THE END OF HOPE

by Joan Leotta

Somewhere in Ukraine, a child

measures her steps to school wondering

if her home will be standing

when the last bell rings,

if her parents will be safe if bombs fall,

if her school can shelter her

and her friends in the basement,

if she can find and reach her parents

should rubble, smoke fill her town.

Each time Putin spews out

his verbal assaults her hope erodes.

 

I know this because in October, 1961

when Castro fired verbal assaults

bragging on the power of his Soviet missles,

I lived in a likely-to-be targeted town.

As I climbed each of the 150 steps

From the bus stop to the top of the hill

To reach the gothic doors of the

1930s building that was my school,

I stopped on each step to pray

that we would all be safe,

and above all, that

my mother who

worked miles east from our home

and my father who worked

miles west from there

would find me and we would

face together

whatever terror Castro inflicted.

Each day my hope eroded, restored

when we escaped the physical horror

all those years ago.

 

But this morning, February 24, 2022

that Ukrainian child’s hope is gone

in a mudslide of fears made real,

playing out with troops and

air strikes and people rushing

about in fear. Her hope ended, I

hope for her that no matter what, her family

will remain together, sheltering

each other with their love.

 

Author's Note: This poem has been in my heart for several days. Yesterday’s New Yorker article "The Crushing Loss of Hope in Ukraine" put the words in my pen, and today’s news from all sources about the invasion gave the ending lines.

Author and story Performer Joan Leotta is the author of the poetry collection Languid Lusciousness with Lemon. And she is offering her chapbook Gifts of Nature for free at this link.

CANNIBAL KING,or EVERYWHERE IS SANDY HOOK

by Howie Good

God, if there is one,
must be a very old man
who sits on a stool
in the shade of a sidewalk tree,
now & again dozing off,
his stubbly chin
dropping onto his chest,
while not far away
bat-winged dogs
devour the schoolchildren
he’s just too full
to devour himself.


All proceeds from Howie Good's latest book of poetry,  Fugitive Pieces (Right Hand Press), go to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley.

ON FLAG DAY I THINK BACK TO MY YOUNG STUDENTS SPEAKING

by Jane Herschlag

Photo: Jane Herschlag

                  
               Two planes, each crashed into one tower.
               People got hit by flying pieces of glass and concrete.
               All people care about the dead people and their families.
               We need to make flags.  The blue part stands for liberty.
               They draped a big one on the collapsed building.
               In France they were praying and many countries sang,
               God Bless America.

Despite the terrorists’ actions they see love in the world.
They see the pure, mythical America
as I saw it in childhood, the country that
saved my family from Hitler when others refused.

Our big red-white-and-blue blowing in the breeze—
a dwarfed pride still swells in me despite our lost democracy,
our taint of WMD’s, of Corporations Are People,
of Monsanto’s GMOs, for the first time in the history of the world,
changing the DNA of humans, animals, vegetation,
contaminating organic farms.

As wealth rules, America declines,
ethics fall to the toxic curb, along with the poor.
Betsy Ross what do you think of us now?
Each of your stitches were sewn with hope
and wishes for America’s wisdom.

I can’t even find my thread; it’s hidden
under years of fallen bodies,
corrupt bankers’ viscous lies.
Big Pharma and giant chemical companies
have smeared our red and blue into
our white stripes of virtue.  Our field of blue is dotted,
not by stars, but by lobbyists demands.

I want our flag to mean what it used to mean,
when city colleges were free, after
the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements.
I want my flag to wave for immigrants,
lesbians and gays.  I want again
to be proud of being American.


Jane Herschlag, a former apparel designer, textile designer, teacher, and model home decorator,  has a degree in Apparel Design, a B.A. in Creative Writing, and Women’s Studies from Hunter College.  Her Masters in Creative Writing is from CCNY.  Jane has won numerous writing awards and placed 1st with her  photography/poetry at Richter Assoc. for the Arts in Danbury.  She is an avid poet, photographer, and loves to Stage Homes for selling, refinancing, and simply enjoying.  She has shown at the Danbury Fair Mall, Midtown Café in Danbury, at the historic building—30 Bridge Street in New Milford, at American Pie Restaurant in Sherman.  She combines her passion for the visual and the written by writing ekphrastic poetry, poems inspired by the visual.  She curated readings at the West Side YMCA in NYC for seven years and has run a peer workshop since 1997.  Her Docu-Poetry collection Bully In The Spotlight is published by Pudding House Publications.