MEDITERRANEAN CORRIDOR

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

From January 2023 to August 2023, inclusive, the UNHCR records that 2,314 people have died or been declared missing at sea on Mediterranean migration routes; the IOM similarly recorded 2,324 deaths or disappearances over the same time. —Wikipedia

For these burials     at sea

   the dead      are not sewn into sail cloth

 

No ceremony     no one prays over them

 

Their boat      converts to casket

      submerges     to a mass grave

                their last refuge

Joanne Kennedy Frazer (Durham, NC) enjoys spending her silvering years writing poetry and publishing in numerous anthologies, journals, and ezines. She has written two chapbooks. Most recently, Seasonings (Kelsay Press).

SEA GRAVE

by Sarwa Azeez

We peered through bullet holes

to see our future 

on the other side 

fled home—

dodging fires 

and gunshots.

We held on 

to tree limbs that 

despite being weighed low

by snow and wind

guided us back 

to safety.

We wandered astray

along the haunting 

mountain trails

Our fast-beating hearts 

chased 

by the soldiers’ ghost cries 

but our gazes raised

heavenward

beyond those sky-piercing summits.

Our roaming bodies

stumbled on a vast blue tomb—

The waves thundered

like wrathful gods 

who were lifting us 

through clouds

and mist. 

Sarwa Azeez is a Kurdish poet and translator. She is a Fulbright alumni, got her second masters in Creative Writing from Nebraska-Lincoln University. Her debut poetry pamphlet collection Remote was published in the UK by 4Word in 2019. Her work has appeared in many publications such as Parentheses Journal, Writing for A Woman's Voice, Notre Dame Literary, Wingless Dreamer and elsewhere. 

CROSSING THE DNIEPER

by W. Luther Jett

The small motor boat carrying Tetiana Svitlova and her husband, Vladyslav Svitlov, was hit by gunfire as the couple crossed the Dnieper River on Sunday. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post, December 6, 2022)

For Tetiana Svitlova, 75, who was shot by a sniper while crossing the Dnieper from Russian-occupied territory to liberated Kherson.

There is snow on the boat now

where the woman fell

while crossing the river two hours

ago—where the woman

in that moment reached out for

her husband—two

hours ago mid-river the woman

fell—snow covers

the boat—the place where she fell

crossing the grey river—

she was shot—have we mentioned?—

that is why she fell—

crossing the river now is dangerous—

there is snow now

to cover the place she—the woman—

bled out crossing

the river—on her way to safety

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of five poetry chapbooks: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018), Everyone Disappears (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Little Wars (Kelsay Books, 2021), and Watchman, What of the Night? (CW Books, 2022).

REFUGE SEASON

Art: Banksy, Mediterranean Sea View 2017, detail of a triptych. Photo courtesy of Sotheby's London via artnet news.

Adam Day is the the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press, 2020), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN Award. He is the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Divine Orphans of the Poetic Project, from 1913 Press, and his work has appeared in the APR, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Volt, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere.

MY LITTLE TYRANT

by Sergio A. Ortiz

Image source: The Onion

And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

—Donald Trump

You stopped to desire what you looked at,

you stopped to invent what you looked at,

but you were never at a standstill. 

You understood the docks, the places
where salt is a blind lady seated on your soul,
where foam gnaws at the base of everything,
with its small teeth resembling
the quicksand of what is forgotten,
the sites where old anchors and barges
of oversize engines oxidize in droppings
of seagulls and pelicans, the small white tumults
where peace and movement intertwine
their nets in the old-fashion-way of the sea,
the landscapes that surrounded you
without you knowing how far from your imagination,
your most intimate arguments could travel.

There is a sky full of vessels that eyes contemplate
from below tears, from where your gaze runs out of breath.

An eternity that anyone could say,
is worn out by extreme use, fondled by the dead,
softened by the complaints of the sick,
an afternoon that is sinking like a boat
in a landscape that belongs to nobody else but you.

You understood most of this,
you distrusted your desire, but it was your saliva
that shone on the teeth of your desire,
you were the doughy dough someone chewed
the dough that ended up in your stomach.
It was your hand, the one with which you said goodbye.

That is why you hesitated in the middle of the night,
you heard the trees get lost in their branches,
you felt the wind halt, as if in search of something
between the folds of the curtain, you heard the dead
laugh in their holes imitating moles,
you will discover oblivion, let it walk into your bedroom
dressed as a butler to announce what is already served at the table.

Unintentionally you will dine with great appetite and at the end,
leaving the napkin on the table, you will praise the menu.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.

OPERATION SOPHIA

by Jill Crainshaw

through soul-searing saharan sands
into a mythical sea of many names
she brought forth her eighth-born child and
named her
sophia
wisdom
“migrant”
NOUN: an animal that migrates
ADJECTIVE: tending to migrate, “migrant birds”
“migrant boat sinks” migrant people
fleeing seeking flight
“I was ready to die with my unborn child”
roving
nomadic
wandering
traveling
drifting
through intense shivering waves of
fear-refracted deeps
dictionaried definitions designate
describe
determine the “nature, scope or meaning of”
headlines desperate “dozens feared
drowned” in jonah’s great sea
politico-poetic
burial ground
birthing waters of
wisdom

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.

DOORS IN THE EYES OF A REFUGEE CHILD

by Debasis Mukhopadhyay

Image source: Provence Today

Doors break loose during transit
They lie scattered across the hills and rivers
Their edges drown in the map
I wait until the ripples turn me out into the street

At times I am old enough to chase them like fireflies
And when I crawl into my dreams
Leaving out the hard parts of travel
Doors smolder crying softly
You are home

Morning brings me back to the waters
And our boat churns its way once more
I keep thinking

How to rip them out of the map


Debasis Mukhopadhyay lives & writes in Montreal. Recent poems have appeared in The Curly Mind, Yellow Chair Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Of/With, I am not a silent poet, With Painted Words, Silver Birch Press, Foliate Oak, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Snapping Twig, Eunoia Review, Revolution John, Down in the Dirt, and elsewhere. @dbasis_m

ALL THE CHILDREN

by Cally Conan-Davies

At least 25 refugees, including 10 children, drowned in the Aegean on Thursday when their boat sank off the coast of the Greek island of Samos. The refugees were trying to reach the island from the coast of Turkey, just a few miles away, when the vessel went down. It was not known what caused the accident, but there have been dozens of similar tragedies in recent months, caused by people traffickers cramming too many refugees onto small boats. The Greek coast guard said that of the drowned children, five were boys and five girls. Ten survivors were rescued. —The Telegraph, Jan. 28, 2016. AP Photo Coast guard vessel arrives with the dead bodies of migrants at the port of Vathi on the eastern Greek island of Samos.

Out of the water,
his small ear
to the air—

we saw the photos,
froze,
outrage spilled over.

But in real time, the mean time,

eyes dry and tides change
yet the children of nowhere
keep dying on the waves

not over there
for there is no there but here
and no them but us
dying

in their wet clothes.


Cally Conan-Davies is a writer who lives by the sea.

WHAT THE NEWS BRINGS: TOO MUCH, NOT ENOUGH

by Shirley Brewer

I




The sea calls, deep with freedom
and risk. A sparkling summer day,
a fishing adventure off the Florida coast
in their 19-foot boat. Born on the water,
the two teens learned to walk in water.
Are they heading toward a destination,
maybe the Bahamas, paradise,
an escape from the mundane? Nature
sings in open air, until the squalls.
When the boat capsizes, they become
lost boys. The ocean no longer a home;
it swallows them whole. Despite
days of searching, the sea rules.
The boat turns up, far away from the place
where they set out. The boys are missing.
Too much. Too much water.


II




A family of three from France
plans for a whole year to visit
the Wild West. A five-week journey.
Week One goes well. Then, New Mexico,
White Sands National Monument. They arrive
at noon, 100+ in the August desert.
What prompts them to set out
on the longest trail—4.6 miles, no shade—
with only two small bottles of water?
In the dreamer’s mind, a vision of adventure
doesn’t come with a temperature.
Mother heads back to the truck, feeling unwell.
She drops and dies. Father falls, stops breathing—
his tongue swollen. Their 9-year-old son will live.
Sands blow and shift: cruel beauty, brutal sun.
Not enough. Not enough water.


Shirley J. Brewer (Baltimore, Maryland) is a poet, educator and workshop facilitator. In addition to TheNewVerse.News, her poems appear in Passager, Stone Canoe, Spillway, Little Patuxent Review, Gargoyle, The Comstock Review, and other journals. Her poetry chapbooks include A Little Breast Music, 2008, Passager Books, and After Words, 2013, Apprentice House/Loyola University. 

ALL CREATED EQUAL EXCEPT

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Rohingya migrants with airdropped food. A boat carrying them and scores of others, including young children, was found floating in Thai waters; passengers said several people had died. Credit Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via NY Times, May 15, 2015

Pitiful bane of subhuman existence
Despised by masses spewing contempt
Rohingya without nationality precarious allegiance
Leaky boats sunken nightmares capsized

No destined port of call
No place to be somebody
Homeless hapless hopeless leper outcasts
Unwelcome turned away nobody cares

Bedraggled bastards barely hanging on
Dysfunctional once upon family angst
Bony ghosts haunted by skeletons
Wronged inhuman rights constantly betrayed

Blind justice labeling terrorized victims
Raped pillaged occupation unanswered queries
Haunted by Islamophobia anti-Moslem bashing
Hateful demons lacking compassionate kindness

Unanchored adrift dead man’s float
Bloated corpses buried at sea
Long-festering festering wound abscessed
Help beyond intensive care horizon


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

EXILED LIGHT

by B.Z. Niditch

Asylum-seekers back to where they started: A boat carrying asylum-seekers, believed to be from Sri Lanka, is intercepted off Christmas Island in June this year. Picture: Daniel Wilkins. Source: The Australian

Exiled light
held out
another dawn
a lamp
to another horizon
more certain
and human
than I believe
exists
returning
into a black sun
of memories,
lit up in love
with peace
for the visionary,
your tossed boat
between rough shores
of two continents
trembling for shelter,
to land in
a resting place


B.Z. Niditch, poet, playwright, fiction writer, and aphorist, is published widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is also the founder and artistic director of The Original Theatre, in Boston, which has presented original, experimental plays on contemporary social and political themes since 1990.