A YOUNGER NETANYAHU RETURNS TO ADDRESS HIS OLDER SELF

by Gordon Gilbert

"What terrorists do is target the innocent deliberately, and therefore my definition of terrorism is… the systematic and deliberate attack, murder, maiming and menacing of innocent civilians for political goals.... You can tell a lot about terrorists and what happens when they come to power. Those who fight for freedom and come to power do not impose terrorism.  Those who do, who fight in terroristic means, end up being masters of terroristic states."  —Benjamin Netanyahu to William F. Buckley on Firing Line, May 30, 1986.

Ah, Bibi, habibi!

 

You are not the man I thought I'd be,

no, not the one I find I have become.

I always knew how absolutely

power does corrupt.

I see now how just knowing that

was not enough to keep me

on a path of righteousness,

or save me from myself,

my own worst enemy.

 

So much suffering for all,

and in the end,

so much worse for Israel,

even now, as I,

the man you used to be,

confront you!

 

But no, I must say "we."

I am the former you.

Can you not see

you once were me?

 

We are taking down with us

our own beloved Israel!

 

Ah, Bibi, habibi,

what have we become?

Gordon Gilbert is a resident of the West Village in NYC who got through the pandemic taking long walks along the Hudson River.

AT THE MAINE LOBSTER FESTIVAL

by Jake Murel

Maine Lobster Festival, August 2-6, 2023

Click, clack, clock, go calling claws

Of arthropods in steel-cage cells,

Clambering en masse to escape the maw

Boiling broth, bubbling hell.

 

Snap, snip, clip, cameras click,

Twice-captured crustaceans, cowering each

Jostled and jumping, tossing kicks

Against suffering steam in seething screech.

 

Crack, crick, creek, shells break

With silent shrieks in summer sun

As tourists taste torture that makes

Lobster death-camp fun.

Jake Murel is a private individual and, as such, does not enjoy biographical statements. His own poetry has appeared in The Journal of Formal Poetry, The Lyric, and many other venues.

PASSOVER 2023

by Eric Greene

The Israelites were told that if they painted their doorposts with lamb's blood, their first-born child would not be killed by the angel.

The Angel of Death 
is running amok
 
and no amount 
of lamb’s blood
 
smeared 
on the schoolroom doors 
will keep him away
 
Columbine, Red Lake, Virginia Tech
 
No cup of sweet wine
will dull the suffering
 
Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Santa Fe
 
No bitter herb
will burn 
like a mother's pain
 
Oxford, Robb Elementary, Michigan State
 
In bondage 
once again
 
with no exodus 
in sight
 
we wait 
for the next child 
to be taken
 
The Covenant School… 
 
 
Eric Greene is a longtime member of The Southeast Michigan Poetry Workshop Group. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News and other online publications.

I DO BLAME YOU

by David Radavich

 You brought us the gift

 of potential death.

 

 Not wearing a mask,

 not distancing,

 

 not deigning

 to get a vaccine.

 

 And now the whole

 family is sick—

 generations—

 

 and the threat

 has taken up residence

 in our very house.

 

 Thank you 

 for reminding us

 

 the end is not far off—

 maybe soon—

 

 disease is

 a form of politics,

 

 and we are all one

 in our shared suffering.

 

 If we didn’t believe

 in community, we do now.

 

 Let us hope healing 

 comes fast and the goat

 scapes into the woods.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His forthcoming book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

SCREWGED

by Shelly Blankman

‘Tis the night before Christmas

and all through the House,

where the reps were so hopeful,

the Senate’s a louse.

T***p kills funds to feed families

as long food lines grow. 

Our incomes are shriveling

while his own funds flow.

The White House is lit 

with bright colors galore 

while suffering lingers

among the Black, Brown, and poor.

Small businesses are dying

while T***p continues to tweet

months after numbers 

clearly show his defeat. 

Not one single tweet 

about the sick and the dead

Medics, now heroes.

Hospitals now out of beds.

He pardons the thugs,

the rich white and male,

because white lives matter

while Blacks linger in jail.

He’s neglected the needs

he was sworn to protect.

In the end those he cared about

were extremely select. 

So Merry Christmas to all,

And to all a good night.

May next year be better

with T***p out of sight!

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland. She is author of Pumpkinhead, a collection of her poetry, printed for her as a surprise by her two sons, Richard and Joshua, currently quarantined in New York and Texas, respectively. Shelly's poetry has been published in a number of journals, including First Literary Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Verse-Virtual.

TEARS

by Mariana Mcdonald

People who have coronavirus can also spread the illness through their tears. Touching tears or a surface where tears have landed can be another portal to infection. —American Academy of Ophthalmology, March 10, 2020

Today I learn
the virus
has been found
in tears.

And I think, yes,
in tears,
in suffering,

in recycled masks,
in the hurried funeral
family members can’t attend.

The virus
has been found

In tears.


Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, public health scientist, and activist.

WE BECAME FRAGMENTS

by Tricia Knoll





The video: a Syrian boy, Ibraheem, says he has seen
everything. We come to believe he has. The bombs and skies
blew one of his legs into shriveled tags. His mother died.
His siblings died. He and his father found a way to Canada.

We became fragments. Let me not usurp what it means
to pivot on crutches that carry his thin leg along with him.
Let me not pretend I have suffered as he has. Let me hope
that over time his life will coalesce. He will feel safe.

The bits and pieces of our fractured world are myriad,
scattered across so many continents and living next door.
In this time we must sew, knit, darn, secure, bind, mend,
link, weave, patch together, perhaps heal.


Tricia Knoll is an Oregon writer whose poetry book How I Learned to Be White (an investigation of how white privilege has impacted her life and how she has come to understand it) is now available from Antrim House. 

CLEANING UP AFTER THE HURRICANE

by Joan Mazza

 

                           for those still suffering

Along the streets of New York, Long Island,

and Staten Island, mounds of debris at the curb

after Hurricane Sandy. Couches and bedding,

pillows and papers, broken dinnerware.

Soggy books already molding. Boats on lawns,

cars deluged. Homes washed away or burned.

Like after Andrew in Miami—

equal to thirty years worth of garbage,

truck after truck in a caravan to the landfill.

Years of clothing gone, some new, coats

knitted sweaters, handmade quilts, towels,

embroidered tablecloths. Trashed.

Some things can’t be replaced by insurance:

the stuffed dog I’ve had since I was three,

my notebooks with first drafts of poetry.

family portraits on the wall, these pie tins

handled by my mother, ladle my grandmother

brought back from Italy. Beloved junk.

 
Joan Mazza has worked as a psychotherapist, writing coach, certified sex therapist, and medical microbiologist, has appeared on radio and TV as a dream specialist. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Putnam). Her work has appeared in Kestrel, Stone’s Throw, Rattle, Writer's Digest, Playgirl, and Writer's Journal. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia.