——————————————————————————

up from the floor

i wanna leave

most of my

memories

in the ocean,

somewhere away

from the plastic

in tedious moments,

i bite my nails and

wonder why i didn’t

die when i was young

this woman swears

she loves me

won’t give me her

address or any hope

that this is something

more than real

we’ll probably be

married in a year

why does all the

crazy shit with death

happen in minnesota

you try helping your

disabled mother up

from the floor with

a bad back

these are the nights

drugs were invented

for

piss stained pants

in the wash

a night nurse telling

war stories in the

living room

scribbling madness

on paper is child’s

play

—————————————————-

the latest year of death

a few snowflakes

in the cold sunshine

the last few days of

the latest year of death

can masturbation cause

carpal tunnel

four out of five dentists

agree

of course, some beautiful

woman wants to save you

as long as you are willing

to become the man she

changes you into

why resist, where has this

perfect creature got you

still think toiling away

in obscurity is noble,

makes you cool or

something even better

not often someone brags

about being a better piece

of shit

sure, there may be gold

in that turd but no one

ever wants to give it

a taste

rejoice, the end is near

a new beginning if you

truly want it to be

but that is just some

mumbo jumbo out of

some self help book

written long before you

were a stain in the sheets

———————————————-

die alone

pretend we are

the only souls

left

your soft skin

resting on what

is left of me

seventeen years

is one hell of

a gap

but you brighten

this darkness

let me know

that the light

isn’t always

a train

one day it will

be your chance

to prove to the

world you were

always what i

was missing

it’s not a test

but a plea for

help

not that i’m

afraid to die

alone

just don’t

want to

that subtle difference

doesn’t mean shit to

many, but hopefully

just enough to whom

it is meant for

——————————————————–

i mumbled something

a strapless neon dress

and all the reasons i

never liked going to

strip clubs

sitting at the bar,

just drinking

the bartender asked

what i was looking

for tonight

i mumbled something

i’ll never find here

she realized it was

a lost cause

never got a lap dance

though i did buy my

buddy one

he liked this smoking

hot black chick and i

never minded someone

else having a good time

looking back on it

i still can’t figure out

how these twenty plus

years have flown by

so damn fast

the tornado hit that

strip club years ago

i suppose they had

different dancers

by then

——————————————————

nothing but sunday drivers

an uncomfortable

silence in the rain

a two lane road

in the sticks

of course, nothing

but sunday drivers

on a thursday

afternoon

it’s a lonely glass

of scotch and the

memory of an old

lover that died

years ago

your life has become

the lyrics of the songs

you grew up on

too bad the songs

about death are the

only ones you can

remember all the

lyrics to

the subtle embrace

of your last hope

she has no clue to

the misery she has

stepped into

and while that baggage

will never be hers to

deal with

she will gladly accept

the challenge

accept what little

faith is still left

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, sadly accepting his fate. He’s been widely published over the last 30 years, most recently at Night Owl Narrative, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Crossroads Magazine and The Rye Whiskey Review. His latest book, to live your dreams, has been published by Whiskey City Press and is available on Amazon.com (please buy a copy or two). He still has his blog, although taking care of his disabled mother takes up the majority of his time. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Silence 

The heart to heart talks silently. 

A feverish morning waiting for the evening, 

Whispering, fish-colored gasps, running and laughing, 

The new bud on the new path is everyone’s eye. 

The talk goes on saying that you should be quiet. 

Time will give some answers. 

To retreat silently to the last position, 

To feel the attitude of behavior and continue work. 

In the composition of silent situations & words, 

without words are expressed in the sea, 

Illusory imagination floats in the world of the mind. 

Magh comes to Paush to compose sentences. 

The witness remains in the quiet room of the understanding mind. 

Answers play a silent role in the passage of time. 

Reflection takes place in silent discourse as causality. 

Insistence comes to the new creator, 

providing words without words, 

Silence wins in the dawn.

Short biography: Amb. Dr. Priyanka Neogi from Coochbehar. She is an administrative Controller of United Nations PAF, librarian, CEO of Lio Messi International Property & Land Consultancy, international literacy worker, sports & peace promoter, dancer, singer, reciter, live telecaster, writer, editor, researcher, literary journalist, host, beauty queen, international coordinator of the Vijay Mission of Community Welfare Foundation of India.

Travel Log Sojourn Scenes, A Poet’s Diary 

The Spirit Message

I heard somewhere the clear book title ‘Silas Marner’ and looked it up. It was a George Eliot book and reading the summary I knew I wanted to read her book someday. It looked like Silas had a difficult go of it but was deepened and maybe even somehow redeemed by his life experiences. I paused, breathed, and meditated, said a prayer of thanks and one of protection as I was travelling that day north. 

The Journey to the Place by Winter Waters

I had cleaned off my vehicle and made sure I had washer fluid and gas. I would take my time and go through small towns after the highway, places where people and structures were more, well, few and far between. I knew those types of people, more rugged, honest, more ‘salt of the earth.’  I went and went and sometimes it was a struggle as other folks drive too fast or too slowly and there were transport trucks unintentionally throwing slush all over my own little truck. If I hadn’t filled the washer fluid I don’t know how I would have managed. I eventually I made it to the place by the waters, the place near the northern ferry and the white and grey-blueish ice, the view of the vast lake wind-swept and raw. I never knew if it was a friend or a foe, and maybe that’s because it was complex, and both. 

The Lands Reinstated After Colonialism’s Avarice

Looking around, I remembered a place I used to know that had two willow trees and a fine balcony, and in the summer you could sit and hear the birds and view wonderful waters, waters that glistened a bit for the strong sun that travelled by the clear earth having gone through azure skies. But that place was not really any more for me, and I wasn’t there…geographically or in time. I looked around. Many souls seemed to know one another and have a task,- understanding the world and their place in it. Hmmm, I thought, I am a lost soul, like a piece of parchment paper upon the winds or a bird that has lost its flock,- like an outcast wolf, far away from a pack. 

The Way Back to the Other Towns

Going back, I imagined aquamarine tropical seas but had to snap out of this and pay attention as the snowstorm had begun. I wanted away then from the rural and back to the south of there, and I went steadily along skipping coffee and food and only eating a cookie I had brought in case I got lightheaded. This all worked, this break in daydreaming and the cookie and the timing. I just made it back to the more populated towns and organized infrastructure before the roads became dangerous,- for when a big storm does descend, it really takes at least twenty-four hours before it’s sorted out again. That’s to allow plowing and salting and the clearing of air and all. 

The Trees and Lees and What the Poet Sees

Back safely, I took a bit of a rest and went and got a coffee and bagel. Then I walked by large evergreens and in the snowy fields. I had made it back to where I sort of belonged and took deep breaths and thought of many things such as Silas Marner and George Eliot, of pancakes and diviners and even of Jesus and the Gospels. I walked for longer than I had to, enjoying the outward silence, the fresh air, and the robust and deeply verdant Evergreens…

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet and photographer. His most recent work, The Book of Love and Mourning, is his third collection of prose poems and landscape photographs. 

Here We Are in the Mid 2020s

                  Drop, bounce, roll, sleet against

window payne onto ledge

                   glaze covered cement walkway

naked, cold, lifeless 

                   in the creek bed, lights of the night sky

waver… dim… dark clouds roll above  

              large mounds of frozen dirt cover 

the terrain where once a forest 

                           stood

 now awaiting manmade woods of aluminum 

                         processed wood

In the distance a gilded age

                mansion stares down upon it all

as it once did onto the shacks in

                          the woods. 

Down in the swamp where a city rose from the muck and slime

winter’s freeze preserves the musky filthy odor, embeds itself

in the people who populate the large classical buildings that

sit atop.

Their hearts beat slower, body temperature lowers

as the rich get richer, poor get poorer, health care

abandoned and middle class dropping like sleet from

a winter storm. 

                                                               Downpours defrost the first layer of soil

                                                               dirty winter ice is washed away, crocus peaks

                                                               out to say hello. 

A

L

O

N

G

   The river, by sluices of canal, rapids of river,

meanders, then the rise of stone/rock as river

cuts through gorge, then lowhead dam. 

Thump… thump… thump of the cans

Revving… revving of the engine. Start – stop. 

One house to the next, pick em up throw in back

Toss onto the sidewalk. Miles upon miles of walking…

Hands calloused… bones ache… cold or hot

They are out there… snow or rain…. they are out there

Making just above a livable wage and the mayor says…

You make enough…maybe a few cents more. 

M

A

N

Y

Work two jobs to earn what one should pay,

Taking bus to bus to job to job at the chain pharmacy

First then the chain department store second 

16 hours a day to support a family, pay health care

Hear the king of the golden age that

Doesn’t exist except for the rich

Buy one doll, one coat you don’t need

Anymore than that…. Eats cake while

Others pull meals out of a can. 

We are here in the mid-2020s and it is cold and barren

ICE and Border Patrol run the country side abusing 

Migrants, abusing citizens in the name of the abuser in

Chief. A little man who chants

 gimme… gimme… gimme more.

It plays out… always attack the weak

your own people, another country 

surround yourself in gilded gold 

mock predecessors for your ego 

and of course, name buildings after 

yourself…. Never before done while in office. 

Cold…Cold…Callous…Cold 

Lawless

Without proper notice to the folks on Capitol Hill

                     BOMBS DROPED ON SOVERIGN NATION

Maduro kidnapped, removed from county.

                      OIL, OIL, OIL, OIL

Non warrior yells after the attack

S

Y

N

OPHANTS 

                  Praise him, how tough he is, actually say

He will dictate next move…………………

                     Juan Orlando Hernández

                        Juan Orlando Hernández

Pardoned just a month before

                    45 years sentence wiped out

                     45 tons of cocaine in the United States

Who is fooling who? 

Lawless

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/ 

In memory of Renee Nicole Good, Poet, By Sungrue Han, Korea

……

미국 시인 르네 니콜 굿(Renee Nicole Good)의 명복을 빕니다. 1월 7일 미니애폴리스에서 미국 이민 관세청(ICE) 요원에 의해 살해당한 르네 니콜 굿(37세)은 2020년 “미국 시인 아카데미 상”을 수상한 시인이다.

“시인은 죽지 않는다. 시인들은 그들의 시를 통해 영원히 산다. 시인의 말은 천사가 되어 높이 날아오른다.” 

-고인의 시 1편(일부)을 감상한다-

May the soul of American poet Renee Nicole Good rest in peace. Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on January 7th, was the recipient of the 2020 Academy of American Poets Award.

“Poets never die. They live forever through their poetry. Their words soar like angels.”

-Appreciate one of the deceased’s poems (excerpt)-

——————————–

“태아 돼지 해부 배우기에 대하여”

르네 니콜 굿

나는 내 흔들의자를 되찾고 싶다,

자기중심적인 석양을,

그리고 매미 소리에서 따온 3행시와 바퀴벌레의 털북숭이 다리에서 따온 5음보 같은 해안 정글의 소리를.

나는 중고품 가게에 성경책을 기증했다.

(비닐 쓰레기봉투에 넣고 산성 히말라야 소금 램프로 뭉개버렸다.

세례 후 성경, 광신도들의 두툼한 손에서 주워온 성경,

단순화되고 읽기 쉬운, 기생적인 종류의 성경들):

광택이 나는 생물학 교과서 그림의 매끈한 고무 냄새가 더 기억난다. 그것들은 내 콧속 털을 태웠다.

그리고 내 손바닥에 붙어있는 소금과 잉크.

새벽 두시 사십오분에 초승달 아래서 공부하고 반복한다.

리보솜

내 플라스마

유산균

스탬브레

길을 지울 때까지 반복하고 스크립을 했고 내가 더 이상 지적할 수 없는 곳에 갇혔다, 아마도

내 직감—

아마도 내 췌장과 결장 사이에 있는, 내 영혼의 큰 흐름일지도 모른다.

내가 이제 모든 것을 줄이는 규칙이다. 단단한 가장자리에서 그리고 지식으로 부터

그녀는 열이 나는 이마에 수건을 두르고 앉아있곤 했다.

둘 다 그냥 놔둬도 될까? 

이 변덕스러운 믿음과 이 대학 과학이 교실 뒤에서 나를 부추기고 있다.

성경, 쿠란, 바가바드 기타가 예전 엄마처럼 긴 머리를 귀 뒤로 넘기고 입으로 숨 쉬는 것을 믿을 수가 없다.

인생은 단순하다.

난소와 정액

그리고 그들이 어디에 위치해 있을까?

그리고 모든 것은 거기서 죽는다.

—————–

“On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” 

by Renee Nicole Good

i want back my rocking chairs,

solipsist sunsets,

& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of

cockroaches.

i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores

(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—

the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the

dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):

remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs

inside my nostrils,

& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.

Influenza – a Disease That Should Not Be Taken Lightly

Influenza is not just a common cold; it is a highly contagious infectious disease that weakens the entire body. It occurs most frequently during the autumn and winter seasons and is dangerous because it can spread rapidly from one person to many others. A person suffering from influenza often feels extremely weak, experiences body aches, dizziness, loss of appetite, and lacks the strength to carry out daily activities.

Influenza is caused by Influenza A, B, and C viruses. These viruses enter the respiratory tract and damage the nose, throat, and lungs. Since influenza is a viral disease, antibiotics are ineffective against it. The virus also mutates quickly, which is why influenza can occur repeatedly every year.

One of the most dangerous aspects of influenza is how easily it spreads. When an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks, the virus is released into the air and enters a healthy person’s body through breathing. In addition, the virus can spread through contact with contaminated surfaces. For example, the virus can be transmitted via door handles, mobile phones, money, or dishes, and infection occurs when a person touches their mouth, nose, or eyes afterward. This is why influenza can spread quickly and infect many people in a short time.

People with influenza usually develop a high fever, sore throat, runny or blocked nose, cough, muscle and joint pain. The most troubling symptom is severe weakness and fatigue, making it difficult even to get out of bed. As a result, patients may be unable to go to work or school and struggle to perform household tasks. This significantly reduces a person’s quality of life.

If influenza is not treated properly or is ignored, it can lead to serious complications such as bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, or heart-related problems. Influenza is especially dangerous for pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people with chronic illnesses.

Therefore, influenza should not be considered a mild illness. Prevention is extremely important. Regular handwashing with soap, wearing masks in crowded places, ventilating rooms, avoiding close contact with sick individuals, eating vitamin-rich foods, and getting vaccinated against influenza whenever possible are strongly recommended.

Influenza is a serious disease that exhausts the body, reduces quality of life, and can cause severe complications. By taking responsibility for their health and following preventive measures, people can protect both themselves and those around them.

To prevent influenza, cleanliness, caution, and a healthy lifestyle are essential. Frequent handwashing, being careful in crowded places, ventilating living spaces, eating nutritious foods, and getting enough rest are simple yet effective ways to protect against influenza. If everyone follows these rules, they can help safeguard both themselves and others from the disease.

Inomova Kamola Rasuljon qizi was born in 2003 in the city of Andijan. Uzbekistan. She is a 5th-year student at Andijan State Medical Institute.