Winter

In winter's embrace, the world does sleep,
Beneath a blanket of snow, soft and deep.
A quiet hush descends, a gentle sigh,
As nature rests beneath the cold, clear sky.

The air is crisp, with a chill so pure,
Yet within it, there's a beauty to endure.
Frost-kissed branches gleam in the light,
A shimmering wonder, a breathtaking sight.

The earth lies still, in peaceful repose,
As if wrapped in a tranquil, icy prose.
But within this silence, life does thrive,
In hidden places, where creatures survive.

From the warmth of burrows, to the sky above,
Winter weaves a tale of resilience and love.
For even in the coldest of nights,
There's a flicker of hope, a beacon of lights.

So let us cherish this season's grace,
As we journey through its frosty embrace.
For in winter's chill, we find our way,
To the warmth of home, where hearts will stay. 

Muntasir Mamun Kiron is a student of grade 10 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

Stalingrad

During moments I yearned for forests grown for me alone,
Caressing them in a dream,
I could sense the throbbing of the heart
Hidden beneath my ribs to bless my journey.
Summoning me with a pulse that he recognizes in me.
I heard the noise of abandoned smoke from a moment of care
Join with me,
Forcefully traversing desires to the hidden-most one.
My spirit swung toward him,
Creating a tingling
On lips that devour breaths alive.
I felt ashamed,
But the eye,
In moments—I scarcely know what to call them—that took me on another route
Toward the television, saw warplanes . . . spray death on them.
At that moment,
The fire of machine guns raked all the bodies,
And another fire raked my body when I trained my eye on him
Hesitantly inclining his head
Toward a shoulder unaccustomed to the secret of the stars of war
Or to insomnia.
Oh . . . . I leaned on it!

	                 1

And when he caressed a dumbfounded person
I felt his fingers like coiling embers inside me.
Bashfulness seized the excuse this caress gave . . . and vanished,
Eliminating distance till the two of us were one.
And the eye—he moaned: May love not forgive her the eye—repeated another evasion
Toward a drizzle of men flung about in the air by just the rustling of a pilot penetrating a
building
To fall on screens as the debris of breaking news.
But his breaths . . . shattering the still down of the cheek,
And turning their picture into mist as
Eddies of the screen’s corpses . . . varieties of death that they brought them.
The spirit that became a body,
The body that was sold for the sake of a touch,
The eye that was concealed in his image
And that approached the firebrand of conflagrations.
Everyone drawing close to everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone.
But the thunder of their machine guns splintered them:
Corpses piled on corpses,
I mean on me,
The eyes of those in it were extinguished.

	                                 2

They slept in a trench of silence.
My eyes’ lids parted in a wakefulness obsessed with them.
I rose … and embraced the chill
That the screens brought me in commemoration of Stalingrad.
………………………………

Translated by William Hutchins

She 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 the Pulitzer Prize Nomination 2018, PushCart Prize Nomination 2019.

Member of International Writers and Artists Association. Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020,
Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021) One of the Women of Excellence selection committees 2023 Winner of women the arts award 2023
Member of Who's Who in America 2023 SAHITTO AWARD, JUDGING PANEL 2023 Cultural Ambassador - Iraq, USA
Email : d.fh88@yahoo.com

Throwing Stones...	

The janitor sweeps the long streets, 
A pile of firecrackers one by one. 
Long live aro broom - endure, 
My heart is full of tears... 

The janitor cleans the long streets, 
Put aside - the scumbags. 
I'm trying not to be sad, 
So many stones thrown at my life?!

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by Yunus Emro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey and five years in Ukraine. Currently lives in Switzerland. Married, mother of five children. It was not possible to publish poems and translations written by the poet in the next ten years.

The Leaves

The Leaves
Life is a leaf of a tree
Green or dry - blowing up and down
On the soil or water
Life sketches life
As the leaves flutter on
The heart charmed with
The age takes it up all - the leafy body
And falling down on bed rests in the grave
Life smiles on life in spring
All seem to be colorful and green
On the other hand
The scattering leaves under the feet
Getting mixed with the soil in the sun and rain
Though they glitter with the bright color of brown and pink.

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh,
25 February, 2024
 

Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been being published in an International Online Magazine - Synchronized Chaos from America for seven years. 

I was always myself... 

In the life 
I have been many things 
I was a complicated daughter 
For parents and family 
half a century ago 
When I spoke I didn't shut up 
When I defended myself
The consequences didn't matter.
I grew up and was a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher 
Injustices have always moved me.
I decided to be a lighthouse and open the range of possibilities. 
Of equality between the brothers of the world.

Mirta Liliana Ramírez has been a poet and writer since she was 12 years old. She has been a Cultural Manager for more than 35 years. Creator and Director of the Groups of Writers and Artists: Together for the Letters, Artescritores, MultiArt, JPL world youth, Together for the letters Uzbekistan 1 and 2. She firmly defends that culture is the key to unite all the countries of the world. She works only with his own, free and integrating projects at a world cultural level. She has created the Cultural Movement with Rastrillaje Cultural and Forming the New Cultural Belts at the local level and also from Argentina to the world.

Wake Up World

Gone is the spring 
where hope does mold
Gone is the summer 
with passion bold
Gone is the autumn 
of affections are told
Now is winter 
so selfish and love cold
Shiver and freeze 
with indifference, world
To darkness 
our souls have been sold
Where fire burns
greed and hatred wars foretold.


Goals

Each traveler has own goal
To be a diamond, remain as coal
Or be in between, a crystal soul
Judge not for each one as a role
My goal is not yours, yours is not mine
Accept each other's role, all will be fine
I can drink coffee, enjoy your wine
Deaf to threats and endless whine
Choose your path, I have found my nest
Don't begrudge me of well deserved rest
Life is short, I have chosen my test
I journeyed East, you now travel West
We may for a time have to separate 
Do not be sad, do not feel desperate 
Love is not measured by one opened gate
Spirits remain as one, whatever be Fate


Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry. 

Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

Moonset

Moonset; dawn dawning
On a silent world; no birds 
Sing in the stillness reigning. 
The wind has closed its mouth
On the tremulous leaves of trees 
Marching across the horizon. 
Moonset; the flowers sleep 
In their silent fragrance, deep 
In the disappearing shadows 
As silver darkness dawning daylight
Reclaims a yawning world, with 
Golden rims in the eastern sky. 
Moonset; golden sun rising 
Greeting a new day; new dreams 
Form as the fading tranquility 
Of the night slips into oblivion. 
The sweetness of night’s beauty 
Softly steals into the gold of day.


For the Long Ago
 
Loving you for the long ago. 
Being with you; forever courting 
Your impeccable character; 
Your intrinsic manner; classic 
Silhouette; perfect form; your 
Incomparable beauty, your 
Mystic capacity for creating 
Memories while showing 
Your undying love for me; 
Loving me each day; each year; 
With a love that never ceases 
But goes on, for the long ago.

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.