GOODBYE, KYIV

by Donald Sellitti

Goodbye, Kyiv and thank you
for the chance to stand in solidarity
with you at safe remove to
write of you with passion and with
anger in my slanted rhymes.

I cared a lot, I really did, and bared
my heart in lines I broke in
unexpected places, taking 
risks you wouldn’t 
understand.

You’re not a poet.
I was just as brave as you.

The moving zeitgeist though
has moved and left you 
far behind as winds of war
have blown again and lauded us with
new and fresher outrage for the
dead and dying. My anger needs
new tinder, not the charcoal
of your cities, for its burning.

I’m back inside my garden now
where themes of death and
inhumanity present themselves
in quaint and small tableaux.

A newly fallen tree; a spider that
I’d stepped on carelessly
with one leg tapping. Death is 
all around me as it is with you.

I might write of you again, Kyiv,
if something fresh emerges from
the blandness of unending war, 
a bomb as blinding as the sun 
perhaps, awash in metaphor.

But for now, goodbye Kyiv. 
Best wishes for the future,
really. 


Donald Sellitti honed his writing skills as a scientist/educator at a Federal medical school in Bethesda, MD before turning to poetry following his retirement. Numerous publications in journals with titles such as Cancer Research and Oncology Letters have been followed by publications in journals with titles like The Alchemy Spoon, Better than Starbucks, and Rat’s Ass Review, which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize in 2022.

NEVER ENOUGH

by Judy Kronenfeld

The people embracing each other, wiping

tears from their eyes, kneeling

to place roses and carnations, 

the banner headlines, the when

is enough enough? Then the families

home alone after our national rituals,

the presidential visit. Now the children’s

bereft bedrooms, the stories slipping

down front pages and inside the newspaper,

then gone, now Absence just beginning

to take up residence, burrowing

in and in and in. 

Judy Kronenfeld’s fifth full-length collection of poetry Groaning and Singing was published by FutureCycle Press in February, 2022. Previous books include Shimmer (WordTech, 2012) and Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017). Her poems have appeared widely in journals including Cider Press Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse,  Slant, and Verdad.