In today’s rapidly changing world one of the most pressing topics is the great importance of books in developing children’s thinking. We can say that by reading books, children are finding solutions to the world’s most complex problems,  thereby contributing to the development and future of our countries. 

Today, the only thing that leads children to perfection and success is the book.  In my opinion,  every child has read a book at least once in their life. For example,  a piece of work,  a novel, a drama, or simple literature  from a book.  By this, I mean that books primary invite children to reading and literacy. Furthermore, through reading books  children  are enhancing their  mental intellect  and critical thinking in serious areas.  That is to say, easy solutions to the economic, social,  and spiritual-culture  problems of our countries are being found with the help of books. Another aspect is that the gems of Uzbek literature teach children the roots of our  history; the reason is that  it shows how humanitarian,  brave, and most importantly, patient the Uzbek people are.

Based on this, I want to say that to build the future,  one must look back at history; as a result,  history will pave your way to success,  drawing from it is own hardships.  This opinion of mine is, on the contrary like a battle on an reflected stage. Because in the war, thousands of our grandfather fought putting their lives in the line, and if necessary,  sacrificing them. Do you think they did not have fathers, mothers, spouses, or children waiting for them anxiously at home? Of course they did! But they possessed pride, honor, and a sense of responsibility. I can say with confidence that these books will help children take steps toward a great future. Furthermore,  children learn how difficult life can be  and how to respond to it appropriately.  In my  view,  reading books can be useful not only for children but also for adults.  For instance,  Yu Hua’ s famous work ” To Live” helps to further increase the patience and resilience of our women today. In my perspective,  this book reflects the hardships of an entire family,  and even the suffering of a woman who lost all her children and her ability to endure these difficulties. I believe that this story can serve as an example for our women. 

In final conclusion, a book is not just an object that leads people to perfection, but rather a guide that shows them the way.  It is known that for many children, a book is a source of knowledge and one of the most enjoyable activities 

My name is  Ismatova Dilnura.  I was born on October 11, 2010, in Shahrisabz district of Qashqadaryo region, Uzbekistan. Moreover, in order to expand my worldwide and mental capacity, I have been learning various languages and reading books.  In addition, thanks to my knowledge of foreign languages, I have been participating as a volunteer in my events, festivals, and large pavilions. And also, currently, I am continuously developing myself and further increasing my knowledge in order to realize my many dreams. 

The Last Wave

“Nightmares for the dead are dreams of life.

Not remembering dreaming is dreaming of being dead.”

From Queen of Swords

For Mike

I’m on a ferry with a wife

and two small boys but I’m not sure

where we are going or why. There is an

island out there somewhere and not much else.

The ocean is flat and calm, unnaturally calm

like before an epic storm and the sky is

gradually fading from deep blue to a kind of

greenish color with back edges.

All of us are enjoying an offshore breeze

though we know none of this will last much longer.

When the wind stops, the steam freighter

I am on founders on an unseen rocks between

sandbars. Five Franciscan nuns are kneeling

on the aft deck praying in German as high seas

breech the listing ship.  I can see the name

of the boat on last remaining life preservers

painted in black letterings: Amerika as I float

out to sea.

Luckily, the wife and children are no longer

on deck. I can see them waving from another

ferry as emergency flares from several ships

brighten the storm dark skies. I can see the last

of the passengers from Amerika swept overboard

as I float. I feel like a character in Death in Venice

but I don’t know which one.

I’m listening to Mahler 5 in the launch heading

out from shore. At first, the boat handles the waves

remaining upright and moving steadily forward.

My new female friend and I know that soon

the waves will become unmanageable and 

the inevitable will follow in the form of that

mythical Last Wave we’ve read about.

The actual drowning happens elsewhere though

I sense the tragic aftermath of the capsizing boats

and all hands and passengers lost in the storm.

The loss I feel most is the death of a child,

the youngest boy, whose loss suggests he might

have been one of my own. My grief is immeasurable

so acute I feel the pain even when I wake up. 

I know, then, the death of a child in the dream

was the unexpected death of my best friend 

in real life.

Street of Crocodiles Dream Poem

After the banquet, guest appear to be dreaming,

bewitched by before-the-meal cocktails, 

four courses with wine, and house special

coffees laced with sweet liqueurs, then 

sleep inducing testimonials, including

fawning speeches celebrating the lord and 

master of the house.

Guests are jarred awake by sudden noises, 

tables knocking, levitating dessert plates,

spirit voices and apparitions like Banquo’s

ghost revisiting. Familiars appear at the side 

of the reigning king pro tem, formerly a fearless 

warrior now one who has lost his nerve, 

made pale by improbable prophecies coming true 

in the form of a processional of heir apparents, 

that scroll by on the ceiling of the formerly festive

well-heated dining room now as cold as 

Hamlet’s father’s tomb.

Outside, on the cobblestones, the inmates

of a sanatorium under the sign of an hourglass

have been released from their cells dressed

for a pasquinade in mufti and bells like

court jesters in a Poe story that doesn’t end

well for the powers that be.

Under night wood carnival barkers are

searching for their side shows, the displaced

animal acts, only finding freak shows and 

reptile rooms while the streets are filled with 

crocodiles where once a peasant revolt had been.

The soldiers that shoot them are of 

the fascist persuasion. Streets are a blood

factory now and no one cares that the king

is dead.

Burning Amy

No death from above

napalm run, no car

crash turned fireball,

no girl in the picture

carrying burning jelly

on her back,

but a working girl

in an argument

gone terribly wrong,

soaked with lighter

fluid and set on

fire,

“My husband is not a

monster,” his wife would

say.

But what kind of man

is he?  Burning Amy

on Albany Street;

something from a nightmare 

that leads to Westchester Burn 

Unit, relived nightly,

something that could never

be forgotten, maybe not a

monster, maybe something worse.

Ralph Steadman’s Milosevic

His neck is elongated to giraffe length,

stretched like his illustrations of Alice’s 

red queen, extra flesh for the ruler’s head

to avoid all the offal, decapitations he

has demanded, though, here, in Yugoslavia, 

the bodies are all buried in unmarked graves 

to be excavated as killing fields, forensic 

evidence of a reign of terror even the dictator 

cannot bring himself to consider, soiled as 

he is dressed in pinstriped suit now a butcher’s

apron covered in human gore and blood,

a vital organ in the lapel where a decorative

flower should be.

Ralph Steadman’s Pepys

“It was a sad noise

to hear our bell….

inscribed in the artist’s

calligraphic hand as Pepys,

the bold Colossus astride

the Thames, writing in his

diary, seeing through taxidermic

eyes; the tolling of the bells 

a call to worship or the warning

of tumbrel drivers about to 

pass, calling out for the dead

and dying those Black Plague

years their work was never done,

London dusk a suttee fog, corpses

afire, the Bridge, slums, as well.

Ralph Steadman’s John Clare

“May you be a half hour in heaven

before the Devil knows you’re dead.”

Irish Proverb

confined for life within a

stump of some stunted tree

in a Beckett play scene at

end time, only the poet’s head

visible where the tree’s trunk

should be on a mound of sordid

earth and knotted roots, the sky

deathly white, his skin paler

still.

AGONY OF THE BLOOD 

O land of the blood! 

Where’s my blood?

What is my sin?

Oh evil men,

Why me? 

My life lied upon my blood,

Laying curses upon the land,

Laying curses upon the hands,

Upon the hands that took my blood.

My blood shall rise! 

Tell my lovers to wipe their tears,

Tell Mama I’m now with Christ,

Tell my mates my life was taken,

Tell the man whose drink is blood,

Let the hands that slay me know,

My blood shall rise! 

O land of the blood! 

Arise from your evil plans,

As blood already soaked your palms,

Taking Esther’s life just at her prime,

In agony, her blood keeps wailing.

Yes, her blood shall rise! 

O evil men whose drink is blood,

O land of the blood,

Esther blood shall rise!

Yes, her blood will fight!

Her blood planted a taboo,

In the hands that slay her throat,

In the soil that soaked her blood.

Her blood shall rise! 

Yes, her blood will fight! 

XI-V-MMXXVI

PS:

Poem dedicated to late HARRISON ESTHER, a student of BHS EKINRIN ADDE, who was slaughtered and her blood taken away, in her house while preparing for school in the early morning on 4th May, 2024.

(May her soul rest in eternal light).

#JusticeforEsther

#JusticeforEsther

#JusticeforEsther

Image of Harrison Esther 

Аrms outstretched,

she with the branches merged,

and two avligs alighted, weaving their song with the wind.

And the sun caresses her roots,

as the rainbow shines

her leaf hair grew…

And God’s seeds were sown in the earth…

Woman

In every yard

it has sprouted

the tree of life

and the roots draw vitality from the chernozem of the universe…

And every branch

touches

ethnic strings,

and in the leaf

sometimes inserted

caterpillars and worms,

in hidden scenes…

Caterpillars may be butterflies,

to fly one day with one’s dreams.

But the worms rot the emerald,

doubts and pain harbored…

The tree of life is multifaceted

like the Great Wall of China.

The destinies of each race are intertwined,

The tree is actually a Woman.

Moods and policies change,

The tree is forever bearing seed.

The shoots of God in the eyes are looked around.

The tree is forever.

And if in my race the Tree of Life should die,

it doesn’t mean darkness…

We have woven our most precious seed, we have reinvented

and yourself in the closest units…

And we become one Tree in the forest,

illuminated by heavenly light.

This is the meaning of the circle.

The Tree of Life is a Woman.

>——– 

A woman

Аrms outstretched,

she with the branches merged,

and two avligs alighted, weaving their song with the wind.

And the sun caresses her roots,

as the rainbow shines

her leaf hair grew…

And God’s seeds were sown in the earth…

Woman

In every yard

it has sprouted

the tree of life

and the roots draw vitality from the chernozem of the universe…

And every branch 

touches 

ethnic strings, 

and in the leaf

sometimes inserted

caterpillars and worms, 

in hidden scenes…

Caterpillars may be butterflies,

to fly one day with one’s dreams.

But the worms rot the emerald,

doubts and pain harbored…

The tree of life is multifaceted

like the Great Wall of China.

The destinies of each race are intertwined,

The tree is actually a Woman.

Moods and policies change,

The tree is forever bearing seed.

The shoots of God in the eyes are looked around.

The tree is forever.

And if in my race the Tree of Life should die,

it doesn’t mean darkness…

We have woven our most precious seed, we have reinvented

and yourself in the closest units…

And we become one Tree in the forest,

illuminated by heavenly light.

This is the meaning of the circle.

The Tree of Life is a Woman.

Dessy Tsvetkova

Violently Fading to Silence

Robert crouched beneath the kitchen table, listening to music that conjured every evil thing he had ever dreamed.

Maybe his upstairs neighbors were simply enjoying their weekend too much, playing music at full volume and drinking until it was Monday again. But why would they choose something so haunting, so strange, for their brief respite?

This otherworldly melody contained a few elements that Robert struggled to describe despite his extensive knowledge of music theory. It seemed to be played on the flute or some similar instrument. But once he peeked from under the table, the upset piano, whose sounds transformed the room into the landscape of dreams, suddenly joined the flute.

Although the music wasn’t too loud, he felt uncomfortable as he huddled under the table, expecting at any moment the room to go silent, and with it his heart. He pictured himself having a heart attack on the cold floor of his kitchen. He pictured months or maybe years before his body would be discovered. The smell, the horror of his decomposing remains! He shook his head to banish the unpleasant vision and focused on the sounds of the flute and the piano that filled his apartment. That was all he could hear, that and the sound of his nervous heart.

“Shit,” Robert muttered as the music grew in intensity. He placed his hands over his ears, intending to block the sound. But it slipped through his fingers, through the skin of his hands, through the bones and the muscles and the joints. As the music made its way into his brain, it became excruciatingly sad. He pressed harder until his ears pulsed with pain, but, despite the discomfort, he refused to relax his hands even a little.

The music conjured up memories of his father, a musician and a quiet man who once brought home a child’s corpse and then shot himself in the heart while Robert’s mother was calling the police. Blood was still dripping from the girl’s mouth when two dark-eyed officers entered their living room. No, it was wrong. The child couldn’t have bled. She was dead, dead. Robert squeezed his head harder. Even though the music had succeeded in luring him into this particular nightmare, he knew better. Yes, his father had shot himself, but there was no child, and his mother called the police only after she had wiped her husband’s blood off the wooden floor of their bedroom. One had to keep up appearances after all.

“Why would you do that? Why?” His voice was nothing more than a faint echo of those memories.

He lowered his body so his forehead was almost touching the floor and pressed his palms hard against his skull, hoping to prevent it from receiving these agonizing messages and seeing these strange things. It didn’t work. He still saw the faces of his father and the little girl, corrupted by death and resentment, faces from the depths of his private hell.

Beside the kitchen table, near Robert’s outstretched legs, a little girl was thrashing around, her mouth opening and closing in rhythm with the music. When she opened her blue eyes, he screamed, or he thought he screamed; neither he nor anyone else in the apartment complex heard his voice. And then something cracked, and blood spilled from his mouth onto the floor.

And when he finally crushed his skull, there was a moment of pain and then silence that carried him into the blackest eternity of his most evil dreams.

Maria Barnes teaches English and writes dark fiction. Her work has appeared in The Pinworm Factory: A Tribute to Eraserhead edited by Scott Dwyer, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and Samjoko Magazine, among other places.

mariab2442@gmail.com

The Diamond Realm

Translated by Lan Xin (Lanxin Samei)

Deep in the remotest void of the cosmos

Lies a bliss galaxy formed of thirty-six celestial spheres

Adorned with crystal, jade, gold, silver and agate, adorning all cosmic wonders

Among countless gleaming stars stands the peerless diamond planet, radiant and supreme

Within this vast celestial system

Slumbers a sacred realm forged from countless diamonds

Pavilions and towers built entirely of translucent crystalline brilliance

A pure dustless paradise, eternal and serene as the Western Pure Land

To reach this holy realm of starlight

One must traverse countless trials and tribulations

Cross the blazing purgatory of raging flames

Traverse frozen wastelands where bitter frost cuts deep

Tread ancient battlefields shrouded in endless strife

Wander through torrential showers of falling meteorites

Only enduring all frigid cosmic ordeals

May one step into this sacred domain

Divine radiance of diamonds shimmers gently around all beings

Sages of supreme wisdom impart eternal sacred truths

Stardust diamonds sparkle across heaven and earthly paths

Kashala blossoms drift softly from the celestial dome

Blooming like cascading meteor showers in sequence

The phoenix-like Gu Ru Divine Bird sings melodiously

Its gentle melodies spreading eternal warmth across the universe

All souls here break free from worldly desires and vanity

Nourish themselves upon boundless galactic radiance

Cultivate inner spiritual nectar with pure universal virtue

This realm rests at the heart of the diamond galaxy

The primal sacred land where ancient cosmic civilization first bloomed

Known across worlds as The Boundless Great Radiance Realm

Jade railings encircle shimmering lotus ponds

Light refracts into endless radiant halos

Divine barriers shield away pain, parting and mortal chaos

Encircled by everlasting star rivers

Its sacred guardians stand unchanging through millennia

No lack of abundance ever dwells here

Nor time’s decay shall ever fade its glory

Soft glowing light bears eternal bliss

This pure land is the eternal haven of souls

All vast lands across this boundless galaxy

Shine as everlasting paradise carved in eternal diamond

Literature Confronts False Narratives: Dr. Jernail Singh Anand 

Bilal al Masri [Lebanon] engages  Indian poet and philosopher, Dr Jernail Singh Anand in a conversation spanning human rights  and ethical imperatives. 

Masri: 

How can world literature write about catastrophe when suffering becomes a daily condition in places such as Gaza and Lebanon, exceeding the language’s capacity for representation or endurance?

Anand: 

Literature and art, which serve as a mirror to society and record and replay its vicissitudes,  are active agents of prevalent culture, which not only reflect, but meditate on contemporary reality, and draw a parallel to history, which is the creation of human excesses, and recorded by the academia under pulls and pressure of politics.   We can see dry mapping of human progression in history, which merely mentions  the march of jackboots turning it into an endless story of deprivation and depletion of human values at all levels. Literature and art present an account of human suffering which was caused by the movement of chariots and cannons on the breast of the earth. I sometimes wonder if there is any stretch of the earth, which does not harbour a human skeleton. The human suffering  will become a sad chapter in human history, but not without causing convulsions to the literature and art which are cultural documents of an era.  

Masri:

Does the intellectual in today’s world still retain the role of the moral witness, or has their voice become part of a noise that no longer alters the trajectory of pain unfolding in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond?

Anand:

An intellectual is a man of intelligence, who has a vast grounding in the sphere of knowledge, who understands the drift of history, and can assimilate what is happening in present times.  I believe that the moral degeneration which has set in, is the result of the failure of the intellectual equipment of society, in which more and more emphasis has been assigned to academism.  The common people form the real sphere of suffering and they remain immune from the salted wisdom of library shelves from where, books have never moved into the parlours of ordinarity. Intellectual  is an arbiter of the moral sense but it appears he has failed to find channels of communication to converse with his own society. The world that suffers and the elite of the world that discuss and debate are two different worlds, and the knowledge which could have connected the two worlds has become a wall, rather than a bridge. 

The second part of your question is: has the intellectual become a part of the noise. I would say, yes. The corporate culture and the market economy has afflicted every sphere of social activity, and intellectual is not immune from its influence. In most of the cases, we find the intellectuals taking part in the race for recognition, and becoming a part of the noise. Standing apart and recognizing and challenging the rot is left to very few people who are in absolute minority. 

Masri: 

When images of destruction from Gaza and Lebanon are endlessly circulated before the world, do they lose their power of moral indictment, or is the problem located in the viewer’s eye, which has grown accustomed to suffering?

Anand: 

You appear to be right in suggesting that human beings have become accustomed to see pain and misery spreading across continents, and do not complain.  An empathetic understanding of human misery and a responsive world regime are need of the hour, for which we shall have to reformat human consciousness. The world must have a mechanism to spread the idea of Ethics and Human Rights. Our world has failed to recognize the right of people to live in harmony. As members of a highly civilized society, we are expected to respect the right of human beings to exist, and exist with dignity, which God has granted to every one born to this earth. 

Masri:

To what extent can we still speak of universal ethical and humanitarian values when they appear powerless in the face of what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon, and how can we understand this contradiction between the global human rights discourse and its absence in practice?

Anand:

The ethical movements are run by private organizations which do not find statutory support from states. Human Rights Organizations have got international presence, but they do not go beyond mere condemnation.    Universal ethics is an abstract ideal, and the apparatus through which these ethical sensitivities could be articulated, and spread across is almost non-existent.   The near total absence of universal ethics and disregard of human values  results from a social set up in which evil is not condemned nor looked down upon. Education, family and spiritual bodies tried hard in the past to instil the ideals of good and evil. At present, education has been converted into a thriving business, family has disintegrated and spirituality too is in the grip of market forces.  With the failure of this regulatory mechanism,  it is free for all. There is no one to check man from a hasty fall into insensitivity and moral inertia. 

Masri: 

To what extent can literature be an ethical stance, rather than merely an aesthetic reflection of the suffering of the distant other?

Anand:

Human suffering comes to us packaged in history books. When history is replayed, it takes us back to the hoary times when great massacres took place, killing millions of people. If we go back to myth, just imagine how many went under the grave in Troy, and how many perished in the epic battles of Ramayana and Mahabharata. The story is disturbing when it filters through history. It makes the tragedy stare at you, in all its horror. It is unvarnished truth, which really disturbs us, and it can demean us too. Nearer home, if history of the Partition is brought before us through history, those who suffered the loss of their near and dear ones, would find their wounds reopened and blood might start flowing in the streets all over again. 

Literature Confronts False Narratives:

Literature and art are a medium through which when human tragedy is passed, it gets a new makeover. Literature and art serve a great purpose: bringing the margins to the centre, and softening the hurt, by giving it a plausible argument. Art is an argument with time, so is literature a conversation with the self. The material they use is history, but they treat it with a humanistic angle, and before presenting it to the people, dilute its lethal substances, so that they do not kill  whosoever  drinks on it. 

This is the ethical stance of literature. To represent its society and its evil in such a way as to prepare men to discard it altogether. Literature presents the truth of an era, but it is treated with a moral varnish, and given an ethical orientation. Truth cannot be unleashed unguarded, because it has the potential to disturb peace, unless the author gives it a makeover of art, removes its poison, and reduces it to a story with a plausible moral. 

[Bilal al Masri is a Lebanese Arab poet and writer whose work engages with the intersections of poetry, language, and existential thought. He writes texts that explore the tensions between self, memory, and the world. His practice seeks the inner music of language, where meaning emerges through rhythm, image, and silence rather than ornamentation. For him, literature is not merely an aesthetic craft but a way of questioning existence and human fragility. He is also engaged in the critical reading of contemporary Arabic literature, continually exploring the human condition through writing].

Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 books to his credit [20 epics] is a Chandigarh-based  polymath, and a vital architect of the 21st century ethical literature whose seminal work ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ challenges the moral complacency of our era.  Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czech Rep] and Maxim Gorky [Russia],  his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He is an Honorary Member of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade. Anand has built a poetics that unites ethics, Vedic spirituality, social critique, and the philosophy of meaning. Anand presents an articulated perspective on poetry as an instrument of planetary consciousness. A moral philosopher, professor, and international speaker, Anand has devoted much of his research to the ethical dimension of language, to the responsibility of the individual within a globalised society, and to the relationship between matter, consciousness, and transcendence. Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com.

Bibliography:

https://sites.google.com/view/bibliography-dr-jernal-singh/home

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