ESCAPE

by Paul Hostovsky

He crab-walked up and out of there
and I can’t help admiring him a little for that

especially since they keep replaying it on TV 
and thousands of cops are combing Pennsylvania 

and they haven’t found him yet. And I can’t help
rooting for him a little as though he were

the underdog, and not a killer who stabbed
his girlfriend to death in front of her children.

My God. They will never get over that. Have you
ever found yourself rooting for the wrong 

side? Crab-walking is moving sort of sideways
and diagonally in an awkward, furtive manner. 

Please pass the popcorn. I wonder if they’ll ever
find him. Voyeurism is sort of furtively taking

pleasure in disaster, catastrophe, pain, and without
ever feeling the pain, or ever getting caught.

Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.

TO BEAR OR NOT BEAR ARMS /FUGITIVE SECURITY

Two Poems by Alex Nodopaka

📸VISUALS📸

❗️Video from inside the apartment during a missile attack in Kyiv.#Kyiv #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/SRgk0WXU5F

— Aarian  (@Worldnews195) February 26, 2022

NOTE: This video is NOT from Alex Nodopaka's niece's apartment but from Twitter.

1. To bear or not bear arms

 

As my niece in Kyiv

is being shelled

I write poems

based on her words*

and what I see

on our TV.

 

I hold my Siamese

the way I imagine

her holding hers.

It seems odd to me

with the repressed

memories I held

 

for over 80 years

but that's all I can do

except bear arms

and join her.

I never in my life

thought I'd say

 

Damn Russia.

 

2. Fugitive security*

A poem based on the words of Alex Nodopaka’s niece in Kyiv.

 

The daily shaking of the 5th

floor of the building

where I live frightens me.

 

Nightly I put down

a few blankets on the floor

of my bathroom.

 

The only place that offers

a false sense of security.

Wedging my head

 

between the toilet

and the wall for protection

I try to sleep

 

despite the rumbling

keeping me awake.

 

Alex Nodopaka originated immaculately in Ukraine in 1940. Speaks San Franciscan, Parisian, Kievan & Muscovite. Mumbles in English & un poquo de Madridista. He sings in tongues after Vodka, has studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco. Presently full time author and visual artist in USA.

A SNOWDEN SIGHTING

by Rick Gray

I don't know who I'm betraying, my TV doesn't work, 
but I must confess I saw Ed Snowden yesterday
on Chicken Street in Kabul.

It was only a glimpse
from the cracked, glaring window of a coughing taxi
near a dangling, pine-scented Quranic quote

but I'm certain it was him.
He was clutching a naked chicken over a laptop
and had the hunted look of a refugee

sort of like everyone in town
sort of like me
maybe that's why I couldn't help waving

and maybe that's why he nodded back
in the secretive, American way of those
gone to ground

and searching for a cheap hotel room
to spend the rest of your life
not going crazy in.

You've been a bad boy, Ed.
Me too, though in a less Boozy way.
So when all this toxic dust settles

which you will soon learn the UN calls "fecal matter"
let's get together at an undisclosed location and
shoot the shit.

I encourage you to let the postmodern goatee grow primitive,
and ditch those glasses. They are as deadly here as a square Humvee.
I'll teach you everything like a big brother

though you probably don't like Big Brother
call me whatever you want
I'm just another one who fell

between the new, prismatic cracks
and am searching for the old rainbow of
friendship untapped.


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.