INITIAL PROMISES

by Stephen House

there were initial promises

from the Taliban

to form an inclusive government

 

there will be no women

in government

 

women playing sport

is not appropriate

 

women will be killed

if they commit adultery

 

LGBTQ people’s mere existence

means an automatic death sentence

 

LGBTQ Afghans are on the run

fearing they will be stoned to death

under Taliban law

 

Ahmadullah says

the Taliban beheaded his boyfriend

on the day they entered Kabul

Ahmadullah is in hiding

 

UN and US warn the Taliban

we are watching you

 

what will watching do?

 

there were initial promises

from the Taliban

to form an inclusive government

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright and actor. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts and an Asia-link India residency. His chapbook real and unreal was published by ICOE Press. He’s published often and performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

RECOMBINATION

Editor's Note: We are pleased to repost this poem, originally published in TheNewVerse.News on Saturday, August 15, 2015. It is one of our 2015 Pushcart Prize nominees.


RECOMBINATION
by Jim Bartruff

Image source: Collateral Damage

1.

Spurred by the aroma of wheat and lamb,
we had been starving the last hundred miles,
we lathered the horses over steppe and stone,
and before the body of our force had forded
the clearest rivulet we had crossed in a year,
a bustle of water circuiting their gate,
we dammed it with the limbs of the boys
they pushed out to be sacrificed, and delay.
Only the backward ship their decrepitude
into the hills to hide, let strong men die,
and leave their women to hold back the horde.
The white, the broken hairs black shawls tear
from their heads in a show of grieving and pain,
their village merely a smudge of charnel and ruin,
would never amount to half a hand of cordage,
not nearly enough to stake a calf to the grass.
We are feared but we are not amoral.
We killed the idiots as weak for refusing
to rape the children of the unbelievers,
and also the one who stormed the palisade
to get at the girl the king had set aside.
Tomorrow, when we mount and are gone,
the ancients skulking back will have a shame
to eat and little else, though once they awaken,
they'll see we have diluted their waste away,
have given them a purpose to pierce their ache.
By spring next year the rivulet will clear,
and if their golden roof thatch is erased,
there will be babies with other eyes than blue,
eyes with folds across their lids, and slants
of mind the likes of which they've never abided.
They'll know, just as we ascertained the mothers knew,
prying their tears apart to watch our teeth.

2.

If I wasn't so young I wouldn't have fought;
because I fought them I was easy to find.
They smell as rank as elk must smeared on fur.
Only the first of them hurt, and their things were shriveled
compared to what I have seen attached to my brothers,
little vicious men with little things.
Eventually lazy and less insistent, they have let
me to the well on guard to wash them out.
I thought to jump but even drunk they held me
to have me later. Aunt they killed for complaining
but they needn't have, and mother's somewhere.
It is sister they have strapped in the cage.
If she fights, the king will call it a sign.
If she screams, she'll be eliminated.
Kings use any excuse they can to keep
their weakling and their swords within their sway,
and brothers long ago taught what works best.
I hope my sister can intuit His need.
I hope she chooses to survive and escapes,
and one day straggles through the wilderness
to what was home. The men are half-asleep.
Once their wine digests, we'll have a night,
and they will force me to watch their shudders and shakes.
But there are others who'll remember this.
From the lintel, like a hollyhock,
Father's head swivels on a silken knot.


Jim Bartruff's work has appeared in Canto, Westwind, Barney, Marilyn, Drastic Measures.  He is a past winner of the William Carlos Williams and Academy of American Poets prizes.  A third-generation native of Los Angeles, he was previously a print journalist and screenwriter, now living in Portland, Oregon.

RECOMBINATION

by Jim Bartruff

Image source: Collateral Damage

1.

Spurred by the aroma of wheat and lamb,
we had been starving the last hundred miles,
we lathered the horses over steppe and stone,
and before the body of our force had forded
the clearest rivulet we had crossed in a year,
a bustle of water circuiting their gate,
we dammed it with the limbs of the boys
they pushed out to be sacrificed, and delay.
Only the backward ship their decrepitude
into the hills to hide, let strong men die,
and leave their women to hold back the horde.
The white, the broken hairs black shawls tear
from their heads in a show of grieving and pain,
their village merely a smudge of charnel and ruin,
would never amount to half a hand of cordage,
not nearly enough to stake a calf to the grass.
We are feared but we are not amoral.
We killed the idiots as weak for refusing
to rape the children of the unbelievers,
and also the one who stormed the palisade
to get at the girl the king had set aside.
Tomorrow, when we mount and are gone,
the ancients skulking back will have a shame
to eat and little else, though once they awaken,
they'll see we have diluted their waste away,
have given them a purpose to pierce their ache.
By spring next year the rivulet will clear,
and if their golden roof thatch is erased,
there will be babies with other eyes than blue,
eyes with folds across their lids, and slants
of mind the likes of which they've never abided.
They'll know, just as we ascertained the mothers knew,
prying their tears apart to watch our teeth.

2.

If I wasn't so young I wouldn't have fought;
because I fought them I was easy to find.
They smell as rank as elk must smeared on fur.
Only the first of them hurt, and their things were shriveled
compared to what I have seen attached to my brothers,
little vicious men with little things.
Eventually lazy and less insistent, they have let
me to the well on guard to wash them out.
I thought to jump but even drunk they held me
to have me later. Aunt they killed for complaining
but they needn't have, and mother's somewhere.
It is sister they have strapped in the cage.
If she fights, the king will call it a sign.
If she screams, she'll be eliminated.
Kings use any excuse they can to keep
their weakling and their swords within their sway,
and brothers long ago taught what works best.
I hope my sister can intuit His need.
I hope she chooses to survive and escapes,
and one day straggles through the wilderness
to what was home. The men are half-asleep.
Once their wine digests, we'll have a night,
and they will force me to watch their shudders and shakes.
But there are others who'll remember this.
From the lintel, like a hollyhock,
Father's head swivels on a silken knot.


Jim Bartruff's work has appeared in Canto, Westwind, Barney, Marilyn, Drastic Measures.  He is a past winner of the William Carlos Williams and Academy of American Poets prizes.  A third-generation native of Los Angeles, he was previously a print journalist and screenwriter, now living in Portland, Oregon.

JE SUIS CHARLIE

by Mary R. Finnegan

Cartoon by Tom Tomorrow at The Daily Kos

I stand outside Notre Dame

quietly, for a moment of silence,

after a lifetime of silence.

Je suis Charlie

I write my rebuke in 140 characters

for the hashtag 

is mightier than the sword.

Je suis Charlie

I unite with all mankind

to strongly condemn

this horrific shooting

or whatever the masses are saying.

Je suis Charlie

I do all these things from over here,

and not too loudly, and only

among friends and infidels 

on the internet and possibly

with the saucy courage of alcohol

in a dark bar 

on a flag draped street somewhere 

in an undisclosed location

because I am only 

looking at blurred cartoons

and pixelated slaughter.

I am only in my pajamas

complaining of the cold

and the price of oil,

keeping my head 

below the parapet.

I am only 

wearing these boots

to wade through

the frigid streets because

Je ne suis pas Charlie.

For when the liar speaks

I do not wish to agree

so I say nothing

Je ne parle pas

when the threat is made

I do not wish to disagree

so I remain silent

Je me tais

for when prayer is called

I do not wish to offend

so I believe nothing

Je ne crois rien

because when the scimitar is raised

above my slender white neck

I do not wish to lose the head

that has done nothing

said nothing

believed nothing.

Non, Je ne suis pas Charlie.

I do not agree 

or disagree.

I do not offend.

I do not blaspheme.

Can you not see

I am on my knees?

Je ne suis pas Charlie.

Je ne suis personne.

Ça va.

Ça va, oui, ça va?

Mary R. Finnegan is an operating room nurse in the Philadelphia area who also writes poetry and short stories.

WAITING GAME

by George Held

What’s His Name, the Liberian
In Dallas, has died of ebola.

“When will it get me?” That’s what
Our self-absorption wants to know.

We are now in the medieval
Days of the plague updated.

Which will get us first, ebola
Or Islamic State warriors?

That’s what we want to know.
Is it better to die instantly

From a slash across the throat
Or wretchedly after days

Of dehydration from vomiting
And diarrhea?

What happened to Sanctuary
America, the great safe place

With a dependable government
And public-health system?

Where is FDR assuaging
Our fears, TR assailing

The enemy, or swoony Ronnie
Grinning our troubles away?

When have we ever felt so feckless,
So vulnerable, so hopeless

As we witness this waiting game?

George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.

SPLIT IMAGE

by Susan Roney-O'Brien

Photo by Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy

Birds rise, sun in their throats,
and each note sung
closes day.

The mother sobs.
Her son is dead, murdered by police.

Catalpa flowers’
whitest cupped petals
float silent onto grass.

A woman raped,
hanged, her eyes opened. A priest nods.

On the pond beyond green bank
oaks reflect; fish
pass through shade.

Isis annihilates homes,
beheads an American journalist.

Before baling, the hayfield’s
crumpled waves break
against light.

Forgiveness bleeds out.
Dawn clenches clouds like fists.

Susan Roney-O'Brien lives in Princeton, MA, has won the William and Kingman Page Poetry Book Award, been nominated for 5 Pushcart Prizes, been selected NEATE's Poet-of-the-Year, works with young writers to publish their books, and has published widely in literary magazines. 

A HARD SHARP BLADE CUTS

by Gil Hoy

Photo by Mike Batterham, Gold Coast Bulletin

through pulsating flesh, as
the hot orange sun glistens
on freshly red-tainted steel.

No moans, no cries, no gasps,
as the core of a rational caring
man drops to the ground
with a sickening thud.

A Prime Minister recoils in
disgust at an uncivilized war
and the provocative evil
natives who dared to show

the world what a savage
brutal killing entails.
The monstrous revenge of
bombs continues to rein on

villages of the weak, who have
no say over anything, and have
been moved into the firing zone,
their killing ordered by faceless

masters they will never know,
unconcerned with the day’s
politics, just wanting another
day’s food and shelter.

A smiling child skips along
the beach in her wildly carefree
exuberance, dexterously
dodging the remaining sea tide

of welcoming puddles, not knowing
about the boys coming home in
body bags from ruinous
wars that she never would have

wanted, awed by the rhythmic
tidal sounds and smell of sea
salt, as a bagpipe player
in full regalia thinks about

the way the world still conducts
war and plays haunting songs
in the sand. A disgraced

soldier receives God’s
commendation for abandoning the
flag and disobeying a command,

while an inquisitive circling seagull flies
overhead looking for something
fresh to eat in the sea’s puddles.

Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, and started writing his own poetry in February of this year. Since then, Gil’s poems have been published in Soul Fountain, The New Verse News, The Story Teller Magazine, the Clark Street Review, Eye On Life Magazine, and Stepping Stones Magazine.

A SQUARE IN RAQQA, SYRIA

by John Guzlowski

ISIL beheads civilians in the city of Al-Raqqa. --Syria Newsdesk

The corpse in the street
Is headless

Flies do their business
Sow their seeds

Nearby a man sells
Tea and cigarettes

There is no place
For irony


John Guzlowski’s writing has appeared in The Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, and Exquisite Corpse.  His poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps appear in his book Lightning and Ashes.

INNOCENT BYSTANDERS

by Liz Dolan

Michael Landsberry

Lying on the ground of the Nairobi mall
the blood-soaked woman had been lusting
after a pair of Manolo Blahniks in a boutique window,
shards now sparkle in her chest. Are the bits
of skin floating about her dogwood petals?
Al Shabaab took credit. In Mecca
where my cousin studied, the traffic
halted in the circle for beheadings and hand choppings.
I never looked, she said. I stared
out the window to the right
where they say the unlived live. I fancied myself
baling hay in the cool hills of Kilkeel.
In Sparks, Nevada, a twelve-year-old shot
two classmates, killed his teacher who tried to talk
him down. A former marine who survived two tours
in Afghanistan. I smashed a mosquito feasting
on my hand. A bubble of blood spurted out-his or mine?


Liz Dolan’s manuscript, A Secret of Long Life,  nominated for the Robert McGovern Prize will soon be published by Cave Moon Press. Her first poetry collection, They Abide, was published by March Street. A six-time Pushcart nominee and winner of The Best of the Web, she has also won an established artist fellowship in poetry and two honorable mentions in prose from the Delaware Division of the Arts. She recently won The Nassau Prize for prose. She has received fellowships from The Atlantic Center for the Arts and Martha’s Vineyard. Liz serves on the poetry board of Philadelphia Stories.