Those Long Odds



As soon as someone

Moves out of

The marital home,

Those long odds

Get a lot longer.




Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “In the Arena,” his third full-length poetry collection, is due out in April.

STILL STRANGERS:

     EROS

IN EROSION



After years

     of wear, she would sew

with those sharp dead

                           beads, new thoughts

           into the threadbare pattern of memory,

and he solder

       his older, darker, thoughts into place….






… Long ago…





they learned to slaughter

        their eager laughter and tear

                         their deepest tears out of each’s other,

they taught themselves to utilize their exquisite words

                      like hamhamhammers and broadswords--

then, their mutual wounds

                     they wound all about their lives like poison ivy.

(Each just one more bothersome

              clone to the other…)



But



There had been a time



, once,



before the tiny

            mutiny,

when they were still strangers

                                 to anger,

when they could lie naked,

                          sun-baked upon the jurassic sands

or beside the slow hearth,

                            unearthing new treasures from their together,

when, in some safe

                        cafe, their yes

                                      -eyes could swallow entire

their sweet menus

               of Venus

and for many an hour

                           pour their love

from lip to mouth like milk from a pitcher to a glass.





But that time passed…





Strangely

     angel-like, two

 naif

waifs

blown

 down,

unable to unwind all the ivy accumulation

 in a rugged wind – they just

     shrugged, unable to face down

     the demons of their facetious selves.



             (This is not simply

                             to imply that they weren’t determined.

But, over time, stubborn assiduity becomes undermined,

especially when connubial cement lacks

                                 reinforcement.

So, by fragile grapevines, over

                tangled ravines,

the values they were hanging onto

                        kept changing.

They were unable to forge a structure anew

                         or to forget old collapse.

 Neither the heights of their dear science nor

             the weight of alerted conscience,

and not Keats, and certainly

       not Yeats,

     could keep the crevices in their isolate selves

from inventing the devices of their together’s undoing.)







                              Beached,

they discovered the sea:

     inequal parts nausea and mystery.



MAGNIFYING GLASS



You are that lens

that focuses that passion

that assembles

that clearing conflagration.



Borders are kept

by habit, time, or treaty.

When virgin lands

are opened to new seeding

planters supplant

foragers, and old hunters

confront lightnings

to experience thunder.



Our species needs union for generation

but it splits to get searchlight approbation.



HER NAME IS JENNY AND MANY A MORN HAS SEEN HER FACE



:daybreaks are harlots all scarlet and huge with rouge and paste.

:some skies all rosy with hosiery (her limbs so prim, so chaste).

:some days hemorrhage like courage at our battleplace.

:other sunrises are sizes too large – whole yards of lace:

silk towns are pretty but cities of silk go wilt and waste.

(So like my Jenny: her any is much; her touch, embrace.)

(There is no middle. A little with her will work long ways.

:brown coffee mornings come pouring right up from cup to taste.

:all these sunrisings (dawn-icings) – like thieves, they leave no trace.

(So unlike Jenny:

so many a morn has worn her face, so many evenings.

Her leaving goes dim with flimsy haste.)



MONUMENT/MYTH



1. LA FONTAINE MÉDICIS, JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG



You stroke the stonework

when you come upon the cyclops

and, so, I fountain.



2. ACIS



The bent bronze was crouched.

Your love urged blood into water

and so I fountained.



LOVERS PREFER ROMANCE BECAUSE



poets seek to explore “la mer’

while disregarding the isthmus

and when ‘st-stanzas st-stutter

they p-pretend ma-melisma.

Knowledge is the fundamental basis for the value and development of humanity. It provides the opportunity to expand one’s understanding of the world through acquiring new information, sharing knowledge, and connecting various fields of study.

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Educational initiatives and efforts to acquire knowledge empower individuals with new information, theories, and insights. Thus, the role of knowledge is pivotal in the personal, social, and economic development of individuals, playing a substantial role in shaping a brighter future for humanity.

QURBONOVA GULSANAM

+


The man who tries
  fights his own expectations 

LOVE has this 

   The bird who flutters 
 first born of its nesting days 
has wings in anticipation 

Our Love sings
from parents warmth 
Tune these expectations 

  LOVE has this 

Fallen, born to fly 
 Own the comfort 
  A dawn has no limits 
  LOVE
 A fallen catches life's birth 
                A time to sing
LOVE has this 
    ♡

                                                  ............


by  John Edward Culp 
     Friday morning 
    February 16, 2024

Inscribed In Siltstone

Ancient the relics of thy chthonic passion
Primeval is the amygdala-saurus
Of thy unperturbèd ur-intelligence
Pristine your solicitous quickest instinct

A splendid bolus hardcoded through eons
In the original processing system
Stupendous corpus in tenebrous locus
Coffer’d miscellaneous minutalia

Neither impermanence nor transience affect
Thy everlasting sentience macadamized
Unalterable in unmoving hardness

Took up thy abode in the first guts to stay
Record uncorrupted of feral forebears
Always safe from annihilation to come




Maurizio Brancaleoni is a writer and translator. His poems/haiku/short stories/pastiches have appeared in several journals and anthologies. He has a bilingual blog where he posts literary gems, interviews and translations. ‘Inscribed In Siltstone’ is a meditation in sonnet form about fossils and their obscure antiquity.

Namangan State Pedagogical Institute: Nurturing Educators for Tomorrow

Namangan State Pedagogical Institute (NamSPI) holds a crucial role in Uzbekistan’s educational sphere, especially in the Namangan region. Established with the goal of shaping the next generation of educators, NamSPI reflects Uzbekistan’s dedication to promoting high-quality pedagogical education.

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Sarvinoz Mamadaliyeva, born on September 5, 2004, in the Tashlak district of Fergana region, is a dynamic and ambitious 19-year-old. Demonstrating her commitment to education, she is currently a 2nd year student in the Foreign Language and Literature Department at Namangan State Pedagogical Institute.

Sarvinoz’s journey is marked by passion for language and literature, reflecting her dedication to personal and academic growth. As she continues her studies, she embodies the spirit of promising individual poised to contribute meaningfully to her community and beyond.