…Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that [Humankind] are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce [the People] under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.…
2025 WHEN in the Course of Human Events, it becomes necessary for the People to dissolve the Political Government which has connected them as a People, and to Create a New Government in Opposition to the despotism, racism, fascism, and hate of the Old government, then People must raise their voices, sharpen all available non-violent tools, and Resist the old Government in all possible ways. It may and probably is the case that the People will need to create a new global movement dedicated to Establishing these self-evident Truths, that all People are created equal, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
As the world seems to be on the cusp of such a moment, with many governments failing their citizens through autocracy, with the former “leader of the free world,” The United States chief among these, The BeZine may need to rise up and promote a clarion call of non-violent literature and art to resist and establish new possibilities globally, to support the People whose Rights are trampled by the few oligarchs, autocrats, military chiefs, and dictators.
If you are interested in working on a revival of The BeZine, to bring it back— as editors, managers, public relations, and web-publishers, please email: editor@TheBeZiine.com. iIntroduce yourself, explain what you would like to do to help, and describe what your experience is (note: we use WordPress to publish).
Stones occupy where my heart should feel light, heavy stones. After almost making it through ten years, The BeZine must now say, “good-bye.” Due to changes in the lives of our editorial team and some of our contributors; losses of our Founder, Jamie Dedes,and one of our guiding lights, Michael Rothenberg; and my own failing ability to find the energy to carry this project on my shoulders— in consultation with the editorial team, after agonizing considerations, I have decided to stop publishing The BeZine.
I was a high school student during The Chicago 8 trial (who became The Chicago 7 after Bobby Seale was removed to a separate trial). One of, maybe the first, demonstration I took part in was when a friend of mine skipped school and took the train into Chicago from the comfortable suburb where I grew up. We spent the day joining thousands of others who marched through the streets protesting the trial.
Early last year, I was on the streets of Jerusalem (where I now live), protesting an unreasonable and undemocratic “judicial reform” legislative package that would have subjugated the judicial branch to Executive-Legislative whim. Those who objected saw it as a judicial coup, as the new laws sought to replace rule of law with the political will of the ruling coalition of parties. It seemed that my life had come a circle, back in the streets in my late 60s protesting. However, it also like wheel spinning in mud.
The horrific 7th October attack by Hamas stopped those protests. The organizers turned immediately—literally on the day of the attack—to organizing housing, food, clothing, medicines, and whatever else the displaced people from the attacked areas needed. They worked to help medical supplies got to those caring for the wounded.
The resulting war in Gaza has been escalated by the same group of ministers who had been pushing for the judicial coup. They have made public statements about Israel taking over Gaza, about moving the Gazans out. They make no secret of their racism and their desire to remove Arabs from Israel without any wish to acknowledge the need for Palestinians to have self-determination via their own state. They make statements that can only be interpreted as genocidal, although a minority even within the extreme-right wing coalition that support Bibi Netanyahu.
All of that death and destruction so close to me, but other than rocket attacks during the first week or two of this war and during the Iranian strike on Israel, Jerusalem remains relatively quiet. A privileged position, where life goes on almost as normal. But it doesn’t go on as normal. The deaths of hostages taken and held by Hamas—who did not follow the international court order to release them as soon as possible—and the tens of thousands of deaths of Gazan combatants and civilians—cloud the horizons of my thoughts.
The wheels spin deeper and deeper. The faster they spin, the larger the hole, the less likely progress will move forward.
Why do I write of this when my topic is the closing of The BeZine? The whole time I have been involved with The BeZine, I have lived in Jerusalem. I came to The BeZine because Jamie Dedes, its founding editor, read my book of poem, War Surrounds Us (Is a Rose Press 2015), about the 2014 Hamas-Israel conflagration. She wrote a review and interviewed me (read the review and interview here). She then invited me to contribute to The BeZine, followed by a contributing editor role as I helped with producing The BeZine.
And here we are again, that wheel, that circle. Each turn moves me to a darker place, a sense of failing to make a difference. And as illness, divorce, and life’s demands (things like making a living, for example) have drained our editorial team, I have not had the energy to do The BeZine alone and the team has not been able to help.
After deep and long consideration, and an attempt to try again after a two-issue hiatus, an attempt mostly obscured for me by the latest and most deadly iteration of the Hamas-Israel war, we have decided to stop publishing. We think The BeZine brought light to our readers and contributors, we hope that leaving it online as an archive of reading will continue to spread that light.
However, I take responsibility, that I don’t have the energy needed at this time to do this project, and without me, the others feel that they can’t continue, either. Yet, I also took this on and hoped to continue with it until another was ready to take my place. I didn’t do enough to build our team—Jamie was good and bringing new people and new energy in almost every issue. I didn’t have that skill so much.
Meanwhile, I will continue to do what I can. We have planted a container garden on our balcony with flowers, kitchen herbs, and some vegetables. We’re even growing turmeric, a beautiful plant with delicious tuberous roots that both provide spice. A praying mantis has made a home for the past week on a vine almost as bright green as it is. Bees and other pollinators visit. A French-Swiss friend of mine told me this is called a “bracket of peace” in French. May we all nurture brackets of peace, and be nurtured by them.
I hope to arrange another 100 Thousand Poets for Change event during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. This continues an activity that also connect Jamie and me.
I write very little, but I do write some. I will keep at it as I can find words, or as words find me. I am, however, unusually reticent during this time.
I don’t have the energy I once did. But from what energy I have, I will put some into arts-activism, to pursuing the four themes of The BeZine — sustainability, peace, social justice, and their intersections with spiritual life.
Now, I personally thank the editorial team members who worked hard and supported me in putting each issue out, the regular and occasional contributors who provided the literature and art to fill our issues, the many regular readers, and everyone who has visited the site, even if only once—and I say, warmly, fare thee well.
May you continue to find energy, faith, support for making the world better. Perhaps you will find inspiration in this incredible body of work that The BeZine has published over its (nearly a) decade. May we all find the spark we need to continue our journeys.
May Peace Prevail on Earth
—Michael Dickel, former publisher and editor of The BeZine
Tehran, March 8, 1979 – Women demand a government based on gender equality Source
If poetry has a role in social change for social justice, then surely the next several months will be time for literary publishers, poetry event organizers, and readers, to undertake that role on an international scale. Poems must be made available and accessibly distributed for that to happen.
Bänoo Zan, an Iranian-Canadian poet living in exile, and Cy Strom, an award-winning editor from Toronto, have a call for poetry submissions for an anthology with the Toronto publisher Guernica Editions, to be titled Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. Submissions are currently open, and the deadline is March 15, 2024.
Demonstrators opposed to the Iranian regime hold a candlelight vigil to pay tribute to those who have died protesting the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who was killed in police custody after allegedly violating the country’s hijab rules, outside the White House on Saturday. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images) Source
We don’t feel shame when
we share memories
of when being in love was a novelty.
We’re nostalgic once a year
and hug a bit more often.
When we do reminisce
it’s not due to our deserted country
but because of the calendar
showing us one of our anniversaries.
Recently we started to hug a bit more frequently
and it is because of our frantic deserted country.
We love like we forgot it ever had a beginning.
and we continue to love like it will have no end.
We acknowledge eventually we’ll die
and discuss, almost negotiate,
how many marks we want to leave behind us.
We’re sick and merry, healthy and sad, we’re sad
and sick and merry and married.
Yes, we do like better
who we are
but not enough
not to the degree we’d want you to stare at it.
Birdwatching
Our world begged for existence.
We carried our valor secretly
no witnesses for our triumphs
for overcoming another day.
Not being able to save even ourselves,
we dropped on the bed
as if we’d lost a battle.
In the mornings we melted back
from sleeping like rocks
into floating bodies in a void.
We watched the birds
from our square-foot lawn and cherished
not just their movement –
their gift of coming from different worlds –
but our own growing ability,
while standing up, standing still
to notice them.
Foliage
Written before the Jewish New Year’s Eve of
the year 5782,
2022 by the Gregorian calendar
I want to write something with the word foliage
but need a better language than this one,
one that will allow it to breathe in a poem
and won’t be florid.
Perhaps in Estonian
where it’s possible to love quietly
and to hate
and then grief.
Perhaps there,
where it’s okay to die every winter and remain naked.
Where it’s really unknown where a sentence will end.
Where you can breathe deeply
all the way down to bring foliage,
or even autumn’s fall, on the body,
but not rain like the desert here pleads for.
Where you can secrete miracles
without desecrating respect,
with no void to cross over forty years of desert
and then what?
Me, reduced of the desert’s wandering,
at the age of a girl starting the second grade.
May she have an ameliorated year,
a year that saturates, sprouts,
a year in which twigs are ignited into buds,
a preceding year before the winters of her life
that will bless her with the fluttering foliage of clear breath,
a sweet one,
a breath,
no more than an exhale of fresh breath that will ease
the severance every end brings
Mainland
Armored by slumber
I cross the flaming oceans
of the un-dared dreams.
Only the ones I didn’t dream
have been fulfilled.
Like a prime number
I am a core
in search for oneness.
Unable to divide into any other kernels
I multiply and withdraw
like waves coming and going —
a pendulum movement
between the coarse golden ash of sand
to the silver moon-color of the waves.
Within their foam dissolving beauty
hides repetitive abandonment.
Roar at the winter
with nothing
to be hindered by.
The sand is just another foam
in a different consistency
engulfs, embraces
and yet forsakes as well,
but in slower motion.
Now I’m hushing oceans
into the fall of dusk,
searching ways
to turn into an islet
so there’s less of me
needing to be loved.
…is a prizewinning bilingual Israeli poet with a Canadian background. She is the author of ten poetry books, four in English and six in Hebrew as well as a multilingual book of her poem ‘Note’. She was awarded prizes for best foreign poet at the international Italian poetry competitions I colori dell’anima (2020) and Ossi di Seppia (2019), a grant for excellency by the Ministry of Culture of Israel (2015) a fellowship residency at the International Writers’ Workshop Hong Kong (2021) and more, including several grants for her Hebrew books from The Pais Committee for Arts and Culture, The Acum Association of Authors and The Goldberg Grant for Culture and Literature. She has full length books translated into French, Serbian and Estonian and more are forthcoming. Her poems are translated into 33 languages and featured worldwide in numerous anthologies and journals. Gili participates in festivals and literary events across the globe such as in Canada, France, Mexico, Italy, India, Romania, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Kosovo, Chile, Kenya, Mongolia and more. Gili also engages in photography and poetry translation as well as facilitating groups and individuals in creative writing in Israel, Canada and more.
A little boy in awe, aged six, perhaps more
…or thereabouts, it matters little or less.
Four years had passed since She had been
proclaimed our Queen, our first coronation for
a Queen Elizabeth in nearly four hundred years.
So young. So pretty. So popular and pure.
Around my age there was another little boy
her son and heir apparent, but not quite so excited.
He wasn’t by her side at her glorious crowning.
Now, whilst in my retirement, he bears the burdens of
the decease of his darling mother, whom he had to
share with us. So close. So secure. So family. So far.
Meanwhile, at the family picnic, they were
serving us all, by the loch, among the trees
copious fresh air, inspiration, love and fun
the children, renewing family ties, learning their
duty to serve us. With such stamina, She, so young
with such a burden, accepted with such grace.
Our friends’ lonely house lay by that same road
the Royal planners decreed they should follow
to their next tour venue…that evening in 1956.
As she was passing through, after a busy day
She said “I think we should stop for a cup of tea”
as She is wont to do, with such instinctive inspiration.
So willing was She to walk about and meet us all
on the streets or in our places, we came to expect it.
It seemed so normal. It should have come as no surprise.
Our teacher to the class: “who saw the Queen, yesterday?”
Me, in total belief: “ Yes, Miss, yes, she came to tea with us! ”
Her response, dismissed my heart-felt truth with just one look.
In her younger days, poignantly, Lillibet once declared…
“…we are all just passing through ”
When I start the night
I think Eskimo’s and seashells:
Places of open abandon
Like black sheep and the wild ones-
Outcasts have a way of touching
Those forlorn places that you hide
Beside the beauty of your mind
Sather Gate
Taking me higher than I was
Pairing with my pals
To fight the Knowland police
gone hard metallic-tight
The nation had, it seems, landed in Berkeley
to see what happened
So we had to stand
up for the prize of freedom
in this small oak-saturated space.
In a small sunny circle we were
ready to face them with the side of our eyes with our
cavities even,
with anything.
It was just too important
to not let them own
our souls their way.
So we leased our
strength into music
We rejoiced in our togetherness,
In our language, which that day more than meant
something:
it was,
it really was
everything.
Versions of grieving
Grief is about a whole new trip that just keeps on
getting older.
Grief is how it feels to have two left feet.
Grief is how it feels to be dehydrated in your arms
Grief is how it feels to be lost
in always
Grief is though how it feels
to be perpetually free.
Grief is the birth of a new beauty only you can see.
Red peonies and orange daisies on a spree
What a feast for the likes of me.
Vietnamese Faces
It seemed a day of decay
where my eyes kept
seeing Vietnamese faces
human expression raw in dark sun
abstract fingers bleeding light
my eyes went into a past
where feeling curves wide,
not this gray without birds
this quiet without singing
…is a longtime contributor to the Bezine,and defends its commitment to justice and peace and equality. She has participated in social movements throughout the West Coast and internationally. She writes both poetry, and what used to be called criticism, that is a close reading of how a piece of writing works, or doesn’t work. She has five books of poems and multiple publications of her many writings. She likes to keep her writing and her living new. As the weeks go by and disasters and worries grow, she hopes her writing grows and changes. Her latest book, sunfishing, is for sale on Amazon.
I had awakened
my hand aching
from words yet
to be expressed
& foretelling
an all-day rain
that spilled into
the courtyard
outside my door
It felt like an
autumn day,
dried palm fronds
blown groundward
by the wind
This all-night rain
continues to flow
across the patio
outside my door
With pen
in hand, I write
one thought…after one thought
creating images, music
with these words, rhythmic scribbles on this page…
clearing my soul of memories
that eat away at my
peace…write, write, sing
with pen
Troubadours
Like mediaeval troubadours
we are keeping vigil
in these hours,
I awaiting the matins
& ye reciting your lauds.
Through this silence
your poem sails
to me…
& another…
Ay,
I write,
So you’re having one of those
middle-of-the-night visits
by the Muses
I drift away
to other sites.…
& when I return,
four more messages
from your keyboard-pen
on screen-vellum glowing
in the darkness.
I read them,
stepping a bit further
back in time
with each.
You are right, you
understand, you
overstand as well,
says the third…
& the fourth
a laud
for me, for us
poets who own the Moon.…
I spill my tears to ye,
Oh brother wandering
troubadour,
careful not to
short-circuit
my pen.
There are those who envy
my travelling-writing life,
errant through these
southern tropics, verdant
jungles, snowy
towering heights, breathless
seas—
& there is I who envy
your life, devoted troubadour, the
World Poet,
traversing continents, across
seas,
able to survive
with your words
created like prayers,
lauds & laments
prickling the souls, the
hearts, the minds.…
How, I do not know.…
I want to ask ye,
brother troubadour,
How do ye do it?
…but I don’t…
I don’t want to stop,
I confess to ye,
my matins arriving
with the dawn’s twilight,
hours before yours. . . .
I want to continue
to do this work the
Creator has given me to do
in this lifetime
(the same as ye…
we, troubadours
of this XXIst century…)
I want to continue a-wandering
& a-writing, performing
like our mediaeval brethren.
But, nay, they who
I entertain don’t want
to pay, to tip even,
nor a bed nor a meal. . . .
I want to ask ye,
there in the land
from which I am exiled,
ye, a strange stranger in a strange land,
How…?
Can ye teach me?
…is poet-translator-travel writer who has works appearing in over 400 journals worldwide and 23 collections of poetry–including the upcoming In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2022) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). Her writing has been nominated for the Best of the Net. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
The diaphanous
sheets susurrate against the onyx parchment
As I gently turn the dog-eared pages of our mothballed
album—
The treasured cache of moments and memories of
bygone days
Conserved, before the scythe of Time mows us down.
As I gently turn the dog-eared pages of our mothballed
album
I chance upon ‘him’—self-assured, charismatic,
articulate—
The 2 a.m. buddy and confidant to my nerdy, antsy,
teenaged self.
Cupid struck, but with a slanted dart…and he, forever,
remained unscathed.
The treasured cache of moments and memories of
bygone days
Enshrouds the wringing, wrenching, carmine landscape
of my heart,
Crisscrossed by a breadcrumb trail of wistful longing,
Glossed over by the voguish masquerade of marital bliss!
Conserved, before the scythe of Time mows us down,
These metaphors of yesterday blend with my fragile todays
And gossamer tomorrows; and together, they help
me weave
The warp and weft of my soul’s fractured tapestry.
Flashes of lightning streaking the skies,
Taking the fissured, sapless earth by surprise,
Drops of pure love, thy name is April showers!
Drenched leaves and stems waltz in glee,
Their rustling whispers are music to me,
Tiny prismatic droplets dangle on the bowers!
Purged of dust and grime, terra firma breathes easy again
My parched soul inhales the redolence of summer rain
Glens and vales come alive with fresh, iridescent flowers!
Sometimes I am Hope—
Weaving roseate, virile dreams in hoary, nebulous eyes
And heaving hearts, yearning for a fillip;
I play hide-and-seek with ennui, by the day
At night, I hum a plaintive lullaby of moth-eaten desires
Interred in the caverns of the infecund, impotent mind.
Sometimes I am Light—
Glinting off the Chardonnay in a crystal stein
Held by star-crossed lovers traipsing a parallel universe,
Immured within a prism of perennial passion,
Kissing the full-bodied, carmine lips of eternal youth, today
Only to be eclipsed by the penumbra of transience,
tomorrow.
Sometimes I am a Star—
Tucking my pearly corners into the moire duvet
Of the onyx sky, one spark at a time—
A luminous metaphor for waxing wishes,
Until I explode on the milky way of destiny,
Sprinkling confetti of crushed novalunosis and
half-kept promises.
I am a memory, I am a void,
I am a chuckle, I am a tear,
I am alchemy, I am Kintsugi
I am here, there, everywhere—
A celebration of life, an inventory of scars!
…is a former educator whose articles, stories and poems have found space in national dailies like The Hindu, The Times of India, multiple literary platforms, as well as poetry and fiction anthologies.In 2022, she won the Orange Flower Awards instituted by Women’s Web, the second position in the National Poetry Writing Competition, and several such accolades. Reviewing and editing are other areas she finds engaging
Many years ago, people said "Radio waves are harmful"
100 years later, the list of 'waves' is rather scary
radio, television, GPS, shortwave, WiFi, smart phones,
tablets
computers, transmitters, smart meters, satellite dishes,
etc.
like walking running through an invisible fog
computer and cell phone reception on Mt. Everest.
How rare to live in a remote canyon or valley 'off the grid'
to live in a house with no TV, cell phone computer tablet
no smart meters for electric usage bills
numbers received in a hand held device 20 feet or more away
miniature transmitters sending number signals constantly
no one needed to log in the numbers by hand
Perhaps there are faraway places in jungles
North and South Poles, remote islands
having considerably less amounts of media frenzy
no electricity for smart meters and microwave ovens
Now, in public schools with WiFi beamed in, not hard wired
school children having headaches, difficulty concentrating
plus other various costs of the computer age
and advanced civilization…
…lives in Chichester NY. She is an artist, musician, and poet. She loves nature, and is always outside, doing gardening and lawn duties at eighty years young. She is a non-electronic gadget person, and proud of that. Books are her life, after art. She sells her artwork locally around Woodstock. She replies to all snail mail. Address is: 3 Rion Road, Chichester, NY 12416
Stiletto in the red sap of the cherry orchard birches.
The saber of the kagan shines. The clatter of hooves resounded, and a shiny dress shoe fell on the Alai carpet. Then the door of the hall opened, and the Mongol Shah himself entered. He was in festive attire; musicians and dancers followed the Shah, and all of them loudly shouted out some kind of joyful song—a song about the sea. And the sea (in the meantime) either existed separately from the land, or burned like a candle along with the night and a smooth surface, difficult to distinguish from air.
The game began. With whom? What? How the Shah would like it all to be a dream—but no, no, the pawn is already moving. And something else.
The gates of the world were opening. To whom are they open now, why? What kind of mysterious expensive shoe, what kind of feast, noise, musicians, and even the Shah himself?
Chess opened the gates of the world. The air weighed heavily on the shoulders of those present, superstition found on everyone.
Chess opened the gates of the lost world. Raya? Hell? Hey, angels, come here, come—we will give birth to children. They will become Cossacks. Those will be kamikaze. Their name will be Zuhra. Myopia of tears—their name will be eared, and above the name—the fungus of Hiroshima, and the Fuhrer, and nothing but the name of the Fuhrer.
Chess of angels opened the gates of the lost world. The machine gun was baptized along with the child. The shah knew all this, he was present at the same time, and his soul was touched by a cloud of flame.
Chess of angels opened the gates of the lost world 2.0 (Vexila regis prodeunt—stars in the sky—addresses of whores from the telegram, a sonorous voice, chatter respectful of the shah. The dog howled—who doesn’t know, this is Andreev, he still has a book "Red Laughter" .In a white corolla of roses, in front of Santa Claus, red nose). It's scary to even imagine: what will happen tomorrow? The cage went to look for the bird—Kafka (in fact, everything in the world has already been said). Fucking feminists, strange children with purple hair, an incomprehensible body—you are so afraid, they will force you to give birth, and everything, everything in the world, slurred, reflected in the pupils of the kagan. Oh, that is the check. That is, someone else. Someone special. Someone who is trying to be someone else. Superstition. We all understood everything. We don't understand. And only death calmly wandered on the shores of the strictest peace.
* * *
This word smells good
It's like a hacked account
Changed password
Passion-poisoned air
The word with which you will not be able to rhyme
So
The look word is dead
Our mysterious touch chat is exhausted
About your armpit hair
Oh my red fingernails
Oh my armpit hair
Oh your red fingernails
Send me attachment in pdf format
(Secularization?)
Let this be your photo
Today there are more of us than me
Where is my long hair
Where is the long hair?
cut off
Kissed the mirror of the day
Lilies of the valley placed on the table
lilies of the valley
Lilies of the valley on the old avatar
Simulacrum of air
Ice nipples on the new avatar
The ghost of the heart and the chest between the ribs screams ayy ayy
No it's not scary it's not scary
(Only between us
You have nothing more to lose)
Yesterday, Washington legalized the word queer for the 100th time.
And in your communal apartment down the street of sadness
The Mongols baptized the child
Lilies of the valley filled with water
They said that the Mongolian hands were born for the hard work of beautiful horses with shaved legs—no not shaved
When you grow up you will be Genghis Khan
Throw out the lilies of the valley ventilate the apartment paint the walls change the floor
So who are you girl? be Mary
Shulamith you are my Shulamith
From the outlet in the kitchen sparks
Hey maria bring cigarettes
_Sister or brother
Mother or father_
Nobody will know)
Bring cigarettes breathe listen
What if Jesus was gay?
Then everything would become clear
Then everything would become clear
But for now, about Allah
Mongolian child
Become Genghis Khan
He will become Genghis Khan
Horses will be whipped fiercely
/Shameless return lilies of the valley/
/Best form of silence dialogue/
He will become Genghis Khan
/ Icy nipples scars on the chest /
And he will wear wardrobes home
The horses will be whipped
/ Eyelash caught an eyelash /
Fuck the kids off
noble women
/we will never have children/
Pih pah oh oh oh
* * *
Blind is your love. Yes, it does not really exist—there is only the fear of loneliness, which at least slightly subsides when the simulacrum of love approaches. Love is also not the highest grace. After all, it is possible to love only one's neighbor, to sympathize—to any creature in the universe. And contrary to popular belief—the end of the world will never come, because the universe is an ideal geometry; the perpetual motion machine is also an ideal geometry, someone launched it at one moment, and it will never stop.
when you’re silent, you say the most,
when you dream, you see the most.
elephants wake to the orchestra inside you
—for the first time the hunters are scared by their own trumpets.
take a look inside yourself while you’re taking care not to
tread on the grass.
in the room there’s the smell of all the nights
we failed to create. the stars fell asleep, waiting
on the floor. there are still traces on the stained tiles, insignificance
like a shadow lurking between outlines.
we will go without getting angry
at the flowers to the dance that turned purple to yellow.
in the night fan we missed another prayer.
—mental dust
which in the cosmos plays out the saddest dream.
winner of the Enhalon prize 2018
[само малку молитва]
кога си тивок тогаш најмногу зборуваш,
кога сонуваш тогаш најмногу гледаш.
се будат слоновите со оркестарoт во тебе
—ловџиите за прв пат се плашат од сопствените труби.
гледај во себе додека внимаваш да не ја настапнеш тревата.
во собата мирисаат сите ноќи
кои не успеавме да ги создадеме. ѕвездите заспаа чекајќи
на подот. по извалканите плочки сѐ уште траги, маленкоста
како сенка се крие помеѓу фугите.
ќе си заминеме без да се лутиме на
цвеќињата, на танцот кој го претворил виолетовото во жолто.
во вентилаторот на ноќта испуштаме уште една молитва
—ментална прашина
што во космосот го игра најтажниот сон.
.hidden scripture
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
don’t forget the written
words, the voices that subdued
the joy of your voice.
unite the cities, move the
bridges.
in the centre place a fighter, move
the white capturing piece, do not worry,
the winners
write it down.
.скриено писмо
не заборавај ги напишаните
зборови, оние гласови кои ја покорија
радоста на твојот глас.
обедини ги градовите, помести ги
мостовите.
во средината постави борец, пушти
го белиот ловец, не грижи се,
оној кој победува
запишува.
.the forgotten stool everyone should sit
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
proud of our past
unstable in the present
we tremble before the future
we cut down trees although we know
that a football pitch can’t be built on a hill
where the goalposts can’t be seen
we run uphill with stones in our pockets
the doors and windows don’t creak anymore,
but behind them the same snobs throw us away
like spoiled pickled food, they don’t smell us,
they throw us in the cellar as destroyed,
invalid evidence.
true values, right?
we/they are all managers of the office for
lost reasonable opinions.
one day I’ll take all the flags waving in vain
and I’ll put them in a washing machine.
they all need to be washed—together.
with the same washing powder and the same softener.
because that should be the new freedom!
we float in life like a plastic bag in the wind
in a full-length silent film. the ones who don’t realize it,
even more so.
great people leave, little sweethearts come
—except for the ones found on the shore.
will they achieve greatness or will unease eat them up?
amid crudeness, stupidity and vanity galore
everyone looks for their place under the sun to scream their heart out
about everything weighing down on their soul.
we want to be cherries, yet we’re worms, hidden inside them.
a mandala made of sand left in the storm,
until someone stops breathing
—we’ll keep on destroying ourselves.
.заборавениот троножец на кој сите треба да седнеме
горди на минатото
нестабилни во сегашноста
се тресеме на иднината
сечеме дрвја иако знаеме
дека фудбалскиот терен не се гради на рид во кој
головите не се гледаат
трчаме по угорница со камења во џебовите
вратите и прозорците повеќе не крцкаат,
но позади нив истите снобови како расипана зимница
не фрлаат, не нѐ мирисаат,
не расфрлаат во депото како уништени,
невалидни докази.
нели вистински вредности?
сите с(м)е директори на канцеларијата за
изгубени здраворазумни ставови.
еден ден ќе ги соберам сите знамиња кои залудно се веат
и ќе ги ставам во перачка машина.
на сите им треба перење и тоа—заедно.
со ист прашок за перење и ист омекнувач.
оти тоа би требало да биде новата слобода!
лебдиме во животот како пластично ќесе на ветрот
во долгометражен нем филм. оние кои не препознаваат,
уште повеќе.
големите луѓе си одат, мали срценца доаѓаат
—освен оние најдени на брегот.
ќе станат ли и тие големи или јанѕата ќе ги изеде?
во раскошот на грубоста, глупоста, ништожноста,
секој си бара место за да си извика
сѐ она што му тежи на душичката.
сакаме да бидеме цреши, а црви сме, скриени во нив.
мандала сме од песок оставена на бура,
се додека некој не престане да дише
—ќе продолжиме да се уништуваме.
…was born on 11 November 1983, in Skopje, Macedonia. He writes poetry, short stories, essays and journal articles. He also writes haiku, senryu, renga and publishes them on the microblogging network twitter. His works have been translated and published in numerous anthologies, poetry books and journals for art and literature in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Egypt, USA, Argentina, Russia, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Bulgaria…
He has published the poetry collections: Ice Water (BCC, Serbia 2011), Anthologist (2014), Hidden Letter Anthologist (2019), Linear. Numbers (Macabeo, 2021) and won several awards and recognitions including: Enhalon, presented by the Struga Poetry Evenings; Angelo La Vecchia Prize in Sicily, Italy; Prizes at the “Poetic Literary Sparks” Poetry Slam in Prilep; Struga Waves in Struga; and many more.
He is the president of the Association for Cultural Development and Protection of the cultural heritage “Context – Strumuca,” an organizer of the global poetry event “100 Thousand Poets for Change,” a representative of the World Union of Poets and the School of Poetry–Macedonian Delegation, One of the founders of the Antevo Slovo and Antevo Per” Awards, and Editor of strumicaonline.net and reper.net.mk. He also is a conceptual artist and has had several exhibitions, installations, performances, scenography and multimedia projects in Norway, France, Italy, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria… And he organizes cultural and art events, collaborates with youth, art, film and theatre festivals.
I am Strong,
I am Invincible,
I am Kind,
I am Funny.
I am Smart,
I am Loyal,
I am Happy,
I am Joyful.
Abundance of love,
Is all I have.
For those around me,
And for anyone I come in contact with.
I make others happy,
I can make,
Myself,
Happy.
I am a blessing,
In others lives.
I am a blessing,
In my own life.
I feel good
Like watching a sunset during summer
I feel free
Like a bird flying in the sky
I feel calm
Like water after a storm
I feel comfortable
Something that makes me want to enjoy life
I feel happy
Like a child eating ice cream on a sunny day
I feel like me again
Like the 7 year old me playing in the backyard
This feeling needs to stay
This feeling needs to never go away
I'm me again
1 Month…
The world was gray
No colors in my life
No joy in the little things
No hope in my eyes
No harmony in music
1 month of freedom
1 month of opportunities
1 month of changes
1 month of loving myself
1 month of happiness
1 month of solitude
1 month of care-free
1 month of hope
1 month of moving forward
1 month
I did the work
God intended me to do
1 month
Here's to another day
…is a poet from Connecticut. Her poetry is filled with imagery. She writes about love,self-love and mental anguish, which many readers say they can relate to. Brittney graduated from Southern New Hampshire University in 2023 with her Masters in English Literature and Creative Writing. She is currently writing her own poetry book, while publishing a few poems to get her name familiarized in the poetry world
Translator's Note: Pek-êng Koa was formerly incarcerated for 16 years due to two charges of robbery. "My Probation Plea is Rejected Again" was created around 2007 and 2008.
…is an award-winning Taiwanese poet, he is also a teacher and a campaigner for the creative writing of poetry in Taiwanese language. “My Probation Plea Is Rejected Again” was from his poetry A Firefly in the Fence(2010), published by the Tainan City’s Bureau of Culture.
…is a writer and translator from Taiwan, her short fiction and poems can be found in Hennepin Review, Kitaab, Story Sanctum, and e-ratio, among other literary journals.
I’m annoyed at how writers of flash fiction, poetry, and flash nonfiction are all howling into the abyss of the internet with very few readers. I’m considering writing some kind of daily critical response to one or two pieces of literary writing that appear in online literary journals, just to prove there is an audience (even if the audience is just me).
Currently, the apparent majority of readers for online literary journals seems to be ChatGPT iterations and other attempts at generative algorithms. And they are under-equipped readers, because they lack intentionality, as demonstrated when GPT conversations go in a loop of “Goodbye!” “See you later!” “Goodbye!” “See you later!” ad infinitum. “Goodbye!” is a word you experience; a word that is defined by the intention to leave; and not definable by whatever explanation is in a dictionary, vocabulary lesson, or lexicon.
Many other examples of writing cannot be read or interpreted by generative algorithms, no matter how many iterations they pop out, because of the embodied intentions. The disembodied superficiality of generative algorithms is deeply inscribed by a human-led corporate culture that devalues literacy, but over values the production of bureaucratic paperwork. By which I mean, our online literary artwork is being turned into fodder that feed generative algorithms, as passive readers, to produce more text for the text’s corporateliability’s sake.
We should think of ourselves before we think of Silicon Valley corporations. We should be active readers for social change, creative conversation, or leisure.
We can’t afford to limit our readership to the data sets of generative algorithms. While AI labs control the legislative power that allows them to use our words without compensation and without critical consideration, we still have the power to be active readers. If we want to exercise power in the sociopolitical changes happening now, then we need to start producing critical and appreciative texts that demonstrate some kind of human reading.
…has poems appearing in The New Quarterly,Carousel, subTerrain, paperplates, The Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, The Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, Literary Yard, Gray Sparrow, CV2, Brittle Star, Bombfire, American Mathematical Monthly, AoHaM, Canadian Woman Studies, The Mathematical Intelligencer, The Canadian Journal of Family and Youth, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics,The Beatnik Cowboy, Borderless, Literary Veganism, and more. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis
the morning sun rises in all its glory
to dusky rose colored clouds, tinting the world,
but from the west comes an ominous dark wall
high above the land, dosing fast.
rain drops begin to descend, softly, gently.
tears from heaven to cares the soul.
sultry as smoke, a wall of rain approaches
a deluge to wash away winter's last clutches.
quickly the last pockets of snow melt away.
uncovering the grey of stone walls long covered
soon will come the green of spring but all there is today
are a fow jonquils, hyacinths, and crocuses—spring's promise.
quickly the rain passes, leaving all shiny in its wake
as the swallows come out, in all there glory
to swoop and dance in the wind practicing their aeronautic prowess.
afternoon falls, darkness descends
and the snow once again begins to fall
and so i sigh, dreaming of the sun's warmth,
as i wait for the dawn anew.
hope
so beautiful
yet so fragile
hopes are easily dreamed
but so quickly dashed
we hope for the stars
and won't accept less
we are crushed
when what we don't want happens
but aren't thankful when it does
hope…
we need hope
but we shouldn't expect
shouldn't ask for what we don't need
yet we do
we should accept the little blessings
for what they are
tiny glimmers of hope
be thankful for friends and family
he glad to be alive in this beautiful world
and the rest
well
the rest is negotiable…
I had porridge for breakfast. I wore a bow tie with a map of the Martian canals.
There are no Martian canals; my bow tie was a frog and it hopped away.
While I was eating, two giraffes entered the floating room (I have the lily pad blues!).
One of the giraffes was carrying a smoking hat, the other a giant apricot.
The stone of the apricot had been removed and replaced by an embryonic neutron star.
The neutron star was orbiting a black hole – they are like brother and sister.
At the end of the world time reverses and we all have a chance to go sdrawkcab.
I am wearing a red dress with pink rose petals glued to it.
I am thinking of the future like a miner thinks of a coal dust covered cheese sandwich.
An Egyptian mummy dressed as a ballerina pulls the chain and then dances out of the toilet.
Three old ladies hadn’t reached the finish line so they couldn’t start the race.
An old man stumbles towards the start pulling a kite – the kite had grown hands.
One hand was holding the skeleton of a saintly typewriter from which issued spirit words.
These would be read by a dog headed judge singing to himself on a playground swing.
The playground was otherwise empty as all the children had either grown up or grown down.
Venus kicks Mars and Mars kicks me; I haven’t got anyone to kick.
I photograph myself photographing myself; several pencils were sticking out of a Plasticine ox.
A veteran of the war at Woodstock doesn’t care if he paranoid as the world is a confectionery.
A senior citizen refuses the sweet offered by a young girl standing on a bass drum.
Meanwhile six hooded figures walk by, each holding a candle, only one of which was lit.
The room looked like a mangrove swamp with neon signs for trees and fish in Wellingtons.
A portrait painting on a sniggering wall hiccups; the man with hair on his hat turns round.
Behind him the secret cupboard smells of fish; who cares if the ocean is a foreign language.
I say goodbye to the manatee king using seaweed words – I forget the full stop, ha ha.
I thought I had baked a dream in a cake
It had risen like a frog’s head
Blowing a trumpet in an incandescent light bulb
The bulb cracked like winter water
I saw the reflection of the back of my head
I had a Pompeii hat and Herculaneum earrings
Vesuvius jumped upon a kangaroo paw
A cathedral bell winked at a weathered gargoyle
The rain was knitting a jumper I would never wear
As the sun comes out like a bicycle in a muddy field
I dip my pen in the Somme trenches
And draw with hate on a tranquil sky
A bird the size of a coal fired power station perched on a paper clip
Will read the paper like a razor blade
A werewolf barber and a vampire tailor
Sitting in a hospital for lost socks
The lost boys were hidden in rubber gloves
Hanging from the comb of a bald man
I held my head as if it was a seashell
I heard the sound of a dried up sea.
Stanza Two
I thought I had said a prayer in a toffee wrapper
The priestess dressed in the dead leaves of Spring
With a fire in a water bottle and a puddle in a grate
I feel the warmth of space rocket footprints
As I follow a water rat executioner along a poor man’s artery
A picture of beggar veins huddled in a wren’s nest
My a hair a woodland screaming like a torn cloth
A blind painter hiding from the sound of his own name
His reflection says his name backwards
Smoke issues from a disappearing statue
A house on caterpillar tracks in a railway tunnel
Where the sun emerges from a fishnet stocking
To meet a moon goddess made from mouse cheese
A trap that catches thoughts with dreams
A nightmare in a free flowering rain
Water in the shape of a sailing boat
The horizon a rock vein in a gold wall
Hope like a smoking top hat
Bends in a wind tunnel of war
Like features that fight across an ageing face
A sparsely furnished room, the heavily curtained window faces east. A worn faux leather sofa in a subdued orange, resplendent in the stains of a personal history; a chair in a similar material and in a similar condition; a fold up table, pushed into the corner and a coffee table pulled into the centre. Although close to midday there is not enough light to see clearly, with more light coming through the partially opened door than issuing through the floral patterned window.
A large man with bushy beard and bushy eyebrows coughs as he enters the room, looks round as if he is not sure if this is the right room and promptly leaves again.
Another man, just as tall but much thinner comes in quickly, drops a newspaper several days old on the coffee table and goes out with equal haste.
A little plump lady languidly enters, sits on the slightly less worn side of the sofa, takes out a comb from her handbag and combs her hair. After replacing the comb she gets up and walks out, saying something to herself that no one hears.
Immediately afterwards a small boy runs in, circles the sofa one way and circles the chair the other. He then runs out, getting his foot caught in a raised piece of carpet and almost tripping up as he does so.
An attractive girl enters, glances at her reflection in an ornate mirror over the Victorian fireplace and then sits in the chair with a cultivated elegance. She crosses and uncrosses her legs before standing up abruptly and after hesitantly picking up an object from the table and placing it in her pocket she leaves.
Rain can be heard falling outside and a clock chimes twelve times in another room.
The wall has a large mouth
And is chewing gum
The eye in the roof looks up
The rain comes down
A giraffe climbs a step ladder and
An elephant climbs inside a cushion
The thatch is wearing a wig
Small people climb down the creepered wall
Like tears
Hahaha, large hands grasp sky like trees
As all shapes are coloured blue or green
A snake hides in a hose pipe
A kite pulls on a piece of string
The listener turns the page
While a poet holds a hod of bricks
And the bricklayer writes verse
The Wait (House Man Variant)
Specks on a bare wall
I make a crane with my Meccano hands
The chimney (bent like a broken promise) coughs
I imagine a desert in a soup bowl
The clock has four hands
Flashes of light in a bare sky
I write with lengths of licorice
A dead musician turns the music up
The chimney (straight like a laying down lie) sighs
The Wait (In A Doctor’s Surgery)
Speech like sludge
I poke mud out of my third eye
The carpet coughs
The mumbles continue from an ancestral mouth
Music like a spider's web
The chair taps it's foot
To the heartbeat of a million men
A hand emerges from the wall
And I shake it
…heaped up chaos of knowledge
which fails to have an external effect…
—Nietzsche
denying our disdain for the loneliness of honesty
we emerge in these capitalistic space-time territories
where to be courageous you must hunt
beyond the bounds of automatable actions
staying at least one step ahead of the exponential hunger
as totalities fiend to feed off our labor:
this constant conversion of potential into actions
we devise devices to combat the need
to feel grounded in any given place & any given time
we manipulate ourselves with screens
distorting our sense of presence
with far off times & far off places, as if soon
we'll never think
(thanks to this grace of our disgraces) to be where &
when we are
transforming "when" & "where" into all time, all places
but please, let's not deny our purpose
let us instill intention into this attention
would you perhaps pretend to bother
would you perhaps pretend to bother
now that my current has begun its seduction
(dear timbre of distracted trees) now
my mind’s continuous & chaotic river
pulls you along as driftwood wishing to be burnt:
will you perhaps pretend to bother
to be my equal, my friend, my merging water?
the chaotic & continuous river of my mind
hostile & bitter, nourishing & sweet—this river
is playful deceptive, defiant, contiguous
rivers accept all confluence but mine contains residue
from Santa Fe, Austin, & New Orleans,
stretching from Sḥem to Jerusalem
& roaring with the ambiguous sounds of musical intent
—do I dare submerge you
into the unseen world of emerging re-emergences
merging—as equals, as friends, as water?
would you perhaps pretend to bother
to prevent malicious voices of the dead
from igniting false fires of renewal—those voices
that consume all that has yet to merge
with the water?
please merge, my merging, friendly water…
my mind’s chaotic & continuous river
carries your rolling body, soaked but still separate from me,
more present than any molecule & sharper than any atom:
pretend, pretend, pretend to bother
to be my equal, my friend, my merging water
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever
so many generations hence.
—Whitman
our future is not the future if we choose
to hide what we don’t choose: mortality
is not a mask we wear like relative morality
blind to its ends & aimed at exhausting what we know of
mortality,
like the lifespan of a picture presenting some present
as impressive because more important than choosing
is to be chosen: seducing potentialities sings immortality
actualities! potentialities! being human & being born
into the condition of choosing choices that forget
the disdainful desire of being chosen to help
in this endless string of bearing: bear the future,
bear the present,
bear these projected fractions of the self
presented to impress whoever might next approach:
new patterns emerge from the pain
of our having chosen & our having been chosen
because once the desire to defer presence was entertained
time & distance formed—allowing us to betray
one another, forming tears that tear out pain
of actual sadness from potential futures:
thinking of how everyone eventually will have been
we are all statisticians, analyzing time & space
for the pleasure of losing ourselves between patterns:
pattern forming—pattern finding—each pattern
a seductive song
so go measure—measure & then deduce probable solutions
how do abstract thoughts suggest that they can affect?
whether as geometer or statistician, our wonder
ought to discover the pleasure enjoyed by those who
impart projections of future forces to imagined objects
because even abstract objects have the power to
affect the world:
from the rivers of Babylon to the mountains of Sinai
from the cedars of Lebanon to the salt of the Dead Sea
all these times, places & songs—once measured—
can be chosen
……founded Jerusalism, a non-profit organization to promote Israeli literature in English. He is a PhD student at Hebrew University, researching the intersection of modernist art and orality through a study of David Antin’s talk-poems, and is an OWL Lab Fellow.
To waste time on books while you have a lot of other tasks to do,
To read, incessantly to read, in order to gain knowledge and finally see
That time is gone, lost among the writings of the dead
Who never invented the art of being happy!
I stand in front of the shelves with hundreds of books by well-known authors
who dealt with the portraits of controversial people,
people with vices, and various bad habits!
Was it worthwhile to immortalize these figures
who gave examples and examples from human relationships
and made us take life served according to their imaginative way?
Books, a lot of books.
So many books and so little time to read them. (I do not remember who said that!)
I look at the bookshelf,
It catches my eye and I read the titles:
The Financier,
Red and Black,
Father Goriot,
The Blind,
The Grass,
Tips for Life,
The Diary of the Year of the Plague,
The Devils,
The Divine Comedy,
Night,
Farewell to Arms,
Praise of Madness,
Love in the Time of Cholera,
Don Quixote of La Mancha,
The most beautiful of the worlds, etc., etc.
So much time lost in writing, so little time wasted in reading!
Wow, how many written books are on the shelves, covered by the dust of time?
How many manuscripts are waiting to come to light and be published?
Will they all survive time?
It has become a trend to publish books,
If there is nothing left to do write your autobiography,
because others then will read it
and will learn from you
how life is lived the way you lived it!
What, do you need knowledge?
When you learn it from experience
and copy-paste to others
without knowing that the meaning of all knowledge
lies in the books!
I stand in front of bookshelves and am filled with bitterness,
I knock them all down, I throw them away from the apartment,
I gather them up and spray them with gasoline,
Then I burn them.
I warm myself in the fire coming out of the books;
Eternal fire, the fire of the gods, Universal fire that disperses ether.
I think of the library of Alexandria, The Name of the Rose, Fahrenheit 451,
The fire with which burned at the stake Giordano Bruno,
the fire in which whole cities burned,
the fire that burned and burned whole mountains, fire, fire, fire.
P.S.
I went through a spiritual crisis one more time!
I look at the books that stand on the shelves and
I’m glad they are still there!
I look at them one by one, reading the titles gradually
until my eyes stop on one of them
as I read, letter by letter: T – H – E J – O – K – E
Confused, I say to myself: Hey, this writer is still alive!
…is a well-known poet from Ferizaj, Kosovo, writing in his mother-tongue, Albanian. He was born in 9 March 1968 in Pristina. He is the former manager and leader of “De Rada,” a literary association, from 2012 until 2018, and also the representative of Kosovo to the 100 TPC organization. In addition to poems, he also writes short stories, essays, literary reviews, traveltales, etc. Faruk Buzhala is an organizer and manager of many events in Ferizaj. His poems have been translated to English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Croatian and Chinese, and are published in anthologies. .
The BeZine 