Judy DeCroce, a former educator, is a poet/flash fiction writer and avid reader. Her works have been published by Plato’s Cave online, Front Porch Review, Amethyst Review, Tigershark Publishing, and Pilcorw & Dagger.
She began writing flash fiction and poetry in 2006 from which many have been published in US, UK, and India. Judy is also a professional storyteller and teacher of that genre for over 35 years, and has worked with students as young as kindergarten as well as adults.
She uses “first person” storytelling to entertain and has been invited to perform in many settings. A requested instructor in Writers and Books summer program Summerwrite, and, ADEPT: An enrichment program through BOCES 2 in Rochester, New York, Judy continues to teach Flash Fiction and Storytelling.
Her impetus for writing was borne out a childhood tragedy where she was bedridden for 5 years with a then unidentified illness. Because of this, she found it easy to use her imagination to build stories of what could be.
She was lucky to have a favorite aunt who would tell her stories before she went to sleep. This, was her most important connection to becoming the storyteller she is today.
Judy lives and works in upstate New York with her husband, poet/artist, Antoni Ooto.
There is a garden ring of stumps
guarded by Sugar pine and Douglas fir,
majestic in the shedding of needles,
forming a carpet of spongy pine duff.
The scent of rich decay coalesces with the perfume
of pine bark baked in sun at 5000 feet.
The cluck and cackle of one Gallus Gallus Domesticus
punctuates the susurrus of the creek pooling around rocks.
She grubs for earthworms and crickets, under the duff mounds
and rotting stumps, unaware of the shaft of sunlight
through the feathery branches illuminating the coil
of the Crotalus Oregonas. His brownish blotches melding green,
rattling the needles with his castanets, startling the hen
to hysterical squawks and shrieking cackles.
Her Salvation comes in a shovel
held like a fiery sword in the hand
of Archangel Michael, thrusting down,
severing the head from a gyrating body in space.
In the silence of the hen, the gasp of the wind
high in the trees, comes the thud of dirt clods
hitting metal, the fall of the head into the hole, buried.
The body hung to dry on the cabin side.
and pine needles raked to cover the blood.
By the creek, the Gallus Gallus Domesticus,
scratches the dirt, wallowing a hollow,
tossing dust on her feathers bathing her body in dirt,
chuckling with happy noises, standing, shaking,
and flinging the earth, from her feathers, cleansed of parasites,
in the garden of stumps, surrounded by pine,
with the murmur of creek and heat of the sun.
Idols (Isaiah 46)
Depression is the idol in my mind:
a bird of prey, perched on my tablets
of destiny, tearing the cuneiform symbols
off the damp clay. The idols are asses
loaded with gypsum bas-reliefs
depicting every dragon memory
in the event panels of my life.
I am that beast of burden, an onager
laboring westward, bearing the gold
and silver of shame, anxiety, and bitterness
to a new land where I have been summoned.
Your words shatter my stories and melt my fears.
They comfort me when I don’t understand
your purpose and what is to come.
The former things of ancient times
are recorded in my DNA because
You are my God and there is no other.
Bahia del Espiritu Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit) dedicated to the LWML
Ascribe to the Bay
the Brown Pelican, the Watchman
on the piling, the prophet, gate-
keeping the muddy waters of Mobile Bay.
Ascribe to the Bay
the Laughing Gull, Black-headed, smirking
like the laugh of Sara behind
orange lifeboats strung along the Fantasy.
Ascribe to the Bay
bullrushes, shaggy carpet, shielding
Moses, the bass and the blue hyacinth
in the lush estuary of the Tensaw Delta.
Ascribe to the Bay
the osprey, the fishing-hawk, sheltering
in its nest in the crucified tangle
of cables of an abandoned crane.
Ascribe to the Bay
the Jubilee, the swarm of crabs, shrimp, and eels,
shimmy up the shore, filling washtubs
with God’s Firstfruits.
Ascribe to the Bay
the Resurrection Fern, dead-looking,
supported by the Live Oak branch,
waiting for the baptismal grace of water.
Ascribe to the Bay
the women who came, dressed
in purple, carrying banners in praise
to the Lord, missionaries with small boxes.
Ascribe to God
the glory of His creation and His plans for our mites
and our availability. We are the rivers flowing, flushing
the Bay on the third day to be reborn again.
BARBARA A. MEIER has spent the last four years living on the Southern Oregon Coast. She retired from teaching this summer and hopes to find time to travel and write. Her first Micro Chapbook, “Wildfire LAL 6” came out this summer from Ghost City Press. She has been published in The Poeming Pigeon, TD; LR Catching Fire Anthology and The Fourth River. https://basicallybarbmeier.wordpress.com/
JULIETTE LEE is a former chemical engineer with a decade of experience at senior management level with chemicals giant ICI. Her international career spanned process design, production management, sales and marketing, corporate communications and business management. It was worlds away from her working-class background in the council tenements of Glasgow. And, however successful her life looked from the outside, everything was about to change. On 20th February 1999, she experienced a profound awakening. This paradigm shift in consciousness gave her new eyes to see where she no longer belonged and the courage to surrender to the long and difficult path of personal transformation and re-orientation of her life. Juliette moved into the world of coaching in 2002, trained with The Coaches Institute, and became an NLP, MBTI® and energy practitioner as well as an award-winning speaker for the leading chief executive organisation, Vistage. Ironically, her former training in applied physics has proved invaluable in the field of personal alchemy. Dedicated to her own development, Juliette regularly uses dreams, creative writing, meditation, shamanic practices and yoga as tools for personal transformation. She has written a daily journal for almost twenty years and has been a practitioner of vipassana meditation since 2012, attending a 10-day silent retreat each year. Having based most of her professional life in the industrial north of England, Juliette returned to her native Scotland in 2013 and now lives by the sea near Edinburgh, where she writes and rides horses whenever she can.
KELLA HANNA-WAYNE (Yopp), one of our newest Zine team members and a partner in our upcoming February series on illness and disability, is a disabled, chronically/mentally ill freelance writer who is the editor, publisher, and main writer for Yopp, a social justice blog dedicated to civil rights education, elevating voices of marginalized people, and reducing oppression; and for GlutenFreeNom.Com, a resource for learning the basics of gluten-free cooking and baking. Her work has been published in Ms. Magazine blog, Multiamory, Architrave Press and is forthcoming in a chapter of the book Twice Exceptional (2e) Beyond Learning Disabilities: Gifted Persons with Physical Disabilities. For fun, Kella organizes and DJ’s an argentine tango dancing event, bakes gluten-free masterpieces, sings loudly along with pop music, and makes cat noises. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Patreon, Medium, and Instagram.
Netted turtles suffocating whales,
fettered fish, life in the seas, no more
some fishermen’s tales, or of pirate ships
with towering sails, is now filled with
plastic tin can waste –
Smoky dust hangs everywhere, frightened
birds restlessly seek air, all clean, one large
falcon fell, and brought a 737 down to land,
real flier of the skies, is the bird or machine?
sunlight blocked, nothing pure nothing fresh
to taste, land weeps for flora and fauna, forests
denuded are falling to death, dinosaurs long gone
to rest hope new ones don’t surface, as water is
scarce and plants depressed- no more does the
nightingale sing, so loud is the clang and hi-fi din,
flowers are captives of terracotta pots, rubbish dumps
growing are up to the chin,
Colors all smudged –reflect the Earth’s distortion
my heart pains at the planet’s destruction-
have we left a place, free of pollution?
I wonder if ever we shall find a solution.
May the Lord so merciful and gracious
forgive us, for the dishonor and desecration.
Come forward, look around, let us take action,
It’s time we cleaned the land and cleared the ocean.
ANJUM WASIM DAR (Poetic Oceans), one of the three newest members of the Zine team, was born in Srinagar (Indian occupied Kashmir) in 1949. Her family opted for and migrated to Pakistan after the Partition of India and she was educated in St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi where she passed the Matriculation Examination in 1964. Anjum ji was a Graduate with Distinction in English in 1968 from the Punjab University, which ended the four years of College with many academic prizes and the All Round Best Student Cup, but she found she had to make extra efforts for the Masters Degree in English Literature/American Studies from the Punjab University of Pakistan since she was at the time also a back-to-college mom with three school-age children.
Her work required further studies, hence a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad and a CPE, a proficiency certificate, from Cambridge University UK (LSE – Local Syndicate Examination – British Council) were added to her professional qualifications.
three days of rain
of pain and painted flesh
the moan of empty rooms
and what is left
but the sheeted furniture
the whistle and shuffle of bones
a broken telephone my own footsteps
how quickly they appear and disappear
those passing tones these luminous encounters
the changing unseen floating dreams
neither living or dead but waking
distant strains of miles and coltrane
the reflection of the moon on passing trains
inarticulate fingers suspended over keys
the creaking eaves that echo all is gone
what’s left of me? i’m going home
i drift from myself to major and minor
the percussion of the brushing of leaves
a wind in transition a slur of expression
i am divine imperfection
the rapture of autumn the sorrow of fall
i lie in my shadow not me at all
but the one who lives outside myself
who finishes what i’ve left undone
who sings for you and eats thin air
who reaches for nothing and finds nothing there
ANTONIA ALEXANDRA KILMENKO is a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion and she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Josheph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.
Tall kissed-out pale fronds of potted ferns
Adorn the entry, their cool shadows dim
Switching the parlor — — death’s last living room — —
Where time hesitates and dark furnishings
Project inarguable dignity.
Bookended by brass casket handles, lids
Too heavy to be raised again must sense
My presence, those defiant eyes I closed,
Who parsed my childish alibis, whose last
Wink nicked the priest, who forced death to hold still
Till her eyes sent light leaping into mine.
Embodiment
My sister lives forever in six drawers
Where Mom maintains her clothing, worn, outgrown.
Preserved in cameras, she’s chambered,
Sealed shut like darkroom prints, unmoving face
Still undeveloped as her unspent youth.
Moored on his island of bad memories,
Her boyfriend, claiming self-defense, wears stripes.
Nighttime she’s back, soft stabled in seizures
Of stars or hovering in ghost orb’s mist.
A pinch of lonely air lifts blankets, hugs
Half of my bedding. No heat radiates.
The younger person I still am inside
Peers out. Instead of ghost dents on the sheets,
I see her shuffling the deck, smell smoke
From phantom joints, red lipsticked, decayed dreams
Beyond my line of sight, time’s taut trapeze.
I yearn to grab her wrist, yank heart and soul
From cold oblivion, yell, “Breathe again!”
Hope hops on life support, prepared to drag
Her from the brink and storm the underworld.
Geometry’s shades fade — — by dawn’s dispersed.
The Uninvited Guest
With measured strokes, I brushed defiant hair,
Cascading waves that cancer left untouched.
You’d had enough of hospitals, that lack
Of privacy, imagining your home
Serene, secure, free from intrusive pests.
It would shock you to learn we’re not alone.
At dawn, the presence by the sills crispens,
Emerges as the drapes inhale into
A phantom shape. Infernal company,
Omniscient brakeman, timer in cold hands,
Poised, waiting, exhalations nearly through.
Lost in the territory of morphine,
Deciding to eject your breathing tubes,
You tossed away the life-saving device.
Asleep, I’m unaware — — till ghost commands
Arouse me full awake. There’s no choice but
To go rescue you, reconnect the air.
Long shadows darken the stairs, that peek-a-boo
Behind the hooded cloak. I startle you,
Attaching oxygen’s feed properly,
Removing you tonight from danger’s ledge.
LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a Native New Yorker, is a dramatist, writer, and a poet who writes formal verse.
Her poetry chapbooks Conflicted Excitement (Red Wolf Editions, 2018) and Concupiscent Consumption (Red Ferret Press, 2020) along with her collaborative book on prejudice (Macmillan in the USA, Aracne Editions in Italy) are her latest titles.
The spirit moves us with creativity,
Inspiration and peace.
Our art is a gift
We give others.
Our songs can echo through
The canyons of time.
Life leads us in many directions.
Peace and love sustains our hearts
With a calmness
As we share with others
On our journey.
Hearts Pour Out Blessings
The wind moves through trees
Blowing off leaves in many directions.
Dead leaves can form into mulch
For gardens and other plants that are growing,
To help us thrive.
The Holy Spirit guides us with a bright light
Through dark tunnels and turbulent times.
Our hearts are caring vessels.
We pour out our blessings to others,
As we continue on in life.
MARY BONE’s poetry has been published at The BeZine, Best Poetry Website, The Literary Librarian, Vita Brevis Literature, The Oklahoma Today Magazine, Ink Pantry, Minute Magazine, Spillwords, Literary Yard,River Poets Journal, Duane’s Poetree Blogspot, Poetry Pacific,The Homestead Review, and Artifact Nouveau.
All day yesterday visitors were flying to the original 2017 posting of these poems at The Poet by Day. It’s not hard to guess what is driving interest in them. Here the poems are again for all to read and ponder along with a word from Bernie: “Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one,” Sanders declared Thursday . . . He . . . framed it as a moment of moral gravity akin to the run-up to the Iraq War, not least because so much of the present conflict with Iran stems from the fateful intervention that began in 2003.” MOREHuffington Post
Lebanese-American poet, Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) public domain illustration
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
“PITY THE NATION” Lawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Warsan Shire,Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
The wandering waters, dripping
Into rising seas and land now lonely
For his human foot, which finding
No room at the inn, wanders
Like the waters, violated like a fish
On the deck of a boat, gasping
Soul bludgeoned, human skulls
And fish entrails, politicos and
Pundits examine like I Ching coins,
Accidents of birth, plight of place
A remote sliver of moon surveils
From the starless sky, unmoved
Dedicated to my friend, Mbizo Chirasha, Zimbabwean Poet in Exhile. Please connect with me if you are able or know someone / some family able to host him in Germany. Thank you! bardogroup@gmail.com
Look to the light, the light in the window, The simple lit candles that shimmer and shine. The message is clear as simple lit candles, The passion for freedom is yours and is mine. – Rabbi Dan Grossman
December is a month rich in the holy days of the Abrahamic traditions. Jews celebrate Hanukkah, a commemoration of the Jewish reclamation of The Temple of Jerusalem in 164 B.C.E. Christians celebrate Advent – a period of waiting for the birth of Christ – followed by His birth, Christmas. Muslims celebrate the birth of the Prophet in November or December depending on the lunar calendar. We do not need faith to appreciate the beautiful poems, music and artwork inspired by our religions, Abrahamic or others.
Look to the Light
Menorah
In 164 B.C.E., the Syrians who ruled Israel took away the Jews’ right to practice their religion. Led by Judah Maccabee the Jews rebelled and succeeded in reclaiming their sovereignty and they rededicated The Temple of Jerusalem. The history of the celebration of Hanukkah has had some interesting turns in more recent times.
There’s a story of a young Polish soldier in then General George Washington’s army who held a solitary Hanukkah celebration on a cold night in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The soldier gently placed his family’s menorah in the snow and lighted the first of eight candles for the first night of Hanukkah. The man was perhaps a bit homesick and missing his family. He must have thought about how much they’d suffered over time from religious persecution. There were tears in his eyes when General Washington found him. Washington wondered what the young man was doing and why he was crying. The soldier told his general the story of Maccabee and the other Jews. It is said that Washington was heartened by the telling and moved on to battle and victory. That menorah is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum.
Yet another story surfaces in 1993 Billings, Montana where a family was lighting their menorah one night. As is custom, they placed the lighted menorah in the front window of their home where it was stoned by anti-Semites, as were the homes of other Jewish families that same evening. The town newspaper printed dozens of menorahs. Rev. Keith Torney, a minister of the First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, distributed them to all the Christians and the paper menorahs were placed in windows all over Billings as a sign of solidarity and of respect for the freedom to practice religion as one’s conscience dictates.
Look to the Light is a commemorative poem written by Rabbi Daniel Grossman and set to music by Meira Warshauer. Enjoy! … but if you are viewing this from an email subscription, you’ll have to link through to the web/zine to view and hear it.
The Magnificat
The Ode of Theotokos (Song of the God Bearer)
It is only in the Gospel of Luke that we read of Mary’s recitation of this poem that harkens back to Jewish prophecy and is constructed in the traditional verse style of the times with mirroring and synonymous parallelism.
From the Book of Common Prayer
My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regardeded: the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that respect him : throughout all generations.
He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holden his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.
The Prophet’s Nativity
A book explaining the meaning of the phrase Jashan e Eid Milad un Nabi
One poem that celebrates Mawlid, the birth of the Prophet, is exceptionally sweet. It was written by the Turkish Süleyman Çelebi (also known as Süleyman Of Bursa) who died in 1429. You’ll note that in addition to honoring the Prophet Mohammad, it honors three mothers: Asiya the mother of Moses, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Amina the mother of the Prophet.
12/21/2019 Correction from Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans) “The Holy Prophet Mohammed pbuh wasborn on the 12 of Rabbiul Awal…according to Islamic HijriCalendar…this date is observed as His birthday/Eid eMilaad un Nabi…it can be in any month of the English year…not just November or December”
Mevlûd-i Peygamberi, Hymn of the Prophet’s Nativity
Some have said that of these charming three
One was Asiya of moonlike face,
One was Lady Mary without doubt,
And the third a houri beautiful.
Then these moonfaced three drew gently near
And they greeted me with kindness here;
Then they sat around me, and they gave
The good tidings of Muhammad’s birth;
Said to me: “A son like this your son
Has not come since God has made this world,
And the Mighty One did never grant
Such a lovely son as will be yours.
You have found great happiness,
O dear, For from you that virtuous one is born!
He that comes is King of Knowledge high,
Is the mine of gnosis and tawhid*
For the love of him the sky revolves,
Men and jinn are longing for his face.
This night is the night that he, so pure
Will suffuse the worlds with radiant light!
This night, earth becomes a Paradise,
This night God shows mercy to the world.
This night those with heart are filled with joy,
This night gives the lovers a new life.
Mercy for the worlds is Mustafa,
Sinners’ intercessors: Mustafa!
JAMIE DEDES is a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. She manages The BeZine thebezine.com and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights.
See a procession of young mothers chattering their way From water fountains in grenade torn sandals And blood laced bras Decade of Bullets, Mbizo Chirasha
Is fading the memory of its son,
Who for words must ride the night
Fleeing ears that hear thunder on a babies purity guggle,
Zvegona, my homestead,
Ancestors are watching
Elders on a scheming mission
Trading lies with more lies
The road to Zvegona
Your Sideroads sigh
Your song is silent
Only hiccups of mothers greet the sun
Yearning for the return of the bearded child
Who lives on the strings of truth
Truth refused a seat at the council of baboons on the lagoons
Goons settling scores on the assumptions that a boy has a price,
Well, the boy true has a price
But not one you can pay with looted coins
The boy has shaved his hair not his brains
The boy has slipped his boots on and truth has raised its flag
And the spirits of truth sing his Achilles heels on,
So Zvegona, the village of the lucky poet,
Grow thistles and thorns
Feed cattle and goats
The boy has shaved his beard
Ready for a walk back, to shave the land of all pretentious shenanigans
Uprooting the weeds and weevils
Repair the kraal too,
Where roosters shall announce light unto the land,
Currently bent double under the gargantuan weight of lying tongues.
Zvegona, you are my yesterday
Zvegona, you are my tomorrow in whatever form, shape or …….
The first New Look Brave Voices Poetry Journal will be out by the 15th of December 2019. It is a Christmas gift. Our deadline for articles [and poetry] is the 10th of December 2019. We look forward to contributions and features with a length of 1500 words. You can send these in the body of mail with photos as attachments. Please include your publishable photos and a fifteen line bio to bravevoicespoetry@gmail.com
We’ve received letters of support to go in Mbizo’s applications for grants and safe harbor, but the Go-Fund-Me effort is still not to goal, which would provide for the immediate need for pantry staples, computer, and so forth. Without predictable computer access, Mbizo has not yet been able to do his interview with the Canadian radio show, though the offer still stands.
International Human Rights Festival, the entity that sponsored Mbizo’s Go-Fund-Me, has attracted $480 and raised the goal to $750. They have cut him some partial funding for now. Meanwhile, folks, I suggest that if enough of us donated the price of one morning latte, we’d make the goal. What do you say? A whole bunch of tidbits would combine for a whole lot of success. You can make your donation anonymously HERE.
If you are able and interested in helping in any way, you can contact Mbizo directly at: girlchildcreativity@gmail.com
– Jamie Dedes
“We remain resilient in the quest for justice, freedom of expression and upholding of human rights through Literary Activism and Artivism. ALUTA CONTINUA.” Mbizo Chirasha
MBIZO CHIRASHA is a recipient of PEN Deutschland Exiled Writer Grant (2017), Literary Arts Projects Curator, Writer in Residence, Blogs Publisher, Arts for Human Rights/Peace Activism Catalyst, Social Media Publicist and Internationally Anthologized Writer, 2017 African Partner of the International Human Rights Arts Festival Exiled in Africa Program in New York. 2017 Grantee of the EU- Horn of Africa Defend Human Rights Defenders Protection Fund. Resident Curator of 100 Thousand Poets for Peace-Zimbabwe, Originator of Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Movement. He has published a collection of poetry, Good Morning President, and co-created another one Whispering Woes of Gangesand Zembezi with Indian poet Sweta Vikram.
A demonstration in London against Robert Mugabe. Protests are discouraged by Zimbabwean police in Zimbabwe. / Photo courtesy of woWings under CC BY-SA 2.5 license.
– Mbizo Chirasha
I was born in this month – the month of bitterness, violence and numbness. In this month the Soweto died in a reckless killing by the apartheid regime. What a fuss , horrible. Yes we live to forgive – with memories haunting peasant iron-hoe skulls. We celebrate the DAY OF AFRICAN CHILD.
In the year of the blood ballot, in my country, a country once the honey hive and the breadbasket of the African continent, blood flooded villages, death rained our valleys, tears dripped the aged and wrinkled of the war tired poor patriots – CODE named the Re-RUN- JUNE 27 2008. Those who were perceived as reckless voters had their not-voting-good hands chopped off. Grief engulfed the land whose belly is pregnant with uranium, gold, diamond, emerald, and copper. The masses are hungry, tired of abuse and corruption. Tired of the MADNESS!
I was born in a sweet – bitter month – June. My mother remembers that the night of my coming to this earth. It was raining. It was after a brutal pungwe, after vanamukoma varova vatengesi namatanda, vanamukoma vamboimba. After a dinner of village goat meat, lashes and songs. What a PARADOX!. Bullets shelled that night resonating with claps of thunder. As war rained, winter rained rained. A Life was born – a booming voice, charcoal black veil, a tight fist clutching talents, hopes, dreams, words. WORDS!
I feel to recollect some of the poems i shared some years ago.
POEMS
DEAR COMMISSAR.
Dear commissar
my poetry is
political baboons puffing wind of vendetta
splashes of sweet flowing buttock valleys of pay less city labourers
rough crackling red clay of sanctions smashing poverty corrupted face of my village
presidential t shirt tearing across bellies of street hustlers
mute bitter laughter of political forests after the falling of political lemon trees
Dear commissar
my poetry is
foot signatures of struggle mothers and green horns
bewitched by one party state cocaine
new slogan hustlers boozing promises after herbal tea of change rhetoric
street nostrils dripping stink and garbage
tears chiseling rocky breasts of mothers who lost wombs
in the charcoal of recount
Dear commissar
my poetry is
rhythm of peasant drums dancing the new gimmick
unknowingly
political jugglers eating voter drumsticks after another ballot loot.
ZIMBABWE
harare tonight you sleep a full sleep, may be
after a sunset of a nationalist and democrat table talk
cactus and roses blooming together
your sunshine eaten by rough talk and hate verbs
pavements designed by banana peels and potholes extended from
robot less highways
that beggar still linger around the freedom corner/julius nyerere avenue
the blind woman grioting around liberation street/herbert chitepo
Bulawayo your sacredness is bound
by bones of mzilikhazi and breath of lobengula
place of killing , dissidents and innocents
died when bullet wind swept your nights
tell me how many times you coughed blood
a place of kings , Ntabazinduna
Kwekwe
your intestines pregnant with gold ,copper , iron and more
heart of the nation
where soils heave with wealth
crocodiles depleted your dignity
leopards stole the color of your rhythm
flex your muscles and claim your heartbeat
Masvingo Ezimbabwe
great zimbabwe,pride robbed
changamire and mutapa turning their in magic stones
inflation eroded your pride
corruption rode your back
blood corroded your dignity
cry for a ceremonial cleansing
land of sacred , land of rituals
land of silence
Mutare
mist of inyanga sneeze glee and laughter in your back
while chimani mani cough out threats and thoughts
lungs of marange choking with diamonds
corrupted fields
defamed wealth
here in the land of the east , i see
the scarred face of the sun
chopped breasts of the moon
villagers tired of toyi toyi
patriots damned by hunger
peasants freezing in propaganda
revolutions eating kindergartens
butcheries of human flesh
winter elections erected poverty.
Gweru
i see uniform less children trudging through
winter corridors, barefooted
you are colder than joburg,though emotions
boiled during elections
cockroaches breeding other cockroaches in
once midlands hotel
emptiness , hunger ,cold and thoughts
city of progress , rewrite your progress
Rushinga
death threatened even the dead and their shadows
when struggle returned back to war
on the road again fighting enemies of the state their sons
perfume of human flesh roasting in charcoal of violence
March was cruel than april
this season was a parody of nazi hitler
Kariba
i like how zambezi vomit fish
crocodiles eating rot and sun
hippos dancing the moonshine
zambia whispering copper in your ears
you are regaining your light.
zimbabwe
let fabrics of madness bleach in acid of reason.
FREEDOM DISCORD
children will not go down with the sinking sun
sacrificed on altars of ambition
crucified buy forces of expediency
tear graffiti scrawling
on debris of their slums of poverty and hovels of crime
we are children born out of the hot sun of Sahara and burning sands of Kalahari
we belong to the semen and condom drunk streets of home
womb of our past explode with souls of martyrs and bones of freedomites choked by ropes of stigmatization
we are morphine -fuelled and marijuana
doped youngsters whose praise
and freedom is robbed by slogan fraudsters
we are dogs breakfasting
from cucumbers and feasting condoms for supper
children of pandemic genocided villages
slaves of sugar and blood
never fondled the breasts of freedom
licked the tears of our mothers
have no dignity to celebrate
we are souls blighted in sufferings
bring us nanobitas of democracy
not shigellas of autocracy.
MBIZO CHIRASHA is a recipient of PEN Deutschland Exiled Writer Grant (2017), Literary Arts Projects Curator, Writer in Residence, Blogs Publisher, Arts for Human Rights/Peace Activism Catalyst, Social Media Publicist and Internationally Anthologized Writer, 2017 African Partner of the International Human Rights Arts Festival Exiled in Africa Program in New York. 2017 Grantee of the EU- Horn of Africa Defend Human Rights Defenders Protection Fund. Resident Curator of 100 Thousand Poets for Peace-Zimbabwe, Originator of Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Movement. He has published a collection of poetry, Good Morning President, and co-created another one Whispering Woes of Gangesand Zembezi with Indian poet Sweta Vikram.
El Tigre building in Destu, Spanish Basque Country / Public Domain photograph
“Those trains brought me to Hemingway’s World War I minimalist opus “In Our Time.” His broken shapes and no words for them. It got all still as our train stopped. I found myself bleakly staring at eternity unbound.” Linda Chown
The Big Burn-Out
In Deusto those burnt out train husks
ETA exploded black in a rage for justice
haunt the tracks like unheard whispers
hollowed out like old love gone offstage
There was an awe in my looking
almost a respect as I was
remembering the political anger
in which I was basted all my little life.
It was a mirror of those police,
big faceless men holding their lines.
This is no self pity but a gripping knowing
how big life living is. How solemn and fervent our times.
Those trains brought me to Hemingway’s
World War I minimalist opus “In Our Time.”
His broken shapes and no words for them.
It got all still as our train stopped.
I found myself bleakly staring at eternity unbound.
where the hell-burn bristles
a huge expanse of empty
where cold dances like repression
life bites and slaughter slays.
the chaos of Chernobyl seethes
in a fraught den wrapped in commission
and hiding lasting lies which don’t stick
party politics belittles
while routine purges lacerate life’s nobility
Orange hibiscus hovers
Blue iris irradiates
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.
With this post we close our month-long Climate Action blog-series presented in solidarity with the world’s youth and with the many organizations that held events this past month. Our gratitude to and appreciation for the contributors to this series and our readers and followers. Together we rise in support of our beautiful blue-green Earth and our ability to survive and thrive here.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor
Dear Earth, you are a sacred aqueous Isle in a dark and endless sea of universe. You may never reveal your strategy. We may be bound by genetic code to the presupposing chemical destiny of one great astrophysical master plan for all living things. We, who represent your malaise, your chronic infestation; we, like a fleeting itch in your long life, will never comprehend it. But, in truth you know too well that we can never understand more than one percent of all there is to know. You contain the knowledge that is beyond us. We are but a rash on your skin.
One day, we know you will raze all of our delusions, prepare us for the day when a blinding light will inoculate you and inform us of a moment when extant humans will, at last be prepared to distinguish the l i e s f r o m truth and
so we a r e m e r e a t o m i c p a r t i c l e s inside a temporal chalice
Poetry, Music, Art
for
Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Poetry. It’s better than war! —Michael Rothenberg, co-founder of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change
It is time once again for The BeZine live 100TPC event, this year at the end of a week when over 7 million people around the world participated in various climate crisis strikes to demand action now, according to 350.org.
Today, under the banner of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change (100TPC), for the 9th year, people the world over are gathered to stand up and stand together for PEACE, SUSTAINABILITY and SOCIAL JUSTICE. There are over 700 100TPC events worldwide scheduled for 28 September 2019, and many others throughout the year. This year, a large number of these events focus on the climate crisis, the urgency of which has been well expressed by Greta Thunberg:
When our house is burning we cannot just leave it to the children to pour water on the flames – we need the grownups to take responsibility for sparking the blaze in the first place. So for once, we’re asking grownups to follow our lead: we can’t wait any longer. —Greta Thunberg, 15 March 2019 (age 16, Swedish)
Our themes for your contributions, as every year, are Peace, Social Justice, and Sustainability. As I wrote in the introduction to the September 2019 issue of The BeZine, these three issues intertwine with each other. With a month of climate actions, this week just past of focused action through 350.org, and Greta Thunberg’s #ClimateStrike, #FridaysForFuture, and #schoolstrike4climate efforts, the climate crisis has been a central focus of many this month. The BeZine blog has been running daily posts related to the climate crisis throughout September.
Even so, we welcome your work on any of the three themes. We need action and change in all of these areas, we need it now, and we need to keep calling for action and deep, cultural change, every day.
Right now, the youth are urgently calling on adults and governments to act, and especially on issues of sustainability. Thunberg boldly told the gathered world leaders at the UN:
People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! —Great Thunberg, 23 September 2019
While Thunberg may be the most well-known youth on the issue of the climate crisis, other youth have worked on related issues, especially clean water. Clean water should be a human right—it is an issue of social justice, wars are fought over water, and sustainable practices are needed to clean our waters and keep them clean.
Autumn Peltier (age 14), an Anishinaabe living in Canada, is one of those other youth, who, as did her aunt before her, lives her life as a water protector:
No one should have to worry if the water is clean or if they will run out of water. No child should grow up not knowing what clean water is, or never know what running water is. —Autumn Peltier, 22 March 2018 (age 13 at the time, Canadian Anishinaabe)
Seventeen year-old Xiye Bastida, a Mexican American living in New York, speaks to the need for deep-rooted change:
We need to change our culture and change our narrative. For too long, the narrative has been that this is some big distant thing that will happen in the year 2100. But pollution is here. Heatwaves are here. Wildfires are here. Melting ice caps are here. Floods are here. Category 5 hurricanes are here. It’s here already. —Xiye Bastida, 19 September 2019 (age 17, Mexican-American from New York City)
Mari Copeny, a 12 y.o. African American also known as “Little Miss Flint,” at the age of 8 brought attention to (and grant money for) the water crisis in Flint, MI, by writing to then President Barack Obama. Now aged 12, she calls on us to not just act today, nor this week, nor this month:
No, our fight to save the planet didn’t start today with the #ClimateStrike and it doesn’t end today either. Many of us have been putting in the work for years to save our planet. Don’t just amplify our voices today, but every day and support our solutions to save us. —Mari Copeny on Twitter, 20 September 2019 (age 12, African-American from Flint, MI, also known as “Little Miss Flint”)
I return to Thunberg, who proclaims “change is coming”:
You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not. —Greta Thunberg, 23 September 2019
Last year on our 2018 Live 100TPC page, Jamie Dedes, our managing editor, wrote about 100TPC:
Think on this when you are tempted to lose all hope for our species. Remember that—not just today, but everyday—there are ripples and waves and tsunamis of faith and courage crossing borders in the form of poetry, stories, art, music, friendships and other acts of heroism. Hang tough. And do join with us—The Bardo Group Beguines—todayto share your own creative work and to enjoy the work of others. All are welcome no matter where in the world you live.
I say, think of these youth, their messages, and their leadership—”ripples and waves and tsunamis of faith and courage.” Think of these precious, perceptive youth—
—Michael Dickel, Contributing Editor
these precious perceptive youth, a poem
“Providing food, shelter, clothing and education is not enough any more, because all of this would have no meaning in the end, if your children do not have a planet to live on with health and prosperity.” —Abhijit Naskar, The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth
this perfect blue-green planet, her youth
dream among the strains of their hope,
dream of us like our sun and moon,
coordinating … if only we would,
sowing the rich soil with right-action,
cultivating a greening of our compassion,
acting on a commonsense vision
the fruits of our being-ness plant their
ideals, shared values, a call for accountability,
for a re-visioning unencumbered by insanity,
rich fields to harvest, color, sound, textures,
rough and smooth, the deep rootedness of
their stand and stand for, their wise demands
casting a spell that we might see with one eye,
splendor hidden behind our irresponsibility,
their effervescent call, blossoming unity, vision –
bright spinning planet gently graced with these
wildflowers, these precious perceptive youth.
Dedicated to the young people of the world who teach us many lessons as they reach across borders in their stand for climate action.
TO SHARE YOUR POEMS, ART, PHOTOGRAPHY AND MUSIC VIDEOS FOR OUR “LIVE” VIRTUAL 100TPC TODAY, PLEASE USE MISTERLINKY FOR URL LINKS. JUST CLICK ON THE ICON BELOW. YOU CAN ALSO SIMPLY PASTE YOUR COMPLETE WORK OR THE URL TO IT INTO THE COMMENTS SECTION.
REMEMBER THE THEMES ARE PEACE, SUSTAINABILITY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.
as of OCTOBER 2, 2019, this event is closed for sharing
YOU CAN STILL READ
thank you everyone who participated
we’ll open an all-new virtual event next year, Sept. 28, 2010
Click on Mister Linky above to add a link to your work!
Once in a while you exceed yourself. Are you blue, because we thought no more of you as the driving force for life on Earth or potency behind the waves of bitches and whelps giving us thrilling moments or contemplative of a thriving, muddy, salty, riverine universe of life waiting for you to draw the tidal covers repeatedly over the fruits of our sustenance.
A force of nature, fully formed yet so much smaller than the mother of your birth, you hold sway, in countless ways you touch our lives and drive us through our days. Humble, unassuming, even unnoticed by those who hurtle, mindlessly, and make no time for the wisdom of our insignificance or feel the difference between our age and yours.
As necessity tramples over truth most days, we hide in fear of the darkening, of the madness that ensues. Does not the hunter choose your waning dark to spike the nervous memory, remind us of the feral wolf pack? We may not ever tame you, but your mother is dying a slow and painful death.
Oh super blood blue moon, does not your God and our God sing the same tune?
KELLA HANNA-WAYNE (
upholding of human rights through Literary Activism and Artivism. ALUTA CONTINUA.” Mbizo Chirasha
MBIZO CHIRASHA
With this post we close our month-long Climate Action blog-series presented in solidarity with the world’s youth and with the many organizations that held events this past month. Our gratitude to and appreciation for the contributors to this series and our readers and followers. Together we rise in support of our beautiful blue-green Earth and our ability to survive and thrive here.
The BeZine 
