THE DAILY BRIEF

by Michal Rubin

Counting backwards. Day 318 of a war. 

Yesterday the yard flooded,

an email hollered at me-

“317 days of slaughter”.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 303 of a war.

Ishaq starved to death. His motorcycle

remained under the rubble,

he loved it. The motorcycle. He didn’t holler.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 300 of a war.

West of the city, carrying food on his

bike, Khaled rode too close 

to the missile. Burial site unknown.

I apologized.

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Counting backwards. Day 36 of a war. 

I am at a conference. Unseasonably warm. 

I brought the wrong clothes. Elham 

dropped the embroidered bag when 

a sniper’s bullet reached her.

I apologized.

 

Counting backwards. Day 13 of a war.

In a poem Hiba wrote “We are not just

transients passing”. Her poems rippled

through the world, she was killed. 

At home. An airstrike.

I apologized.

 

In a beginning. Day 1 of this war.

Clear sky, a small pond, 

a gentle fall in SC. Horror

surges afar. No flutter in this pond.

I call home—

I don't apologize.

Michal Rubin is an Israeli, living in Columbia, SC. The impetus for her writing came from the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a  psychotherapist, a Cantor and a poet, she brings forth the challenge of distinguishing truths from myths, awareness vs. denial, conformity vs. individuation. Her work was published in Psychotic Education,  The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal,  Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry,  Fall-Lines,  The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal,  South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023, Palestine-Israel Journal, Critical Muslim, and a chapbook published by Cathexis Northwest Press.

BLADING

by Daniel Romo

Abdullah the Butcher

The politician wasn’t struck in the assassination attempt

and only his ear was grazed, but the trickle of his blood caused

          half the country to cry, Hero!

          and the other half to yell, Staged!

though no one can deny 

octogenarians are more brittle bones 

than bulletproof, and 

all’s fair in love and reward.

 

There are those who claim we never landed on the Moon 

and those who maintain the Earth is flat,

yet that doesn’t change the fact that 

           Abdullah the Butcher 

secretly sliced his forehead with a razorblade during matches 

in the days when wrestling was supposed to be 

                     considered real,

and his blood poured down onto his opponents 

like a christening for non-believers in the crowd 

at a baptism rooted in amusement      

and self-mutilation.

 

My dad didn’t initially recognize me as I visited

him and my mom this weekend

and blamed it on his cataracts.

And while that may be the cause,

I clearly see what’s to come 

for us all. 

 

When a platform is based upon pretending 

and failure to acknowledge that it’s not true sport 

but entertainment,

who could blame the public’s skepticism 

when a former president is clipped by a sniper 

and seconds later raises his fist to Heaven

as if not giving praise, but 

milking the most out of 

                                life’s misses?

 

I’m sure the candidate will still be able to hear 

from his right ear 

but never listen.

 

I’m sure my dad will continue to deny

the natural by-products of his age

 

because lies build like

scar tissue piled up upon skin,

like fresh dirt piled upon 

graves. 

Daniel Romo is half curve ball, half prose poem, half bodega. Proof at danieljromo.com.

UKRAINE HAIKU

by G. R. Kramer

On May 20, Dmytro Kozatskyi, a soldier of the #Azov Regiment posted his photos of the defenders of #Mariupol, calling on the world media and those who can help to distribute them. "Well, that's all. Thank you for the shelter; Azovstal is the place of my death and life. See you".

all across the road

blood of butchered                  root in cracks

seed of black spring             bloom

 

weapon

 

below white flowers

we lie with the fray of bees

nowhere people are

 

child

 

mir meant peace to both

when trees leafed over laughter

now           stumps             stand    their     ground

 

      explosive

 

see how the flies help

keep down             the odor of rot

old men in ditches

 

witness

 

may the good endure

tanks missiles sunflowers plows

may the lost                    return

 

annihilate

 

family        stained             red

parlor tatters                      open sky

empty sniper eyes

 

artillery

 

war machines rust out

wind blown blood loam covers steppe

lily bulbs open

 

memory

 

when do nations live

empires feed         death to their dead

human history

 

for get       ting

 

mothers of soldiers

whose blood drains to the black sea

mothers of soldiers

 

G. R. Kramer grew up in Canada, Kenya and the U.S., the child of refugees from fascism and communism. A lawyer by vocation, his passion for writing poetry has rekindled in late middle-age. His first poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Finish Line Press and he has published in numerous journals. 

SALIENTS

by Mara Adamitz Scrupe

Adamitz Scrupe's original drawings “Fallible” (left) and “What” are from a series entitled “Mourning Drawings”. More information about these and other artwork is available at www.scrupe.com.

                        in meth lab country              we shove rags           

                                                                                    in our mouths           

so nobody knows      we’re             abandoned   

lately I hear   more

            than I have in years in referendum’s         heat

so hot

                         we’re home-stunned/ advantaged still     

whispering/ triumphal:       if all my dreams         came true                              

            rednecks & crackers            & good old boys        

(accurate as anything           I guess) alongside my aunties & uncles

& first cousins left-behind Jack Pine Savages      if you’re looking up  

 north

            know a .22’s perfect for squirrel     dead aim blind

            sharpshooters           in this homegrown war you never

saw coming    & the angels of our better natures shift

                        to snipers/ take the blunt/ try hard          not to die

 (for whatever that’s worth)                        & journalists opine

            & pundits outline options    it won’t last    long    

or        get off your over-educated asses       & rumble        

                                    respectively

            & the spotlight's on misfits & white woman renegades & lip

service & the other audience/ the other side/ half          over the shoulder

                        patriots           ever bruise-less         ever unblemished

 cocksure until                       

            today the tree guy I’ve known since he was a twelve year old kid                 

                     came by (& Iraq        & Afghanistan  & a bad attitude)

stands at my door  we two in-country real-life rural witnessers       

            we in the fire             we       waiting it out in a gale hermetic

as felted wool            we two     fixed        in the blind spot      

                                                            our salients                spelled out

Mara Adamitz Scrupe is a writer and visual artist. She was born and raised in Minnesota and has lived in Virginia for the past thirty years. While both her home and her adopted States went for the Democratic candidate, she’s pretty sure almost all of her relatives voted Republican.

NOT READY TO BE SILENT

for James Baldwin

by Carolyn Gregory

“The week started with scenes from a cellphone video of an African-American man lying on the ground being fatally shot by a Louisiana police officer, and an astonishing Facebook Live feed of a woman in Minnesota narrating after her African-American boyfriend was killed by an officer during a traffic stop. It ended with horrific live television coverage of police officers’ being gunned down by at least one sniper at what had been a peaceful march protesting the police shootings.” —The New York Times, July 8, 2016 Photo: A spray-painted mural on a building on Foster Drive in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday, where Alton Sterling was shot to death by a police officer two days earlier. Credit William Widmer for The New York Times.

No, I do not want to be integrated
into a burning house
where the roof collapses
and firemen die in the rubble,

forced to stay silent when
the sirens fly by in the dark
and guns shoot the innocent.

I do not want to live
in a field of burning red poppies,
shocking in their color
against fallen gray homes
bombed down to bedrock.

My life means more than this.
I am not ready to walk silent
into a cemetery to lie down
with all the unnamed dead.

Carolyn Gregory has published poems and music reviews in American Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Seattle Review. Her first and second books were published by Windmill Editions in Florida.

THE TWO ALEPPOS

by Judith Terzi

"He targets the genitals but also likes kill shots to the head and chest."

The Karaj al Hajez crossing that spans Aleppo's Queiq River is a no man's land where Syrian residents are picked off daily by a government sniper. --Raja Abdulrahim reporting from Aleppo, Syria, The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 21, 2013.

The crossing spans a river. A no man's land.
A sniper lurks inside Aleppo's City Hall somewhere.
Some victims are lucky, lose only a foot or hand.

Families are separated, the sniper doesn't care.
Yesterday three boys, four girls were killed.
A sniper lurks inside Aleppo's City Hall somewhere.

Mortar fire is heard. Boxes of groceries spill.
And blood. Victims are carried to the rebel side.
Today three women, four babies are killed.

This division of a city allows nowhere to hide.
Cross over the bridge to study, to work, to shop.
The triage team saves lives on the rebel side.

How long can a people bear the danger, the chaos?
An old man bleeds to death, fear forever ebbed.
Cross over the bridge to study, to work, to shop.

In the middle of the terror, a dusty woman begs.
The crossing spans a river. A no man's land.
An old man bleeds to death, fear forever ebbed.
Some victims are lucky, lose only a foot or hand.


Recent poems by Judith Terzi have appeared or are forthcoming in: Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle Press); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo Press); The Raintown Review; Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes Press); and elsewhere. Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line.