shedding ten-thousand shipworms of worry

skip the low-interest, multi-step directions...  
I've a better chance of deciphering
the Voynich manuscript

swallowtail   guess what I was about to say

even though the complex probability amplitudes are against me, ‘Moon Ra’

tic convulsif…  elder brother’s son home from war

let them use the glitter

heads bowed in the next yard, requiem for a woo woo

kids blowing bubbles in a world without end

he was a nervous talker, 
who punished wide-eyed historians
with Roman forecasts

she preferred he accept a non-speaking part

graciously receiving morning salutations from the thundercloud tree

hard as I tried, the infinite series continued right on out of the back of my flat head

the voiced and unvoiced consonants that happened in the front of the room

Patrick Sweeney is a short-form poet and a devotee of the public library.

Vollmann’s Poor People slightly altered

Soot covered woman of the burned land, Madagascar
Homeless camp under the freeway, Miami
People and streetscapes, Riverton, Oregon
Office cleaning lady just off work with Colonel Sanders
	(life-sized statue) Bangkok 
“I think they are poor” venerable white-haired man begging, 
	Beijing
Congolese beggar boy, dressed in filthy rags
Unknown street sleepers
Man in rubble of destroyed home
Man with photo and deed to his destroyed home
Garbage lady, Nanking
Panorama of box houses, Tokyo
Beggar in full body burqa like an angel of death, Yemen
Streetwalker in burqa approaching a rickshaw, Peshawar
Homeless man reading a newspaper in park, Tokyo
Three drunks, Nome, Alaska
Beggar girl with deformed nose
Beggar pretending to be armless, Bangkok
Family in front of their bullet pocked house, Congo
Snarling beggar, Bogotá
Man with crooked face, Bogota 
“Donate here to get me out of your neighborhood” placard, 
	Oregon
Afghan boys playing in wrecked Soviet plane, Afghanistan
Afternoon on Ave de la Mort, Brazzaville


 
Operation Crossroads 1948: Bikinis, a journal, extracted

As culled from the journals of forward observer
	Of Bikini Island tests, Dr. David Bradley, in
	his book , NO PLACE TO HIDE


“In the three years of the “atomic age,” five bombs
(or is it six?) have been exploded. On only these last 
two or three have men been prepared to study and
record the findings under anything like controlled
conditions.”

“This morning the surface (of the ocean) was
scattered over with tiny floating jellyfish, or baby
men-o-wars. Delicate, diaphanous creatures, they
look like blown cherry blossoms on a windy lawn
of the Pacific.”

“By the nature of our work almost everything we know
is potentially dangerous.”

“Actually, of course, there will never be any great control
of ideas concerned with atomic energy, the principles
have already spread like an epidemic.”

“Lectures on physics have given way to the practical
business of the detection of radioactivity.”

“It will be difficult to convince people of the dangers 
of radiation.”

“The persistent power of the bomb after it has exploded is
its greatest menace.”

“They(the old and wise) doze a moment in the sun and
wake up on fire.”

 

Sante’s Evidence

“Traces of innumerable human beings lost to history
once and for all, without monuments or descendants
or living record.”

“A copy of a Black Hand threat letter, decorated with
obscene drawings.”
“An enigmatic set of shots, from various angels of
a man’s right hand with two thumbs.”
“Magnified  views of pieces of jewelry and barely
decipherable snapshots.”
“Studies of urinals at different (police) station houses.”
“Locations: bedrooms, bars, back alleys, vacant lots,
storerooms, hovels hallways”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”

“Objects of interest, at least momentarily, taken together,
they become stills from a film, a nightmare, ride from room
to room in the small hours.”
“These subjects are constantly in the process towards
obliteration.”
“These photographs-as evidence, they are mere artless
records, concerned with the details…they are the book-
keeping entries, with no transfiguring mission, and serve 
death.”
“We are breaking a taboo as old as the practice of shutting
the eyes of cadavers and weighing down their lids.”
“Photography like death, interrupts life.”
“The more empty the photograph, the more it will imply 
horror.”
“Empty photographs have no reason to be except to show
that which cannot be shown.”
“Evidence is a magnet for the random.”
“You do not have to be glamorous to meet a violent end.”

 
Julia Solis’ New York Underground: the Anatomy of a City,
	in text and photographs with occasional commentary

Inside the Croton Aqueduct (like The Thing from Outer Space)
Roots (like veins) inside the long-abandoned Croton Aqueduct
Rebuilding the foundation of 7 World Trade Center
A manhole cover leading to a branch of Croton Aqueduct (like
	a portal to the outer circles of hell)
Sealed water pipes to a branch of Ridgewood Reservoir 
	with graffiti, Brooklyn
The gate chamber on the Bronx side of High Bridge (with 
	standing water and garbage)
Inside a storm drain Queens

Ghost Stations:
City Hall station abandoned retaining some of its former glory
Abandoned  91st street station with elaborate graffiti
Sealed staircase lower-level City Hall station
Remnant of obsolete trolley station Essex and Delancy
Long abandoned Croton Aqueduct well on its way to being 
	reclaimed by nature
Virginal track segment, never used
Ghostly staircase eastern end of Lexington Ave. station
Ground Zero October 2001
Long after last transport, a gurney in a tunnel, Seaview Hospital
Mattresses piled in deteriorating heaps in basement of a mental
	hospital
Obsolete freight track, Hell’s Kitchen
Long forgotten abandoned burial crypts
The central aisle of the crypt of St. Patrick’s cathedral



 
A Plague of Souls: Contemporary (Mostly) Japanese Noir 

Devotion of Suspect X
Tokyo Nights
Hotel Lucky Seven
Sleeping Dragon
All She Was Worth
In the Miso Soup
Coin Locker Baby
The Devil’s Flute
Slow Fuse
Three Assassins
Bullet Train
Crossfire
Grotesque
Real World
Out
Winter Sleep
Almost Transparent Blue
The Memory Police
Village of Eight Graves
 


		Freud

On Aphasia
Interpretation of Dreams
Secret Memories
The Future of Illusion
The Ego and the ID
Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious
The Psychology of Everyday Life
“Civilized” Sexual Morality and Modern Illness
The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation of Erotic Life
Mourning and Melancholy Civilization and Its Discontents
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Medusa’s Head
Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the psychic lives 
	of savages and neurotics
Reflections on War and Death
A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psychic Analytic 
	theory of disease
Case Studies: 	Dora
		Little Hans
		Rat Man
		Wolfman
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious	
 

Brutal (Soviet) Bloc Post Cards

“Ideas are more powerful than guns.
We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?
	Joseph Stalin

Monument to Builders of the Volga Power Station 1967
Worker and Collective Farm Women (statues) circa 1960’s
(Literal) Flower of Life (concrete sculpture) 1968
Monument to the Conquerors of Near Universe 1988
Monument to the Conquerors of Space (glass ellipse) 1964
A Special Sign at the entrance to the city, Brest, 
	(indescribable)  1987
Memory of Military Glory, Moldavia 1983
Karl Marx Monument, Tashkent, 1980 (Flyaway concrete hair)
Kulpenberg TV Tower (“beehive” on concrete tower)
Avala TV Tower, Belgrade (pointed as a needle)
Slovak Tower Building, Bratislava 1983 (inverted pyramid)
Brotherly Mound, Hillock of Fraternity Memorial Complex, 
	Bulgaria 1980
Museum of the revolution, Lithuania SSR 1980
Obelisk of Glory, Modavic, 1972
Concrete arch known as Andropov’s Ears, Tbilisi, Georgia 1983
Museum to the Defenders of the Caucasian Mountain Passes,
	1983 (Concrete henges rising)
Monuments to the heroic Sailors of the Black Sea, 1971
All-Terrain Vehicle Monument to the Pioneers 1987
Broken Ring Monument, Lake Lagoda, 1966
Monument to the Communists Who Died in September
	1923 Uprising, Bulgaria
Alyosha Monument to the Defenders of the Soviet Arctic,
	Murmansk, 1986
Armenian Genocide Memorial Cemetery Complex 1967
The Sash of Glory, Odessa 1975 (glorious silhouette carved 
	From concrete)
The Constinesti Obelisk-Constinesti Beach, 1970 (White 
	Polished marblesque, whatever on the beach front)
Star Monument Kharkiv, Ukraine 1975
Monument to the executed partisans, Yugoslavia
Arch of Diversity, monument dedicated to the unification
	Of the USSR and Ukraine 1982

-MD. Rizwan Islam (Talha)

My Mother

My mother’s name is Mst. Roksana Yesmin. She is 35 years old. She is a M.A. She teaches in a primary school in Dinajpur. After school hours she works at home. She cooks our food. She also looks after my old grandmother and my little sister. She takes care of our health and studies. On holiday, she cooks special dishes for us. She washes the clothes. She keeps the house clean. Sometimes she goes to the market. She also visits relatives. She helps the sick people. In the evening, she watches TV. She spends her free time with us. She remains busy the whole week. No person in the world is like my mother. 

So, I love my mother very much.

MD. Rizwan Islam (Talha) is a student of grade six in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

Memories

Where are the days lost?

Going, memories of golden days.

The happy times are disappearing,

I remember the old memories. 

The times of sitting together, 

And chatting are changing.

How time has passed today,

I have grown up

One of the eternal truths of the world is that,

Life is beautiful if you adapt yourself to each moment.

Md. Easa Hossain (subas) is a student of grade nine in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

The Sky
 
The sky is blue, so wide and high, 
With clouds that float and birds that fly. 
At dawn it glows, at night it's deep, 
Stars come out as we fall asleep. 
The sun climbs up, then slides away, 
The moon and stars begin their play. 
The sky above is always there, 
A part of life, beyond compare.

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

Loyalty

- Hello
- Hello, how are you?
- I am fine thank you very much. I thought I would call you in the evening. I congratulate you on your birthday. Happy eighteen years.
- Oh, thank you. When will you come back?  Matchmakers are coming to our house.
- You know I’m on a business trip now. I will leave as soon as I finish my work. Can you promise to wait for me?
- Understood. It’s been twenty years since she said, «Ok, I promise to wait for you.»
The woman’s eyes were still staring at the misty distance of the long endless road.
The young man had a car accident while returning from a trip and left this world already.


Nosirova Gavhar was born on August 16, 2000 in the city of Shahrisabz, Kashkadarya region of Uzbekistan. Today, she is a third-year student of the Faculty of Philology of the Samarkand State University of Uzbekistan. Being a lover of literature, she is engaged in writing stories and poems. Her creative works have been published in Uzbek and English. In addition, she is a member of «All India Council for Development of Technical Skills», «Juntosporlasletras» of Argentina, «2DSA Global Community». Winner of the «Korablznaniy» and «TalentyRossii» contests, holder of the international C1 level in the Russian language, Global Education ambassador of Wisdom University and global
coordinator of the Iqra Foundation in Uzbekistan. «Magic pen holders» talented young group of Uzbekistan, «KayvaKishor», «Friendship of people», «Raven Cage», «The Daily Global Nation», Argentina's «Multi Art-6», Kenya’s «Serenity: A compilation of art and literature by women» contains creative works in the magazine and anthology of poets and writers.

A goat in a cup of tequila

Like a mother of a soldier who is scared of military mail that can disturb her on a quiet night
My heart keeps shaking from the moment you were gone
I lost my secret satisfaction 
With whom will I talk now about my neighbors’ missing cat? 
Who will believe me but you? 
When I say a hungry squirrel’s eyes, only look like a hungry squirrel's eyes?
Who cares about the travail of words that embodied the trembling of the fingers that stuck this goat into the bottom of this cup?
With whom she will share her pent-up screams 
While she -without ears -stands in a cold glass void?
And before all of that, 
Who can accept a drink of tequila in a cup with a goat standing inside it other than you?


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 a Pulitzer Prize Nominee for 2018, and a Pushcart Prize Nominee for 2019.
She's a member of the International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020, and the Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021). She served on the Women of Excellence selection committees for 2023, was a winner of a Women In The Arts award in 2023 and a Member of Who's Who in America 2023. She's on the Sahitto Award's judging panel for 2023 and a cultural ambassador between Iraq and the US.