ENDLESS LOVE

You are altogether a wonderful damsel
Like a shed of flowers over me
So much soothing and ecstatic
Like a rain of moonshine splendour.
So much full of lovely-look like butterflies.
Ever  charming like the songs of a cuckoo
Endless love and timeless beauty have embraced you.
Your sweet embrace is life-giving
And voice is like a boisterous brook.
That flows dancing and jumping on solid rock.
Life has become a miraculous beauty for you.
Your endless love has surround  me from all sides.
It has glorified my mind
And filled me with unforgettable memories.


RESURRECTION

The pangs and pain still vibrating the air.
The hilltop was tinged and soaked with blood.
The sun hid away in shame, not to face, the cruel act.
Thus the darkness descends swiftly
Although, it was mid-day, in fact
The barbarians never left him to nail down
In his foot, palm, heart and waste.

There was tremendous roaring of the wind
The wind could not bear the torturous work.
There was a cry all over nature.
The butchers finished their works
Took away the clothes even, leaving him
almost half-naked.
Jesus prayed to the Almighty to bless the sinners

After hours
Jesus again came back with golden colours
Blessed the miscreants who were no more.
He blessed  all, the depressed and deprived souls
Nature changed again.
There were scents of flowers and greenery all around 
Nature was filled   with fragrances sweet and soft
Zephyr began to blow
Few of the blessed saints could see the resurrection
of Jesus
Jesus blessed the whole of mankind.
And left for the heavenly abode.


SPRING

Oh, Spring
With an intermittent  symphony 
As the sweet spell of cuckoo comes
From the dense trees
I remember you.

At dawn, when the soft sunshine touches the earth with beauty so bare
I remember you.

When birds-flock fly in the sky with so much glee
Leaving the foot print of their chorus  in the wide sky
I remember you.

Often seeing the bees and butterflies
in the lush green bush at my
barn, I know, you have arrived with all your splendour and beauty.
I remember  you.

When I see the vernal beauty
With  so many flower- bunch hanging in the  creepers and trees 
And there is festival  of flowers  and hues.
I remember you

My heart  thrills  with  joy in your  presence,
I remember the Almighty  for  this beautiful arrangement  for his creation.


Thy Songs Divine

Something thrilled the whole being
The sky and earth resonated
With the sound of your flute moving from sphere to sphere.
Thousand years have passed 
Yet, the voice of your flute is still creating sensation beyond reason.
Enlivening  the hearts of zillions, with celestial joy and splendor.

Still, your memory is so vibrant everywhere in space
Even, the story of your love and the teaching of Gita on the battlefield
Propitiates the dry heart like charging again with beauty and ecstasy.
In the lane and bylanes  of cities and villages
The subtle vibration persists in the minds of the people
The story of celestial love is alive like a radiant ray.

Thy legacy, thy teaching, thy love
Is a symbol and shining elixir of life.
Thy vibration of the teaching of the Gita is still an aspiring flame in the heart of all the Yogis, seers and seekers
The flame of the message of the Gita is the shining sermon of the world. 
Everywhere thy voice is heard as sweet melody
of life, enlivening the whole world.
Thy sublime message is the elixir of life zillions in the world

In the desolate sands of Yamuna
On the wide roads of Mathura 
And under shady fragrant groves of Brindavan
In all the dusts of Gopa Pura
Everywhere is heard; thy voice, thy flute.
Oh Lord, your flute is the symphony everywhere.
As a symbol and sign
The whole vast space is  filled with verses of your love 
And your love for the  whole creation

Thousands of years have passed
Yet, zillions are moved by the love and  songs of the divine  
The enchanting chanting of the sermons of human life. 


Dr. Maheswar Das
-------------------------------
He is a bilingual poet, translator, editor, and story writer. He writes in English and in the Odia language.

He has been pursuing his creative writing for the last twenty years and has authored more than one thousand English poems. All of his poetical exposition centers around Nature, God, love, and relationships. Some of his poems have been translated into international languages. He has co-authored three English anthologies of poems with his two friends.  Besides he is the co-author of more than fifty English anthologies of poems of many literary groups.

He holds the degree of M.A. in both Economics and History. He has accomplished a Ph.D.  degree in sociology from Utkal University. He also holds a law degree from M.S. Law College, Cuttack. He hails from Mallipur in the district of Cuttack, Odisha, India.

His English poems have been published in several national and international journals and Anthologies and have gained worldwide appreciation. He has received so many accolades from various national and international literary groups. He is a recipient of the Gold Medal award from the World Union of Poets, Rome.

Sprout

As I looked at the corner of our yard, I visited the distant paths of my memory.
When I was still in middle school, my grandfather brought me a bunch of sprouts and books. He looked at me while he was planting the seedlings and handed me the books he brought and said:
- I’ll play with you. Surprised, I said:
-I don’t know how to plant seedlings, of course you will win. My grandfather laughed and said:

- I will plant the sapling, and you will read these books. If you finish reading the books before this sapling grows and blooms, you will win me.
- Who needs this game? I don’t read books. I ride Salih’s bike.
- Don’t ride your neighbor’s bike. If you beat me in the game, I will give you a new bike. I was so happy that I didn’t even know that I agreed to the game. My grandfather, who had not come from the yard, tended to the seedlings in the morning and in the evening, and watered them lovingly. I read a book without looking up. Months passed, months gave way to years. Today, while proudly holding my bachelor’s degree, I looked at the fragrant roses in the corner of the yard and the dusty bicycle that had not been ridden. If I count, it has been seven years since my grandfather left us…

Nosirova Gavhar was born on August 16, 2000 in the city of Shahrisabz, Kashkadarya region of Uzbekistan. Today, she is a third-year student of the Faculty of Philology of the Samarkand State University of Uzbekistan. Being a lover of literature, she is engaged in writing stories and poems. Her creative works have been published in Uzbek and English. In addition, she is a member of «All India Council for Development of Technical Skills», «Juntos por las letras» of Argentina, «2DSA Global Community». Winner of the «Korabl znaniy» and «Talenty Rossii» contests, holder of the international C1 level in the Russian language, Global Education ambassador of Wisdom University and global coordinator of the Iqra Foundation in Uzbekistan. «Magic pen holders» talented young group of Uzbekistan, «Kayva Kishor», «Friendship of people», «Raven Cage», «The Daily Global Nation», Argentina's «Multi Art-6», Kenya’s «Serenity: A compilation of art and literature by women» contains creative works in the magazine and anthology of poets and writers.

MOTHERLAND..

My navel blood.. spilled dirt,

Basil is fragrant, mint is full of smallpox.

In the lamp.. the light illuminates,

Self-esteem.

Homeland..

The value of every breath

Mother’s love, Father’s prayer.

Priceless, priceless jewel,

Erk’s echo in the mountain.

Homeland..

The air is an example.

Dear as bread, dignified as water.

A gift from the creator,

A thousand good news in one memory.

Homeland..

And the dear, noble place,

If you love, you will be happy with love.

If you catch one, you win ten.

Soaring vulture on your chest.

Homeland..

The Alps are blue and lightning is proud,

The first look from birth.

The feeling of having found its place,

A dog who fell in love and enjoyed it.

Homeland..

Peace be upon you, corner of hearts,

The soul of every nation.

Heaven is the land.. I was born,

The Uzbek people are Uzbekistan.

Homeland..

O’tkir Mulikboyev Kochkor oglu, Koshrabot district, Samarkand region, Republic of Uzbekistan

The son of Mulikboyev O’tkir Kochkor was born on August 11, 1990.

Currently, he is a student of the “Primary Education” department of Tashkent ISFT Institute Teacher of “Primary Education” at School 75, Koshrabot District, Samarkand Region.

His creative works are “Bakht khunirogi” Tashkent, “Buta 5” Azerbaijan, “Turan writers” Turkey, “Anthology of Kazakh and Uzbek artists” Uzbekistan, “Uzbek writers anthology” Canada, “Young Pencilers 2″ ” Published in Moldovan, republican and international collections.

His poems were translated into Turkish, Azerbaijani, English, Russian and published in more than ten countries. Hundreds of poems have appeared in the press. Awarded with the “Initiative Reformer” badge of the international level.

My teacher was the best teacher. Everyone’s favorite teacher will be a teacher. He will learn many things from the teacher and remember this in the future. Do you know? To make your dreams come true, you need to respect your teacher! Teachers are our pride! They are the best people in the world! Because of them, we will be known to the world, we will be well-known people!

The Painter

The compact red book I ran around with:
Crowley’s Book of the Law. I was goaded
into knowledge that a reckoning was at hand.
An archetypal Goddess had manifested as
a tactile reality in my life. An image had been
seared into my mind; a painting called The Vessel;
it was hers, & yet I was a married man. The only
path forward that tempestuous autumn of ‘01 was to
cheat. The book laid down a gauntlet of what 
it meant to act in the world with a genuine sense
of destiny; to be a man who had the mettle to be
a real force of nature. She knew, my wife, that I
had been possessed, & that winds were blowing
me in a new direction, towards the forbidden. 

I had, it seemed to me, no choice. The night I
spent with the painter, in a studio in PAFA, I
discovered what it meant to have a hinge to 
true will about matters of the heart. She kept
paintings there, of Dionysus & Apollo, & she
would make me a myth, too. We shared red
wine that had the effect of being blood between
us; our chalice was the air, the sound of water
pipes late at night in an old building, darkened
corridors meant to hold only us, bathrooms
which could be used as portal-ways into starry
worlds. As I gathered steam, I felt the book
hover in the air as well, a piece of text writ in
boiling blood, pummeling towards spring. 



Adam Fieled is a writer based in Philadelphia. His books include Equations, Cheltenham, Apparition Poems, Beams, and Opera Bufa. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he edits the journal PFS Post.    

the little ants marching
 

we are the losers

 

the glue of society

 

the little ants

marching for

hope

 

even though destiny

has other things in

mind

 

the lost souls

 

holding on for

something that

resembles a life

we dreamed about

as children

 

sometimes the sun

doesn't even bother

to shine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

some people are
 

i once thought i

was in love with

this beautiful older

woman right up

until she got me

fired from my job

 

and it's not that

i'm unwilling to

accept that some

people are just

fucking evil

 

i only wonder

why the fuck

am i the one

that has to

experience

all of them

 

the witches

have won

again i

suppose
-------------------------------------------------------
just as damaged
 

all the beautiful faces

on those magazines

 

i convince myself

they are just as

damaged as i am

 

any chance meeting

and the life long

quest for the right

one will be resolved

 

and yes, i'm aware

these delusions aren't

healthy and are only

going to lead to

trouble

 

boredom doesn't

exactly keep the

juices flowing

these days
-------------------------------------------------------------
does the madness ever end
 

another day spent breathing

 

another day watching this

crazy fucking mess just burn

 

do i break out the violin

or join a protest and throw

a rock

 

does the madness ever end

 

where is the laughter

 

a joyous hug

 

instead, everyone is buried

in their phones plotting or

masturbating out of hate

 

i tell all the ones i love

that i do love them

every day i can

 

mostly because it is a very

simple act that can bring

someone a moment of joy

 

a smile

 

a flutter of emotion

 

something better than all

the shit we wade through

just to make it to a bed

 

the ground

 

or the concrete of a cell

 

i can't imagine anyone

calling this living
-----------------------------------------------------------------
an interesting test of pain
 

a ghost from

my past has

noticed i'm

mentioning

sex more in

the poems

 

any time that

ghost wants

to take the

hint and

pounce

 

she is more

than welcome

 

lord knows

 

two arthritic

wrists make

for an interesting

test of pain as

one is trying to

climax before

attempting to

get some sleep

 

each and every

night

 

glutton for

punishment

as always



J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Black Coffee Review and The Asylum Floor. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Critically examine Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as a graphic narrative.

The monstrous Penguin-like infant’s accession to the hospital maternity nursery and the emblematic destruction of the feline foreshadows the gothic macabre infested upon Gotham
locale in the midst of holiday seasons. “There is a sense of decay everywhere [...] darkness, danger, toxicity and tragedy.” Like the prejudicial denizens of Gotham, these parents exonerate
their plight by forsaking their bestial offspring in the dump of the disposables to be awashed by the frozen icy stream. 

Penguin’s messianic and visionary apparition thirty three years later
uplifts humanity of that society that erstwhile alienated the castaway Moses. Then Penguin’s politicization in the grotesquery of Madonna and child when he soars on the hydraulic platform of the sewer saving and rescuing Richard Doyle’s/Mayor’s offspring. Dickensian scene re-enactment and re[visioning] in Penguin as the fur collared and a beatific expression while holding the Christmas gift of the baby who is dressed in red and white mini Santa suit. 

Penguin despises the fathers of Gotham, especially Max Shreck for unfolding inhumanity through the unwitting catalyst of the destruction and dooming disposable dumpsters. Saviours in temporality spatially transpose the politicization acts as indictment of the commercialization of religiosity as well as of the sheep-like mentality of the populace. 

Corris writes of the evil clothed in colour and light persuasive of genteelness of the spirit: “Black is good—-Batman, of course—---red or bright is bad[...]The Penguin’s sever level lair; Arctic world is garishly a colourful place; charterhouse toxic bile and a giant yellow ducky serving as Penguin’s Stygian barge.”

“How can you be so mean to someone so meaningless?” remonstrates the house broken and unruly pet symbolized by the dramatis personae of Selina with epitaphic and metonymical
associations to convenience, coffee pourer, and a drudge”[...] “Life’s a bitch, now so am I” self effacing transformation of the feline herdess responds after being lambasted and chastised by
her employer and boss Max Shreck. 

Catwoman Selina correspondingly declaims “Hello there!”
as inverted version “Hell here!” while defying wasters, poisoners and recyclers and abdicates two letters from the neon sign of the billboard of the apartment. Selina’s slickers attires herself as Catwoman to empower the secretariat drudgeries and Shreck’s havoc; nonetheless while doing so, Selina is trapped within her victimization. Selina finds her nails in the sewing basket
after dismantlement of the phone and answering machine and she cuts the rain slicker to stitch with her Catwoman attire. 

Selina is a victim of herself in a state of commodification destined to
be recycled nine times somewhat mystical but not immortal. Max Shreck is a twisted and inverted and maladjusted Scrooge, as Selina maligns “Anti-Claus” through annihilating former using electrically shock device that she had gotten from the members of the Red Triangle Gang.

This behaviour is counterfoiling as self-reflexive and self-effacing with personal imperative. The later also relinquishes her eighth life, as she kills her former boss with an electrically charged kiss. Scriptwriter Water states, “Selina isn’t a villain and she isn’t Wonder Woman for the greater good of society”; she will not gather up that by which she is not valued by bearing her lives.

Penguin possesses animal or freakish monstrosity and wretchedness as well as anthropogenic traits as dualistic dichotomized identities like Selina Penguin waves shredded pieces of incriminate documents in Shreck’s face to blackmail Max Shreck into making him well respected monster. Oswald Cobblepot deconstructs the abandoned child of the overwhelming parents. Batman empowers surplus names in the same sense by which Max Shreck manipulates energy
surplus to sustain a futuristic existence. Both of these decadent cynical personalities whose recycled public selves become dangerous constructs that succeeded in impressing the
gothamites they address. “I’ll take care of the squealing, wretched, pinhead puppets from Gotham [...] You gotta admit, I’ll play this stinking city like a harp from hell.” 

Batman takes up the mode of reusing that which was cast off without a thought—----here language to bring down Penguin’s plot to lead the city. The dichotomized hero’s methods become the same one the
villain adopts for they are both ⁴sick. Catwoman’s shopping expedition at Shreck's gives the viewer her face behind the large happy cat that is at the store’s logo. This new version of
shopping becomes both playful and destructive as she whips the head off the mannequins, threatens the security guards by pointing out that they confuse their pistols with their privates and rigs a microwave oven and gasoline to demolish the place.

In a sense, adopting comics characters to the screen does the same thing as the childrens’ comics become the adult film nightmare of a society controlled by the twisted products of neglect and abuse. Penguin goes much further than Catwoman, for he claims for himself the place of God, the avenger, the herod, the transgressor when plots to kill all of Gotham City’s first-born sons. The police chase Penguin over the same terrain his parents covered him the
night they disposed of him. Penguin even knocks over a couple who could have been stand-ins for his parents as he heads for the bridge and the icy water. 

In his own way, Penguin is a tragic figure, caused by his past doomed to repeat and recycle it. “My name is not Oswald, its
Penguin. I am not a human being. I am an animal. Crank the the-ac! Bring me my lists!” The battles in Batman Returns aren’t between the forces of light and dark so much as between competing neuroses.

We should not assess this graphic novel as disparaging through its legality, nor should we glamorize it by deference to its perpetrators. Frank Miller’s Bruce Wayne and Carrie Kelley embody Fixer and Burglar as “the self-made American ascendant, free, accountable to no authority—-yet haunted by guilt [...] a ruthless, monstrous vigilante breaking the foundations of our democracy [...] a symbolic resurgence of the common man’s will to resist [...] a rebirth of the
American fighting spirit.” 

Hyperreal fantasy of the demonical villains Joker/Michel Emerson, the Mutant Leader/ Gary Anthony Williams, and the Two Face demonstrate the biochemical warfare exposition through televised mediatising of the broadcasters obfuscating real life antecedents: “I
am atop Gotham twin towers with two bombs capable of making them rubble. You have twenty minutes to save them. The price is five million dollars. I would have made half, but I have bills to
pay.” 

Batman has been habitually adapted to salvage the rescue operations associated with laughing gases, fear dust, mind control lipsticks, artificial phobia pills and toxic aerosols to a considerable extent. Postmodernism blends the reality of the fictitious world into the reality of the real world [...] often suggests that the two are inextricable, that the boundaries are indecipherability muddy and
impossibly evasive. 

Miller’s Batman transmutates from the stereotypical old school hero to nihilistic anarchistic vigilante, duality of the characteristic traits of the goodness and evilry, blackness and whiteness. The Rise of the Postmodern Graphic Novel [...] the Golden era of stereotypes and symbolic personifications [...] There was no place for ambiguity. Nuclear fallout of the US Corto Maltese by Russian invasion causes the cowardly traitor superman [...] blotting out the source of all my powers [...] the hope for screaming millions. God-like steel ness
superheroism of superman is eradicated by the hubristic flesh and blood of the cold war contrasting revenge driven psychopath and ardent pursuer of divine justice. 

Julia Kristeva’s formation of subjectivity through blending of linguistics and psychoanalysis contextualizes Lacanian readings as a splitting subject that is in conflict who risks being shattered and is on the brink of heterogeneous contradiction. Batman’s disfiguration and maligned image throughout the signification process obdurates the vigilante saviour with the blame of alleged murdering of Joker “The Joker’s body found mutilated and burned [...] murder is added to the charges of the Batman [...] Batman’s breaking and entering, assault and battery, creating a public menace” furthermore creates a polarized dichotomy between the semiotic and symbolic. 

Language will speak the unspeakable as the consciousness will reveal through unravelling of itself. “[...]the spectacular career of Batman comes to a tragic conclusion [...] as the crime fighter suffered a heart attack while battling the government troops [...] his body has been identified as a fifty-five year old billionaire Bruce Wayne [...] and his death has proven as mysterious as his life.”
              
Further Reading and Works Consulted
Susan M. Bernardo’s [ Wagner College Staten Island NY] Recycling Victims and Villains in “Batman Returns”, Literature/ Film Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp: 16-20, Salisbury University

Politics and Society “Should we celebrate or lament the pop culture endurance of Batman, a violent vigilante?
The Return of the Vigilante: An Essay on the Possibility of Political Judgement, Bradon Little John Daniel Croci’s Holy Terror, Batman! 

Frank Miller’s Dark Knight and the Superhero as Hardboiled
Terrorist Jan Axelsson’s New Times, New Heroes, Ambiguity, Sociopolitical Issues and Post-Modernism
in Frank miller’s Graphic Novel The Batman Returns

Ruzbeh Babaee’s [Porto University] Heroic Subjectivity in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Research Gate.