Filthy Game of Sun and Water

Filthy game between Sun and Water,
Has sharply started severely;
The conspiracy of witch Air
Who is the protagonist by blowing madly.
Innocent Earth shivering with fear.
Water trying to sink the Sun into his strong current with his wet hand 
Trying to extinguish sunshine.
For Water raging earth's heart turns into flood land; blacken the whole world with thick darkness.
Rising up high, Sun attacks mercilessly -
Like a thirsty bitch quaffed water as wine.
By sipping with greedy lips;
Soaked the heart of Ocean-
Aridity grasped the whole Earth's throat. 
Cracking sound of breaking World is heard.
Ah! lovely mother Earth misusing as a center of a battle ground 
Filthy game of Sun and Water.   

Aklima Ankhi, poet, storyteller and translator from Cox'sbazar, Bangladesh. Born in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. She has a published poetry named "Guptokothar Shobdochabi" written in Bangla. She is a post graduate in English Literature. As a profession she is a Lecturer in English.           

FOUR SEASONS WITH DEAD LEAVES… 

Passed four seasons with the dead leaves,
Which season we have expected other than this, 
Why haven’t we bloomed in any season? 
Why have all of them hated us, 
What bad evil have we done to them while, 
We were busy with ourselves and the world?…

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by Yunus Emro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey and five years in Ukraine. Currently lives in Switzerland. Married, mother of five children. It was not possible to publish poems and translations written by the poet in the next ten years.

Purpose of Everything

If one is to drink water, 
urinate to dispose water,
and later be thirsty again.
What is the use of drinking water? 
If everything is for naught?
Why do most creatures eat, sleep, labor and fight to survive?
Some believe in life after death, 
but there are those who do not. 
Why do they persist doing good 
when there are others doing bad?
If everything is for naught? 
Why mate, procreate and strive daily in order to have better life?
Why do people even care to seek to understand when all is for naught?
Why do people seek power, fame, and glory when all is for naught?
Or is everything really for naught?

Deadliest Weapon

Guns to be banned. Knives to be banned
I am waiting for when rocks are banned. After all, a rock was known to be the first murder weapon. Or so I heard about Cain and Abel.
But then, how should we go about herbs, drugs, missiles, bombs, media and tongues? 
Mind is the deadliest murdering weapon I think. 
With so many ways of killing weak and innocent ones, even without any logical reason at all. With so many wicked moves for different kinds of death, not only by losing one's life.
So sad that it is innocent ones being snatched from the living stage, and the culprit never dies, just changing names and bodies to dwell in.
So sad, when the culprit is being protected, while the innocent ones are ignored. When data is accepted without confirming the accuracy of information.
So sad, that right belongs to the might, and blame belongs to the shield. When one is compelled to stand on the sides or be a collateral damage as well.
So sad, that a candle lighted to face the darkness seems to be losing a battle against a collective wind that trespasses a private room.





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 consider poetry as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

Emotions  

Feeling sick is a feeling that will come and go. 
The heart will tremble, the heart will break,
It will make your heart beat again,
It's a powerful feeling, to burn from the inside. 
Sometimes you can't hold back the tears
It has rained and it is flowing because of the sadness. 
You can't remove the pain from your heart, 
Hiccup - hiccup out of resentment. It's futile to protest the world, 
This is a prison for everyone. 
Someone's punishment is fun, fun, 
For some it is hard labor, pain, torture.
Fates are written for everyone, It's hard to get rid of it. 
No matter how far he goes, 
He came again and passed through his birthplace. 
He did not break hearts, if we approach privately,
Everyone will respect each other, 
It would be great if we could live by the law. 
Then the world will also respite.


Elmaya Jabbarova was born in Azerbaijan. She is a poet, writer, reciter, and translator.
Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.

I AM YOUR FLUTE
 
Hold me in your hands, my dear God 
use my body and words 
Hug me tight and rule my life 
I am yours, I am your flute 
I don't see my life any other way 
than in your safe hands, play so that 
by your sound I feel that I am alive. 
Your turns of fingers and lips make me lose my "taste" for this world of lies. 
I'm yours, I'm your flute,
hold me and never let me go from your embrace. 


DON'T LOOK AROUND 

When those people close the door of their heart 
it's their choice, thank you 
because when you are rejected, you are accepted by God. 
The disappointment is not without reason 
it's all a lesson of life, 
and we are relieved when the tears flow, 
we get rid of sadness. 
When someone doesn't want your company,
give thanks to God, for God places the pieces as on a chessboard, 
everything has already been played, we are observers. 
Never beg for the friendship you want 
Respect those who love your company and never look back for those who leave. 
When there is no sincerity, 
God separates people. 

Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia.
She is a person to whom from 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.

Anointed with Timeless Joy

I want to dance in the sunshine of my soul; 
Laugh in gales of greedy delight at nothing at all. 
I want to strip bare and bathe in rain-drenched blossoms 
Falling like snow from the flowering pear tree 
And let down my hair to cling in rivulets down my back. 
I want to go fast down life’s slide on my belly 
And land laughing in the dirt at the bottom of the world. 
I want to count the stars of midnight and ride the comets 
Across the universe, bare-back, with my spurs dug in. 
Dusty eons and frozen grains of sand in the hourglass 
Mean nothing but being alive in all the soul’s timeless joy; 
Spending golden moments lost in endless beauty; 
The breast of time rising and falling with the tides of the moon. 
Each breath is a lightness of knowing, of remembrance 
Moving rhythmically to the drums of everlasting madness 
While strolling leisurely through the light tunnels of infinity 
With a silly grin spread across my wonder of existence. 
Endless joy is sparkling eyes, and a laughing soul in bare feet. 


Breath of Life Sonnet 

Oh, the intemperate swells of the heart 
That drown me in their wake when you appear, 
That melancholy stills when you depart; 
And comes again to life when you draw near. 
Ancient forgotten love spells seem to call 
Like fading siren’s songs from long ago 
And all the sighs that held me so enthrall 
Whisper once again how I love you so. 
Come to me from the tunnels of the wind.
Let not our time on earth be lived in vain.
Love is a living force that has no end - 
A breath of life for us to breathe again.
 Love is a magnet that pulls heart to heart; 
Once together, no force can pull apart. 


Prayer at Twilight 

You are my thoughts in the shadowy lane at twilight; 
So real I wonder if you can hear my footsteps 
Crunching over the stones beneath my feet as I walk; 
Or the whisper of the grass when I step off the path. 
Can you hear my voice as I speak to you in make-believe, 
Imagining your hand in mine and you walking beside me? 
The stars hang above the treetops like tiny lanterns 
Waiting for the breath of God to blow them out 
When dawn peeks breathless over the hills of morning. 
I will be long in my bed before the new day arrives, 
Snug under the covers of night and its holding 
Of my treasured dreams of you in earnest longing 
Tucked in my lonely heart missing you with each beat. 
My fervent prayers at night are always the same words, 
Let him be safe, healthy and strong and missing me 
As he seeks my soul in the long shadows of twilight 
Down the silent starlit lanes of his stalwart soul. 

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.

Three, Two, One......Done

My heart has been dragged, ragged and bruised.
Every drop of its weary blood has been used.
I have wrung it dry and left it out to die and still
It feeds my thirsting brush and starving quill.
My soul has been battered, tattered and sold
Every piece set in stock; paid out in fool's gold.
I have set it out on the world to the point of no return.
Still in everything I do.......... I can see......... I feel it burn.
In giving my heart and soul my mind has left me.
My passion has led me to the point of insanity.
All that I love has gone from peace to war.
I'm left staring in madness at a black door.
No reflection from the depths of the abyss.
Pain and sorrow have become my bliss.
Oh hell, I remember the destruction
The end and rebirth of creation
Three.........two........ one
ONE......it's done.


But A Droplet 

If you could catch my fall
My tears would tell it all.
You might be able to see
Your way through me.
If you could break the surface
You would see secrets I can't confess.
But I am but a droplet
That you will soon forget.
You will never see me blossom
Nor know what I have become.
If you could see beyond the reflection
You would see behind my rejection.
You would know I'm entangled in tears
I've let grow for so many years.
If you could catch my fall
My tears would tell it all.
I am but a droplet 
Wishing it could forget.


From South-Western, Michigan, Jerry Langdon lives in Germany since the early 90's. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of Poetry titled "Temperate Darkness an Behind the Twilight Veil", “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.