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.

JIHADI JOHN

by Eric Lochridge

Painting by Luigi Poggi of the stoning of Stephen. (Acts 6, 58): "And cast him out of the city, and stoned him..."..  In the background: Paul (Saul of Tarsus) stands on the left, witnessing the stoning. (Acts 7, 58): "and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.” At that time Paul prosecuted Christians, but on his journey to Damascus he switched sides and became a converted missionary (Acts 9, 3-4): "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?". —Beit-Jamal Monastery

You remind me of Paul before he was Paul.
Saul made martyrs like you do.

On a road in the desert
the Morning Star, Light of Life

struck him blind, not pitch black
but bright glare that swallowed him whole.

Something like scales are falling
from the eyes of the man in the orange jumpsuit.

He can see heaven
from where he’s kneeling in the sand.

Someone once said
love your enemies.

The flash of your blade blinds us both
to the good God is bringing into the world.


Eric Lochridge is the author of Born-Again Death Wish (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Real Boy Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and Father’s Curse (FootHills Publishing, 2007), and the editor of After Long Busyness: Interviews with Eight Heartland Poets (Smashwords, 2012). His poems have appeared in journals such as Free Lunch, Slipstream, Diagram and Paddlefish and in anthologies such as Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude (Holy Cow! Press, 2009), Liberty’s Vigil: The Occupy Anthology (FootHills Publishing, 2012), and The XY Files: Poems on the Male Experience (Sherman Asher Publishing, 1997). He lives in Bellingham, Washington.

SOPHOCLES LONG AGO HEARD IT ON THE AEGEAN

by Mark Sargent

Seventeen Syrian refugees, including five children, drowned Sept. 27 when their boat sank in Turkish waters on its way to Greece. The Turkish coastguard recovered the bodies from a wooden boat that had set off from the Turkish holiday resort town of Bodrum for the Greek island of Leros, Doğan News Agency reported. The refugees drowned when they failed to get out of the boat’s cabin, the news agency said. Another 20 migrants, who were on the boat’s deck, survived and swam back to the Turkish coast, it added. All were wearing life jackets. —Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey), September 27, 2015

A leaf detaches from the oak and
drifts flipping down against
the pale blue late afternoon sea below,
a lone cicada takes up a rattling solo,
the white rubble of Mavrovouni
flashes across the bay.  What
mountain?  And still the day
holds the black at bay.

Come, says the sea, enter me.
Sun stunned, lazy with heat,
we obey, para-dicing the flow
into glittering fragments that coalesce,
a phosphorescent shadow
fading in our wake.

The nation reels, nothing’s being done,
all values called into question,
the capitol seethes with plot and betrayal;
driven by hunger and war and need
thousands scramble ashore each day,
possessions and children on their backs
swelling the roads towards the next
checkpoint and north, always north,
it’s a long way from South Sudan
to Berlin, Damascus to Dijon.
Nobody wants to stop here.

Night comes with nostalgia, an ache for
a moment of clarity such as the shore lights’
glimmering fingers splayed
across the black and blacker waters,
poised to sound a Monkish chord and
every creature and the sea linger
together exhaling, tidal, stretched open
to return on the breath
to that darkling pain,
and the night whispers,
take the silence with you.


U.S. poet Mark Sargent has lived in Greece since 1990.  Two books published in 2015: The Li Ho Reflux Tour 2003; Crisis: Letters from Greece 2013-2015.

THE DESTRUCTION OF ANYWHERE

by David Feela

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And released lethal doses of chemical gold;
And the corpses in white shrouds could not testify
When Assad shook his fist: all the dissidents lie.

So Death spread its wings without making a sound,
no staccato of gunfire, no bombs shook the ground.
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill
And their bodies convulsed before growing quite still.

No gashes or wounds, no bloody revolution;
They died to save bullets, a thrifty solution.
And the UN, they came, took the samples away
To be tested in labs before bodies decay.

And the streets of Damascus are quiet tonight,
And the militants home while they wait for first light;
And how sad the last volley of lies to be hurled
Has melted like snow in the glance of the world.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.