THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL

by Indran Amirthanayagam 

I throw up my hands. I cannot 

understand how half the country 

votes for stepping off the cliff 

of righteousness, the rule 

of law, protection of the weak 

and the other; how so many 

can see only belly button,

door lock, money swirling

on line, quick payments 

and the roaring feijoada, 

caipirinhas flowing 

and no more focus

on that favela up the hill.

Pied Piper and the Bible,

holiness and the puritan’s

American dream, wealth 

equals God’s blessing,

but aren’t we in Brazil…

the evangelical globalized,

localized, homogenized, 

two frontier myths become one, 

the United States of Brazil,

at least half the residents

singing hymns, marching 

to the sea to build beach-

front property, marching 

to the forest to burn it down.

Indran Amirthanayagam received Sri Lanka's State Literary Award for White Space Sonnets.  He won the Paterson Poetry Prize for The Elephants of Reckoning. His Lettre aux residents du monde is forthcoming from L'Harmattan. Amirthanayagam edits Beltway Poetry <www.beltwaypoetry.com>publishes at Beltway Editions >www.beltwayeditions.com>. He writes indranmx.substack.com

MASSACHUSETTS MAN BUYS $395,000 HOUSE DESPITE WARNINGS IT WILL ‘FALL INTO OCEAN’

haibun by Jerome Berglund

with found prose quotations from headlines for the September 11, 2024 Guardian article by Maya Yang.

David Moot…

 

smoking with

the windows up

ball lightning

 

…nabs ‘dream’ Cape Cod home…

 

intelligent 

design 

splitting adam

 

…next to eroding cliff…

 

overcast 

a hot spot 

in the blues

 

…in imminent danger of crumbling…

 

we buy 

neglected properties 

skeleton key

 

“A man who says life’s too short…

 

under 

the rock 

hard fast rules 

 

…to resist buying a home that might fall 

off a cliff in a few years…

 

bible belt 

center 

mass

 

…has taken ownership of a house with a beautiful view…

 

stroke 

of luck 

arching back

 

…of the slowly encroaching ocean.”

 

three fingers 

the trees dropped are removed 

in the night

Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat For Tea, Mōtus Audāx press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.

LAST PICTURE

by Anne Graue

A couple taking a photo on the edge of a cliff died when they fell hundreds of feet while their young children watched, according to news reports. The Polish couple died after falling from the rocky edge in Cabo da Roca in west Portugal. They were apparently taking a 'selfie' photo of themselves, according to NBC and others, though details of the events leading up to the fall were still hazy. A local English language news site, the Portugal Resident, said the parents had given the children the camera to take a picture. Their children, ages 5 and 6, were turned over to Polish diplomats and are undergoing psychiatric care. --USA Today, August 12, 2014. Photo: Portuguese National Tourist Office via USA Today.

Stepping back, waving
to the boys

smiling as one foot
slips on loose rock
before the other goes

they fall together
back into blue
sky, the camera

still in the hands
of the six-year-old

watching his mother
as she leans
back into the sun

his father as he
reaches for her
to catch her hand

the terror

realizing the cliff
the water below.


Anne Graue writes poetry and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Compass Rose, Sixfold Journal, VerseWrights, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly. She is a reviewer for NewPages.com. 

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT A WOMAN WHO JUMPED OFF A CLIFF

by Luisa Villani

                                    poem pulled from Los Angeles local news, March 10, 2010


A live interview has a witness saw her “dangling”
from a tree outstretched from the sheer cliff-face
before she lost her grip.  Did she "jump”
or just merely "slide?"  The different news outlets
can't seem to agree on this point (her predicament),
nor on whether she was attacked by a rapist,
a would-be rapist, or an attacker. 
What is for sure:  she was on top of the cliff
and something happened, and when the paramedics
got to her, she was at the bottom of the cliff,
and the person who was with her at the top of the cliff,
or who confronted her at the top of the cliff,
or whom she encountered at the cliff top,
got away with her wedding band and her SUV (or her car).
How do you write about the woman, the cliff,
the other, the ocean, the sky's nothing embrace,
the woman above, the woman below?
How do you get it right?  Is there a "right"
when faced with loss, a right way to pick
between two losses, pick which one is greater,
which one is lesser, which one you'd rather lose?
If NPR says she "slid" and CBS says she "jumped"
who picked the right verb?  Sure, you can bicker
about the geography of Point Dume, its rocky face,
its sandy top, and you can guess the extent of her struggle,
the intent of his actions, but let's get one thing straight. 
There was a "him," and there was a "her," and in the long
history of him and her, how many times has SHE
actually had a choice?  And how many times has that choice
been between nothingness, and the horror of something?
Remember the days when she was told not to struggle,
to belay nothingness by submitting to something,
and then the later days when she was told
THAT was in fact wrong?  And if you want to forget
about the him and her, and return to the safe ground
of geography, the "just the facts M'am,”
let me ask you this (yes, there is also a me and a you here,
and you know you've already decided which one
you are), consider where you are right now,
if you’re running from this poem,
and if you really had a choice.


Luisa Villani is a former Wallis Annenberg Fellow at The University of Southern California, who currently resides in New Jersey.  She can't seem to land in the middle.