THE SPECTRUM

by Peter Neil Carroll

“Spectrum I” painting by Ellsworth Kelly (1953) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and promised gift of Helen and Charles Schwab

War began as predicted, a vision of fire.

I pulled the blanket over my head, safe,

thousands of miles from personal tragedy.

 

Maybe I should send my blanket to the Red

Cross, they could forward it to a child in

Ukraine. Surely that’s the least I could do.

 

Not enough, though. Maybe tomorrow I will

purchase a box of soft diapers for a children’s

hospital in Kyiv or a can of condensed milk.

 

I saw a photo of a woman weeping in the street,

her arms bare, blood on her naked legs, shoeless.

Clothing. That’s what she needs, a little warmth.

 

Yes, I realize, the wounded need bandages, anti-

biotics, plain aspirin in an emergency. It’s okay

to send medical aid. They call it humanitarian.

 

I know there are many Doctors without Borders

already there, and volunteer cooks boiling soups,

and stews to nourish folks who have lost kitchens.

 

Those helpers are so brave, sincere, real menschen.

I should support them, too, but will money arrive

in time to save a country? Can I buy an ambulance?

 

Can I drive an ambulance? That’s a peaceful way

to help strangers trapped in a war. It would be good

for my conscience. But can one person matter?

 

What the soldiers who are fighting really want are

more weapons and ammunition or, better still, tanks

and rockets. They could use airplanes and bombs.

 

But stop there. They must be only old-fashioned bombs

built on TNT. Not atom bombs or hydrogen bombs

because that could kill too many people plus animals.

 

Where does it end? What is it the right thing to send,

to help someone in trouble? Or a whole country? As if

I could draw a red line on a spectrum or cross over it.

 

Peter Neil Carroll is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org. His latest collection of poetry is  Talking to Strangers (Turning Point Press). Forthcoming is This Land, These People: 50 States of the Nation, winner of the Prize Americana. Earlier titles include Something is Bound to Break and Fracking Dakota.  He is also the author of the memoir Keeping Time (Georgia). 

A GHAZAL FOR VENEZUELA: PRESIDENT MADURO DENIES HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

by Elane Gutterman

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Red Cross volunteers distributed the first shipment of badly needed emergency supplies in Venezuela on Tuesday after months of feuding between the government, which has denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis, and opponents who have been seeking to use the delivery of aid to force President Nicolás Maduro from power. —AP, April 16, 2019

A father hugs his child good night, his nightmare, her dwindling insulin doses.
For love of his country, Maduro turns down aid, insists “We aren’t beggars.”

A mother sells her thick, braided hair to buy rice, beans and chicken for her children.
With chants of venceremos, Maduro raises his fist “We aren’t beggars.”

A mother grieves for her older child stabbed when they grabbed his cell phone.
With hatred toward his enemies, Maduro resists “We aren’t beggars.”

A pregnant teen reveals there were no contraceptives or money to buy them.
In his embrace of the dead Chavez, Maduro can’t desist “We aren’t beggars.”

Now a father lines up by a Red Cross van for water purification tablets.
As a maid pours his fine wine, Maduro shifts yet persists “We aren’t beggars.”


In the latest issue of Journal of Global Oncology, Elane Gutterman, a health researcher, read how cancer care in Venezuela has been transformed from an advanced level of diagnosis and treatment to rudimentary services through government policies and indifference. In addition, she credits her friend and former Spanish teacher, Ana M., with making the needless suffering of the population personal through sharing stories of her Venezuelan family. Elane has published poems in Patterson Literary Review, U.S. 1 Summer Fiction Issue, Kelsey Review and TheNewVerse.News.

MAYBE SANDY IS ANOTHER NAME FOR KARMA

by Ngoma

some say they should have
named her karma
i'm not sure
if she was a conspiracy theory,
or an act of god
bible thumpers called her
a revelation
a halloween trick or treat
a politician's opportunity disguised as disaster
some claim it was punishment for sin
but churches were flooded too
steeples and oak trees in the wind
proof that global warming deniers can't ignore
we could say I told you so
and maybe this is a wake up call
as roller coaster rides are buried in the flood
and marathoners take up hotel space
while many victims have no food
or a place to lay their heads
bodies still being found
in flooded burnt out homes
with no escape by subways
filled with water like underground cesspools
as Jamie Curtis talks about survival kits on Jay Leno
and tells us to donate money to the Red Cross
yet to show up in Mount Vernon
with gas lines around the block
for gas stations that are empty
meanwhile the major news media
act as though disaster only happens in america
as the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba
are ignored by major media
and there is no FEMA to guarantee votes for Obama on election day
suddenly we see what it may be like to live in a 3rd world country
where lack of gas and electricity is an everyday experience
and half the world is a disaster area
waiting for a relief concert to raise funds
that would not be needed if the wealth was redistributed
and warnings of global warming had been heeded


Ngoma is a performance poet, multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and paradigm shifter who for over 40 years has used culture as a tool to raise sociopolitical and spiritual consciousness through work that encourages critical thought. A former member of Amiri Baraka's Spirit House Movers and Players and of the Contemporary Freedom Song Duo, Serious Bizness, Ngoma weaves poetry and songs that raise contradictions and search for a just and peaceful world. Ngoma was the Prop Slam Winner of the 1997 National Poetry Slam Competition in Middletown, CT and has been published in African Voices Magazine, Long Shot Anthology, The Underwood Review, Signifyin' Harlem Review, Bum Rush The Page/Def Jam Anthology, Poems On The Road To Peace (Yale Press) and Let Loose On The World: Celebrating Amiri Baraka at 75. He was featured in the PBS Spoken Word Documentary "The Apro-Poets" with Allen Ginsberg. Ngoma has curated and hosted the poetry slam at the Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. Family Festival of Environmental and Social Justice (Yale University, New Haven, CT) since 1996. He was a selected participant in the Badilisha Poetry Xchange in Cape Town, South Africa in fall of 2009. In December of 2011 he was initiated as an Obatala Priest in Ibadan, Nigeria.