IMPOSSIBLE

by Diana Morley

A neighborhood destroyed by fire is seen as wildfires devastate the region, Thursday Sept. 10, 2020 in Talent, Ore. (AP Photo/Paula Bronstein via The Record Searchlight)

Two long days driving
through thick smoke
behind, ahead, behind
other fleeing drivers,
all going seventy, eighty mph
to get to air.
 
Diverted from inland to coast
from coast to inland—
fire grenades exploding 
in the hills alongside,
confusing the confused

on the road through 
Sweet Home
behind family
trailer homes
horse trailers
evacuating out of town 
till I reach a motel
where I need news— 

the radio 
assures me at 5 pm—

stock market up a tad

China, a valuable resource
for released Disney film—
‘an impossible resource to ignore.’

Author’s Note: I escaped the Alameda fire in Talent last Tuesday. For two days I thought my house was gone, then learned mine and one other neighbor’s survived on the block. That’s fire for you. My return won’t be to the neighborhood; it will be to both sorrow for my neighbors and joy for all those helping and planning for the future.

Diana Morley has published two books of poetry, one in 2019, one this year, been awarded honors by the Oregon Poetry Assn.  Lived in Oregon for 20 years, in Talent for 15 years. 

PARIS 1974, 2015

by Martha Deed

Photo by Ian Berry

What has the sun said to you, my child ‒

that the world is a dangerous place

and this is a day to stay in bed?

But, No. It said

Do you see the shine of morning dew

on the cobblestone streets

and the spires of Notre Dame

kissing the clouds

The cafes bursting with coffee

and croissants in the hands of kids

on their way to school

on their way to work?

This is a day

the sun said

to take a good walk

along the quay

This is a day to look for a book

to visit the market of live birds

to hear them call

to admire their feathers

shining in the sun

the light flashing on them like sparklers

not like bullets at the newspaper

not like flash grenades

at the grocery store

This I tell you:

Because you heeded the sun,

you will live another day

your survival as accidental

as those held hostage

as those who died

at your grocery store

you did not visit

because you were taking 

a walk in the sun 

In this poem, Martha Deed has woven the close call she had in Paris in 1974 or 1975 when Millie was a baby.  They usually went to the news stand for the Sunday paper at 10:30 AM.  Regular as clockwork.  But that day, Martha simply thought to take a walk to a farther away news stand instead.  Carlos, the Jackal, had planted a bomb at her usual place, and it exploded, killing people, as Martha pushed Millie in her stroller down the Blvd Saint-Germaine.

SAME AULD LANG SYNE

 by Gil Hoy

Ukraine

Gaza

Tidings as worn
out as a tree with
200,000 whorls---

You disemboweled
our first-borns, we’ll
decapitate your lawmakers,

You put mines on our
highways, we’ll take the
wheels off of your planes---
Tit-for-tat, tit-for-tat.

Seasons circling in their
rhythmic macabre cadence---
always ending in winter:

We’ll do this to yours,
so you won’t do that
to ours---we’ll set the charge

in your most pious churches,
so you won’t put cyanide
in our park water fountains,

Your spears did what to ours?
Our arrows will pierce your hearts---
Your grenades did what to us?
Our armies will torch your farms.

Different stories
and characters---but always
the same plot---rows of
bronze, field stone and
iron markers show the way,

Scratch up that foul
record loop, so it won’t
play at all---
better yet, burn it---

at an overdue Memorial
Day celebration in Gettysburg,
Robert E. Lee the
guest of honor,

apologizing again to the
Virginians for Pickett’s Charge.
We’ll vaporize your cities
if you put anthrax

in our schools,
we’ll put E Coli in
your meat for
good measure---
Tit for tat, tit for tat.

After all is said
and done, Sir---
can it truly be told
that we are still on

that same broken trail,
founded by our ancestors'
bones, with blood for mortar
and still covered by ice?


Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, and started writing his own poetry in February of this year. Since then, Gil’s poems have been published in Soul Fountain, The New Verse News, The Story Teller Magazine, the Clark Street Review, and Eye On Life Magazine. 

CHILDREN OF THE WAR

by Jonel Abellanosa

“On Tuesday, we saw the aftermath of the mortar round which crashed into the schoolyard where children were assembling for the start of classes. Torn trainers and little black shoes ripped in two were stuck in dark pools of congealed blood. One boy, Sinar Matanious, died instantly that day. Sixty children and teachers are being treated for injuries, including a young girl whose two legs had to be amputated. On Wednesday, we heard a loud blast when we were inside a school used as a shelter for displaced families in the city of Homs. Children who had recently escaped the painful siege of the rebel-held Old Quarter were in the midst of describing their frightening ordeal there of living under constant bombardment and gunfire.”            --Lyse Doucet, BBC News, April 17, 2014

Image source: A Mis Behaved Woman

Forced to memorize
The bullet’s alphabet, study
Arguments of machine guns,
Grenades, mortars.  We’ll
Have our day, or pay.

Streets couldn’t keep secrets.
Death machines in the sky
Bombarding our holes.
When we found weapons without
Their warriors, we convened like men.

Favored with the will to leave,
Saddled with sacks of uncertainty,
Others swarm like ants past borders
To whatever morsels surprise hopes.
They might return one day.

Fate doesn’t choose the fallen:
Some look peacefully asleep,
Woundless, without bruises,
No hints of fear in their faces
But they’re dead.

We who live among ruins
Learn to survive unparented,
Conflicts claiming adults faster,
Grownups succumbing
To freedom’s lies easier.

In our games we pretend
To be soldiers.  In lulls some
Stoke comfort round found
Fires, too afraid to fall asleep,
Too young to be storytellers.


Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry is forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, Pyrokinection, Ancient Paths, Inkscrawl, and has appeared in Windhover, The Lyric, PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Star*Line, Liquid Imagination, Mobius Journal of Social Change, Inwood Indiana Press, Jellyfish Whispers, Golden Lantern, Poetry Quarterly, New Verse News, Qarrtsiluni, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Red River Review, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic.  He is working on his first poetry collection, Multiverse.

JANUARY POEM

by Patricia Davis

When fascism comes
it will come with two

children, a dog,
tell warm, personal stories,
call us Ladies and

Gentlemen, have a
catch in its throat.

When fascism comes
it will raid
the houses of sleeping

children, use stun
grenades, tasers.

When fascism comes
it will seize filmmakers’
work at the border.

When fascism comes
it will study our e-mails.

When fascism comes
the potential hostile
intent of a child

will be reason to call in
a drone strike.

When fascism comes
there will be no lawyer,
no sentence, only

the bars, the dark.
When fascism comes

it will jail exclusively
those who have
spoken the truth.

When fascism comes
it will rise from the ash

of oppression.  On the wall
will hang the Nobel
Peace Prize.


Patricia Davis’ poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salt Hill, Spoon River Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Quiddity, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Tar River Poetry, and Smartish Pace, which named her a finalist for the Beullah Rose Poetry Prize.   Her translations of Cuban poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol and the New Laurel Review.