Unprepared

How could we
not see

the coming
beast riding

birth fed
by our disbelief

dripping saliva
growing mud mountains

sick and strong
skyscraper tall

stomping on
houses
cities
continents
babies
never growing up
to see the sea and sky
and flowering fields
of their own.


Blinded

Kiss her
on her cheek
and her bare back
with scars
from an enemy
before our marriage

and then the facts come out
and our hunt begins
for recompense and a reckoning
that will never be fully completed

for we and our parents
never believed
such horrors could happen
in the land we love.


If I Was Young I Would Confess

Eating my beans and burgers
a glow screen in each palm

my ears tagged with everything I like
old tunes and worldly wrecks

I dance in the morning
not knowing the night

ink in all the right places
my skin a smear of compliments

I don't have to brag
I'm a loser uncaring

A great liar until I try to sleep at night.


Stripping

And the night takes me down
to the river of the dump

a stink lake 
my cemetery sideline

I'm too young to die
still owing my elders

looking up snarling to myself
blaming the now times

confusion the chief
and sneaky thief

I'm a pawn with a chain
around my jeans

heavy knuckles
from too many fights

leave me alone
and let me write my last words

stripping to point
at the moon of doom.


The Right Course

I'm too old to be young
writing like a fool thinking he's cool

reading the Good Book
changing too slow

but on the right course
asking for forgiveness

from all my friends and those I meet.

After forty years of snow

Do you remember the watch you gave to me wrapped in a poem?
It is still bound to my soul's meaning
The more time passes
The more the letters jump into my heart artery
My heart is now pumping flirtation
How many times I have wished
That if my city were not surrounded by graves
Then like a little girl 
I would wait for you in a secret garden
Come on!
Take off this thick absence
As thick as a New Jersey coat in the winter time
Melt off the snow that has stacked on the lines of your messages
Mow the grass that has grown on your tongue
Don’t save a sea of tears for me
I am not a mermaid
Make yourself present with words
Woo me
Let me stop demanding my rights
And thrive by the touch of your fingers as they play with my hair
Let me fool myself again
And see you as center of my universe.
………………………………..
 
 
Faleeha Hassan is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq.

She received her master's degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books. Her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese, ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian. 

She received a Pulitzer Prize Nomination in 2018, and a PushCart Prize Nomination in 2019. She's a member of the International Writers and Artists Association, a winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020, and a winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021) and one of the Women of Excellence selection committee members for 2023. 

She's also a winner of a Women in the Arts award for 2023, a member of Whos’ Who in America 2023, and a Sahitto Award judging panel member for 2023. She's a cultural ambassador between Iraq and the USA. Email: d.fh88@yahoo.com

Student of Karakalpak State University named after Berdakh, faculty of biology first course. 

                   Children’s education in Uzbekistan

Today, Uzbekistan pays great attention to children’s education. Because the saying “The future is in the hands of the youth” is not in vain. This is the real reason why so much attention is paid to this education. Not only the Republic of Uzbekistan, but perhaps the whole world has paid attention to children’s education. In particular, the establishment of a step-by-step educational program for children in Uzbekistan and the establishment of free school education are proof of the trust and respect shown to them.

By 2022, the rate of admission of children to preschool education, i.e. kindergarten, has been raised in Uzbekistan. Earlier, kindergarten education was not considered mandatory, but today it is determined that it is necessary in all regions. In this regard, laws and regulations are also being adopted. Various laws have been adopted to set the age of admission to kindergarten as three years old, to manage their daily food ration, and to prevent the educators from committing various violations.

Kindergarten should be a place where every child can be taught basic knowledge, manners and respect. Laws and regulations are also being adopted in this regard. To govern the students’ daily food ration, establish the entry age to  kindergarten at three years old, and stop the teachers from breaking rules, various laws have been adopted.

Every child should be able to learn fundamental information,  manners and respect in kindergarten. The major objective of kindergarten education is to get kids ready for school by teaching them fundamental ideas in straightforward  language.

Between 2016 and 2022, major improvements in kindergarten instruction were seen in Uzbekistan. Between 2016 and 2022, there will be a difference in the number of  rural children and their kindergarten attendance.

Today, there is a wide range in the caliber of education in rural areas as well. Children receive a lot of attention because they will be the future’s  leaders. For their healthy development, a variety of clubs are being organized. The tradition of Eastern thinkers places a high value on educational  issues. They gave a lot of thought to the family and the upbringing of the  children within it in particular.

The challenges of raising a kid in a family and solutions to those challenges are outlined in the writings of intellectuals such Abu Nasr  Farabi, Abu Rayhan Beruni, Kaikovus, and Alisher Navoi.

Preschool Education is currently being attempted utilizing the strategy of deploying “mobile kindergartens” to enroll preschoolers in rural  places.

Four specially equipped buses, dubbed “Aqlvoy” mobile kindergartens, were introduced to the area and are now serving children in the most remote communities in the Hazorasp, Bogot, Yangiariq, and Khiva districts.

Eleven stations in total are being set up, and a list of kids who will be taken to mobile kindergartens is being created. With the start of the new school year, this approach will enable 384 additional children to enroll in pre-school programs.

The Ugly American



He’s at the

Airport in Doha

At the gate

And waiting 

For his flight,

Then an 

American dude

Shows up 

And starts complaining

About a couple people

Taking naps

On the floor,

The American dude

Has no idea

How silly and sad 

He looks,

The ugly American,

Still a thing

After all these years.





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

Taxi at the Peace Bridge                                                                 

After a four-hour layover in the Buffalo bus terminal, after crossing the Peace Bridge in the middle of the night and disembarking again, an honest and earnest young man, I naively informed the customs officer I would be “earning my keep” in Canada. Big mistake. No one told me what to say. I was pulled aside, ordered to go here and sit there, and watched through the windows as the other more fortunate and savvy passengers climbed aboard the Greyhound and pulled away, privileged to be trekking into the dark expanse of Ontario.

It was during the Reagan administration. I was escaping trickle-down economics by heading toward Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, to a little run-down farmhouse and a few out buildings, a place called “Dandelion.” It was a modest commune in the middle of nowhere, at the end of telephone and electric poles. About ten Canadian and American twenty-something men and women lived and worked together there weaving hammocks, tending an impressive garden, smoking a little pot now and then, and generally attempting to live a simple, peaceful, egalitarian life according to the utopia in B. F. Skinner’s Walden II. This, I thought, was my moment, and this might be the place where I might find an authentic sense of self – to pursue my ideals. And just maybe find love. When waiting with my dad for the bus north, the zipper on my bag split open. Dad took off his belt and cinched the whole thing closed. What was I doing? We both choked up, and my feet were heavy on the bus steps. My ideals faltered, but I found a seat.

Turned away at the border, I was dazed, lost, my future uncertain – with no idea what to do next. A taxi must have been called. The cabbie led me to the car, picked up my bag, placed it in the trunk, opened the door and motioned me into the front seat. On the way back to the U.S., he quietly provided me with instructions for another attempt at the border. He seemed to recite these directions from experience: walk nine blocks back to the Buffalo station, find the number 10 city bus to drop me near the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls. Ask the bus driver. He’ll know. Try again. Lie. Keep it simple. Years later, on a nostalgic visit to Dandelion with my wife, we drove over the Peace Bridge corridor in daylight. It was all concrete and asphalt punctuated by orange construction barrels and lines of big rigs. The few grim buildings were blockish and dull, the water flat and gray. This was exactly what I felt and imagined when I travelled this way that night.

After dropping me on the U.S. side, as I watched him pull away, I realized that the soft-spoken cabbie didn’t mention the fare. Still reeling and as that was the first time I rode in a taxi and was unfamiliar with the protocol, it did not occur to me to dig out some cash. He gave me great advice and didn’t charge for the ride. What a good human being, such a contrast to the cold demeanor and the crisp, impeccable uniforms of the customs officers. The U.S. officials asked for identification and questioned my citizenship. I stated too sarcastically that I was just turned away in Canada. Where else would I go? Dawn was breaking as I quickened my step through the Buffalo neighborhoods. I wondered, what if it was raining? According to the cabbie’s prescription, I found my way to the Rainbow Bridge and though I was anxious about where to go next if I wasn’t turned away again, I paused and took in the horseshoe falls halfway across, beneath the American and Canadian flags flapping side-by-side. The vast immensity, the roar of the falls, and the swirling mist were breathtaking though fleeting. I recalled the painter Frederick Church and his portrayal of the sublime landscape. I considered, momentarily and perversely, how fortunate I was to be in this distressing predicament. At the toll booth I paid ten cents and when the pleasant woman asked about my stay in Canada I declared, “Just visiting friends – a week or two tops.” She smiled, knowingly I thought, and waved me on. Somehow, I found a bus terminal, my ticket was good for the next connection in a weird bit of luck, and I took a seat next to a kindly lady who reminded me of an aunt. We talked of Canada and Ohio on the way to Toronto. She spoke of her grandchildren. I wistfully described my grandparents’ farm in the rolling green hills of Knox County. She needed a little reassurance that I was not a runaway teenager. The passengers on this leg of the journey were a stark contrast to the rough, sullen crowd between Cleveland and Buffalo.

At the Toronto layover I browsed through the World’s Largest Bookstore and picked up a corned beef on rye at a very loud, bustling, and confusing delicatessen – my first deli experience. I was ordered by the patron to go here and stand there. From there I made it, thankfully and uneventfully, to Kingston and Dandelion. But I didn’t find love. It was all worthwhile I suppose; however, after four months of hammock weaving, jerry-rigged construction projects, wincing at residents’ attempts at self-taught guitar, and listening to pointless petty squabbles between couples, I determined that people were about the same everywhere and that my ideals could be actualized most anywhere – even Ohio. I discovered that authenticity prevailed more in the kindness and generosity of that Buffalo cabbie than in the subsequent months playing the enlightened hippie.

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Why I am not writing

I am re-reading James Ellroy's
The Black Dahlia, am re-reading
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions, am
reading the sub-titles to the
opening titles of the animated
manga Neon Genesis Evangelion
when Mayakovsky rings to say
he will not be coming around
today. I scan the TV guide
& plot an alternative itinerary.

I think about opening Word
& end up opening Solitaire
instead. I listen to the humming
of the PC but it tells me nothing.
It sounds like the refrigerator but
that only hums at intervals &
does not give me card games
as a built-in option — it is
too dedicated in its purpose.

I think about work, where I have
been listening to the presentations
of consultants to decide who
will be the anointed ones to whom
we will pay hundreds of thousands
of dollars to rewrite our planning &
information systems. I have yet
to hear anything new, decide I'm
in the wrong business. But the
arrival of the consultants is
serendipitous in that it loosely
coincides with one of the subjects
I have to do at university next
semester. I plan to use the
aggregated data in my major
assignment — at least I will get
some value from what I consider
to be an obscene outlay of money.

& I am reading & re-reading my
textbooks as the exams draw nearer.
Though they & the other books are
shelved in some sort of order, the CDs
are jumbled. I am working my way
through them from the top of the
stack on down, sorting them out
by listening to each one in turn
then putting it back in the place
where it was. I have just listened
to Sonny Rollins' Saxophone
Colossus; now I am listening
to Revolver & decide again that
this album & not Sergeant Pepper
marked the paradigm shift for The
Beatles even though for me
when I first heard them the order
was reversed. & in passing
I want to thank Thomas Kuhn
for developing the concept of
paradigm shifts & for redefining
the term paradigm. When words
change meaning they are re-
energized, & if I were writing

I would hope to be using energetic
words. But instead I am singing
along with Eleanor Rigby & the
refrigerator is humming along
in harmony & the Red Queen is
shouting from the PC "Lay me
on the Black King! Lay me!" She
is off her head. But I already knew
that, was told by Jefferson Airplane
many years ago & reminded of it
by the inclusion of White Rabbit
on the Greatest Hits of the Sixties
compilation I listened to three CDs
ago. Then Mayakovsky rings
to say he has changed his mind.
I start to tidy up the house.


October, 2002

Not Crying Baby

Under the rubble, the collapse of the wall,
Sits a three-year not crying kid,
In the screaming hell,
Like a wild beast from the sky,
Among the layers of exploding roofs.
With the stroke of eyelashes
Blood drops in the eye,
Sliding on the check.
Small hand silently rubbing the eyelid,
Palm red spots for the first time.
Stepmother- war mixes with the dust
Mop of chestnut hair tenderness.
Splinters dug into the snow white feet.
My angel, what are your faults?
Well, at least cry, baby,
I’m no longer able
To look into your innocent eyes.
You are my clean world,
You are more than all!
So you lived

I have died a hundred times!



Nigar Nurulla Khalilova is a poet, novelist, translator from Azerbaijan, Baku city, currently living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is a member of the Azerbaijan Writers Union. Nigar N. Khalilova graduated from Azerbaijan Medical university, and holds a Ph.D degree. She has been published in books, literary magazines, anthologies and newspapers in Azerbaijan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the USA over the years. 

Nigar N. Khalilova participated in poetry festivals and was published in international poetry festivals anthologies and in the Austin International Poetry Festival (AIPF), 2016-2017.