WALKING IN A SPRING DRIZZLE 

Rain shellacs sidewalk. 

Store window mirrors reflect 

my dim shadowed face. 

STAR ON STAR 

your Virtuosa meets my Athlete 

where we latch unlatch and latch 

we touch on touch 

we breath on breath 

we wet on wet, with fold on fold 

among the night’s mighty echoes 

ecstatic/static/attic’s-tick-tick 

each star as perfect as the next 

in the vast topless sky 

“always” we lie on lie 

HORIZONS 

Tomorrow’s moon 

baldandwhite 

at horizon 

hesitates. 

(thunder’s hero, 

the promise) 

Your looking glass 

ghosts linger, 

your memories 

forever 

themselves; and each 

one’s a wave 

and each, a beach 

that it shaves. 

(moonmirror shows 

the menace) 

Dancing like fire 

in the foam, 

you’re a highwire 

thunderstorm! 

(horizon’s coast, 

the phoenix) 

Your poemcandle 

starts to die. 

First it stutters 

then it sighs — 

our darkhidden 

beginnings, 

unforgiven 

endings. 

(yesterday’s ghost, 

the furnace) 

CAKE’S CONSUMED, CANDLE’S EXTINGUISHED, BALLOON’S POPPED OR DEFLATED

This is the first day

of the last year

of my sixth decade.

The best weather, has it pased?

The days of the new moon aren’t done.

There are kisses to come yet

and tequila worms to swallow.

And thus, I turn off the pensive lights.

THE WHY OF POETRY

Medicine men summon the sacred smoke

of sage sweetgrass and cedar.

They unrein the Dream.

And poets compose.

They unmine the mindfield,

incite

insight.

Subtropics

Love is quiet

Quiet

Be strong heart

I’ve cried tears

that have

tasted like the rain

Woven into my tissues

are wildflowers

What are woven

into yours?

I spoke to  

the person in the cell

I went to bed with storms in my head

I called it a mistake then

And much later, a lesson

a choice

It’s summer

I feel the heat

beneath my skin 

under my eyelids

I feed my father’s cancer

tomato sandwiches 

Dark

Dark

Dark

Here they come

The waves

Fear in my heart

for every word not said

every meal not prepared

when I saw blood

on the bandage

that covered your eye

Oh, mother

will you ever forgive me

for not listening to you?

Daily I write you poems

inside my head

that turn into

hymns, psalms

the Chopin melody turns into a river

the piano into a cold leaf

Dark

Dark

Dark

Here the waves come

I am left waiting for a miracle

in the dark

a spinster

with spinster thoughts

with spinster wants, needs and desires

even these fantasies

have tested me. 

Overnight I turned into a museum

What is this weakness inside of me?

Yes, I realise I am weak

I realise

I have my limitations

Self, ego

The road is a miracle

It’s dark

I can’t seem to find my way

The older men are nice

They are kind

The men who are

as old as my father

have intellectual discussions with me

The women ignore me

Their laughter tastes like English mustard

That’s all

Decay

That’s all

that’s left of me.

I wait

for the chops

to defrost

on the countertop

growing older

colder, more afraid

in this

a time of questioning

I read my future

Counting my past’s sorrows

Anxiety’s pre-history

Mad with erosion in my soul

I think I understand 

your shy tenderness now

The beast 

and roots and the powers

of wilderness in you

Poetry is experience

Vertigo taught me that

I think of all my teachers

while the meat turns into metaphor.

The doorway

I make toast

with peanut butter

for you

it’s important

there are many

things that are important

these days

the light

in this room

for one thing

for another

the fact that you’re

awake

that I’m in the kitchen

making you

a late breakfast

Digging

Digging

Digging

While they dig

Yes, while those cancer cells dig, chip

anchoring away

I eat the sun

It drips down my chin

While the dog barks

Yes, while the dog barks

You’re quiet

So, so quiet

Into the loathed

strangeness of cancer

They curl then dance, curl

and dance away into mitochondria

Into the strangeness

of tissues and organs

the groaning of the body

its atoms

all of its dimensions

Into the holistic awareness

of those cells

Daddy, I hope

these berries heal you

Take this

and accept this mug

of green tea

this offering,

this machine

My love is like

ginger and honey, these bees’ rage

will nourish you

The ginger

will behave

like ointment, honey a salve

a balm

I keep meeting

your gaze in maps

Drinking in the fear

and anguish in your eyes

You see, it matches my own.

It matches my own

The doorway becomes

a passage, nobody sees my tears.

And you, dad,

becomes a new creation

While the machine performs a scan

on you

I am frozen

You’re a sphere

A flat grassland

The back of my hand

Neverland

One day you’re never

Coming back to me

You won’t be walking

through the front door

The grief and longing here

how sweet you are

how faithful

Never leave daddy

Never leave me, my beloved

Strange bones

What strange love this is

A daughter’s love

To optimism and hope

For its appearance in my life

This is me remembering you

And for the memories

All the memories

That you will leave behind.

Paper Planes

The classroom smelled of pencil shavings and damp jackets. For five minutes, we folded scraps of notebook paper into planes, launching them across the room. Some glided, some wobbled, others crashed into walls. I traced their arcs with my eyes, noting collisions, ricochets, and the occasional flight that defied expectation.

Laughter erupted, papers tumbled, and yet patterns emerged: the planes avoided certain corners, landing repeatedly in familiar arcs. I folded another, adjusting the crease slightly, predicting its path, marveling that small variations led to wildly different outcomes. In that brief chaos, I glimpsed a lesson bigger than geometry: that
unpredictability is only meaningful if we observe, if we participate, if we notice the subtle orders forming inside the mess.

ITS INVISIBLE FORM

He sits on the
calm soil
and listens to the aftershocks
vibrations of the lyrics
just as it pulsates
the pen before swimming
in ink
Then he drinks bitterly.
water from the
soul of the trees
and at that time
a drop of sorrow
he wet his drunkenness
coat…
The cloud moved.
which calmed down today
nature, calm down
the cataclysmic emotions
from the breasts of the mountains…
He then sits on a stool.
and paints its form
above the portrait
of loneliness…
He stands speechless nearby
in the quiet heart
of a sea
which every
so much
slaps him
with its wave
to remember her form again!..-

Petros Kyriakou Veloudas was born in Agrinio in 1977. He holds a degree in humanities from the Department of Greek Culture of the Hellenic Open University of Patras and is a businessman and preschool teacher by profession. He is the European ambassador of Greek poetry in Romania, an academic poet at the AMCL Academy of Poetry and Philology in Brazil. Member of the international poetry societies WORLD SOCIETY OF POETS-WSP, WRITERS UNION, International Association of Greek writers-DEEL. His literary-poetic work is included in the Great Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Writers HARI PATSI, as well as in many Greek and international poetry anthologies, he has won 57 international poetry awards and his poems have been translated into many languages. Poems are read by the Chilean radio station His lyrics were set to music by Greek composers and his songs are posted on youtube. His poems have been published in local newspapers of Agrinio such as (MACHITIS, AGGELIA, PALMOS).

Don’t Bet on it!

Most tech-savy persons are familiar with the term “handle.” Its use dates back to the 1970s, when it described the on-air identity of a CB radio user.

Remember “BJ and the Bear?” No? Just as well. More recently a handle refers to the amount of money wagered on an event carried on an online sportsbook or betting site.The impact of online sportsbooks is a function of the behavioral changes brought about by the very existence of online gaming, which is a less-insidious-sounding euphemism for gambling.

Today, millionaire celebrities appear online or on television, waxing eloquently on the probable good fortune of the online gambler. Numbering among these are songbirds Drake and Vanessa Hudgens and socialite Paris Hilton.

Others include comedian Kevin Hart, actor and singer Jamie Foxx and comedian Chris Rock. Former NBA star and basketball commentator Charles Barkley and soccer superstar Lionel Messi help fill out the ranks of the well-to-do proponents of gambling.

Significantly, these beautiful and successful, but vulgar shills do not hasten to explain the risks of online gambling and their sometimes debilitating counterpart of problem gambling and gambling addiction. (1.4% of gamblers, or 80 million persons world-wide are gambling addicts).

Gambling promoters say nothing of foreclosed mortages (An individual’s 10% increase in spending on gambling accounts for a 97.5% increase in incidence of a missed payment) or hungry families sitting around a barren supper table.

Nor do they mention the increased incidence of domestic violence (One study found that 37 percent of people experiencing a gambling problem have perpetrated intimate partner violence). Although online gambling is nobly marketed to an adult clientele, minors surreptitiously gamble as well.

Ten percent of teens have gambled online in the past year.Of that number, 26 percent are at risk for disorders, a far higher proportion than among adults. Teens’ behavior often mirrors that of their parents.

According to one study, a single gambler’s problem behavior can metastasize its effects, impacting six to eight additional people, including family, co-workers, friends, and employers. So man (or woman) is not an island unto himself.

Recent statistics show that Americans wager upwards of $150 billion per year on online gambling, with a profit for the owners of sportsbooks in excess of $7.5 billion. This accounts for the corporate and celebrity avarice.

And the handle is expected to increase to an otherworldly $700 billion by 2028. At this point, more than 2/3 of states have given the nod to online gambling. Why? For decades, states eschewed legalization of gambling, citing the very real pernicious effects of the practice.

However, since state governments began exacting a percentage of the profits as a new stream of state revenue, they’ve begun to see the light. New York garners more than $3 billion per year in revenue which, until the Supreme Court legalized online betting in 2018, was unavailable to their grasping, greedy little fingers.

Legal gambling essentially began with the proliferation of lotteries. Today, if you walk into a convenience store to buy a newspaper or a coffee, and you’ll be forced in wait in a lengthy line servicing “Lotto,” “Powerball” and all the rest.

And who can forget the 60+-year-old retirees who squander their retirement checks on the allure of scratch-off tickets. In 2024, Americans spent more than $100 billion on lottery tickets.

And here’s a salient fact that no one ever seems to pay attention to: gambling–all gamblng–is set up to make the house the winner. The odds and margins are simply with them, by design. 

Legal gambling has a systemically racist aspect as well. A 2022 study of Ohio gamblers showed that 32% of Blacks in that state who gambled, met the criteria for a gambling disorder. That’s compared to just 18% of white people from the same region.

A disproportionate percentage of gambling ads target African Americans. This economic fact is compounded by the reality that more Blacks are impoverished than other races.

Ads promulgate the feel-good high of following a scheme for apparent financial success, while stressing none of the downside. This puts such African American proponents of gambling even more in the spotlight.

Take Chris Rock, who banters a mile-a-minute on the positivity of gambling. Or his fellow multi-millionaire Charles Barkley, who’ll never know what the consequences of a missed car payment will feel like. Or Jamie Foxx, dazzling television viewers as he struts about on camera in a glittering suit which probably cost more than the cars that 90% of Americans drive.

Shills for legal gambling are the sorts of persons who, 60 years ago, would’ve been starring in ads for cigarettes. And 20 years from now, they’ll be featured in ads for legalized prostitution, cocaine and heroin.

What a racket! Will you be one of the rare lucky ones, and cash in on legal gambling?

Don’t bet on it!

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Annotation:This article explores the concept of artificial intelligence (AI), its role in society, its significance in education and the economy, and future prospects. It analyzes the application of AI in everyday life, its impact on work efficiency, and its contribution to the development of modern technologies.

Introduction

Today, in an era of rapidly developing information technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) holds a significant position. AI refers to computer systems’ ability to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as thinking, learning, analyzing, and decision-making. Currently, AI has permeated almost all areas of our
lives.

1. Concept and Development of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a technology that enables computers and
software to perform tasks similar to human intelligence. Initially
developed through scientific experiments, AI today achieves high
results using machine learning and neural networks. AI systems can
quickly and accurately analyze large amounts of data.

2. The Importance of Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Life

AI is widely used in daily life. For example, voice assistants on
mobile phones, translation applications, facial recognition systems, and recommendation platforms all operate based on AI. These technologies ease human labor, save time, and provide convenience.

3. Artificial Intelligence in Education and the Economy

In education, AI serves to individualize the learning process.
AI-based platforms analyze students’ knowledge levels and provide
materials tailored to their needs. In the economy, AI automates
production processes, increases efficiency, reduces costs, and helps
make more precise business decisions.

4. Future Prospects of Artificial Intelligence

In the future, AI is expected to develop further and play a crucial
role in healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and many other
sectors. AI acts as a tool to enhance human potential and contribute
to societal development. At the same time, it is essential to use it
responsibly and wisely.

Conclusion

In conclusion, artificial intelligence is becoming an integral part of
modern society. It simplifies human activities, increases efficiency,
and creates new opportunities. Proper utilization of AI can contribute
to sustainable societal development.

References

1. Russell, S., & Norvig, P. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern
Approach. Pearson Education.
2. Official sources of the Republic of Uzbekistan on digital technologies.
3. Scientific articles and online resources related to artificial intelligence.

IN THE SHACKLES OF YOUR SILENCE 

Under your name, the night trembles within me.

In my chest, a bound flame moans.

Like a cold darkness, love stretches me upon its rack.

Your shadow drinks my breath.

My bones remember your touch.

Within me, centuries collapse without you.

Like spilled gold, my sorrow flows.

Your eyes — two abysses above my soil.

My heart bears the shackles of your silence.

My skin is a book of your wounds.

I have written you in my own blood.

I have carried you through my own ashes.

Into your voice, I placed my final peace.

And when I sink, your shadow will remain in me.

And when I fall silent, I will still long for you.

Milana Momčilović was born on April 4, 1999 in Vrbas. She currently lives in Srbobran, a place near Novi Sad in the Republic of Serbia.

She published the collection of poetry TALISMAN.

She doesn’t like to talk about herself, so in the end she can describe herself through the verses of Sergei Yesenin: “What am I?” Who am I? I’m just a dreamer, whose sight fades in the fog and mist, I lived along the way, who can dream, like many other people on that earth.”