Work Anxiety In the Lake District

First orders come from

above through murder holes

drilled into the floor where

the main bar sinks overflow

and the slop sinks leak.

The waitress is sleeping,

head down on the invisible

cellar bar while a rush of

patrons arrive, walking single

file down misaligned stairs,

chanting verses from a Pink Floyd

song, shouting out orders as they

pass into the well-lighted, unfinished

basement lounge. Second orders

come over the bar from everywhere

at once but all the bottle are

somewhere else, up flights of stairs

others are using, all the taps open

and free flowing but the glassware

is inaccessible in too tall, overhead

racks, in too low cabinets you have to

lie down next to in order to retrieve

what lies within, reaching hands

scraped and bleeding on rough hewn

wooden shelves, on the chipped and

broken glass, still more orders come

and there is no room to move,

the basement ceiling pressing down,

more murder holes being drilled,

delivering last orders from above.

Bleeding: a work anxiety dream

Finally dozing after being unable

to sleep. Anxiety dreams, immediate and intense.

No longer do they focus on undergrad

academic failure, flunking out, the unknowable end.

The end in those college days meant

a place like Vietnam.  Oddly, no anxiety

dreams of grad school, though the workload

was twice as bad, no sleep then, between

classes, assignments, working a late night

job. No sleep, then, for years; living on

beer, empty gas tank fumes and beer.

The anxious dream centers on the work-

place, introduces a wound, a glass cut

to the bone, blood in the ice.  No one

cares. It’s all about the bleeding self

carrying on, working, tending bar

one handed for ten hours without a break.

Everyone who sees the wound says

it needs stitches.  Lots of stitches.

The bleeding wouldn’t stop, the stained bar rag

slipping, hanging loose around the wrist.  

But there I am, building cocktails with my right hand,

deliberate, but carrying on, all fluidity lost

for the duration. No one cares how I feel,

if the wound is dealt with or not.

No one cares how I am unless the drinks

are tainted.

Abu Ghraib: a  work anxiety dream

That one where you are

transported to one of those

torture chamber prisons in Iraq

where they apply hoods with

no eye slits and strap you into

stress positions and play

repetitive bass line music/ noise

punctuated by a kind of bell so that

you feel as if you are only half-

conscious/passing out and a voice

accompanies the noise chanting

in a foreign language you think of

as Urban, not one recognizable as

an actual tongue but something

like one, endlessly repeating spat out

hate infused syllables so you plead,

“I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything.”

But they don’t want you to talk.

They want you to suffer.

  Sleeper Awake: a work anxiety dream

I wake up in my dream though

I know I am still asleep.

I’m late for work even though

this isn’t time for my shift.

They must have called me in to open

the day after a night I closed.

This used to happen quite often

at The Rib when Linda was working

as she didn’t know where the bottles

went.  So I’m getting dressed and

it begins to feel like the Dali dream

sequence in “Spellbound” inside

the bar I have been transported to.

And then it is raining while I’m rushing

to the bus stop and my umbrella is

full of holes but I’m moving backward

instead of forward and I’m going to be

really late and wet which also used

to happen all the time at The Rib

as traffic was so bad I could never

cross Route 5 . But I’m not working

at The Rib anymore, even in the dream,

it’s The Tavern and one of the college

kids is already setting the place up,

so what did they need me for?

And he’s taking rolls of quarters,

like a hundred of them from some guy

off the street and giving him all

our big bills and the owner’s daughter

is cashing checks, so there is no cash

money at all in the drawer, just change,

more change than you could use in

a month but break a twenty? Forget it.

And the college guy is looking at me

like it’s all my fault and like, what good

was I anyway? I’m like way too old to be

working in a bar. So I perform a couple

of drink making, sleight-of-hand tricks

and he’s like Spellbound and I’m back

in that dream again, though it seems more

and more like that black and white flick,

“Kafka” and then the Welles noir, “The Trial,”

and I finally realize the only reason that I’m

   there at all is someone has to get shot in the end.

Half-Tone Beckett in Bar Light:

A Work Anxiety Poem

They went down to the cellar

with flashlights and returned,

filthy, bedraggled as hounds

left in the rain to wallow in

offal and mud.

They decamped, mid-bar on stools,

that scraped the foot scuffed floors

amid the remains of a night of

serious drinking.

Seen from afar, well above the bar,

light is refracted through green

bar bottle glass like shards of

misspent lives, dissembled as

hobo Hoover towns like hoarse

voiced village criers delivering

messages no one wants to hear

around camp fires in 50 gallon

drums.

All the garbage of their lives

amount to nothing more than

left-behind stogie stumps and

cigarette end prophecies that mean

nothing in harsh pre-dawn haze

waiting for what the new day brings.

Work Anxiety Dream: Stalker

After hours, lights down in the bar,

chair legs facing up on the tables,

only the EXIT lights glowing,

the click of the sound turned down jukebox

playing songs, no one can hear,

random compressors kicking on,

shutting off, the ice machine dumping

a new load of cubes on the mounds

in the deep freeze…

Down the worn thin, unevenly spaced

stairs, into the low ceiling cellar where

the walk-in coolers full of beer are,

the leaking pipes, frayed electrical

wires, the single too-low wattage bulbs

on pull chains are and the wooden, sagging

shelves packed with bar supplies,

used guest checks, register tapes and

the overwhelming smell of sewage,

the creeping damp from the cobblestone

floor, the standing water the sump pumps

can’t contain, where the footsteps not

your own follow yours in a hard-to-focus

gloom, each deep breath feeling like

the next to last one, as we move from one

shadow place to the next, opening long

forgotten doors into closets, new found

rooms that lead to other worlds, darker

places where the walls sweat and the all

in black man behind me raises his arm

holding the long wide bladed knife

as if to strike as another door opens

and a new phase of this hide and seek game

for keeps, begins.

Phantasmagoria (Looking for the Moon)

The diviner had said the moon was entering some special phase full of promise and prowess. The cat was sleeping at home. I went to the coffee shop. The man sitting in front of me was staring at the counter workers and I could sense he was not a good man. I was happy when he left. The other man must have been a gemini as he talked all day and night to many souls. If nobody was there he waited, patiently, like a cat can wait, or as still as the moon, even his eyes hardly moving, like some kind of advanced meditator. Outside I heard the air brakes of a bus or truck. Going out there, it began to rain.

What a strange and peculiar day,- the autumnal air arriving, capricious weather,- it getting sunny then cloudy then warm then cold all at fast turns. I went back home for past the electric bikes and scooters, and a picnic bench missing one side bench yet somehow still looking anyhow, structurally sound. I drew a picture of the mountains that had clouds, birds, and a house and horse and cart plus some trees in the foreground. A large red sun was setting behind it all. Not long after I fell to sleep and dreamt I had a class to attend but didn’t make it for being distracted by two women fighting, a group of leaves lit by nocturnal electric lights, a talk with a kind woman, and not being able to find a parking spot. I awoke and felt cool air from the twirling fan and the window open. I went downstairs to drink a glass of water and look out the window for the moon but can’t remember if I ever did find it. 

Relentless Beauty

On this relentless

Occasion, out

Of a white fog,

No discernible horizon

Anywhere, a ubiquitous

Bliss is this simple:

Snow falls all day,

Into dusk, into night,

Snow arrives, descends

Until it doesn’t.

Snow heaps upon,

Clings to, every branch,

Birch and pine alike,

Every brittle, abiding 

Leaf, and needle,

Curved to a burden,

A clerestory tracery,

A soaring vaulting,

A crystalline nave (This occasion, more

Rare than Rome,

The Villa Borghese,

First stanza to the left,

Bernini’s pale Daphne, 

Delicate, marble fingertips

Turning to laurel

,Leafing in her flight).

Bliss is simply this:

Snow on the apple

Limbs, easily prolific

Blossoms in May.

I long to recall

This relentless beauty

Again and again,

Return to this vision

From time to time,

A salve for absurdity

(Relentless frailty),

Assuaging the ugly

Bedlam of humanity,

This occasion for bliss.

Resilience

Remnants of the hurricane

(I forgot its given name),

Incidental Atlantic fragments,

Rent half the tree, splintered

All usual assumptions,

Filled the driveway with carnage

–I could not escape – foliage,

Abandoned nests, brittle, broken,

Misplaced arms and legs,

Sheared at the joints.

Certainly, I’m not indifferent.I didn’t hear, didn’t notice

The spectacular slaughter,

No sounds at all while

I pursued my routine.

Instead, from my recliner,

I watched the wind tug

At a spider’s web, modest

Basilica, architectural marvel,

Moored in the window niche.

I admired the resilience,

Stronger than the wooden giant,

The white, woven silk,

Easily erased, no trace,

With a flick of my broom.

I’d cut the bough in convenient

Slices, for firewood, for flame,

But my saw was getting fitted

With a new set of teeth.

The body will lie there 

Until next week, naked

Corpse in the street.

After several more storms,

The web remains steadfast,

And the tree begins its decay.

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Change of seasons 

Mardonova Marjona Muhsin kizi 

Student of Polytechnic No. 1 

Tel number: 998-94-326-58-50 

Annals: 

Each person has their own favorite season. For example, my favorite season is autumn. Some people choose spring or winter, summer. Psychologists say that a person’s character chooses these seasons. Each season has its own charm and beauty, we see this beauty every 3 months because at that time the seasons change. During the change of seasons, weather changes can be a little difficult for a person, but you need to enjoy these processes, see and feel them. The change of 4 seasons during the year directly causes astronomical phenomena. For example: the movement of the earth around the sun, the tilt of the earth’s axis is one of the main factors. These four seasons bring about different phenomena. 

Keywords: 

Nature, change of seasons, years, weather, people, astronomical, earth’s axis, beauty, lush green, similarity. 

Introduction: 

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, these seasons that show everyone’s character, there is a season that shows my character too, this season is autumn. I like autumn because autumn reflects the happy and sad states of people. Autumn attracts with its golden leaves. Autumn neither expresses happy nor sad moments. The weather in autumn is changeable, cloudy, rainy, sunny, and sometimes even cloudy. There is another season that is similar to autumn, this is spring. In spring, the same events occur as in autumn. Spring is the opposite of autumn, while autumn shows joy and sadness, while spring often shows joyful times. Spring is the favorite season of many people. The reawakening of trees in spring makes people feel as if they are full of strength and energy. 

Main part: 

At the beginning of my speech, I talked about two seasons that are similar to each other. Now, after spring, we will talk about the season that brings with it heat and heat. After these words, it will be clear which season is coming, it is summer. In the heat and heat of summer, most people go to the mountains and fields to relax. Because only there can they enjoy the cool heat of summer. Another season that gives the opposite of summer is winter. If it gives bitter cold in winter, it gives hot heat in summer. Winter is also a very beautiful season. Winter has its own special charm. It is a great joy to see the trees turn a white, miraculous color in winter. 

Conclusion: 

Each season has its own special recipes. You just need to see these four seasons appear one after another and enjoy them. All these words are the miraculous change of seasons in the weather. 

References: 

1. Erkin Vohidov – Spring has come, questioning you. 

2. Zulfiya – Summer rain. 

3. Gafur Ghulom – Spring.

The Valence Of Cynicism

                    (I)

With money, 

love from people comes around

People’s interest towards you abound

They want relationship with you

Their interest is hidden from your view

Some want  you to have intimacy with them

Their ‘want-back-in return’ you won’t condemn

When they are satisfied with they want,

they say outside your hearing what you are not.

You want to show altruism

But they depict Cynicism.

       (Ii)

Diogenes was a character of transparency

His mannerism was void of hypocrisy

The truth was exposing the lies of culture of humanity

Ancient Greek had its elitism off the reality

Living by the idea was an evidence

He gave the ideology of Cynicism a substance

The ancient Greek elite kept his activities in private 

 Diogenes’ lifestyle of copulation and defecation in public exposed his mate.

The double-standard culture was typical among the elites.

Diogenes’ idea of Cynicism  unveiled the truth the less-considered minorities.

Iii)

Politicians are seen as great tools for change

But are concerned from what they to gain  the meagre wage

Politicians unveils to their subjects  what they want to hear

But ensure they utterly steer clear

Politicians encourage the use of vaccine shots

But they immune themselves from the faults.

Politicians appear to be selfless in service

But are really spineless-to the people in terms of importance

Politicians assure people change is on the way

But eventually leave them in dismay

Epigraph for “Rose Window”

Recursion in programming is a process where a function (a block of code that performs a specific task) calls itself repeatedly until a specific condition, called the base case (a condition that stops the function from calling itself), is met. Each cycle processes a smaller part of the whole, gradually reducing the problem until nothing
remains. In “Rose Window”, recursion is a chilling metaphor for systematic loss, where each recursive call represents the erasure of a child, a home, or a memory.

Programming keywords in the poem that mirror this technical process:
 • length checks the number of remaining children, symbolising how many lives are left to count.
 • shift() removes the first child from the array, representing lives taken in sequence.
 • delete() is used to erase a child’s name from the “ledger of the living”, signifying the total erasure of existence.
 • return halts the process when the list is empty, reflecting the grim end when no one is left to remember.

Rose Window
“and the cherries, blackberries, raspberries
avocados and carrots are a rose window” – Alicia Suskin

The cherries are the spilt pomegranate hearts,
strewn where the fruit stand
once stood
The blackberries, torn veils of a mother’s grief,
clinging to smoke-stained skies too thick for light.
The rusted swings of Al-Bureij sag beneath the weight of loss
handprints too small to fetch the skies.
Before this, a blueprint of erasure is whittled upon the silence of a boardroom.
The logic was simple
count the children, subtract the children,
iterate until the land forgets her laughter
function genocide(gaza) {
while (gaza.children.length > 0) {
let child = gaza.children.shift();
obliterate(child);
collapse(gaza.homes, gaza.schools);
}
return ‘a mother tucked into her womb’;
}

The base case is always the smallest—a child
torn from a mother’s arms, dust mapping
the absence of skin, their face rewrites itself
as rebounds that cling to the dregs of a place once known as home.
The mother watches
her womb becomes a ledger crossed off with her children’s names,
Yousef, Jana, Khaled, Fara, as if they were debts to be erased.
This completes the syntax of annihilation—children become variables, home becomes void.
A loop that terminates only when there is no one else left to name.

function obliterate(child) {
    markTarget(child);
delete(child.name from the ledger of the living, into dust);
// return child to smoke;
}
The first one she lost, she called a martyr—
a child still learning his letters
became smoke that carried his giggles away.
The second, a wound.
The third, the silence between prayers.
The fourth, the mathematician—
his body one of his own chaotic equations.
No avocados here,
no ripeness to hold—
the recursion halts
when the list is empty—
no children left to count.

Ibraheem Uthman is a Nigerian poet, essayist, literary mentor and software engineer. He is the author of Mind of a Bard, Managing Editor of The Nigeria Review, and curator of the HIASFEST Literary Panel. A two-time winner of the National Library Prize and HCAF Excellence in Creative Writing Award 2025, he was also a BillWard Prize runner-up for Emerging Writers (Essay) and is currently a poetry reader at Chestnut Review.

Speaking My Mind

(+)

Time is not moving very fast tonight.

So I write the inbetweens and see what I have….

(+)

There’s much more in the seeing and feeling of life.

A moment can keep me and free me….

(+)

All the songs I have listened to

tune my heart.

(+)

The lips of my wife soften me….

I see her in my thoughts.

(+)

Flesh magnified

touching of the living.

(+)

Playing my guitar of words

she dances.

(+)

God watching over us.

Clouds of tears and forever cheers.

(+)

The whirl of the world

just a splinter of time.