DRIVING BY THE DANUBE IN BUDAPEST

by Joan Leotta

on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)

Our tour bus was rushing to

Reach the next “place to see”

In Budapest when I looked

Out the window to watch

Night begin to be reflected

In the Danube.

We turned a corner and

Driving close by the river,

I saw, an installation

of sculpted shoes along the banks.

Our guide did not seem

to notice. Her purview was

government buildings and

restored churches.

With wifi I reached back

In time, to the moment when

real people, Budapest’s Jews,

fell out of those shoes into the

Danube as Nazi machine guns

cut through their bodies.

Men. Women. Children.

My heart began to pound,

Evil lives on where

people chose to ignore it

past or present.

Only remembering can

begin to protect us from

evil perpetrating such again.

Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer.

GERONIMO THE ALPACA

by Martin Elster

GERONIMO the tragic alpaca was dragged from his paddock [on August 31, 0221] and executed by a team of [UK] government officials. The eight-year-old animal, whose plight touched the nation, was shoved in a horsebox and killed with a bolt gun after 25 cops and four Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] agents descended on his farm. Geronimo, who Defra claimed had TB, kicked out and appeared distressed as he was pulled away with a rope round his neck at Wickwar, Gloucestershire [UK}. His furious owner said the tragic alpaca’s “barbaric” execution was murder. The eight-year-old animal was dragged to his death by a team of “bully-boy” Defra ­officials after he tried to make a last dash for freedom. The Government claims he had TB but Helen Macdonald, 50, said he was perfectly healthy. She previously vowed to “take a bullet” for her beloved alpaca. —The Sun, August 31, 2021

I felt healthy and hardy.

TB? None, for sure!

Why the gun to my head?

Does that make you secure?

Sniffing hay-scented air,

I was glad when I saw

my owner each day;

but condemned by your law,

a scapegoat alpaca,

I paid a big price.

As for your cold heart,

try melting its ice.

Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. A full-length collection Celestial Euphony was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

APOSTATE ONLY AM I TRUE

by Peleg Held

“We are shocked and deeply saddened by reports that Mohammad Bashir al-Ajani and his son Elyas were murdered by the militant group Islamic State which had accused them of ‘apostasy’. The deliberate murder of civilians during an armed conflict is a war crime and both those who commit them and those who order them must be brought to justice. We call on all actors involved or with interests in this conflict to use all diplomatic means possible to ensure that no more civilians – including writers – are killed.” —Salil Tripathi, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.

For Mohammed Bashir al-Aani executed with his son

outside Dier Ezzor in March 2016.

They tear at the strings
and a dew falls into the bright
of the lower skies.
I hear a singing under the blue:
cisterned voices,
thickening amber, welling new
in the combs behind dropped eyes.
There is a weaver this night—
working steady, working through,
weaving strands of the silenced,
binding many to the few.


Author's note: The title is taken from a line of Paul Celan's "Praise of Distance".

Peleg Held lives in Portland, Maine with his partner and his dog Emitt. There is also the semi-feral cat, Smudge. And a kid or two. pelegheld(at)gmail.com.