Priceless mother
I will spread in your bosom
You are my inspiration
I dance like a nightingale

Mother without a wide world
If so it's optional
If possible
I was taking him to Hajj

YOUNG AMERICANS

They’re cherubs compared to me
and their eyes are ten times as bright.
They can hold an audience
while I’m merely walk by alone.
And see where the sunlight falls.
Not on me. On them.

They’ve a lot of life ahead of them
and a big space to live it in.
They’re seeds and I’ve been reaped.
They’re nimble and look at me –
as sluggish as a terrestrial gastropod mollusk.

Their hair can be tousled but never hostile.
And for all their pulled faces,
they can’t quite disguise themselves.
They wear their colors large – red, white, blue.
I go about in shrunken hues.

They worship laughter.
They’re known to sob.
And the losses, no doubt, have started.
But they have years before 
deaths and heartbreaks
take on an accumulative effect.

They’ll be me someday.
They know it but they don’t feel it.
For they don’t waste their feelings.
They know better than to use me
as an example.



ANNOYANCES

A dangerous curve 
black and gleaming with oncoming cars,
a leaf daubed in late season snow,
that common quick embrace and parting 
seen on many a sidewalk –
an earth unfit for babies,
an afterword disguised as breath,
aging, that damnable hourglass,
	and ambition, yours, mine 
	and everybody else’s –
	the lack of a comics section
	in the New York Times,
	and, among my grieving,
	the death of certain trees –
people who won’t leave me alone,
burnt-out bulbs, anguish,
the disorderly dissolution of a life,
someone looking at me 
as if they already know what I’m about to tell them –
	anything that’s tissue-thin,
	or comes in a white box,
	or is a device whose purpose 
	is not immediately clear –
scraping fingernails,
wills that leave me nothing,
all of the useless things
that are so cheap and plentiful,
a handful of dirt versus an abstract painting –
	the agony of denial,
	the diffidence of guilt,
	diaphanous desire.
	drinking to the health of the dead,
	dripping taps
	and everything else that reminds me of time
the necessity of ingratitude,
the constant exodus of old friends,
the vacuity of famous people,
anticipation that’s derailed by bad weather –
	the inability to discern
	the constellations
	inventions that I get no credit for,
	worst of all, the comforts of anxiety –      
signing off – not annoyance –
I really am signing off.


NEWBORN SON						

On a moonless March night, a man was pumping 
a handcar through dairy country, inspecting the
line between Eumundi and Cooroy. He’d been
a cane cutter and a sawmill worker, served in 
the Air Force with the 2nd Airfield Construction Squadron.
And now he was a railway ganger, carrying 
out his duties in a world of invisible fences and fields,
a man who liked a beer, fishing, and a flutter on the races,
had many friends, a young wife, three daughters
and a newborn son. And a newborn son. A newborn son.

Unknown to the man, a station hand waved a banking engine
through, down that track toward the man who didn’t see
it coming until it was too late. The man was killed.
He was 35. And that was it. Poof. Nothing. A couple
of faded snapshots. One professionally done photograph
of the man, his wife, the three daughters. It was taken
before the son was born. He’s in uniform. The women
wear simple dresses. The family is not wealthy. 
They live in a rented house provided by the railway.
The picture is undated but roughly three years before
the son is born. The newborn son. The newborn son.
Six months old when the man is buried in the local cemetery.

There’s little left of the man’s story. The ones who would
know are all gone. The wife is dead. The daughters have
passed away. The son, no longer newborn, is left with
that photo, a clipping and nothing else. The son writes.
Ghost stories sometimes but the biggest ghost of them all
is never mentioned. There’s no connection. The man
can’t even haunt. And the son never felt his absence 
because he never knew his presence. He was born 
into all he knew as normal. At a point where his recollection
begins, he is telling people, “I have no father.”
Curiosity creeps up on him but not sadness.  
By the time he’s old enough to understand,
the wife doesn’t mention the man. She’s moved to 
the city. She’s worked a series of low paying jobs to provide
for four children. The son is happy enough. 
He’s no longer newborn. No longer a newborn son.




NEWBORN SON				

Family is just what you get, he figures. If there’s no man,
then there’s no man. If no one teaches you to hammer 
a nail or fish or drive a car, then there’s always poetry. 
And there’s these four women in his life, all older,
the daughters more like mothers to him than sisters.
People say he looks like his mother. No one mentions any likeness
to the man. Years pass, years when his name is never brought up
the once. The daughters marry, move out. The son travels.
He too marries. New generations put the man in his place,
a place so deep in the murk of family history, he can never be found.
And if there’s a man at all, it’s now that son. In fact, it has
been for such a long time. Ever since he was newborn. Newborn.
He’s all that’s left of the household he was born into.
He has no children, no newborn of his own. 
He sits in his study, his home thousands of miles from 
where he was born. He tells himself now it’s time to write
a poem, the poem, about his father. But there’s no way into
the man. The facts are old and they’re dry. So he writes of himself
instead. The newborn son. The newborn son. The newborn son.
But born to who? 

  
TO ALL THOSE IN OUR ESTIMATION

Hear this,
when it’s dark out, we start blessing people,
crossing over the river on a dimly-lit bridge,
or looking out a window at where street-lamps cannot reach,
hungry or just having eaten,
saying thank you to a Stop sign,
or running water in the sink.

After the unexpected deaths,
the dour hospital visits,
the cancerous news on the telephone,
we owe something to the living,
pass it on silently,
as the road narrows
or the plates sparkle as they dry.

Watching TV,
we leave spaces in our concentration.
Crawling into bed,
we don’t sleep without remembering.
Even in our dreams,
when the subconscious scrambles
people and lives,
we beg them stay there,
do what they do,
we need them.  

Hear this,
there’s nothing to hear,
not with the sheet up to our throats,
and the blanket spreading over us,
just a quiet we go on with, 
just a quiet that holds them here. 



FROM MY VANTAGE POINT

In the dark, you have no hands.
No shield. 
Not even eyes.
You’re a funeral procession
in all but breath.

At the same time,
I am the hammers in my head.
The day’s exchanges.
The rampaging bison in my memory.
And, as always,
the staccato drumming of my heart.

This is what we must make sense of.
This is what we’re dealing with
when we lay ourselves down to sleep.


John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Sheepshead Review. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and California Quarterly.

Either

When you get
to my age,
and you've been
seriously ill a few
times.

Naturally, you
begin wondering
what's next.

Is there anything
afterwards ?

Thinking about it,
it's either the start
of a whole new
adventure.

Or it's endless
sleep.

I can look forward
to either.

Depending on
how I feel. 

MY FATHER 
(This has been dedicated to my loving dad RAMJAN ALI) 

Father, you're my guiding light, 
An example of love shining bright. 
In tough times, you lend a hand, 
Teacher, mentor, a steady stand. 

Your laughter, wisdom, a melody sweet, 
A father's love, forever complete. 
Dad, I love you, always near, 
With a heart full of love, forever dear.




MY MOTHER 
(This has been dedicated to my mom JANNAT ARA) 

In mother's lap, safe and sound, 
A strongest love, that knows no bound. 
Her gentle words, like melodies, 
Bring comfort, joy, and sweetest ease. 

Through highs and lows, she's always there, 
A constant love, beyond compare. 
In her embrace, I find my worth, 
A mother's love, the dearest on Earth. 

Forever grateful, my heart does say, 
Thank you, Mom, for lighting my way. 
I will be grateful of you forever "AMMU".

Wazed Abdullah is a student of grade 8 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

Men’s Role in Society Gender Equality

Gender roles come about through people’s interactions with each other which give people insights on the proper behavior for each sex. And as per the social convictions on gendered traits, roles are established. Gender roles are influenced by social beliefs and generalizations that have been used for centuries.

Similar to the title of tomboy, there are other gender categories: gender-fluid omnigender and bigender. Genders are roles, not clear -cut categories.

For example today, both men’s roles and women’s roles are quite important in our society. Men are seen as suited for leadership roles such as bosses, political figures and community and religious leaders. In personal relationships, holding influence over women and other men is seem as sign of masculinity.

A distinct code of manhood has not only been part of nearly every society on earth, whether agricultural or urban, premodern or advanced, patriarchal or relatively egalitarian, these codes invariably contain the same three imperatives: a male who aspires to be a man must protect, procreate and provide.

The human heart is one of the most vital organs in charge of maintaining life. It is a four chambered muscular organ. Men are the family’s liaison to the world that exists outside of the family’s immediate environment.  As a result, they offer very valuable life lessons on how one should navigate the world that exists outside of one’s home. For example, the world of business and politics.

Our sons need fathers. Men are heroes !!!

By Bakhora Bakhtiyorova Asliddin daughter.

GOOD MORNING ZAGREB

Zagreb is the most beautiful city
you stay young with him in your heart
in it is my dream
I live in it every day

That is my only Zagreb
my white beloved city
I live in it
I live his beauty

I sing in it because I'm happy
the only thing i know
my Zagreb is the most beautiful city
I have your work in my heart...

==

Borna Kekić was born in Zagreb, graduated from high school of economics. He started playing music as a boy in the Zagreb Children's Choir. He started playing rap music in the 7th grade of elementary school and it remains with him to this day, and he has gone through various forms of playing this type of music. He writes his own texts, creates his own music, and in the high school of economics, in the field of marketing and entrepreneurship, he was encouraged to take up additional activities, so that, in addition to being in the studio, he is currently also recording videos. He got to know poets through music and that encouraged him to express his feelings in this way as well.

Wildfires

We’ve all seen forest fires in movies

and on the evening news. Whole states

or provinces seem to catch fire and

burn on and on. Acres and acres going

up, animals scurrying away, people trying

to drive around, get away, and houses and

businesses gone in no time. Witnesses

always talk about the roar of the fire as

it turns the world around them into ash.

Didn’t Prometheus give us fire for this?

So it’s not just sloppy gods fooling with

us – an angry god full of lightning and

sorrow, or some redneck god flicking his

cigarette butt out of his chariot or not

putting out his sacrificial fire. No, now

we get to participate in all this fiery stuff

cigarette butts and campfires, and just

burning off the grass to get our season

going. This is the stuff of legends playing

out all around us. We cause ’em and then

get to put them out – from villain to hero

in a month of wildfires. Breathe in deeply

miles away and you know it’s there, filling

the air, this very real nightmare.


           Change in Climate

What does it mean when the weather

Becomes front page stuff and evening

News shows lead with it? All of a sudden

Politics and the economy and all wars

Take a backseat to what’s happening all

Around us, to us. Local news gives us

The full array of coverage – film of what’s

Happening, rivers raging, streets flooded

Tops of cars barely sticking out of water

Near to us, then there are reporters out

There becoming eye witnesses and then

Interviewing officials and folks flooded

Out of their homes, and of course there’s

The weather people giving us maps and

And statistics, how deep and for how long.

All of it seems unreal, Twilight Zone-ish –

Our familiar world turning upside down.

And we ask, what does it all mean? But

The answer has been with us for a while.

It means we’re not as safe as we thought.

It means there are consequences of our

Actions. We heard global warming and best

We could do was debate along political lines.

We heard about climate change and assumed

That later generations would have to worry.

We never thought it would be front page stuff

Or lead on TV news. We quietly assumed it

Would take care of itself.


           There From Here

“Road closed” and all of a sudden

That old one about not getting

There from here becomes new.

A sign goes up, a rope stretches

Across, sometimes they leave a guy

There to warn us. The TV or radio

Announces it, road or street closed

And advises us to avoid it. It’s hard

To imagine the gap or landslide or

Whatever that makes them close

It. The late news will give us scenes

Of the destruction – a gap where

That culvert washed out or that

Bridge that we crossed so often is

Now gone. A reporter will be there

In the hole or alongside the gap

With rushing water behind them as

They tell us the story of the closing.

The road we knew for so long is no

Longer part of our getting home or

To work. People on either side of

The gap wave to each other, take

Pictures and wonder aloud about

How and when they will get there

From here. We’ll talk bravely about

This after the road crews do their

Thing and fix the way for us, but

Right now the road is closed and

We must find another way to get

Wherever we think we are going.