I’m your friend

The time has come

When dreams of traveling appear

Other people, other women

I guess there’s room for me too

And it’s even cooler

When you say

That the place is by the sea..

Because everyone knows me here

The tenants of the building and the white walls

Always the same old story

Where my image and likeness are

And when you ask me how it’s going

I say everything the same old way, my old man!

I’m still your friend!

Neven Duzevic is from Zagreb, Croatia.

I remember years later working the day bar getting a call from a Florida police detective and how the line was disconnected.

I remember how the call came through again and the detective said I am putting Vera on the line.

I remember that Vera was my step-mother’s sister and she was around 90 and probably never used a cell phone before in her life.

I remember how the line got disconnected again as soon as she came on.

I remember knowing the phone would ring again and I figured she was calling to tell me Dorrie had died in the nursing home where she was currently residing.

I remember finally keeping the connection and Vera telling me, “Bill is dead and you need to come down here right away.”

I remember Bill was my father.

I remember thinking, despite heart issues my father wouldn’t be the first to go.  

I remember thinking Vera was going to tell me that Dorrie had died from her cancer.

I remember thinking, not for the first time, show’s what I know.

I remember that was the Spring and  Summer of spending six weeks in Florida and not getting any closer to a beach that a crematorium in Daytona.

I remember the first time I saw a blue tattoo in the city at a market with my mother.

I remember my mother telling me that was a phony mark.

I remember I was just a kid but I knew, instinctively, that couldn’t be right.  

I remember, many years later, all the things she told me that were the opposite of what they really were.  

I remember thinking her delusion was a defense mechanism to conceal information she couldn’t process.  

I remember wondering if there was a correlation in her well-diagnosed mental illnesses with Trump’s undiagnosed ones.

I remember how young I looked when I was eighteen.

I remember how young I looked when I was thirty.

I remember the last time I had my proof checked I was forty-four years old.

I remember the summer of my junior year getting my proof checked to see ”My Sister, My Love.”

I remember it sucked.

I remember seeing “Belle de Jour” at the Stanley in Utica and taking turns making up sex scenes to describe to the legally blind guy we had taken with us.

I remember being squeezed in the back of a Triumph driving from Utica to Syracuse in the middle of Winter to see “Carmen Baby.”

I remember, except for one scene, it sucked too, but not as bad as “My Sister, My Love.”

I remember “I Am Curious Yellow.”

I remember being curious what all the fuss was about.

I remember thinking I’d almost like to see it again and find out what the hell they were talking about.

I remember seeing “Last Tango in Paris” and except for the bloody suicide what an absolutely great movie that really didn’t need that graphic sex scene which was only a distraction in a otherwise masterful acting performance.  

I remember thinking, I know why they included it and that people were bent out of shape for all   the wrong reasons.

7-

I remember Sounds of Silence

I remember Mellow Yellow.

I remember the first time I saw Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Live.

I remember how my heart almost stopped when the chorus stood up in their white robes and began the Ode to Joy.

I remember my youngest son’s third grade teacher being in the chorus and how he died such an unnecessary self-immolation death  and the poem I wrote “The Burning Song Book.”

I remember it was in my long out of print book Stop Making Sense.

I remember drinking unpasteurized milk on St Croix.

I remember toxoplasmosis.

I remember Johnny Jelly Beaner

I remember “Pluck Your Magic Twanger, Froggie.”

I remember the singing nun and wished I didn’t.

I remember “Deck the halls with Boston Charlie.”

I remember Jean Shepard reading Byron with a Spanish guitar accompaniment on his nightly WOR radio show.

I remember his inspirational readings from the Manhattan phone book.

I remember phone books.

I remember In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash.

I remember seeing Curtis LeMay at a political rally in Utica.

I remember seeing Hubert Humphrey and the demonstrators chanting, “Dump the Hump, Dump the Hump.”

I remember that Tommy James and the Shondells were the “musical act” meant to attract and appeal to younger voters

I remember it was the first time we seen Tommy and his friends live.

I remember the dance my friends and I went stag to, stoned out our minds, and hung out with boys.

I remember they got a kick out of us.

I remember wondering why no one stopped us from having complete access to the band.

8-

I remember peace marches through the city.

I remember America Love it or Leave it.

I remember all the Utica cops had that phrase on bumper stickers on their patrol cars.

I remember when President Nixon called for the Silent Minority to be heard, Uticans turned out in force.

I remember when we had a peace fair on campus for the locals no one showed up.

I remember “This Little Bird.”

I remember “Girl on a  Motorcycle.”

I remember Marianne Faithfull’s soulful Ophelia.

I remember Billy Pilgrim

I remember Kilgore Trout and Venus on a Half Shell.

I remember Ace Science Fiction Doubles

I remember Mother Night.

I remember The Penultimate Truth.

I remember The Man in the High Castle.

I remember the first time I heard Dylan Thomas read his poetry.

I remember, ”rage, rage against the dying on the light.”

I remember losing almost thirty pounds when I had double viral pneumonia mid-way through my first semester freshman year.

I remember taking up smoking beginning with Luckies when I got over it.

I remember how stupid I was when I was 19 and immortal.

I remember writing “Visions Fill the Eyes of a Defeated basketball Team in a Showroom: a symphonic poem in three movements.”

I remember think no one would guess where I got that tile from.

I remember seeing Jumping Johnny Green live at the old Garden, at six foot six, out center jump Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlin 7’1’ and it wasn’t even close.

I remember writing “An Explanation Offered to an Extraterrestrial of Bernstein Conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Television with the Sound Turned Off.”

I remember the first time I saw The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.

I remember the second time I saw Marat/Sade and thinking it was a little too close to home.

I remember the first time I visited my mother at Pilgrim State when I was seven.

 Remember the years prior to that on St Croix.

I remember being told we were going there for “a rest cure,” though no one told me why my  father wasn’t going to be there.

I remember understanding that my father was never going to be there or anywhere else in my mother’s life ever again.

I remember  that I was eventually told I would see him again.

I remember it was close to two years after we went to St Croix, came back and she had the “nervous breakdown.”

I remember how I felt being alone twelve hundred miles or so from home with an out of control, hysterical woman.

I remember during the visits on weekends to Pilgrim State how mellow and laid back she was and  I thought this is not my mother, this is someone impersonating her.

I remember on one of those visits watching a movie in a day room with in-patients where I saw Frances the Talking Mule.

I remember how one patient in particular looked at me, as an outsider, as if I was somehow in league with Wilbur and that we were interfering with the messages Frances was trying to convey.

I remember how it wasn’t until many years later when I was writing my chapbook Visiting Day on the Psychiatric Ward that the patient actually believed Frances was a talking mule and had special  messages that needed to be understood.

I remembering wondering if the people who ran Pilgrim State and by extension, were responsible for treating her severe mental illnesses, did not have Clue 1.

I remember the second time she was at Pilgrim State, Involuntarily Confined, on a conference call with family and the doctors in charge of treatment and getting no real answers as to what her condition actually was and understanding that my first impressions was correct; these people had no fucking clue much less an understanding of how she thoguht and why she did the things she had done.

I remember, after my father died, finding the divorce decree and learning that in 1953, if you established residency in St Croix for one year you could get a No Contest divorce in the States.

Liberty or Death

They took our country from us,

They took our lands from us.

Yet could not chain our voice,

Nor silence freedom’s poise.

They burnt our homes to dust,

They crushed our dreams unjust.

But still we rise with flame,

With liberty in name.

They’re harming our people,

They’re killing our lives.

They are the most punishable,

In depth of our eyes.

Are you people ready for

Liberty or death?

Our goal stands for 

Liberty or death.

Our freedom is our breath,

Our oath is liberty or death.

We’ll break their chain,

Or perish in the rain.

Md. Naeem Aziz is a Bangladeshi Author, Writer, Poet, Engineer and Photographer. He is best known for his poems & photography. He was born on 10th December 1998. He is from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Christina Chin (plain) 

Jerome Berglund (italic) 

Princess Carry

first butterfly

voices approaching

ellipses in the 

closed captions

on my cut papaya

milkweed

kaleidoscope 

the monarchs

piercing deeper 

bedecked 

in gold leaf

Diane de Guise

Loss Leader 

japanese apricot

million cherries

in a crack

one summer

on the cotton gingham 

afternoon tea

—split scones 

and clotted cream

scampering squirrels chirp

something I did right    

something did wrong 

belle époque

蹬车者

我好奇他能拾到什么

面对着蒿草的隐没

他只能伸手去摸索

我后背着手走过

风从跌宕的日子里带来七嘴八舌

将我推近去看他的战果

存留在染泥的三轮车

烂炮纸与旧车链

不如拾一把蒿草点了火

不如拣几块砖头堆住所

不久他挺起身子举起新找的斧戈

生锈的颜色却能斩断绳索

斩断他以住生活里缠上身的绳索

他转身还举起另一件战果

不会关闭的留声机抚耳以音波

我祈愿它永远唱着歌

一方出声万林和

一人欢心万鸟乐

红炮纸和旧车链扬开苦涩

击开七嘴八舌

开阔的前路告诉我

有一颗燃烧的心何需点火

有一辆随性的三轮车何需住所

The Cyclist蹬车者

What treasures he might unearth

amidst the weeds’ retreat

His hands fumble through the shadows

While I observe with clasped hands

Winds carry whispers from turbulent days

Drawing me closer to witness his discoveries

Displayed upon his mud-spattered tricycle

Faded firecracker remnants and weathered chains

Perhaps better to gather weeds and kindle flame

Perhaps better to collect stones and build refuge

Soon he rises, proudly holding his newfound weapon

Rusty in appearance, yet sharp enough to sever bonds

To cut free from the entangling ropes of existence

He turns, revealing another prize

A broken phonograph, still breathing melodies into the air

I hope its song continues eternally

When one voice rises, 

forests echo in harmony

When one heart finds joy,

 birds join in celebration

Discarded firecracker papers and chains release bitterness

Silencing the chorus of critical voices

The open path before us reveals this truth

A heart already aflame needs no spark

A free-spirited tricycle needs no shelter

Su Yun, 17 years old, is a member of the Chinese Poetry Society and a young poet. His works have been published in more than ten countries. He has published two poetry collections in China, namely Inspiration from All Things and Wisdom and Philosophy, and one in India titled WITH ECSTASY OF MUSINGS IN TRANQUILITY. He has won the Guido Gozzano Orchard Award in Italy, the Special Award for Foreign Writers in the City of Pomezia, and was praised by the organizing committee as the “Craftsman of Chinese Lyric Poetry”. He has also received the “Cuttlefish Bone” Best International Writer Award for those under 25.

我也想庆祝夜的生日

河北省石家庄市藁城区工业路小学 苏墨琰 10岁

夜的生日什么时候开始

小飞蛾趴在玻璃上提醒我

天空已摆好月亮蛋糕

插上星星蜡烛

蟋蟀和纺织娘开始歌唱

树叶哗啦啦鼓掌

风送来花香

灯光献上祝福

就连梦也和夜视频通话

祝他生日快乐

我也想庆祝夜的生日

其实，我趴在窗前

已经悄悄地帮他

关掉太阳

I Also Want to Celebrate the Night’s Birthday

By Su Moyan, 10 years old, Gongye Road Primary School, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

When does the night’s birthday start?

The little moth on the glass reminds me

The sky has set up a moon cake

With star candles inserted

Crickets and katydids start singing

Leaves applaud rustlingly

The wind sends the fragrance of flowers

Lights offer blessings

Even dreams have a video call with the night

Wishing him a happy birthday

I also want to celebrate the night’s birthday

In fact, I lean by the window

And have quietly helped him

Turn off the sun

窗帘

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛润楠 9岁

风是个捣蛋鬼

把我们教室的窗帘

一会儿变胖

一会儿变瘦

胖窗帘像个孕妇

同学从窗帘后面

探头走出来

胖孕妇秒变瘦妈妈

Curtain

By Xue Runnan, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

The wind is a troublemaker

It makes the curtain of our classroom

Now fat

Now thin

The fat curtain is like a pregnant woman

When classmates peek out from behind the curtain

The fat pregnant woman instantly becomes a thin mother

春天的火车

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 李思锦 9岁

花朵是春天的火车

一开动火车

就听到一阵阵香的震动

Spring’s Train

By Li Sijin, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Flowers are spring’s train

As soon as the train starts moving

We hear bursts of fragrant vibrations

月光走秀

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛嘉一 9岁

月光

穿上雪白的裙子

像一位白雪公主

在人间走秀

忽然

她跌倒了

月光碎了

月光花开了

Moonlight Fashion Show

By Xue Jiayi, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Moonlight

Puts on a snow-white dress

Like a Snow White

Walking a show on earth

Suddenly

She stumbles

Moonlight shatters

Moonlight flowers bloom

抢龙珠

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛舜兮 9岁

夕阳西下

几缕云围着落日

像极了几条龙

在抢一颗龙珠

Snatching the Dragon Ball

By Xue Shunxi, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

As the sun sets

Several wisps of clouds surround the setting sun

Just like several dragons

Snatched a dragon ball

美丽的雪花

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 马崡旭 9岁

冬天

雪花打扮得

漂漂亮亮的

她们穿上洁白的裙子

跳着洁白的舞蹈

讲着洁白的故事

Beautiful Snowflakes

By Ma Hanxu, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

In winter

Snowflakes dress up

Prettily

They put on white dresses

Dance white dances

Tell white stories

小鸟

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛畅 9岁

窗外的小鸟

学着我们的样子

叽叽喳喳读课文

我们停下来

它们还在读

老师宣布

小鸟读得最快乐

Birds

By Xue Chang, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Birds outside the window

Learn from us

Chirping and reading textbooks

When we stop

They keep reading

The teacher announces

Birds read the happiest

花朵上的雨滴

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 刘怡杉 9岁

乌云开工了

用自己国家的小水晶

给花朵们穿上

自己亲手制作的水晶鞋

Raindrops on Flowers

By Liu Yishan, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Dark clouds start working

With small crystals from their own country

Dress the flowers

In crystal shoes made by themselves

花梦

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛子航 9岁

把我的灯关了

把我的门关了

把我的耳朵关了

把我拉进花的梦中

给我一个清醒的鼻子

Flower Dream

By Xue Zihang, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Turn off my lights

Close my door

Shut my ears

Pull me into a flower dream

Give me a sober nose

热闹的秋雨

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 顼艺安 9岁

小雨滴在天上乱跑

落下的时候

还在叽叽喳喳地叫

来到地面又开始聊天

好热闹的秋雨

Lively Autumn Rain

By Xu Yian, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Little raindrops run wild in the sky

When falling

They still chirp and shout

When they come to the ground, they start chatting again

What a lively autumn rain

小蜜蜂住酒店

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 韩鑫佑 9岁

沙沙沙

下雨了

被雨淋湿的小蜜蜂

急急忙忙钻进一朵小花

甜甜的花酒

美美的花床

小蜜蜂

躺在花朵酒店里

睡着了

Little Bees in the Flower Hotel

By Han Xinyu, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Shasha Sha

It’s raining!

Little bees soaked by the rain

Hurry into a tiny flower—

Sweet flower wine,

A beautiful flower bed…

The little bees

Lie in their flower hotel

And drift off to sleep.

猫与云

河北省石家庄市藁城区贾市庄镇贯庄小学 薛梓阳 9岁

一到阴天

小猫就害怕出门

因为云朵的眼泪

让它担心

自己柔软的皮毛

会被云要回去

Cats and Clouds

By Xue Ziyang, 9 years old, Guanzhuang Primary School, Jiashizhuang Town, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

Whenever it’s cloudy

The kitten is afraid to go out

Because of the clouds’ tears

It worries

That its soft fur

Will be taken back by the clouds

POETRY Unites people

We are traveling with words and with our talents.

EVA Petropoulou Lianou, founder of literary project,” Poetry Unites people,” works closely with a very talented young student in China 

Su Yun is a young poet who has shown an interest in the role of art, especially poetry, for young people’s education.

We cooperate and we exchange poems that are published in China and Greece.

Here you can find some poems written by young students. 

The project is called

 “Youth and Poetry”.

**If any teacher or school in Europe or Greece is interested and wants to participate in our project

POETRY Unites people “Youth and Poetry”

you can send email with your personal details to eviepara@yahoo.fr.

THE BURNING BOAT

I had burnt my boat

When I crossed the sea

I was then alone

Only my shadow witnessed it

Now, the stink of burning only I can smell

The burnt mark is visible to those

Who have sparks in their eyes

I am carrying the sea and burnt the boat within me

My boat was burning

There on the sands of seashore

Since then with the every tide

Sea attempts to put out the fire and

Wash off my burnt boat

Even for the high tide, it’s not possible to do so

My heart is burning in separation of my beloved

It’s pangs are too intensive

My blanket cannot properly cover my body

To extinguish the fire

The sea is nothing but my vast body

My toes are touching the sea bed

My boat is my heart within – the Sun on the sky

Smokes come out all over in my mind

My hairs turned into ashes grey

By the heat of my burning heart

It seems, my heart can’t meet;

Can’t make reunion with my beloved

Till the sea of my body gets dried out

O, my Lord!

How long I will have to wait

To show you my burning heart

Alas…!

WOMAN, BEYOND THE INDEX OF BODY

Lake like eyes/ Scarlet coral-like lips/ Curly-curvy hairs

Attraction all four directions

These are mazes

Face and physical charms are curtains, indeed

A weapon to keep off you from the desired abode

A true woman lives in somewhere else

Beyond the index of her body

Sitting crouch like a recluse

Just like an abstract thing

Like a dream of snow-white clouds

Sometimes, similar to the moonless dark night

Dormant lightening, full of its potency

Extremely tough meditation is needed

To open her inner layers of heart,

Love is considered to be the genuine pearl of a woman

This can discover by proceeding beyond her body

Otherwise, nothing lies in the whirlpool of body

Man wants to overpower

The screaming body of a woman

But the body is a dune of sands/ a fair of desires

There is only mirage and mirage

Woman uses to be hidden,

Somewhere in her inner self,

Instead of, being found in her apparent body

Which is like an epic center of a live volcano

A man in his entire life

Uses to run after fascinating faces

Like those idiot men

Who on the surface of the water

Often, stare at diving and floating waves

With their curious eyes

Use to play, the whole day, with shells lying on beaches

Perhaps, they do not know

That the true pearls are senselessly lying

In the depth of a sea,

Where the breathes not much support the divers

To achieve such unknown pearls in the deep sea

Needed to wait till the lips of shell get opened

To get the original element of a woman

You will have to raise the curtain of deceitful face

You will have to step down

In to the concealed room of her heart

You will have to knock and knock again

At the tightly closed window of her soul

A woman is not a thing of luxury

Not a commodity of marketing

Not even a body of only bone and flesh

The true name of a woman is ——

Love, love, and only love!

Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar is a Consultant Editor (Urdu) in National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Ministry of Education, Government of India. He had been Principal Publication Officer in National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language in 2007. He has been, a member of Advisory Board of National Book Trust India.

He is a Multilingual (English, Hindi and Urdu) famous poet, short story writer and critic from India. He is Graduate with English Honours from Ranchi University. He has topped Jawaharlal Nehru University in Masters with Literature. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy for his Research Work from University of Delhi. He is Post Graduate Diploma holder in Calligraphy, Mass Media and in Book Publishing with Specialization in Editing.

Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar began writing his poems in English since lockdown in the period of Pandemic COVID-19. He has written more than 100 poems, participated in many worldwide webinars and published in various international anthologies, so far. His as many as 25 poems have been translated by many award-winning litterateurs into Polish, Indonesian, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, and Albanian languages. His poems are being published in several anthologies within the country and abroad. He has 20 published books of literature in his credentials, so far. He has won many awards and accolades for his outstanding intellectual and literary contributions. His poem ‘The Burning Boat’ contains mystic (Sufism) and metaphysical elements.

HERE WE ARE

The FedEx driver’s Nazi haircut like

Elon sported not long ago startles me.

Barking at his phone, he waves and leaves.

Does he smile knowing he resembles

the dead Führer, evil incarnate?

Allied Forces fought as Ford sent Hitler

trucks, the damn Nazi. I pull behind a

beat-up Ford F-250 at Walgreens.

His license plate: Sons of Confederate

Veterans. No doubt also a member of

The Sons of the Confederacy. Walking

past, I avert my eyes so I won’t make

contact with the woman sitting in the

front seat disheveled her hair awry.

Does she believe this twisted reality?

Proud Boys, or another fringy brown shirt

group, native Neo-Nazi terrorists

masked & masquerading as Ice Men shove

invade shops, schools, & fields arresting

the innocent, ignoring our sacred

Constitution. Like the KKK, brave

when hiding behind a hood, cloaking them

from eventual prosecution. This

wicked underground emboldened by the

orange vitriol has crawled into the light,

wielding swords of bigotry and hatred.

Their plague of depravity strikes without

warning. Which Libertarian Trumpy

“friend” or Confederate kin would report

me to the Gestapo? No one is safe.

For, here we are, swimming in fascism