POUNDING

by Tasneem Khan

It’s such a menial act. Mundane really. 
With a pestle nestled between my fingers, 
I fling a handful of peppercorns into a mortar.
They have no time to settle, no space to jostle; no air to breathe. 
Who cares? I proceed. 
To bash their heads in. 
Unceasingly. As I hear no sounds, other than the satisfying thwack of wood on stone. 
I pound pound pound 
till their insides are squeezed out of their skins.
And what is left is a fraction of what once was.

I think about them—the peppercorns, the pestle, and the powdery remains
as I glance at the newspaper. 
‘Gaza pounded,’ it says. 
Sometimes, journalists do get it right. 

Tasneem Khan is an elementary teacher and lives in Bengaluru, India.

A TANKA FOR THE TWO PEOPLE KILLED IN KHARKIV BY A RUSSIAN MORTAR SHELL

"A loaf of bread on a park bench, collecting snow. A puddle of blood nearby. Those were the traces of two lives lost this past week, two people killed as they sat sharing a late lunch or an early dinner, or maybe just feeding pigeons. No one seemed to know their names. They died at around 5:30 in the afternoon on Sunday in the southeastern Slobidskyi district of Kharkiv from a mortar strike, residents said, describing the victims as an older woman and a middle-aged man." —Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak, The New York Times, April 6, 2022. Original photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Jimmy Pappas is the Zoom moderator for the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.

THE ROAD BACK TO YEMEN FROM A BROOKLYN LAUNDROMAT GOES UP IN SMOKE

Editor's Note: We are pleased to repost this poem, originally published in TheNewVerse.News on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. It is one of our 2015 Pushcart Prize nominees.


THE ROAD BACK TO YEMEN FROM A BROOKLYN LAUNDROMAT GOES UP IN SMOKE
by Linda Lerner

                                                     
separate, he asks, as he puts my laundry
on the scale.  Yes, separate, I say
still . . . week after week, tries to make
this American woman understand
what it feels like, no, make me smell
the smoke of mortar & rocket fire politics
keeping him from getting his wife & daughter
everything so carefully arranged, end of
June, his graduation from college, and then . . . puff
do you see?
                what I see is the road
twisting and turning  in his mind
teasing him  now it’s here, now it’s gone
he says of a promised cease fire;

when he speaks of his birth country
of things getting worse
I see frightened people imprisoned
in their homes  being deprived of basic necessities

I see a country being raped…
I do not see his wife and daughter
he will not let me

Internally displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a local river close to the Al-Mazraq IDP camps, Al-Mazraq, Yemen. Source: Daily Mail

Linda Lerner’s latest  collection "Yes, the Ducks Were Real" (NYQ books) and her chapbook "Ding Dong the Bell  Pussy in the Well" (Lummox Press) were published recently. 

THE ROAD BACK TO YEMEN FROM A BROOKLYN LAUNDROMAT GOES UP IN SMOKE

by Linda Lerner

                                                     
separate, he asks, as he puts my laundry
on the scale.  Yes, separate, I say
still . . . week after week, tries to make
this American woman understand
what it feels like, no, make me smell
the smoke of mortar & rocket fire politics
keeping him from getting his wife & daughter
everything so carefully arranged, end of
June, his graduation from college, and then . . . puff
do you see?
                what I see is the road
twisting and turning  in his mind
teasing him  now it’s here, now it’s gone
he says of a promised cease fire;

when he speaks of his birth country
of things getting worse
I see frightened people imprisoned
in their homes  being deprived of basic necessities

I see a country being raped…
I do not see his wife and daughter
he will not let me

Internally displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a local river close to the Al-Mazraq IDP camps, Al-Mazraq, Yemen. Source: Daily Mail

Linda Lerner’s latest  collection "Yes, the Ducks Were Real" (NYQ books) and her chapbook "Ding Dong the Bell  Pussy in the Well" (Lummox Press) were published recently. 

THE TWO ALEPPOS

by Judith Terzi

"He targets the genitals but also likes kill shots to the head and chest."

The Karaj al Hajez crossing that spans Aleppo's Queiq River is a no man's land where Syrian residents are picked off daily by a government sniper. --Raja Abdulrahim reporting from Aleppo, Syria, The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 21, 2013.

The crossing spans a river. A no man's land.
A sniper lurks inside Aleppo's City Hall somewhere.
Some victims are lucky, lose only a foot or hand.

Families are separated, the sniper doesn't care.
Yesterday three boys, four girls were killed.
A sniper lurks inside Aleppo's City Hall somewhere.

Mortar fire is heard. Boxes of groceries spill.
And blood. Victims are carried to the rebel side.
Today three women, four babies are killed.

This division of a city allows nowhere to hide.
Cross over the bridge to study, to work, to shop.
The triage team saves lives on the rebel side.

How long can a people bear the danger, the chaos?
An old man bleeds to death, fear forever ebbed.
Cross over the bridge to study, to work, to shop.

In the middle of the terror, a dusty woman begs.
The crossing spans a river. A no man's land.
An old man bleeds to death, fear forever ebbed.
Some victims are lucky, lose only a foot or hand.


Recent poems by Judith Terzi have appeared or are forthcoming in: Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle Press); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo Press); The Raintown Review; Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes Press); and elsewhere. Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line.