Circle Family

Can someone find me a map? 
Where  there is no bloody barbed wire fence 
There will only be lines of love 
Villages of humanity will undoubtedly reach the sky 

The paths along the way will be dreamy
 The song of communism will be heard in the flock of birds 
The tone of union will anchor the language of the earth
The footprints will not be pierced by the arrows of hatred
 A flower's aroma will grow in the congealed wound 

Let our children draw that map
 Poetry will touch the edge of that map 
All the accumulated troubles will be removed
There will be no tears in the world of circles 
Hungry eyes will not burn.

UNSCRUPULOUS
 
Hope buried 
Under the rubble of ignorance 
Gray cries 
Screams that make you laugh 
Laughter that is scary 
Values: discarded 
The sky cries while the afternoon dies 
At which bend in the road He lost her? 
When did the magic leave him? 
A trumpet sounds under a voice of command 
Will fulfill your destiny as an opaque rite 
Earth man 
Fool man 
Unscrupulous
Sneaky hail about a pink laugh 
Man of trembling intelligence overshadowed by her folly 
Apologize for nothing 
And screams making only noise 
She is a region of echoes 
Plastered rose that is filled with pure air and is reborn, the next day
She can feel the elements and spin 
With them
She can go from repose to dreams and from dreams to eternity 
Yes she is poetry and a thousand times choose to be 
She can lose herself in hers center without losing the essence of it, 
Throbbing like her blood, wandering like a cloud 
Earth man 
Of false arguments of misunderstood philosophy  
Stay in your loft of hypocrisy and miss what for the last time made him feel alive.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina. Based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects, of the Hispanic World Union of Writers .UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is a commissioner of honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.

Mothers & Daughters

There were poems she would wait to publish until after her mother had died. That was if she were to outlive the old woman. Barbara-Jane: the reason she wrote, the stem of it all, the beginning and inevitably the end. After all, we all become our mothers. Carolina knew from too young an age that she, just like Barbara-Jane, would embrace death like a sweet relief, like the pills she hadn’t allowed herself to take. She believed she would die young because it was easier to imagine that her suffering wouldn’t last forever. Carolina wore pearls and spent recklessly, she refused to fall in love with anyone or anything but the term promiscuous.

And Barabara-Jane often reminded her. New England-born, New York-bred, buttered slices of bread on blue Italian china. Carolina remembered the home she had grown up in, Carolina remembered the sister-space she’d grown into. Older sisters become writers and younger sisters become actresses, it’s the way of the world. It was a yellow Victorian, white trim with a rosary buried somewhere beneath the foundation. Carolina wanted to be buried anywhere but near the house. Perhaps half a mile off from the Riverton prison’s burial plot, where her father lay. The river was lazy but the criminals weren’t, and Carolina was called an afterthought but her father was called bloodthirsty.

Half a mile was a safe enough distance from him, just as long as she didn’t smell like her mother. If there was one thing she should play safe, it was her proximity to her father’s dead body. Carolina only liked to play the victim, never to truly be victimized. Not like her mother. To hate her father for what he did to Barbara-Jane would be hypocrisy. After all, Carolina would not have been so kind. She would have finished the job. She would have killed the woman.

RAINBOW

Rainbow over the sky
He is the symbol of our peace.
Seven different colors, seven species,
Bring us happiness and luck.

Rainbow, rainbow,
A sign of spring.
		Give flight to birds,
Bring us happiness and luck!

To this great Motherland,
Rainbows fit.
Your sons, your daughters,
The country is proud.

Let's be good friends
Let's appreciate the country.
supporting each other
Let's mature.

Rainbow, rainbow
A sign of spring.
Give flight to birds,
Bring us happiness!


Gulsevar Khojamova
Student of Andijan State Pedagogical Institute

Winter

The changing weather of

Winter is masked.

Sometimes a little grey all along

That bruised my palm

All alone as if hanging

The dewdrops in a muddy bowl

The flowers are sordid

A little pansy, shiver stricken

I took my notepads out in the

Blueish grey

The parchment of winter hang around

Drinking, seemed a little noble

As it stiched my past

Into grey sweaters

The touch and go all ripened

And new at the same time

The falcon flew over all along

Waiting for the winter

A little long with grey walls

Of fortresses.

 


the masturbator

 

hear him

 

in the library stacks

oohing and aahing

beating that rhythm

to chinese beauty magazines

 

see him

 

head down

on hard wood tables

snoring and scratching his balls

sleeping like a child of heaven

 

a wad of paper towel

still clutched in his hand.





this work email

 

today

i’m not going to answer

this work email

 

i may never answer it

 

i want the person who sent it

to sit in their office

 

and wonder why i didn’t respond

 

yes

 

i’m going to let

this email sit in my inbox

and rot

 

like raw meat in the hot summer sun

 

because

it’s the only form

of independence

 

that i truly have left.





bait box blues

 

i watch

the exterminator

put poison and steel wool

into the holes in the wall of my office

 

watch him set a huge yellow trap

with a dollop of chocolate

and line up bait boxes

like rows of black, plastic apartment buildings

 

the rat has run by me

twice in a month

 

the second time

i sprained my foot

trying to get away from him

 

the exterminator looks at peace

while he sets the traps

 

he gets up off the ground

and says, we’ll get him

 

fooling me into a certainty

that i haven’t felt in a long while

 

even though tomorrow i know

 

the steel wool

will be pulled out from all the walls

 

the chocolate from the trap

licked up and gone

 

those bait boxes pushed around

like an earthquake hit

 

and a small pile of rat shit

will be waiting for me

 

on my desk

 

reminding me of my true place

in this pecking order.            





 halcyon

 

each human transgression

is its own freshly sharp blade of grass

 

i try not to hold it against anyone

but sometimes you just want someone to blame

for all of this sadness and futility

 

a god to shake a fist at

 

and i could say i make

the best of things in my spare time

 

but i don’t

 

i’m a hungry man with a fork

in a world full of nothing but soup

 

angry almost always

and growing older ungracefully

 

another car wreck of a human life

 

musing those halcyon days

that never were

 

as the stoplight changes

from green to red

 

and any semblance of home

seems an eternity away.





everything

 

and

when she said

it feels like

you hate everything now

 

there was

nothing left to do

but wash the dirty dishes

sitting in the

dirty sink.


John Grochalski is the author of five poetry collections, three novels, and the forthcoming novella Wolves of Berlin Play Amateur Night at the Flute and Fiddle Pub. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.