REMINDERS

by Phyllis Wax

Israeli settlers beat a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, stripped him naked, tied his arms and legs and then zip-tied his penis, he, his family members and another witness said on Wednesday. “I thought I was going to die,” the man, Suhaib Abualkebash (above), a 29-year-old shepherd, told The New York Times. “I thought this was the end.” Photo by Afif Amireh.

Even as ghosts their bones

are visible: ribs, backbones,

sticks of arms and legs.

But the occupiers in the West Bank,

the army in Gaza,

do not see the ghosts

of their ancestors,

do not hear their rattling bones

or their ghostly admonishments

not to duplicate the cruelty done to them,

seem deaf to the idea that never again

means not to anyone.

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world and is being cured of her delusions. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral.

AGNUS DEI

by Steve Bloom

Inspired by the poem “Agnus Dei” by Edna Shochat, Boise Idaho. Some elements taken directly from that poem with permission.

Religious Zionism will appoint lawmaker Orit Strock as Israel’s first National Missions Minister… Orit Strock is a leading figure in Hebron’s Jewish community and the founding chairwoman of the Human Rights Organization of Judea and Samaria, a controversial settlement group. Her son, Zvi, previously received a 2.5-year sentence for kidnapping and abusing a Palestinian boy. -Haaretz, December 7, 2022

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. 

Oh, newborn lamb!

But this time you are not the lamb of God.
No, this time you are merely the lamb
of a young shepherd tending his flock
in the hills of Hebron, born
on this Spring Day in 2007.
Only hours after you emerge from the womb
an armed man—named Zvi Strock—
enters your life, enters 
as the angel of your death.
First he captures, blindfolds
your 15-year-old shepherd, tortures him
to the edge of extinction, then 
turns his rage on you,
kicking you repeatedly until
nothing remains—except your remains.

Oh, newborn lamb!
Even in a lifespan of less
than a day you find a way
to take this measure of the evil 
that lurks in our world 

And so you do not see when, 
on his way to serving
a prison sentence of 18 months,
Zvi is toasted as a great hero 
at a “send-off party” organized
by Rabbi Chaim Druckman,
spiritual leader of the religious
Zionist right. I 
would have told you then, 
in the year 2010, 
that Rabbi Druckman 
and his political movement, 
were part of a far-right fringe. 

Oh, newborn lamb!
(Still and forever a newborn lamb)
I hope you rest in peace today,
though I do not when Orit Strock, 
Zvi's mother takes her post 
along with others who are 
of Rabbi Druckman's political persuasion
as ministers in the new Israeli ruling coalition,
and it dawns on some of us (at least) that those 
who hail Zvi Strock as a national hero
can be called a right-wing fringe no longer.
Today, instead, they take the power,
planning to organize something bigger 
than a send-off party for a young man
on his way to prison, kick the life 
out of more than just a newborn lamb.

Agnus Dei, miserere nobis. 
Lamb of God have mercy upon us. 

Steve Bloom is a New York City based poet, composer, and activist. He is the curator of the "Poetry of Protest and Struggle" videos that appear three times a year.

MAJOR

by Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum

Joe Biden and Major in 2018, at the Delaware Humane Association. Credit: Stephanie Gomez/Delaware Humane Association, via Associated Press and The New York Times.

the White House

announces

 

its first-ever

pound puppy

 

and I

wonder

 

if this

proclamation

 

is an

indication

 

of more

major

 

changes to

come—

 

that our

president

 

has himself

declared,

 

on America’s

behalf,

 

‘we will

shelter

 

every kind

refugee

 

seeking a

shepherd.’

Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum is a writer and teacher from Wasilla, Alaska. She has published several books through her company, Red Sweater Press, and has work featured in Alaska Women Speak, The Daily Drunk, The Ekphrastic Review, and Verse-Virtual, among others. She currently serves as the Mat-Su Vice President of Alaska Writers Guild.

STANDING STILL AND LISTENING

by George Salamon

"Something is dying, but we do not yet know what it is… Something is trying to be born, but we cannot say what it is either… The old is in a state of suspended animation; the new stands at a threshold it cannot yet cross,"  —Fintan O'Toole, "Democracy's Afterlife," The New York Review of Books, December 3, 2020.

I envy those who can

See the future coming.

It's easier to endure if

You are sure, or if you

Are needed, shepherd

Or sheep, but you must

Not get scared as the

Forces unfold, just old,

And if you're like me,

Left high and dry of just

What they'll sow or reap.

George Salamon writes a poem occasionally, but is worried much of the time about what his granddaughter's generation can expect. He has recently contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems, Dissident Voice, and The New Verse News from St. Louis, MO.

DJT: THE BAD SHEPHERD

by Robert West

“The Bad Shepherd” by Jan Brueghel the Younger

What sort of souls would follow such an unrepentant sinner?
They take him for their savior, but he's saving them for dinner.

Robert West's poems have recently appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Red Dirt Forum, and Asheville Poetry Review. Co-editor of Succinct: The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems (Broadstone Books, 2013), he's also the editor of both volumes of The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons (W. W. Norton, 2017).