ELEGY FOR LVIV AND STANISLAWÓW

by Joel Savishinsky

As Russia’s vicious attack on Ukraine continues, the western “safe haven” town of Lviv (top photo) is bracing itself to join the theatre of war. “We expect there could be an attack,” says Olga Myrovych, 34, head of the Lviv Media Forum. “We are far from Putin’s border, but this will distract the efforts of the Ukrainian army.” Lviv is a central European jewel, an exceptionally elegant town with a long history of culture and tragedy. —Institute for War & Peace Reporting, February 27, 2022. In the lower two photos, Ivano-Frankivsk (formerly Stanislawów), a city located in Western Ukraine, had its airport, fuel, and lubricants depots destroyed by the Russian missile systems. The city, formerly Stanisławów, is almost 600km away from Kyiv. With the city airport bombed, the people of Ivano-Frankivsk are being evacuated to bomb shelters. —SAYS, February 26, 2022.

The heart can be broken

in so many ways: lost love,

position, regard and address.

Janus is a novice when staring at

the diamond faces of disappointment.

 

We fear that even poetry may not

matter, that we have no voice, that

we have one but cannot be heard.

Shall we carry our broken hearts

before us like a banner, shouting

rage into the wind, using our mouths

and pens to signal from, or to,

a distant land.

 

When arms have been withheld,

can the body of words suffice

where other parts have failed, or

is hope already the disembodied

ghost of those about to die.

 

Crushed by the alien arms and armies,

the four-chambered heart of

our grandmothers’ homelands

may soon be a million lost freedoms,

the ones our leaders and

the whores of Babylon have each

mis-filed in the archives of revelation.

 

 

 

Joel Savishinsky is the author of Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America (Cornell University Press, 2002), winner of the Gerontological Society of America’s book of the year prize. His parents and grandparents, and those of his wife, immigrated to the US from western Ukraine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, escaping pogroms, anti-Semitism, and the impending invasion of the Nazis. Their communities of origin are named in the poem’s title.

NOVEMBER AGAIN

by Juditha Dowd

and I’m doubtful

that no experience goes to waste

if only we’re able to learn from it.

Deer have mangled our deer fence,

that fox is prowling the yard.

Where will we be next year

when these maples shed their gold?

You and I have lived enough

to pretend at wisdom,

take the long view,

but the angles are foreshortened

as our fields turn murky and cold.

Soon the Long Night Moon

and two-faced Janus.

Soon the weeks of ice,

the days of mending.

Juditha Dowd’s most recent book is Audubon’s Sparrow, a verse biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon, wife of the naturalist.

OVER

by Judith Terzi

The Trump administration announced tight new restrictions Wednesday on American travel and trade with Cuba, implementing policy changes President Trump announced five months ago to reverse Obama administration normalization with the communist-ruled island. Under the new rules, most individual visits to Cuba will no longer be allowed, and U.S. citizens will again have to travel as part of groups licensed by the Treasury Department for specific purposes, accompanied by a group representative. Americans also will be barred from staying at a long list of hotels and from patronizing restaurants, stores and other enterprises that the State Department has determined are owned by or benefit members of the Cuban government, specifically its security services. —The Washington Post, November 8, 2017. Havana photo by Judith Terzi.

To Barack Obama


Like the Roman deity Janus, you looked
to the past & the future. Janus––god of time.
God of gates & passages. God of trade.

Yes, trade. Shadowy jumble of words &
punishment emerges today from the WH.
No golf resorts, no ties, no towers, no art

of the deal. The future is opaque, grieves
the loss of your imagination, your
luminosity, your esperanza. No sunrise

today over restoration in Old Havana,
over skyscrapers along Avenida de los
Presidentes, over Hemingway's weary

Corona, over John Lennon's statue in
Lennon Park. No sunset watch from Fort
Morro, from Lucky Luciano's sunlit rooms

at the Hotel Nacional where John Kerry's
photo hangs over a bar, where Nat King Cole
hangs out in bronze, & a sculpture

of Isadora Duncan surprises in the lobby
of this hotel now blacklisted for Americans.
Can we still use their bathrooms? Can we

still drink their mojitos, smoke Cohibas
on the terrace after La Parisienne show?
Can we still speak to the two Parisian

couples fêting their marriages, or tourists
from Jamaica, Shanghai, Czech Republic,
Germany, Barcelona, Chile, & México?

These travelers on their own, alone. Can we
still walk through the bunker, stark reminder
of the verge of war––the Missile Crisis. Can

we still climb to the top of this blacklisted
hotel & view our Embassy & the cruise
ships beyond & wish you were here?


EDITOR’S NOTE: TRAVEL TO CUBA WITH THE AUTHORS GUILD FOUNDATION: "New Cuba Trip Added by Popular Demand February 10-17, 2018 (December and November trips are SOLD OUT) Please note that recent sanctions on travel to Cuba prohibit individual travel; however, it is legal to visit Cuba with a group led by a licensed educational organization. The Authors Guild Foundation trip qualifies under the new restrictions."

Judith Terzi's poems appear or are forthcoming in journals and anthologies including Caesura, Columbia Journal, Good Works Review (FutureCycle Press), Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and Net and included in Keynotes, a study guide for the artist-in-residence program for State Theater New Jersey. Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By are recent chapbooks from Kattywompus Press.

A FRIEND BREAKS HIS RENAISSANCE SWORD ON A PAPAYA

by Kristina England

Any fruit can hide the fierceness of its rinds.
We should never believe the weapon invincible.

Record low temperatures today, risk of frostbite,
hard wind claps bathroom vents.
It's like they're cheering on the cold.

President of United States accuses former president
of wire tapping, calls him "sick," then berates
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Twitter
for being a "pathetic" reality show host.

Brain hurting from malnutrition,
I reorganize the living room two times,
split myself in half, one part here,
one part looking back at what we had.

Sometimes the chance of turning
to salt is more rewarding
than the alternative.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing has been published in several magazines, including Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Tipton Poetry Journal.