The Futility of Protesting Near Bustling Cemeteries

(For the Most Important Person in My Life, My Son Ahmad)


Preamble:
Take my spirit for your shirt
And use my heart’s arteries for shoelaces.

Poem

My spirit patched with raw dreams,
My soft body blemished by war’s scars,
My heart crushed and crunched like
Leaves under foot—
These are the sole signs of my existence
In a room that awaits a hurricane
That dreams of unleashing its gales.

My son,
Let me say tonight,
Objectively,
That I can’t do anything more.

2
What happens,
Happens all the time.
What doesn’t happen,
Never happens,
But we always paint a comely face
On life’s hideous visage.

Translated by William M. Hutchins

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 language. She is the Pulitzer Prize Nomination 2018, PushCart Prize Nomination 2019.
Member of International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020, Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021) One of the Women of Excellence selection committees 2023
Winner of women the arts award 2023
Member of Whos’ Who in America 2023
SAHITTO AWARD, JUDGING PANEL 2023
Cultural Ambassador - Iraq, USA
Email : d.fh88@yahoo.com

Ghost I Am (V2)

Here is a private hut

staring at me,

twigs & branches

over the top—

naked & alone.

I respond to an old 60s doo-wop

song:  In the Still of the Night

Fred Parris and The Satins.

Storms are written in narratives,

old ears closed to a full hearing.

I’m but a shelter cringing.

In age, nightmare pre-warned redemption.

Let’s call it the Jesus factor,

not LGBT symbols in Biden’s world.

I lost my way close to the end.

Here is this shelter in heaven

poetry imagined spaces

prematurely still not all the words fit,

in childhood in abuse

lack of reason for bruises

rough hills, carp that didn’t bite,

and Schwinn bike rides

flat tires, chains fall off, spokes collapse—

this thunder, those storms.

Find me a thumbnail

image of myself in centuries of dust.

Stand weakened by nature

of change glossed over, sealed.

Archives.

Old men, like a luxurious battery,

die hard, but with years, they

too, fade away.

California Summer (V2)

Coastal warm breeze

off Santa Monica, California

the sun turns salt

shaker upside down 

and it rains white smog, a humid mist.

No thunder, no lightening,

nothing else to do

except for sashay 

forward into liquid

and swim

into eternal days

like this.

Four Leaf Clover (V5)

I found your life smiling

inside a four-leaf clover.

Here you hibernate in sin.

You were dancing in the orange fields of the sun.

You lock into your history, your past, withdrawal,

taste honeycomb, then cow salt lick.

All your life, you have danced in your soft shoes.

Find free lottery tickets in the pockets of poor men and strangers.

Numbers rhyme like winners, but they are just losers.

Positive numbers tug like gray blankets, poor horses coming in 1st.

Private angry walls; desperate is the night.

You control intellect, josser men.

You take them in, push them out,

circle them with silliness.

Everything turns indigo blue in grief.

I hear your voice, fragmented words in thunder.

An actress buried in degrees of lousy weather and blindness.

I leave you alone, wander the prairie path by myself.

Pray for wildflowers, the simple types. No one cares.

Purple colors, false colors, hibiscus on guard,

lilacs are freedom seekers, now no howls in death.

You are the cookie crumble of my dreams.

Three marriages in the past.

I hear you knocking my walls down, heaven stars creating dreams.

Once beautiful in the rainbow sun, my face, even snow

now cast in banners, blank, fire, and flames.

I cycle a self-absorbed nest of words.

Casket of Love (V3)

This moon, clinging to a cloudless sky,

offers the light by which we love.

In this park, grass knees high, tickling bare feet,

offers the place we pass pleasant smiles.

Sir Winston Churchill would have

saluted the stately manner this fog lifts,

marching in time across this pond

layering its ghostly body over us

cuddled by the water’s edge,

as if we are burdened by this sealed

casket called love.

Frogs in the marsh, crickets beneath the crocuses

trumpet the last farewell.

A flock of Canadian geese flies overhead

in military V formation.

Yet how lively your lips tremble

against my skin in a manner no

sane soldier dare deny.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 295 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for six Pushcart Prize awards, and six Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of three poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 453 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.  Remember to consider me for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination!

Abdujabborova Diyorabonu Oblokhlovna

Today’s woman’s role in society

Honoring a woman and showing respect to her is one of the noble characteristics of the Uzbek people. In this sense, a lot of work is being done in Uzbekistan to strengthen the place and position of women in society. The President of our country highly appreciates the place and role of women in society, protects their rights and interests, creates the necessary conditions for our women to become knowledgeable, modern specialists, qualified professionals, and build healthy and strong families.

First of all, the birth of a healthy child and its upbringing, the protection of mothers’ and children’s health is the most important task in the constant attention of our state and society. A woman’s role in the family and in our modern developing society is extremely important. Isn’t it in the hands of us women to bring up children, make them mature, and educate young people who will contribute to the development of our country, so that every boy and girl can find their own way in the future? In fact, at present, bringing out the potential of women in our society, strengthening their role in raising a mature generation, and ensuring their active participation in our comprehensive reforms has become one of the priority directions of our state’s policy.

The basis of our life, the vision and the future of our nation will be women. Today, with her mind, knowledge and talent, hard work and enthusiasm, she shakes up the decisive areas of life – whether it is family management, state and community management, medicine, education, culture and science development. Whether it is farming activity or small business entrepreneurship, women have been performing such complex tasks effectively. Today’s woman’s knowledge, talent, intelligence, creativity and creativity are surprising the world once again.

in Boyovut district of Sirdarya region

 13th general secondary school

 Promoter of Creative Cultural Issues

“Closet”

There is nothing

On the other side

We both know this

I am just a figment of

Their imagination

And they are mine

When they knock on the door

I pretend I cannot hear it

They walk around in the blackness

And I walk in the sun

I meet a girl at school

She tells me she remembers

What the darkness feels like

I tell her I do not

I have only ever been in

The Sun

We are friends in a way

That I have never been 

Friends before

Mom tells me that

Girls are not supposed 

To be friends like this

I tell her it feels natural

My Sun fades and

My world grows a little

Darker

I tell my Mom that

My world is dim

She tells me that

Everyone’s world is dim

I don’t want to believe her

I want to show her

The door in my room

That closes off the dark

She does not follow me there

I stand in front of the door

And I feel the girl stand beside me

I reach for the handle and

The Sun in my room flickers

The door swings open and

I see myself

He is scared and he is young

And he is me

My Sun flickers out.

———————–

EVENING’S TIDE

The broad beach has disappeared
	beneath the rising tide
Faint rose tints the scattering
	clouds of this sunset

& as blackness settles
	with the song of some
		night bird, frogs & a gecko
the fiercer waves climb the steps
	of the long-gone promenade
		leaping, splashing
against that rubble
	white rip currents pulling
		into the high ocean

& the lights of distant villages
	speckle the far horizon



 
LEAVING BEHIND

I leave behind
	mothers bathing their
	naked daughters
in a growing tidal pool

& follow a narrowing path
	through mangrove brambles
	escaping far from people

I sit on this deserted beach
	the porpoise-colored sea
	rolling its rising tide
	against the black rock …

shaking off troubling thoughts
	to be captured
	by this surf,
	washed far, far away

& my Spirit takes wing
	like that piquero
	soaring over the waters
	swooping & diving …

to be like that sea
	lion pup, playfully
	plunging beneath, bobbing
	with each roll of this sea



 
TOWARDS THE RIVER PLATE
(Montevideo)
 
Paper & leaves scuttle down cavernous Saturday streets, 
few souls out in these depths.
A woman holds the reins of a horse-drawn cart,
her children staring into the closing morn.
Limp bags of cardboard & bottles hang off the sides.
 
Along Sarandi Street, artisan stalls of puppets,
stones & carved gourds, honey & fruit preserves 
in the cool shade of worn buildings.
A silver-haired man plays violin, 
his sightless eyes closed.
Case open at his feet, scattered with coins.
 
Suddenly the rhythm of drums echoes up this way
from the Plaza Constitución.
Three boys with blue & yellow tambores,
a friend with hat in hand, 
followed by a policeman herding them away
from the antique sellers beneath trees,
away from the couples dancing folklore, 
gaucho & tango in front of the cabildo,
away from the diners in sidewalk cafés.
 
Up the calle along the Central Market & Mundo Afro,
beats of a comparsa resonate       resonate.
Dark hands caress the skins while the other
grips a stick rapping       rapping, 
painted stars bobbing on the red & black drums.
 
Beyond, the River Plate flows,
bands of muddy brown, dull green, 
tarnished blue in the past-noon sun.
Down along the Rambla,
men sit sipping mate, 
thermos tucked under arm.
Families swim along the sparse-sand beach, 
bask upon wave-smooth rocks.
 
Up on the Cubo del Sur,
children pose upon a rusted cannon 
for papá's photo.
A man slits the silvered belly of a fish.
Long black rod in hand,
white cap shading his eyes & balding head, 
he baits his line.
 
& far on the horizon,
in the haze of sun & sea,
slow ships steam to other ports.

Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose writings appear in over 400 journals on six continents, and 23 collections – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and thrice nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or http://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com. 

You You Yes

Be enough for myself
Incomplete without her
Enough for her
And in the unknown

They sometimes call it a miracle
The metamorphosis of yours
And the buzz of a bee can't distinguish
From the silence of the hornet
I'm not at the loss site
From the cross to the cross

You turn around your axis
You are somewhere
Close

On my way to Katanga
Still to come
And you exist.

Slavica Pejović is a B.Sc. Political scientist, diplomat, writer, poet, editor-in-chief of the magazine for culture and science "Majdan". She wrote three documentary books on the history of librarianship, 13 independent collections of poetry and two joint collections. Winner of numerous awards and recognitions in Serbia, Tunisia, Romania, Italy... Her poetry has been translated into many languages: Hungarian, German, Italian, Arabic, Macedonian, Russian, Bulgarian,... French, Spanish. .. She is a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia. She lives in the city of Požarevac in the Republic of Serbia.

                 

Interior 64. Chris Kelly

We love to map our lives on geometry. Work is a grid of many discrete boxes. Play is the tangent refreshing the unpredictable impulse. Romance is a Venn diagram where overlap turbocharges the heart. Friendship plots to X and Y where the point of intersection undulates in the great sine curve of closeness. Aging is an arc bending towards infinity. Fibonacci numbers shape our thoughts into graceful proportions, an echo chamber of golden ratios. The fractals of enthusiasm bump against the paisley of tenderness. Euclid and Pythagoras made the body Earth’s measure, and Nature harmonizes our internal geometry.

####

Kathleen Hulser is a poet, writer and public historian who lives in the Bronx and Connecticut, and has participated in many public art projects and activist groups as well as curating history exhibitions such as Slavery in New York and Petropolis: Urban Animal Companions.