Aim
There was a man named Nizam,
He killed 99 people and couldn't calm.
He felt ashamed and wanted forgiveness,
He treated it as a challenging race. He went to a Sadhu to get a way,
But Sadhu disappointed him and Nizam found no way.
Nizam killed the Sadhu as he was angered,
And had gone to another Sadhu with a view to his need.
Nizam had to go a place Sadhu said at last,
Nizam tried going fast.
But the angel of death came and Nizam died,
Can Nizam see the path of light?
Now a divine angel want to take Nizam's soul,
Whereas hell's angel said it was not the divine angel's role.
The head of angels came to give a solution,
Angel said measure Nizam's destination.
It was more than the middle point
The divine angel took Nizam's soul,
Nizam was got rid off for his aim and goal.
Beth Gulley’s poems draw us into nature’s continual motion and transformation.
Vernon Frazer’s pieces explode with color and sound, evoking the Big Bang, and Mark Young’s art presents ordered geographies of color and design.
In J.K. Durick’s poetry, we fly, fall, and lurch forward into the future. In Emina Delilovic-Krevic’s work, a young girl experiences the refreshing embrace of nature on a warm spring day, while Don Bormon evokes the rhythms of day and night and the renewal of sunshine in his cloud poetry.
Young writer Bahira Baxtiyorova urges us in an essay to go take action, achieve our dreams. Elmaya Jabbarova calls us to lives of hard work and integrity, along with celebrating her homeland of Azerbaijan and the exquisite emotions of romantic longing.
Christopher Bernard reviews Toshi and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s operatic dramatization of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a novel that explores how we can find and generate community and meaning in dystopian times. The young heroine creates a spiritual path that reveres change.
Death and the accompanying grief are also forms of and catalysts for transformation when we attempt to recover and heal.
Chris Butler’s nihilistic pieces offer humorous responses to death. Kendall Snipper reflects on how our bodies will ultimately decay, or transform, back into other aspects of nature.
Michael Lee Johnson’s poetic speakers are full of vibrant life and movement, yet acquiescence to their inevitable deaths.
Boronova Sevinch reflects on her grief over nearly losing her Mom.
Robiul Awal Esa presents a tale of death at the hands of human cruelty, which cannot be undone even with clever poetic (musical?) justice.
Stagnation, being unable to move beyond an unpleasant status quo, is another cause of grief.
Combat veteran and poet Steven Croft writes of memories stirred by Putin’s long war in Ukraine. His work shows how war ages people and can become more than we can handle psychologically. Bruce Roberts also speaks to the absurdity of armed conflict through rhyming pieces about the Russian invasion.
Pat Doyne comments on the tragedy of gun violence in the USA.
Ibn Yushau remembers a sister shunned by her family for her choice of husband.
Clive Gresswell conveys stuck-ness in the face of physical and political realities through surrealist stylized poems meant to evoke feelings.
Z.I. Mahmud explicates the social satire of Gulliver’s Travels, lampooning human foibles that have lasted centuries.
J.J. Campbell relates his discomfort at being faced with reality, whether from potential partners on dating sites or from silent medical office waiting rooms.
Ian Copestick gripes about sarcastic bus drivers who are unpleasant, and not open to the journey of life.
Others write about vague anxiety, alienation, or other psychological griefs. Change can be scary as well as a welcome relief.
Leslie Lisbona relates a new experience that wasn’t as good as she expected.
David Kopaska-Merkel tells a clever story about an alien who returns home to a parallel but very different family life, who is out of place in both worlds.
Jahnavi Gogoi’s poems probe grief and solace and various kinds of lostness and being found again.
Azemina Krehic contributes a poetic lament for an abandoned lover.
Mesfakus Salahin’s speakers pine away for lost love and search for spiritual communion in the desert.
Sarah Daly speaks to our grief and our human efforts to overcome life’s challenges and finds poetry in everyday matters, such as showers and punctuation.
Noah Berlatsky probes Generation X’s lostness, being caught between the past and the future, between nature and technology.
On the other hand, Steve Brisendine makes peace with memories, crafting dream sequences within Midwestern towns. Places become superimposed on each other, confused but not frightening, evoking the comfort of the past.
On another hopeful note, Peter Cherches’ poems tell stories about a man who tries to do good but gets everything wrong, yet it works out.
John Tustin asks us to consider what is important and what we should notice in our everyday lives (squirrels!), and speculates on what will become memorable.
Duane Vorhees brings a curiosity about our place in the universe to his poetry. Do we really know what we know, where do we belong in the world?
Channie Greenberg’s monthly set of photos shows towns situated within nature, belonging and growing together with the local flora and fauna in an ecosystem. Wazed Abdullah also celebrates country village life in his poem.
Ergash Masharipov relates how her loving mother inspires her to care for her future child, while Nozima Ulo’g’uva claims there is hope for the future thanks to the young and the mothers who raised them.
Turakhanova Mumtozbegim Bunyodjon highlights the young people creating the future of Uzbekistan through increased educational opportunities.
Some of this future is shown by academic research including Guzal Sunnatovaand Sohiba Rahmanova’s history of an Islamic shrine in Uzbekistan and Atajanova Ogultuwakh Makhsadowna’s exposition of Annimarie Schimmel’s scholarship on Islam that showed that women and girls were respected and important.
Other Uzbek writers advocate inclusion and justice. Makhsadowna also highlights women and girls’ active roles in modern Uzbekistan.
Elsewhere, in Bangladesh, Mahbub Alam describes his experience at a professional development retreat on learning how to teach foreign languages. Publishing this essay de-centralizes English, reminding readers that it’s by far not the world’s only language, and further highlights education for all ages as an avenue for personal growth and cultural interchange.
Flying
I remember flying
Learned it early
Somewhere between
Peter Pan and Superman
Sitting out on a windowsill
Overlooking Adsit Court
Legs dangling and then
I was off flying
The whole world in front
Of me, waiting for me
Up with the geese
And the gulls, as if there
Were no limits
No expiration date
On my flight
Soaring, zooming
Hovering, floating
I could be there or anywhere
I had the mind to be
Now I just remember flying.
It got away from me.
Free Fall
Sometimes running feels like falling.
perhaps like free falling
your feet barely touching down
as distance appears and disappears
under you
They told you that life was a marathon
and not a sprint
but they sprinted away while you sat
there tying your shoes
And now you are running alone
almost weightless
This is running, falling, free falling
without a parachute to snap open
to catch you when the ground leaps up
to show you – you’ve reached the end.
Getting Away
Time to walk away
Turn your back
A full 180 this time.
Pick up your pace.
There’s no rear-view
Mirror this time.
There are memories
That will go bump
Go thump in the night
But right now you’re
Moving away
Physically at first
Mentally sometime later.
But now you’re moving
Putting distance and time
Between you
And all those things –
the list seems too long
to go over ever again.
Those things you knew
You had to leave behind.
And now you’re
Alone out here
Without them.
J. K. Durick is a retired writing teacher and online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Black Coffee Review, Literary Yard, Sparks of Calliope, Synchronized Chaos, Madswirl, Journal of Expressive Writing, Lightwood, andHighland Park Poetry.
The hardest day
I was young then. The sky was full of stars, the yard was full of dust, the water was flowing from the ponds, it was as if the darkness of the sky was disturbing me. I was in sweet sleep; at one point, a sad, quiet sound was heard from under my ear. When I slowly opened my eyes, my mother was standing in front of me, pale as if she was afraid of something. It was already late. Outside, the dogs were barking and the wind was blowing.
My mother said in a sad voice: my daughter is not feeling well, my blood pressure is rising for some reason. I ignored my mother's words and continued to sleep. Even then, my poor mother would not wake me up, saying that she is tired, let my daughter sleep. When I wake up in the morning, our yard is dirty. Before, when I woke up, my mother would prepare breakfast and greet me with a sweet smile.
And I didn't ask anyone where my mother was, and I wasn't even interested. I wonder why I did that. If those times were to come back again, I would not smile even a step from my mother's side. Later I found out that my mother was in the hospital. Once I found out that my mother was in the hospital; I didn't hear from mom saying how are you? One day when we were sitting with my brothers, eadam came; They said, "Go, I will take you to your mother." We were very upset by what my father said. Even though my mother was in the hospital, my father became a mother instead of my mother.
They didn't say they were missing my mother and we went to the hospital. My mother was sleeping. There were many medicines on my mother's table. I started to get scared seeing these and said mother in a low voice. Then my mother opened her eyes and started stroking my head. "Mom, go, let's go home," I said, crying. At that moment, my mother closed her eyes and took her hands from my head. Then the doctors came and begged us to come out, and I said to my father; I asked if my mother would not return home.
My dad; They read that your mother will definitely come home and my daughter will cook sweet food for you. In my life, I thought that my mother will not come home anymore, she will not cook us sweet food, and every day I asked God to heal my mother. Even if I stood or walked, my mother would not leave my mind. The world seems dark to my eyes. Even my mother entered and exited my dreams.
One day when I came home from school, there were too many people in our house. I was scared to see them. It was as if my heart stopped, and when I ran into the house, my mother was in front of me; they said happy birthday my daughter. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was very happy to see my mother. Then I forgot that it was my birthday. After that day, I did not want to take a single step in front of my mother. These events were the hardest day of my life. I was very afraid of losing my mother. Mother means the closest friend, the best confidant. So let's protect our mothers. We should give them more love than before. Our mothers are our heaven.
Boronova Sevinch was born on November 4, 2006 in Dehkanabad district of Kashkadarya region. Currently, she is a student of the 1st stage of the Academic Lyceum of Karshi State University.
Sin
There was a singer named Tarashanker,
He wanted to treat singer as a 1st number.
One day a man came to him to compete against him,
The man was such a good singer Tarashanker seem.
To defeat the man,
Tarashanker hit upon a plan.
There was a jharbati where the man sit,
To untite the jharbati a man was fix.
By untiting Tarashanker killed the man,
Tarashanker said the people he stopped the accident as long as he can.
The man's wife wanted to God the justice,
The man's son's start singing practice.
God has came to the earth as a stranger,
God has become the man's son's singing teacher.
God made the boy a good singer,
The boy went to Tarashanker and raise his finger.
Tarashanker wanted to the boy removal,
The boy through a singing proposal.
But there was a deal,
He who can defeat ,will give poison and kill.
Tarashanker listened the boy,
Listening the boy, he lost his joy.
Now the cruel man again did that as he did with the man,
But God (stranger) unsuccessful all his plan.
The boy became winner,
He gave the poison to the sinner.
God gave them justice,
By understanding God's justice they pray and practice.
Robiul Awal Esa is a 1st year student of Diploma in Nursing Science & Midwifery Course in Government Nursing Institue, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.
+
Soothes
the
LOVE of Experience
Lifts from the start
Continuity is Always Beginning
I See Something Good
& there was good
Nothing Wasted My LOVE
♡ Well along I see ♡
Continuity always Beginning
Soothed my presence LOVE
Gifts await the Star
in the sky
☆
...
by John Edward Culp
April 24, 2023
