of world comes out.

—- Wen Yiduo

______________

sky five twine amid

the lower skeletons

mantic catfish freefall

while today is only a

conspiracy of thought

and public perceptions

mild skeletons of

thought and Alpha

Romanticist catnip 

flowers of equal villages 

ears of the Player

Piano layering 

Mollified pensive 

Flayed by the era

Sensitively buried 

errors Multiplied 

Misread headlines 

esteemed Meaty 

edible illegible 

mourning Evolves 

Musician osprey 

moreover Epicurean 

Buffets of Sounds 

Adumbrations

entirely Up surge 

Emptily Upended

Equally prayerful 

utmost Equivalent 

Epicenters centered 

Among rough 

Edges

implicitly Euphoric 

ineffably Educated 

hackneyed liquid 

aqueduct eye shadows 

Sagittarius & tangerine 

about half of them 

aluminum a guidance 

Ritual typhoon traction 

Aviation Aquarium blue

Notes Rose role piano 

Radio Leg thigh bone

Connected to the 

Cell phone snow on

Mount Charleston 

rules of the Thumb

Rain is formal 

The Grabbing Bag

gateway to Alterity 

Plankton zawn workshop 

Laboratory of the 

Lamb Lamps

Panzebraic sememes 

ruffled bridges 

Esophageal 

Celadon Well-behaved 

ear Roots wear 

Roots We Ear

roots Worn

roots rot the volume 

Of the grammar 

Amplified apartment 

Reconnaissance 

seed Terminal

Torn ear Tear

who fragments garnered

septum the weal Fuchsia

Who are you 

Talking to? He

Talked him

Self in Two 

Who magenta yields 

Wields or welds 

Worlds of 

Magnesium octane 

Zenith magnetized 

Who is the magnitude 

of Icarus to the 

Gravity of our Cause

We Ear Forlorn

Wear & tear

roots withheld 

ears within

roots of ears

Tafoni Ear

root & telephone 

ear Tapioca

Gap Hideous 

germs helplessly

Teardrops urn

Lyricism & schism 

if Under Cyan 

Understanding Yellow 

instantly culpable 

kelp flies

City of insidious 

Lyric schism Ouija 

Seize the Play 

Lichen Withheld 

broccoli Acres

jousts 

mist & prism 

vouched 

volume of the 

Granular Hour 

Geopolitical 

Diameter 

Heart

of the Wind

broccoli Acres

jousts chicken

mist & prism 

vouched Lizard

volume of the 

Granular Hour 

Geopolitical 

Diameter 

Heart-tiger 

of the Wind

broccoli tiger Acres

jousts lizard chicken

mist chicken prism 

vouched tiger Lizard

volume of the chicken 

Granular Lizard Hour 

Geopolitical tiger

Diameter of the Lizard 

Heart-tiger chicken 

of the lizard Wind

______________

California & Nevada 

Fall 2024

Predestined

Though fate or destiny cannot be denied,

I shall choose my own path.

I may suffer the thorns,

be bruised and cut by granite rocks,

risk falling down the deadly cliffs

and be wearied and lost in numerous routes,

I will have no regrets.

For in my travelling towards my destiny,

I shall have the pleasure to smell the flowers,

breathe in the free wind,

touch the softness of cool grass and soft sand.

Destiny may be predetermined

but it is the journey that really matters.

Me and my Shadow

I do not reject my shadow

For only in my light it can show

In darkness, shadow is hidden

By negativity, triple be mean.

Just like I have my light in me

So is my shadow that I can see

Anger, impatience, fear and more

A part of me that I must not abhor

Shadow, I must not repress or deny

To be seen with only light in life is a lie

I just need to learn how to control

A part of my healing, that’s my goal.

As I step out of my dark cage

Let me in reality truly engage

Disconnect from what hinders

Into true love, my soul lingers

Duties and commitment are all done

All my shackles and burden be gone

Angels and friends to thank each day

Now, my light and shadow can play.

Let all wounds and pains heal

Only positivity and hope to feel

With faith, let mind rule over matter

Healing inside, change for the better

Me and my shadow are one

In acceptance, battle is won

I am both the Yin and the Yang

Balancing, having peace, I can.

Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry.

Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.