REALITY CHECK

by Marc Swan

for Jane Ferguson

Birds shriek, buildings fall,

body counts mount

in Beirut, Kabul, Baghdad,

parts of Africa, South Asia.

Where have all the flowers gone

I think in the quiet of my office

on a quiet road in a quiet village

along the coast of Maine. I try

to imagine reporting live 

from these hostile locales, 

most importantly staying alive. 

I think of a Special Correspondent

for PBS, an Irish-British journalist 

with long blond hair tucked 

under a head scarf, jeans 

and a military-style jacket

treading lost roads in leather boots

with another woman, camera in hand.

We never see her, but know

she’s shooting the footage

we’ll see on the nightly news.

In recent reports, the Taliban 

armed to the teeth 

seem more than willing to speak 

on camera as the journalist 

asks hard questions in Arabic, 

translated for us in the comfort 

of heated living spaces unaware 

of what is truly seen, heard, 

felt in places of unending conflict—

what does constant fear smell like?

Marc Swan’s latest collection all it would take was published in May 2020 by tall-lighthouse. Poems recently published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, The Stony Thursday Book, Queen’s Quarterly, MockingHeart Review.  He lives in coastal Maine with his wife Dd, an artist and yoga teacher.

IN THE VIDEO STILL OF THE SAUDI JOURNALIST KILLED BY THE SAUDI GOVERNMENT

by Alejandro Escudé




















The victim strolls into the scene
wearing dress shoes and a sport coat.
His icy gait is that of a strong, idealistic man,

a man whose life has been propped up
by words written in looping Arabic.
The man independent, unsympathetic.

To the journalist’s right, a Mercedes van,
black, parked like a stand-in for death.
It is the quietus of the journalist.

Mourn his words, wheeled like scimitars,
like mosaic pieces of a shattered mosaic.
The Mercedes ornament on the van’s grille

reflects the dead man in the sport coat
with the fallen words, walking assuredly past
—who is that? A conspirator? A guard?


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

PROFESSOR FROM DAMASCUS

by Devon Balwit 

Image via Pinterest.

He places his hand on his heart, says Shukran
            for the English lesson,

this specialist in childhood education, their earliest
            formation, in a country

where children scavenge rubble or carry bodies
            of wounded siblings.

He has written six books, he says, six, his hand on his heart.
            this is creative, my talent,

the words delivered with gentle precision, the delicacy of one
            who works with children.

My other students listen politely from a distance, teenagers
            from Japan, Chile, Azerbaijan.

None of us know what it cost him to share our white desks
            at this school in Oregon,

know the Syrian children ruined in Aleppo, while his heart beats
            beneath fingers as he says Shukran.

Devon Balwit is a poet from Portland, Oregon.  Her poetry has appeared before in TheNewVerse.News as well as in other journals.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, II

by Judith Terzi

This Miami Herald editorial cartoon dramatized the plight of Jewish refugees aboard the passenger ship St. Louis, a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 908 Jewish refugees from Germany, after they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States and Canada, until finally accepted in various European countries, which were later engulfed in World War II. Historians have estimated that, after their return to Europe, approximately a quarter of the ship's passengers died in death camps. Cartoonist: Robert Epstein/Miami Herald Staff, June 11, 1939. Caption text thanks to Wikipedia.

Creamy tomato basil soup, a hunk
of baguette at Panera, table #36.
I hear Korean spoken next to me,
two women in animated talk. I'd

like to understand. A father speaks
Arabic to his baby boy. The mother,
highlighted hair, chic jeans. They're
at my favorite table next to the fire-

place. I hear Spanish, Armenian. We
are 10 miles from the largest Armenian
diaspora in America. I hear almost no
English today, like sometimes at mega-

stores where you can't buy one roll
of toilet paper, a single box of tissues,
or a solo tube of toothpaste. Or, I
recall at the top of the Eiffel Tower

before it blushed tricolor in mourning.
The non-talkers here stare into computer
screens between mouthfuls of turkey chili
or a Frontega chicken panini. Here is

the gusto, the throb, the intonation of
America. Here, you can travel without
having to make reservations. I imagine
Delancey Street at the turn of the 20th:

Italian, Ukrainian, German, or the Yiddish
of my grandparents pulsing, reminiscing
between pushcarts, theater seats, newspaper
boys. Or what about on the St. Louis,

ship touching Cuban and U.S. shores with
refugees unwanted, then having to sail them
back to a Europe soon at war? Exhalation for
some. But no Exile, no unshackling from fear.


Judith Terzi's most recent chapbook, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By, is a collection of memoir poems from Kattywompus Press. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review (International Publication Award, 2015), Caesura, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque). She lives and writes in Southern California.