The heart, a scratched record repeating the same melancholic song,
a melody of regrets and missed opportunities.
Its needle, stuck in the past, prevents a new song from playing.
Hope, a small plant in a cracked pot,
struggling to survive in arid soil.
Its roots, weak and thirsty,
desperately search for a little water in the dry earth.
Life, an incomplete puzzle,
with missing pieces we’ll never find.
Its scattered fragments, disjointed memories,
prevent us from seeing the whole picture.
Silence, a heavy marble slab that weighs on the chest,
preventing emotions from flowing freely.
Its relentless cold envelops us in a profound loneliness…
GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.
Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry.
Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.
Eso he boisakh eso eso ( welcome o boiasakh welcome welcome)
Chayanot, an artist group at the Ramana Botmul, Dhaka
In so colorful dresses with so many folk songs by others too
This traditional day is celebrated by the whole country
And the other countries of the world where Bangalees live
Regarding its own cultural views, it’s an extra taste of life
Following its past glory, it reflects the people’s ways of life.
The time is for growing new leaves in the branches of the trees
And falling down the old to the ground
The roads and fields with grey leaves decorated like the carpets
That spread to shake hands having a new connection within
The moderate weather farewells the winter season
Saying Good Bye to the decay and infirmity
Coming out from home people sing and dance
The processions with the masks in the faces
Holding so many posters and placards in hands
Reflects the wonderful past
By the way the shops are designed for Halkhata
(Halkhata means paying the debts of the clients it closes the old khata
and opens the new one)
The clients are served with some sweet foods in the shops
Now the things can be seen rarely in the rural areas once hugely in yesteryear
Some play with sticks by the way in a circle
The children make fun in Nagordola (Go round in a circle)
Some prepares soaked rice for breakfast in the morning
Enjoying with green chilies, onion, salt, potato stuffing and fried fishes etc.
The procession with the masks in the faces reflects the past
With the use of fine arts it demonstrates the traditional things
Like the horse carriage, bullock carts, palanquin and so many others
O the last year, go away from us burning the trash in mind
And blaze out the new soft sun with the glory of newness
The perpetual blessings to work.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
13 April, 2025.
Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.
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.
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.
