MIRRORING OUR TIMES

by Lylanne Musselman

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her poetry has appeared in Pank, The Indianapolis Review, The New Verse News, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among many other literary journals and anthologies. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, she is the author of eight poetry collections and is currently working on another.

ETHNIC CLEANSING CALLED KATRINA

by Raymond Nat Turner

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

SOSs— frantic patterns pounded on

Pots and pans — Counterpoint

Shattering surreal quiet …

Tired hands trembled and cramped

White towels; white T-shirts; white sheets

Waved furiously. Invisible to the heart of

Dixie in confederate helicopters casually

Hovering above. Tired arms trembled and cramped

Tired voices, plaintive pleas for “HELP!” faded. 

Slipped into soup of sewage. Oil-gas-gumbo-slop.

Spewing from tanks and pipelines like some toxic

Spittle, rising to their throats from a trumpet’s spit key

Katrina square-danced ‘round New Orleans.

Went easy on The Big Easy.

So, why was the city still swamped? Why’d

The London Avenue levee break in three places?

FEMA flew over and knew on Monday. 

W’s War House knew by midnight. But

The People—salt of the earth— heard it through 

The grapevine— or on TV— sometime Tuesday

Levee built 1 and 1/2 feet lower than specs.      A capitalist

Disaster wrapped in an accident; Concealing a ticking time

Bomb. Set decades ago. Add Big Oil’s hurricane highway. AKA, MIGO—

Mississippi Gulf Outlet — 12 gauge shotgun pointing at NOLA’s heart!

BOOM! Prayers of white nationalist worshippers answered. Prayers of

Hoods concealed beneath Mardi Gras masks answered! Prayers of those

Who preyed to their god; to their profits, “Do unto Lower 9th Ward N-

Words what white sheets behind spreadsheets wet dreamed for decades.”

They’d preyed for a chocolate city bleached beignet-white … Lower

9th Ward N-words out! By any means necessary. They’d preyed to rid 

Themselves of low-wealth ones. Elderly, ill ones. The non-swimmers

Who didn’t own cars.

Their privatized Emergency Evacuation Plan was always: NOYO 

(Nigras On Your Own) Sink or swim. Water-swollen homes— “Xs”

Spray-painted on their skins. Circled numbers. Circled 3 = 3 bloated 

Black bodies pulled from bones of homes. Some pregnant. Some children.

White god was good— weaponizing water! Water raged. Rose rapidly

Ethnic cleansing Land of Louis; second line; trumpet tree roots. Made 

Martyrs of Big Chiefs, Brass band-juju Jazz conjurers. Ancestors of Blues babies

Who’d drown in their own tears with yellowed photos and decomposing dreams …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

CHANNELING CASSANDRA

by George Salamon

The Daily Tar Heel, August 30, 2023

All values are fleeing,

there's no home for

them in a world run 

by power and money.

Only one principle

remains to which we

owe loyalty, the cry

for help, screamed

or whispered.

If we give aid, arrival

of our downfall may be

delayed.

George Salamon channels Cassandra only once in a while; doing it too often would be too depressing.

AERIAL VIEW OF CATASTROPHIC FLOODING IN EASTERN KENTUCKY

by Pauletta Hansel

Quicksand, Bulan, Neon, Hiner, Martin, Fisty.

This is our place in Hueysville.

This was my Mother’s house before she passed.

Samantha’s sister’s house is by that blue bridge.

Anyone know anything about Fugate’s Fork Road?

Stringtown, Ajax, Isom, Pinetop, Dwarf.

This is my cousin’s house. 

My Mamaw’s house is on the left.

That bridge is about 8 feet above

where the creek’s supposed to be. 

Isn't this Mary's house?

This is the mouth of our hollow,

the red arrow was our road in.

Nix Branch, Jakes Branch, Trot.

If you zoom in to where the white car hood is,

my home is there.

Rowdy, Wayland, Noble’s Landing Cowan Creek.

OMG that is Pigeon Roost.

Y’all this is my hometown.

This little tree, and God, kept us alive this morning.

My daughter swam with her dog to a neighboring rooftop.

Caney, Possum, Ary, Lost Creek, Hardburly, Trace.

Dad and my nephew are neck deep

they need help

please.

Are you all safe??

We lost the farm animals and 5 cats.

Lost my chainsaws so I can't even work.

Hindman, Buckhorn, Chavis.

You need to understand the nature of the topography.

Add to that strip mining, climate change, political neglect.

Krypton, Garrett, over toward Pound.

Does anyone know about Kite, KY?

We have lost everything

again.

We have warm beds, clothes, and toiletries available.

We have hot showers and food.

Anyone trapped in downtown Whitesburg is welcome to come.

We need help and I'm willing to help anyone

in the same shape we are.

Your prayers are good

but we need to get federal and state assistance ASAP.

Don’t cry for Appalachia, work for change however you can!

Let's use the internet to tell our story.

Thank you for posting.

Much love and many blessings to you all

from what's left.

 

Poet Pauletta Hansel writes “This poem is made up of direct quotes from posts about the devastating flooding in eastern Kentucky. Appalachia tends to hit the news briefly, if at all, during disasters, and is soon forgotten. If you haven’t heard of any of these places, you’d better get on Facebook quick, before we disappear again. Want to help? Go to Appalshop.”

THE SPECTRUM

by Peter Neil Carroll

“Spectrum I” painting by Ellsworth Kelly (1953) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and promised gift of Helen and Charles Schwab

War began as predicted, a vision of fire.

I pulled the blanket over my head, safe,

thousands of miles from personal tragedy.

 

Maybe I should send my blanket to the Red

Cross, they could forward it to a child in

Ukraine. Surely that’s the least I could do.

 

Not enough, though. Maybe tomorrow I will

purchase a box of soft diapers for a children’s

hospital in Kyiv or a can of condensed milk.

 

I saw a photo of a woman weeping in the street,

her arms bare, blood on her naked legs, shoeless.

Clothing. That’s what she needs, a little warmth.

 

Yes, I realize, the wounded need bandages, anti-

biotics, plain aspirin in an emergency. It’s okay

to send medical aid. They call it humanitarian.

 

I know there are many Doctors without Borders

already there, and volunteer cooks boiling soups,

and stews to nourish folks who have lost kitchens.

 

Those helpers are so brave, sincere, real menschen.

I should support them, too, but will money arrive

in time to save a country? Can I buy an ambulance?

 

Can I drive an ambulance? That’s a peaceful way

to help strangers trapped in a war. It would be good

for my conscience. But can one person matter?

 

What the soldiers who are fighting really want are

more weapons and ammunition or, better still, tanks

and rockets. They could use airplanes and bombs.

 

But stop there. They must be only old-fashioned bombs

built on TNT. Not atom bombs or hydrogen bombs

because that could kill too many people plus animals.

 

Where does it end? What is it the right thing to send,

to help someone in trouble? Or a whole country? As if

I could draw a red line on a spectrum or cross over it.

 

Peter Neil Carroll is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org. His latest collection of poetry is  Talking to Strangers (Turning Point Press). Forthcoming is This Land, These People: 50 States of the Nation, winner of the Prize Americana. Earlier titles include Something is Bound to Break and Fracking Dakota.  He is also the author of the memoir Keeping Time (Georgia). 

EARTH QUAKE

by Joan Halperin

                                                                                                                    

To donate to Haiti Earthquake Relief via CNN, click here.

As she usually does when we dine,

when we laugh and carry on,

Margaret says “and we sit here in our bubble

while Haitians scurry around the rubble

attempting to extricate their dead.”

 

None of us wants Margaret at our table.

 

We pause. What can we do to help?

Donate clothing, food,  perhaps even toys.

Margaret says “Nothing like that will stop their strife,

will stop a boy from devouring garbage.

A toy teddy bear never saved a life."

 

None of us wants Margaret at our table.

None of us want to devour our ice cream scoops.

but deep in us a desire to save  our neighbors,

deep in us a knowledge that we own too much.

 

None of us wants Margaret at our table

but she finds the timber, lights the fire

 

flickering, that small spark,

almost available to touch.

 

 

Joan Halperin has been published in Passengers, Confrontation, Persimmon Tree, and others. She lives and continues to write at Orchard Cove, a continuing care residence in Canton Mass.

SOME DAY, PERHAPS...

IT WILL HELP TO REMEMBER THESE TROUBLES AS WELL.*

by Bonnie Naradzay

*Aeneas to his men, after theirs is the only ship

  to survive a violent storm at sea near Carthage.

         

Friends, a study of The Black Death states the plague 

may have come from outer space. The Mars Rover 

landed in a dried up lake. Perseverance is transporting 

images home from the red planet. On earth, we learn 

that magnetic north and south may be flipping sides, 

an ominous event, according to weakening attractions 

and ancient iron shards stuck pointing the wrong way. 

In Galveston, medical workers asked for a refrigerated 

truck to store the dead bodies. Thousands of turtles 

stunned by the cold have gone to a convention center 

in the backs of station wagons. Ted Cruz got on the plane

in jeans but went the wrong way, or the optics were wrong.

Sweet Thames, and Virgil, flow gently while I end my song.

Bonnie Naradzay leads poetry workshops at a day shelter for homeless people and at a retirement center, both in Washington DC.  Recent poems are in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), Kenyon Review Online, RHINO, Tar River Poetry, Tampa Review, Poet Lore, EPOCH, Northern Virginia Review, Anglican Theological Review, Seminary Ridge Review, and The Ekphrastic Review.

CHEMICAL WARFARE

 by Gil Fagiani

Introduction: Hallucinations, defined as the perception of an object or event (in any of the five senses) in the absence of an external stimulus, are experienced by patients with conditions that span several diagnoses but most often show up in those suffering from schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorders. This poem is based on such a patient.

Richmond Center for Rehabilitation, Staten Island

 

I’m affected by the crisis of terrorism. I don’t want to put a burden on you, but I have a burden on me. The staff here is mean and sneaky, and uses laser guns to shoot poisonous chemicals in my room. They are immigrants who come from the countries that President T***p says export terrorism. The smells are powerful and cause my nose to be stuffed. The staff is aggressive, and if I say anything to defend myself, they write me up. That means I lose my privilege to order Chinese food on Friday night! The director says I talk over her and refuses to speak with me. If I complain to the other staff members, they say I’m “popping shit” and try to frame me. Look at my record: I’ve never bothered anybody here. The only one who understands me is my social worker. I’m having some lucha—struggle—with the poisonous gas and smoke in my room. I could use a garlic necklace and a water pistol filled with holy water. I’m forced to leave the toilet unflushed and my bathroom door open. This way, the smell of my waste products can block out the poisonous smells. I’ve seen homeless people in subway tunnels burn fires to get rid of poisonous smells. I’m trying to get in contact with organizations like Greenpeace, the Greek Orthodox Church, Amnesty International, and Jews for Jesus—to ask for help.

 

Gil Fagiani (1945-2018) was a translator, essayist, short-story writer, and poet. He  published six books of poetry including his Connecticut Trilogy: Stone Walls, Chianti in Connecticut, Missing Madonnas; as well as his collections Logos, A Blanquito in El Barrio, and Rooks; plus three chapbooks, Crossing 116th Street, Grandpa’s Wine, and Serfs of Psychiatry. 

THE RACE

by Tricia Knoll

Russian hackers are attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research, the American, British and Canadian governments said Thursday, accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the worldwide competition to contain the pandemic. —The New York Times, July 16, 2020

never stops, there is no finish line
when combatants push each other out of the way
and hide their secret weapons in pockets
filled with lint

and when one pushes another down,
he robs what is in that pocket and sniffs
at it like a dog with a dead frog
and maybe takes a nibble just to see

but what if the rules called for
holding what you know in your hands
palms out offering to share
for the common good

so everyone crosses the line
at the same time or like the basket
you put your coins in at church
knowing they’re meant to help someone

else in the human race.


Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet hunkered in the deep woods. Her recent collection How I Learned To Be White received the 2018 Indie Book Award for Motivational Poetry.

AFTER THE BIG QUARANTINE

by Esther Cohen

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, Westchester County, New York

Last night’s class women
who’d been in prison we write
together Tuesday nights in last night’s Zoom class
strong women they’d all been quarantined
so many years one works in a men’s homeless shelter
400 beds poor Brooklyn neighborhood men
are sick and difficult another helps with seniors
in low income housing brings them meals
tells them jokes last night they said that what they
learned being inside in a Big Quarantine
was how much we have to help each other
how much we need to love.


Esther Cohen teaches and is a cultural activist.

DANGEROUS WOMEN

by Elizabeth S. Wolf

It was her first concert
out with friends. The gang of girls.
Besties since babies, they said.
They picked outfits and did their hair,
one high ponytail,  smoky eyes. They listened
to their parents lecture and promised
to follow the signs and obey the rules and
not take drinks from strangers and
oh my god mom, relax. It’s a concert.
Not a bar. Not a North-West Derby
brawl. Just a bunch of girls
dancing and screaming to their
favorite songs. It was Ariana Grande
live on stage: Manchester Arena
Manchester England
22 May 2017.

Three girls, who decided
at the last minute not to wear
kitten ears- three bold teens
walked into the concert as if
they owned the world.

One girl died on the floor,
shattered; the last thing she saw
bouquets of pink balloons
rising towards the ceiling.

The second girl bled from wounds
scattered about her body. She is
in hospital now, hooked up to tubes,
waiting on tests. For several hours
she asked so many questions, over
and over, but now she does not.
She answers the doctors queries,
shifts for the nurses hands: yes, her
ears are still ringing; yes, she still
smells burnt tubing. She sips water
and stares. Shell shock, they whisper.
Her ma and da take turns at her
bedside or tending the others
back home.

The third girl went home
uninjured. She spent a little
longer in the loo and got
separated from her friends.
She lost her voice
screaming for hours.
Now she won’t talk, doesn’t
eat, doesn’t drink. She lies
curled on her bed, clutching
the string from a pink
balloon. When she goes
to the bathroom, her mum
stands by the doorway, crooning
a lullaby. They call her
uninjured, because
she didn’t bleed
at the scene.

She lay in her bed while
day broke up night, again
and again. And on the third
day she called her mum.
Mum, she whispered, wide eyed,
after the bomb there was blood
on the walls, I got so scared.
I was alone! she said,
alone alone. But then
I saw a lady, almost like you,
and she stopped running to lift
up a little girl who had fell.
And the girl, she just hung
on, and I remembered to
look for the helpers.

That’s right, said her mum,
stroking her hair. Look for
the helpers.

And then I was running and screaming
and in the big room, in the hotel,
there was a lady, black as pitch, she
smelled like soap, said the girl. And
I was shaking and looking all around
and she came and held me. I
don’t even know who she is.

That was Amina, said her mum.
She works for the hotel, she
cleans the rooms. She left her own
country to flee the bombs and
find food.  Now she lives here.
And found you.

Mum, said the girl. I know what I want
to do now. I know.

What’s that? asked her mum.

I want to be a helper, said the
girl. And she got out of bed.


Author’s note: Characters and some incidents in this narrative are fictional although descriptions are based on news reports from Manchester.

Elizabeth S. Wolf writes because telling stories is how we make sense of our world, how we heal, and how we celebrate. She seeks that sliver of truth amidst the chattering monkey mind. Also, she sings loudly while driving. Elizabeth’s chapbook What I Learned: Poems is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in fall 2017.

ALEPPO

by Peleg Held


Source: Twitter, 5:59 AM, December 13, 2016

There is a city.
It is not our city.
Its broken buildings are full of bodies.
They are not our bodies.
In that city syllables are run through and strung
together into long cords of rough names
that, if they were washed clean and laid
end to end, would reach right to our doorstep.
But our names are not rough names like these.

Someone, somewhere behind the wall, is banging on a pipe.
Or are they screaming for help?
We cannot say for sure.
If indeed, there are still words coming
from any body in those broken buildings
they are strange words, not our words
yet.

Source: Twitter, 7:11 AM, December 13, 2016

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.

12.2

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

I do believe in spooks

Invisible to bloodshot barenaked eyeball

Ignorance prejudiced bias accepted dogma

Gut inclination not proof enough

Dybbuk casting creepy-crawly demonic spell

Displaced castoffs drowned at sea

Hopeless strangers in strange land

Unwelcome foreign aliens begrudged handouts

Vulnerable orphans arriving without parents

Lost generation challenge staying alive

Every child matters deserving respectful

Dignity rehab to break out

Homeless adolescents deprived of childhood

Poverty-stricken hungry for kindness recognition

Maybe expectations improbably not self-taught

Learning iffy makeshift life lessons

Leaky drowning pool victims struggling

To stay afloat overburdened lifeguard

Ignoring desperate cries for Help

Choking on own regurgitated vomit

I do believe in ghosts

Making difference for haunted dispossessed

12.2 million Syrian refugees in

Urgent need of Ouija support

http://www.humancaresyria.org/

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1