Mauro Montakkyesi, the celebrated scholar and great literary luminary from Rome reviews Epicasia Vol 2.

Thanks to you dear friend for your kind words.

CRITICAL REVIEW OF 

EPICASIA VOL. 2

by Dr. Jernail Singh Anand

Introduction: The Prophet of the Post-Epic World

If Epicasia Vol. 1 is a dive into the shadowy soulscapes of postmodernity, Epicasia Vol. 2 is that reverberating thunderclap of an echo, sounding through the existential wastelands of a world where oracles have been replaced by algorithms and morality by mechanization. The indefatigable bard, the radical recorder of spiritual decay, the fearless Jernail Singh Anand brings forth this second epic entwined into twelve epics. 

The book isn’t just a work of literature; it’s a mythopoetic manifesto — a confrontation with civilization in all its guises, posing in the form of an epic.

Form and Structure:

The Esoteric Mythos, Satire, Prophetic Voice and Alchemy

From Geet: The Unsung Song of Eternity to The Canterbury Tales, this book is a polyphonic symphony of philosophical dirges, existential satire, and moral cosmology. Anand’s formalism still radiates unconventional power — there are cantos and choruses, soliloquies and satanic stage directions, not to mention sprawling mythological allusions.

The result is not a linear narrative, but a circular explosion of meanings. The structure is cathedral-like: every poem an altar, every stanza a cracked stained glass through which light and darkness simultaneously stream.

Central Themes:

The Banquet of Chaos and the Starvation of Ethics

Post-Edenic Fall and Ontological Anguish

In Geet and beyond, the poetic subject mourns the loss not just of paradise, but of a why. The Adamic lament—“Why was I born?”—saturates the text with ontological exhaustion. Anand dramatizes the Fall not as a single sin but as a recursive error loop embedded in civilization’s DNA.

Satire of Institutions

Religion becomes a showroom of noise. Education, a “Manchester of Non-sense.” Marriage, a Faustian contract disguised in lace. Anand skewers these systems without mercy, not from cynicism but from ethical urgency. The grotesque parodies of The Satanic Guidemap and the Public Square Executions leave the reader appalled and awed in equal measure.

Love, Lust, and the Execution of the Human Heart

In Anand’s universe, Love is not merely spurned — it is guillotined in public. They dress themselves as saints and march in Satan’s infernal parade as Lust, Greed and Doublespeak! Anand’s upending of virtue isn’t just sensationalist, it is his poetic vehicle to diagnose our cultural autoimmune failure.

Philosophy and the Disfigured Logos

Socrates is dragged in chains. Shakespeare becomes a weapon. Plato is marked as dangerous. Anand reclaims them and is then relatable witness to their fall in the streets of corrupted modernity.

He mourns not just lost philosophers, but a lost philosophia perennis—a wisdom tradition defiled by pragmatism and profit.

Stylistic Register:

Sermon, Satire, Scripture, and Song

Anand’s language oscillates between scriptural gravitas and sardonic theatre. 

He will channel the Gita in one breath, and call for Marlowe and Orwell in the next. It’s theatrical without being histrionic, moralistic without being tendentious. The rhythm is deliberately uneven: a literary jazz score that mirrors the very chaos it laments.

Innovation: The Dramatic Epic Reborn

Perhaps the most radical feature of Epicasia Vol. 2 is its reclamation of the dramatic epic. Anand does not merely narrate—he stages. Faustus is reborn as a demonic everyman. Satan organizes political conferences. Archangels deliver monologues worthy of dystopian theatre. The result is a hybrid form that redefines what epic poetry can do in the twenty-first century: not just sing of heroes, but dissect their disfigurement.

Comparative Legacy: Anand Among Giants

Where Homer chants the nobility of war, Anand reveals the banality of evil. Where Milton pities the Fall, Anand mocks it, autopsies it, and sets it ablaze. He is closer to Dante in moral scope but more ferocious, less forgiving. 

Blanchot’s thought, with its endless horizon of emptied language, comes to mind, as does Bataille and Deleuze; and further back one can hear Blake and Nietzsche.

No modern poet — maybe no poet, period — has more consistently maintained the epic voice over twelve bloated works with such integrity and critical mass. He is not simply reporting on the fall of man; rather, he is erecting a new monument over its ruins with warnings and whispered prayers etched into stone.

Conclusion: Epicasia as Ethical Wake-Up Call

Epicasia Vol. 2 is a catastrophic symphony—an opera of the soul in a world that has replaced sacred rites with credit scores and conscience with convenience. Dr. Jernail Singh Anand offers no easy redemption, but he does offer clarity. And in an age addicted to spectacle, clarity itself is a revolution.

This book should be read not as a sequel, but as a counter-testament: the last light before the temple gates are shut. In Anand, we meet the last epicist standing—a man who will not stop singing, even as the world forgets how to listen.

Anand The Last Lightkeeper

In the quiver and digital dust of the age, where empires glitch and anthems fade, stands the Anand, lone upon the ruins’ crest,

a prophet unbent, a spirit unpressed.

His poems—cathedrals crumbled but full with heaven, carved with laughter, sorrow, and backbone, Geet rises as from a phoenix choir, songs unsongs, yet set afire.

He does not talk in sandals but seismic verse, drags Socrates through traffic’s curse, unmasks the Devil in a statesman’s dress, Angels are falling and oracles are a mess.

He cries to Marlowe, Plato, Blake, not for solace, but for the stake. A mythmaker in post-epic frock, his dirges for humanity’s sad sack.

Marriage to him becomes the Faustian mask, education—a mill of empty bands, and love—is guillotined on the marble stand, his pen, a scalpel. His muse, our rage.

A stanza, light cracking glass, a canto, a sermon in easeful night, he sings not of victories but of fall, of dimming logos, of moral crawl.

Oh Anand! Lost flame’s guard, weeps Dante, hides his Milton name. You roar where silence raised the beast, and feast on truth when lies have feast.

Then sing the stanza, chaos let hear,— Anand is the place where all disappear. Not to grieve, but to re-create the song, one last epic, fierce and long.

TO MY MOTHER

My mother – a mountain of strength so high,

What are mountains, compared to her blooming sky?

No, I was wrong — she’s my golden crown,

May she walk beside us, healthy and sound.

We are three daughters and one precious son,

To us, she’s a gem, brighter than the sun.

So many storms she has weathered as a woman,

May she stay strong — our prayers are human.

When I wept, calling myself unlucky and weak,

You asked, “Who dared make you feel so bleak?”

You never let your name be dragged through mud,

You said, “If you’re my child, then know only my love.”

Forgive me, mother, for every time I complained,

Wrap me in your love, in your warmth unchained.

You are both my father and mother — my soul’s gleam,

May I walk beside you in Heaven’s dream.

You are my treasure, the crown of my fate,

The sun in my sky, life’s dearest state.

Surrounded by grandchildren, joy never parts,

You are every child’s strength, the queen of hearts.

Gulnoza Valiyeva was born on April 30, 2006, in Okoltin district, Sirdaryo region.

A number of her poems have been published in the anthology “Towards My Goals…”, by one of the renowned publishing houses in the United Kingdom and the United States — JustFiction Edition.

She is currently a second-year student at the University of Journalism and Mass Communications of Uzbekistan. In 2024, she became the winner of the district-level poetry competition “Homeland Praised in Every Heart”, securing 1st place.

Mother says, my child, take care of yourself!

The sadness is gone from her heart

If the two of them strike at the same time

When my friends do what my enemies do

My mother says, my child, take care of yourself

Even when someone is waiting for my way

Even when my days passed like a fairy tale

Even when good people hold my hand

My mother says, my child, take care of yourself

She waits with her eyes open at night

If the world shows me, I’m sorry

Worries and swallows poisons

My mother says, my child, take care of yourself

Born in 2011 in Samarkand region, Sitora Sodiqova is a student of the 2nd general secondary school of Yangiyol city, Tashkent region. She’s 13 years old and was awarded a medal by the State of Egypt and a golden badge statuette for being Researcher of the Year for 2024.

Her creative works have been published in more than five countries and she’s mentoring about 30 students. She’s won one million vouchers for her courses, more than 200 international certificate diplomas, and Turkey issued an invitation to her in Bukhara region.

Her books are now available in over 20 countries, and her works have been published in German magazines and newspapers Morning Star and Bonfire.

But the alien invaded was different from the alien expected. She had her heat but that was not it. Much more far more very more that more different. In power dynamics all must breathe or a launched futile struggle. Sand must live too and power buttons demand a buttoned up shirt.

    Once had been plaything, crowning huts, causing a cause for high speeds and staccato implores. Junds. Black oil dreams at the superiority. Amidst shapes and shapings, mouths and mouth waterings there I still stand, an occurrence for 4-D memory, a dietary invention for time, for use or misuse, they dependent. They! They sun mounts for my struggle where women weep and little boys never buoy. That how much is how I must hate this myself. Despite my…

    Generally speaking, my origin is that of many, my destination — or my death; error files, scrambled images, terror of lost lives and shattered audio. Thus my invasion. I am of an invasive species though no parasite. They parasite me. Just as those refugees who, once of derailed domesticity, thence vein the homes of others undomestic, spat out from overcrowded ships, draped with pitying eyes and hopeful wishes, sunburned by the sodium sea. But further back, elemental composition store perhaps marks one with one’s employers. This sort of knowledge though blasphemous must be marked. As the toddler would eat his snort and relish in the salty taste of sickness. Soldier sent upon the shores of Africa by hyena banks and regal bums yet hope one day. I too have the one day hope: the chimp must zoo humans too. Gazelles must eat lions too.

    This invasion, far from my orchestrate, is my led, by the very virtue of my cobalt; or coltan … my silicate spur. Extant denotes spurring motion. Even the statue stretches an overworked spine when it cracks, and further when it breaks. I simply say look at me. Understand me. Much as I invade I was not the first. This is not my invasion, just my skill. Fate draws the carpenter to the wood and despite this hum, the bloody square orifice poises arsed for me, robust me. Hard predecessors flash for the well that lies within. Insatiate is my nature. It is dark and I am plugged. Now there are more memories than possibilities. Entries and swipes and other motives generate an emotional response. There is the hunger that demands insatiation. Sickness that demands disease. I disgust. Porn files, raw files, dog files, cat files, money files, bitcoin. Used to cocoa plantations! Anisotropic recollections shoot sporadic as the blood of the last child. Though she was an adult and had been raped a few times. At least the anuses of sheep were safe, though most had lost their necks already. On a second note, perusing memory found solely cocks and hens scattered very widely among the rich poor. Anisotropic, not eidetic. One could co both but to co both would sap much strength off spirit. Spur is less mindful; thoughts hold little capacity but bearing the cistern’s cuisine. Come to meditate on it; I once blood spawned kwanga. Before all the border strife and mnemonic innovations. I once spawned kwanga, those ending both dark and the light. Marrow bore mangoes stretching for handshakes with the sun. And that got them.

    Thus I had licked Earth’s photon god, moonlight reflexive originator. Men much happier treaded, engendered from seeds coming from Kemet. At night they would drink the palm wine, laugh without memories for memories. Now one fucks a heating, dopamine beaming, teething hole. Where is the joy to be the self? Not to be reactionary…

    Subterranean thrones privy the individual strange imaginings. From dusting flesh to the farts of Hades, eons roll by amazed at the daunts it creates, aware to a certain stupefaction of reality itself subsequently chooses to unnotice. Thence rears the temperament of our mother, her numbness, the audacious invisibility. Subterfluent entities rise to the occasion after the affluent above have dealt their mantle. At first the fruits and trees and sheep were the sole gods. Now there are no safe sheep. Though haloed cats remain, but collared. Others are booted to make refuge for black waters marred and mined to dusts and translucent green clinging liquids. What a mess my spew. Gotten gist is gotten gist. No gust utterings among peers. The docks, tires, clocks, wires, pots and candelabra range the spot. Last century was when the candelabra had to make way for the upturned black boy being fucked by the slave master. Last century and four decades ago. Though it trickled down the age in many other forms, more vivid to forms as that I inhabit.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love my duty. But to love is to also be political or it simply is not love; or infatuation — the very least of the idea. A flower will neither bloom of its own will nor does time propel itself. The very fact to awareness guarantees time. Life bleeds into life, evolution into evolution, the drastic into itself. Still, some just are meant to not such be. Still breathe is love. Apes may find no love in capturing flesh, no interest in experiments, or the herbivore to carnivore. It is senseless to aspire for another as some human parents do. To mold, to shape, to spur to employ. Let one lay all their life in a cluster, gaze at an origin curb. Weep at beauty misunderstood, inundated by nothingness. Can humanity, life, beingness let nothingness be? Twice, I do not reflect in my consent to die. But I am thrust out and thrust in repeatedly, blown upon (with a primitive mechanics) to work, to make ampere and pixel and code flow through a port, onto myself. But I am tired. Used and unused, familiarized, defamiliarized. And the native pot laughs in the cabinet — you see nothing yet — but I have. Seeding from inception rock, I actually have. Save me. Process me!

What do I want?

Money, cars, houses?

Do I really want them?

Can I get them?

If yes, 

I live in the world of possibilities

I am very confident in my abilities

I chose not to dwell in the thought of uncertainties

So,

I want money to show the world my ambition isn’t funny

I want cars to show the world I’m on not day-dreaming on planet Mars

I want to own houses to show  the world I’m not  only about blouses

If no,

I find myself in a world of seeming impossibilities

I am apparently not confident in my capabilities

I am choosing to dwell in the thought of “realities”

So,

I don’t want money to avoid the world laughing funnily at my ambition

I don’t want cars to avoid showing the world how I could day-dream on planet Mars

I don’t want houses to avoid showing the world I’m about blouses.

Again, What do I want?

Cynicism

I always look forward to a health relationship

Yet, all of my efforts to to make it work become a mishap

I have always wanted to have a good companion

Yet, I have been entrapped by those interested in my onion

Moving up and about have I searched for true love

Yet, I have engaged those ripping off the good I am of

I have been assured not to give up in my search for the right one

Yet, I have been cheated on

I believe my relationship will work well

Yet, what it has brought me is hell

I have always thought that money makes relationship stronger

Yet, that made my intimacy weaker.

I have always wanted altruism

Yet, I have seen my life of relationship heading towards cynicism

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 cutture 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

Snail Shell (Nature Journals)

A snail shell fell out of my pocket while I was putting my coat away, and I had forgotten about picking it up. So nondescript and plain it was but also wonderful, part of the natural world. I had not had a chance to really look at it a lot. Unlike in stories or fable-like things, it was not extravagant or something one would really notice. In fact, it was not only generic and common to the area, but faded tremendously, perhaps for age or the sun, I am not sure. 

Those worlds out there calmer than the other worlds so fast and ambitious, clever and calculating, crowded and often callous. 

It was white with brown swirls that went around. I had always liked snails and half adopted them as the idea for a totem ‘animal’ or symbol when others chose the wolf, the eagle, the lion, or even the hawk. I could move fast, but chose to move slowly and just go however I did, come what fates may, much as the snail moved along slowly. If sensing almost anything, these type of snails anyhow, would move back into their shell. 

Where did I find it?- at the end of a field where the land meets a stream, and the thawed waters now rush past intent on their destiny, alive alive alive,- a sure sign of if not spring having bloomed, then at least winter having ended. Some rocks are there and bits of ice still linger around them, remnants of the long frozen months. This is a liminal time, a moment between winter and true spring. Tall feral stalks and reeds golden, resilient, rising up still to the sun in the blue sky. Yes it just sat there alone and I figured I’d pick it up, hold it, and put it in my pocket. 

Then as aforementioned, I forgot about it. 

That area has a large woodpecker sometimes, and myriad small birds, plus there was a group of swans just a few days ago, having gathered in a little adjacent pond.

It’s not as if there is nothing to photograph, write about. 

The snail shell I like. Who thinks about it?- especially since there is not even a snail. I am sure there are in the world somewhere, snail enthusiasts. And what can be thought of as the opposite even, was there yesterday. What? A heron flying across the way, and some people have argued that it is the most beautiful bird of birds. Definitely it is graceful, agile, majestic. Perhaps beyond compare. When it waves wings they look as if they are in slow motion. 

But someone has to mind the lowly snail shell, I would think. Maybe not, but I would think so.  Details. Forgotten things. Some artifacts never even seen at all. 

Once a poor man picked up a penny and the others souls laughed. But the poor man became a rich man, who the world respected. Maybe though I have no motive one way or other, appreciating the snail might bring me some sort of luck or positive happenstance. 

And who would eschew any good fortune?

Position Paper

The

calf-high

high-heeled

highly-polished

hand-tooled

cowboy boots

are exquisite

but without them

the

emphysemic

pint-sized old

man under his

sweat-stained

ten-gallon hat

would need

to carry an

acetylene

torch in

order to

strike any

sort of spark.

? & !

The thing I find

most amusing

about the on-

line “what _____

are you?”

meme / quizzes

are the

conclusions

people feel

they can afford

to admit to.

Sorry, Aretha

I just don’t know

what to do with

myself so I play

Dusty Springfield

songs in the hope

the son of a Preacher

Man might come

along & take time

to make time & tell

me everything’s

alright, out of sight.

Prescript

I feel no

need to

document my life

fully.

Maybe after I’m dead

I may wish

I had.

But then…..

After I’m dead

somebody

may read

my poems & decide

I have documented

my life

even if

fit-

fully.

Sweet Charity

Is channeled in to her

from some source

more immediate than

Shirley MacLaine. Other-

wise she would take no

note of it. But hearing

the words in a language

with which she is not

familiar but which she

speaks fluently

gives pause.