UKRAINE (CONTINUED)

by David Radavich

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 601 of the invasion: Russia testing defences around Kupiansk-Lyman as its Avdiivka offensive wanes, says Ukraine; Moscow admits reliance on China for drones —The Guardian, October 17, 2023

You used to be
on our front pages.

 

Now there are
other wars,
other headlines.

 

Almost a footnote
of human suffering.

 

The bombed-out
churches and schools,
houses and hospitals,
are still rubble,

 

the dead are
still barely buried.

 

We can only stand
so much news:
we have our own issues.

 

Forgive us our 
short attention span,
our time-worn
generosity.

 

We meant well
once.

David Radavich has published a variety of poetry, drama, and essays.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems (Deutscher Lyrik Verlag, 2021).

AIMING STRAIGHT

by David Radavich

The U.S. has surpassed 100 mass shootings in 2023 on Sunday, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which defines mass shootings as situations in which at least four people are shot and either injured or killed, not including the shooter. Only 64 days have passed so far this year, meaning there have been more mass shootings than days in the U.S. thus far. The 100th mass shooting of the year left three people, including a child, dead and another person injured in Bolingbrook, Illinois. —Axios, March 7, 2023. Photo: A person sitting outside Berkey Hall at Michigan State University, the site of a mass shooting on Feb. 13. Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images via Axios.

The last time I pulled
a gun I was a teenager.
 
And I was deadly accurate.
I could kill a can at 100 yards
 
knocking it into the field of dreams.
 
Everyone thought, “Who is this
kid?  Where does he get those eyes?”
 
From looking hard.  Studying
every angle and crease.
 
I don’t miss the accuracy these days.
Cans have become humans,
teens are now cops, and black
lives still don’t matter.
 
The .22 has become an AK-47
and war has become the everyday
in schools and churches, at the mall.
 
No wonder I want to forget.
No wonder we can’t cry anymore.
 
Death is what we signed up for.
Bullets are just the dance
we invite our partners to.

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems (2022).

ELECTION NIGHT 2022

by David Radavich

“Waiting for a Pear to Fall” by Jonas Daniliauskas

The sky is clear
and not a word
floats in the heavens
or on the earth.

 

It is the time of waiting.

 

What must be said
has already been said

 

and we 

like perfect fruit,

 

waiting to be peeled
and consumed.

 

What remains
in the eating

 

at the hands
of others?

 

A last hope
that our insides
will be tasty,

 

that our sacrifice
will bring life
and health

 

to a broken state.

David Radavich's poetry collections include two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In. His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems (2022).  

KILLING IS IN THE AIR

by David Radavich

                On the murder of Yuriy Kerpatenko

Ours is the age of barbarians.

When life is valued little

as a song.

 

A conductor refuses

to lead the music     

of his oppressors

 

and is shot dead

without his baton.

 

Soldiers who shoot him

fear no lingering guilt, 

no final judgment, 

no cosmic shame.

 

The man who dies

is an ant to be squished,

a former echo only.

 

Let us hope the silence

will accuse forever,

 

that angels will sing

the conductor

to his final place

enhemmed in flowers.

David Radavich's poetry collections include two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In. His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems (2022).  

PERFECT PORTRAIT

by David Radavich

Sometimes metaphors are

too perfect for words:

 

Police in riot gear

standing in a school hallway

in Uvalde, Texas

                

doing nothing

 

for 77 minutes,

strolling, phoning,

reaching for hand sanitizer

 

while inside the classroom

the crazed gunman

mows down

 

one child after another

two teachers

 

air burning

with smoke and blood

 

and screams

only ending

 

when death explodes

or oozes out.

 

This is America in 2022:

Immobilized.  Imprisoned

in a trap of power.

Lost in the hallways

of moral evasion.

 

We can’t address

racial justice

or climate change,

enforced poverty

or violent inhumanity.

 

We are the cops

standing around

checking our phones

 

doing nothing

 

to save our children

to guarantee our future.

 

Look in this frame

and see 

 

what we’ve become.

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

JULY

by David Radavich

Can we be independent 

together?  It is

 

a contradiction

devoutly to be wished.

 

Parades, floats, marching 

bands, twirling batons,

tricolor costumes,

 

fireworks

in the festive key.

 

Much of our food

is the same—

grilled, between buns,

sided by slaw, beans,

beer and boasting,

 

a ball tossed 

with betting, servers 

bustling as bees.   

           

Ironic how we choose

the same means

to be ourselves

and free—

 

can shared rituals

save a divided land?    

 

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

ON THE EVE OF THE RUSSIAN INVASION

by David Radavich

They amass at the border

as giant snakes and roaches,

men and their killing

machines, poised

to overrun the resistant

creatures of democracy.

 

Every weapon developed

by man is turned toward

usurpation and control,

as if that could solve

anyone’s need,

historic or personal.

 

Imagine the soldiers

in their invented cause

testing the firing pins,

adjusting the angles, feeding

the first ammunition.

 

Imagine the potential 

victims, defiant, sure 

of their innocence, 

not wanting to be yoked

like pliant oxen

at the master's gate

 

Imagine when the war

happens, its final destruction,

random death, a quagmire

of duty and egos in mud

doing battle like scorpions.

 

We wait with mental

swords drawn to cut what?—

air with our hopes

and expectations that cross

before us against the sun.

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag (2022).

I DO BLAME YOU

by David Radavich

 You brought us the gift

 of potential death.

 

 Not wearing a mask,

 not distancing,

 

 not deigning

 to get a vaccine.

 

 And now the whole

 family is sick—

 generations—

 

 and the threat

 has taken up residence

 in our very house.

 

 Thank you 

 for reminding us

 

 the end is not far off—

 maybe soon—

 

 disease is

 a form of politics,

 

 and we are all one

 in our shared suffering.

 

 If we didn’t believe

 in community, we do now.

 

 Let us hope healing 

 comes fast and the goat

 scapes into the woods.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His forthcoming book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

ISRAELIS DESTROY PALESTINIAN VILLAGE

A Found Poem from Reuters

by David Radavich

A Palestinian boy at the site of his family’s destroyed tented home in Khirbet Humsah in the Jordan Valley in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 5, 2020. CREDIT: REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

Tuesday

a Bedouin village

demolished

displacing 73 Palestinians,

including 41 children.

Tented homes, animal shelters,

latrines, and solar panels

destroyed,

mattresses, computers,

carpets strewn

across the desert

without electricity,

sewage, or running water.

Election Day in the U.S.

869 Palestinians left homeless

so far this year.

Winter is coming.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.

KARMA PLUS

by David Radavich





See what pure narcissism
brings forth: a great rot
in the communal apple.

The body politic
spoils top to bottom
and back again.

Every inequity
becomes deadly
as a snake.

We have long since
been thrown out
of the garden.

We roam streets
like zombies
in search of medicine
and care.

How can we be
one family

and not hug
our neighbors
as ourselves?

Pathogens know
our vulnerabilities
and strike
with clear knives.

In the dark night

we become
what we do
for one another.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.

CORONA THE GREAT

by David Radavich





At last, the Emperor
has no clothes!

Before, his courtiers
held up one fake
outfit upon another,

each one more ugly
than the last.

But now the nakedness
is complete—

the folds of flesh,
the missing heart,
the feet that refuse
to march, the skin
that crawls.

He becomes himself
utter and alone—

the spawn
of mirrorers
and mercenaries

who now cough
and sneeze

into oblivion.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019) is a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).  Recent lyric volumes are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014), and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).

SALVADORIAN SAW

by David Radavich

Image source: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

How best to
sacrifice a child?

Hand him over
to gang-leaders’ guns?
Pay for blood
in coinage?

Or give him to
government forces
in a simple box
I nailed myself?

Open her body
before the cathedral
with a scythe?

Or go to the U.S.
and shiver in a cage
without food
or shower or a bed?

Solomon, tell me
how to divide
this child

so her soul
can sing tomorrow.

David Radavich's latest book is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).  Other recent poetry collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014).  He has served as president of the Thomas Wolfe Society, Charlotte Writers' Club, and North Carolina Poetry Society and currently administers the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series.

REVERSE PHYSICS

by David Radavich

Cartoon by Drew Sheneman, September 21, 2017.

If millions lose their health
care, will anyone hear
in the forest
of the innocents?

Gravity will run upward
like a cyclone
sweeping all before it,

the apple will go skyborne
from the grass
into the golden leaves,

thousands will stand
outside the orbit
of hospitals, clinics, doctors,

the chemistry of addiction
will grow inward—
to arteries and minds
and communities of death

that whiten the wealthy
and whirl into space
all dignity and justice and love.

David Radavich's recent poetry collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Middle-East Mezze (2011), and The Countries We Live In (2014).  His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. Much of his work deals with social justice issues.

THE BIG EYE

by David Radavich




What is the sound
of an eclipse
or a moon’s shadow?

That is the life
we want.

Not without dissonance
but chords echoing
silk, weaving
the overhead sky
night or day.

A small tune maybe
but momentous.

Big as galaxies.

A flower that
foresees its death.

Tomorrow will be
a different clef:
quavers and justice
that ring light.

David Radavich's recent poetry collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time, Middle-East Mezze, and The Countries We Live In.  His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.

ON REJECTING THE PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD

by David Radavich

Photo by Ivan Vargas at Gizmodo.

Ashes gather
at the bottom
of the fire
we have made.

It is a weekday
night like any other,
an announcement
of denial,
a death of desire.

Somehow our soil
and vegetation
must survive
without us.

Somehow we
want to die alone
and small.

We fly toward
this conflagration
like widows,
like moths.


David Radavich's recent poetry collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love's Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011).   His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.  His latest books are The Countries We Live In (2014) and a co-edited volume called Magic Again: Selected Poems on Thomas Wolfe (2016).  He has served as president of The Thomas Wolfe Society, Charlotte Writers' Club, and North Carolina Poetry Society.

ENEMIES LIST

by David Radavich

This poster was created by Shepard Fairey who eight years ago made the iconic Obama poster that captured a period of HOPE in America. Today we are in a very different moment, one that requires new images that reject the hate, fear, and open racism that were normalized during the 2016 presidential campaign. So on Inauguration Day, We the People will flood Washington, DC with NEW symbols of hope. You can download the set of posters for free at: http://bit.ly/wtpdownloads. You can choose to support this We the People art project via Kickstarter.

I am the one you want.
The one who can be
anything.

Beast, flower, rock,
Arab, Jew, atheist, member
of a congregation,

waters flowing over
the dam,
leaves falling
in a pattern of forgetting.

I want to be on your list.

Registry of those cast out,
cursed and damned.

We wander
and we recollect,
we migrating passerines.

Our faces are wind,
our hearts are silence.

You are the terrorists
whose eyes create shadows.

David Radavich's recent poetry collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love's Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011).   His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.  His latest books are The Countries We Live In (2014) and a co-edited volume called Magic Again: Selected Poems on Thomas Wolfe (2016).   He is currently president of the North Carolina Poetry Society.

LAMENTATION

by David Radavich

Is Putin on the "Trump Train"? —Scott Stantis, Chicago Tribune, July 28, 2016.

For Donald

I am hearing the dirge
of my people.

The sound gets louder
and louder, like a train
approaching a station

which has been waiting
and waiting
as an eager slave.

Soon all the passengers
will board and slowly

the landscape will pass
by windows waving
at amber grain.

I stand at the crossing
with torn eyes.

I remember when
the country rose in wings
and did not hope
for engines

hard on
their dark way.

David Radavich's most recent poetry collections are The Countries We Live In (2014) and a co-edited volume called Magic Again: Selected Poems on Thomas Wolfe (2016).  His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.  He has published a variety of articles and is current president of the North Carolina Poetry Society.

ACCOUNTING

by David Radavich

Image credit: gemenacom / 123RF Stock Photo

A culture’s values
lie in its treasure chests.

What people spend
money on day in day out.

Rock concerts, sporting events,
hairstyles, boob jobs, four-wheel drive,

airline tickets
to the Caribbean .

What we buy we love,
and that loves us,

breath of life
and song and sight.

These coins I hand
to the beggar

before me
is small pittance

for a world
that doesn’t care.

We can even
sell our blood
and zygotes

for a big new screen.

The better to see
ourselves

in a good story

full of racing death.


David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. His new collection is The Countries We Live In.

GOVT DISARRAY

by David Radavich

Barnum & Bailey Circus Congress of Freaks c. 1924

Holiday Finds Congress Well Short of Goals  — The landmark Senate vote this week to end the minority party’s ability to filibuster most presidential nominees is just one symptom of the deep level of dysfunction coursing through the 113th Congress . . . The list of unfinished tasks . . .  is daunting — and time is just about out. The House will be back the week after Thanksgiving, but the Senate is taking a two-week break. - NT Times, November 23, 2013



The circus animals
have all run loose.

They can’t be seen
in the night,

but their smell
permeates the fetid air.

Some of them
must be preying

now that the
keepers have gone home.

I can’t report
any more
than what you’ve heard.

The feeding pails
are empty

and water
has been scattered
in every direction.
                                              
Don’t expect cages
to be open

in the morning.


David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. His new collection is The Countries We Live In.

EGYPT NOW

by David Radavich

Photo copyright by Tom Prokop.
 Used with permission from 123RF.

Is this
a worse desert
than the one
we knew?

Sharp, with no
relief of sun
or sand

and the faces
down like

ghosts

a violence
so pure

even the angels

cry out
in their belfries.


Every body
is ultimate

alone
in its blood

night
crawling

nowhere
safer than a morgue.


The palm trees
don’t know

their own water,

air aches
bent overhead.


Don’t tell time
to return

until

the sand

falls through.

                      
David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe . His new collection is The Countries We Live In.