WHAT THE PANDEMIC TAUGHT AMERICA

by George Salamon

"In the Great Recession more than a decade ago, big tech companies hit rough patches just like everyone else. Now they have become unquestioned winners of the pandemic economy," in "A perfect positive storm: Bonkers dollars for Big Tech," The New York Times, April 29, 2021

Every plague has 

its silver lining:

the people suffer,

high tech profits,

those who have

much, receive more,

next time around

I'll come back as

a Silicon Valley CEO

and avoid the rabble's

usual woe.

George Salamon, who lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, thinks "nice guys finish last in high tech" is what the great Yogi Berra might have said about this.

SREBRENICA, A 20th ANNIVERSARY

by Sandra Sidman Larson

The bodies of dozens of victims of the Srebrenica massacre are being taken back to the Bosnian town for burial. The killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb troops was the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two. A service to bury 136 newly-identified victims will take place on Saturday, 20 years to the day since the massacre began. Another 6,241 victims have already been identified. —BBC News, July 9, 2015

Place of silver,
place of bullets,
place of silver bullets.
Silently they tread dusty roads,
silently they climb into flatbed trucks,
silently they arrive at the wayside of their slaughter.

Place of silver,
place of bullets,
place of silver bullets.
Into the backs of young men and boy’s heads, the pop, pop
     of silver bullets.
Into shallow roadside graves they are dumped,
their corpses shoveled over.

Place of silver,
place of bullets
place of silver bullets.
Under the ground of history they are stacked,
            full of silver bullets,
another layer of bodies silently compressed
and we are left to harvest what will arise from this.


Sandra Sidman Larson, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has three chapbooks to her credit: Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Over a Threshold of Roots, (both Pudding House Press Publications) and Weekend Weather: Calendar Poems.  Recognized as a full-length manuscript finalist for the 2013 Lost Horse Press’ Idaho Prize for Poetry and the 2015 Trio House Press Trio Award, she was also a semi-finalist in the 2015 Concrete Press’ chapbook competition. Her poetry has been published in many venues such as the Atlanta Review, Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters, and The New Verse News. She has been active in the social justice movement through her long career and over the years has attempted to use poetry as a way to communicate both political and personal concerns and aspirations. Holding an MSW, Sandra managed nonprofit organizations for a career, and, as a poet, she is an active member of The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and is currently hoping to see her manuscript, Distance in My Hands, published one of these days.

THERE WILL BE PARTIES

by Atar Hadari

Margaret Thatcher has died. There will be parties
Up and down the seams of coal
At the Trades Club, the Workers’ Associations, tubs
Of ale will be up-ended, dominoes
Will click across the boards, foaming mugs fail
To capture what the people will try to carol
That she didn’t quite stamp the soul
Out of every seam of the remaining factory trail,
Out of every cup in a palm held out for some help.
But will they be rejoicing
Equally in the halls
Where those who ruled this country fully
Before Margaret now rule it all
And for a while they were haunted
By this girl who knew every call
Of the metallurgist’s numbered table,
She knew what was silver, what was gold
And the basest element – the fire
That burns in people’s soul
That she knew how to ignite with a lyre
And it is burning again, now that she no longer cares
Burning and turning, turning like a ribbon in the wind,
A flag, like something from the Wat Tyler rebellion
Before he was cut down by the King’s men.


Atar Hadari was born in Israel, raised in England, and studied poetry in the US. His Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of H. N. Bialik (Syracuse University Press) was a finalist for the American Literary Translators’ Association Award, his collection Rembrandt’s Bible will be published by Indigo Dreams on July 8.