BIGGER THAN THE GAME

by Bonnie Naradzay

                           Galileo:  “Eppur si muove,” and yet it moves.

 

An NBA player who shall be unnamed

refuses to have the coronavirus shot

and says this is bigger than the game; 

this was after he'd said the world was flat

but some years later blithely explained

he was big into conspiracy theories then

and said we’ve all been there, right?

Meanwhile an island that's part of Taiwan,

just six miles from mainland China,

has been surrounded by Chinese boats 

fishing for squid; the boats flood the sky 

with lurid green lights to stun the squid, 

deplete all fish, send the islanders into despair.

It’s complicated, it’s covert aggression, 

nothing can be done, it will only get worse, 

like the illegal settlers (during the olive harvest 

with the few trees left) on the West Bank

who beat the limping Palestinian teen,

hung him from a tree, burned his feet,

released him to the Israeli police.

My friend says he doesn’t read the news

to protect himself from being sad

but I think why am I alive, otherwise,

if not to know what’s wrong and right, 

for I believe in Paradise, 

in the separation of church and state,

in the perfidy of pulpits and gerrymandering.

It’s bigger than the game. 

      

            

Bonnie Naradzay leads regular poetry workshops for homeless people and also at a retirement community, both in Washington DC. 

TENDING TO HIS OWN HEART ON FATHER'S DAY

by Laura Rodley

His heart is carefully tendered,

a stent maintaining a constant

opening in his left descending

artery, the artery that was

completely blocked three years

ago causing his heart attack,

before his surgery. His heart has

healed to full sixty percent ejection

fraction: normal. He takes his meds

regularly, calls me, his wife, to say

he’s taking them while on the road,

a way to remember what is so easy to forget.

Before his heart attack, the pumping action

of his heart was just an afterthought, a given,

no monitoring or overseeing required.

Now he is father to his heart, constantly

aware of its pulses, aware of pains that were similar

to his neck pain, the nausea, when his heart

was blocked, a pearl spun of his own plaque

blocking the flow. He will always be watching

the rhythm of his heart, aware of its working, or not.

His heart is no longer a child released out

into the world like his son and daughters.

His heart rides with him everywhere,

has special needs: low salt, no butter, only

olive oil, a specific regimen he must follow

to not fail his heart so his heart won’t fail him.

Though, if, in spite of this, his heart fails,

it would not be his fault: it’s genetics, an inherited

weakness that overtipped the cart, but now he’s

pushing it, all of it, his heart, his father

who had four heart attacks, his being father

to his own heart, making sure it wakes up

on time, beats on time, he’s never closing the door.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.

17 HEARTS FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

by Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan


Mourners hug during a prayer vigil Thursday for victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting at Parkridge Church in Coral Springs, Florida. Rhona Wise / AFP - Getty Images via NBC News.

b                e a           t
            red balloons
        b             e     a            t
            red cards
b    e        a                t
            red roses

           b                         e                 a                 t

17 hearts for Valentine’s day           

red                        red                     red               red

b                e a           t
           red hall floors

        b             e     a            t
            red on walls

b    e        a                t
            red of youthful flesh

           b                         e                 a                 t           

         2/14                    celebration of love                
        
2/14/18    life seeps         a                        way                         
children weep

b                e a           t

        b             e     a            t

b    e        a                t

           b                         e                 a                 t

be                          at                peace

Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan, named 2017 Long Island (NY) Poet of the Year by the Walt Whitman Birthplace, was the 2010-2011 Suffolk County Poet Laureate. She is the Founder/President of The North Sea Poetry Scene, Inc., President of The Poetry Place, and the editor of the poetry anthology series Long Island Sounds. She is the author of five poetry collections including Let Me Tell You Something, For Michael, and Life’s a Beach.

3/5 OF ALL OTHER BEATS AND RHYTHMS: 2006 TO 2015

by Elbert Tavon Briggs

Black Line-Carved Djembe Drum

The beats make me think

The drums keep beating

That same Ole beat again

moved Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley’s

14-year-old son to the Tallahatchie River

Rhythms moved the strange fruit

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit

We have to find some space on dry land

from sea to not so shiny

Those beats moved

Derrion Albert from Fenger High School

in blood all over cyberspace

Medgar was removed from earth forever

Malcolm X was killed teaching

Dr. King met the same fate preaching

Fred Hampton was shot in a room while sleeping

The beats make me think

The drums keep beating

Those beats moved Addie Mae, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia from

Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church

into heavenly spaces, and I had to face this

they were children just like me

Rhythms moved the strange fruit.

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit.

The drums were beating on March 1, 2012,

same ole view

the rhythms were not new

that moved 17-year-old Chris Wormely out of high school

into thin air

while talking to the principled

The drums were beating

Spring and Summer of 2006

The drums were beating for

Siretha “Nugget: White – 10-years old

Tsarina Powel – 12-years old

Starkesia Reed – 14-years old

Latasha Harlins – 15 – years old

Ryann Brown – 18-years old

The beats make me think

The drums keep beating

2007, 16-year-old Blair Holt

became the teacher of us all

made his friend fall

his young body was the lifesaving shield

Rhythms moved the strange fruit

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit

drums were beating on Sunday August 7, 2011

when 6 year-old Arianna Gibson

missed church and went straight to heaven

One year later

Spring gets leaped by Chicago’s coldest winter ever

March 17, 2012

around 3:40 p.m.

6 year-old Aliyah Shell was gun down

in Little Village not Wounded Knee

Little Aliyah was killed in urban combat

in a war she did not enlist to fight

Oh say can you see the last weekend of Winter

Yaw don’t know the Seasons

that’s the reason at least 10 died

at least 40 were wounded

yes there were some knees

The beats make me think

The drums keep beating

Sunday February 26, 2012

a mother and father’s lives became twisted hells

when their son, Trayvon Martin’s heart stopped beating

The beats make me think

The drums keep beating

Winter 2013

fifteen year-old   marched

D.C Presidential Inauguration Celebration

Then Hadiya and college prep high school classmates

sought sanctuary from rain, test-ings

and career future prepping

unaware that they were stepping

into the undeclared war

rattled and ran

but Hadiya fell from shots fired

her hopes and future expired

Rhythms moved the strange fruit

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit

February 9, 2013

I heard Mothers cry

drowned in tears

as my eyes saw her young years

like Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley’s son Emmett

her presence in that casket

represented too many lost young lives and dreams

The beats make me think

the drums keep beating

Winter of 2013

got even colder

as the streets became bolder

and took six Sons from two Mothers

The beats make me think

the drums keep beating

Rhythms moved the strange fruit

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit

Winter 2014

the drums were beating in Omaha, Nebraska

for 5 year –old Peyton Benson

snatched from the planet while eating cereal

No this is not a movie serial

and this it not a  dream sequel

5 year-old Peyton was my childhood friend’s Granddaughter

The beats make me think

the drums keep beating

Chicago September 2015

can't  escape

this un-dream

almost my birthday

shots fired

shots fired

shots fired

Grandmother

Daughter

Child in Mother’s womb

erased and human lives expired

11 months young baby

escaped with a gunshot wound

We have to find some space on dry land

from sea to not so shiny

The beats make me think

the drums keep beating

The beats make me think

the drums keep beating

That same Ole beat again

moved Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley’s

14-year-old son to the Tallahatchie River

Rhythms moved the strange fruit

Rhythms bruised the strange fruit

BEAT THE DRUMS FOR ALL OF THEM!!!

Elbert Tavon Briggs was born 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Elbert studied at Northeastern Illinois University and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.. Currently creating with the Randolph Street Poets @ the Chicago Cultural Center and workshopping with Poets & Patrons. This poem reflects his lifelong commitment to incorporate poetry, music, art, dance, and drama, to give voice to the voiceless. Elbert graduated from Arizona State University and served two years in AmeriCorps fighting the war on poverty in the Lower Delta.