THE PROMISE OF NOTRE DAME

by Micheline Ishay

Notre Dame over Paris towered.  
Her spire inspired and empowered,           
Sheltering the beggars across time. 
Shockingly, a fire burned its spine.            
The top fell: crackling, 
Crashing, and blazing…                               
 
Such collapses come always fast,
As other tragedies of recent past.
Plagues, floods, and worsening storms. 
The plundered planet in an altered form.
Choking air, winds swirling,                        
Sweltering, drowning…
 
Wars destroy lives even faster, 
Slaughter peace-loving dancers,
Bury children under rubble,
Entrap peace in an endless tunnel. 
The music was thrilling, 
Then shooting and shrieking…
 
Their screams drowned underground, 
Lost in Pluto’s crowded underworld. 
Vile geniuses dug a cave of hell  
While humanity failed to prevail.                                                   
Wrath unleashed the dogs of war, 
Fangs flashing, growls and gore.                             
 
In the “City of Lost Children,”
Thieves stole youthful dreams
Staving off aging by any means.
Schooling generations for revenge.
In cycles of never-ending violence
Interrupted by dreadful silence.
                                                
They say miracles cannot be ignored.                    
Notre Dame is almost restored; 
Its iconic rooster found under debris,
Remade for a world to be free.
It took less than a day to crumble, 
But years for artisans to reassemble.
 
A step at a time: 
Sweating, Swearing,

Longing, Laughing, laughing… 

Micheline Ishay is Professor of International Studies and Human Rights at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and was founding Director of the International Human Rights Program. She is the author of half a dozen of books, including Internationalism and Its Betrayal (University of Minnesota Press, 1995), The Nationalism Reader (Humanities Press, 1995; Prometheus, 1999), and The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2019). Her books, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (2004, 2008) and The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches, and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present (1997, 2008, 2022) have been translated into multiple languages and published in second or third editions. 

TO PICK UP AGAIN

by Indran Amirthanayagam 

When thousands of far-right supporters of Brazil's ex-leader, Jair Bolsonaro ransacked Brazil's government buildings on Sunday, political leaders condemned the grave attack on the country's democratic fabric. The buildings also held a rich collection of art, some of which suffered irreparable damage. The government has mourned the loss of key parts of the artistic collection, which it said represents an important chapter in its national history… As mulatas, a painting by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, was found punctured in seven places. The government said it was worth at least 8 million reais (£1.2; $1.5m). Photo: Damage to the Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting is inspected. —BBC via Yahoo! News, January 10, 2023

Urine and shit provide biological

clues to riot investigators, combing 

executive palace, congress, supreme 

court in Brasilia as condemnations 

spread the day after, the passing 

of blame, words of support and 

sympathy, and revisions of what 

could have been done to hold 

 

the line. The line did not hold, 

the damage done, but the body is alive 

still and ready for restoration surgery, 

new heart, liver, kidney, and craftsmen 

hired to work on the great painting 

punctured in seven parts.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. 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 and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

ADAM'S FALL

by Ellen Devlin

The life-size marble statue of Adam, carved by Tullio Lombardo (Italian, ca. 1455–1532), is among the most important works of art from Renaissance Venice to be found outside that city today. In 2002, Adam was gravely damaged in an accident. Committed to returning it to public view, the Museum undertook a conservation treatment that has restored the sculpture to its original appearance to the fullest extent possible. --The Metropolitan Museum of Art

No one knows
if Adam Accidental
fell this time
or was pushed.
His head broke

off, perfect torso
skittered across
the Metropolitan
patio, Adam fragments
found, but not Eve.

In the first fall,
Adam Deliberate yanked
that apple off
with purpose, kept
his footing. Unharmed

in the filming,
First Father still,
Eve, whole as
he, five minutes
before, glistening

under the new sun,
in the god's-eye
camera, ( restoration
experts say) became
Eve Egregious.


Ellen Devlin has studied poetry at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, Hudson Valley Writers Center and Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Poet's Lore, New Ohio Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Redactions, Helix, Passager, The Lost River Review, as well as online in The New Verse News.