poem – Page 7 – The BeZine

OMG

—Callista Mark

I retract all requests: no need  
to breathe it into my ear: look in your red coat pocket, check
the car cup-holder. If I think of you
embodied (obviously you are not), your
beneficent murmur embraces so much world, your
godly gesture wide and full of comfort, your
outstretched hand wise and warm across
forest, desert, veld; Oh
God, my busy fingers are nimble enough
to search through pockets, parking slips and Costco bills, while
refugee children, at the Syrian border kick
a shabby ball, their fingers too blue for the handling
of it, some already traced with misery and huddled on cold
ground beneath the hapless arms of women there.
From habit, I may
thank you anyway, God, but don’t
on my account send
forth your spirit to the bodies of a team of mine while
somewhere north of Iroquois Falls, a recluse starves and
dies, shrouded in threadbare shawls, her woodpile gone, her cabin colder
than outdoors, her nearest neighbour ignorant of her name. No, they can
win it for themselves — that goes for every team, ignore
those other fans, will you, and look instead
where girls and women slip so easily away, craving
an embrace to hold them fast and safe
in villages which are their homes,
set there in blood-grudge long ago and yanked,
from time to time, away, to punish them
for not being just like us. Since we don’t
seem able, suppose you look their way.
Suppose you take a godly peek at children, OMG,
made soldiers, killers, families ripped away, humanity
macheted from their souls.
Forget the lottery tickets, the interview, the tournament, God.
I’ll find my own keys. Are you
listening? Thank you. Please.

Callista Markotich has had a lifelong career in Education as Teacher, Principal and Superintendent of Education. She lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her recent poetry has appeared in Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, Riddlefence, The Nashwaak Review, Saddlebag Dispatches and Room, where it has received a 2019 poetry award.

Two Poems — Kat Bodrie

I Just Want to Know Their Names

bodies
Bodies
bodies
 
So many bodies
rotting bodies
Hundreds of bodies

dumped in drainage canals
in plastic bags

buried in fields
patios
yards of homes

dissolved in acid or lye

19 corpses hung from ropes
hacked to pieces

authorities ran out of space
neighbors complained about the smell
killings skyrocketed

cartel lost control
battling that splinter

group
violence
fractured

key
decision-making

Hope

Note: This poem uses text from “In Mexico, a cartel is taking over: Jalisco New Generation” by Mark Stevenson, AP, March 18, 2020.

Meanwhile in China

draconian
assault[s]

1.

wildlife species such as bamboo rats
may have been    hosts
for the    coronavirus
__

a breeder of bamboo rats
a delicacy when grilled
has    not earned a penny
since January
__

In June
he dug a deep pit
and buried [hundreds] alive

“I invested all I had
into this business”

2.

The Chinese government
plunged
more than
330,000 IUDs    in
Uighur residents

all women of childbearing age
__

Side effects can include
headaches
dizziness
nonstop menstrual bleeding

irremovable without special instruments
__

still leaking breast milk
strap[ped] her to an iron chair

electric vacuum
sucked her fetus
__

The IUD
sunk into her flesh

a bitter reminder of
that fear

Note: This poem uses text from “China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization” by AP staff, AP, June 29, 2020, and “Pandemic causes China to ban breeding of bamboo rats and other wild animals” by Emily Feng and Amy Cheng, NPR, June 28, 2020.

Kat Bodrie’s prose and poetry have appeared in Waymark: Voices of the Valley, West Texas Literary Review, Rat’s Ass Review, and other publications. She lives in North Carolina. Learn more.

Anti-dystopoem

United we stand, divided we fall.
Together we rise. Alone, we hear only the call
from sirens of an alternative kind of destiny,
where attention seeking soldiers of fortune,
their collegial architects and faceless shadows
construct a new order, birthing the unfamiliar,
wrapped in a matrix of the convincingly familiar.

A weeping iconic mater outwardly gestures
her loving hands with warnings from a handmaid
and her tale of forced labour and social media
generating artificial facts of incontestable
statistical intelligence, promising to remove
uncertainty from uncertain lives, to offer
security in a profoundly insecure way.

Yet, still small voices of independent thought,
unafraid of consequence, reality, insecurity or pain,
continue to echo the inspiration of she, who reasons
encouragingly and compassionately against
the harbingers of our future decline, against
the pornography of privilege and wealth,
against the deniers of equitable, sustainable life.

These voices endure, like those refreshing waters
of a spring that flows from deep inside humanity.

Underneath the radar of the darker web of lies,
they carve in stone the undeniable truth of history.


© 2020 John Anstie
 All rights reserved

At the time I wrote this in August, Jamie Dedes, founder and editor in chief of The BeZine, formerly ‘Into The Bardo’, for over ten years, had already stepped down from the roll because of failing health and, in her words, feeling too exhausted from the effort required to maintain the project. Instead she characteristically showed her faith in the team she built up around her. She encouraged, nurtured and, above all, imbued us with her own enthusiasm for the BeZine‘s mission of promoting Peace, Sustainability and Social Justice, through the medium of the written word and all-coming art forms.

She invited me to get involved in 2013, it seems like an age ago! She said that she found the ‘About’ page in ‘My Poetry Library‘ was the most most impressive she’d ever seen!. Come what may, I have never regretted a moment and further often wonder where my motivation would have come from, to write and achieve more than I would have given myself credit to achieve. This is my humble attempt to show my appreciation for her influence on me, alongside other stalwarts like Michael Dickel, who, as an experienced editor and writer, agreed to take the tiller as Editor in Chief, and the other ten or so members of the core team, who have kept the faith. Not to mention countless guest contributors, all of whom have entered the spirit of a very, very worthy cause. This is as much a tribute to you as it is to Jamie. I salute you all.

I find it both encouraging and, in a strange way, heart warming to know that I actually ran this poem passed Jamie before publishing it in the September edition, because I didn’t want to embarrass her. She was never keen to promote herself in any way, but she did give it a nod of approval.

Three Haikus

Nature: A Mother’s Love

We reap your colors
And still, you send us rainbows
Your tears mixed with oil

Sacrifice

I heard you drowned in
Plastic bags and straws so, I
Stopped drinking coffee

Not happily every after

Can’t think of beauty
Without beastly pollution
Nature has no prince

IRMA DO (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too . . . ) is a writer, runner, and raiser (of children not plants or animals). She is an avid anti-racist, anti-pollutionist, and anti-antipathist. Her poetry and other writings, can be found on her blog.

Cento

I put on my body armour of black rubber
the absurd flippers, the grave and awkward mask.
The salt is on the briar rose. The sea howl and
the sea yelp are different voices. I go down
an innocent ladder. Where is there an end
to the drifting wreckage the silent withering
of autumn flowers dropping
their petals and remaining motionless?
First having read the book of myths
I come to see the damage we’ve done
trying to unweave, unwind, unravel.
Yes, we believed that the oceans were endless
surging with whales, serpents and mermaids
there is no end but addition the trailing
prayer of the bone on the beach where we heard
consequences of further days and hours
demon-haunted and full of sweet voices
while emotion took to itself the emotionless
years of living among the breakage
to lure us over the edge of the world. We were
conquerors, pirates, explorers, vagabonds;
years of living among the breakage, war-makers,
sea-rovers, we ploughed what was believed in
as the most reliable, made maps that led others
to the sea’s harvest and therefore were the fittest
for renunciation and sometimes we heard dolphins
whistling, older than the time of chronometers.
Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing
into the wind’s tail, where the fog cowers?

We cannot think of a time that is ocean-less.
The catch was good and the oceans endless
for a haul that will not bear examination.
Where is there an end of it, the voiceless wailing
the backward look behind the assurance
towards the primitive terror?

1 Helen Dunmore, Dolphins Whistling: T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck.

Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher who lives in the NE of England.

A Walk in the Park

Like our manic thoughts, she opines while pointing
to the exquisite whiteness of a swan on the lake.
How its feet are scrabbling under the water as it glides
serenely. As we walk further round the lake
a submerged swan twenty times bigger
hoves into view, its wooden neck two feet above the water.
One black-headed gull perches on its hull swivelling
its winter-white head and stretching alternate wings.
Later in the park café she tells us she’s knitting mittens
for the koalas burnt in Australia’s fires but she thinks
we’ll all be incinerated eventually. She talks with a twinkle
in her eye about the death of flying foxes who can’t fly
fast enough. Maybe she’ll knit joey pouches or bat wraps
next if she has time. She sips her hot cappuccino and tells us
about the melting cameras set up to capture
the regent honeyeater’s nesting habits.
Her smile’s disarming as she hands round the biscuits.

Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher and lives in the NE of England. He writes poetry occasionally but more recently has focussed on painting.

Let Freedom Ring, An Anti-Deterministic Poem

Environment is a tremendous thing that shapes life regardless

Stephen Crane

Let Freedom Ring

An Anti-Deterministic Poem

Environment is a petri dish

of caste and killing, beauty and beasts.

Stephen Crane called it a ‘tremendous thing

That shapes life regardless,’ Crane’s deterministic take

On what we’re trapped for life in.

Once, as a wee RH preemie, I was predetermined

to be transfused, born blue all over,

baby teeth erupting this pale green

Oh, those beautiful poppies outside

and that fog, a fog creamy white

as the flitting sanctity of dreams’ sleep.

Life as this hard swerve between

clean and mean, Cain’s pain and Abel’s over, these love splits,

And all we need is love, but we be bombed with the environment of death,

impending and unrelenting. Radioactive mushroom skies once

crisscrossed gorgeous blooming fields of California ranunculus,

clean there as any ruby glistening,

and now we’re in a poison spin,

retching in a tremendous lock-down. Alone as winter birds

and, below, ants impudently copulate by the sink.

We surrounded by empty enemy talk. It could all be ending so.

But something in my preemie eyes wants us to draw together,

our hearts saying love sweet love. George Harrison’s balmy eyes.

Just be kind and hold out, hold out your soft hand.

If we can stay sweet eyed, we’ll keep

Death and blight at bay to sustain what matters:

The freedom of our name, nature and nation

In the harmony we make, we’ll sustain us on our own

Oh Susannah had that buckwheat cake in her mouth.

He sang, ‘Oh, Susannah Now, don’t you cry for me

‘Cause I come from Alabama

With my banjo on my knee.’

In that coming over and over and over

We can join together for the biggest little things.

For forever, a long bit of together

And let our love sing louder than that tremendous environment

Dings.

LINDA E. CHOWN grew up in Berkeley, Ca. in the days of action. Civil Rights arrests at Sheraton Palace and Auto Row. BA UC Berkeley Intellectual History; MA Creative Writing SFSU; PHd Comparative Literature University of Washington. Four books of poetry. Many poems published on line at Numero Cinq, Empty Mirror, The Bezine, Dura, Poet Head and others. Many articles on Oliver Sachs, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Twenty years in Spain with friends who lived through the worst of Franco. I was in Spain (Granada, Conil and Cádiz) during Franco’s rule, there the day of his death when people took to the streets in celebration. Interviewed nine major Spanish Women Novelists, including Ana María Matute and Carmen Laforet and Carmen Martín Gaite. Linda’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Do We Need To?

Puzzles of fire solved by the ashes
while water wonders- how a piece of glass smashes
the rock beneath the starfishes: embraced
Upon the reddened shore lost-footsteps traced
Our memories do we need to remember,
if from the heart all ache we dismember?

“Before Hail Melts Away”

We need to use the rain water before hail melts away
Hours we have to count before the end of the day
But how can we save the light after the dark
When flickers of flame fade in a moment’s spark?

“Spring”

When the river needs its murmuring sound

Inside my heart the swan-song I’ve found

The softness of grass beneath my feet

Another holy morning here to greet

Fragrance of spring carried by the bloom

Taking hope in, breaking away from gloom

MUNIA KHAN was born on a spring night of 15th March in the year 1981. She enjoys her journey to the literary world. Most of her works are poems of different genres, short stories and articles. She is the author of four poetry collections and one non-fiction inspirational book : ‘Beyond The Vernal Mind’ (Published from USA, 2012), ‘To Evince The Blue’ (Published from USA, 2014), ‘Versified’ (Published from Tel Aviv, Israel, 2016) and ‘Fireclay’ ( Published from USA, 2020) and ‘Attainable’ ( USA, 2 June, 2020) Her poetry is the reflection of her own life experience. Her works have been translated into various languages: Japanese, Romanian, Urdu,Italian, Dutch, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese,Russian, Albanian, Finnish, Greek, Indonesian, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, Bengali and in Irish language. Her poetry has been published in several anthologies, literary journals, magazines and in newspapers.

The Veggie Lady, a poem by Adrian Slonaker

The Veggie Lady

The veggie lady
grows ingredients in a garden 
in a part of the heartland where the peckish 
primarily crave pork and poultry
over pea protein and spirulina.
The veggie lady
sells her “social distancing snacks” out of
a sliding window on a multicolored bus,
brightening an otherwise empty parking lot
on eerily dreary spring afternoons 
while suggesting singing Partridges
during the days of the plague. 
As the Pied Piper of 
plant-based well-being,
the veggie lady 
encourages concerned consumers to locate
her vehicle and discover the pleasurable 
treasure of sustainable sustenance never
blood-splashed
inside an abattoir,
perpetually promoting 
the peaceful, 
the perennial and
the renewable 
in a way that's
as whimsical as it is
realistic.

One Sky, One Earth

The land is not just earth
But one ploughed into existence.
As one removes each layer
Sweat, dreams, and streams will flow.
Wherever the war is,
Our heart walls are hurt.
Whichever field is burning,
Yours or your neighbour’s,
It is life that starves.
It is the earth’s womb that turns barren.
When can we ever build a dream
that all can see together…?
When can we all join in one prayer
Under the same tree…?
As birds fly beyond borders,
I dream of a nationality
Where I am not a foreigner,
A dream of a singular Nationality.

AMBILY OMANAKUTTAN is fom Kerala, India. She is a writer , poet and activist. She is writing continually articles in news papers and magazines. Her poem published in so many Magazines , weekly and news medias.She has participated in numerous national and international literary events.She was a bank employee but she resigned it for her social work. She working in more national organization for human rights , environment and nature.her activities were centered on tribals. While working for their welfare, she also involved herself in struggles against their exploitation and for their rights. She, who is raising her voice constantly through essays and poems against the injustices meted out to them by the society and the political system.She also uses her word power against the attacks on women and children. She is saying ,Poetry is her soul but more than it like a weapon for her activities.

Tread Softly

Tread softly on Earth,
Its semblance fools us
into believing that it is indestructible.
Ecosystems of growth and grandeur
hide within tunnels
formed eons ago,
based on assumptions that
man would tread softly on Earth.

Tread softly on Earth,
Its resilience
veils its core of tenderness;
its need for nurturing love
of the abundant bounty within.

Give thought to preserving
all the wondrous revelations
still hopefully waiting,
with infinite trust, that man will
tread softly on Earth.

IRENE EMANUEL is from South Africa. She is the winner of the “Hilde Slinger” cup for poetry in 2009 and again in 2013, winner of the “Fay Goldie” cup for General Success in the World of Publishing in 2011. Both these awards are presented by the South African Writers” Circle. In 2008, Irene represented Live Poets’ Society at “Poetry Africa, an International Poetry Festival” held annually, in Durban, South Africa.

Irene tells us that, “Poetry allows me to get my message across with rhythmic speed and clarity and is the written word that I like best. My passions are music, reading, movies and cats”

Her poems are published widely and – among others – are included in: “World Anthology of Journeys”; In “Unbreaking The Rainbow, Voices of Protest”; “A Hudson View” and “The Speech and Drama Association of S A.” She has four published collections of poetry. In 2008, Nine of her poems were published in “Signatures” an anthology of women’s poetry.

Tomorrow’s Question

My heart feels heavy today.
Peace seems so far away.
My own, my inner peace
And yours, dear Earth, so triste.

The spring rain, meant to be
Awakening and warm to me,
Comes cold and harsh upon my head
And fails to wash away my dread.

Is my pain a fantasy
Or does it have its roots in me
That reach unto my very soul
And show it to be a lump of coal

Black as the moonless sky above.
Or is it more a sign of love
Whose color is as white as snow
That melts in the sun’s soft glow

That gives each day its early start
And, reaching the chambers of my heart,
Warms tomorrow’s blood.
To live another day is good.

DR. JOHN EHRENFELD returned to his alma mater, MIT, in 1985 after a long career in the environmental field, and retired in 2000 as the Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment. Since retiring, he has authored The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World (2019); Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming our Consumer Culture (2008); and Flourish: A Frank Conversion about Sustainability (2013, with Andrew Hoffman).

In October 1999, the World Resources Institute honored him with their first lifetime achievement award for his academic accomplishments in the field of business and environment. He received the Founders’ Award for Distinguished Service from the Academy of Management’s Organization and Natural Environment Division in August 2000. He holds a B. S. and Sc. D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and is author or co-author of over 200 papers, books, reports, and other publications. He has been writing poetry for the last few years. He is 89 years old.

creatures today

shadow-tailed squirrel
swift then still
inquisitive

house sparrow alights
on sunlit sidewalk
softly sounding

American lindens
touch heart-shaped leaves
clumped together

another sparrow
tricolored trilling
Lake Erie’s eastern shore

at my window
I consider
their unjust absence

CONNOR ORRICO is a medical student with interests in global health, mental health, and how we make meaning from the stories of person and place we share with each other, themes that were explored in his publications in Headline Poetry & Press and Dreich Magazine.

Project Tag: poem

Three Haikus

Nature: A Mother’s Love

Sacrifice

Not happily every after

Cento

A Walk in the Park

Let Freedom Ring, An Anti-Deterministic Poem

Do We Need To?

The Veggie Lady, a poem by Adrian Slonaker

The Veggie Lady

©2020 Adrian Slonaker

One Sky, One Earth

Tread Softly

Tomorrow’s Question

creatures today

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I Just Want to Know Their Names

Meanwhile in China

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Nature: A Mother’s Love

Sacrifice

Not happily every after

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The Veggie Lady

©2020 Adrian Slonaker

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