probability

The wheat stalks breathe you in,
Braid your letters for the evenings.
And stir your songs the day they met
Upon his face, the silence… the flock of stillness.
Depart to where we began our journey,
Indeed, the streams hold but fragments.
To a time squandered,
Forgive my death when I choose you,
To the mercy of the devout, in protest,
To the dwelling of the wound,
The distance of desolation.
And your endurance was to borrow
From the star, the day of collapse’s rituals.
Within you, the debasement of poems eludes,
Towards the sunrise.
And you quiet above some plains
The languages of apprehension,
In your sailing times.
You soothe the blaze of solitude… cities,
And pour into the eye the tears of reunion,
Branches from the beginning we were,
For the land of severance.
We carry to it the beseeching letters,
To write in love,
The beloved’s spinning song.
And you still swear by the earthquake,
So as to prepare a new homeland,
Which the questions lost in their lament,
And the impossible bolted its gates
With bursts of time that began to depart.
You never left the harvests of remembrance,
That we were quenching.
With your silence, visions will not overflow
The boundaries of emptiness.
And we…
Are in vain.

***

May God Strengthen You

When love confused you one day,
And you melted into it, and you had no choice.
That separation was coming for you, my heart,
Anyway, may God strengthen you.
Why did you obey him and walk with him?
He got lost with you from the first step.
You lived life after him,
And the pain of his separation keeps you awake.
When love called to you,
You saw paradise with your own eyes,
And you returned again with what’s inside you,
In every glance, he makes you remember.
Were his days a dream, or
Was it a time that came and went?
In it, my joy is absent from his presence,
And my sorrow and worry destroy you.
Believe me, a page has been turned,
Like the hearts that were burned.
From him, love and hearts intended
To return to him again and command you.
Anyway, may God strengthen you.

***

The Roofs of Houses

It peeks from the window of our hearts,
And steps onto the paths that have drunk
From its spring, the tales.
Upon a thousand civilians who implore,
And thousands of throats whose echo
Is the roofs of houses.
Their lament still embraces them,
And gathers them,
A million prayers,
Except what it couldn’t contain.
And you, who are ascetic within your prison, waiting
For a glimpse of light,
Just to caress your forehead.
Your umbilical cord between you
And the homeland,
Knows you overcome your tears
And split your chest for the cities,
So that life may enter them,
Free from the gloomy darkness clinging
To every wall that the specter of silence
Has demolished.
These are thousands of throats whose echo
Is the roofs of houses.

***

The Scars of Salvation

Let the halos of my heart fall from my brow,
A light I thought I’d find while resting on the shoulder of the word,
The one that hums a tune through the folds of this poem.
Illuminate for others my journey, this bitter taste of a homeland’s pain,
The anguish that fills it, stirring with every dawn
That rises on a morning full of nonsense.
The word was powerless then,
Unable to forge a new space for confession,
Or pluck a bejeweled pearl from its sky
To gift to the poor, the orphans, the forgotten,
Those on the brink of death.
I know I am the zero from which all poets begin,
The seed whose sprout only grew in the shadow of my ancestors’ verses.
From them, I drew the strength to survive,
Dreaming of their blissful, generous seas.
I lean on them all with a pride that lifts me
Into realms bright with the light of their wisdom, O Lady Poem.
All I ever wanted from you was salvation,
To end on your shores.
I began you (or you began me) among the transients
In a city whose streets had all gone dark,
Forgotten by long wars, then awakened just once
By the triumph of survivors, and drops of hope
That thirst couldn’t defeat.
Between tables of gunpowder and napalm,
Scattered limbs and blood-stained walls,
Jackets lie vomiting on the sides of ruins,
With the words “I was here” scrawled upon them.
A hemorrhage of questions.
How I’ve longed for my poems to take them on,
A path to grief and to release.
I craft my shoot for the fated crowd,
And belong to the march coming from those forgotten lands
Hidden in the folds of shackles and prison cells,
The torment of hungry stomachs,
The gasping of tongues behind cries for departure,
The absence of hope for a coming brilliance
That carries on its face the radiance of the impossible.
Lady Poem, I know glory in your proof.
I know the secret in your river.
This is how we meet, and with us, we meet
A life that has no shrine,
A life that only survived through an impossible bargain
Between a bundle of thorns that grew just once
From the pain of salvation.
I am destined to live and to see the city
Be the first to bless the burning heat of a step toward freedom,
Swearing by the fading glory in its children’s eyes,
The honeyed treasures flowing over a new homeland.

 

Heartaches By The Numbers

 

The End of the Road

My yellow brick road was paved with her promises.

 

A Dickinson Uncouplet

A rant without slant?

Don’t tell me I can't.

 

Night Cruises

Our ships passed at night.

She would pass many others.

I only passed hers.

 

The Rehearsal

When she rehearsed our wedding night

I’m sure it whet their appetite,

helping him rise up for more—

another notch, another score.

 

The Outsider

Perhaps if they’d stopped once they kissed,

I would never have felt that I missed

the delight in her heart

which was blissed from the start

of the joy she found on their first tryst.

 

My Mourning Star

I

still

wonder

where you are,

you who made my dawn

come up like thunder, morning star.

This War

How does it fit? Where does it fit?

A war made for TV, a reluctant war

Filling screens with carefully chosen

Words, words that can half mean or

Not mean at all. It’s newsworthy or

Takes up newsworthy space and time

Fills in between sports championship

Games, becomes a game of its own.

This is what we get when we let things

Go and think we can watch from these

Bleachers, the same ones we watched

From during the last war, last Superbowl

Last NBA finals. We are warrior watchers

Getting ready to go at it once again, like we

Did, like we did, and will probably have to

Do again.

                      Museums

Local museums, the kind historical societies

Put together, play time and place off each other.

A few hundred years ago, there was where we are

Right now, there were people trying to get by, get

On, living their lives creating this history that we

Can view and measure against now. There can be

Things we recognize in the places in the faces of

These folks. First descriptions, then drawings, then

Paintings, and finally photographs taking us through

The ongoing development of both cameras and

The people posing – this is the way a place becomes.

That is how we get to see them, know them. This is

Museum 101, and the locals have caught on. Here

We are, some strangers looking, touring through

Yet another place, and here they are trying to slow

Us a bit and get us to see where we are, not just in

This moment but in a larger context – the context of

Time and the idea of place, their place.

          Book

This book needed to be,

had to become, became

then shouldered its way

to the front of the shelf

with so much to say, so

much to tell us, trippling

on its pages, not mouthing

like the others often did,

often do. This book reads

itself to me, handles it all

so well, like a parent, like

a grandparent reading to

an attentive child, bounces

me on its knee. This book

was meant to be, was most

of the reason the word “book”

was ever said. It shines, it

shadows, it knows the tint of

every emotion available to us.

It fills in the blanks, crosses its

t’s and dots all our i’s, commits

it all to words on its pages, does

us a great service – it summarizes

who we are and what we’re about.

It’s the book that needed to be put

together and then was.

APPRECIATED TEACHER

A bright star shines in my heart,

 You are a classic among people. Your traces are in every letter and word,

 A dear teacher who opened the way to hearts.

We have learned manners and knowledge by following you,

 We have learned every aspect of knowledge.

 You were kind even in your reprimands, 

Now we are learning the lessons of life.

The lessons you taught have paved the way, 

We have laid the foundation for our future dreams.

 The kindness and attention we have received from you always motivates us to justify our trust.

Thank you, teacher, for your kindness, 

Your value to us is high and great. You will live forever in our hearts, My dear teacher, 

I bow to you a thousand times.

Jasmina Abdusaidova was born on July 20, 2011 in Gallaorol district, Jizzakh region. She is a student of district school No. 22.

BRIDGES WALLS AND DOORS

liars(lovers)(artists)

execute an honest

condemned activity

misshaping reality

art is a seed a hedge

love is a need a bridge

that connects a leisure

to unextinguished torture

greenest seeds weed their way

from criminalities

too covert to commit

and too active to stay hid

the right to scream is held

only by us tortured

the will is a wall made

to support or separate

the corpse is tradition’s

usual exhaustion

of palettes and menus

and an unfreedom to choose

love and art are the words

used to mimic or urge

the word is a closed door

but an urge opens the door

COUNTING THE COCKS IN THE HEN HOUSE

How many celebrants have danced in your penetralium?

Your hangar has sheltered how many planes?

COME THE REVOLUTION

Which among you shall being sandwiches?

And who’ll organize the selfies?

Which manifesto would you execute?

“The sky must be purged if the earth is to prevail!”

“The earth must be buried for Heaven to reveal!”

Which Utopia would you provoke?

Which of the pasts should be banned?

But don’t be the freak hot on the runway

or the gangster in church.,

don’t be the priest caught in the whore house,

or banker man in the line-up.

[The democracy entered upon the struggle with dictatorship heavily armed with sandwiches and candles. — Trotsky]

IN MY DEFENSE

And dark it was, yes, and I: alone

but full unwilling to succumb

and weaponed she: silk&smile&cologne.

Yet I still could hold my own

till lastly, Your Honor, did she come

at me with All the moon.

TIRED ONES STILL ALIVE 

Anđela Bunoš, Serbia 

There are hearts you cannot hold,

even if I shared the stories they hide.

My smile belongs to the world,

but my tears are saved for one soul alone.

I wear a smile for all to see, Suzana—

and you should know the truth beneath.

I won’t whisper that you’re rare,

nor confess how deeply I long for you.

For if your eyes can’t find it,

then words would fall in vain.

But I know you feel it still,

for our roads run side by side.

Our souls remember,

our lips confess in silence.

Our gazes speak, weary of life—

yet still, somehow,

you and I remain alive.

Anđela Bunoš was born on October 2, 1998, in Belgrade. She completed her undergraduate and master’s studies at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Belgrade. She is currently working as a teacher at the “Sava Šumanović” Elementary School in Zemun.

Poem While Watching the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament

on Thursday August 28th, 2025

I want Coco Gauf to sign my balls but her nails are cutlass and saber.

I like her leather jacket, too

and the fact that she named her Labubu

Arthur Flashe leads me to believe

that if the whole tennis thing doesn’t work out

the second act in her American life

might be as Poet Laureate of Boynton, Beach Florida.

Already there’s no watermelon at the deli.

Tomorrow’s Friday maybe we’ll get a round of brie.

I need to pick up my coat with the hummingbird lining

renew my library card, study the pictures

the doctor took of my colon —Appendiceal Orifice

Ileocecal Valve, Splenic Flexure;

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot may have existed before 1665.  

Do beams, rooster wing, from the tip of the Bronx Zoo

to the Hudson Line

the BX12 is sloppy love. Last time

I was in New York we went to the MoMA.

You tried to fuck the Serra box cubes.

I have no clarity of emotion. Things are blowing up.

Right scale, right scope, I memorize the universe on dope.

I guess it’s never too late to dodge August for September.

We lack compelling storylines.

Escape from Alcaraz is a lowercase observation.  

A good night in

is watching that movie

where all the virgins die —this from Austin

who says I should write more symbolically.   

Seething like elm disease, clouds like railroads…

Dachau-black. Too many likes green my bruise.

What the fuck. This is the most serious stanza yet.

We are lying and filthy and volleying for love.

Net cord, colon red, I memorize the universe on dope

and feel the hummingbird fly out of my coat.

Tommy Paul —no, no, I never trust a guy with two first names.