Guilty Pleasure



He’s watching

The latest season

Of “Selling Sunset”

On Netflix,

One of 

His many

Guilty pleasures.




Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.

Progress Toward Victory

I wrote a lot of poems in my 20s.

They were all bad.

Everyone said they were bad.

The keyboard stank like sweat and rotten fruit.

There was a great outcry among the editors.

So I gave up

And then 20 years later I tried again.

And my poems were better!

Everyone said they were better.

Among the editors there was a great sigh of ambivalence.

I will quit for another 20 years.

When I come back my poems will be truly great.

The keyboard will smell of roses and triumph.

The editors will scuttle around my feet like beetles.

I will go to my grave like an apotheosis of Pulitzers.

And on my headstone I will write with my luminous hand,

“That’ll show ‘em.”

The Sun of Time

The sea of love is frozen 
Ships are like a painting of a painter
The sky does not breath
Cloud hides under water
Wind sleeps in the lap of Nature 
Sea beach is like empty vessel
Tourists' footprint is vanished 
The sun of time is absent 
Spring does not smile
Only silence walks here and there
Two sailors are not one
Communication is broken down
But two hearts are one
Fountain of Love flows from one to another
Nothing can stop love
None can break down communication between two hearts.

Samarkand is a tourism center

Samarkand – an honorable past with a great future, can be called one of the greatest masterpieces not only of Central Asia, but also of the world. Even if the world’s greatest poets and philosophers called it the garden of the heart, the jewel of the East, the mirror of the world, and even the face of the earth, they would not have been able to describe all the beauty and wealth of this beautiful city.

This city has given birth to many great people in its bosom, raised them and is still keeping them in its bosom. The cultural heritage of Samarkand is very great. This city, which has been the center of various countries for centuries, has been the main center of the Great Silk Road. The great world-lover Amir Temur chose this city as the capital of his kingdom and developed the city as a political, cultural and educational center. Thousands of madrasahs, mosques, and gardens were built in Samarkand during the Timurid period. Over the years, the madrasahs he built have not lost their strength.

During the years of independence, reconstruction works were carried out throughout the city in order to increase the touristic character of Samarkand. At the beginning of the 21st century, the city was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List under the name “Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures”! Today, the most visible places of the city are Registan ensemble, Shahi Zinda, Gori Amir complex and others. More than five million tourists from all over the world visit the city every year to enjoy its beauty.

In recent years, as a result of the work carried out by the government to develop tourism in the country, the tourist center of Samarkand was built in the city. Four-five-star hotels, conference halls, entertainment centers, and an eternal city were built there. Journalists of the prestigious European publication note that the opening of the Silk Road Samarkand complex will increase the flow of tourists to Uzbekistan. With the attention of our state, the city is becoming more beautiful year by year, which leads to rapid growth of domestic and foreign tourism. The growth of tourism also affects the development of economic and social spheres in Samarkand.

War

Smile not exist

Happiness is stopped

Hungry stomach

Hungry soul

Enough

Tired from the bodies

That are afraid of their shadows

I would like to have a man who speaks truth

Who act

Who believes

In power of love

Words

Silence is not the answer

When Sun rise

Moon is a light that

Give birth

To our dreams

Action

We can only trust

When the reality

appears

We don’t need

so small minds

We are here

to believe

In our thoughts

And in our principles

When the miracle

is happening

Only Flour

Can give the solution

To a hungry mouth

Eva Petropoulou Lianou 

Poet, prose writer and official candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Roman Holiday                                                                                

I dreamed and found you young again somehow transported across the Atlantic, past Gibraltar then Corsica, over the waves of the Mediterranean. I arrived quite dashing in a light linen suit and polished Italian shoes, in a little white sportscar, over ancient brick streets and through Di Chirico piazzas and skewed Zeffirelli perspectives at your flat in Rome set curiously in the forum at the edge of the Palatine Hill. I took you in my arms, circled your waist, and my palm found the small of your back.

You twirled for me, flipping the hem of your dress, a black and white print in tiny cubist abstractions. We danced spinning through your bright rooms with the high ceilings like a chiesa expecting Raphael above our heads – an Assumption or an Ascension. You’d arranged vases of flowers, and the tables and chairs were strewn with opened books, chipped china, and the remains of bread and the dregs of wine from the night before. The windows were tall and opened wide, curtains drifting in the breeze, and allowed the shouts and cheers of scruffy boys kicking a soccer ball outside. And there was a jumpy, comedic Italian tune playing from the phonograph – the kind of music that makes you want to whirl around the kitchen with your mother or gambol with your little sister balanced on your shoes.

So pretty and poised, you were Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday after she got her hair cut short, raced Gregory Peck on a Vespa, and stuck her hand in the Mouth of Truth. Giddy, we laughed and ached and wept, immediately in love again. Your bedroom walls and the quaint watercolors you bought of the Pantheon, Colosseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and that little temple of Portunus near the Tiber – the very ruins around us seemed to laugh too, happy for us. But when I leaned in to kiss you, our lips refused to touch, to meet as willing participants in a prelude to desire. I heard, “Remember, you’re married.” Instantly I returned flying back across the ocean in my little white convertible to that other bliss I’d live after waking. And that was all. That was enough.