SWASTIKAS ON MONTAUK AND EVERYWHERE ELSE

by Susan Cossette

Swastika graffiti at Naturally Good Foods in Montauk, Photo: Rabbi Josh Franklin. —Dan’s Papers, October 30, 2023

 
We spend the morning cleaning graffiti.
 
An antisemitic phrase 
scrawled on a Holocaust survivor’s home in California. 
 
A display supporting Israeli hostages,
kicked over in Minnesota. 
 
Palestinian nationalist messaging 
spray-painted on a non-profit’s building in Rhode Island.
 
There is no justification 
for raping and murdering 
ordinary citizens in front of their families, 
mutilating babies, 
decapitating people, 
using automatic weapons and grenades 
to hunt down and murder young people 
at a music festival celebrating peace, 
burning families alive, 
kidnapping and taking hostages,
parading women hostages in front of chanting crowds, 
and documenting it all on social media. 
 
Kristallnacht 2023.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New Verse News, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

OH! CHRISTMAS TREE!

by Lynnie Gobeille

Rhode Island Holiday Tree: State To Leave 'Christmas' Out Of Lighting Ceremony-- Huffington Post

I live in the State of Rhode Island

A place governed by folks refusing to see –

That no matter -  what you call it

It’s still a Christmas tree.

The food pantry shelves are empty

Sandy’s “Homeless” remain in the cold

Let’s all hold hands, raise our voices together

Sing the story that needs to be told.

Flip the switch! Go ahead turn the lights on

Gaze at the beautiful Tree

You can call it whatever you want to

It’ll still mean:  HOPE : to me.

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry. She is one of the co-founders / editors of The Origami Poems Project, a world wide “free poetry event” based in Rhode Island . Her micro-chapbooks can be found there. Her work has been published in various journals and on-line poetry sites. Her mantra?  “We can change the world, one free poetry book at a time”.