THEATRE

by Erica Goss

“Russian aviation launched the for the second day in a row raids on the city of Raqqa, where nine raids carried out by his aircraft centered on the markets and the revival of the city resulted in 43 civilian martyrs and nearly 60 wounded. . . . It is feared in the coming days that the Russian aviation will take over the mission of bombing Raqqa city  . . . while the international coalition and the world are standing silent in front of this criminality on the grounds that the Russians bombard ISIS [although we] know that Raqqa is occupied by ISIS and not [giving support] to it.” —Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, March 19, 2016

Handsome and indifferent
as a movie star, the pilot
drops his payload.

He killed it
tonight, had the audience
eating out of his hand,

from grandmothers tottering
on skinny legs to the family
barely breathing in the cellar.

Never have children
been so still, so
perfectly behaved.

One performance leads
to another – the pilot
will be back tomorrow night,

10:00 p.m. on the dot,
ready to put on one more
drop-dead gorgeous show.

Erica Goss served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA from 2013-2016. She is the author of Wild Place (Finishing Line Press 2012) and Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets (PushPen Press 2014). Erica teaches poetry workshops and works as a Development Director for California Poets in the Schools. Her poems, reviews and articles appear widely.

SYRIAN LANDSCAPE

by Michael Shorb

Image source: Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, a campaign launched by a group of non-violent activists in Raqqa to expose the atrocities committed by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and by the terrorist extremist group ISIS toward the civilian populations if the city.

The dictator’s weak chin
juts from a billboard as
the beady eyes dare
anyone to smirk or throw
rocks and a town
bakes under a silent sun

a tank rumbles on noisy metal treads
past a solitary leaning palm,
scattered bodies thrown
down on desert sand,
washed to the side of city
sidewalks

when the father
punishing his children
goes insane
the sounds
can be heard
for miles.


Michael Shorb was a poet, fiction writer, editor, and children's book author. As an international poet, his poetry has been published in more than 100 magazines and anthologies, including TheNewVerse.News, Michigan Quarterly, The Nation, The Sun, Salzburg Poetry Review, and Kyoto Journal. He was the recipient of a PEN AWARD, won a Merit Award for the Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lived in and loved San Francisco. Michael succumbed to GIST, a rare form of cancer in 2012.

TELESCOPE AND NIGHT ORNAMENTS

by Debasis Mukhopadhyay

Image from “Museum of War Syria” by Tammam Azzam at Foreign Policy, April 29, 1913.

      Through the trap door of the night sky the telescope brings you the debris of million suns shimmering on a canvas you liked all along
      The bright night of Van Gogh crawling into your eyes makes you forget that the bone color priming can also be grown into a moonlit canvas
      Like History
      Everything in the underpainting is meant to be painted over
      The manna of bombs that astound the bodies with brightness
      And the bodies that gather in the pit waiting to grow wings of no consequence
      Yes but everything in the dead coloring is intended to be painted over
      To swallow such brightness in your canvas you can paint the clouds that glint ringing my brother's skull
      Into an hourglass that swells lolling on my mother's chest
      There is no blood between her breasts doves just coo and sugar ants lick all witness
      She pauses to dream
      The dreams that look into the muddy darkness beneath your feet for ornaments of tomorrows or yesterdays


Debasis Mukhopadhyay lives & writes in Montreal. Recent poems have appeared in The Curly Mind, Yellow Chair Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Of/With, I am not a silent poet, The New Verse News, With Painted Words, Silver Birch Press, Foliate Oak, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Snapping Twig, Eunoia Review, Revolution John, and Down in the Dirt.