Let’s save our world

Our Lord, who created the world,

He gave us the world as gift,

Let’s rise by living and creating,

The world that only shines light on our lives.

The world is entrusted to us,

It is necessary to share in every pain,

Choosing the good and the bad,

It is necessary to give a correct assessment.

In everyone’s actions and work,

You must have justice and conscience,

Standing guard of the Motherland

You should be a general and a soldier.

However, as more and more scientists,

Innovations are fake and unknown,

Oppressors rule in every corner,

The black spot on his forehead is not removed.

Don’t burn the forests,

Smoke and fog are everywhere,

You feel lack of oxygen and it’s hard to breath,

Because of this, life expectancy is reduced.

Do not use low-quality gasoline,

Do not release carbon monoxide,

Many types of gases are poisonous,

You can’t count the toxins in the air.

An ecological crisis is at the door,

War in every country

They fired shells pollute the air,

Even if they pray every day, in repentance.

Toxins are very harmful to mother,

This also affects the baby,

If parents live a healthy life,

The world will be paradise for every child.

Let’s not see every sin in someone else,

Let’s look at ourselves and understand,

Let’s not weave a spider’s web in the air,

Let’s rebuke the sinner in time.

Let’s go together hand in hand,

Let’s have hope and faith in the future,

Let’s save the world together

Let’s call people to courage.

Elmaya Jabbarova – was born in Azerbaijan. She is a poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African’s CAJ magazine, Bangladesh’s Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.

“What Has Passed”


An empty wine bottle

(reincarnated as a vase

for a dead rose)

tries its damnedest

to believe in ghosts,

but regardless

if that flower is loved enough

to let rot,

it's best to let what has passed

haunt or rest (both a leap

of faith that leaves one

grounded) in our yesterdays.



“Love Shaped Death”


It's there like an urban legend

spider crawling down your throat as you sleep,

or is it a mosquito one kills

with a dramatic clap,

only to be revulsed at realizing

the blood on your hands

is your own?


Perhaps this is the reason for guns

under pillows, or long looks

at grocery store bouquets

that force you to remember a name

you forgot you forgot,

but giving you something to talk about

with yourself when you get home.

Blue Rain

Restless neighborhoods bathed in blue rain

A man puts chickens in a coop

The dog is barking loudly

The wife soothes the children before bed

I think about us

We live far away

It’s warm in the bosom

You are the spirit I embrace

I’m dying to give you a name.

Emina Đelilović-Kevrić (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) After studying the b/h/s (bosnian/croatian/serbian) language and literature at the Philoshopical Faculty in Zenica she got her master’s degree on the subject „Memory construction in the South Slavic interlinear community: typical models of the war camp experience in literature“. She is the author of the poetry collection „ This time without history“ and the short stories collection „ Erased lives“. Her collection of poems „ My son and I“ is awarded by the Publishing Foundation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021. In 2022 she won the second place in the international literature competition „ Isnam Taljić“. She is the winner of the second award for the best short story of the regional literature competition „Zija Dizdarević“ 2022, and she won the first place on international literature competition „Nastavi priču“. 2023. she won a third place on international poetry competition „Ossi di Seppia“ Italy.

This month’s submissions focus on Roots and Wings. Roots, in the sense of what grounds us, and Wings, in the sense of what liberates or inspires us to fly.

S.C. Flynn writes of memory and love and the places where we find sanctuary. Zara Miller‘s main character remembers her grandfather’s garden and her Eastern European heritage and connection to the land.

Philip Chijoke Abonyi brings a sense of tenderness for the human condition to his description of love and fear.

Azemina Krehic’s speaker loses herself in grief, forever burying herself with the past. Emina Delilovic-Kevric reflects on autumn as a beautiful season that is also a time of natural loss and decay.

Channie Greenberg’s alpine vista photographs include scenes of places where she spent time with her grandparents.

Irma Kurti poetically expresses her grief over losing her father. Ergasheva Mukhlisa reminds us of the critical importance of good parenting and Mekhrangiz Kibriyeva reflects on the love we receive from our parents.

Wazed Abdullah honors his two older sisters for their love and friendship.

Mahbub Alam meditates on his evergreen love that perseveres through life’s uncertain circumstances.

Adiba Pardaboyeva praises poet Muhammad Yusuf, a literary icon in her native Uzbekistan, while Valijonova Bakhtiyar celebrates the writing of Abdullah Qadiri. Z.I. Mahmud analyzes the themes of Oliver Goldsmith’s novel The Vicar of Wakefield, about a man of faith who maintains his gentleness and virtue throughout various trials.

Ziyoda Khikmatillaeva describes the many benefits of music appreciation as part of young children’s education and Jack Galmitz relates how someone used music to share hope during wartime.

Noah Berlatsky interprets various old books on a shelf through surreal poetry, while Simon Christiansen sends up a luminous tale of intrepid learning and curiosity. Graciela Noemi Villaverde radiates her joy on the physical and spiritual mysteries of life. Don Bormon nods to the power of imagination to grant access to the world of birds.

Tim Frank probes our personal and societal subconscious, littered with fragments of dreams and current events while Daniel De Culla’s photographs depict small Spanish towns with earthy realism.

Wolfgang Wright crafts a tale of a country childhood with sinister undertones beneath the seemingly normal family vibe.

George Gad Economou illuminates the attraction and repulsion writers feel towards alcoholism, which, like any addiction, can “ground” us in a negative sense. In a similar vein, Chimezie Ihekuna’s story explores how infatuation and obsession with intimate relationships can also wreck our lives, with a tale of a couple rushing into marriage to mask the pain of past trauma.

Czarina Datiles explores the contours of hopefully healthier young love in her gentle and wistful poetry, while John Culp elucidates an elemental romance between water and air.

Chuck Taylor contrasts the illusory love crafted nightly in a strip club with the authentic connection with his elderly mother in a residential motel.

J.J. Campbell’s pieces discuss the role of luck and expectations in our lives. Kim Farleigh explores the knife-edge tension of travel in a war zone while Susie Gharib’s pieces simply ask for a bit more kindness in our world. Maja Milojkovic advocates spiritual detachment, humility, wisdom, and compassion towards all the world’s creatures.

Christopher Bernard claims that an unbalanced exaltation of personal liberty above all other social values underlies both neoliberalism and progressivism and paradoxically leads to increasing restrictions on freedom, extreme inequalities of wealth and power, and a sense of loss of control by voters and citizens over the political order as a whole.

David Kopaska-Merkel finds himself talking to his refrigerator in a world permeated by technology. Bill Tope finds love in a surrealist space world where everything is backwards, while Jim Meirose’s even more surreal take on office life blurs the boundaries between sound and meaning. Mark Young presents sentences finished with elegant grammar and unusual offbeat meaning, while Nathan Anderson dispenses with grammar altogether and invents his own syntax for a visual and aural orchestration.

Mykyta Ryzhykh scatters thoughts into the fragments left after the massive destruction of war. Grant Guy evokes the early days of PC communication with his concrete poems.

Diyora Umarkulova reflects on her experiences learning spoken and written English as a second language, while Rosiyeva Banoxon shares her hopes and dreams for her life. Makhfiratkhon Abdurakhmonova celebrates girls and encourages people to value them and their dreams.

Frank Modica writes of various kinds of journeys: literal travel on bikes and airplanes and metaphorical navigate of memory, life, and death. Sterling Warner’s poems enjoin you in movement: pirouettes with seagulls and wagon rides with children and the slow drift of fog.

Fizza Abbas writes of language learning, cinema, and childhood school memories with awe and exuberance. Elmaya Jabbarova waxes poetic about youth: energy, creativity and love while Mesfakus Salahin’s speaker hopes for a happy reunion in the future.

Finally, Sayani Mukherjee celebrates the varied colors and sights of summer. 

Thus sprach THE GENERAL-MANAGER today

Gesundheit.
Thanks all for joining in this quest to reach the bottom; now, the = THE GENERAL-MANAGER, in that cleverly hidden booth way back yonder, (Ho!)  ohfjnoiefjgnwes   woffjjweefiuvjweeuygvhwef  turned slightly away from the overcomplicated/overengineered control panel they’d cobbled-in front o’them for this, and took some sort of stock. 
Do not let the confuser come in with those doomed to confusion (riff riff riff .....etc entablin’condemned to never know what’s what in a tall Go! 
whomp oh, this one? This one’s part chow
b l e e d bled  - - whooosh okay. There.
Here. There. Here-therE, slow, slower slowest guh t’last. In-seated l’lone at the control panel. Yes. We-seated. Y’know, we could spin this chair atcha’ three quarters or so, to down-bore yo how we climbed up way here through what seem too too many years of; urinal hairs Gaahhhh in the narrow aisle out the door, bear left, with a great highly impassible green-tinted extra heavy chain-linker twa ha right, solid brick-krete rough painted from the gloss floor to way up out of sight, ih, ya. We can tell ya how. We can’r deliver more of that to this, since—noticing all rich details of a stroll out that place can’t be ‘cause there were none, e’see, we got brung up to poke at the into thee next required task. To do more than that, well—would dilute the effort. Resulting in such weak tea as we got served up to us here. But whatcha want, anyway? Too priced up eh? Whose payin’? You? You? Or you or you or you {ha} we do think not. {ha ha} no, and you see this is why we got climbed out so high over you’re not no (you’re way behind but don’t fret. The masters follow.) e’en there ‘cause see here? See here where we’ve just entered here? This is just one seat ‘cause at any one time especially up here there can be no but one o’ copy o’eee THE GENERAL-MANAGER. See why we’re sat here, and you poors just must stand? Stand and gape in tight awe, and heady worry, but keep back far. This is just a demonstration today. The real work needs a secret. But in both wise’s we be t’ muck-butter’d the the the the one ‘n ‘ly great big THE GENERAL-MANAGER. (note the scone plate if y’ want ‘m. And the Gunnar’s snouts {snipped ‘way so cleanly, and, leaving the deep-seed row intact for the growing out of one o’re ten others like +so economically feasible of a fast snip-snip-snip’n-snip, lop, catch, and serve}) may it pass quickly, stated the skinny yet finally all-powerful oh-so Turkish judge, so—there you go—see that?  Yes. Do see that. Don’t tell me—you failed to see that? Pity oh pity, pity ten times. That moment’s judge’s gone. No no no, there’s that’s only the body. That now back there you so carelessly missed is shooting off behind you, like, no,  we are sorry. That is simply impossible. Oh yes, a mistake it was, and—oh, yes, yes yes yes yes—everybody makes mistakes, but no, we are sorry. As THE GENERAL-MANAGER, we have to tell you the end is already here. Look down there und merchantman’s marine. Look down—so there’s a floor? So what? See past it or—or what? What’s that mean scone? Little hard cold scone, a’begging now you may so pitiably be, but you got to; whose rules? Hah. Rules are rules, and whose rules, well—that’s not even a proper question—b’ hey—ey there up the back row put ‘o sight you may all be, but in fact you are up there, and o’yes you may yes nod nod nod and you’re welcome, stand then, stand—don’t worry, that’s not as high as they look. Go cover. Now. Bone, we were told we were gathered for a look at the instrument panels. Bone, are those the instrument panels way out there (binocolars binoculars love the look of a sycophant behind tight-raised big black binoculars &gearhead& sprain shift +workers tussle workers shifting and tussling until + there it is behold the spoons of it—so, for purposes of this preliminary presentation, behold painted on those walls over there the (as stated) overcomplicated overengineered control panel they’d cobbled-in front o’them for this; all says what now? All says cut the long train in two sit down stop all the ruminating and take the controls we been stalling long enough imaging this and that truth to be self-evident ho ho ho and ‘fter thinking “louse” one more time, rule number one =  do not let the confuser come in with those doomed to confusion = two = BLINK do not let the confuser come in with those doomed  = three = BLINK do not let the confuser come in = BLINK o not let the conf = LIN not let = I let no I let no yes I did no you didn’t whew okay now that’s all melted away let’s get down to those brass-tacked down cold notices requiring the primary attention God loaded into this here today, as we said and did stated in the beginnng o’ today, hic hic (plaster), entablin’condemned to never know what’s what in a tall Go! Okay, so?
So.
Okay. So let’s git.
Thus sprach THE GENERAL-MANAGER today.
Ready then now, eh? Good. Please be seated.

Flights

Alone in their idleness, 
two old friends thirsting for company
go to a local warbirds display

at a local airport, share
arcane knowledge of engine 
displacements and top speeds,

afterwards, down flights 
of beer, swap family fables,
fly back to empty nests.


The Long Ride

Spring-- a flurry 
of wheels and gears,
tuneups, new shorts, 
 jerseys, tires and turbes,

then mile after mile 
of training rides,
small towns 
nameless roads. 

In June long days 
for riding and camping 
while strangers ask about
a pop-up city of bicycles. 



Mercy
 
I gaze into my 
brother’s glazed eyes, 
search his face

for recognition as I hear 
the rasping
of his oxygen mask.

I press the stony
silence of his 
unshaven chin

fan five fingertips 
against his marble forehead.
I pause, count

my breaths, pray.
When will I see 
the goodness of  the Lord?

Frank C. Modica is a retired teacher who taught children with special needs for over 34 years. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dust Poetry, New Square, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Lit Shark. Frank’s first chapbook, “What We Harvest,” nominated for an Eric Hoffer book award, was published in the fall Of 2021 by Kelsay Books. His second chapbook, “Old Friends,” was published this past December by Cyberwit Press.