The CURRENT ISSUE PROJECT TYPE should get this as its PARENT Project Type. When the new issue is published, the new PROJECT TYPE for the issue (Vol x | Issue y | Theme gets this as the parent. The old issue gets its Volume number (Vol n) as its PARENT Project Type at publication of the new issue.
Have things calmed? I found some postage stamps I have that commemorate the opening of a beautiful Palestinian Airport, Gaza. I looked up recent pictures of it and it is rubble. Nuts. Ukrainian soldiers are adopting stray, homeless cats. Laughter around the table Smashed by a boom. The kitten cries alone.
©2023 Bob Aron
All rights reserved
…is a retired global educator. PhD The Ohio State University, MA University of Chicago. Lives in Chicago.
friends say:
you will write about completely other things now
the war blanks flowers and butterflies
it blanks the old books and new plays
blanks the birds
blanks men
it blanks hunger
hungry people share their last crumbs with birds
becoming the birds themselves
disgusting to share their bread and life with
occupiers
and fall into the ground as crumbs
instead of the grain
to sprout over the "i" in every loaf of bread
as the ultimate dot
©2023 Julia Bair
All rights reserved
…
…is a Ukrainian poet, essayist and cultural critic writing on various topics, especially about literature, fine art, cinema, theater etc. Born and bred in a small town close to Sub-Carpathian foothills and educated in the big city of Lviv Ivan Franko national University, Julia traveled across all Europe and lived in the USA some years.
In her poetry, the childhood impressions of rural life among the rolling hills of picturesque nature in the Western Ukraine and her experience of a worldly person melt in a rather neo-impressionistic, full colors-and-light manner, though with strong social accents that include razor sharp and wise slashes through the bucolic veils of the modern peace-niks’ fancies to the brutal, full of blood and pain real side of life during the war for freedom.
In a countryside of grazing cattle, pecking chickens & civil war, a thousand buzzards sit in a row upon fence posts What do vultures eat in times of war & what in those of subtle peace?
I.
We have come
from other sides
of the country
the border, the seas
Migrants… deportees…
refugees…
II.
In the dark of early night
we lie on bare mattresses
embracing sleep
& hope this night’s dreams
won’t be of what
we have fled…
The lights of the crèche
beam yellow &
blue through
high paneless windows
III.
Outside that window
loud young voices talk
ignorant of our
sleep, our dreams
Just on the other side
of the wall
IV.
Amidst their laughs
fireworks crack a
Barí woman’s rest
I see her lying
beside her three children
her eyes searching…
She arises & flees
to the deep recesses
of the bathroom
V.
On the other side
of the patio, a boy
cries for his mother
The father lies mute…
can he explain
to his son…?
& the other men
awakened ask the why
of her absence
VI.
Sometime during this night
silence falls
& a rain
glistening in the lights
That come from an
other side…
published in: DoveTales (Writing for Peace, 2014 - no longer available ).
©2023 Lorraine Caputo
All rights reserved
Will it be rhyme which makes
Us feel the dark blood spread
Will images stop up our eyes to see surely the cut
and the pain
Must we hear screaming first
and get our pretty houses out of the picture so that we stop squat in the middle of devastation
Try imagining your first nightmare when you
couldn’t get out
when you saw your mother covered in blood far far away
from away from you
Try imagining that time you broke your leg in the snow and could not stand to balance your body on.
Take your pretty house out of the picture and imagine a sledge of devastation silence and distraction. Peoples bones sticking out of their legs. Teeth dragon and
thing-like broken.
This is not for sweetness. It is apples and oranges. Breath goes beyond itself breathing. Life a glimmer of no chance as cough consumes the air. Porcupines peeve the light with their stickers. The chances of later Melt into blue marble. The sweet Bayonne coast overwhelmed by bayonets fervent in indiscriminate attack
©2023 Linda Chown
All rights reserved
…grew up to protest and unions. All her life she has made peace with being on the outside and supporting people who were in trouble. Alive during the major crises of the 60s she and her writing emphathize with heroes, big moments and a fight for peace and freedom.
What lesson can be applied? When imperialist troops crash down upon a people’s pride? When might as right meets the instinct to survive? When Midas greed lashes out to destroy? We’ve been here before, o my brethren, o my children— repeating fouled lessons poured into our thirsty minds, pushing back the horror before our eyes with blinding rage forged into weapons by mortal foes who hide in plain sight. The only thing I know— The lesson repeating agony in all our souls, haunted by the pleading eyes and bloody hearts of slaughtered sacrifices to malignant gods— There is something vital here to learn.
I dislike the implied
mess of violence.
Peace is more tidy,
clean and inviting.
Why waste precious metal
in deadly intent
when a kickass party
can pay the rent—
a rant and rave relaxing
pent up pain.
Where’s the percentage of gain? The perception that rage requires release within this people cage, to ease torment of feeling less accepted, Reflex flight or fight? Psychobabble hype? Nobody needs to violently die today.
Singers in the fog. Outlying voices thin, yet growing; accruing sound, like liquid, flowing. Emoting tales of woe, resistance. Shouted sighs of denied existence. Insightful chants insist persistence. We never died. We’re knitting strong. Born into a world-wide village. Only from ourselves to pillage. Hear our song. Some bright good morning of fish and loaves, cake and wine, capacious tribes adjoin in movement. Shining line of peace. Terror’s fear released. Music, celebration in the streets. Flower scented candles, vigil against shame. Blazing through miasmic mist, Apollonian flame torches banners of hostilities falsely triggered in our name. Come harmonize, aloud: We’re alive and proud to descant, dispel dank chill. Sing to vanquish fog.
©2023 Laurie Corzett
All rights reserved
…has written a lot over the years and loves to share the work—a vast trove of experiences and life lessons can be found on her website.
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Trump Is Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation [1]
and really no surprise amid shrugged shoulders knowing his fund raising letters will return twice the five-million dollars while he appeals the juries truth denudes justice and morality and delays payment until profits are huge again
George Santos Is Said to Face Federal Criminal Charges [2]
election funding violations possibly Ponzi scheme dreams selling influence a confluence of narcissistic streams
Biden and McCarthy Reach No Consensus as a Possible Default Looms [3]
no glass ceiling this crash banging government treasury heads against the hard-right dash seeking glittery proof of handling a clash of power while sowing chaotic destruction in the name of fixing
On Muted War Holiday, Putin Tries to Justify Invasion of Ukraine [4]
a war hero in his own dreams rebuilding an empire of false fronts pleasing to the lady who never stepped out of her carriage while riding through the countryside of starving serfs he emulates this broken fantasy killing his own and another country’s next gen- erations iterations of life and real dreams to make meaningful relationships in the world with their friends with the children they may want to see grow up in peace
On a trip to woo European
leaders, China’s top
diplomat was immediately
confronted about the war
in Ukraine [4]
confrontations without consequences because no government power can now afford not to bend knees to autocrats or dict- ators to feed greedy economies unsustainably sucking the 98% dry while filling the infinity pools the fountains champagne bottles and garden ponds of the 2% who make more money than all the rest and many countries that so desire 2%’s largess to hold any power the thin layer may deign to give
Tucker Carlson, Still Under Contract with Fox, Announces Twitter Show [5]
twittering birds will be drowned out by screeching carrion birds circling overhead scavenging wounded and dead with cavernous maws open to eat what bullion may be thrown their way as they call prey to kill each other bullets flying well below their lofty height
Buddy Holly Wins Best in Show at Westminster [6]
it ain’t no rockin’ hound dog stepping on my blue suede shoes as the world crumbles around floppy ears remember to entertain the wealthy game players wearing evening down to a few drinks of single-malt whiskey
Texas Patrols Its Own Borders, Pushing Legal Limits [7]
which is so much easier then controlling assault rifles or preventing mass killings where children fall down under mulberry trees dropping bloody berries onto their torn bodies yes this exploded head is too much to read let alone look at yes this child had a life to live now sacrificed to pushing the borders legal limits
Florida Rejects Several Social Studies Books and Forces Changes in Others [8]
and even when they let them breathe and live they seek to limit learning to politicize information so that those who graduate accept rape graft greed chaos invasion evasion guns and more less er
Hong Kong Wants More Tourists, but Mostly ‘Good Quality’ Ones [9]
so we will all meet the quality standards of the autocratic oligarchic rule makers who seek to keep us in the barbed rules of their wire
How the Legend of Zelda Changed the Game [10]
but I will escape into fantasies of power rescuing and prevailing as good over evil even while evil runs unfettered in the land unfeathered heads feasting on the dead
accessed 10:36AM 10 May 2023 (Jerusalem time) titles are as they appeared in the app on my iPhone 13 Pro capitalization and wording varies from some of the pages with the full articles, which are linked with the numbers
©2023 Michael Dickel
All rights reserved
On a planet of hell-fire, lava lakes burn bodies, souls
—a god of war(s) sought solace in his glass orb,
watching destruction, seeing the people suffer
—was dismayed to see a goddess of peace rise up
with others through the columns of smoke, despair
—watched peace step back and turn ruin to light.
The light of hope froze the lava lakes, trapping the god
—so distant, so angry, so full of hate, this maker of war(s)
—now locked in rock so far away.
May peace prevail on earth,
as a deity who freezes the fiery wraths of greed and rage.
We have entered into an age of algorithm-generated art and text, apparently. While the tech-companies and media-reporters on these phenomena call them, collectively, “artificial intelligence” (AI), creators are concerned that they are plagiarizers. The methods used to “train” these algorithms involves using huge databases of images and texts, mostly gathered from the internet without the permission or knowledge of the creators of those works. Many, perhaps most, of these works are copyrighted. And the “intelligence,” which is very much “artificial,” uses these works to create their new works—using probability models to select words, phrases, and artistic elements in an order similar to those in the large databases on which it was “trained.” The methodology is complex, and some may argue that it is not dissimilar to human learning. However, the works the AI software put out cannot (for now) be copyrighted (as they are created by a machine), and may be plagiarism, as a pastiche of plagiarised parts or by using quotes without citation—without really having an “understanding” that it is “quoting” text or art work. Nonetheless, I have played with both text AI (Chat GPT®) and image AI (Midjourney®). The images above are a digital collage / montage using various images from Midjourney with two prompts I used in January— one asking for an image of Chaos dying, inspired by the book by Joanna Russ, And Chaos Died, and the short myth she gives as the source of the title; the other asked for a racially and gender diverse group representing life of the spirit and activism.
I saved two versions of Chaos and several of the diverse spiritual-activists, and use some bits and pieces from all. I also included background images and textures from photos of my own. I changed all of the elements in the work presented here through selection, cropping, and editing. I used Adobe® PhotoShop® to combine them using layers, filters, and adjustments. In this way, as I often do with my own digital photos, I created art (“digital landscapes”) from separate pieces. I see this process as similar to using Adobe® stock images as elements in Adobe® software to create new images, which I did in creating this issue’s cover art (under a limited license agreement). And the images I created, in the variations moving through the slideshow, are mine, I feel. This is an image the Midjourney AI produced for the title of the poem and images, which I came up with four months after starting this particular experiment:
This image is not mine, that is, it is not my art or what I imagined, though it could be said to aptly illustrate the title. It is not like other art or photos I have made. I would probably have to play and refine my prompt, which might be the “artistic skill” of using AI. The images above, I think, are recognizable as similar to other digital landscapes I have created for The BeZine or on Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, my blog-zine.
Contributor Ira Director has also used AI art in this issue. His perspective, which differs from mine in some significant ways, still arrives at a similar conclusion—AI is a tool that we can use. However, we will have to be careful in using it, and the legal framework for copyright is not yet adequate, nor the technology yet developed far enough for us to have clear ideas of where the boundaries of fair use of materials by the algorithms and their “training” mechanism and our fair use of the generated artwork will eventually be. For now, as editor of The BeZine, I will rely on transparency by our contributors and care in the use of AI. The images are AI, the text is my own (limited) intelligence.
Here is a Midjourney AI image where I used the poem above as a prompt, with the dashes removed, as they indicate a command in prompts. I added transition words to act as connectors where the dashes had been, and after an attempt that seemed to focus on the first part, added "all of this" at the beginning.
©2023 Michael Dickel
the best gun, never fired;
best rocket, never launched;
the best war
is one
never fought
DeepFloyd IF
A Modular Cascaded Diffusion Model
AI image generator
high quality dslr photo, a photo product of a warrior inspired by natural and organic materials, wooden accents, intricately decorated with glowing vines of led lights, inspired by baroque luxury
See Michael Dickel’s note on AI generated art accompanying his digital landscapes.
Text ©2023 Ira Director
All rights reserved
…was born in Chicago and is an artist and poet with a BA in Philosophy and MA in English Literature and Poetry. Works have been published in journals and e-zines; exhibited in galleries and in International Mail Art Network projects. Poems and paintings are sometimes combined, with both integral to the pieces.
The paper reports, Twelve people are dead from Bird-Flu Virus, kill millions of chickens to stop the spread. Mad-Cow Disease has killed some people in UK thousands of cattle will die today. Swine-Fever is killing some people on farms let’s kill all the pigs to stop the alarms. HIV AIDS is rampant and strong, unprotected sex is killing the throng. The paper reports, Ninety-five killed in bus with bad brakes, the driver was drunk and that’s all it takes. How many bus drivers should we kill? Plane crashes with people on board How many pilots should we kill? Taxis are crashing and killing each day, how many drivers should be made to pay? Shifting the blame, for human error is killing the world and screaming in terror.
I’d like to project a movie of truth, with powerful words that burn through the mockery of civilization. I’d like to project a movie of reality with scenes of desolation within the wasteland of the World. I’d like to project my voice into the abyss of the faithless, where-in the heartless congregate. I’d like to bombard the people with wake-up clarion calls to stop killing the land. And then, I’d like to project a movie of peace and renaissance to heal the planet.
©2023 Irene Emanuel
All rights reserved
…was born in Johannesburg, lived in Durban, and now lives in Port Elizabeth. She won the “Hilde Slinger” cup for Poetry in 2009 and again in 2013, and the “Fay Goldie” cup for General Success in the World of Publishing in 2011, both from the “South African Writers Circle”. Nine of her poems were published in Signatures, an anthology of Women’s Poetry (2008), and she represented “Live Poets Society” in Poetry Africa that same year. In 2006, A Scorpion Sings, her first anthology appeared. Other anthologies published between 2006 and 2015 are: Count Catula of Shadoland & Friends, A Piece of Me, and A Scorpion Sings Again.
Can a human be a drop in the bucket of history, a tiny ping in a vast cistern, but jump in anyway? In WW II, Witold Pileki, officer in the Polish Underground, hounded his commanders to allow him to join Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz, suspected something dreadful in that camp, left his wife and two small children. Arm-inked #4859, he discovered the atrocities. For three years, smuggled reports in dirty laundry to the outside, every basket a chance for capture. He knew what the prison guards did to spies. His reports: gas chambers, ovens to the Polish Underground. Sent those atrocities to Americans and British. No one believed. No one would do such things! We have a history of things done, not a history of things not done. How many would have been saved if someone had listened? Waited, arranged escapes for prisoners, but nothing done. Frustrated, faked typhus and escaped himself. Spied against Russia till the Reds killed him. We call so many heroes—tycoons, doctors, baseball players, astronauts. Is Witold still a hero if nothing is done?
An African woman, raped at gunpoint, one chance allowed her to flee, made it to Brazil, trod 3,000 miles to the US/Mexican border. Pregnant now, an activist group took her to Ohio to train as a nurse assistant. She left a ten year old son behind. Group raised funds for his rescue before he is killed or forced to train as a child soldier. None.
On the TV news, I watch the faces of people wearing red hats. When their hero appears, they stand at the bar, raise their beer glasses in praise. The bartender shrugs, carefully tops the foam. The scene reminds me of the iconic movie Cabaret, when American brat Liza Minnelli charmed the audience, Joel Grey mastered his Liebchen and mocked the Jewish gorilla. Nazis terrorized Jews, killed Frau Landauer’s pet dog, left the bloody corpse, rang the doorbell, ran away like a crude Halloween trick. As Count Maximilian hustled Sally in the beer garden, a blond, blue-eyed Hitler youth rose up, sang a chilling patriotic song. O, Fatherland, Fatherland inspired broken, poor and angry Germans to stand, join the rousing tune, plant their hopes firmly like a flag for der Fuhrer. The Nazis viciously beat voters at polls, their uniformed soldiers appear in eerily greater numbers filling the final bar scene. Today, our own frustrated rise to salute a different tyrant, recover their pride, hoping, once again, to be saved.
O, FATHERLAND, FATHERLAND MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
©2023 Vern Fein
All rights reserved
…a recent octogenarian, has published over 250 poems on over 100 different sites, a few being Young Raven’s Review, Gyroscope Review, Green Silk Journal, Rat’s Ass Review, TheBeZine, and The Sledgehammer. His first poetry book—I Was Young and Thought It Would Change—was published last year. A second book is in process. The entire world of poetry is his muse.
Wehuman beingsneverseem totire ofwanting totell(ing) others whatto believe, howto believe, andeven at what hours of the day or week they should(when to) practicethosebeliefs.It is a core dynamic thatthough oftenissuing fromsome originalrevelatoryexperience, becomes systematized in the endbelittlesother'sindividual experienceby treating them like errant children it has nothing to do withwhat lies behind theunutterablemystery of existence?and everything to do with the command and control that the immaturehuman psyche cravesover others as a hopedfor antidote tothe unendingvulnerability of existence.This piece was written many years ago asa way ofbeginning to claim back my own way ofasking 'The beautiful question',often squeezed out and overwhelmed since childhood by the overbearing over privileged and over controlling questionsof theso , calledself-admiring andastonishinglyself-satisfied, inherited, 'adult' world...
sprouting with many colors
on the dry earth so brown
greens and blues, tans and yellows
all mixed with the hue of red
so many strewn all about
in all the stages of life
from tiny to old and graying
are the posies laid before me
now comes the time for change
turning the earth and plowing
all the colors soon hidden
as if they never once lived
but such are the ravages of
man against man, through time immortal
who really wins, how can anyone
against the atrocities of war
but yet, in one darkened field
comes something tiny, raising its head
amidst the destruction left behind
comes a flower of hope and beauty…
forgotten yet here
who remembers me alive
once a heart beating scared
why are we here—look
there—he’s just a boy
doesn’t know why just told point
and shoot they’re bad he’s
told anyone with guns
John shot him but it’s too
late for me have to leave
you boys why can’t we
just go home and play ball
I see me you take my dog
tags I see you leaving but
I’m still here no I’m over
there covered in my bright
blood sinking
into the jungle floor all's quiet
the animals come to eat till
all that’s left are bones my
bones covered in mold then
plants cover all time has no
meaning all but forgotten
I wander over the place the
bones my bones lay covered
as mice gnaw on those
remnants of what was me
once a heart beating dreams
hopes plans muscles sinews
skin tanned by sun but
there’s no sun in the bowels
of a jungle nothing but the
critters and me
waiting but
forgotten
like time…
Appeared in the Adirondack Center For Writing, 2023
land—sweep through miles
of jungle then beachhead
picked up—land—fight our
way to the jungle then sweep
more jungle—another beachhead
each day haunted by
the dead we leave behind
yet never forget—each
day accompanied by the
hum of mosquitoes—but no
talk just forever moving
forward and the gun fire
oh—no music—no joy but
shooting to stay alive
goodbye my friend I wish
there had been more
classes at college for
us but we must keep
moving—forever moving—more
islands to clear more japs
to route why why do we
run forward to our deaths why
where is the glory when
we leave our friends bodies
behind can’t stop only those
still breathing get a chance
to fight another day I will
bring your dog tags home if
I can and tell them you
fought to the end…
Appeared in the Adirondack Center For Writing, 2023
©2023 jsburl
All rights reserved
…MFA is a hemorrhagic stroke survivor who lives in Northern NY. She loves family, mountains, gardening, writing poetry and stories, oil painting, dragons, and animals large and small. She lives with her her dog Tippy, and has just finished her master’s degree in Creative Writing. She was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta International English Society, and The National Society of Leadership and Success. She has been a journalist and won state and US competitions, and has two children’s books slated for release this year. Her poetry appears in the American Poets Society, Theater of the Mind, 2023 Poets Yearbook, Sunflower Poetry Review, The Bezine, The Waverly Poetry Review, Portrait of New England, and Whimsical Poet. The stroke took her mobility, but not her creativity. Her favorite thing to tell people is “Make every day an extraordinary day.
I want to hear preachings in my ears, So that my mind will be so peaceful! I want to repent my sins, For I am a creature of injustice. Why am I crying tears of tears When my mind is so sinful! I keep losing my thoughts, To devilish rethoughts! Am I so devilish That sins keep happening Without any willingness. Why am I crying tears of fears? I repent my sins in vain Since I am addicted to the charm of hate.
Just because my son suffered From a disability, They butchered him constantly. Is it a lack of education or A lack of manners? Stigmatisation was quick to follow, Needless to say They called him a handicap. What a mentality! Words can break someone's world. Be careful regarding what you say!
I am a literal mess, Since dark times hit me. It is still hard To make decisions Since today, You are not here anymore, I have to look beyond you... With so many visions Of versions That alters my choices To make the decision With an ounce of pain And a tear in my eye. But what's left, Are just broken pieces, Here and there, Without any hope To rope around The reality of circumstances.
©2023 Alshaad Kara
All rights reserved
…is a Mauritian poet who writes from his heart. He won the Gal’s Guide Anthology 2023 People’s Choice Award for his poem “Prelude.” His latest poems were published in two anthologies, Gal’s Guide Anthology: Journey and Suicide Vol.2, One Magazine, Prodigy Magazine and two journals, Literary Cognizance and Cultural.
after all this there’s a funny thing if only we were able to say enough really send an army to protect and they’ll kill everyone who wants to make peace and only this tell-along sentence this one thing that might someday help it’s a call to hold the sore parts it’s knowing we all are somehow afraid to say we are afraid that causes the hurt put down your weapons not outside weapons the weapons inside know you can be held and safe and then all together we’ll hold the furor all the rage and hold and cause to save
i’ve never known anything like how you’ve loved me like wind and rain that comes up and you can’t get out of the way and it hopes to lift the roof and the roof holds somehow but you want it to give the way water rushes downhill finds hollows and stories and ways to be useful and washes things hurts and regret like sand and gravity i folded myself into you and i’ve never regretted the choice to be witness to what came up within us the way i lay on the lawn let the manitoba stars obey me the way the body obeys me the way the world obeys me the way we have to find peace with not knowing it’s funny the things you want that can’t help you and the things you want that can save you and how hard it is to tell the difference
i’m telling you i’m not for sale not the way you imagine sure i can be bought with a sunrise or a lakeshore slap slap slap of wave and sunshine that delicious warm come-as-you-are peace of mind wandering in midst of trees why not but you’re asking me to contribute to the destruction of my home base where i ran as a kid to be safe olli olli all come free you’re asking me to betray a double love to throw on the fire the sticks of my youth to cast into flames everything i hoped to bequeath to the the beings i created who mean well everything to say to my nimble cousins who hid and ran from my attempted tag who trembled in aspen and stood still in pine never betraying the other and hoping to make it home free to say to me give up this place put down your fight it won’t happen i am for sale the way the wind is for sale when it catches me when i cast myself out on the water when i stack the beach stones just for love i’m for sale when i ride the gelding down to the shore on a forgotten road on a forgotten day at daybreak and the sun well it greets us over the lake and we know we are the same
©2023 David Kristjanson-Gural
All rights reserved
…is a teacher, scholar and poet whose work is directed to helping others understand ways in which our social systems cause harm and to heal from that harm by creating new ways to live, work and support each other. He lives in the Susquehanna Valley where until recently he co-directed Wild Goose Farm, a sustainability education center with intergenerational programs to inspire people to transition to regenerative ways of living and growing.
.
Website / Blog
A small child hid In a corner of himself Wrapped into a tight ball He backed further Into the corner, as if, in danger. I felt his presence before I saw him. “Please don’t hurt me,” His contorted body seemed to say. I know this child, I whispered to myself, Feeling the truth. She is he is me is we Stuck everywhere Except in the present moment. How did we lose our way? Please, stay within reach. I dream of ease Wrapping us cocoon safe In the trust that grows In the light of day. Daily I pray to find The path along which Peace may be waged moment by moment in all of our hearts. May we find the courage And strength to be true to ourselves.
©2023 Marlene McNew
All rights reserved
…is a poet and artist who lives in Northern California. She is an earnest Buddhist, mother of a 14-year-old Border Collie named Abby. She was at various times an avid skier, a competitive ballroom dancer, and had a 20+year career in Accounting/Finance until Parkinson’s Disease cut it short. She has produced 21 YouTube poem-videos, mainly on skiing and Parkinson’sDisease. She had two of her poems published in the DeAnza Junior College Literary Magazine. She also had three of her undergrad papers on women in history published by the U.C.-Davis Women’s Center (out of print:“The Oppression of Citizen Women in Classical Athens,” “Noblewomen in Renaissance and Reformation England,” and “The Plantation Woman Before and After the Civil War”)
We sat on the brown carpet when they bombed Baghdad. Someone made popcorn, probably Mom, or maybe we were eating dinner–pork chops, probably, with apple sauce–as we watched lights streaking through the sky a world away entertainment for middle class American families who were footing the bill although they never polled us and said: this, or free college. This, or the future. This, or joy. And some years later at another advent the boss sent me with a notebook in my hand to Our Lady of Peace. Taper candles bloomed, people murmuring on their knees for peace because they knew nothing about Afghanistan— anything at all about the place, except people lived there, and they had children, and they would die from bullets and bombs lofted by other children, maybe even their own, who might also die. Their prayers didn’t work, not even after seventeen years. No one polled us then, either. No one polled the women of Afghanistan, the chess-players in Iraq, the kids who loved soccer or the flower vendor. And now, under the onion domes, people are praying, lighting those candles with that peaceful smell that comes somehow from burning wax in front of those shining gold icons and in the streets wrapped in sheets of azure and gold a representation of wheat fields under sky. And others are watching the evening news with popcorn and pork chops, watching the lights and smoke much as we did a long time ago. I’m not sure when prayers will ever start working. I’m thinking that something more is required than icons and wishes and incense, or chants in the street. Someone needs to poll the people of Russia, the people of Ukraine, all of us, really, and say: this, or the face of your nephew, this, or those gold wheat fields under the sky this, or the stadium where you cheered on your side and hugged in the pub afterward this or your children, this or the future, this or love. Because the prayers never work so maybe we should start taking some polls.
I should offer prayers, I know, the heart’s alms for the dying and the lost. So much pain permeates, a choking smoke. And yet today the first groundhog awoke, stumbled out on the ice-smoothed ground without regret. A blackbird sang on a distant tree. So much we can snuff on a whim, candles of lives burning their merry brightness to light the gloom. Everywhere is a church, each step a pilgrimage to the holy, and yet I still can’t pray or bow my head. I can’t fall onto my knees and beg for who is there to listen to these entreaties who isn’t already listening to the blackbird and the bomb? My heart yearns for a rifle, for a shield and some bandages, my heart yearns for body armor, bullets and a tank and that’s quite the problem, isn’t it: so many temples we burn to the ground in the name of a grand idea. But I’m no sniper; I flinch to kill bees, even the groundhog that eats my garden is spared with a grudging mercy. Empty-handed, all I can offer is love. Not a bullet nor a hex, but only foolish love—for a bird, for a rodent, for people I don’t know crouching with rifles. As the boots approach they hear a bird sing her prayer for the spring.
The old man should do more—pound his frail fist on the table, make the end happen, for the prophets predicted this: you sifted through the words, assigned each syllable numbers and added them up. The word of god never fails, you say, and the streak through the sky the fire of those angels— the ending of it all is just a sign that your side has won. You’re so eager for this ending, when the boss comes back with those holes in his feet and a checklist. His pure hand will wipe the burning world clean and if you’re good, he’ll bring you back with him, if you never doubted your gender or kissed someone you shouldn’t have kissed, if you had the right thoughts and believed the right things back you go to your assigned desk, so good, so very good you are, everyone smiles. But I can’t help but wonder if someone who devoted seven days to a project— one this intense, with so many parts— and finally kicked back, saying,“It’s good, it really is” and chuckled in awesome delight would be keen on some kids trashing it over some schoolyard taunt, those fist-to-the-head arguments kids get because their brains are still developing and rage controls them like marionettes. Did They spend so much time perfecting the passionflower and the peacock, even the tardigrades, just to let some argument wipe it all out? A nuclear warhead is a misappropriation of light, turning enlightenment into something obscene. Somehow it’s only important your side wins and you get the corner desk. People like me will burn anyway, you say, or end up in that place with tardigrades and starlings when heaven goes corporate. But I wouldn’t be so eager for that performance review if I were you. You didn’t read the employee manual.
©2023 Jenne Micale
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…lives in the woods in Upstate New York with her husband and cat. When she’s not scribbling, she is making music as the ethereal/wyrd folk project Kwannon, learning Gaeilge and practicing aikido badly. Her work has appeared in Mandragora, Enheduenna, Oprelle, Last Leaves and Sandpiper, among other places.
Website / Blog
My green throat has turned into a garden I have to be silent a lot I have to drink a lot so that the trees grow I have to breathe quietly so as not to frighten the birds I don't want to scare those who are happy
damp forest how does the butterfly come out heat from the clip
Shh shh she she she along with your hoarse cough Leaves fall to the ground and you don't understand Will tomorrow knock on your door again morning…
explosions instead of music death instead of sleep butterflies everywhere butterflies
A huge bird with black glasses would have arrived And taught us all to fly We've never been here anyway
©2023 Mykyta Ryzhykh
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…is the winner of the international competition Art Against Drugs and Ukrainian contests Vytoky, Shoduarivska Altanka, Khortytsky dzvony; laureate of the literary competition named after Tyutyunnik, Lyceum, Twelve, named after Dragomoshchenko. Finalist of the Crimean ginger competition. Nominated for Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in many journals: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News, Acorn haiku Journal, The Wise Owl, Verse-Virtual, Scud, Fevers of the Mind, LiteraryYard, PLUM TREE TAVERN, ITERANT, Fleas on the Dog, The Tiger Moth Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Angel Rust, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, the6ress zine, Monterey Poetry Review, PPP Ezine.
First time I got away from the b-boys. On my way to school in this crazy hood these dudes' upkeep like an everyday mood with trembling sounds from the train clan noise. In my mind, it clashes my bones, causing pain. The running tracks above us are insane. My legs bumping and rubbing the fogging of punching scabs from my peeling skin strain. Da-Dum is the Afro-sound Cuban drums I run towards the subway train quit split from the flies and UFOs on a blitz the corre sound, corre, of Afro drums. I close my eyes and connect with my crowns soul to pray for the rebirth of these clowns.
Why allow him to bully you, Pedro? When education allows you freewill their engraving ways a scheme will syringe your action like it is play dough. A streaming wave narcotic telling though a puppet twine steers your decline mate using your intellectual as bait they intimidate and oppress your glow. The bully, as usual, keeps fiendish forked tongue in ear beating like a circle at Pedro and persuades him to be burgle who reacts with blunt, smolder face squeamish. We miscible store bully like goodie chew out his insane brain as a cookie.
How, Maria, do we become holy? The evil dupe coerces our soul corrupt with a hoodoo to hinder and obstruct, though with keenness, slay prayer slowly. Cut rudeness out of life, gratitude wholly. I praise the creator with confessions of invoked words for the throne's accessions to reconcile self and stop unholy. As in holy, our person embodies our brothers and sisters accept the bread and wine eucharist to become one head through prayers in the heavenly faith body. The ritual of acting pure, human zoom in divine through the maker's crewman.
©2023 Angel Ruby Vasquez
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…is a poet pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary’s University. He has an educational point of view that is full of historical energy. He wrote, produced, directed, and acted in his first film project, “Never Again,” in 1990 while serving a six-to-life sentence. He was only sixteen years old. He turned it into a positive experience through education thanks to the programs the Hispanic Needs Coordinator and Counselor Vivian Castro-Mosley provide at the Albany Greene Correctional Facility.
TW—Domestic Violence
Sinners and rhinestones have always gotten along, the jingle of my handcuffs in broad Latin sunlight Crashing the beach wave alone with my ubiquitous mind, replaying the apex of female rage How she screamed, and how she fought, her battle raging as her world beneath her second brain relapsed, Her father's screams glimmer across the pianos, bottles of wine whose corks still gleam wet from when he poured just a drop on her tongue; How narrow the world seems, just seams of battered dish soap in a world brought down by video game yelling fanatics Crooked lights track down her mother's face her eyes look up to a moment locked in vows Bouquets and baronesses, Wedding gowns and ripped bows, kisses that strung the air with intoxicated blows of romance, their extended honeymoon—the cupboard crashes down on her, her soul falling beneath the depths of her underbelly, the monster snarled, she falls pitts down into her abyss, an abyss she foresaw but clammed hard to wish not —Their second year in the white chapel of Paris, him whispering over her while the gargoyle loomed over their bodies, like the sunlight jealous of the moon shining her love on the stars, like the seas kissed by the tides, its foam latched on to the shore to destroy all of creation or like the fire lights whose clandestine wings buzzed near the moths eyes to pry them to a night of Skyfall —Their trips to the Russian Advocacy, his eyes, glances that tripped her falling heartbeat, directionless moments in pure unscriptural Ekalavya, his slow moments in time catching her like a droplets of sand lingering on an hourglass after its final hour, whispers of debates on a couch, whose springs court the thorns of hallways adorned with black and white folk, whose invisible seams that he turned emerald to remind her of their inventory cascades, experiments wounding up in chemical folklore and ambulance drives to a publisher's house, their minefield of ideas, vodka blizzards to rosaries in bowling balls —"My dear" he said one evening to her, the news of their first born a stinging message in the air, he stared at her like she was the embalmment of his daughter, he saw the future in her, her eyes beating the images of his next life, her hands holding the room of their family portraits, him and her and their light glorious in his eyes, family potently powerful in love; But that love is potent, that a father's constant life and love could melt into a river in the heart of shatters, a storehouse of memory so ancient, its scrolls rusted from beauty —How could she know the man she married , the father of her child, the keeper of her miscarried heart, the soulful laughter that welcomed her home after a long day of service, tasted her bile for ripening, knew her waking hours to glorify the absence of their abacus memories, memories that cloud the air and fail to latch onto their soulless minds, a mind grown into the love offered by man who was a husband but then grew into the very man he'd sworn to never become, who treated his wife the way his heart broke to, whose notes now rang ringlets of trembles, each step the sindoor of her fades away and he stares away from his life, lost in the alleyway that presents himself now Her father is gone, the maestro who taught her poetry has faded into the rust of his books, his imprints have been translated into motherboard of her forgotten memories, His eyeroll that crept over her and her mother over the years, his jeer and insecurity now overshadowed her thoughts, his actions written on hieroglyphs of their portrait, the frames of gold and black tarnished, the man looking down no longer holding his reflection. The sunlight draws into my eyes, a blank canvas for what she is about to show me, my eyelashes, signing my cheekbones with an anticipatory audience, but she is alone, I am alone. Encompassed alone in the nightmare winter is her beauty, bringing death to her knees is her sunset, the cries of rain that litter her enemy's cheeks, shadows of a game of tetris she enjoyed Silhouetted in the glass-fitting of the moon is she in Cinderella Gliding along the sculpture of an eric is she in the little mermaid The hollow trees with the spirit of the ancestral forest is she in Pocahontas The rose whose sister was picked by the beast is she in Beauty and the Beast Darkened eyelashes never belong to anyone but the wearer The bookmark shall hold most of the heart of the maker Why should she border herself because of a societal requirement The skies never sailed for a duo, it was an individualist loner in the middle of a platinum sky Like a john wick villainess whose mind led men be feared by Like the Syrian snake who chased away a religion to the fiery fruits associated with a harlot She's everything the world never saw fit, like the first spark offered by the cigarette as its fumes camouflage your sadness just to burn out heartstrings a second later Her pearly ringlets of hair sway from her temples to across her lashes, like the latch of lust in the initial encounter of arms playing sonnets and eyes entwined in matrimonial vows, each lost in the mirage of emotions within as they longingly inch closer as the frost beneath sizzles into fire, and the sharp intake of breaths hitches to a halt, a world of parrots and doves climb out, To be lost in the ecstasy of one and another, with screams that terrify the night and soundless moans that collapse into a collision of aphrodisia, with each other being the delight and pain, each body being drenched in sweat and seeds of Persephone's stay in the underworld The world shifts into a glimmering fog, of charring oneself with the rust of an old photo frame, with memories to comets soaring past the yellow sky In a world of blood and mud she became their wine In a prison of symmetry and infidelity she became a crossword And in the mornings of glitter and maksath she became the black and white chessboard Her bangles now gleamed silver in the sunlight, ivory etchings decorated her vision She is the queen on the checkerboard She is the rewriting on the rosary She is the air that breathes your sight upon blowing the conch She is the pause between fear and a new moment The etching on a Shakespearean book bind Contested by her face it moves switching from emotion to power In her hand the hourglass tips into mercenaries Each grain of sand an entry of a nightmare Each cry of a child the laughter of a cliffhanger Each hollow heart a welcome for her residence Intelligence so forth and wise like the mermaid on winters eve Dives into a state of emergency, absorbing each emotion by logic and detaching from her pillar to the darkness I walk free shambles burning away my skin to a void empty by detachment and hollow by mystique Prudence and Cowardice go hand in hand one for a queen's power and the other her brocade For it was never the subjects who she wanted to rule Why fill the coastline where I can deprive myself to perfection Why fulfill the burning desire between me and him when I can succumb to the frostbite and destined solitude Why protect the flame when I burn the incandescent ice as my crown My crown is heavy with the seams of my endeavors, my head crowned bloodless with the ember of anklets, copper with the taste of my own I look up to the heavens, their cloudy majesty draws sunsets across my pleats My anklets drown in their beats Each mudra flows through my blood My head feels throughout the evening of pictures and emotions of my fortitude My sweat sinks down like the pearls of a necklace so brittle by its value and seemed priceless by its nature Like blood-money valuable only to the wicked and not to the poor
Coffins splattered in between seams of a sisterly pinafore Anklets dripping in blood, blood from the eyes, as she glides across Elysium, Blood from the elbows, whose bones lay marked with caricatures of a brawl painted with red dye Blood from her heart, as it drips down her face, shrouding her last breath away from them; lest they see her fall Lest they believe that she cannot withhold it all Lest they believe that her heart outweighs her mind Blood from her hair, its curly braided locks crowned in a thorny veil, Her heart cuts into a stone, ready for atonement Ready to succumb to her life She sees it chasm, her mind edges her on She jumps… Her crafty plan is awake The woman she created has demanded her release She welcomes her She glances upon her mirror, little pebbles of light stare back The pebbles that set her mind to day Her reflections to night The foamy ocean that engulfs her whole as she feels her heart The seashell dresses her mirage, inviting her to join them Only it's not a mirage She soars across the land, her neck craned like the subtle tilt of a sword Tattooed in vengeance and lit aflame by roses The wind chimes soften their blow against the wind As I turn away, chrysanthemums in my hair, drowsy from vigour I don't stop My feet are palm less as I venture into my window of fantasy The frigid air of my memories mellows the air My anklets tinkle through its seams Callous in its wreckage, I carve through the words Painting its shards with my pianos, its white teeth chipped with golden lint
Pinecones of fervent cider wreathed the skies, a mirage of dewdrops and accolades, a mirage of Persian mabrooks and Albanian mashallah's forewent her thoughts Her hood pointed low to hide her eyes, dewdrops of pint rain mixed with the winter ball had sewn for her a cape, devoid of her expression Her eyes deserted her passers and stayed on the abal trees on the path The gazelles in Tasleem The mudras escaping her tongue in Navratri The angelus in the dewdrops of summer's ascension Graceful poetry lined her quill, shadows of summer rain awaiting their heartbreak; to fall unto the slow earth A Shayari of Maksath and Khwabeda, a bird whose wings, blue like the ringed octopus, death on heed the clattering rustle of the shehzadi tika beneath her hood; an eclipsing nightingale in the Atlantic Kohinoor The dewy grace of the blade against her Palestine skin, the jumu'aa of the masjid mornings the gossamer sunlight against her feet, angled against the angels For why should love be restricted to shame Intelligence viewed corrosive in a world acidic to their corpses Symbiotic when one's shelter and entrust, the samaitic mercenary of solace in the angelus of one's conscience Her horse stuttered to a drawl, caramel eyes a glare in the Aafreen of the black of hers, glaciers against the rising sun Her Nazakat, an aroma to the tamanna of Persia, a ringlet in her minaret bangles; A Sukoon amongst her laughter.
©2023 Selene Vina
All rights reserved
…a writer and poet who publishes her works of poetry on her Instagram has completed seventeen years living on this planet. She lives in the Emirate of Dubai of the United Arab Emirates,engages her time in reading—especially Gothic literature, fantasy, and other fiction. Likes thrift clothes to reduce her role in capitalism and adores writing poetry in the raven’s hours of the night. She is an Indian who loves incorporating her culture into poetry and plans to establish representation for South-Indian WoC in the Literary World.
The BeZine 