WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW

by Shelly Blankman

Kids at school were cruel. They’d call her flaky. crazy, 

space cadet, airhead. She’d forget their names or where

she was going. School bells and fire alarms would echo

in her head, and her world would blur. The mockery was 

momentary. The misery would be incessant.

The last week of school, classmates autographed her 

yearbook with the labels and comments they’d hurled

to her at school. The five-minute walk home was endless.

At home, she flopped on her bed and muffled her sobs

with pillows, bursting her dam of tears.

No one knew what she’d been through. No one knew she’d

had brain surgery as a child. No one knew she had epilepsy.

Everyone could see her big head. The boys would flick it and

tug at her hair when the teacher wasn’t looking. She would 

wince, but dared not weep. Feigning fearlessness was her

armor that would be rusted by tears. As time passed, the bullies

were gone, but some labels remain.

Gus Walz stands in full view of the nation. His dad is running

for vice-president of the United States. His son has a nonverbal

learning disorder. He has no armor. He needs no armor. His dad

starts to speak. That’s my dad! he yells to the audience. His tears

flow freely. They are borne of pride, not shame. Cameras focus on him.

His tears of pride are posted on computers coast to coast. His

joy is fodder for their jokes. 

They knew there was something wrong with him.What they don’t

know is kindness. They have much to learn from people like Gus.  

Author’s Note: Gus Walz at the DNC being bullied by adults who should know better reminded me of own experience of being bullied in school for behavior that no one understood

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 44 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.

WHEN ALL ROADS LEAD TO MONSTERS

In memory of Boris Romantschenko 1926-2022

by Shelly Blankman

I

When all roads lead to monsters, where do you turn?

Plucked like a stinkweed from his family farm, a young

Ukrainian is trucked like freight to Nazi camps, where he

labors for the next 12 years in four concentration camps.

Like all captives, he will be stripped of warm clothes in 

frigid weather. He will be fed a half-slice of bread and 

watered-down soup before laboring in dark and dank

tunnels and mines with only stone cots on which to rest.

In quarries, he will hoist heavy boulders up hundreds of

steps and carry down corpses of those murdered by

Nazis for their frailities. And if he falters, he dies, too.

He survives. Sick, emaciated, bearing scars of abuse

and pain, but alive. 

II

He returns to Ukraine to rebuild his life. An apartment that is 

safe and warm. Clothes, food, medical care. A wife, children

and grandchildren. Most of all, he has a voice. He travels to

speak for those who have been silenced. Conferences, events,

memorials, and schools. People must remember. This must

never happen again. But his travels have now led to a wartorn

road with a dead end. Seventy-seven years after his nightmare

at the hands of Nazis has ended, Russian troops bomb his

apartment, killing him.

III

He now lies in a roadside cemetery. A few family members clustered 

around his coffin at his funeral. A stiff, cold wind snuffed out their 

lit candles quickly. A young Orthodox priest, bundled in a parka,

led a hasty service as bombs blasted in the distance. “He was patient

and kind,” he lamented as the coffin was lowered into the damp ground.

If only the world would be the same.

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland, where she and her husband have filled their empty nest with three rescue cats and a foster dog. Their sons, Richard and Joshua,  now live in New York and Texas (respectively). Following careers in journalism, public relations, and copy editing, Shelly now spends time writing poetry, scrapbooking and making cards. Her poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Super Highway, Praxis Magazine, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Muddy River Review, among other publications. A couple of years ago, Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly by publishing her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead.

SCREWGED

by Shelly Blankman

‘Tis the night before Christmas

and all through the House,

where the reps were so hopeful,

the Senate’s a louse.

T***p kills funds to feed families

as long food lines grow. 

Our incomes are shriveling

while his own funds flow.

The White House is lit 

with bright colors galore 

while suffering lingers

among the Black, Brown, and poor.

Small businesses are dying

while T***p continues to tweet

months after numbers 

clearly show his defeat. 

Not one single tweet 

about the sick and the dead

Medics, now heroes.

Hospitals now out of beds.

He pardons the thugs,

the rich white and male,

because white lives matter

while Blacks linger in jail.

He’s neglected the needs

he was sworn to protect.

In the end those he cared about

were extremely select. 

So Merry Christmas to all,

And to all a good night.

May next year be better

with T***p out of sight!

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland. She is author of Pumpkinhead, a collection of her poetry, printed for her as a surprise by her two sons, Richard and Joshua, currently quarantined in New York and Texas, respectively. Shelly's poetry has been published in a number of journals, including First Literary Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Verse-Virtual.

REQUIEM FOR ELIJAH

by Shelly Blankman




How do you say goodbye? Always a brew
of duty and love, a fusion of friendship and
family. Stir in politics and the recipe can
kill the comfort of mourners united in grief.

This country said goodbye to a statesman
and grieved in prayer and song, in speeches
and memories by colleagues, family, friends,
religious and political leaders. Those who knew

him and those who did not. Thousands filled
the church and lined the streets to honor a
man loved by the people he served, reviled
by a government he angered with his staunch

defense of human rights and lifetime lessons
of common sense. Absence of a president
unnoticed in the presence of a humble hero.
Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore native, would

certainly have sunk into the annals of history, if
not for raising the spirits of those mired in chaos
and despair. A sharecropper’s son who lived what
he’d learned and left the legacy of a legend.


Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Shelly Blankman now lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband, three cat rescues and a foster dog. Her poetry has appeared in First Literary Review-East, The Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and other publications

TWO WORLDS

by Shelly Blankman

The Hill, March 14, 2019

You gross millions in the public eye,
ride us on roller coasters of tears
and laughter at every jolt, get paid

to crusade for the starved, the sick --
lost souls left behind by war and hate
who blanket the globe while you snuggle

under your cozy quilt. You strut the red
carpet in your glitzy gowns and stilettos,
flashing your porcelain smile for the cameras

as crowds echo your name. But you never
let us see you without your makeup, did you?
We never saw you after the credits had rolled,

We never saw you play the role of a lifetime:
A thief who could buy your kid’s way into
a school for the elite. We saw you lounging

in bistros, sipping your lattes, chatting with friends
while a world away from Hollywood, an Ohio woman
sits in jail. She is Black. Poor. Alone.

She was led there hunched, shackled,
in a black-and-white striped uniform.
She sobs for her daughters, the ones she registered in

a better school using her father’s address. A father
with whom she once lived. No bribery. No money.
No bistros. No lattes. Nine days prison. Three years probation.

No fan clubs to rally around her.
No rich lawyer to let her go.
Just tears. Just tears.


Shelly Blankman is an empty nester who lives in Columbia, MD with her husband, foster dog and 3 rescue cats. They have two sons who live in New York and Texas. Shelly's career has spanned public relations and journalism, but her first love has always been poetry. She has had a number of poems published in journals, such as Praxis Online Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Ekphrastic Review, and Social Justice Poetry.