Homo Erectus Lives in Texas
also published in Alternate Route

(With apologies for any Texas-sized alternative truths…)                          

Texas is the nexus of the issues
that vex us…content to perplex us,
sucker punch our solar plexus, 
threaten the values that connect us.

Texans snicker that everything in 
Texas is better, bigger; maybe they 
need to rejigger the vigor with which 
they squeeze that AK-47 trigger,

and stop quacking about the benefits 
of fracking while all sentient beings 
are gasping and hacking. For migrants 
it’s nerve-wracking not knowing 

if they’ll be repatriated home or put on 
a plane to  Alaska—maybe Nome?—their                  
children sentenced to tents surrounded 
by barbed wire fence—just what exactly

was their offense? It’s scary if you’re 
trans-gender, treated like a sex offender: 
Reality be you’re no  longer free to choose 
where you’re gonna pee,

not against the “Wall,” definitely, that 
would be an obscenity because Texans
expect order at the Mexican border, 
these descendants of the Alamo

can’t take it anymo’, this migrant overflow,
now in a panic outnumbered by Hispanics,
drowning like DeCaprio on the Titanic…
and would you believe

a bi-weekly Baptist book-burning barbecue 
in Brownsville—burkas obviously banned— 
part of the catechism claiming there ain’t 
no racism or hate in the Lone Star State, 

where the Governor, a presidential candidate, 
expectorates as he defiantly states Texas 
won’t tolerate sexual reprobates—so if you’re 
bi or gay, just stay away,                                     

go play in LA—or move to some Massachusetts 
town where students tear all the statues down, 
tributes to American heroes vandalized  by          
spoiled woke zeros.                                                              
                                                                                      
Thanks to the contortions of a Christian 
consortium, there’s a moratorium on almost 
all abortions—even in the case of rape, victims 
must escape to a more compassionate state

while gynecologists must cease and desist; 
if they resist it’s not a slap on the wrist, it’s 
jail not bail, and if that fails, a sniper bullet 
to their entrails….which leads to the 

elephant in the room—all those guns that go 
boom—it’s okay to bring this cliche into the 
melee because Texas is a blood-red state, 
and as more and more Democrats emigrate,

THE NRA whoops in elation, no more gun 
registration, Texas gonna lead the nation         
but then don’t be shocked when inside a first-
grader’s lunch box…an apple and a loaded Glock

so now teachers must pass a marksmanship test, 
buy a revolver and bulletproof vest, costly deal 
seems surreal but remember there are shootings
 in McDonalds over Happy Meals…

or while visiting a church in Texarkana, you get 
shot at by a Proud Boy in a MAGA bandanna 
because you won’t chant that hosanna—“God is 
the way, through his messenger the NRA.”

Billy Bob was really pissed, thought you were an 
atheist, damn heathen with no right to exist, but           
before he could squeeze off another round, your 
two hollow points knocked him to the ground, 

and all of a sudden you had joined the fight to smite 
those who would blight your civil rights, knew that
preserving Texas for your descendants was dependent 
on defending the 2nd amendment, found it thrilling

to see blood spilling during a mass killing, real not lame 
like in that “Mortal Kombat” game, Guadalcanal at the OK 
Corral in the high chaparral. So go to the mall y’all, stand 
tall, make ‘em fall ‘cause Texas calls: “Hook ‘Em Horns!”    

Elon Musk’s Bed Stand

Is it a covert confession, his guilt gushing, 
grabbing him by the ankles and shaking until 
truth tumbles onto the nightstand

or is the photo his personal meme, the renunciation 
of a carefully cultivated carapace, an assertion of 
who he really is…or is it nothing more than the result

of an inadvertent click of a camera capturing some guy’s 
distracted dumping of daily detritus, those pistols a ho-
hum in a country with more guns than people?




So, are we looking at some kind of hieroglyph hinting 
at a heretofore hidden hatred, or a psychopath’s
preparation to perpetrate a crime, or simply

an accidental still life of a makeshift Tupperware 
container…and that question can only be answered
by examining the nature of the objects in the picture

and probing for connections…not an easy task—like 
deciphering the previous moves that led to a position 
on a chessboard, an effort infinitely less intimidating

if you know who the players are—which in this case 
we don’t…all we have is a picture of things that at first 
glance—second and third glances as well—

simply don’t belong together, increasing the probability
the Polaroid was purposely posed and passed on to 
or purloined by some predatory paparazzi

pandering to the 48 percent of the public who parrot
the pablum of partisan politicians, cheer when a six-
year old exercises his right to bear arms

and shoots his first-grade teacher, want welfare programs 
wiped out but donate to crowd-funding so a 19-year old 
football player can drive a Bentley on campus…

regardless of who produced and procured the pic,
the question of motive remains, with a plethora of 
plausible possibilities, from that inadvertent Polaroid

to the cleansing of a conflicted conscience to a cloaked 
call to action by a captain of industry, a Congressman, 
a chief justice—or any collaborator in a cabal conspiring

to crank up a coup, to mesmerize the minuscule 
minds of those minions of mediocrity, mold them 
into a militia to make America great again—




but I digress; let’s let logic clean up this mess: What are 
the chances of an accidental photo being so perfectly  
centered on the nightstand, what are the odds

of some drowsy dude dropping four coke cans and a glass 
bottle on the table and they all remain upright—yeah, right.
So it should come as no surprise that I theorize 

the photo—regardless of whether the guy’d been hiding 
something he needed to purge or denying something he 
craved to exalt—was contrived to end all the lies,

to shed a daytime disguise, lamenting possibly repenting 
pretending to be a nonsectarian humanitarian when he has
been—and probably still is

a barbarian libertarian, lusting to grind socialists into carrion, 
espousing the genetic superiority of Aryans…all this despite 
publicly pledging to give away all his wealth—

convenient camouflage for his undercover stealth— and 
donating to the Rainbow Coalition while damning them 
faggots, lesbos and he-shes to eugenic perdition.




Please don’t run; I’m nearly done—Them guns ain’t  for fun, 
he doesn’t want his country overrun by drug-dealing migrant 
scum; from his QAnon history book he’s well aware 

that Washington crossed the Delaware to kick Beaners in the 
derriere to keep them from claiming welfare and medical care 
and putting up tents on Times Square—

it’s almost more than he can bear—repressive progressives, 
woke jokers and blowhard libtards chipping away at his bill 
of rights—and he’s been ready to fight except

he can’t sleep at night; even though those cokes are caffeine-
free, every two hours he needs to pee; rather than wake up, 
hobble and wobble, he pisses in that glass bottle—let’s hope he 

doesn’t get thirsty and take a swallow—and something else requires
extreme unction: all that sugar gives him erectile dysfunction; if word 
leaked out about this bigot’s spigot, his spineless spout,

if his undercover brothers discover that he is other than 
a big-dicked mother…he’ll be corseted in a kaftan, lynched 
by the Ku Klux Clan then punji-sticked like in Vietnam, 

or an Oath Keeper will inject acid in his ureter, then chop off his 
peter, these operations ordered by his fellow hedge fund honchos, 
banker bigwigs and tech titans frightened of a public enlightened,

of disclosure that they’re all posers—lip service to going green, 
have to protect the fossil fuel machine, pious palaver opposing 
abortion yet their pregnant paramours endure surgical contortion— 




oh how they rile up the rabble, those bedraggled cattle ever 
ready for battle, get them foaming and furious with jingoistic 
vitriol compelling but spurious…and indeed they never 

personally intercede, you’ll never see them bleed, cabalists 
with a nativist creed, a breed fueled by gluttonous greed, 
happy to let sycophants do their dirty deeds:

they’ll never be held liable, out of sight with hands on the Bible while
the riffraff en masse  kick democracy’s ass, a reactionary master class 
leads to legislative impasse, autocracy under guise of democracy, 

a Christian theocracy, a border patrol of criminals on parole, 
18 new corporate tax loopholes, retraction of affirmative action, 
inaction on police overreaction against minority factions.




Please accept my regrets—we haven’t explained yet that
Buddhist amulet: I don’t think it’s for spiritual protection 
because worshipping the dollar is his predilection,

the face in the mirror his only genuflection; it’s about misdirection, 
circumspection over who controls the insurrection. He’s taken an 
approach derivative from events in times primitive, 

a deception tour de force like the Trojan horse, a symbol of compassion 
used for good old head bashing: now don’t chuckle—in your fist 
it’s a Dharmic brass knuckle that’ll make those bastards buckle.




I’m no private eye so I can’t identify the guy and he’s so sly 
he can always buy an alibi… and frankly I’m scared shitless
I’ll end up on the militia’s hit list unless I cease and desist, but

it’s clear the guy ain’t no working class lout ‘cause money and 
clout are what it’s all about, so he can strike with impunity 
to dominate the social media community, fire millions of tweets—

dopamine for his addicted sheep— rail against kikes and dikes 
but he’s still swamped by Facebook “likes” even though he’s not 
the one who writes, his anonymity so critical politically,

and the guy is definitely American—just look at the guns he’s carryin;
no other country has drive-in windows for guns—get a burger with a
bazooka while you’re on the run, shoot up dance halls just for fun.

Help, I think I’m being tailed—I could be jailed or impaled—better 
beat a retreat before things overheat and the Wagner Group 
turns me into sausage meat…but even though I’m a coward 

I don’t want democracy devoured by Fascists empowered and my 
heart is still red white and blue so before I bid adieu I’ll leave some 
clues for you to construe and then decide what to do: 




Follow the money at an electric car company, its financials in the 
shitter but the CEO still bought Twitter, clearly overreached while 
he flaunted freedom of speech, but there’s a huge ethical  breech; 

political persuasion though a brazen online invasion leading to guns 
blazin’ in the Capitol of the nation… and then there’s the hedge fund 
wizard, a Machiavellian lizard, 

trying to grab regulators by the gizzard, set up PAC after PAC so 
Congress would have his back…next turning to the Supreme Court,
the list of possible conspirators anything but short, 

their opinions of great import, the consequences impossible to thwart, 
and I know I’m being cynical but the right wing majority has been 
clinical, dare I say criminal: The Court contorted the Constitution 

as it water boarded  Roe v Wade, state gun laws were waylaid, the EPA 
effectively spayed, federal funds for church schools okayed…and finally 
there’s the red state governor, a Harvard-educated southerner—

the chump dumped Trump and hit the stump—appalling polemic 
during the pandemic, health experts aghast when he trashed 
students wearing masks,

no migrants in his backyard—all deported to Martha’s Vineyard…
okay, I guess I deserve a reproof for playing loose with the alternative 
truth; it’s uncouth to cast aspersion linking people to subversion 

but it’s in the intimacy of his privacy that man sheds his piety and 
anxiety, and if you can infiltrate that space, get behind the poker 
face, you might find more than a trace

of a disgust for the human race; the guy just might be a traitor, a civil 
rights violator or a coup instigator….and if the night stand is an indicator,
just imagine what you might learn from his refrigerator.

How Not to Enjoy a Goya

(With apologies to Goya’s “The Third of May 1808”)

Ho hum…just another line ‘em up shoot ‘em dead
picture, kind of like bowling except the pins are
made of flesh and bone, they bleed—wouldn’t it
be cool if bowling pins set off sparklers when you
crush ‘em—-and don’t reset: I mean what kind
of human cartridge cushion of sane mind

would get up just to be shot again—Muhammad Ali’s
rope-a-dope tactics don’t work too well with bullets—
so better to just be swept to the back of the alley—
ooh,a double entendre—which I’m guessing is what
happened here later but you never can tell because
shooters, like bowlers,

get blisters on their trigger fingers unless they’re
seasoned professionals in which case their calluses
are as callous as their compassion is constipated,
and remember it takes time to reload before the next
troupe of targets traipses in, while the unseen widows
lack the strength to dig a hole deep enough

to house 30 or so homicided husbands, so much heavier
than bowling pins, so it’s highly possible that the bodies
were just left where they fell, the pattern making a pretty
sick Rorschach test for any helicopter hovering overhead
or maybe a 3D topographic map of a chain of Pacific
islands being swallowed by rising seas.




Understand that this genre of painting goes beyond just
guns, to guillotines, garottes, swords and hangman’s
nooses depending on cultural protocols for mass killings
and the mood the artist wants to manufacture; obviously
guns are logistically the simplest—no need for a tree or
wooden cross, or gasoline, which is expensive—

and also extremely efficient if you want to ramp up
volume rapidly, but guns also release those hideous
poisonous gases that pollute Mother Earth…and there’s
something seductive and artsy about a masked guy
with earbuds carrying a curved sword on his massive
shoulders hip hopping,

locking and popping as he raps “Yo, you be dreading
that I be heading to your beheading; my sword go sledding,
your neck it’s shredding,” and don’t overlook the fact that
both the sword and the guillotine give us the bowling balls
needed to complete our sporty metaphor: Come On Baby,
Let The Dead Heads Role…

but why is it that it’s always a black guy who gets shot—
okay, sometimes he’s brown, let’s not get picky, just as
long as it’s a dark color, white would mean there goes
the promotion for the shooter; he’d be in deep shit…
but in any case here the marksmen sang the refrain
“the bloodstain from the brain on the plain

is in the main from enemies of Spain.” The old masters
focused on the murderous machinations of military master-
minds, barbarism through the prism of impressionism,
depicting how against Attila the Hun the Romans were
stunned then overrun and how under Pol Pot resistance
went for nought, at least a million Cambodians shot

while another blockbuster depicted how Custer failed to pass
muster, his campaign so lackluster, reputation shorn, a target
of scorn after his troops were butchered at Little Big Horn…
Meanwhile other artists were sensing a gold mine in dispensing
canvasses wrenching in their rendering of ethnic cleansing,
paintings avant-garde of bodies marred or charred,

a huge creative stride, the subjects fried, gasified in the come
hither cauldron of genocide: Hutus on patrol, decapitating
Tutsis their only goal—a Tutsi roll, get it?—Turkey showing no
mercy in making beef jerky of Armenians while Hitler used
every ruse to hide gassing the Jews who—quick learners—
butchered the Palestinians like America did its Indians—

it’s all so cruelly Darwinian—and it’s the United States that
continues to take the mass execution genre to new heights
with paintings of pop up performances in population centers
and public places big and small—Miami, Philly, Uniontown
Alabama, Tulsa Oklahoma, elementary schools, Walmarts,
Waffle Houses, abortion centers,

salivating artists rooting for more colorful mass shootings
while the NRA is tooting that guns don’t cause these shootings
or the ensuing lootings, this posse of quasi Nazis high steppin’
for their rights to carry weapons, denying that all across
the nation there is a direct correlation between the absence
of gun regulation and civic conflagration. Do you think

the bastards in the painting would have had the balls to do
battle with their victims in a boxing match, no bullets, or would
the cowards have cringed, become unhinged, no counterfeit
courage from schleppin’ that weapon…and might there be less
fatalities from police brutality if a cop wasn’t afraid of being
popped, sent to heaven by a teenager with an AK-47

but America loves winners and fun with guns has made the USA
#1 in mass killings—oh, it’s so fulfilling— and we celebrate our
success with mega- events, Super Bowls of Slaughter, post-game
festivities including billy club bashing, water cannon colonoscopies,
pursue and pepper spray the perp spectacles, and behold he’s out
cold from the perfect chokehold demonstrations.




So Mr. Goya, I don’t wanna annoy ya, but your painting just
doesn’t rate, it’s so out of date, its techniques obsolete—
like phone books, Blockbuster, Buick Le Sabres, Silvio
Berlusconi, Blackberrys, Joe Biden—I know it’s bittersweet but
you just can’t compete with the sausage meat made of men
on the street in modern mass murders, and while it’s not

something I condone, today’s artists are prone, for example,
to death delivered by drone—such a boost to testosterone—
part of a propensity toward butchery with high corpse density
or bodies stacked as high as a mountain, blood spurting like
a fountain because collectors have become jaded, the allure
of the standard school shooting has faded and unfortunately

the value of this canvass has been degraded, so if I may proffer
some advice—and I’m so sorry about the painting’s drop in price—
but if you were to give your consent, it might be possible to reinvent
your masterpiece—I know it’s a real bummer—in the format paint
by number for children six or younger: just think how you could
influence their formative years.


 Walt Shulits is a retired bond market professional and lifelong paddling fanatic-canoe, sea kayak, outrigger canoe and surf ski-who stumbled upon writing poetry while searching for a non-sport activity that would give him the same sense of living in the moment as paddling. Residing in Provence, France he spends as much time as possible in his beloved Hawaii. He tries to write poems for the multitudes who find poetry as incomprehensible as Sanskrit or as unappealing as mountain oysters.  Walt's poems have appeared in Dumpster Fire, Fleas on the Dog. Gargoyle, Griffel, Pike Press, and Wingless Dreamer.

 

thoughts between the 4th and 6th glass of bourbon

we killed the poets,
we murdered the writers,
we burned the artists on the stake, letting their bones rot under the unforgiving sun.
graveyards vast littered with
shallow, nameless graves.
no one to carve a tombstone,
not a single word of praise, or love, or even compassion uttered. 
only few we kept near,
those who were too important to be forgotten;
even them, we disregard wildly, 
reading them only because we termed them classic, vintage, what else have you. 
it’s the era of decadence, the desolation has begun,
there’s nowhere to run.
dry tears in dark street corners,
every empty needle a reminder of a dead childhood dream,
talent drowning in the bottom of bourbon bottles, 
vision burned up inside cold glass-pipes. 
it's alright, the rainfall comes,
streets flooded, cars not moving, stillness,
perfect fucking stillness. 
no one breathes, no one thinks,
no one lives,
we altogether smile in unison,
a chorus of emphatic victory,
singing the songs of childhood, 
remembering dreams that were written down in white papers and with red pens,
smiling over the possibilities that would never be. 
someone somewhere throws away the trash,
someone's watching a movie,	
another reads a novel and feels enlightened, despite the retardation of the human mind;
a bonfire is lit at some distant beach, primal dancing around the flames, 
whilst elsewhere, someone runs away, 
speeding into a highway without a destination, only a sacrilegious purpose; 
a single tree in the middle of the desert, 
alone, standing tall, 
fearless, sturdy, stubborn;
no lumberjacks, no birds, no rain.
only the sand, the tree, the storm. 
the bartender pours me a bourbon neat, 
I down it, I ask for another;
it's on the house, he says—after four paid glasses, he finally gives me one for free. 
bring me the sixth; this one, he says, you have to pay for.



 
Bottle Thoughts

drinking once more in solitude, 
the music keeping away the whispers. 
every sip, another memory of something lost, 
a year wasted lies in the bottom of each bottle, 
and I do not miss the nights of sobriety
I forced upon myself for her sake. 
it's alright, I tell myself; I didn't quit the drink for the one that mattered,
why should I cry for the one that turned out to be irrelevant and insignificant? 
memories, mistakes; have I ever done something right?
NO, the unified answer of all the ghosts and it manages to be heard
despite the loud music through the headphones. 
one more dark, empty night. alone, yet never lonely. 
every sip tastes like different lips, as in front of me I see
all the pair of eyes I once stared into during cold nights,
as we laid under blankets made of snow. 
every sip, the reminiscent of yet another false promise,
of lies muttered in dive bars and strip clubs. 
it’s alright; another sip, it’s all gone. 
I’m once more concentrated on the darkness.
on finishing my business on this planet, 
dreaming still of the bar I saw only once, when she thought she had lost me to the needle. 
I was already given to the bottle, at 14 I had my first real sip and ever since
I never wished to escape. 
it's all a dream, an acid-trip; the forest, the mist, the ocean filled with hungry sharks. 
the shipwrecks. I'll awake suddenly, in a different bed. next to a stale wife.
a teenage son will curse me under his breath during breakfast. 
I'll lecture him, when he comes home drunk on a sunday morning. 
I'll scream at him, when I discover a pack of cigarettes in his backpack.
he'll wish I wasn't alive. and I'll lay down next to my wife, 
knowing she hates my fucking guts. 
and I'll seek refuge in dreams, but be visited only by nightmares. 
another sip, I'm still here, still plaguing the world.
still not giving a damn for all the tears I've caused, 
still unable to shed real tears. the graveyard, it comes back; 
threw my very first poems into the hole, over the coffin. nobody has ever read them,
I can't recall them. she was taken from me by the needle, along with a baby that will never
grow old to hate my fucking guts. 
I see her on a bed that isn't mine, kissing lips that aren't mine; she's happy.
and I'm happy. I still drink, and I would have ruined her, like I ruined her.
and somewhere in this ugly town still lives the third one, the cheap substitute of the other two;
potentially back in the arms of the one she betrayed for my sake. 
I don't give a shit. another sip, and she becomes, again, the bad acid-trip she truly was. 
another sip, hundreds of kisses all at once swarm the soul;
there's no warmth, only the coldness of the lies, the falsity of the promises.
another sip, time finally to embrace the darkness once and for all
and stop tormenting a heart that got tired of beating.


 
Gone into the Dusk

daydreaming of embraces
doomed to remain unfelt. 
more promises to be broken,
more lies to be uttered. 
shadows on the couch, 
reminding me of the yesteryears I wish never were. 
empty bottles on the floor, 
soon I'll be gone; the stains will remain 
tormenting whoever moves in next, 
pity the poor clueless soul. 
former loves, moments the heart did skip a beat; 
all gone, forever lost. 
trying to recapture the magic,
no strength left in a broken body.
the wheels keep on turning,
no reason to run. 
a syringe on the coffee table,
junk heated, the vapor penetrates the nostrils, 
back to the colors, the music; 
time to chase dragons once more,
nothing else to do.
nothing else I excel at. 
memories overwhelm the numb mind,
the hazed heart skips another beat
as images pierce the haunted dreams, 
lambent smiles of someone who’s been dead for 6 years now, 
lustful kisses of someone that forced me to break the junk habit.
gone, forever. all alone I sit in the absolute darkness 
preparing for my departure,
the return to the collapsing streets of childhood. 
visions of the nights,
wine dreams, 
I’m gone.



 
forth

one final ride, 
alone in the sunset
towards a destination unknown. 
fueled with all the necessary, 
the desert filled with a crowd most bizarre,
a carnival most grotesque. 
forests, oceans, metropolises, 
all and nothing rolled into one, 
for in the last ride
you’re both alone and surrounded. 
friends and enemies alike, 
strangers and acquaintances
talk, laugh, and bicker, 
for there’s nothing else to do. 
some beg for you to stop,
others plead for you to go. 
nowhere to run,
but forth
as behind lies all that must needs be forgotten. 
one final ride, 
and it’s long, seemingly endless, 
destination elsewhere
but via vagueness grandness is born. 
nevermore time shall matter, 
nevermore love shall torture. 
one final ride, 
it commences, 
and all’s left behind, 
dreams unfulfilled, 
dragons uncaught, 
people unloved. 
one final ride, 
and it all starts anew, 
for only without the old
survival can ensue.



Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press) and Reeling Off the Barstool (Dumpster Fire Press). His words have also appeared, amongst other places, in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

The Hip-Hop Mermaid


Risen from the warring shore
comes what survives the night’s blear
of human shards scattered
over earth’s sallow brow.
Fate clinging to my barnacled flesh
for the watery bower dawn breaks
over us, she said, snapping her tail.
Somehow she got into the pool
When nobody was looking,
with beaching sepia flotsam
bubbling, what bespoke ineffable
old rose–tinted morning crags
from another clime & century.
While sea worms its way into
My backyard, drenching me
into some searing sex scenes
with this nubile & naked mermaid?
I’ll leave it to your imagination,
For we tell lies beyond reason
in swirling sands of mud frost
turning like dark pudding
as the hungry elements yowl.
I devoured the battered remnants
Of her glistening fins, I plunged
into grief’s plundered port of sin.
I searched for music in her body
in this bed of tangled seaweed
songs do not linger anymore
to tantalize the jazz singer’s lips:
swelling the tide of my dementia
where we are now dissolving
& borne by lingering pathogens
only shallow sea gods are bitten by,
I feed the bloodlust’s swishing vein 
Sinking my shipwrecked sullen craft

==========



Spiked Heels of Lunar Light


Does the echo of light fading
still reflect the concrete wave
before a silent sound banishes
candid movements about you
of rainfall smearing streets.
While your red glossy high heels
staccato-tap glistening sidewalks
before mist slithering dawn comes:
a moment’s elocution of elements
finer than your own existence as
a precious filament ignites your eyes
the angels of death dissipate before.
You are the chosen one, Moon Dog
trailing ire over jaundiced time
nearby my gibbous hidden body
your heels excavate heavenly flesh
blood-red under moonlit rays,
& beneath distant overhead clouds
Hot moisture cuts the Velveeta 
you spread over perfumed breasts
before imbibing my fallen presence.
Food for dirty thoughts feeding
Old moon-dust beneath your feet,
My yearning cries now echo across
another walkway where footfalls 
stop in soundless shadows
beyond black mascara slashes
your sightless eyes redress 
in naked night’s cruciform raiment


==========



Eulogy for the Analog of Lost Desire


Only my sex in the ellipsis of your mouth
equals the sum of my disenchantment
reading your scurrilous epiphany at 4 a.m.,
& knowing how fucked it is for you
to post a revealing ad on Craig’s List

in order to write a book later about it;
& all your forays into the lusty disorders,
As weeds dying on the lawn of your desire
devotees of all lost amour aspire to,
hoping to escape banal boundaries

by extolling perversions to greater ends.
You text my acolyte unscathed by hate,
forsaking pristine years of bygone innocence.
Now the cock crows at the death throes
of one’s trendy sex life in empurpled drag.

No pill or superlative drug resurrects
the banished truth of old renegade heats
when there’s nothing left to betray us,
just your once revered cocky-capon god
sucking love’s mitosis of invisible microbes


==========

Symphony with a Severed Head

White light glistens in a vase of shadow
buds suspended by watery phlegm
Of the intoxicated grandpa:
I drink the syrup of palliating Scotch

Listening to domestic disputes outside
a window dust-splotched by faulty sprinklers.
The squatter snoring nearby the tool shed
isn’t exactly a meditating guru for quietus!

No, his curse-ridden dreaming is a diatribe
of bad rap lyrics damning his Jezebel.
(The one with a bustier so silver-spangled
with nipple rings, all very shiny

Under his mental door mat of nightly stupor).
Blue light in a bottle of 100% ambrosia,
forever amber this Thursday evening
Marred by police sirens & screams.

Outside cops investigate the premises,
but I’ll be damned if I’ll go out there
Like a concerned citizen of Twitter
with my cell phone video recording all.

Let the complex go to hell in a handbasket
bulging with the last dead rapper’s head,
Severed & still bleeding-out dumb aqua
until the saints come marching in.


Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he’s been active in the small press as editor, poet, and artist for years. He has recent poetry in Pulp Poets Press, Literary Yard, Dyst, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Jellyfish Whispers, The Pangolin Review, and elsewhere. His most recent poetry book is Particle Acceleration on Judgement Day from Impspired Press.

Winter

The fury of winter stirs,
It's snowing, white snow
The wind increases to blow,
Frost is coming in a hurry.

Filling the earth and sky
This soft snow is scattered.
The tree bowed its head,
Strange snow spread.

On the face of the long corridor
Bent trees,
On the stooping branch,
Birds twitter.

It shakes in a row,
Quiet wind branches,
Snowflake hits,
Stroke the faces.

Caressed by the soft wind,
Laughing in a circle
In the winter air,
It's fun to spend time.

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», «Juntos por las letras» of Argentina, «2DSA Global Community». Winner of the «Korabl znaniy» and «Talenty Rossii» 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, «Kayva Kishor», «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.

Selfishness

Everyone seeks self-interest,
Wants to make someone fail
If he does have the will,
He will not fail.

Sabrid Jahan Mahin is a student of grade ten in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

The Best Language Bangla

In the land of rivers wide and green,
Where history's tapestry is woven unseen,
There lies a tongue, melodious and sweet,
That echoes through the ages, a heartbeat.

Bangla, the language of passion and fire,
Whispers of freedom, soaring higher,
In its syllables, tales of courage untold,
In its verses, dreams of old.

From the banks of Padma to the hills afar,
Bangla's essence, like a guiding star,
Unites the hearts, in love and in song,
A melody that's ancient, yet ever strong.

With every word, a story unfurls,
Of triumphs, struggles, and pearls,
A language of poets, thinkers, and seers,
Echoing through time, conquering fears.

Oh Bangla, in your rhythms, we find,
A symphony of the heart and mind,
In your letters, a nation's pride,
Forever in you, our spirits abide.

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

The Wagon

So Like a man inured to failure,
We climbed aboard the wagon,
And The driver, only the driver,

Began to listen as the cadence of our deprivation

—Thud. . .. Clunk. . . and so on-
-Infiltrated the wagon’s pores,
Starting with that first dirt road.
Our lives’ parasols disappointed us
When we shared sorrows
Without fancy titles,

while Reaping lethargy and frustration.
It wasn’t only the driver, or The horse, or Our heads

That looked meager;
The wagon’s outlook did too.

Translated by William M. 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 In 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