***
tigers in the zoo:
no one sees how 
the meat is prepared for them

chest hurts
once again the heart can 
withstand everything

fork and knife pierce my body 
i fall asleep

***
I died for you
Removing freckles from face completed successfully

***
we were left with a petal and 
empty cider bottles as a souvenir
autumn has never been 
so forgotten before

***
the ant 
under my 
feet 

taught me 
to be small

***
no one will ask the foliage 
about green silence

***
the worm in my body 
cherishes the emptiness

***
love is broken like a river
glass grass river

***
my heart is looking 
for a cemetery at your steps

***
the cage asked the bird 
and received no answer

***
who dies at night while bones 
burn in the sky?

we are trying to forget 
our little betrayal

– After February 24, 2022, I will never speak Russian again, I will never be silent again. - Helga said, but the next morning this mood passed.
The next morning old Helga went to church for free milk. She took her place in line, as did hundreds of other people.
Hundreds of people did not want to stand in line, but the post-Soviet habit of poverty encouraged them to stand in line.
Pensions were paid to bank cards. banks and ATMs did not work. Stores were open. Stores that were not closed were open. Only a few shops were open. Stores that started working as a result of a raider seizure of a neighboring business do not count.
The pensioners in the queue began to argue: someone took a place in the queue dishonestly.
The pensioners in line began to argue very rudely and broke off the entrance gate of the church.
Not everyone got milk that day, although everyone was in line.
Crowds of hungry dogs began to run past the crowd of upset pensioners. The dogs, abandoned by their owners to the mercy of fate, wanted to eat.
Over time, hungry dogs began to attack the parishioners. Over time, hungry dogs began to turn on all the inhabitants of the city, including atheists like me. People are the same animals. The ring-shaped world history is a strong confirmation.
My favorite Ukrainian director (Kira Muratova) once said:
"I can understand cannibalism because a hungry person behaves like an animal. But I don't understand how you can kill for anything. Even if it's your homeland."
Hungry dogs: they live much worse than pensioners. Dogs do not have pensions, churches, public organizations. And over time, pensioners began to receive two pensions: Ukrainian and Russian. But it does not matter. By the way, I have never been to church as an adult. This in some way makes me related to street dogs. When I was a child, my parents often had puppies: but the puppies constantly ran out into the street and died.
The dogs continued to walk the streets. People continued to walk the streets. Kira Muratova once said:
"Humanity does not develop. First there was Nero, and then there was Stalin." It's good that Kira Muratova died before 2022. Over time, death begins to seem like a relative that everyone has always known about, but no one has seen. It turns out that death cannot be seen - there is no death. Especially during the war: during the war, everyone turns into walking corpses. From dust to dust, because as Jim Jarmusch (or someone else) said: "The dead do not want to leave." The dead cannot leave because their limbs are torn off. The dead cannot die, especially when air bombs forbid the very existence of life.
I want to dye my hair blonde. For some reason, this fact seems especially vital and important at the time of the shelling.
Over time, people who walked the streets began to get tired. People started dying. But no: people have died before.
Over time, people stopped giving out free milk in churches and rotten vegetables at bus stops. Over time, people got used to what was happening. People have been accustomed to what is happening for thousands of years. For thousands of years, the same events have been happening.
Once a neighbor's cat caught a mouse and ate it, but not completely. Therefore, the guts and tail (the remains of a mouse) I found just on the sidewalk. But the neighbor's cat is well fed: why did he poop on a mouse? Why didn't the cat eat the mouse's tail? Can not understand anything.
Even along the streets, besides people, cats and dogs, birds roamed. But birds have wings: just like military planes. Birds constantly remain in the shadow of human attention. Sometimes birds peck at groats at the point of distribution of humanitarian aid. They say that the point of issue of humanitarian aid is also full of pensioners in line. Then some pensioners sell this humanitarian aid on the market. Sometimes many birds flocked to the market: the birds tried to get their own food.
Birds in those days began to fly to the streets of the city, probably in anticipation of spring. But spring never came.
People in those days stopped believing that it was possible to fly and began to silently walk through the markets. Some people still continued to go to work. Some animals in those days still had owners who hadn't left.
As a child, I had different toys: plush animals, plastic constructors, toy soldiers. At the time, I didn't understand why toys weren't allowed to tear limbs off.
Meanwhile, people and animals quietly ran away wherever their eyes looked. As a rule, people left for Europe. The rest of the people and animals remained where they were. Being a refugee is either uncomfortable or expensive, depending on your financial situation.
Thus began the first month of military occupation.

Landscapes

Some of us preferred

the nights when trees

were on fire to the ones

where only flowers were burning

The smoke was a challenge

for breathing but after a while

we learned to live with it

Those of us who preferred

our landscapes with living things

over desolation rainbows were

disappointed when there was

nothing left to burn

Even the sunsets regretted

the absence of particulates

that made the sky seem alive

It seemed unnatural

to grieve the end of landscapes

as no one responded  to them

anymore

What would have been

the point

The moon is down

phantom tree limbs scratch

against the windows

and the overhanging roof

in my mind.

The appliances cycle on

and off, so loud and insistent

they threaten to murder sleep.

Outside, the birds have

been assaulting the picture

windows.  Their collisions

are like tiny fists pelting

the glass.

We gather their bodies

in canvas bags. Take them

to the beach and throw them

to the wind commanding

them to fly.

Symbiotic

We share everything now

even our dreams

The details may be different

but the effect is always

the same

Her dreams are of flightless

birds that are somehow impelled

from their coops into the air

where they collide in pairs

and fall, on fire, to the earth

Mine are of the beheading

of chickens on multiple

chopping blacks propelling

their headless bodies spouting

gouts of blood as they run

about the barnyard

We watch from inside our bedrooms

where the heat pipes are bursting

in the walls releasing gushers of water

that peel the patterned paper off

in long strips that cling to our faces

as we dream

Neither of us has the will

to wake up

All of our nights are like

this now

Redefined (Ezekiel)

An accumulation of

frozen sheep redefine

the landscape

Piles of ice, and snow

and road waste are assembled

like burial mounds planted

on the fallow furrowed fields

Dried wild berry vines

and sunflower stalks smolder

in the rusted metal burn

barrel

We look up at the sky

at what the sheep

can no longer see

After the storm:

the used tires arrive

then the ripped-free anchors

lobster traps

rope netting balled in Gordian knots

snared, severed filaments

deflated life rafts

broken oars

parts of wet suits

life jackets

men and women’s clothes

all the odd lot of stuff that

once might have been in-board

no boat

Some of us remember

when the seasons did not

fluctuate from one extreme

to the other

There were variations

on themes: colors, warmth,

and chills instead of deep

freeze and fire

Soon there will be nothing

left to burn as it is pointless

to plant things when nothing

has a chance to grow

Maybe the end has

come and gone

and no one noticed

Five Untitled Monostichs

dried apricot alpha flight

—

in the old room in the new room

—

moldy brackish from milton bradley

—

vasculitis removes rain roman my-my

—

talia shire one gallon of dimetapp

—

bio/graf

J. D. Nelson’s poems have appeared in many publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of ten print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Migratory Soul


My soul is resting here under an umbrella, 
Hearing the rhythmic roar of big waves,  
Observing dead Oyster shells heart quivers.
They come from mysterious abysmal burg
After completing their life journey. 
Looking at the vast open sky,
I whispered to the chariot wind;
When are you taking my migratory soul,
To that unspotted sea of empty garden?
Soon heart filled up with an obscure pain.


Aklima Ankhi is a poet, storyteller and translator from Cox'sbazar, Bangladesh. Born in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, she has a published book of poetry named "Guptokothar Shobdochabi" written in Bangla. She is a post graduate in English Literature and she is a lecturer in English. 

JOONAM – Finding identity as an immigrant woman

We all eventually turn into our mothers.

It’s what nature taught us. The older we grow up, the more we see our mothers in us, and us in them.

And the three generations of Iranian women in this film, are no different.

It had to take an innovator, a pioneer like Sierra Urich, a filmmaker, to unravel the mystery of those three women, and bring their different worlds together. It had to take a brave woman like her to bring women’s stories to the table and unwrap the cellophane, the layers and layers of dust that women use to cover up their lives and put it out into the world.

The link was the mother, Mitra, who was the heart of both languages, the bridge between two distinctly foreign worlds. Sierra represented the new world, while the grandmother represented the old world. Mitra brought these two worlds together, through a shared love between the three women of storytelling.

I felt Sierra’s isolation in her language barrier bubble, how her grandma, Behjat was happily enjoying the culture she held close to her heart, how comfortable Mitra was freely moving from one culture to the other, her peace and easiness evident through her daughter’s camera. Sierra on the other hand was the one most bothered, or uncomfortable in her skin. I related to her feelings of difficulty adjusting to her mother and grandmother’s heritage or their adaptation to their lives. Mitra and Behjat seemed in harmony, while Sierra seemed lost and grappling with her sense of self. How easy it used to be for the older generations, while we are usually stuck with how we view ourselves, how the world perceives us, and what we want from the world.

Sierra’s use of imagery and poetic interceptions threw me in the middle of the culture, the mesmerizing stories that her grandmother told as the backdrop to an already active mise-en-scène, there was constant movement and a powerful sense of space and presence in Sierra’s film, and that allowed the viewer to enter her world at the pace and time that she fully decided.

JOONAM felt like a journey through womanhood, as each woman discovered her path individually from the other, but brought together they navigated it together as one. In different cultures, times, and ideologies, all three women had their own battles to conquer, wounds to cover, and intergenerational trauma to come to terms with. Sierra perfectly gave her subjects the air to breathe and exist in an environment without judgment or disdain. It was the perfect safe space for these women to share stories and bond over their family history as they each tread a different spot on the spectrum of life. Sierra didn’t overuse intimate feminine moments as breaking points for her narrative, each point was present in the right spot, like her mother having her hair done at the hairdresser’s and getting bombarded with serious interrogative questions, or her grandmother beautifully recounting the time she had her first period. None of it felt forced or created a false sense of feminine mystique but rather a milestone in an intricately structured narrative, not built on women’s bones, but from their tales around the -hypothetical fire- as they rebuild each other up, bones and all.

Patricia Highsmith on Patricia Highsmith

She tried to abort me
drinking turpentine before
I was born he left us
and it changed me
poisoning my mind, my life

always a disappointment
displeasing, distrusting
mother, stepdad at 3
a grey-black spirit of doom
a foreordained unhappiness
a grievous, murderous hatred
I had to learn to live with

when they dragged me away
from my home in big sky Texas
to the gritty streets of New York
lost and scared they sent me
back to Grandma in Fort Worth
I never knew why or when or if
they would come for me
and I hated them for that

when I returned to Manhattan
belonging no place, not there
not Queens, Greenwich Village
I chose Barnard, literature
stylish clothing, affected poses
drinking my way up the ladder
with society girls and gin
whiskey shots in bars
schmoozing the lions for inroads
to the literary life I craved
women and booze and writing

about identity and deception
the fears and furies of secret selves
the subterfuge of the repressed
Graham Green called me
the poet of apprehension
my characters got the revenge
I wanted for myself.

Patricia Highsmith on Her Sexuality

My first job was for a man
writing scripts for comic books
freelancing and living alone
dead broke in Taxco
the Mexicans knew how
to drink cheap all day

I returned to New York
and headed to Yaddo
writer’s colony in the woods
met the man I would not marry
promised him and hurt him
completing my first novel
for a British publisher
and Alfred Hitchcock
adapted it for the screen

I was headed for top rungs
while suffering from cycles
of anorexia and alcoholism
therapy helped my writing
the psychology of the psychopath
I felt I understood
I was a man
who loved women
and mistreated them

enjoyed seducing straights
breaking up couples
the two Pats
the charmer, the offender
battling inside, on the page
my life a novel I made up
lies in interviews
in my diaries fantasies
inventing until the end

I left millions to Yaddo
my literary estate to the Swiss
my heart in a bottle
of whiskey and turpentine.

Virginia Kent Catherwood on Patricia Highsmith

With her I felt strange
unlike what I thought I was
yet loved, I loved her
manly ways in a woman’s body
deep dark warmth I found
another kind of love
my husband used
against me in court
took away my daughter
to protect her
from her own mother’s love.

After we broke up
Pat worried about me
afraid of my reaction
to my story in her novel
based on a pretty stranger
she waited on once
while working the counter
at Bloomingdale’s
and stalked her home
to the rich enclaves
of suburban New Jersey
and fantasized about her
made up a world, a love
a taboo romance
destined to be
a cult classic
a major motion picture.

Pat heard how
the woman killed herself
in her running car
in her closed garage
while Pat was writing
about her, about me
in her novel
Carol.

Ellen Hill on Patricia Highsmith

I don’t know why I loved her
left her, went back to her
so many times she used sex
to make me unhappy she went
from cool green grass underfoot
to shattered glass shards

like the time she got drunk
at a party in London
and fell over the table
her long dark hair
caught fire
and we put it out
and carried on British-style
as if the singe of bitter burn
didn’t smell up the room
the time she hid her pet
snails in a purse, dozens
spilled on the dinner table
sliming starched white cloth.

I was not a homosexual
but I fell for her
stormy kissing biting hardness
always fighting she thought
I was too straight, too organized
too critical and a snob
I expected her to treat me
as a man would and
I was forever after her
to stop drinking, cheating
ruining other people’s lives

when she threatened to leave
I sprawled on our bed
sucked down two martinis
in my silky underthings
let her watch me
swallow barbiturates
she couldn’t leave me
not like that

yet off she went
to some party
out late, waiting for me
to die
in a coma
for days she did not visit
involved in a twisted tryst
on Fire Island and you’d think
I would not forgive her
antipathy, cruelty, selfish
fear I would accuse her
of murder by proxy
once I read her novel
about a man driving his wife
to commit a suicide
mirroring my own

but I still loved her
lived with her in Mexico
England, France, Switzerland
in her black bunker
with lookout slits
a sad drunken recluse
when she was all yellow
skin, bones, bitterness
still writing, still carrying
that little hell in her head
hating what galvanized her
Pat still Pat
always looking
for a fight.

I did not attend her funeral.

Marijane Meaker on Patricia Highsmith

We met cute
in a lesbian bar
in the 1950s
we could be arrested
for the love we made
I was taken with her
gentlemanly manners, good
bones and thick dark hair
her laughter, shared
book talk and gay gossip
I wanted to be her
my books paperback
dime store pulp and Pat
a literary lion, lesbian icon.

Isn’t it wiser to accept
that life has no meaning
is what she said
the earth like the moon
with only her on it
her dark fantasies
keeping her going
all those years
all those books
stories of men who compete
who climb, who con, who kill
for the thrill in her novels
about the American Abroad
an excuse for excess
self-indulgence, hedonism
how she lived herself
from villages in France
to villages in Greece
Venice and Positano
she said our love cured
her wanderlust.

We settled down together
in an artsy community
in the Pennsylvania countryside
fruit trees and a barn, she gardened
cooked dinner and dressed up
in  slacks, a crisp white shirt
bright ascot, polished loafers
with a shiny switchblade
from her blazer pocket
she trimmed our indoor plants
and sipped a second martini
while studying the dictionary—
a strange cocktail hour, yes
but we had a sweet life

mostly because of Pat
affectionate, easygoing
didn’t want her mind
cluttered with bad feelings
but she knew
I was besotted
obsessed and afraid
of losing her
I became her
drinking too much
smoking her Gauloises
wearing her jackets
reading her diary
I wrote a literary book
about famous suicides.

Perhaps I don’t like anybody
was how she explained
her characters’ lack
of decency, humanity
her own prejudices
her own shifting identity
her withdrawal, escapes
from love affairs
like ours while above her a window
filled with light blue sky
just out of reach
too small
too far away
to escape through