Projects – Page 14

Refugee Strength Canoe | Rose Menyon Heflin

Refugee Memories: A Tanka Sequence

I.
Precious memories
Drawn upon in times of need
Of those bygone days
Days of tight togetherness
Days of happiness and peace

II.
Days of calm beauty
Days of small, mundane pleasures
Days of great laughter
Days of friends and families -
All those days before the war

III.
Before the fighting
Before conscription happened
Before the bombs dropped
Before all the suffering
Before you fled for your life

IV.
When you had great dreams
When you had a full belly
When you had purpose
When you had a loving home
When you had a bright future

V.
Now all that is gone
As air raid sirens echo
And you find yourself
In a nebulous limbo
With just memories

Previously published in Poetry for Ukraine Anthology from THE POET.

Strength: An Ode to Refugees in Tanka

I.
Leaving home behind
Children and grandma in tow
You flee so quickly
Hoping to one day return
Knowing it may not happen

II.
You may not go back
Or it may not be the same
Still, you leave it all
Putting both past and present
So very far behind you

III.
Fleeing for your life
With just what you can carry
Leaving memories
Embarking on a journey
Its end completely foreign

IV.
The not knowing hurts
As does the thought of the life
That you leave behind
Yet, you find the strength to go
To push past all of the pain

V.
Forward you progress
Knowing suffering awaits
Knowing tears and grief
Knowing uncertainty lurks
Knowing that you must survive

VI.
Just trying your best
To live another dark day
You have no comfort
All you know is misery
And fear - so very much fear

VII.
But you still persist
Calling on the great power
Of your freedom sweet
Calling on your ancestors
Calling on internal strength

The Indian War Canoe: A Tanka Sequence

I.
Prepared for battle,
Both God and Mother Nature
Firmly at her bow,
The Indian War Canoe
Glides across the blue waters,

II.
Sailed by warriors,
All of whom will gladly die
On this fine fall day
As they shoot so skillfully
From their right front hip pockets.

III.
The dirt scrapes her hull -
A foul taste deep in her soul -
As they drag her hard.
Finally, she feels water
And is at her best once more.  

IV.  
She is old and wise,
This Indian War Canoe -
Very trustworthy.
As anger fills men’s black hearts,
Battlecries will rend the skies.

V.
Animal paintings
Adorn the canoe’s bark sides.
Grease-streaked faces focus.
Some will live to tell the tale
Of the bloodshed and the waves.

VI.
Others will perish,
Consumed by rage and water.
When the blood is spilled,
The Indian War Canoe
Will drift solemnly to shore.

Indian War Canoe
Emily Carr
Alert Bay, 1912 Oil on cardboard 65 x 955 cm
The Montreal Museum of Emily Carr
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Previously published in Issue 24 of Fireflies’ Light on September 7, 2021

Rose Menyon Heflin…

…won a Merit Award for her poetry from Arts for All Wisconsin in both 2021 and 2022, one of her poems was performed by a dance troupe, and she had a CNF piece featured in the Chazen Museum’s Companion Species exhibit. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Deep South Magazine (Ode to Summer Rain and Gone), Fireflies’ Light, Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, Isotrope, Of Rust and Glass, Pamplemousse, Poemeleon, Red Weather, and San Antonio Review.

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Holding Onto My Last Breath | Joe Hesch

I’m told there will come a time
when all will be revealed,
that moment just before you leave
where the Universe gives it up
to your virgin consciousness
and you go, ahhhhh….
And as great as that sounds,
you’ll note that your expression
of finally acquiring that enlightenment
comes in an exhalation,
more than likely your last.
I know that doesn’t sound fair,
but once you discover what
all this back-breaking, toil
and trouble life was for,
let alone about, what else is there
but to sound a short A?
Unless it’s a long ohhhhhh.
I suppose that’s why I intend
to hold my breath like a five-year-old
who won’t eat his Brussels sprouts
on that day when the Universe
comes a’knocking with my serving
of The Way, as the Buddhists might
intone. They call it nirvāṇa,
which is Sanskrit for “blowing out.”
That’s kind of what I’ve been saying,
only with an ahhhhh rather than an ohmmm.
Another translation is “liberation,”
which sounds so much better, because
I’d rather be freed from this
troubled coil, than blown out again
like a rotten basketball team,
or permanently, like a candle.
Ohm, shanti, shanti, shanti, y’all.
(Just in case.)

For those of us who don't know Sanskrit, and I only know enough to get through a beginner's yoga practice video, "Shanti" means "Peace." So, I bid you all peace because we sure as hell need it. And so do I. So do I.

Peace Like Grass in an Old Shell Hole | Joe Hesch

I can tell this war isn’t over yet,
despite swords sheathed and rifles in a stack.
I still feel the hot blood pound in my head
which they’d gladly sever with a back-turned hack.

They've called a truce, a temporary thing,
a pause in hostilities until then.
What’s then? Do we wait for a bell to ring? 
No, I’m sure it’ll be them tells us when.

The other side’s used to having their way,
gives them perverse joy to keep us at war.
They’ll keep up an act of good will, then say,
enough of this “make nice.” Peace is a bore.

Yeah, that’s how it is with this type of foe,
a bully, a narcissist or a thug.
They sometimes hate themselves, but then, you know,
feel better after squishing you like a bug.

Hey, for now, maybe they’ll keep that concealed,
‘cause they use charm and lies as weapons, too.
When it’s over you can walk off that field.
But, just in case, I’ll watch your back when you do.

A hush will come on that front of your soul,
your wounds will fade like the ink on this rhyme.
Like nature reclaims the battle's shell hole,
love will bring your scarred heart peace. Love and time.

Order of Battle | Pete Howard

Order of Battle

The struggle for peace requires nothing short of total war.
Accomplishing victory with the deployment of unconventional weapons.
Like love,
Wielded by:
Squads of sympathizers
Platoons of providers
Companies of caregivers
Battalions of believers
Regiments of realists
Divisions of dedicated
Corps of compassionate
Armies of activists
And then, united and unyielding in the face of it. The scourge of nature and humanity will truly be defeated.

Peter Howard…

…is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University where he majored in history and minored in social studies. He is very interested in events and people of the past and the present. He has worked at a non-profit for individuals with intellectual disabilities for over a decade and enjoys writing poetry, as well as the visual arts.

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Garden Photograph Blues | Dorothy Johnson-Laird

This Garden

You see all we have is this garden. 
These bare, raw, hardened hands.
All we have is this garden. 
This earth to grow with, these plants to root for. 

All we have is this gathering of brother, sister, father, son.
They come here to garden together,
To break bread and sip water in the dusk.

In this garden, love was made. 
Children grew and learned the flowers, 
And grew some more and learned to plant. 

The old woman with her white, white hair
Comes here to work the corn. 
She sings to the children as they gather at her feet. 
They can recognize the sound of her deep, husky voice. 
“We shall overcome, we shall overcome,” her voice embraces the night air
The children memorize the song until they can sing it back to her. 

You see they want to call this land real estate. 
They think they can split it apart at the center, 
Destroy its twisty paths, willow tree. 

They think more of a community can be made by 
Gutting the earth and slapping concrete over it, charging per square mile. 

They imagine that the love this garden was made with can be uprooted, 
Tossed to the side. 
They have forgotten the feel of fresh corn in hardened hands, 
How the sun strokes your back as you work the tomatoes.
They have forgotten that a child’s wisdom isn’t always found in books. 

This garden was a refuge for the children
In the hustle of this crazy city, 
To try to prevent them from running wild on the Lower East side 
When the streets are layered with drugs, syringes, anger. 

Maude with her white hair and bustling energy 
Has spent hours tending to this sweetness.
She knows the way to create with plants,
How to tend to them, 
Caress them with her fingertips, even sing to them.
  
She won’t let anyone hurry her. 
She is stubborn with her blue cotton scarf on 
And a tunic that contains her gardening shears, her winterized gloves.

The men with the bulldozer have come.
But Maude saw them from down the block, long before they arrived.  
She just sits down, planting herself on the earth,   
Rooted as a wizened tree 
She blocks their passage at the garden’s entrance 

“They cannot enter” she sings to herself “They cannot enter.” 
The children sing behind her, echoing her. 
And then she lets out a big belly laugh, 
She cackles at them, not saying a word. 
In her firm, rooted place, nothing and no-one’s going to move her now,
                    Not even their big engine.

A Rose
Digital Art
Miroslava Panayotova ©2022

Harriet’s Last Photograph

In the last year of your life, they took a photo of you.
It was a formal picture.
You were seated outside in a large wooden chair,
You were seated upright, the green lawn falling away behind you, The trees marked a background in the distance.

Your eyes looked out far beyond the camera lens.
Your eyes looked away from the camera's eye in defiance,
You were not going to smile in that moment.
You were not going to pretend happiness:
It was impossible for you,
Not after the years of fighting.
You were not going to let the viewer of that photograph forget your journeys, The way your hands had lifted up young slave children from the floor, Pulling them onto your back,
Stepping out into the cold winter night, with no possibility of going back, Finding a way to keep going forward.

In this last photo they took of you,
You were dressed all in white, with a shawl wrapped around your thinning face, White hair cut close to your head.
You were strong, yet a model of peace.

Looking out beyond the camera, what did you see?
Perhaps you still carried within you
Those old journeys to freedom, hiding behind newspapers,
Lodging yourself between cars on trains,
When they set dogs on you, you disappeared.
You had a way of knowing how to find the shadows of walls in the middle of sun-light. It was a power that they could never know or pull apart.

Harriet, you were born different from the other girls.
Less passive, you carried yourself upright,
When the other girls giggled or looked down at the ground.

Araminta was your birth name, it meant defender of the people.
Once you crossed the line to freedom, you could have remained North,
But each time, even though your hands were worn out, your feet were calloused from miles of walking. You determined to go back again to rescue someone.
You said, “I never lost a passenger”

You were 94 years old in this photograph.
Even though you were aged, you gripped the chair's arm firmly. The toughness was still inside you.
It allowed you to journey forward
No matter what came your way.

Irises
Digital Art
Miroslava Panayotova ©2022

Manhattan Lock Down Blues

Woke up this morning with the Manhattan lock down blues 
Said I woke up this morning with the Manhattan lock down blues 
Something came over this country 
And I can no longer lace my shoes 

Someone has stolen the economy and sent it out with the rain 
Someone has stolen the economy and sent it out with the rain 
Companies are starting to crash, jobs going down the drain 

He’s a mad magician pulling feathers from his hat 
But has the Doctor told him where the rabbit's at? 
The narcissist has taken over 
His twitter feed has gone wild 
Now even more journalists must fact check his lies 

The police have become the military 
Shooting at random with no restraint 
The police are now an army 
And they are starting to look insane 

Woke up this morning with the Manhattan lock down blues 
Said I woke up this morning with the Manhattan lock down blues 
There’s a Mad Hatter in Washington 
Who is out on another tirade

Meanwhile, the sirens in New York city soar 
And a thousand homeless people are not rescued from their shelter 
Don’t mention the unemployed who must decide between rent or hunger 
And the person who doesn’t have a voice to express his anger

As the virus numbers peak 
Mr 45 says he is not so sick
And he breathes heavily outside the White House front door 

Mr 45 claims there’s an easy cure 
Perhaps he wants to distract the public with his talk of greatness again
But he’s left his medicine in the Hospital with his hydroxychloroquine brain

Dorothy Johnson-Laird…

…is a poet, social worker, and activist who lives in New York City. She received a B.A. in creative writing from New School University and an M.F.A in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Dorothy also works as a music journalist with a passion in African music. She has published journalism with Afropop Worldwide and World Music Central, among others.

A recent poem was accepted for publication by Evening Street Review.

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Be Change—3 Sonnets | Peter Lilly

Fights

Men will clutch at illusions when
they have nothing else to hold onto.
—Czeslaw Milosz

Presuppositions, carrots, sticks and stones.
Break my bones. Re-mortgage my fractured home.
A system built on never ending loans
Will divide against itself and implode.
It’s hard to kick against the fiscal goads, 
But people remain people, even so.
There comes a time when they will seek themselves
And find their shelves of purchases to be
Their allocated eternal dwelling,
As decided by the salesmen who delve
Into new definitions of this free
Doom. Despite the great reckoning welling
In the hearts of the masses, wound up tight,
The violence sparked will not be the good fight.

The Good Fight

I’ll fight your rope, your rules, your hope
As your sparrow does under your supervision!
—Jack Mapanje

The good fight is not in the violence
But the grueling daily grind of being
Fully present. Movable in silence
And in shouting. Invisibly seeing 
The power behind the play, and playing.
But taking the game from the arena
And into the sand-pit where it belongs.
Noticing the blood, tending the lesions,
Both broken nose and cut knuckle. Weighing
Not the trifling arrest and subpoena
But the breath, every note of tragic songs,
And every synthesized social adhesion.
Bandwagons of revolution comply.
If your hope is in them, it’s already died.

Revolutionary

There is one thing, and only one thing,
in which it is granted to you to be free
in life, all else is beyond your power:
that is to recognize and profess the truth.
—Leo Tolstoy

To be a revolutionary is to 
Let your living make the mightiest noise,
Not to write a message of peace in blood,
Or let a movement’s leader dictate to you.
It’s not to find the tribe that fits your voice
But to reject tribalism for good,
As a concept and as a condition.
You don’t prove you’re not a pig by grunting
In protest against the proposition.
You must be changed to be change to see change,
And know the bed-rock of what you’re wanting
Beneath the gargantuan mountain range 
Of rough rubble reasons rabble rousing,
To the meat of the hope you’re espousing.

Peter Lilly…

…is a British Poet who grew up in Gloucester before spending eight years in London studying theology and working with the homeless. He now lives in the South of France with his wife and son, where he concentrates on writing, teaching English, and community building. His recent and forthcoming publications include Dreich Broad 3, Paddler Press Issue 4, Archetype Issue 1, Radix Magazine, Spillwords and Lothlorien Poetry Issue 7.

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letters, gunshots, another dream, and more | Lonnie Monka

I’ve been sending letters to various
areas controlled by the islamic
state

explaining how peaceful & loving ways of life are possible
that to kill in the name of God is mistaken
& that a little dialogue could do wonders

I sent poems describing a future world without war
& inspiring quotes from political & religious leaders

then
          one day
                    I received a reply:
“to the dreamer who mistakes a nightmare for paradise”
          it began
“it is beyond us to know if by God you mean Allah
          yet let us assure you
a thirsty man lost in the desert may find a pool of pure water
          revive himself
& then run off to share his hydrating discovery
          until the pool is depleted
such is your state
          you call out to God
to control the rain
          & to replenish the empty form
which memories & stories claim was filled
          with purity
we
          by the power of Allah
will move from pool to pool

decimating fraudulent temples erected not to worship
          but to control the rain
until the whole world submits to Allah
          & our expansion ceases
leaving only a pure motion

dams will not be erected
          as people flow across the land
no different than water
          across the earth

you speak of love & peace
          but
you only want us to pay taxes
          to erect more static artifices

& please
          from now on
use extra postage
as we grow
          our operations carry more overhead”

gunshots in the distance

          in distinct intervals
marked by a sloppy unison
          of soldiers at the firing range
the odd out-of-sync shots
          blossom into a single roaring echo
as I lay in a bush-filled field
          surrounded by weeds of varying heights

perched in a weed’s canopy

          of white flowers
a white spider
          waits

black flies & red beetles
          scrummage through the bed of sweets
climbing beside & even over
          the still white spider

its body mounted
          by little legs
while two longer white legs
          extend half bent in the air

till certain sized flies pass
          its face
triggering those long thin legs
          to swoop down
striking prey dragged
          into a hungry face

sometimes when released
          those bodies fall motionless
& sometimes they begin
          mid-air to fly

Falling spider, invisible thread
Digital Art from Photograph
Michael Dickel ©2022

another dream

          of two soldiers in a watchtower
                    talking through the night
will history judge us poorly?
          one asked
                    & his friend said
yes & no
          since history forgives the perpetrators
                    with a flare
for watching those who suffer most
          as those
                    who inherit evil

so they say

an M-16 in someone's hand asserts: kill or be killed
it only argues with adults—whereas children
they deafen all arguments into chatter

a stray dog doesn't know that it roams about as if it's not a target
a tree couldn't care less that it can sustain many bullet wounds
a wall must separate sides—no matter its thickness

it's fine if we're mistakenly standing on some graveyard
it's ok if you can't stop all people from fighting
it's nice to take care of a cat that you dislike

let all the varied kinds of privileged people tell you what's right
let thoughts of distant violence grow more distant
let yourself breathe—simple & stupid—grinning like a gorilla

it's alright if the news improves its powers of seduction
it's alright if one day the sun just burns out
it's alright if you desire—deviously—to litter a little

even if ambiguous firework-explosions startle you
if you move & speak according to what you believe is right
it's good if life & death dissolve into some unspeakable truth

veteran field

—for Mr. Visher

both before our lives and before our eyes
           upon every death before us we live
thoughtlessly leaping from this height to that
           we continue & learn also to love
to continue living as if stable
           upon whatever ground beneath our feet:
our subtle world produces fertile soil
           like this lush field where children play—knowing not
how they grow upon the dead body parts
           of some passing war & of all thought as war:

with ever-shifting translucent pillars
death supports all mortal experience

waning & waiting

bullets whiz
           past people’s ears
every day
           on city streets
I have shot
           the same gun
others have used
           for suicide

the stop signs have
           no gun holes here
the sun is blocked
           from flirting strands
of light—flickering
           with the rising
& the setting
           of lust-filled days:
maybe tomorrow
           I’ll find her
perhaps I will pull
           hard on her hair

every day
           I wake up
a blinded bird
           that craves to fly:
who can resist
           the savage pleasure
of pushing hard
against the air?

Lonnie Monka…

…founded Jerusalism, a non-profit organization to promote Israeli literature in English. He is a PhD student at Hebrew University, researching the intersection of modernist art and orality through a study of David Antin’s talk-poems, and he is currently an OWL Lab Fellow.

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The Bellicose Vein | Bruce Morton

The Bellicose Vein

Which or why matters not.
It would be best to forget
The whole damned lot.
But what do you want to bet
That we will go for a rerun.
		 
We will do as we have done,
Enlist the starry-eyed young,
Stack them like cordwood
Tight in the barrack bunks
Prepared to feed the flame.
		 
We will play the patriot's game,
Wave the flag and sing the song
Fight for right and right wrong
And it will not be long, again, before
We exhume the past, bury the future.

Bruce Morton…

…divides his time between Montana and Arizona. His poems have appeared an many magazines, most recently Grey Sparrow Journal, Rat’s Ass Review, The BeZine, Ibbetson Street, and Muddy River Poetry Review.

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Petrichor ArtLab speaks on the war in Ukraine

Abduction

Trading fire

What grabs but never gives? The rusty heart of war. Looting? What’s left to plunder from ruins? Even poetry fled weeks ago! Easter bears witness to mass graves.

The combatants trade fire. Who’s keeping the books in this commerce of souls? Accounts fatten. Bombers seed fields with bullets. Recruits plant landmines and harvest death. Drones hover over tanks. Murder hornets rarely miss a mark.

Summer is almost here. We will irrigate the land with our blood, the defenders vow. Survivors huddle in skeletal tenements, bent over smoky fires. Soon enough winter will rule a famished land. It’s only a matter of time.

Naked City

Ghosts

It’s a downtown traffic jam: ghosts are piling up in deserted avenues, scrambling over one another, frantic to leave. Indecent haste: they have not mourned their humans. Keening screeches like sirens.

Radiation wafts from embers in shattered towers. The wind plays dirges on bare wires and chimney stacks. A hotspot glows under late snow: the neighborhoods will be poisoned for years. Free land to the uninformed or reckless? There are no takers.

The ravens’ work is done. Geese paddle serenely in blasted waterways. Abandoned cats and other strays figure out a living. A tabby gives birth under a porch. A maternity hospital lies in ruins.

Latin IV

Work

Swiss cheese: a latticework of mousework, housework for a dog. Homework for a cat: I will study the habits of rodents, she thinks. I will unravel this dark matter. It matters.

Tunnels under Mariupol seethe with cats and dogs. Humans fall silent. The rats are all above ground. They have nowhere to hide. A lacework of sun and shadow streams through bombed-out buildings. The rats hide in their thoughts. We hide in our prayers.

In a mirror image world, sewers tunnel through air. Sceptic tanks overflow. Record of a pandemic. Panic sets in. We hide in our prayers. The rats hide in fear.

All over? Not quite. Quiet. I wait for the world to be quiet.

Petrichor ArtLab…

…Petrichor ArtLab is Boston-area artist Jeffrey Lipsky and Ottawa poet Heather Ferguson. Their collaborations have appeared in Experiment-O, and Ygdrasil: A Journal of the Poetic Arts.

Jeffrey creates abstract narratives that are found in galleries, museums and private collections worldwide. He was featured in the New York Times Magazine (Portrait of an Artist as an Avatar – Filthy Fluno – The New York Times (nytimes.com). He recently held an online art exhibit at the Metaverse Art Museum.

Heather is the author of A Mouse in a Top Hat (chapbook, Rideau Review Press) and The Lapidary (special issue, Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts). The Lapidary was later translated into Spanish (four broadsheets) and French (The Lapidary / Le Lapidaire, Vermillon).

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Bloom between drums | Kushal Poddar

Viktor Zaretsky
Ukrainian
Harvesting Flax, 1960

Peace Blooms

Peace blooms a complex flower; 
its petals rivulet in this light; 
I shiver in its impossible implosion. 
Something I lost becomes
almost a grief, albeit not quite. 

Not quite a whispering, and yet 
when you propose availing 
the blossom, say, "Let's use the peacetime,
piece together the pieces our bodies are." 
my ears giggle at your bad pun. 

The flower, if I play 'love/love-me-not' with,
yields a set of inconclusive results as if
we shall never know any better.

The Peacetime in Between

I try my hands at calligraphy.
The letters grow wings,
and some—a garden to sing in.

The expectations of a letter
hits a high note 
as they say, 'The net is restored'.
Yet, not a single mail,
and I close my eyes to envision

some bodies morphed into pebbles
on a foreign road.
The journey of the refugees looks like
a hyphen lettered with a stub nib.

The Drums Listen to Us

Evening beats a drum in the forest temple.
Everyday. I never see any devotee. 

Now I have nothing more to do at the shop,
I pull down the shutters, go home, eat alone,
watch a movie until sleep dawns on me,
and some time after the midnight one feline
with eight scratched-off lives leaps into the room.

The windows are still and sealed. Naked 
and in tight corsets. I try to recall the age 
of the ceasefire. The ethnic drums beat miles afar.
I have lone hands. I think. The milk has outrun its longevity.
I have nothing to do here, or there. Now in peace 
or then during the war.

Kushal Poddar…

…is an author and a father, editor of Words Surfacing, and author of eight books, the latest being Postmarked Quarantine. His works have been translated in eleven languages.

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Raging at an uncommon pace… | Fabrice Poussin

Chasing the Muse

Raging at an uncommon pace
eons accelerating through the stars
little bright spot in the immensity traces
the sign of what it may become
a line disappearing in a soft vibration.

Fleeing to escape modern history
it may never be seen but as a memory
shiny speckle into the depth of an abyss
made of eternity and absent souls.

The poet squints to fix the moment
and imagine the words it may have spoken
echoing for all to hear the dying symphony.

Perhaps it will return with the new dawn
looking for a mate to grow in harmony.

For yet it seeks a rebirth in a hostile sphere.

In the Soul

Some join in the deep of secret hours
behind curtains thick with lies
truth does not know the way in
when they share ultimate fancies.

When dawn comes they will part ways
rushing onto a path into other tragedies
after a night to decades of illusions
they pretended to believe in eternity.

Shells will survive into their world
upon streets of stench and dark asphalt
where they will smile again with faith
that no one will scent their death.

Strange liquid like putrescent molasses
ooze from those living corpses
enveloped by a cloud of love
as they like to make it known on the rooftops.

I would rather walk by her side
Safe, surrounded by her aura
with a touch of her soul upon my breath
inhaling her being through every pore.

Rolls Royce and Little Yachts

Dressed in a bright gown
feet in golden stilettos
she stirs the Lamborghini to a halt
near the Cartier store where she will splurge.

Not far behind her the smoke of a city
fallen to the greed of the would-be gods
a low cloud hovers thick as muck
heavy with the weight of infinite miseries

The tuxedo waiting for her, too dreams
of helicopters and private jets	
lounging on the acres of his vast greens
one step closer to vast fortunes.

Descendant of royalty long forgotten
little, wrinkled by endless suns
alone in the dingy room she cleans
mansions and castles large as her city.

In thousand-dollar Hawaiian suits
others bask on the beach of their own islands
fake hair and skin made of silicon they also go
to the tomb… in million dollar outfits.

Fabrice Poussin…

…is the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication. His writing and photography have been published in print, including Kestrel, Symposium, La Pensee Universelle, Paris, and other art and literature magazines in the United States and abroad. Most recently, his collection In Absentia, was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing.

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Do Something | Jean Rover

Do Something

Can you not hear us?
We can hear you,
“Thoughts and prayers.”
“Thoughts and prayers.”
For how many bodies
on the ground?

“God bless the people of El Paso, you say.
“May God be with all of Dayton,
Charleston, Philadelphia, Orlando,
Sandy Hook, Parkland, Atlanta, Bolder,
Buffalo, and Uvalde.”
On and
      On and
           On and
                  On. 

Sadly, we plead to 
stone-deaf politicians.
No answers, only rancid rhetoric,
followed by dead silence.
Except for,
“Thoughts and prayers.” 
“Thoughts and prayers.”
“We are heartbroken.”

How many more? 
How much more?
Hate and anger like molten
metal spilling hot and fiery, 
torching the earth. 

We are the voices of the dead.
That’s our blood smeared
 on your walls.
 Our bone shards scattered
 on your streets. 

From our graves we shout,
“Do something. Do something.”
Too late for us, but for the living
Please. Please. Please.

Jean Rover…

…is the authorof Touch the Sky, a heart-rending novel, filled with intrigue, about a missing child in Oregon’s backcountry. Her writing has received awards or recognition from Writer’s Digest, Short Story America, Willamette Writers, Oregon Writers Colony, and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Her work has appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies, including the Saturday Evening Post’s Great American Fiction Contest Anthology. Other stories were performed at Liars’ League events in London, England and Portland, Oregon. She has also authored a chapbook, Beneath the Boughs Unseen, featuring holiday stories about society’s invisible people. She lives and writes in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley.

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Three Poems About Ukraine | Alison Stone

Self-Portrait March 2022

Warring nations mingle in my blood—
Russia, Germany, Ukraine, all the great-
great somebodies who boarded ships
pulled toward America’s promise-paved streets.
Their passports all stamped Jew.

My heart’s a non-fungible token,
encrypted. Needing heat.
My eyes hold boat rides on rivers
through glittering cities.
My finger’s locked as though stuck on a gun.

Daily, my legs take me the same loop—
kitchen, bathroom, office, street.
The mountain dwarfs me as expected.
My hands reach for passing dogs.

Clients tell me their dreams—
wolves, staircases, snow, an open window,
terror jumbled with desire. Symbols giving form
to need. Outside, premature crocuses
open dumbly, unaware of the forecasted storm.

The news offers its collection of horrors.
How easily beauty is bombed into meme.
What are you doing about it?
the first spring birds chirp, and no matter
what I stammer, a fat brassy crow
caws not enough.

Chill

Outside our thick locked door, the air grows cold.
Fall plays songs of loss. For an encore, cold.
 
Cascade of tangerine and neon pink–
The dying sun departs in splendor. Cold
 
nights for the too-long married. The furnace
breaks. More than metaphor—the air grows cold.
 
Poe writes his dead love back to him, despite
the tiresome raven’s Nevermore, cold
 
and final. Waves swallow the sand. Sun sets.
How long will stubborn swimmers ignore cold?
 
The power of love versus the might of
power. Who’s stronger, Venus or Thor? Cold,
 
hot, cold, hot—Our wounded planet revolts.
Flood. Drought. Plastic-filled whales wash ashore. Cold.
 
Grandma’s crooked fingers, Cossack-blue eyes.
Gold chai she always wore. The air grows cold
 
near gravestones. Too late to learn her secret
Anatevka dreams. East wind brings more cold.
 
Ukrainian bride strips off her wedding
gown, puts on the uniform of war. Cold
 
metal in her hand. Poets sip the Green
Fairy, enter delicious stupor, cold.
 
The old unfold chairs and umbrellas. Teens
sprawl tanning on the sand, all languor, cold
 
beauty.  Truckers wave swastika flags. Books
are burned in churches. The hungry implore cold
 
gods. In Stone’s empress daydream, two laws: Have
mercy. Plant seeds before the air grows cold.

The Monster
Painting
David A. Amdur ©2022

Russian Soldiers Plant Landmines in Ukrainian Cemeteries

Despite landmines, mourners visit the dead.
Strategy is a cold, barren thing.
Which commands must be obeyed, which ignored?
An army is made up of people.

Strategy is a cold, barren thing,
measuring success in numbers of stopped hearts.
An army is made up of people,
some generous, some mean. All want to live.

Measure success in numbers of stopped hearts.
Count the empty places at tables –
Some generous, some mean, all people want to live.
Children starving in basements eat their hope.

Count the empty places at tables,
the houses bombed to blood-streaked rubble.
Children starving in basements eat their hope.
How inconvenient is the call to help?

So many houses bombed to blood-streaked rubble.
Despite landmines, mourners visit the dead.
How inconvenient is the call to help?
Which commands do we obey and which ignore?

Alison Stone…

…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.

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Website / Stone Tarot

Peace with Ourselves | Mike Stone

The Irony of Ploughshares

In the Middle East
If you want to prepare for peace
You must first prepare for war
Because peace must be waged
With the same seriousness of intent as war
And there are as many obstacles and pitfalls
On the path to peace as there are along the path to war.
A weak man cannot forge peace because
His weakness tempts his enemies to attack
And weak are the saber rattlers
Hoping to frighten their enemies
With simulations of disproportionate force.
Their fears and uncertainties blind them
To the path of peace.
Only a strong man is confident and sees clearly.
He walks calmly along the path
Narrow as the razor's edge.
The path to peace meanders through Gaza
Where we've been eyeless and
Our plow shares will be made out of swords,
Neither flowers
Nor gentle breezes.

				September 28, 2016

Rosh HaShana

Enough of idle dreams and wishes
Enough of sweetness, honey and apples.
The light does not come from East
And not from West,
But from inside us.
Peace will not come from one of us
But from all of us.
There is no time but marching forward
To futures where Abraham's progeny
Sit together at a table
Sharing food and drink
And all men's children
Play and grow in health
Uneducated in the ways of war
But wise in the paths of peace,
All men necessary on this march because
No one knows from whence come saviors,
What will be their color or creed,
What language they will speak,
Whether man, woman, child
Or stranger.

October 2, 2016

And In The Darkness We Shall Dance and Remember What We Are
Digital Art
Kat Patton ©2022

Making Peace with Ourselves

Most of the time I’m just me
And sometimes I’m we
But every once in a while, we are them
And they are us.
It seems to me that everyone
Who wants their story heard
Would want their own country
To tell it loud and clear
And the problem with countries
Is that nobody will give you one
Just because you asked for it nicely
And nobody wants to be occupied
So, if you still want a country
You’re going to have to make life
Pretty uncomfortable for the occupiers.
I mean when we were them
And they were us,
Why can’t we remember that?
Then maybe we could make peace with ourselves.

March 7, 2020

Mike Stone…

…was born in Columbus Ohio, USA, in 1947. He graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in Psychology. He served in both the US Army and the Israeli Defense Forces. Mike moved to Israel in 1978 and lives in Raanana. He has self-published eight books of poetry. Mike is married to Talma. They have 3 sons and 8 grandchildren.

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Web site

To elect peace… | Samantha Terrell

Violent Whispers

There are things terror is, and
There are things it isn't. 
Terror is rage-filled, unrest.
It is injustice
That sometimes stems from the same.
Terror is unchecked power, for certain.
It is every emotion inspired by its name.

Terror is busy and conniving, 
Appealing its case to both young and old,
Knowing if it's not persistent, 
It may not make its way in the world.
But terror isn't always what we're 
Told; it's not always grandiose 
Displays of power.
Sometimes, terror simply 
Whispers bitter somethings 

In the ears of the once democratically-elected.

Introduction to Pacifism

The exigency of humanity
Is met in ignoring the opportunity
To elect peace
Over war,
Even as we acknowledge 
Embracing such a choice is espoused to valor.

There is action
In inaction—
Particularly in death.
If we first meet peace in the pacifist's demise, we risk losing 
Humanity’s only trait 
Ever worthy of defending.

The Great Charade

Have parents always 
Lied to protect their young?

Dirt mounds
And burial grounds
Expect nothing more than
Earthen peace.

But we seek abundance,
Rather than relief
From falsehoods 
About the nature of it all. 

When will we stop pretending
The world isn't ending?

Samantha Terrell…

…is an internationally published American poet. Her books Vision, and Other Things We Hide From (Potter’s Grove Press), and Keeping Afloat (JC STUDIO Press), have earned 5-star reviews. In 2021, Terrell received First Honorable Mention in the “Anita McAndrews Poets for Human Rights Awards” organized by Poets Without Borders. Her newest collection, Simplicity, and Other Things We Overcomplicate is currently available for pre-order.

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Find links to Samantha’s books on her Website

Raining Rubies | Dessy Tsvetkova

Dove on top of the Western Wall supporting the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem
Photograph Michael Dickel ©2006

With a sword raised

With a sword raised
towards the sun,
they used to rule the land
for centuries.

The sword
which
looks so much
like an elongated cross ...

But nowadays
the cross
is embodied
by a dove 
with outstretched wings.

Cross,
  that flies
towards the sun
and to God.

05/06/22

Today

Today
from the sky
it's raining
rubies...

Red drops
of
grief...

They pour
hard,
cry
for the innocent 
as a belief...

They sprout
young
stalks...

One at a time
flower,
for each
soul...

The memory of peace

Loving fireflies
sharing all the joy...
Summer nights,
splendid tenderness of Eden...
Careless sunsets
of caressing sky glory,
soul enlightened by the heaven...
Chanted warming blessings.
Crickets symphonies of peace.
Travel back in time, enhancing...
Feeling of a childhood breeze...

Dessy Tsvetkova…

…is Bulgarian who writes poems in Bulgarian and in English. She lived in Luxembourg and currently she lives and works in Belgium. Dessy has publications in many Bulgarian magazines and newspapers, also in Romania, Belgium, USA, India, Peru, Philippines. She has 4 books in Bulgarian, 1 in English, and she has also compiled a book as translator from Bulgarian into English, an anthology of Bulgarian top authors. She writes about nature, love and God, and her accent is the positive message at the final. Member of Flemish Party for Poetry. Editor in Homagi international Web literature magazine.

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secrets have an audience | Adrian Voss

secrets have an audience

1
while we’re busy romanticizing the softer side of things
well-disguised vibes disregard 

the countless beings made into (numb)ers
favoring an unawakened righteous feeling

through a façade that denies inner reality
nurturing the phallic identity of war

2
she is little bits of earth
scattered bits of belonging 

an appropriation for those who take
feeling nothing is taken because it is paid for

to feed a selfish desire that places her to burn
underneath a halo of fire

creating the compartmentalized
as we stigmatize in the quiet and unitedly reject her

unconscious—while busy chasing false ideals
searching for pretty in politics

as connoisseurs of fixation with introspection
gingered by the allure, continue to devour her shell 

with blades of combative motivation 
that takes no accountability, as we all inadvertently fuck her

3
she reads Hello Universe in old bunny slippers
lives in an agricultural area

sits on the porch reading 
hears a diminutive echo

it is the year of another great pandemic
and other distractions

from the millions starving
for one reason or another

however, much less critical 
than the societal incubator

or the soccer game
as the shadow

in a white van
uses a burner phone

three days, three rooms
a ringing in the ear that means more 

as you look away
from the empty swing swaying

4
a temperamental questioning of the self
remembering it grew past two months

a choice sucked into the symbolic
a static feeling remains

refusing to breed
as it parallels a vision

even if it means killing the unborn seed
to not throw away hope for a child

that is already someone
a twelve-year-old

locked inside a small dark apartment
getting used by an endless stream

____,______,________,__________,
as it pours from your daughter in the arms of your son

5
the majority continue connected to the mask
killing a turkey and then sending a card

with a contented one on it
eating a pig and calling it pork

their teeth pulled out 
as the mother watches them squeal

buying a stuffed bear for the child
while purchasing its bile; they are bred and tortured 

we treat our animals as we treat each other
but this isn’t what we want to hear

most will deny it has meaning—desensitized 
it has feelings

nearby, a widowed Arab mother with eight sons
must reveal herself to strange men 

in a place where she is no longer a wife
there are no brothers, no uncles

no man to claim her
so she removes her hijab to feed her children

inadvertently teaching her sons about their “brothers”
with this allegory, for most is not as it appears

but it’s not our country, not our home
not our irony, so we willfully swallow it

like “meat” ignoring the rape
of another number—an accepted behavior

as we slumber
instead of reaching beyond the pale

6
diagonal, horizontal, vertical

the lines we hide in
the lines we love between

the lines we point from
these lines play us

clogging internal processes
clinging to us as belief 
that keeps us hunting

and hostile regard safe
inside our cumulative womb

trafficking the guns gunning us down
while bound in an addiction town

7
a vignette rotting
a fostered feeling 

a male-centric mainstream
a movie she wishes could be unseen

a floret falling apart
petal lips cascading

as we skate through the details 
infested with dark limbic thoughts 

the egregore overidentifies with form
trapping her in a sea of sharks

disconnecting from impending matters
coded for the untrained eye

lulling inborn wisdom back to sleep
that serves the omniscient streams

bribing the scribe with the felicitous mind 
before the eye traverses the den

to make Laureate’s paper words mean nothing
because she doesn’t know she is, too, prey

as another stately white man 
uses rubbers on a mattress with one thin, dirty sheet

8
we all want to be in an uplifted state
with a God that makes us feel safe and entertained

while we shoot semi-automatics
to kill the seed, we do not call our own

it is part of cancer’s permeative conditioning 
the Dubble Bubble happening around the globe

as we say, “It’s not me, it’s them. It’s there, not here.”
as the lights blink on and off in the small dark apartment in our mind

9
deliberate (u)niverse
we are it pretending to be a _____________

an absent black moon
a carnivore awakening

fromdarknessspringsthelight
          (interpretations of the comforts of [personal] space)

the church / the temple / the sanctuary / the synagogue
the mosque / the pagoda / the gate / the abattoir

(words for the same thing): within

psychological death
          a surrendered state 
                              creates space
                                        deeper than thought
                                                  a sleeping infant in my arms
          the win
                    win
                              even in trauma and sticky situations
                                        gathering the momentum of the tormented and tormentor
                                                  in the house built by metaphor
                                                  aligning consequences with reflections of truth
                    in dimension deeper than possession 
                                        entwined in the silence 
                                                   of secrets that have an audience

War & Peace
Digital Art
Michael Dickel ©2019–2022

Adrian Voss…

…lives with her family in Colorado. She is an artist, teacher, and emerging writer with a few published pieces online and a children’s book. The poem submitted is from a full-length collection entitled, The Small Dark Apartment. The work explores uncomfortable aspects within the silence of the collective mainstream. Adrian strives to bring life elements to the surface to push past deceptive illusions and create more light.

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Website

Refugee Memories: A Tanka Sequence

Strength: An Ode to Refugees in Tanka

The Indian War Canoe: A Tanka Sequence

Rose Menyon Heflin…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Order of Battle

Peter Howard…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

This Garden

Harriet’s Last Photograph

Manhattan Lock Down Blues

Dorothy Johnson-Laird…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Fights

The Good Fight

Revolutionary

Peter Lilly…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

I’ve been sending letters to variousareas controlled by the islamic state

gunshots in the distance

perched in a weed’s canopy

another dream

so they say

veteran field

waning & waiting

Lonnie Monka…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

The Bellicose Vein

Bruce Morton…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Abduction

Trading fire

Naked City

Ghosts

Latin IV

Work

Petrichor ArtLab…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Peace Blooms

The Peacetime in Between

The Drums Listen to Us

Kushal Poddar…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Chasing the Muse

In the Soul

Rolls Royce and Little Yachts

Fabrice Poussin…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Do Something

Jean Rover…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Self-Portrait March 2022

Chill

Russian Soldiers Plant Landmines in Ukrainian Cemeteries

Alison Stone…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

The Irony of Ploughshares

Rosh HaShana

Mike Stone…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Violent Whispers

Introduction to Pacifism

The Great Charade

Samantha Terrell…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

With a sword raised

Today

The memory of peace

Dessy Tsvetkova…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

secrets have an audience

Adrian Voss…

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Prose

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

I’ve been sending letters to various
areas controlled by the islamic
state