16)Festive Portraits by Maxim Nogai

 

Maxim Nogai is a professional photographer based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.  He likes ramen, karaoke, food, and gaming. Check out more of his work on Instagram @nogai_maxim. 

8)Jeff Hinton "Roses in Deserts, Flowers in Concrete"

After José Olivarez and Isaiah 35

The call goes out that the desert will bloom
And it sounds hopeful
That this inhospitable wasteland will turn into something beautiful
Something lovely
These sands with the heat that chokes out all life
Will become soil that nourishes a new paradise
That’s what we’re told, that’s what we’ll see, eventually
But what if the desert blooms and it’s still a desert?
What if this miraculous event occurs and then these lush carpets of flowers 

shrivel and die
Just like everything that came before?
What if it needs more than hope and desire for love to bloom in a wasteland?

Maybe it’s like the rose that blooms from the crack in the sidewalk
It’s once again the metaphor for hope, for persevering in the face of adversity, 

for overcoming the odds
And yet beneath the foot of the ruler walking by, it’s the same as the concrete around it
The flower and the stone feel the same beneath a boot
It’s easily ignored
Or worse, after all the work it takes to grow in such a harsh environment
Someone decides that the rose doesn’t belong
And plucks it up before it can be anything at all

Maybe we need to realize that it’s not enough to plant orchids in the sand and call it a miracle
Maybe we need to stop celebrating small signs and wonders as if they’re the end of the story
When really they’re a call to renewal, to a new order of all things
Maybe what we need to do is transform the sidewalk into a garden
To terraform the desert, rearranging it entirely so that it might hold paradise instead
That it might provide a home for those who have none
instead of drying out the hope of anyone stranded there
Maybe that’s what this season of preparation is for
Not that we might be ready to see something unlikely
But that we transform ourselves so that we might make the unlikely the ordinary
So that the desert blooms for more than a fleeting moment
So that the rose doesn’t just fight its way out of a crack in the sidewalk
So that we don’t just wait for God to show up
But we make the path that God takes through that wasteland that was once so 

imposing to get here
Lined on either side with roses in full bloom

 

Jeff Hinton is a pastor, writer and musician in Oklahoma. You can find his work at Irrational Confidence and his most recent EP here.

21)James Metelak "New Nuevo Новый Жаңы Nouveau"

They call holidays an option for a reason

Жаңы жыл.   Жаңы.  Жаңы, ага? Take me on your genocide tour!

Гусь уже толстеет ha'penny guy montage

Mistah Kurtz--dead

Où t'es?

I don't know

Everything (timezone by timezone domino-falls the shadow) ends sometime

The other foot drops the TimesSq ball

Limbo-dangling heldbreath endzone safety

Weight for a flash in the pa(i)n that never comes

Tornadocrowd crashes field expectation(blues/blows) post(')s down

            Сольнце улыбается

            Her firework eyes

            Darken my horizon

            There were things I should've known

            "Не врала" сказала

            But you could've let me know

            You should've made promises you could keep

            Resolute Atlantic cold and a cough from my bones

            Staying up late

            Because we don't have a reason to get up

            Tomorrow 

Happy New Fear!

            Où t'es papa?
            I'm living on recycled hubris and tired tr(h)opes

            Fumble through my phone contacts (rosary)

            Praying that when I find the ghirl:

            Problem solved!

            Or at least the fear of the unknown might go

      Black night dying-into-nothing nightmares

A fleshwound year without resolution

And we stand on the edge of its cosmic question mark

Curled milklike across a charcoaledhazesky

The year soured, (w)retch, gone bad

Year-of-the-bullet

Time to give it two to the chest

This is a year for...UNresolutions,

A year for resolving

Just to keep going (let go)

Peace agreements signed in

Glances and middle fingers erect

At prayer for the mirror

But 2016, f**k you

Nothing's really ever new.

I will carry you like a black eye

Time is never gone.

Nearlythirtyboy neck hurts from the Jonahstorm stress I'm getting old

I thought I could protect the fatherless, I promised

Twenty minutes later I watched them bleed (passively).

I thought I had found the one;

Two weeks on she was in a walk-to-remember white dress with

Someone else.

I thought this was the promised-land-home-at-last

(We've been waiting so long, we've been waiting so long)

"You belong here" You said
Yeah?  You call this things working out?

I thought that I'd find ground

But I've been freefalling (weightless and terrified) through

Jobs and letdowns and betrayals

And mundane racism and deaththreats and well-meaning gossips and matchmakers and

"Go homes" and "Why are you heres?" and

My hypocrisy and the unfinished to-do list

And the fears and hopes of deportation and/or losing myself

I've been watching my back, changing my routes,

Slipping on black ice (Dis-moi où es-tu caché?)

and putting blankets around

Everytremblingone else and their head traumas.

When it's time to run, run, run, run, run.  (Paranoid Shock)

I'mjusttryingtobreathebutIcan'tfindthespacebarspacebarspacebar

Jimmy.  Aaja.

Give up this madness.

And he whispered fear is logical.

Novelty Navidad Новшевство Жаңылык Nouveauté

Let  auld acquaintance be forgot...  ("and those days too")

Yo-yo,

We've been around this merry-go-round before

Rebound

We're back where we started a year ago

Yo-yo

News Noticias Новости Жаңылыктар Nouvelles

            Wars and rumours of wars

            "the best lack all conviction"

            The scratched cd news typeset gyre ruts the same orbitous routines

            Like a bad habit

            InjusticeSTOPMurderSTOPTerrorSTOPImmigrantsSTOP

            F change.  E inflation.  A  crisis.  R sanctions.

            News never changes

            The olds nod their heads

            As they try to dodge sleep and stir up coald wars again

            But the monotone drone lullabies/

            Hellfires them all in the end (pages burn and no one cares

                        about newspapers or Yemen (or their children...here I'll show you a picture) or how                               trade laws can ghettoize entire nations)

                                                                 

Kendrick say we'regonnabealright...ага

Any other song to sing besides these blues?

And improved

The pink firework explosion graphic on this future drainsludge and soapscum says this formula gets things cleaner than the older one

Ferguson Baltimore Brexit Black Rock Aleppo Bomb Border Wall Ага...

This is what winning looks like.

Fear and corruption and honour killings in Donbass and red herring laws Trump common sense and wisdom

Another year, another $2 million doesn't make it to the children.

I woke up thinking you were (Où t'es?)still here...

01/01 01/01 01/01 you can't step in(ception) twice (wrote that poem before)

Time Styx needle(s)pins cask(et) river running re-record part 2 take twozerooneseven

            Jimmy (2x), toil and trouble,

            C‘mon what does a man gain but a wind-grasping

            Gasp as he stares down the double-barrelled horror of the darkness

            The steady chipping away as you realize that the weakness

            Of man has been in you since the beginning

            And your breath is fading daily.

Time Styx needle(s)pins cask(et) river running re-record part 2 take twozerooneseven

ma right insane yirwanny us jimmy
see it nyir eyes wanny uz 
gonny miss thi GEMM jimmy
Safety means two points for the other team
Suffering means character/hope and consider it joy or trauma or at least just keep breathing/dying
Til your world caves in

Evening comes.
I'll be in the thorn-filled field spinning/singing like a planet trying to say sane
How do the children make it look so easy?  
The spinning out, rain running off outstretched tongues?

James Metelak is a poet, photographer, and singer-songwriter based in Kyrgyzstan, and the editor/curator of the Headpiece Blog.  Check out his work at http://sandpiperparade.weebly.com.  


First photo from Al-Jazeera. 
http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2015/4/24/c244b803e92641189610a03f8c1f4e60_18.jpg

20)"New Year's Eve" Takē Kanz

Takē Kanz is a (usually acoustic) singer-songwriter wandering around Poland with his guitar.  He loves recording and old Hollywood movies.  Check out more of his groovy music on Soundcloud.