Killing the Bear Born into fury, starved and angry, inhabiting the mountains shiftless around Shasta, he seemed when you met him that summer day . . . You had come there, alone, from your home city to escape its troubles, the mad-making politics that poisoned most of the galling country: a presidential oaf, half cunning fox, half demented bear, and the rest of the barbarians not only you loathed with a lucid hatred, and few ways to disgorge it. So you went to the mountains. Brought sleeping sack, tent, bare necessities, fire needs, a week’s worth of food, a lamp, a knife; hiked an hour and a half into the Sierra through oak and pine woods, manzanita, brush land, meadows of yellow grass, by creeks of runoff from the winter’s snowfall, until you found a place near a rock pile, flat, at once cozy and open, near a stream and a view of a majesty of mountains and no sign of humanity for miles … You stopped, took a deep long breath—the first you’d taken, it seemed, for months. Your nerves, tense so long, slackened. You felt you were home at last. You whistled while setting up your tent, felt the squirrels watching you, sat for hours by the fire as the long, high, deep sky of summer evening almost imperceptibly faded into night and stars you had not seen since childhood… It was a rude awakening when sun pried your eyes open to the sight of an old grizzly staring blankly at you: huge, mangy, hungry, unsure on his legs, or the courage of terror (despite a distracting irrelevancy, “Are there even grizzlies in the Sierras?” almost tripped your reflexes) never would have driven you to your first thrust. The knife was near your sack: a butcher knife it was, just sharpened before you left; hard, new, shining. You grabbed it as the bear trundled awkwardly at you, and, yanking out of the sack, you screamed like a banshee, and, foolishly enough, ran at it. The beast stopped, puzzled by the naked monkey waving a bit of glitter with a pathetic shriek. At full height, he roared as you plunged the blade into what felt soft as a pillow. A paw swatted you with contempt. and you fell over the dead campfire, smearing you with a warpaint of ashes; yet still holding the knife. He came at you, claws out. Leaping up with a new shout, you swung the knife in wide arcs, the beast baffling a moment, then slipped behind a sycamore as he clawed away its bark, then pulled it down. Slipped your foot at the edge of the stream; you cried in anguish and anger, sure it was over as the bear bore down finally upon you, his teeth bright, his breath in your face, his eyes as cold, shining as stones. Terrified, hysterical, you shouted out your last cry and thrust the knife at the throat. It sunk to the haft; blood spurted over your hand. The bear’s roar choked to a gurgling, the mouth froze, startled, the eyes, blank, black, stunned, as the light vanished from them; they looked almost sad. You felt almost sorry as he sank over your legs, groaning a sigh as you pulled out the knife, and fell back into the stream. You hauled your legs slowly from under the dead hulk. Then pulled yourself from the flowing cold water, and stood on the stream bank, gazing down at the beast, the overthrown king of the woods. Then something curious happened: you heard a voice. Strangely, it was as if the grizzly spoke from the dead body. “Human: between you and triumph is no more than between you and your destruction: the difference is the act. Shall the way of your life be like the ice on a lake or like the arc of an arrow? “Be cunning and patient, and when the time comes to strike—and it always comes – be swift, and be certain. Most of all, remember: keep your knife always sharp. And close.” Then you heard the singing of many birds. Your eyes opened to the flickering of shadows above your head, and you looked, surprised, around you. You lay in your sack, the tent undisturbed. A zephyr shook it. You crawled out to the cool morning. What a dream! you thought. Yet you were not sure. You looked carefully about you, half expecting the grizzly. Nothing appeared but a few squirrels; a robin landed on a grass patch and flew off. There are dreams so vivid they seem more real than waking, the reality of waking could you but see the real. But when you wake, you sleep, and when you sleep, you waken: the lessons of that other world are ones that you fail to learn at your peril. Who can be sure? No one. Yet the hungry bear that now is coming toward you is vulnerable to one (you know, now you have woke), to one, single, lucky, well-timed, well-delivered, coolly administered, unfearing stroke. _____ Christopher Bernard is an award-winning poet and novelist living in San Francisco. His book The Socialist’s Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2021. In 2025, his first novel, A Spy in the Ruins, is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its original publication.
Poetry from Rustamova Asalay
Oftobjon
When I woke up in the morning, Light was pouring in through the window.
Glistening and shimmering, Oftobjon looked on with a smile.
As noon approached,
The temperature rose.
The farmer, saying he would rest,
Hurried to the field.
As the sun set,
He slowly, went home,
To rest, He went behind the mountain.
Rustamova Asalay, 7th grade student of the Ogahiy creative school
Poetry from Stephen Jarrell Williams
Plaza Pink and Blue
1.
No escape
wanting not to hide
out
in the open plaza
where you can grab me
upside down
shaking me
fizzing like a bottle of Pepsi
2.
I am deserted
most of the week
except Saturday night
reading
your mind
to a crowd
slow dancing
into the hot of the cold
3.
April nerves flexing
everyone with unwanted names
and losing weight where they want
showing off once in their life
so sad
we all fall down
eventually on our knees
bleeding kneecaps
4.
Our mothers crying
as to what
we have become
in the plaza underneath heaven
great songs of remorse
violins screeching
faces swelling into salty tear bags
popped eardrums
5.
Lonely horizon
lined with old street lamps
flames
snakes wiggling
up our naked legs
stamping our heels
to each
our rhythm
6.
Daddy finding us
saving us
with an old fashioned spanking
leading us home
where all the streets
have windows lit
with grandma
hugging us back to purity.
Short story from Isaac Aju
A Man Who Will Complete You
I’m 38, while Evans is 24, church member, job hunting, irreligious, not too handsome. He came in contact with my phone number after we came for a youth program in church and we were linked together for a church assignment, an assignment that involved us holding the money that was contributed to buy baby items for a pregnant woman in our group. The assignment was successful and everyone went their way. But once in a while, Evans would view my WhatsApp status. Sometimes he would comment in the brotherly-churchy way when I updated my WhatsApp status. I also viewed his status once in a while, but in a way that was detached. During the period around the presidential election we talked about what was happening in Nigeria, how we were all hopeful that change was about to happen in Nigeria, and then our hopes were torn apart when the result of the presidential election was announced. Then one day I posted that I was hiring. I was looking for someone who could help me in my finishings shop. He was the first to reply, fifty two seconds after the post uploaded.
“Do you have any experience in finishings?”
“Yes, ma. I did it for my elder brother before I started school, but he wasn’t paying me then.”
“Okay,” I said. I gave him the address of my shop, and he said “Thank you ma.”
That was how Evans became my employee. From church brother to my employee. People were often careful about church brothers and sisters, especially when it came to business, but Evans was truthful about the things he said about himself. He was very effective in handling the finishing machines. I also loved the fact that he was not one of those church people who were always preaching to people, even while at work. I’ve had one of such people in the past. She kept inviting me to see her pastor and I kept refusing till she finally left when she became pregnant. Her husband asked her to stop working, to safeguard their unborn baby. Evans carried his religion lightly, and he was a great fresh air in my workplace.
Let me stop here and say a few things about my personal life. The truth is that I’ve gone through a lot in the hands of men. In Nigeria we say Men are scum, but I don’t like using the word Scum. Not that the saying is untrue. I just don’t like the word.
When I was 25, I gathered my money and gave my boyfriend to support his business, but he ended up marrying another girl. I shrank and then allowed myself to spring back to life again. After that I’ve gone through many relationships that kept failing, but for four years, I decided to stay on my own. My sisters are all married, and everyone wonders what is wrong with me. Because I’m single, some of them call me on phone asking me to help them with one thing or the other, especially the ones who now have kids. The unspoken words are these: Because you are still single, can you please support us to raise our children while you wait for yours to come? But of course those words were never spoken out loud. They are often caged in “My children no longer have clothes o. I just hope that someone will help me out. My husband is trying, but you know men nau. They expect you to do some certain things.” Or they would say, “The children have been asking about you. You know school is about to open. They will need new exercise books.”
Sometimes I would send some money to my sisters, other times I would say that things were hard. “You know everywhere is hard in this Buhari’s regime.” And it was true. Things were hard. Buhari’s regime really dealt with my finances.
It’s been four years of staying on my own. My parents are both dead and so nobody is recommending one pastor or the other who would deliver me from the bondage of spinsterhood. This was particularly the assignment my mother kept doing until she died five years ago. I was 33 when she died. We had visited many prophets and pastors, sowed seeds of money, fasted together, so that God would give me a husband. But my good mother is now dead, and apart from attending the Sunday services of my local church, I have not gone to see any other pastor or prophet for prayers. I sincerely understood my mother’s concern about me, and sometimes I still think about her, how she would often drive our conversations towards marriage, husbands and powerful pastors. She was always on the lookout for any pastor that people say could perform miracles.
It’s been four years of being single. I kept pushing the men away who kept coming to suck from me. You would always know those kind of men. They kept coming, feeling entitled as though I should pamper them for their willingness to save me from my horrible spinsterhood. I’m still surprised about the fact that there are many jobless men in Aba looking for women who would take care of them. This is what my spinsterhood has opened my eyes to see: many jobless men who have no direction in their lives. I’m surprised because looking at them from afar, you would think they are sane and responsible. When they come close to you, that is when you would discover that they are vagabonds in good clothes.
Until Evans came to work for me. The last person who worked for me was a girl. She was 19, and she left to attend school after she got admission from Imo State University. That was why I started looking for a new worker, someone who would be efficient and fast with the finishing machines.
Evans was good, respectful, and funny. He often philosophized about life, and he was a keen follower of Nnamdi Kanu, the freedom fighter. He had worked for four months before I asked him to work overtime; I would pay him for the overtime. He agreed. After we were done with the work, late in the night, he said he would go home with me. “Won’t your parents get angry?” I asked.
“I’ve told them already. They said okay.”
I have heard of women in their late thirties or forties having sexual affairs with younger men, but I had never thought it was a rational thing to do, never thought it was something I myself was capable of doing, for whatever reason. Our bodies will always vent out what it had suppressed for a long time. Evans was also starved of affection. Both of us being in the same room that night, our flesh drew the attention of each other until they explored each other in intimacy. It happened after we have had something to eat. After some seconds, Evans leaned over and started to kiss me. It was unexpected, it was rousing, it was sweet. And I was human.
.
Evans would continue to work for me for the next one year, but I never allowed him to come to my house again. He left after a year to seek for a better paying job. He told me he was leaving, that he got a job in Umuahia, and I gave him some extra money, in addition to his salary. He was one of the most loyal people I’ve ever worked with. He was also very friendly with my customers.
I’m still friends with Evans. At least on WhatsApp. We never talked about what happened that night. We both knew why it happened. And there was no need to talk about it. On my birthday shortly after he left, he sent me a message:
Happy birthday to you ma. You are one of the kindest people I ever met. You see people for who they are, and you have a free spirit. I pray that God will send you a man that will complete you and cherish you just as you deserve.
Much love from Evans.
So Evans is just my friend now. Not my employee anymore.
Isaac Aju is a Nigerian storyteller whose works have appeared in both UK and US literary journals and publications including Poetry X Hunger, Penned In Rage Journal, Writers’ Journal – Live And Learn. His historical poems on Biafra will be published by Flapper Press at the end of the month. He lives in Nigeria where he works as a fashion designer, designing and making clothes for men.
Poetry from Grzegorz Wroblewski, translated by Peter Burzynski
ZAPOMNIANY OBSYDIAN
Możemy zrezygnować
z mięsa.
Wtedy wyciekną płyny.
Mięso zrezygnuje
z nas
Forgotten Obsidian
We have to give up
meat.
Then our bodily fluids will leak.
And our meat will give up
on us.
CIEPŁA KREW
Ciepła
krew
uśmierca
zew
krwi.
Warm-Blooded
Warm
blood
kills
for
blood.
MAHAJANA
Psy smakują lepiej
od mahajany,
dlatego bez sensu
byłoby utrwalanie
w sobie uporczywych,
niskobiałkowych
myśli zakonnych.
A sierść i tak ściągnie
z podłogi nasza filipińska
służąca, żywiąca się
promieniami słońca,
deszczówką
i zaklęciami trupów.
Mahāyāna Buddhism
Dog tastes better
than the flesh of Buddhists;
therefore, it would make no sense
to nourish oneself with persistent,
yet low-protein monastic thoughts.
Besides, our servant will remove
the fur that thrives on the sunshine,
rainwater, and curses of the dead
anyways.
ROZSĄDEK
Zabawa empatycznych ciał miękkich
wchodzących głęboko/płytko w inne
ciała miękkie, półmiękkie,
zapowietrzone?
Coś odgryzło mu palce.
Ale to nie są moje utraty płynów.
Ja posiadam nadal metalową
protezę.
Życie prywatne!
Tylko życie prywatne się liczy…
Common Sense
Does playing empathetically with soft flesh—
pushing, pulsing deep then shallow
into soft and semi-soft flesh—
allow in air?
Something bit off my fingers.
But I haven’t lost a thing.
I still have a metal prosthetic
instead. This is my private life!
Only ones’ private life
truly matters.
Poetry and art from Jacques Fleury
The Flow
“They” say “go with the flow”
But the flow sometimes fails to follow
Perhaps because of a “Florence” or a “Frank”
Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine the
Flow flowing even if my life machine
Has mechanical mis-flows
Sometimes flows in a “Joe”
And I say, “Hey Joe, what do you know….?!”
And he knows to say “just go with the flow”
After all that is how we got here, isn’t it?
Someone met someone and went with “the flow”
Then something flowed into
Some other thing and “Presto!”
Here we are…
Sometimes the flow is turbo
Sometimes the flow is slow
But I know the flow is the flow
It exists on its own “gO”
It is not dictated to
Nor is it directed by YOU or for You
Like the wind it just flows on its own BLOW!
In the grand scheme of our life flow
No “Florence”
Nor “Frank”
Not even ‘Joe” who thinks he knows
Can block the blow of the flow
For the flow bows to no one you know
Despite delusional attempts at adaptations
Dismissed as delicate solutions
To inescapable life situations
Long before “Florence” or “Frank” and
Even know it all “Joe” found their very own flow
Abide in a flowy lucidity
Flow with mortality like a fraternity
Then pass it on for posterity…
So live, love and laugh on the gO!
Because it’s the only way to come into “the flow” …
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–
Essay from Lalezar Orinbayeva
A dream… When people hear this word, it sometimes brings joy to their faces, while at other times, it evokes deep sighs and regret. This is because as long as a person lives, they dream. They set goals, take steps toward them, strive, and work hard. Sometimes, fate grants them the fulfillment of their dreams, and sometimes, those dreams remain as mere wishes—unfulfilled and lost in time.
Since my youth, I, too, have had dreams—visions that guided me, inspired me, and fueled my determination. I have worked tirelessly to achieve them, pouring my energy into every step forward. Dreams have the power to elevate a person, to make them feel like they rule the world, to transport them into a realm as magical as Alice’s Wonderland, where everything seems possible. Even now, I continue to chase my dreams—I study, I strive, I push forward.
Some of my dreams were born in childhood, while others emerged during my teenage years. I am grateful for those I have achieved. Of course, not all dreams are easy to reach. Some may seem utterly impossible, as if fate itself has placed an insurmountable barrier in the way. But no matter how difficult it may seem, one must never surrender. One must never give up.
Because a dream, no matter how distant, is always worth the pursuit.
I, too, have lived chasing my dreams. Yet, those unfulfilled dreams still linger in my heart, my thoughts, and my mind—like distant peaks with no way to reach them.
When I shared my dreams with my parents and loved ones, I often heard discouraging words: “That is impossible,” “It doesn’t suit you,” “It’s not appropriate for our culture,” or “A girl should not pursue such a path.” I faced resistance and opposition.
One of the dreams that turned into a mirage was my deep desire to enter the military. My passion for this field began when I was in school. I was so captivated by the idea of serving in the military that I often imagined myself in uniform, standing in formation, marching with pride, singing military anthems, and taking an oath with unwavering determination. I could see myself walking with honor and discipline among my fellow soldiers.
When the time came and people asked, “What career do you want to pursue?” I confidently answered, “I want to become a soldier.” I had planned to apply to a military academy after finishing school. But, unfortunately, I was met with strong opposition and countless restrictions.
Even then, I refused to give up. I didn’t want to surrender my dream so easily. I graduated from school and began preparing my application, determined to fight for my place in the field I loved. Yet, once again, I found myself under immense pressure—barriers I could not break through. In the end, I was forced to choose a different path. My dream, once vivid and full of life, faded into a distant mirage. And with deep regret, I buried it in the depths of my heart.
But that was not my only dream. There were others—many others. And for them, I have studied, worked hard, and pushed forward. Some I have achieved, while others have slipped through my grasp, turning into mirages just like my military dream.
Yet, I refuse to stop dreaming. I continue to strive toward my future aspirations with the firm belief that I will succeed. There are still so many dreams ahead of me, waiting to be turned into reality.
Lalezar Orinbaeva was born in 2003 in the Turtkul district of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. She is of Turkmen nationality. In 2021, she became a student at the Faculty of Primary Education at the Tashkent University of Applied Sciences in Tashkent. She is an ambassador for three international organizations and a member of one international organization. Her creative works have been published in Kenya, Germany, Albania, Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus, and several other foreign countries, and are indexed on Google. She is the recipient of various international certificates. She has also founded her personal “Anthology”. Lalezar is a holder of international medals, statuettes, diplomas, certificates, and invitations. She is a professional curator of Dreams That Turned Into a Mirage.