CHERRY
I hide in you
like a stone in
an overripe cherry.
I float in
your fragrant juices,
Trembling
from the
bird's greedy beak
that will
tear us
apart.
And,
I will not answer your
question:
Are fruits also doomed
to
loneliness?
Azemina Krehić was born on October 14, 1992 in Metković, Republic of Croatia. Winner of several international awards for poetry, including: Award of university professors in Trieste, 2019, Mak Dizdar award, 2020. Award of the Publishing Foundation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2021. Fra Martin Nedić Award, 2022.
She is represented in several international anthologies of poetry.
FOLLOW ME
I'm giving you a secret sign, follow the white rabbit.
My shoulder tattoo says it all.
Yes, I forgot, we are not in the movie The Matrix.
I want you to be my companion,
but you don't know how to read the signs
which is set by the Universe through numbers and in the child's speech.
There is a celestial artist whose pen writes the signs of the horoscope.
All this is as clear as the future in the palm of your hand, in answer to prayer.
But instead of looking, you sleep and dream of me in a silk nightgown,
and you don't understand that I'm warm on a hot night,
and not to provoke your senses.
I am giving you a path that is walked without material desires
and to head to the Himalayas where we will see with different eyes.
We will dive into the mountain of snow, in whose interior there is a world of abundance.
Close your eyes and follow me. I will take you, companion,
when you learn that tattoos speak,
when you recognize the signposts written with a pen of gold,
we will not need a body made of earth. Follow me,
I'll take you to the abundance of dreams brought to life.
And once you step there you won't want to go back, but he wants it first.
I AM YOUR MASK
In kindergarten you wanted to be a clown.
I painted over your features
and you were so adorable with a round red nose..
You are at a ball in your youth
put a mask over his eyes yes poor girl
she wouldn't recognize that you are the son of a rich man,
It looked perfect on you because I can make you be what you want.
And in your passion you were afraid of illness
and convinced you to be your protection of polyester cloth over the mouth and nose.
Your ears started ringing, and no one saw the sad eyes
because they have become dull. I, who was your servant
and mask of life I humiliated you
and you forgot to be free man.
I shout to myself: "I am your mask, get off my face and smile, captive man, because there is a way out!"
Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia.
She is a person to whomfrom an early age, Leonardo da Vinci's statement "Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard" is circulating through the blood.
That's why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them.
As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube.
Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers.
She is the recipient of many international awards.
"Trees of Desire" is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems "Moon Circle".
She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists "Mountain Views" in Montenegro,and shealso is a member of the Poetry club "Area Felix" in Serbia.
The Difference We Make
September 2013
Empty air was hissing
as from a gold string fob sifted on marble.
Some things take another thing
to make sense for them.
When I reached down to pick it up, the name
chestnut echoed as a keepsake to imagine
luck for my pocket, carried with change.
We gathered at Memorial Church to listen
to readings of your poems. None of them
were set in churches, allowing you this further
chance to resist yet also embellish
a welcoming exile and attempt to naturalize you.
One of the professors related your meditation
on the pastor’s beret, your insight into the thing’s
aerodynamic shape and lightness, holding it
like a frisbee between thumb and finger,
mind’s-eyeing it flung into the congregation.
The poet’s vision could perform the necessary
desanctification of the sacred, to share
grace for our laughter, which the pastor
for heaven’s sake might thank the poet for.
With vaults to echo the skies, the altar for
your or my supper table and by metonymy of use
the fruits of the earth, the earth itself,
a church makes a kind of poem of the world—
with acoustics especially for song
and speech, middle-earth in its edification
of a mind waking to meaning, to prayer, or to a poem
to articulate our wonder, to advocate for us,
for our reconciliation, to forge the soul
or, say, shape us, to belong, in the difference we make.
For something slightly unusual we guessed
our way down Brattle to the garden at Longfellow’s.
Starlings and a crow pecked in the grass.
A russet squirrel gnawing an acorn motioned
for us to follow the path along the beds
with labels for end of summer’s crestfallen roses—
onto a trellised vine. Wanting thoughts looked.
Were those real, clustered in perfect cone-shapes?
They couldn’t—could they be ripe? It would be wrong
to lift a handful—as my hand reached for the grapes
to roll and crush their tartness on my tongue
thinking this appropriate for a trade
poet’s memory, a frisson’s object
to flesh out the reed music Seamus Heaney made
with prudence and propriety to contradict.
Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and an Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award. His poems have appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, E-Verse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, and The Poetry Porch.
Of his second book, On Earth As It Is, now available from Cervena Barva Press, Joan Houlihan has noted Steffen’s intimate portraits, sense of history, surprising wit and the play of dark and light…the striking combination of the everyday and the transcendent.
1
fluffy goldfinches
at the birdfeeder
spring snow flakes
a feather fluttering down
signals an intruder
Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes
2
spring rain
fills the lily cups—
impassable stream
up to my knees
in a flooded street
Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes
3
sweet and plump
in the faded family photos
—aged envelopes
prying eyes search
for a birth certificate
Christina Chin/Kimberly Olmtak Gomes
I wasn’t there when the lightning struck the top of the fireworks stand out on HW 80, the year we were broke and had lost our apartment. Peddling silver salutes and cherry bombs was a dream come true. We started selling three weeks before the 4th and slept on the grass of our locked fireworks stand. Each night after we closed at midnight, I put the cash box in a hole I dug near my sleeping bag and covered it with a box.
We were hippies then, in our late twenties, peddling rockets and silver salutes. We hoped to take in enough cash to spend spring and summer in the mountains near Santé Fe, New Mexico, on national forest land.
I’d taken the pickup to get change at the bank. Katherine ran out the back door when the lightning struck with a boom, and high up the structure began to burn. Everything we had tumbled off the shelves, but not one rocket took flight or one firecracker snapped, crackled or popped. Nothing even smoked. The fire up top on the Mr. W sign went out by itself.
Katherine said she was rather disappointed by such a tepid divine intervention. There should have been a bigger show, happenings more impressive. It sprinkled dribbles of rain only a minute or two.
She waited for about ten minutes, went back inside the stand, cleaned things up, and waited for the cars to start pulling in. The lot had been empty with the lightning hit. I thought that was divine intervention enough.
Soon Katherine was again smiling and selling.
—
Paste into your browser the following website addresses to either view Chuck Taylor’s photographs or to learn more about Slough Press:
after the smoke cleared
outside my window
somebody in a car
is blasting the clash
& a pack of motorcycles
is revving in unison
& a woman is feeding
her dog an ice cream cone
right below in the square
& the blue night is coming
on ever so gently
& all the voices floating up
to the second story
are telling me all is well
————————-
sometimes i remember springtime like this
mother pulling marigolds
from crinkly plastic trays
digging holes for roots
no gardening gloves
just earth-stained hands
father sinking wooden
stakes in turned over soil
for waiting tomato plants
beagle loose running
back & forth along chainlink
yapping w/ neighbor’s dog
soft spears of green grass
welcoming bare soles
grandmother visiting from city
sitting in lounge chair
beneath maples full of sap
humming to old music
on radio
no hands swinging
no hammers shattering
no tongues spitting
no leashes choking
no knees pleading
no limbs snapping
no points jabbing
no feet stomping
etc…
just hearts like bright
bouquets of grace
——————————-
prayer for the unborn
stay in the trumpets of the daffodil
stay in the tears of the wisteria
stay in the grit of the anthill
stay in the spots of the monarch
stay in the posture of the frog
stay in the network of the oak leaf
stay in the wind thru the wheat
stay in the flatness of the shadow
stay in the nerves of the sand flea
wherever you might be just hold, stay
———————————————
tonight
w/ each poem
i take the risk
of reaching
my hand out
in the dark
& placing
a flower
behind
the ears
of each
of my
monsters
i think
i see teeth
flash
their mouths
open
but
only to
sweetly hum
this time
Ecological culture is the foundation of the future
Nature is sacred meat for all living beings on earth. Nature feeds them, clothes them, protects them from heat and cold. In turn, a living being also loves nature. This love can be considered real only if it can be combined with the feeling of protecting nature and increasing its resources. In the recent past, we pretended that we love nature, but we forgot that we are responsible for its preservation. This irresponsibility has created a new science known as “Ecology”. The word “Ecology” is derived from the words “eko” – home, dwelling, “logos” – science, and it is the development of measures to prevent environmental destruction and the factors that cause it. explores the basics of exit knowledge promotion.
It is the need of the hour for a mature person of the new century to be able to show the elements of ecological culture. Ecological culture is an in-depth knowledge of the environment, a sense of protecting nature, caring for plants and animals, rational use of natural resources, and their reproduction. is a high indicator of practical activity aimed at grieving.
A person who can reflect these qualities can be called the owner of ecological culture.
Do not allow excess water from consumption to flow from taps, do not pollute water bodies, do not throw garbage around. Keeping places tidy, not breaking seedlings and flowers and planting them, taking care of animals, taking care of birds, turning houses and alleys into flower beds are the simplest manifestations of ecological culture.
In the current period, there is an imbalance between man and nature, scientific and technical development and the environment, society and ecology. All this puts the question of further improvement of ecological culture.
It is known that everything in nature is harmonious. And the person who is making good use of scientific and technical achievements is breaking this harmony, treating him cruelly. Improper use of natural resources: water, land has changed the ecology. Improper planning of agricultural crops, excessive use of chemical fertilizers have a negative impact on soil fertility and human health. Toxic effluents from factories pollute water bodies, primarily causing harm to animal and plant life. The smoke and gas coming out of vehicles spoils the air quality. All this requires ecological culture from a person. Everyone can enjoy nature. But this does not mean love for nature. Love for nature begins with understanding it, understanding its beauties, and entering into a relationship with nature.
On the other hand, nature nurtures feelings such as observation, sensitivity, and tenderness in a person. This is manifested in a person in two ways: in relation to nature and to himself. Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur described what he saw and experienced, the nature, wealth, animals, plants and people of the places he visited, and the customs of the peoples. It has many ideas related to earth, water, air, various natural phenomena. Babur respected and valued people who knew the country and always consulted with them. In particular, he paid attention to the breeding of flowers, decorative and fruit trees.
We leave to future generations our spiritual and material wealth, the nature that existed before us and our attitude towards it, that is, our ecological culture. Ecological culture means not only not to harm nature, but also to contribute to its restoration, beautification, and prosperity, and to fight fiercely against those who plunder the environment.
Mamatkasimova Sitora Bakhtiyar’s daughter was born on May 8, 2000 in Mirzaabad district of Sirdarya region. One of the active students of Gulistan State University. His creative works are published in the anthology “Parvoz”, on the international site synchchaos@gmail.com, in the republican magazine ” Creators”, in the international magazine “Raven Cage” of the German state, in the international newspaper “Page 3 news” published in America, Thailand, India, Canada, Australia. , published in the international anthology “Charming pearls of Uzbek amateur poets and writers” of the state of Moldova. Currently, he works as a propagandist and teacher in the 34th school of Boyovut district on creative and cultural issues.
