HENRY KISSINGER’S CV

by Sean Murphy

David Levine's caricature of Henry Kissinger.

Ambassador:
Tainted midwife to travesty, a perverted Prometheus, bestowing agency to perfidious officials in conspicuous places.
 
Instigator:
Slick devil whispering nothing’s sweet, so many iniquitous seductions into the eager ears of meager men.
 
Bootlicker:
Fattened tongue sucking the leathered paws of a cur whose wet scent still befouls a nation’s hollow halls.
 
Confessor:
Aberrant principles unshackled by access to brokers of action breaking worlds like sadistic gods with glimmering eyes.
 
Profiteer:
Thirty pieces of soiled silver times thirty a thousand times, it profits a man immeasurably if he has no soul to lose.
 
Sloganeer:
Peace through power, clarity through chaos, obedience through atrocity, efficiency through occupation, et cetera.
 
Impregnator:
Malevolent proposals polluted by your corrupted seed, so much ruthless sperm seeking attainment in lethal deeds.
 
Clock-Ticker:
Grown engorged like an unkillable tick, the mother’s milk of abandoned empires a mainline to an obstinate heart.
 
Idolator:
Squatting on the shoulders of moral dwarves, the not-so-complex imprimatur of Napoleon your obscene escutcheon.
 
Kissinger:
This crass pageant, at long last, expired: ignominy awaits and History’s already at work, unkindly revising the Final Cut.

Sean Murphy has been publishing fiction, poetry, reviews (of music, movie, book, food), and essays on the technology industry for over twenty years. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and elsewhere. His chapbooks The Blackened Blues (Finishing Line Press) and Rhapsodies in Blue (Kelsay Books) were published in 2021 and 2023. His next poetry collection, Kinds of Blue, and This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, are forthcoming in 2024. His novel Not To Mention a Nice Life was published in 2015, followed by his first two collections of non-fiction, Murphy’s Law, Vol One and Vol. Two. He has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone was the winner of Memoir Magazine’s 2022 Memoir Prize. He served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha's Vineyard, and is Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit that celebrates storytelling.

OUTSIDE THE TURKISH AMBASSADOR'S HOUSE

by Bruce Dale Wise

Source: The New York Times

Outside the Turk ambassador's house, Erdogan looked on,
while a man came to Ceren Borazan with open arms.
He was drawn to her chanting voice. He grabbed her from behind,
and gripped her neck so tightly, she was scared out of her mind.
The people suffering in Turkey, far way from them,
when he was yelling—kill you, bitch—they could not have heard him.

The men in suits, the bodyguards of Tayyip Erdogan,
had come to roust protesters out—Kurds and Armenians.
Attackers kicked one woman as she lay curled on a walk;
Abbas Aziz, a teacher, got a lesson in free talk.
He was knocked to the ground by men, and kicked in chest and head.
This is America, this is not Ankara, he said.

Bruce Dale Wise is a poet, essayist, and the creator of new poetic forms. His publication credits include magazines and ezines under his own name and various pseudonyms.

ANKARA 19 DECEMBER 2016

by Tad Gruchalla-Wesierski

When the hammer came down
The room had been cleared
Russian head pressed to the floor
He could not bolt for the door.

The room had been cleared
The innocent were safe
Russian could not bolt for the door
The sentence had been executed.

The innocent were safe
The reasons were reported
The sentence had been executed
The screaming was recorded

The reasons were reported
“Do not forget Syria”
The screaming was recorded
“Allahu akbar. Do not forget Aleppo”

Do not forget Syria
Where Russian government had no jurisdiction
“Allahu akbar. Do not forget Aleppo”
The city the Russian government cluster bombed

Where Russian government had no jurisdiction
The innocent were collateral damage
The city the Russian government cluster bombed
It was easy to execute the Russian sentence.

The innocent were collateral damage
Though they breathed, ate rats and screamed
It was easy to execute the Russian sentence.
They did not have Russian mothers.

Though they breathed, ate rats and screamed
Their last words “Don’t forget Aleppo!”
They did not have Russian mothers.
The city needed to be cleared.

Their last words “Don’t forget Aleppo!”
Perhaps made the Russian think “But,
the city needed to be cleared.”
When the hammer came down.

Tad Gruchalla-Wesierski is a Canadian and writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction in Canmore, Alberta, Canada or wherever else he may happen to be.  He was drawn to this vocation after a 30-year career as a corporate and international lawyer.  “The practice of law was a tourniquet on the flow of words,” he said “but now that it’s removed, my words can pulse down unused canals to where they should pool”.