full social justice
unending humanity
merging to form peace
© 2017, poem and illustration, Charles W. Martin
Project Type: The BeZine, Sept. 2017, Vol 3, Issue 12
:: submarine ::
dive below, breathe beneath the surface.
rise & wonder who defines standard.
present tense.
often reduced.
we have water here & float yet not as pretty
as you.
do.
many poets died this day.
some prefer substandard.
© 2017, Sonia Benskin Mesher
:: reimagine the world ::
:: reimagine the world::
leave your ideas at home.
on the hatstand. forget all
that you have learned, things
may not be so.
all people have thoughts, so
yours is not so precious now,
elder.
she told me that even things
at home have changed.
looking round we see they have.
reimagine the world, forget
the learning, start again,
then we may understand, or not.
king david.
© 2017, Sonia Benskin Mesher
:: the burning ::
he said the flames
came over the trees.
behind the buildings.
bombed the buildings.
so do not wonder why
i don’t play soldiers,
lay them down to die.
he says that i will not battle,
i am no good at it.
too peaceful. i can play
hospitals.
© 2017, poem and illustration, Sonja Benskin Mesher
Building Freedom
Liberty stands still with welcoming arms open
a vision of freedom that’s endured worldwide
she’s taken Irish famine victims, Germans,
Dutch, and Jews escaping Hitler’s camps
and brave prospectors seeking Klondike gold.
All have made it to the melting pot, stirred
added with the spice of First People, those
who lived in forest, prairie and mountain
before Italian Columbus sailed from Cadiz,
or the slaves were freed to add Africa’s dance
to the music that calls “freedom” and America
the call and greatness of welcoming U.S.A.
that’s echoed to the poor since it became power.
In the last year She weeps upon her island
watching the world’s poor die upon sea and land.
No longer ships and planes pass her open arms
filled with those seeking a better life, fleeing
war, famine, the hatred of the despot for
even in this land of freedom a goose step
demands that only those who march to
a tune we thought defeated are welcome
men embolden by the promise of support;
but has Gaia responded with a warning,
hurling winds across the Caribbean
to devastate not only the islands but
the retreats of the wealthy, who thought
themselves immune in their castles
not even the President’s Mar-a-Largo is safe
from her wrath. Is she asking “why”?
Should we not reply with friendship,
welcome the poor, refugee and worker
whatever their race or religion to the mix?
For they are the people who will build
nations, care for us as doctors, and nurses
carve the future as scientists, engineers.
They have talents that we, every nation needs.
© 2017, Carolyn O’Connell
Another Note in an Endless Melody
On March 18, 2013, a decade after the Iraq invasion, The Columbus Herald Ledger printed soldiers’ recollections of their first Iraq tours. These accounts are loosely based on those recollections. All three voluntarily returned for a second tour.
Background texture by Billy Alexander
Afghanistan’s Just Another Note
in an Endless Melody
(An American haibun [1] )
Security
Palmer and I drive 24 hours straight. On dusty roads. Grit crusts our crotches, cracks, armpits, teeth. The minute we report, they dispatch us to highway patrol. No time for coffee, cigarette or a piss. Grab gear and go. We’re on patrol maybe fifteen minutes, a toothless haji staggers down the center of the highway. No shirt, holes in his pants, one sandal hanging by a strap, hands empty. Raised like white flags. Palmer steps onto the shoulder; I can’t pull him back. Haji drops. An RPG follows his path, flips Palmer. A six-foot arc. Toothless rolls to the far shoulder, leaps up and scrams. Bullets swarm the squad like hornets from a burning nest. I duck behind an abandoned car. A second grenade punches into the gas tank. I dive into the sand beating the fireball by a second. Wake in the hospital, bathed in sunlight, my leg in a cast from ankle to hip. An officer shows up. Doesn’t even look in my file for my name. “You’re flying home, soldier. Recovery leave.” I asked about Palmer. “He’s flying too.” No eye contact. I knew then that they’d be sending Palmer cargo.
In a village graveyard, in the steaming
summer rain, a priest consoled
a widow weeping at her
husband’s stone. A tear because
he perished, a flower for her love.
Her face in pain. He touched her arm
to share a word of tenderness.
First Wave
Our M113 crossed the Iraqi border at midnight. HQ deployed us as the invasion’s first pawns. The Republican Guard scattered like spider monkeys during the firefights. One night, while our tracers chased the cowards across the sand, I pumped my fist, poked Baker in the ribs. “At this rate, we’ll be in Iraq by Sunday,” I shouted over the noise of the explosions. Baker didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. He couldn’t answer because he had no head to answer with. He stood perfectly straight, a mess of gristle and spine sticking above his shoulders. After a couple of months, in the Red Zone, Johny Jihad learned how to lure convoys down narrow streets and pick them off. So, it was August, like six months after they said the war would end in shock and awe and we’d be back home polishing off six-packs in our porch swings, and our convoy’s front track lifted its nose, like a horse rearing on hind legs. Six maybe seven bodies spilled into the fleeing crowd. The Bradley at the tail went next, a rocket through the engine block tipping it onto the sidewalk. Cash, our driver, plowed through the wreckage, the rest of us crouching close to the floor and firing over the side. Norton fired the top gun at anything moving. Back at the base, I couldn’t light my Camel, my hand shook the lighter so hard. That was when I started thinking of my college engineering classes as weekends at Disneyland.
“He died in a noble cause.
He gave his life for you and me.”
She seized his words,
spit in mud, cursed such
generosity.
“Your petty wars are not
the will of God. He gave no
sanction. Nor is there need.
And if you want to tell me
otherwise, please offer
your excuses to the dead.”
Sand gets in your eyes
One hundred twenty degrees with the breeze. On that first day in April, I had no way of knowing we’d suffer in the heat so long. I spent three-months suffering with heat and bug bites before I’d feel air conditioning. They gave me a cushy post. I coordinated battlefield positions. That cushy job didn’t keep me out of combat. One time a sandstorm trapped our convoy. We were three miles outside a sinkhole called As Samawa, sixteen vehicles on a highway that had so many pockmarks it could have been a teenager’s face. The advance slowed until we creeped along at an inch and hour. We couldn’t even see to the shoulder. LT dispatched Parker and Dial to scout. They wrestled with the wind, and disappeared into the brown sky. When they didn’t report back I looked for them. I fought the wind for an hour. Even with a muffler the storm sandblasted the skin on my face. I finally sat on a sandbag for a smoke and a snack. A chocolate bar. The storm faded as quickly as it started. I glanced down, discovered my sandbag was Parker’s body.
You priests of a jealous God,
you prophets of Democracy,
do you ever take a moment
to explain that corpses do not
drink Christ’s blood, corpses
do not vote. They turn to mud
beneath the earth and rain.
©2017 Phillip T. Stephens
[1] The Japanese haibun combines a paragraph with a poem (in its strictest form, haiku). Each haibun requires a title and the paragraph must be composed in first person. The poetry and paragraphs can be combined in any variation.
the places between
it’s this
wavering time
she said
i see the fine
membranes
trembling /
/ the thin
reflections of
twisted orders
a free disguise
when nothing’s
on offer
even
& the swollen bellies
of empty
i don’t want to
watch the greasy rivers
she said
where plagues
come in buckets
©2017 Reuben Woolley
virginia’s move
who said
the town was burning
she saw
the smoke
from every side of it
& the faces
the screaming mouths.we’ll have
a taste of it
& every difference
is marked for onslaught
it’s time
she said
for removal /
/
/ for a stirring
from the alleys
©2017 Reuben Woolley
knucklebone excess
i don’t go
scattering bones &
raising dead armies
just this
combing snakes
a styled
protection
come
you mirror-bound heroes
the weak remains
of lost battles
feed my hunger
that i haven’t
eaten
since some god’s supper
©2017 Reuben Woolley
Eclipsed
Nearly a year ago, when we first learned of the solar eclipse, most motels in the Northwest Totality Zone were either booked, or charging up to $750 for a room. So we reserved a B&B in the Eastern Oregon town of Moro, a forty minute drive to Totality. As the day approached, epic traffic jams of eclipse chasers were reported. We left a day earlier than we’d planned, taking two days to travel 270 miles, with emergency gear: food, water, sleeping bags, gas can, a read-aloud book and our Kingston Trio CDs.
Traffic on I-5 was heavy, but we traveled east over the Cascades, cruising the speed limit, and sighting only the occasional RV heading to the Totality Zone from Yakima.
All the guests at our B&B were eclipse chasers. There were two couples, first-time viewers up from California, and a German couple, first-time visitors to the US, who had crossed an ocean and a continent for a ninety second peek at a natural phenomenon they’d seen many times before. I took that as a good sign.
Moro’s population is 316. Its only cafe had gone belly up, and the market closes early on Sundays, but the local history museum was open. We picnicked and were playing board games in our room when Thom discovered on Facebook that college friends were also staying in Moro at the only other accommodation in town, just a five minute walk away. Lona and Scott were as enthusiastic about the eclipse as you’d expect a science teacher and a librarian to be, and they had spent the last two days scouting out the best view spots. They invited us over, pulled out their maps and notes, and suggested a place just south of Shaniko, for its off-road parking and territorial views.
Taking no chances, we allowed four hours to travel the 38 miles into the Totality Zone. Rising at 5AM, we learned that the other guests were long gone. But the roads were clear and we were halfway there before the sun rose. At least sixty people were camped at our viewpoint, with more arriving all the time. The buzz of excitement filled the air, though the eclipse was still two hours away. One youngster kept a faithful watch, but I dozed, catching snatches of conversation between friendly strangers.
Finally the moon’s shadow began to pass over the face of the sun. Through protective glasses it looked like a sky cookie, with a bite taken out of it.
There was a drop in temperature and a subtle change of light. We couldn’t tell over the noise of the crowd whether the birds stopped singing, but the people-watching was superb compensation. For an hour, the moonshadow inched across the sun, its effect hardly noticeable, except through protective glasses. Without them, even with just a sliver of the sun peeking out from behind the moon, its light was blinding.
All at once, darkness eclipsed the world. It was as if a one-eyed sleeping giant had suddenly awakened, and the sky was staring back at us.
The crowd erupted into wild cheers, and Thom and I shared their exhilaration.
I’d seen it depicted on canvas, demonstrated in planetariums and National Geographic specials. But seeing a total solar eclipse with my own eyes was like hearing ‘Ode to Joy” sung by a heavenly choir after seeing only the musical notation on paper.
(Ivan Generalić: Solar Eclipse, 1961, CMNA )
Our dear Sol had pulled off his glasses and shirt to reveal his Superman costume. Ninety seconds later–it felt like the blink of an eye–the sun emerged from the shadow.
We took a deep breath, hugged each other, and hit the road, hoping to beat the crush of outbound traffic. We were elated as we drove north, verbally processing the experience. We both questioned whether we’d used our few precious seconds wisely. Ironically, Thom regretted not taking a single photo, while I wondered if I’d made a mistake by placing a lens between myself and an awesome once-in-a-lifetime-celestial event. Thom knew just what to say. “Argentina in 2019.” Yes, please!
A friend asked, half joking, if the eclipse had changed my life. Maybe. Especially if we go chasing the next one, which will appear in the Argentine sky in 2019. Meanwhile, there is a whole lot of Awesomeness right here on the mother planet.
I’ve read that awe is the emotion created by an extraordinary encounter that drastically affects one’s assumptions of the world. Experiencing this emotion can make us feel small, yet connected to something larger outside of ourselves, especially when the experience is shared by others. This was borne out in Shaniko, where traffic bottlenecked at the crossroads with the only stop sign in town. Traffic on the big road had the right of way. I feared we’d be at a standstill for hours waiting for an opening.
Then some generous soul hit the brakes and gave cuts to a person who was stuck at the stop sign, before continuing on. The next person with the right of way also stopped to allow a car through. They were still graciously taking turns when we reached the intersection, and were also waved on. There was a mile of backup, but not a single horn honked, no one hollered, everyone was patient and polite, and we all moved forward together. It was an awesome display of human nature.
There are other kinds of Awesome that sneak up on you.
Again.
And again.
These days we live under a dark shadow that has eclipsed our country, and the planet too. Instead of chasing shadows, it feels like we’re trapped in the dark, fumbling for the light switch. I found the light when I accompanied family and friends to the Women’s March in Seattle last January.
I was awestruck.
And I was not alone.
The solar eclipse did not move me to tears. But I couldn’t hold back tears of relief and wonder at the sight of 135,000 people speaking up for equality and compassion, and speaking out against oppression, bigotry and hatred.
Tears flowed again.
And again.
And again.
If it’s a Solar Eclipse that fills you with awe and purpose, you need only wait a year or two, and somewhere on this planet there will be a next time, another chance. But in the United States, if you’re looking for an extraordinary encounter, or want to feel a part of something larger than yourself, if you want to be more than an observer, you’d better start now. Because in a year or two, who knows what will be left to save.
We can’t sit on our hands hoping no one will get sick, or disenfranchised, arrested, abused, deported, or thrown into a concentration camp for no good reason. Our national parks, our environmental protections, our healthcare and social safety nets are being systematically carved up and sold to the highest bidder. Our politicians and our elections seem to be for sale as well. Our civil rights, our human rights, our right to protest in our own defense–these too are endangered by the deranged sociopath in the White House. We can only hope he won’t get into a pissing match with another tyrant and launch us into nuclear war.
We have no special protective glasses for this unnatural phenomenon, but we can’t afford to look away. It’s time to tear off our glasses and invoke our inner superheroes. Our superpowers will be to speak for those who have no voice. To protect those who cannot protect themselves. To organize, educate, donate, speak out, rally and march.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again!
This isn’t a solar eclipse; there are no do-overs. I’m keeping the glasses, because I want to be prepared for the next big event. 2019 will be here before we know it.
And so will 2020.
All images and text ©2017 Naomi Baltuck
~ Gen X Musings ~
It’s time again for the 100TPC (One Hundred Thousand Poets For Change) here at The BeZine, and all over the world. It’s a chance for artists, musicians, poets, peace-keepers, activists, and anyone else who desires lasting change in the world to speak out about issues affecting all of us. I invite you to join us in a celebration of the spirit of resistance, as we try to make the world a better place. 🙂
© 2017, Corina Ravenscraft
Waiting on the World to Change | singer/songwriter John Clayton Mayer
One, two, one, two, three
Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could
Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want
That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
And we’re still waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
No we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change.
© Songwriter: John Clayton Mayer
John Mayer’s official music video for ‘Waiting On The World To Change’. Click to listen to John Mayer on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/JMayerSpotify?IQid…
Musical Interlude for Change
Some musical messages from the past—c’mon people, smile on your [siblings of any gender], everybody get together, try to love one another right now because what the world needs now is love, sweet love, the only thing we’ve got too little of…
The Youngbloods, Get Together
Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach, What the World Needs Now is Love
The BeZine 