SONGS OF SURVIVAL

by Cristina M. R. Norcross

Pregnant women and children were caught in the bombing of the hospital in Mariupol. —The Mirror (UK), March 10, 2022

“Congress of Peoples for Peace" by Frida Kahlo (1952)

Debris, like ticker tape confetti,

still floats in the air, 

as the camera lens captures

a young mother’s silhouette,

protective hand holding her half-moon curve.

I spot the side of her cheek and eyebrow

dotted with streaks of blood,

where shards of glass or wood must have 

swept past her, mercifully missing 

her vulnerable nest within.

 

A Frida Kahlo painting appears on my screen,

while breaking news continues to drone.

Both moon and sun spheres glow on the canvas.

A tree of life, bursting with oranges,

grows before my eyes.

A mother hen sits impossibly on top,

as if keeping eggs warm on the highest branch.

 

The little girl’s song in the shelter 

lingers from last night, 

stays with me, as I walk through the house.

I hear her honeyed, hopeful voice 

even as I fall asleep. 

Her letting go of sound, word, voice, outcome

is the bravest note I have ever heard.

 

We sing ourselves into a new day,

an insistent melody

where sound itself holds the promise

of survival,

proof that beyond the bombs and tanks overhead,

rooted in the cellar of Ukraine’s earth,

is a chorus of people who believe. 

 

Cristina M. R. Norcross lives in Wisconsin and is the editor of Blue Heron Review. Author of 9 poetry collections, a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee, her most recent collection is The Sound of a Collective Pulse (Kelsay Books, 2021). Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Poetry Hall, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others. Her work also appears in numerous print anthologies. Cristina has helped organize community art/poetry projects, has led writing workshops, and has hosted many open mic readings.  She is the co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day.

USE ME INSTEAD

by Jay Sizemore

Photo of Rev. Joy M. Gonnerman. “The idea originated on a closed Facebook group for Lutheran clergy, where pastors were discussing how North Miami Beach’s police department had been caught using mugshots of actual people for target practice. Let’s send in our own photos for target practice, the pastors decided. The target-practice story had come to light after National Guard Sgt. Valerie Deant saw bullet-riddled mugshots of black men at a police gun range. One photo was of Deant’s brother.” --Elahe Izadi, Washington Post, January 25, 2015

The dark silhouette of a dark silhouette
threatens you with its darkness,
asks you to draw your pistol
and find your aim,
this darkness has no name,
is not a body full of words
like “mother” or “beginning,”
is not a tributary of stars.

Before you put holes in their faces,
before you forget their most human traces,
shine a light,
see the mirror beneath the flesh,
see that every shadow is a man holding his breath,
and every target is a heart inside a chest,
and if you must practice killing
these mortal likenesses,
please, use mine instead.

Punch your fears through my brow,
fill my nostrils with blood,
the scent of burnt nitroglycerin.
Build a hallway through my skull
to carry the wheelbarrow
of everything you never learned
about everyone else in the world,
adding my smile to the stacks upon stacks
of mouths never to show their teeth again.

I am a walking bullseye,
imagine my limp carcass on the street,
imagine stepping over puddles
to keep the red off your feet,
imagine pulling a trigger
before ever speaking to me,
looking down
and seeing your own son
being covered with a sheet.


Jay Sizemore dropped out of college and sold his soul to corporate America. He still sings Ryan Adams songs in the shower. Sometimes, he writes things down. His work has appeared online and in print with magazines such as Rattle, Prick of the Spindle, DASH, Menacing Hedge, and Still: The Journal. He's never won an award. Currently, he lives in Nashville, TN, home of the death of modern music. His chapbook Father Figures is available on Amazon.

ON THE EVE OF THE NEXT WAR

by Howie Good

The thin waxing crescent moon and dazzling planet Venus make for a gorgeous evening couple on September 8. Image source: EarthSky.

Hear that? you ask.
Hear what? I say.
Both of us look,
but only you see
the fuzzy gray silhouette
of a bombed building.

Nothing matters
and nothing connects.

The torn gum wrappers
are one small hint.
Elderly tourists
covered in cameras
are another.

You must have been thinking
of a different country,
somewhere where they cut
the sugar cane by hand.

It isn’t until later,
while I’m still shaking my head
at your question,
that the sky bangs shut.

I used to love the dark
or just after,
when there’s no longer
a near and a far
and what may really only
be planets look like stars.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.