NEW CALEDONIA NATIVES FIGHT FOR RIGHTS

by Lavinia Kumar

New Caledonia has been under French control since 1853. The indigenous Kanak population, who make up approximately 40% of the territory’s 270,000 residents, has long sought independence from France. The 1998 Nouméa Accord provided a framework for gradual autonomy and promised three referendums on independence. The first two referendums in 2018 and 2020 saw close results against independence, while the third in 2021, heavily boycotted by pro-independence groups due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in an overwhelming vote to remain part of France. The recent violence erupted after the French National Assembly approved a constitutional amendment allowing French citizens who have lived in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to vote in provincial elections. This change is viewed by pro-independence leaders and most Kanaks as a threat to Kanak representation, as it could significantly increase the number of pro-France and non-indigenous voters. —Mirage, May 23, 2024. Photo: Police forces pushed back rioters near a shopping center in Dumbéa Sur Mer, New Caledonia, on Wednesday. Credit: Bruno Favre/EPA, via Shutterstock and The New York Times, May 22, 2024.

3000 BC is when Kanaks made home

in the west Pacific, in Oceana,

          south of Papua New Guinea, 

          north of New Zealand.

 

10,000-miles-away-France, took over

the islands in1853, parked its prisoners,

          destroyed crops of the Kanaks,

          forced labor, and brought disease.

 

1854 marked the discovery of nickel,

began years of foreign mine expansion –

            nearly ten mining sites –

            one selling nickel to car-maker Tesla.

 

A 1998 Accord enscribed island voting rights. 

Then 40,000 more French arrived, and

          today rights undone by Paris law—

          expanded migrant voting, diluting Kanaks.*

 

Today Caledonia’s nickel is third in world.

Today Kanaks have no control over the mines.

Today Paris has sent President, ministers, 3000 troops, police.

Today Kanaks block roads, fight for freedom.

* President Emmanuel Macron says he will not force through a controversial voting reform in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia following deadly rioting. Speaking on a visit to the main island, Mr Macron said local leaders should engage in dialogue to find an alternative agreement for the archipelago's future. —BBC, May 23, 2024

Lavinia Kumar writes in New Jersey.  Her latest poem is here.

BLINKEN IN BEIJING: DATA CALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Antony Blinken was greeted by China’s top diplomat on Monday, and will perhaps meet its president, on the final day of a rare visit aimed at trying to resurrect relations between Washington and Beijing from historic lows. —The Guardian, June 18, 2023

Semiconductors
Formosa…Taiwan…
Uigur burial practices
Tesla
Ships passing in the South China Sea
Warships frigates destroyers
Balloon looking down on the American continent
SHOT
Spy station on the island of Cuba
Confucius Institutes everywhere
in the developing world
Plastics, christmas trees, clothes
A massive relationship, two 
superpowers yet distant neighbors  
coming together on climate 
change policies but staying apart 
on so many hot buttons 
including the rights of Man and Woman
Five and a half hours meeting
(extended by an hour)
American and Chinese teams
then strolling
before a working dinner for two hours
Foreign Minister and Secretary of State
Hard at work making   peace.
eating thousand-year-old eggs.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

ODE TO MY TESLA

by Timothy Hennum

Oh how shiny she sits,
a cord thick as my wrist dangles from her hip.
Oh how silent she moves,
her screen—flat as a flag—glows bright as the moon.
Perched behind her wheel, parked and alone,
I scroll through their tweets and scowl at my phone.
How easy it would be to delete my account;
to push a few buttons and finally be out.
But what about her?
Now these smooth lines, this warm screen, her sweet purrs
do not bring me joy.
And no longer can I look at her, her screen a decoy
mounted to that dark dash, that inflated hood, those obnoxious rims, 
and not think of him.

Timothy Hennum is a writer and a physical therapist living in Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters. His writing has appeared in Your Fire Magazine, Intrinsick Magazine, Gear Junkie Magazine, and the Minneapolis StarTribune. 

ODE TO CYBERTRUCK

by Alejandro Escudé

If indeed there is a future. If the soul
Is made of the foreskin of god. A calf-metal,
Geometry of heart. One single part
For body. Angled, unremitting as the stars.
You who stalled. Screwed slugs. “We’ll make
A more conventional truck in the future,” says
Musk. But there are no later-lines on this vehicle,
Soldiering over the homeless-lined boulevards
Of Los Angeles. Forget forty-thousand dollars.
What matters is that this wheeled rocket is
Turbine-ing toward work, early mornings,
When love is most raw, when hands are stiff,
When the ocean is the color of coffee.
I’ll purchase Cybertruck and drive to meet
My Ford truck-driving father in the underworld.
And he will say to me, “I was who I am.”
And I will say to him, “We’re what we will be.”
Then, conventionally, I’ll drive it on the beach
At sunset time, its MSRP listed in bold white font.
My long lost car-dreams afloat in the sea.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

SELF-DRIVING TESLA INVOLVED IN FATAL CRASH

by Don Hogle

Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist Composition: White on White (Oil on Canvas, 1918) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 1935 Acquisition confirmed in 1999 by agreement with the Estate of Kazimir Malevich and made possible with funds from the Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest (by exchange).

“Neither autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.” —TESLA Blog, June 30, 2016

There were no casualties this morning
when Bluetooth failed to connect
an iPod to the Onkyo receiver
that sends the French news
to speakers in my living room.

Nor did the Mac screen shatter
when a pop-up popped up
with the fatal words Cannot
get mail.

In the blue Pacific, rainbow fish
swim in and out of coral
encrusted bone somewhere
near where Amelia dropped
from the sky.

A crew of astronauts burst
once from their capsule like stars
in a meteor shower, glittering
briefly in their yellow-red descents
over Texas and Louisiana.

Madame Curie may have failed
to notice the fatigue in her bones,
but she saw a faint light glowing
from the tubes she carried
in her pockets.

And those at MoMA,
who might have missed
the cool white square tilted
on the warm white background
of a canvas painted by Malevich,
were just bemused by what they saw.

Don Hogle is a poet, blogger and brand and communications strategist living in Manhattan. Poems have appeared recently in Mud Season Review, Minetta Review, Blast Furnace, Shooter, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable and TheNewVerse.News among others.  He was a finalist in the Northern Colorado Writers’ 2015 Poetry Contest.