-------------------------------------------------------
simpatico
 

the soft brown skin

 

all the inside jokes

 

no one understands

us

 

it shouldn't work

 

love shouldn't be

anywhere near

whatever this is

 

but i see the look

in your eyes

 

simpatico

 

fuck the world

 

stack all the fucking

decks against us

 

we will break them

all down with glee

 

with love

 

with a never-ending

sense of what is right

 

i lick the honey off

of your finger and kiss

you with all of what i

have left to give

 

everything doesn't

do it justice

 

rescued an old soul

from the bitter edge

 

hopefully now,

we jump together
------------------------------------------------------
if we could get away with it
 

i remember being on vacation

with the family and my father

got us lost while hiking in

the great smoky mountains

 

it might have been the first time

i ever thought i wonder if we killed

him here if we could get away with it

 

trust me, it wasn't the last

 

as the dysfunction grew, the vacations

became crazier and crazier

 

eventually, i was driving and the

thought became a notion that i

actually had a say in

 

never did kill him

 

but i sure was a happy motherfucker

when he did die

 

i'm sure his family reads these poems

 

part of me wonders if they ever

understood the monster he became

 

the other part of me is pretty

damn sure they don't care

 

which is fine

 

not everyone is cut out

for the family life

 

one of the genes my father

has passed along to me
----------------------------------------------------------
like a beautiful woman
 

i treat my pain like

a beautiful woman

 

it will kill me and

it is a race to see

who gets there first

 

i'm just a bystander

along for the ride

 

sometimes, i even

get to participate

 

the pills never seem

to work but jack daniels

is always in my corner

 

every once in a while

i'd love for that beautiful

woman to grab the shotgun

in the corner and use me as

target practice

 

somewhere, burroughs is

shining up an apple

 

a soft embrace

on a sweaty night

 

two lost lovers

trying to make up

for all the moments

that have escaped

 

along the way, the pain

became love and love

will kill us all
--------------------------------------------------
the endless temptation
 

hopelessly devoted to

the last beautiful soul

i ever want to know

 

longing for that kiss

 

the look of desire

 

the endless temptation

on the tip of her tongue

 

dancing under a full moon

 

the autumn crisp in the air

 

she whispers i love you

into my ear

 

my heart starts to skip

a beat

 

if i'm lucky

i'll die in her arms

 

before either of us get

a chance to ruin the

moment
--------------------------------------------------
mister right now
 

remember the one that gave

you the stevie nicks vibes?

 

the one that you had the

most sexual chemistry

with

 

i was only mister right

now for her

 

she never was going to settle

for anything less than forever,

with whom she is still with

 

welcome to the other side

of the coin

 

where you are nobody's forever,

at least anymore

 

hell, mister right now hasn't

seen the light of day for years

now

 

there comes a time when you

can't deny how much reality

fucking sucks sometimes

 

losers are the glue of society

 

you remember writing that

a lifetime ago?

 

sure, still believe it

 

still understand my place

in it all

 

more people die alone than

you happen to read about

in the newspapers



J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is slowly wasting away in the suburbs, drinking away the pain from arthritis. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review, Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

We arrive in Rome to the Ryanair fanfare that really means “You’re twenty-four miles away from your destination,” and not “You’ve arrived on time”.

I have pre-booked the coach from Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino which will take us to Termini Station in the city centre which is just as well because there are wildcat train strikes and taxi drivers have joined in unexpectedly.

It’s charcoal dark by the time we arrive at Termini and painted sex workers are beginning to ply their trade. Hectic hustle and bustle of unloading cases segues into other coach passengers melting away into the darkness and, when it’s our turn, I try to ask the driver how we’ll get to the hotel near the Vatican but he shrugs and suddenly doesn’t speak any English. My Italian is inadequate for unrehearsed conversations. 

It looks too far to walk at night from my tourist map opened up under a streetlight and it’s in the days before smartphones and Google maps.

I am swithering about trying to get a room at the seedy hotel on the same street when a small man appears and asks, “Are you looking for a taxi? I can take you.”

I could take him in a fight, I think, so let him put our cases into the boot and we buckle up in the back of his tiny car.

Any feeling of relief disappears quickly when a huge, thin man squashes himself into the front passenger seat and childproof locks click down.

Trapped!

I grab my teenage daughter’s hand as she gives me the side eye. I want to remain calm for her sake, but my hands are clammy and there’s an acidic burn in my throat. My head throbs.

The driver and his partner chat away in their own language, and I stare out of the window trying to get my bearings. It suddenly twigs for the driver as he catches my eye in his rearview mirror and he starts to tell us where we are, pointing out the Colosseum, and “That way to the Trevi Fountain. You’ll get nice gelato there.” Il Vittoriano, Monumento looms like an old fashioned typewriter in the distance, the men laugh.

He drives too quickly through the cacophony of city streets. He seems to be an expert at driving too close, too quickly and weaving in and out of lanes without signalling. Horns scream and shriek and brake lights burst and spark in front of us. We seem to be washed by red light inside the car, faces eerily devilish.

I weigh up whether it would be preferable to die in a road accident or murdered in a strange city.

Finally I see a landmark close to the hotel – the rotunda, Castel Sant’Angelo – that I had been looking out for. Hadrian’s mausoleum looming above us might signal that this car ride isn’t as dangerous as it seems.

Miraculously, we arrive at the drop off point for hotel reception. I give the driver a twenty Euro note over and above his asking price.

The driver’s just been a chancer trying to earn extra during a strike, not a murderer or slave trader in cahoots with his lumbering friend.

€20’s a small price to pay, I figure.

Investing in girls’ education

If you educate your son, you educate one person, but if you educate your daughter, you educate an entire generation.

My name is Sarvinoz Mamadaliyeva. The problem I want to talk about is related to the education of young people, continuing their education, and entering the workforce. And I am going to talk mainly about girls’ education. Because it is better if the girls of the nation study! We know that in our country, that is, in Uzbekistan, an 11-year compulsory education system has been introduced. Post-secondary education is optional. Good education is also provided in schools, but nowadays it is difficult to enter university without going to additional classes and courses. That’s why, in Uzbekistan, the majority of girls’ education is deficient at the university or tertiary level. In postsecondary education, the gross enrollment ratio (GER) for female students (ages 19–23) is a mere 6.33 percent. This small number, however, does not indicate that young women are content with the status quo or that they are hesitant to pursue further education. Rather, it is a result of the expensive additional lesson and then university fees, insufficient support, and outmoded social norms that require young women to enter conventional family responsibilities following secondary school.

For example, when I was studying at school, I had a classmate who was good at biology and chemistry, but her family didn’t have enough money to teach her. After we graduated from school, she became engaged and married. But what if she studied? Wouldn’t she become a good doctor?

Once, I heard about Malala Yousufzai, who is a girls’ education activist. She had contributed to girls’ education in Pakistan. Nowadays she also has fund and spends it on girls’ education. Her actions really inspired me.

I have searched for solutions for this problem and found that some actions have already been taken in this field, such as educational credit, without any percentage. If a girl is accepted for a master’s degree, the tuition fees are covered by the government. But there is also a solution I want to share. And I think it will help a little to improve the lives of girls in my community. Of course, right now I can’t have a fund and provide girls financially, but I’m going to launch a project called “Her Opportunity” to teach English to 13 girls for free for 10 months I want them to take at least B2 after that course. Besides I have a friend who studies in Russian faculty at university and she also can help me to teach Russian for other 13 girls.

Well, in conclusion I want to give those girls an opportunity to make their dreams come true. Because investing in girls will certainly pay off.

About the author

Sarvinoz Mamadaliyeva, born on September 5, 2004, in the Tashlak district of Fergana region, is a dynamic and ambitious 19-year-old. Demonstrating her commitment to education, she is currently a 2nd year student in the Foreign Language and Literature Department at Namangan State Pedagogical Institute.

Sarvinoz’s journey is marked by passion for language and literature, reflecting her dedication to personal and academic growth. As she continues her studies, she embodies the spirit of promising individual poised to contribute meaningfully to her community and beyond.

In Clive Gresswell’s Shadow Reel, fragments of thought seep through consciousness like a shadow of a film documenting our waking existence. 

Like our background internal monologues, there are no chapters or verses, only thoughts of varying lengths. Yet, the ideas connect loosely to one another, with a word or phrase in one fragment often echoing something in the next. For example, on page 28, we read “map gold. etchings to the emergency rooms. elegies of doubt.” Gold is an element in fine artistry, etchings are a type of visual art, and an elegy can be written for someone who did not make it home from the emergency room. 

Some words and ideas are recurring, such as “tomato,” mentioned 62 times in the manuscript, “blue” a little over 30 times, and “metalanguage” used 33 times. Metalanguage would be words about words, a commentary on the experience or nature of reading and writing. So perhaps Shadow Reel brings us a glimpse of what comes after we read, how we meditate on certain thoughts or images after we see or hear them, when we continue to process them at a level beyond literal meaning. 

The book also carries a distinctly British sensibility, with mentions of Liverpool, Birmingham, the Chancellor, and the moors. It’s grounded in a culture, if not a specific address. 

The language is relatively complex and Gresswell uses literary devices such as alliteration: “a conglomerate of cheerless conservatives” (page 33) and “the pale puce of his postulation” (page 31) and varies syntax so that the book sounds like an experimental composition. He follows e.e. cummings’ style of avoiding initial capitals while still using periods, letting the individual fragments of thought loosely flow into one another. 

Readers can imagine Shadow Reel intoned in a crackly bass radio voice, with an emergent rhythm that seems to arise spontaneously and never becomes monotonous due to the variety of sentence lengths. It’s a voyage worth taking into the unconscious. 

Shadow Reel is available here.

Death, My Confirmed Guest


Death, my confirmed  guest,
Very often I forget you
You must come to take me
To the land of infinity. 
I should have to adorn myself
With flowers of good deeds
To receive you freshly and happily.
But l have spent time in vain
For nothingness in the wrong track
I do not know when you will come
But it is constantly true that you must come
Everyone can break promise except you
You do not cheat with time
No one can stop you.

Special Place

There's a special place in Hell, for me.
Its streets are built on misery
And paved with agony.
Now I've tried to live free of sin
But life was a game I could never win.
I tried to gain Heaven's love, but all in vain
For I was already struck by the Devil's bane; 
Forever my ball and chain.
I would find no retreat
For on the day I was born I met defeat.
He rejoiced as he knew a righteous soul; 
Sold for a simple lump of coal
Would forever pay the toll.
And he would not wait
Until I stood at his infernal gate.
He brought it to me in my crib
And would never loosen the grip.
So began the trip.
The curse placed upon my infant bed
Builds that special place when I'm dead.


From Southwestern Michigan, Jerry Langdon has lived in Germany since the early 90's. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of poetry titled "Temperate Darkness" and "Behind the Twilight Veil", “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.