WITNESS

 by Amy Shimshon-Santo

I am the person formerly known as _____ _____ - _____.

Now she is the bird left behind from the flock.

She is the figure weeping in the sand.

A witness, witnessed only by the sea.

I am not a war correspondent or a social media expert. 

I am not a documentarian of suffering.

Don’t worry. I have nothing to teach you and nothing to say. 

I’m just skipping words like stones along the water, 

knowing they will bounce and then sink down.

The birds laugh at us.

Birds side eye sonic jets and helicopters. 

Maybe they will tell the trees what’s going on — what they see and feel.

Last week I was a writer.

Today I am a barnacle on the belly of a whale. 

I am moaning like an underwater animal.

When did time stop? When will it start back up? 

Will it? Is this the new time, 

the timeless time, lost in unknowing?

I am not a flag.

I am no longer really a woman, I just gave birth to life.

I am not a faith, just faithful.

Oh broken bones and heavy stones

How far will you tumble?

How far down will you fall?

Six days ago was the sabbath. We gathered 

with 29 members of my family across four generations. Cousins with cousins. 

Sisters with sisters. Brothers and children and grandparents.

Six days ago was a Friday.

Today is six days past a moment of miracles, six days past the bomb.

24 hours x 6 ago there was a night where we could all lay down and hope to sleep.

If I am going to sit with the page I have to say that I don’t want to say

I want this to not be true.

Before I speak, I want you to know that I am wrong. 

Not because I know nothing but because everything is wrong. 

Not every thing but the big world of powers that evaporate worlds. 

I don’t want to remind my mind and relive what has become a beginning.

I don’t want to state the facts because the facts are a mush of kindnesses and disasters.

I am the person formerly known as a self.

I melted into the Mediterranean, sonic booms above our heads. 

My tears salt the water and make everything sting.

I want to tell you about the weeping. 

The mother collapsing onto her belly like a conch shell whose life has departed. 

She is the throw away, the detritus of those left behind.

Author’s note: I have been in three cities in Israel during this past week. I am from Los Angeles. My mother was born here in 1932 as a Jewish person under the British Mandate Palestine. I am a mother, a teacher, and a culture maker. I am deeply opposed to murder, torture, war, and intergenerational harm. War is the loss of lives and infrastructure and dreams and time. Torture and war are the worst uses of human energy and potential.

HOW MANY MORE?

by Laura Apol

I don’t start to cry until I see Hannah’s name and a quote from her
at 10:57 p.m. on the New York Times feed—which means at least 
this one’s alive, this last-semester student with the pink hair and the
big laugh, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath for hours, for
these hours of not-knowing. I keep looking at the same images: the
streets, the sidewalks, the doorways, the windows, the diagonals of
the museum turned blue and red, blue and red with lights from
ambulances-firetrucks-police. Every intersection closed, students
fleeing, huddling, wearing clothes they wear to class each day, and
I search the images, blurred by distance and dark, for faces I know.
The sounds of helicopters overhead are transferred through the
microphone of a reporter who seems at a loss loss loss for what to
say. Time and again this happens, beads on a broken rosary, but
this time it’s here—the place I’ve called home for twenty-five years.
These students are still children, and these are the buildings we’ve
met in, sidewalks we’ve walked, sometimes in celebration, sometimes 
in protest, sometimes in snow or rain, sometimes under star-bright 
skies, but never on a night like this. A colleague writes, Part of me 
is hoping that none of the deceased students were in my classes 
these past years. A selfish hope, indeed and while I’d like to disagree, 
she’s right. Of course it’s selfish; tell me, how can we not be selfish,
praying that the ones we love are safe—though no one’s safe—
knowing that each silence, each not-answering is someone’s 
student, someone’s roommate, someone’s best friend, someone’s
child. How many more?

Author’s note: This poem was written in response to the first message that appeared on the MSU Rock and before the names of the students who were killed (Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner) had been released.

Laura Apol is a faculty member at Michigan State University, where she teaches poetry, literature and women's studies. From 2019-2021 she served as the Lansing-area poet laureate. 

WHEN THE AIR COULDN'T HOLD

by Dick Altman

Four killed in helicopter crash after assisting with East Mesa Fire 

—Santa Fe New Mexican, July 17, 2022

Northern New Mexico

I once believed the high

desert immune to fire.

Until I watch in terror a blaze

in the Jemez Mountains,

west of me, nearly consume

Los Alamos’ atomic city.

                   *

And so spin the blades

and up the chopper rises,

as if lofted by the very flames

it douses again and again

with water by the bucketful.

Until its cargo of four, lives

with every pass in peril,

points wearily for home.

                    *

Never thought a fire 20 miles

east, ignited in April, would

refuse to go out until mid-June. 

We may not have much water,

but we have countless mountains

of tinder eager to torch earth,

sear and drought-riven.

                    *

And so we resort to birds

(and planes) to siphon water

from a distance. After awhile,

the droning pulse of copters

infiltrates dreams. Smoke,

from the moment you awake,

is a never-absent cup

of acrid reality.

                        *

And today’s bird? Had I felt it

thrumming overhead?  Before

a few seconds of downdraft—

will we ever know?—transforms

it from an angel of life into one

of death. And blades that morph

into wings, caught in gravity’s net,

plunge to the bottom of a sea of air.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

DUCK AND COVER

by Indran Amirthanayagam

The sound of helicopters was nothing new. They often arrived to ferry out Turkish troops stationed near Ahmed’s town, a stone’s throw from Syria’s border with Turkey. But this was different. “The sound was horrible,” he said, describing the swarm of U.S. military helicopters that descended on a home less than two miles away from Ahmed’s house early Thursday, on a mission to kill ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. Ahmed, who for safety reasons spoke on the condition that he be identified by only his first name, went up to his roof, he said in a telephone interview. The thunder of the helicopters was eclipsed by a terrible clatter of gunfire “from the sky,” he said… At least a dozen people, including six children, were killed along with Qurayshi, according to local first responders. The Pentagon said that three members of his family were killed when Qurayshi detonated an explosive device on the top floor of the building, along with a child who was killed on the floor below in circumstances that remained unclear. The first responders, known as the White Helmets, said survivors of the night’s violence included a man who lived near the house and a young girl whose entire family was killed. For a time, they said, the girl was unable to speak, from the shock. The group was not sure how the other people died. “Truthfully all the bodies were largely covered in blood, sometimes it could not be discerned if it was bullets or explosions,” a spokesman said in a message. —The Washington Post, Februaryj 4, 2022. Photo: The scene after an overnight raid by US special operations forces against suspected jihadists in north-west Syria. Photograph: Aaref Watad/AFP/Getty via The Guardian, February 3, 2022.

It is hard to palaver on the verandah, or bake bread in the kitchen,

or step out for a drive while helicopters fly above preparing to strike...

One moment you, human and humane, are alive, the next pulverized,

and that evening a headline, made famous instantly until the next drone

in the neighboring country shatters, or a kid shoots into classmates

somewhere, or a young girl is slaughtered by her brother for the family's

honor in a country that ends with 'stan (or states), no country immune

from trafficking in honor, and I declare I am most certainly politically

correct. That said, let us get down to the heart of this body otherwise

split by shards scissoring from the drone that dropped out of the sky

to finish political differences by means of a battering ram, an oxen

head, a threat, then action against what remains of order and grace,

ordinary representatives debating bills, showing the family around

the hallowed halls, certifying an election in these United States.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube.

MODERN HAIKU

by Howie Good

The Saudis fly American Apache and Black Hawk helicopters into Yemen from military bases in Saudi Arabia … Though the U.S. has denied engaging directly in hostilities against the Houthis, American MQ-9 Reaper drones – a reconnaissance drone with hunt-and-kill capabilities—have flown over Houthi occupied territory. After the Houthis shot down one of the drones in October 2017, it led to speculation that the U.S. could be using them to collect intelligence for the Saudis. Targeting being effectuated by American drones could mean that U.S. drones play a more active role in coalition targeting, like laser-sighting precision-guided munitions drops, for example. U.S. Central Command strongly denied that U.S. drones have any operational role in coalition targeting. ‘The U.S. military does not provide that type of support to the Saudi-led coalition,’ a CENTCOM spokesperson told The Intercept by email. ‘Our role with the Saudi-led coalition is advisory only. We provide intelligence and advise the coalition on best practices, air-to-ground space awareness, and the law of armed conflict.’ —The Intercept, April 15, 2019. Photo: A Saudi Apache at war in Yemen in 2017. —The Baghdad Post.

1
Government helicopters
hovering over a burning village

Moths around the porch light

2
Bees in among the marigolds
hijacking precious pollen

Mercenaries who never got paid

3
It was you who left the door open
let this fly into the house

The buzz of military drones

Howie Good is the author most recently of Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press.

SARIN WORK

by Alejandro Escudé

Volunteers wear protective gear during a class of how to respond to a chemical attack, in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 15, 2013.JM LOPEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES via Wired.

The mood is sarin and the light is sarin
there are sarin children dancing in the air
convulsing skyward, there are sarin trees
and sarin ships firing sarin missiles
at sarin airports where sarin helicopters
sit ready to traverse sarin lands, over sarin
rooftops, blanketing a country of sarin,
a language of sarin, the sarin of resorts
where the leaders of sarin meet to discuss
treaties over sarin and ice cream. But one
needs two chemicals to form sarin, and sarin
lasts a short time, sarin is short as life itself,
meaningless really, unless it is packaged
just right; still, a world without sarin is a world
flooded in sarin, with sarin dreams like those
of the sarin children who felt it rain down
on them and saw their fingers turn to roads,
their lungs become mountains, their hearts
pumping sarin into their sarin souls.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

ALEPPO DIARY: THE NEW NORMAL

by Mary Jo Balistreri

What follows is a found poem based on “Aleppo Diary: The Carnage From Syrian Barrel Bombs" by Dr. Samer Attar in The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2015

A nine-year old boy a barrel bomb obliterated hand

cylinders packed with explosives/shrapnel dropped by helicopters
Can you sew it back on

Bombs can’t be aimed hospitals pancaked blood smeared floors
slaughter of innocents 12 million in need half of them children
I couldn’t promise

Hundreds dying one weekend alone pulverized bodies crushed skulls
aid alone can’t offset systemic sustained slaughter
Stop barrel bombs the doctors say

Stop barrel bombs the doctors say
a nine-year-old asks Can you sew it back on
the U.N. asks, What more can we do

Steps you can take the doctors say
enforce no fly zones buffer zones too medical neutrality would be a help
more access to camps of refugees but mostly stop the barrel bombs

A nine-year old boy hand blown off you’ll be all right the doctor says
but deep inside the doctor knows the helicopters keep dropping
barrel bombs keep exploding

Mary Jo Balistreri has two full books of poetry, Joy in the Morning and gathering the harvest published by Bellowing Ark Press, and a chapbook, Best Brothers, published by Tiger's Eye Press. She has recent work in Parabola, The Hurricane Press, Plainsongs, The Avocet: Journal of Nature Poetry, Crab Creek Review, Quill and Parchment, Ruminate, The Homestead Review, The Heron's Nest, Acorn, and A Hundred Gourds. She has six Pushcart nominations, and two Best of the Net. She is associate editor of Tiger’s Eye Press. Mary Jo is also one of the founders of Grace River Poets, an outreach for women's shelters, churches, and schools. 

OUR SAD NEW WORLD

by Eric Greene

http://www.davegranlund.com/cartoons/

Helicopters circle 'round
the little red brick school.

Policemen guard the schoolhouse door,
enforcing strict new rules.

Teacher keeps a loaded gun
inside her pencil drawer.

Mary doesn't bring her lamb
to visit anymore.

 
Eric Greene is a singer-songwriter and poet, who lives in SE Michigan. His first poem accepted for publication will appear in Troubadour 21: Writers and Artists in the 21st Century.