YOU ARE WORTHY

You are worthy, remember that,

and never doubt yourself,

no matter how hard it gets,

life truly loves you.

If they insult you, do not listen,

they are not worth your health, know that,

their actions speak about them,

so do not lose your shine because of them.

You are a living soul who deserves happiness,

and your own little oasis of peace,

do not let an empty body without a soul

humiliate you or make you feel small.

The beauty within is what matters most,

if you have that, you have everything,

what is the beauty of the whole world worth to someone

if in the end they remain alone?

What is all the treasure in the world worth

if there is no one to welcome the morning with,

if their heart is fed by cruelty,

and life may return it all tomorrow?

You are worthy, my dear,

because there is only one original,

worthy is not the one who lives with malice,

who is left with loneliness as their only company.

Be aware that you need yourself,

you exist in this world for a reason,

protect your health because no one is worth it

that you become ill because of them.

You are worthy, and I hope you will realize how much,

because you have a soul whose rays are like the Sun in the sky,

and a person without it is empty,

and believe me, no one needs that.

**Danijela Ćuk**

Croatia

Field Goals

Each generation resurrects 

“kicking down” from Hierarchy Heights.

The brainstem budges the boulder

from the cave mouth: “Says Me.”

Out the windows kindness

heads for the valleys at each birth.

Punching up lacks in distinction

and swings at boots without knuckles

blackening an eye, bloodying a nose.

Evolution, the great master teacher,

gets into the egg and sperm classroom first.

Lifetime courage courses require

that no self show up for short bursts,

live-round, experience training.

Only charity and cowards give up a hoot.

Citizens measure against debt,

bank accounts, and stock portfolios

to decide whether to can-can

or goose step to the market.

White Washers

White washers scrub at history 

books until “Indians” and slaves

vanish with erasers that bristle.

The back hairs on any reader

without memory don’t stand on end.

Tainting paint with Klan hands,

eyedroppers dispense from schools

the color knowledge needed 

for blindness in day-to-day life.

Palettes dilute into dumb palates.

Masked street sweepers dust up

into unmarked cars and warehouse

immigrants until jets return, while

forklifting denial into news outlets

contradicting pedestrian cameras.

At the liberty library for the right

descendants, the empty reading 

room speaks without a murmur:

Vacant, any volume doesn’t mutter, 

doesn’t echo, doesn’t matter. 

Handkerchief Waves

What remains in the international 

intelligence pool that tooled a nation 

and world drains through a sieve

to home countries sweeping

hometown brain trusts elsewhere also.

Bye-bye free thought exceptionalism.

The seepage around universities

muddies so that second and third

class studies pass for good reasoning

while wearing out erasers and patching

over with makeshift information.

A first generation suffers from a setback

in understanding other peoples

while losing footholds in knowing

a planet and the atmosphere.

Each culture returns to a scapegoat

including at the meeting place

where local boredom whets tongues

prepping for action from the herd.

After the global sharing strategy

for living in one solar system

what remains calculates poorly

as though thrashing in a maelstrom.

Rich Murphy’s latest collections, Elephant by Bass Clef Books, Storage Shed and Inside Stories by Resource Publications and Mind of Europe: A Genealogy to The Fat Man and Susan Constant by Cyberwit were published 2024-2025, following First Aid and Footholds (2023). Asylum Seeker (2018) was published by Press Americana. His poetry won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice for Americana (2013), The Left Behind (2021), and Gival Press Poetry Prize for Voyeur (2008). His first book was The Apple in the Monkey Tree by Codhill Press (2007).

Generous King

Long ago, there lived a just and kind king. He always tried to keep his kingdom intact, but the grime and old traditions in the palace troubled him.

One day, he gathered his troops and decided to go on a short foray. “Let us not remain only in the palace; we must go and see our people,” he said. On the way, they passed through many villages and saw people rummaging to clean the streets but living in ruined houses. Some had poor dwellings, while others had no shelter at all.

This sight left a very poignant mark on the king’s heart. “My old policy was only about collecting taxes and maintaining order,” he thought. “Now I will begin a new way.”

He announced a decree: the poor would be given estates, and those who lost their homes would be helped to build new houses. To support these works, he ordered that unnecessary trees be pruned and lands be cleared. Soon every village began to prosper, and people started to live in peace.

The king looked at his son and said,

— My son, life is not always predictable. Sometimes people drift adrift in the current. Our duty is to lend them a hand. These good deeds will remain our greatest legacy.

Years passed. When the king died, his son continued his father’s noble work. He created fair policies, never marginalized anyone, and the palace continued to flourish with beauty and honor.

The people were grateful and said,

— Our king not only built a state but also warmed our hearts. The name of the Generous King will live forever!

My Dear Father

I have witnessed much in life,

Seen both good and strife.

Yet a hero like you,

I have never met, dear dad.

You spared nothing for me,

Gave all your love freely.

You ate less to feed us more,

You sacrificed, dear dad.

I always hold my head up high,

Proud among every crowd.

I walk my path with strength,

Because of your era, dear dad.

To reach this very day,

To grow and find my way,

To live without want or lack,

You are the reason, dear dad.

You never said “no” to me,

Always kind and caring.

You looked into my heart,

A true hero, dear dad.

Always supporting me,

Urging me to move ahead.

Thinking not of yourself,

You bear our worries, dear dad.

You say, “Don’t lose heart,

I am always by your side.

Hold your head high with pride,

I will shed my blood for you.”

Every moment showing trust,

Making me smile when I’m sad,

Filling my life with happiness,

You are my greatest fortune, dear dad.

We are humans 

We supposed to build relationships with humans not meta humans 

Not animals 

Not aliens

We supposed to bring peace in the harmonious world we live 

But everyday I see

A woman hugging a cat or dog

Feed them

Bath them

While babies are throwing to the center 

Men talk to their dogs about their problems and prefer to stay with them

Instead to Go out and meet a human being 

What is going with this society of screening 

We are becoming clones of ourselves 

Without emotion 

Without feelings 

We celebrate and congratulate only our people…. our tribe 

What about the others.. People..that they are doing so much about what we call

Good 

We must say silent 

We must not celebrate their achievements?

Humans need recognition 

Individuals need assistance in every level due to the COVID test and everything that follows this experiment 

But do you think 

Having only relationships

with cats and dogs

Is that healthy???

I wonder exactly in what kind of society we are leaving 

We don’t even speak to each other 

And when we do

We have hate 

We have negative thoughts 

We have too much inside our hearts 

Too much dark and fear

So i tell you now 

Get rid of those toxic feelings 

Start reading 

Start writing 

Start dancing 

Start laughing 

Life is short 

EVA Petropoulou Lianou 

International poet 

Founder of literary movement 

POETRY unites people 

Art painting and poetry 

From a difficult time, strong people come out.

Strong people create a good time and from a good time, fools come out.

Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated Basketball in a Show Room: A symphonic tone poem in three 

Part disharmony revisited

1-Visions fill the eyes

So close to the desired end, earthly paradise is summarily

replaced by fevered heat dreams that rise from super-highways

borne on gasoline vapor locks instead of air, assuming 

a nebulous form that coalesces Into something like a white 

stretch limo parked in outside the showing room, outside an arena, 

the pictured windows smeared with oil rich smoke and volcanic dust, 

acid rains etch furrows in like burst veins on a hot, slick surface, 

leaving behind moist dots of clotted rain that simmer and boil 

on the superheated surface causing eruptions, explosions destroying

the tiny worlds contained therein, alien civilizations formerly entombed 

by glass, released now, expanding into lost galaxies of where all

the hidden stars reside, marbleized and frozen in sidereal motion.

2- Of a defeated basketball team

Denied the basket and the ball, wordlessly they congregate at center court, 

hours after the outcome, the arena emptied, shut in, lights blackened, 

each man mimes his movements in the game they are forced to play, 

scattered across the hardwood, twelve separate paths to the goal silently 

blocked in total darkness as they describe perfect arcs to the hoop, 

no longer one on one, they are blank, mirthless shadows within shadows, 

silhouettes cut from darkness, pasted on a field of black, rising to the occasion, 

spurred on by the wordless cheers of the dissipated crowd, a white noise 

that rises and clings to the unseen rafters overhead like smoke, a second skin 

or is it a flock of black birds descending in tight circles, drawn downward by

 a primal need for revenge?

3- In the show room

Or in the junkyard of Petaluma or wherever the detritus of civilization collects, 

wherever the dead, exploded television sets collect, their screens empty, 

glass fissured and scorched by internal combustion parts, components in ruin, 

disconnected wireless radio messages contained no longer residing inside 

cracked stereophonic speakers, finally released like the hotwired audio machines 

welded to the generator that exploded expelling Compact Discs, VCR tapes 

and cassettes, dad’s, vinyl records that melted like blackened eyes over 

the metal husks of rusted, ruined cars, on the tanks of discarded toilets, 

in which all the filthy rain that falls, collects, spreading tiny rainbows of oil 

and gasoline on the porcelain skies, while rain drops fill to different levels. 

A trained ear can make out the separate discordant notes each drop makes, 

together, collectively, these notes become a kind of symphony.

Athanasius Kircher Seated on a Crocodile Composing

His Encyclopedic Works

Kircher, the man, is a  living specimen in 

a divine cabinet of curiosities. Runic scripts 

evolve from his fingertips, his quilled pens; 

all the mysteries of ancient tongues are 

supposed to be revealed with.

This man, part-magus, part-monk, writes on,

his creations legion: solar clocks

from magic seeds; rune stones and

monkey dust curatives and salves for

all that ails,  inventions and novelties

such as vomiting statues and pianoforte-like

instruments using living cats to produce 

torturous sounds supposed to be like music, 

like spy portals in revolving carved heads, 

sound amplifiers in other busts, altered to

allow listeners to overhear conversations

in remote locations; owner of Egyptian relics 

actually, made in Rome, misdated by 

a millennium ; practical theories of convection

formulated by firsthand viewing volcanoes 

from within, a research only a holy fool

could survive, whole volumes of inscribed

work, catalogues of presumed fact, completely

borrowed, wholesale copied from other scholar’s 

work, most, if not all of his own, disproved even

as he wrote on.  This man in his element,

endless amazed as he was amazing, surrounded

by angels, sun gods and goddesses, half-dragons

and half-snakes, a man so self-possessed

only death could save him from himself.

A Night of Serious Drinking as “Vertigo”

after reading Quan Barry 

All the imbibers, the refugees are emancipated from

The Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh:

The Absinthe drinkers, potato eaters, self-portraits

with and without ears,

All the close, musty rooms without adequate heat,

poorly drawn fires, smoke filtering from long,

clay pipes, loosely rolled tobacco and the tightly packed,

Exhaustion apparent in all the worn faces, the downtrodden

and the bedeviled, the unforgiving and the damned

pounding down their

Libation of choice on a night of serious drinking: the green

fairy, essence of wormwood, conveyances of

deep dreaming while awake, mortal stasis while

breathing, metempsychosis in a bell shaped glass;

Once paralysis is made liquid, bodily functions require

a superhuman exercise of the will simply to consider

locomotion;

Standing upright becomes the purest form of vertigo there is.

The Ceremony

Everyone is applauding long before

anyone has seen the bride or the groom

as if directed by the archdeacon

of antiquities, crew chief of the burnishers

of pews, rows, and rows of them so bright 

and slick, they repel the occasional rain 

that falls through the place where a steeple

would have been before the church was converted

by Navaho warriors to a hogan to let the Great

Spirit in, to allow the smoke of healing fires

Escape. Here on the edge of the Southwestern

Desert, as arid as Martian wastelands, interplanetary

penance portals, lost seekers are referred to after all

the earthbound sanctuaries, sainted places, have

been exhausted, all the sacred temples, burial

mounds, caves of redemption, warehouses for icons

played out by the faithful, standing in ragged lines

to touch the worn wooden effigy of Our Savior

of the Souls, Our Lady of Pent-up Frustrations, 

Our Burial Mound of Reclining Statuary, Our

Souvenir Stand of Holiest Waters, confections 

blessed by on-premises priests, blood from 

the stigmata of virginal suicides, made in China

facsimile glow-in-the-dark missions, Christmas

tree ornaments, the wounding lance of the unhealing

seekers after holy grails on display, not available

for any price yet, not even what was yielded from

the passing of the offertory trays, bequests left

by patrons of the sacred arts, tax exempt foundations

exploring the possibilities of unified field theories

involving Native American Folklore and Medieval

Christian Idol Worship, they who clear the center

aisles for easy passage from one state of being to

the next, they who scatter dried herbs and scented

liquids, part aphrodisiac, part aromatic, part soporific,

specifically made for vision inducing hallucinogens 

so that when the high priest looks up to view the anointed, 

it is unclear exactly what he sees, what he should say, 

how the ceremony should proceed and when it does, 

what it means.

The Killing Fields as Robert Towne’s Screenplay for “Chinatown”

after reading Quan Barry’s Incontrovertibles

Seven million skulls planted on the sloping streets in

soft earth beneath cobblestone streets.

The skulls that sprout are fashioned into masks for

street mimes, performance artists, trick or

treating kids.

Each time a siren is heard, a new round of killings is

being announced.

Hovering overhead, chopper blades localize the places where

blood has been shed and broadcasts it to networks,

police headquarters, the general’s palace.

The mastermind behind the most heinous of the ritual killings

sends disciples made totally suggestible by infusions

of drugs, sexual addiction and hypnotic commands,

to continue the killing

Blood of the victims is used to write DEATH TO PIGS 

on walls, or to leave tell-tale prints to warn those

who follow the killers here, that the Future will be

determined by a new kind of Primal Law: Kill or Be 

Killed, Eat or Be Eaten.

Stated fears of race wars, and political persecution, are just a

rationalization, an excuse to insure that the killing will

go on.

Witnessing the senseless murdering reveals that, Death is a release,

that what may be done to the next generation, the unprotected

by arms and man, will be much worse that what has been

done to the dead ones, and you will be powerless to prevent it.

There is no overthrowing the strongman, only Death will survive.

“It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

It’s the Killing Fields.

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy as the Marathon Run Up

Mt. Olympus

after reading Quan Barry and  J.G. Ballard

We’ve seen the pictures hundreds of times by now whether

we cared to see them or not:

The originals of the motorcade  in black and white followed 

by the bizarre shooting Live of presumptive assassin,

Lee Harvey Oswald.

The unforgettable processional afterwards: the cortege, the banging

of the drum slowly, John John’s loyal salute.

And in color: The Zapruder tapes slowed down frame by frame,

on that warm, clear November Dallas day: Jack’s bare

head, Jackie’s hat, Governor Connelly and his wife

waving to the crowd, Jack’s head exploding, blooming 

like some time-lapsed flower bursting open, smoke rising

on the grassy knoll…

And we are running; smoke rises like fog on Olympus wreathing the hidden peak and all that might dwell there.

26.2 miles of running steadily uphill over brutal, rocky terrain

in summer’s dreadful heart stopping heat, the goal less

and less realistic, less visible with each step upward,

steps that bring you higher but no closer to the gods.

The Impact of Social Media on the Lives of Young People

    Nowadays, not only young people but almost everyone has become attached to social media. Many people even think that it is difficult to imagine life without social networks. Of course, modern life requires the use of the internet and social media. However, it is important to be careful when using them and to be able to distinguish useful information from unnecessary information. In particular, people should be able to analyze various unverified or fake news.Social media also has many advantages. For example, we can find almost any information we are looking for on the internet. It is also possible to keep up with daily news and follow events happening in different countries. In addition, there are many useful videos and lessons on social media for learning languages. Therefore, many young people have the opportunity to learn new knowledge and skills independently. However, the negative aspects of social media are also very serious. For instance, watching various short videos such as “shorts” can narrow people’s thinking ability, weaken speech fluency, cause them to waste time, reduce sleeping time, and even lead to memory decline. Moreover, the family environment may also be affected: instead of spending time with their families, many young people spend their time on social media. As a result, they may become unaware of feelings such as respect for parents and the importance of spending time together and having conversations with family members.

It is true that phones and the platforms or programs on them are created by humans and designed to function in a certain way. However, nowadays it seems that phones are controlling people. This is because many people easily become dependent on them. There are many young people who spend five to six hours or even more on their phones every day, wasting their time without any meaningful purpose. However, this does not mean that everyone is like that. There are also many young people who use social media properly and meaningfully. They have dreams and goals for their future and work hard to achieve them. Instead of wasting time, they use platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok in a productive way and organize their daily activities according to a schedule to continue their studies. In my opinion, young people who spend their days on social media in a useless way have become detached from reality and dependent on their virtual lives. Time passes very quickly, and I believe that wasting it inefficiently is wrong. In addition, such people may cast a shadow or darkness over their own bright and promising future.

Bekturdiyeva Nargizabonu was born on December 7, 2007, in Khiva city of Khorezm region. She won first place at the regional stage and participated in the national Olympiad. In 2025, she graduated from school with a gold medal.

Currently, she is a first-year student in the Geography program at Urgench State University. She has three journalistic articles and is the holder of a DGU certificate.

Her articles have been published in the famous “Synchronized Chaos” journal in the USA and in the “Ijodkorlar” journal in Uzbekistan, and she has also participated in an anthology. She is also a member of the Argentine international organization “Juntos por las Letras.”