If it’s wrong, write.
If it’s right, write.
If it’s big and belligerent
and beats down the weak,
write. Or — it may be you,
you may need
to exorcise that
inside of you. So write.
If it’s little or helpless,
bleeding as it weeps,
staring at you, write.
You don’t want its blood
on your knowing hands.
Help it.
Write.
Here is my gun. It’s big
my bullets fly out.
See.
Yesterday I killed some old
men and women plotting
in the synagogue.
If I didn’t do it first
they were going to kill
me.
I am the god of empty.
boss, try to be less
of what you are
try to be someone who
admits wrong cap in hand
try to call someone else
right for a change
let one of the machines
you love so much
pound you down into dust
like it does the rest of us
then rise
from the factory floor
to face your workers
cry for forgiveness
boss, try to be more
then we’ll stone you
with rocks
we’ve been gathering
for years and years
she wore seven syllables
on the back of her chic coat.
I really don’t care. Do u?
here are seven more for her:
there is no soul in your eyes.
and seven more just for her:
all children need their mothers.
for Vladimir J. Cimera
My father left this world ten years ago.
He died when the trees were blooming
in late April. What a world this is now.
The Americans, the Russians, the
Syrians (poor Syrians). Jesus, all of it.
If my father came back, he’d be surprised
that I should be shocked by any of it.
He let me read The Painted Bird, the
poetry of Tadeusz Różewicz when I was a
kid, he told me all about it, the fuckery,
the terribleness of people, things they do.
The things we do. He loved books and
gave that to me. He showed me how to
love this world, despite it all. God, he was
a good father.
like every peasant before me
in a despot world
I stand in my silent field
pull my broad-brimmed hat low
search the sky.
my dog whines beside me
while the grasses wave.
like every peasant before me
I know which way the wind blows
and who stands in its iron path.
the moon shines down on
aleppo.
I read goodnight moon
to a ghost child who cries,
pushes my warm useless hands
away.
A poet is one who tries to leave and one who cannot leave, Tadeusz Rózewicz
Poets, stop eating one another!
It’s words that feed us
not each other’s beating hearts.
This new emperor with his
greasy bloated dreams
doesn’t even see us
gathering at his feet.
Sharpen your pens on
this smooth waiting stone.
Poets, we’re about to be fat.
— Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview.
I’m Afraid of Americans, David Bowie
A literary magazine recently
published a poem
about a presidential candidate
that started a debate.
Some poets liked it but
some got furious,
shouted with disgust.
They ground that poem
into dust. Then they
ground that poet
into blood
& bits.
When poets start cutting
each other’s throats —
something
has won.
One morning I woke up to find my hand
had become the Hand of God; I was overjoyed.
I reached into the sky and grabbed a plane
on a very bad mission and set it down in a field.
No, you must not do that, I said to the pilot. I
had to say it several more times, sternly, with
other planes — cars and trucks too. I plucked
and crushed the guns out of the tiny hands of some
soldiers. No, don’t shoot guns, I said. Don’t hurt
your fellow humans. Don’t kill babies. Stop it.
I had to do it again, again and again with soldiers
and civilians alike throughout the long and terrible
day. So much so that I got angry and my Hand
began clenching, clenching but I managed to stop
myself from killing them all — the fucking fools,
the idiots, the whole goddamned world — before
the sun had set. I prayed to have my hand back
and the next day it was. ……….All I can do now
is shake my fist.
I see Poet Ashraf F.
and think
on Poet A. Akhmatova.
Life under Regime.
Then and Now.
Brutalizers keep crawling
on their low
bellies through the
dirty mud
of Time.
But Poems
gallop like strong
Horses carrying
messages, their
hooves tearing up
the brown mud.
Even
the ones who wrote
the Poems, can’t
hold them back,
pull their manes,
rein them in.
They run and run. . .
O little children of Dunblane
it’s been almost twenty years
since your parents ran
screaming your names.
There was March frost
upon the icy lane,
there was a man with a gun
..
in Dunblane.
O little children, your names
are on a terrible list
that through the years,
in different places,
has grown and grown —
insane, insane.
..
..
The victims of the 1996 Dunblane Primary School massacre in Dunblane, Scotland were: Victoria Clydesdale, aged 5; Emma Crozier, aged 5; Melissa Currie, aged 5; Charlotte Dunn, aged 5; Kevin Hasell, aged 5; Ross Irvine, aged 5; David Kerr, aged 5; Mhairi McBeath, aged 5; Brett McKinnon, aged 6; Abigail McLennan, aged 5; Emily Morton, aged 5; Sophie North, aged 5; John Petrie, aged 5; Joanna Ross, aged 5; Hannah Scott, aged 5; Megan Turner,aged 5; Teacher Gwenne Mayor, 45.
the wan gold moon
shining coldly down
says nothing.
the nine black koi
swimming in their pond
say nothing.
the pink blossoms that
fall in april like tears
say nothing.
they pass no Judgements
on the child suicide
hanging from a low branch
of the japanese plum tree.
_____________
Note: “Last year, suicide was the leading cause of death for Japanese children between the ages of 10 and 19….Other overarching cultural trends, like hikikomori, a form of social withdrawal, augment the problem further.” The Wilson Quarterly, Stephanie Lu, October 22, 2015
..
I swear —
I want only to write poetry
about the beauty of the world,
the goodness of its people,
the gentle light of peace,
the kind mercy given
to the small and the weak,
and how the hand of god
reaches down and saves us
from ourselves, again and again,
oh bless us.
But. Our leaders, our generals,
our presidents, our priests,
our fellow human beings with a
certain grinding power, and the
turn-a blind-eye, glad it’s not me
ones without, but just as bad,
they
won’t let me —
..
those Fucking Motherfuckers.
Ugly Words —
..
Entartete Kunst: Degenerate Art
Munich 1937 art exhibit vilifying modern art and artists
..
Arbeit Macht Frie: Work Makes You Free
Sign above gates of several concentration camps
..
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer: One People, One Empire, One Leader
Nazi political slogan
..
Beautiful Words —
..
Zeitgeist: The ideas prevalent in a period and place, particularly
as expressed in literature, philosophy, and religion.
..
Sehnsucht: Thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are
unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative
experiences.
..
Weltschmerz: Sadness felt at the imperfect state of the world, especially
at the behavior of human beings.
..
Words have power.
People have power.
In every country of the world there exists misuse and abuse of Words and People.
..
We need Poets and Pacifists —
the Götterdämmerung is coming.
..
My Czech father, dead for eight years,
shows up in my dream early this morning.
He touches my hand, tells me to remember
the Village of Lidice,
the Prague Spring,
the Velvet Revolution.
I say I only recall a little about this history.
He raises his eyebrows at me, the way
he did in life, and suggests I look it up.
It’s the past, I yawn in my dream, long over.
My father reminds me that Marc Chagall said
Time is a river without banks
and these things are happening right now,
in different places, events churning up the water,
the water flowing out into the world —
Wake up!
And his voice is so insistent, I open my eyes,
open them wide. What I see is a river
rushing all around my bed.
.
(for Anne Frank)
…
She’s in a place of many windows,
letting in all the light of the universe.
She can lean out and look down
upon all of us, at any time.
She can see the remnants of Auschwitz.
At the house on Prinsengracht 263,
she can see her plaid diary
kept carefully under glass.
She can see her attic room.
She can see school-children
crowding together, their footsteps
echoing on the old wooden floors.
She can hear the teachers asking,
What has Anne taught us?
and hears the many answers.
She’s in a place of no countries,
no policies, no fear, no time.
She sees no difference between
the children of Afghanistan or Syria.
But she sees the boot-prints on their backs,
just as well as you or I can.
She calls down to us, What has changed?
but only hears the wind blowing
through the chestnut trees.
The dark-eyed girl closes her window.
I get called into The Boss’s office. Seven years I have worked for him. Seven years of me delivering big smiles, bright cheerfulness, witty gaiety; of making his limo arrangements, his fancy restaurant reservations; of ordering his favorite wines for the office Christmas parties as if I cared deeply about over-priced bottles of French Burgundy that I could never afford nor do I want. I’ve earned a living. But today The Boss is angry; he is ready to put me firmly in my place. Because – the day before he told me to do something and I gave him a nasty look. And – he thinks he heard me sigh. It’s not the first time either.
[An unconcealed look and a weary sigh – the inexcusable crime of the servile. The chink in my armor.]
For this I’m told that I’m a bad worker and if I don’t like things, I should leave. The Boss tells me if something is happening in my personal life, don’t bring it to the office, it should stay at home. Work is not the place for life, not my life apparently, of which he knows practically nothing. I don’t tell him about the scheduled biopsies. Instead – feeling as if I’ve just emerged, choking, from a deep dark drowning pond – I advise The Boss that that I will leave then. And I quit. The Boss says Good! and turns furiously away. The next day he tells his head lackey to ask me to come back. I don’t expect an apology because I know The Boss, this Porsche-collecting gentleman and sharp-dressed bon vivant, too well. I tell the lackey that I will not come back, that there is just some shit I will not eat. I’ve eaten too much already, I’ve realized to my utter horror. Bowls and bowls of it. Obsequiousness is now what I am supposed to bleed, the price of my paycheck from The Boss.
I got out. I have a different job and work for a Good Person now. Life is sweet and my own. I write poems again. I’m writing this one to let you know – there’s hope. Don’t despair, there is hope.
The woman is stretched out on the dirt.
Her body is driven into it again and again.
Some of the dirt gets onto her turned face,
some of it gets into her open mouth.
…..
This woman, the next woman
sitting over there, back against the wall,
the bony girl who won’t stop whimpering,
the dirt itself –
…..
all must bear the Soldier’s weight
equally.
Storm’s coming!
Wind kicks up.
Sky darkens.
Wind chimes speak:
clink clink clink clink clink
Warning! clink clink . . . . . . clink
Quietly, then anxiously.
Now hysterically CLINK CLINK!
Thunder deepens.
Rain pours.
Close the window!
. . . . . .
Why’s dinner always late?
Why are you so lazy?
Goddamn you anyway.
Stop crying! No no please
I haven’t touched you
yet. NO DON’T!
Shut your mouth.
Someone will hear.
Close that window!
