Matryoshka
In your world, inside your country,
in your town, inside your house,
in your family…
… strangers came around.
Even inside you…
Language was never found.
Artist & About the Piece:
Oriada Dajko
This is a short poem that talks about the boundaries people set between them. Creating boundaries with others also creates boundaries for oneself. This poem is dedicated to the power of language in society.
Examination
Addled algorithms, a season on ecstasy,
heartfelt persuasions know no limits,
built-in adolescence drives the insecure
sleeping in doorways a superior curse.
Crystalline palaces under shared beds
protection from prying hands before bedtime,
produce what you can, on pain of obsolescence
shame to jettison what engenders failure.
Inferior complexes the hardest in the book,
complicated questions show their ire,
holding one’s own in a mess of radio buttons
true or false or otherwise, screeching demise.
The eerily judgemental speeds the plough,
burning all and sundry to keep things sweet,
incentivise work like never before,
no amount of apology can dissuade that.
More fussy about alcohol, good, ill, otherwise
cursed to sleeping rough once time passes
safely passing that hurdle, standing alone
cutting swathes across examinations in due course.
Returning to the fold, simple massacre permitting,
the producer’s helper finding the darkest hour,
clock-face on the mortar forgives everything,
a call for proper order a proper champion.
Watching Us Burn
The morning’s red sky speaks atrocities.
Rare though it is, beckoning sheets of rain,
washing efforts at painting at nought,
seeping clothes on the dry as recommended.
Never thinking of a local drink to soothe,
enough alcohol to go stale on the sly,
ghastly though it tastes, disbelief at alcoholics
resurrecting examinations in due course.
Swimming in technology for a greater good,
exiting down the side alley once vacated,
actions like milk spilt over camaraderie
misplacing a step where the affairs overtake.
This invisible mind cuts for a better deal
sit down and be quiet, that’s all I ask.
Pay attention where due, on a straightened path,
retiring at a slow pace, artistically rich.
Tomorrow bodes even worse, a sportive adventure,
darkened features have no one to blame,
half-empty glass snugly prising its gun
maturity being tough, at the best of times
an elusive state of affairs, still undefined.
Life-changing excuses, taken out with the rubbish,
burning tantalising magazines out of spite.
Too adventurous for some, even if all in the head,
fantasy without guilt in love with the
impossible.
My Minion Book
Getting up from seats to satisfy various groups,
vacating the naked lunch, never again,
shot without mercy after taunting tears
the sated crowds get their own preferences.
Sports injuries is no fault but your own,
twinkling lights shine on without a care,
more important than life or death, of course
regular drives home a cause for gratitude.
Weaving funny stories, in a haze of mistakes
feeling shame from my work unhorses me,
eating from production-heavy glasses
sacrilegious condiments through a gravy boat.
Playing continually in red, intractable future,
drinking alone is a joke no one can cure,
being watched from various angles, scrutinised,
hardly redeemed from one’s loneliness.
Tracking devices eventually kill us all.
The shame of existence wiping the floor,
searing the deficit paid out to society
unfulfilled friendship hardly registering.
Hurt at the time of writing, something was up.
Theories of demise milked beyond recognition
lifelong embarrassment resonates through anger,
a public diary, however brief, still
incriminates.
Wild Life & Low Life
Scuppering another’s music as you do best,
black eclipse on form a requisite standard
a pinnacle of pain falls short of closure
crassly sucked, on demand, inconsequential
worming into a life grossly all right,
introducing the dark side of a job well done.
Sleeping under demands, requests futile
of places to stay, clothing notwithstanding,
waitress on guard to see you off safely,
loved, not liked, as her parents wished
scanned demands make politicians laugh,
persecution simplex explains their rule.
Promising redemption on the back of a laptop,
nicely groomed to its use to an optimum,
frequenting the gingerbread house on every occasion
an unlikely rehab from top to toe
spare cuts do the business, a tea-based lifeform,
straws breaking backs miss their chances.
Now, I am alone, before smart phones and revenge porn.
Ultimate sacrifice no more than a whimsy,
laying down in peace, a pardoner’s pole-vault
sleeping though you are now, a luxury of soil
on your own sword of drugs and alcohol,
probably missed, by whom I have forgotten.
Subtle you were, like the quick brown fox
jumps over the lazy dog, perchance.
Stale as it is, pumping alcohol as directed,
slowly imbibing was you watch from afar.
An exit strategy hardly beckons,
pointing out classic hits over the tannoy,
disembodied photographs grace the stairwell,
playing games where provided, entertaining.
A hardly crafted tattoo graces your neckline,
barely covered under buttons, displayed all the same
closed-circuit conversation of no consequence
looking strange a price to pay for solitary.
Hooked on decent manners, a prolific swing,
born-again criminal over suitable drugs,
championing one’s talent for better reading,
on condition of including you in my canon.
Bare shoulders reveal a wealth of fashion
crying only for yourself, incarcerated again,
slotting in sex wherever possible
deceiving nurses with your extravagant poverty.
An astringent collective, drinking unfashionably
moving far away it a hard-worn guilt.
Opportune drugs defining your life
dying in perfect time, a wrong proved right.
Artist:
Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo.
PROGRESS
We crawl to work in metal shells
Fueled by burning dinosaurs,
Our planet slowly cooking in the smoke.
Waves of heat soar higher;
The Golden State’s on fire;
Though some say global warming is a hoax.
Melting polar icecaps
,Disappearing glaciers
Lead to the rising of the sea.
Hurricanes grow stronger;
Rain and floods last longer;
A bad time to live in Miami!
Is this progress?
Is this progress?
Scientists have warned us
Of rising CO2;
Still we keep cutting down the trees.
Water grown acidic
And tangles of plastic
Poison the creatures in our seas.
Farmers lose harvests
To harsh, changing weather,
Reaping drought and famine for the poor.
They migrate for survival;
Labeled on arrival,
Invaders teeming on our shore.
Is this progress?
In making America great again?
Will you speak truth to those in power
Who bury their heads in the sand?
Is this progress?
Is this progress?
Smirking politicians
Mock the Green New Deal,
But whose is the costly fantasy?
To keep on doing nothing
Will end up costing trillions
In plummeting worldwide GDP.
Will we work together,
Make the painful changes
Needed for our world to survive?
Or follow blind guides
To the edge of the cliff
On a path to collective suicide?
Is this progress?
In making America great again?
Will you speak truth to those in power
Who bury their heads in the sand?
We need progress
In making our planet well again.
Let’s cause an uproar
‘Til we can’t be ignored;
Don’t bury your head in the sand.
Is this progress?
Is this progress?
Is this progress?
Artist:
Acoustic Librarian
Latino Community Unravels
“With Latinos fleeing the combined effects of the construction downturn, the mortgage crisis and new local laws aimed at catching illegal immigrants, Latino shops are on the brink of bankruptcy, church groups are hemorrhaging members, neighborhoods are dotted with for-sale signs, and once-busy strip malls have been transformed into ghost towns.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032603333.html)
Why is this store so empty?
The cash girl’s eyes are caves,
inward turned, downward turned,
downward toward her laces,
loosely bound, blind eyelet sets,
the red, white and blue stained sneakers,
industrial woven canvas, the rubber
if she has to run.
Work at home, work at the store,
bathe Abuela tonight, scan for cans
to pile here, keep one ear out for the doorbell—
as if listening will bring people in.
These are the braids of her living now,
between metal aisles and shelves,
no customer now, no jangle now, might as well
sweep again. Pick up the corn-husk broom,
clean like there’s business tomorrow,
in this old store, ethnic store, clean away the Spanish.
Bleach the tiles twice today, power-wash her skin,
beg her body to look like the powerful–
at least until payday again.
You Made Me Feel Illegal
You made me feel illegal
the way you eyed my hair
too-long-too-dyed-for-work hair
too-third-world-take-care-of-kids hair
too-got-to-clean-the-house hair
too-too-much-chat-about-the-family hair.
You made me feel illegal
my Wal-mart pants and blouses
my too-this-isn’t-how-we-dress-here clothes
too-cheap-to-even-work-here clothes
too-girly-to-do-your-job-here clothes
too-back-to-the-slum-with-you-dear clothes.
You made me feel illegal
pointing out my jewelry
“too gold” you say, “too gaudy”
my too-don’t-show-your-face-in-the-lobby jewelry
too-you-know-nothing-about-our-country jewelry
too-go-home-to-anchor-babies jewelry.
You made me feel illegal
like I’m too-you-can’t-speak-like-we-know how
too-got-no-right-to-talk now
too-got-to-go-and-wash-sticky-floors now
too-better-go-cook-in-a-filthy-kitchen now
too-best-sweep-up-the-dirt-you-see now.
You made me feel illegal
too-nothing-more-than-low class
too-nothing-less-than loathed
You made me feel illegal.
You should be illegal.
Cubano
To write poetry,
you must untrain
your brain,
forget the rigidities
of relationships.
Where is the mug
of Cuban coffee
you made me a moment ago?
Here, in the sunlight,
keeping it warm.
I’d like to stay here.
Here.
Sip it.
Artist:
Katherine Gotthardt, M.Ed.
President, Write by the Rails
InsideNova’s Best of Prince William Award-Winning Author
Read About this Artist’s Activism:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010102062.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pr-william-board-appointment-ignites-controversy
PRECIOUS MOMENTS ON THE BEACH
On the beach at Naxos,
It isn’t just the mothers who care for their children.
I see fathers tenderly cradling babies,
Rocking them gentle as they pace the shore.
Another holds his tiny daughter tight,
A mother hold her toddler’s hand on their morning stroll.
Here on Naxos
Sun-browned, naked nymphs frolick at the waters edge
Children everywhere, romp in the summer sun.
Happy families together on the beach.
On another island
A child’s limp body is lifted from the sand,
The shoreline strewn with abandoned life-jackets, back-packs and debris
A father grieves for his drowned family,
A mother screams in terror.
These parents care for their children too,
Have risked their lives to escape to a ‘safe’ place,
Leaving the horrors of war behind
To crowd onto over-loaded rubber rafts
For a sea journey to safety.
How many of them have drowned on the voyage?
How many have lost their children
Those children they wanted to bring to a safe shore
To enjoy a future in a place where there was no war?
On Lesbos Island,
It isn’t just fish the sailors catch in their nets
Brave men dive into the sea to save those who are floundering
Village women bring warm blankets, food, offer comfort.
Strangers come from afar to embrace the rescued ones.
Yet there are those who would not welcome them.
“Go back home!” they say. Home? There is no home.
It has all been destroyed, and already too many lives lost.
I sit on Naxos’ shore,
Watch the happy parents stroll,
Hear the happy cries of children
And I think about that island, not too far from here
Where a frightened mother cradles her baby
And a father cries for a drowned son.
Dedicated to the memory of little Alan Kurdi (2015)
Artist and About This Piece:
Ruth Kozak is a published historical fiction writer and travel journalist. “I wrote while on the beach at Naxos, Greece. I was thinking of the island not far away, Lesbos (Mytelini) where so many refugees have landed over the past couple of years, and in particular this tragic event when one of the boats sank.”
Ruth Kozak also writes some poetry and instructs writing classes. Her novel (about the fall of Alexander the Great’s empire) is available in two volumes on Amazon.com: SHADOW OF THE LION: Blood on the Moon (vol 1)\and SHADOW OF THE LION: The Fields of Hades (vol 2) and is also available (full volume) in amazon Kindle.
She lives in New Westminster, British Columbia Canada.
Follow This Artist:
Hungry Water
Strolling past
like Christ on a Crutch
Everything he owns
cloaking his battered-ness
or in a shopping cart
Contact or greeting
a baited hook in
hungry water
Reverse fishing
make the cast
become the catch
No current strong enough
to allay, “can you spare…”
I can and do
with smile and eyes
and see:
black white brown
native asian
he she they
all of us
in the stark reality
of the world
that none of us
are free.
Artist and About the Piece:
Richard Wells: “I consider myself a poet/journalist reporting from the streets and the universe between my ears. I live part time in Seattle, WA, the other part in Guanajuato, Mexico. Recently I wrote and produced a 50 minute work with 5 readers, 2 of them musicians, that explored intersections of the environmental catastrophe and immigration. The name of the work was: Sideways Through Zion: Field Notes. This is a short piece from that performance.”
Help Me Over
Help me.
Help me over.
Help me cross.
I can see the sky
framed
by debris,
by rocks,
by wire,
by dereliction.
Framed
by sharpness and
impenetrable barriers.
I want to see it clear,
clear and unblemished
creamy white
and pink and blue.
Help me see it.
Help me over.
Help me cross.
I want want to see it
framed by trees,
I want to see
the rocks become
flowers
again.
Help me.
Help me over.
Help me cross
to the place
where the birds are singing
breaking up the sky with flight.
Does it still exist, this place?
I must think so.
Help me find it.
Help me.
Help me over.
Help me cross
First published in Armageddon Issue, Pilcrow and Dagger, February 2017
…………….
Listen
Listen.
Listen,
can you hear them?
The sounds that went before
the wall was built.
Listen,
I can hear them.
Not the wall builders,
no, not them,
but others who also
don’t want to see
what lies beyond.
What lies on the other side.
Others who will build walls
in the future.
But listen,
we can hear them.
Listen.
Listen for when the cracks appear,
then push.
First published in Praxis, April 2019
…………………..
Separate Development
We must develop separately, you and I,
you on your side, me on mine.
The wall between us
unscalable,
impenetrable,
unfathomable.
They built it so.
We must undermine it, you and I,
you on your side, me on mine,
Burrow beneath
the rocky foundation,
scratch away,
one stone at a time.
Wall fall down.
First published in Art Of Peace Tyler Poetry Anthology – ‘Intertwined, Poems of Shared Endeavor, September, 2015
………………..
Running On Empty
We take care how we fill our shoes.
Our trainers and boots.
Our flats and heels, stilettos and cuban.
They may match our mood, specially chosen,
or be eternal representations of our unified self.
So surely something of us must remain
when they are emptied.
Not just our smells and mis-shapes,
evocative as they are,
but something more fundamental.
Something spiritual.
Something symbolic.
See here
empty shoes
laid out tidily in rows.
Blocked together on a grass field
or concrete yard.
Rows upon rows of them
that once contained the school children
now shot dead,
our children.
See here
empty shoes
piled high in untidy heaps.
Heaps and heaps of them,
that once contained peaceful people
now massacred, bombed, burned.
Our people
spanning place
and time without end.
First published in Tuck, June 2018
………………….
Refugees
At school there was a weekly collection
for charity.
I saved up my biscuit money
so that
I did not seem different, more impoverished
than the rest.
And so that I had something to give to those
less fortunate.
I knew what charities were, you see.
Well, except for the one called
‘Refugees’.
I did not know what refugees were.
This was 1956.
Only six years after the ending of a war
creating millions
of refugees
and I had to ask what they were
several times.
Even then,
I didn’t understand.
It made no sense to me.
I didn’t understand.
First published in Tuck Magazine, February 2018
Follow this Artist:
Lynn White
https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/
The American Family
Like bamboo shoots
after the storm,
they are resilient, undefeated
and persistent, growing ever stronger.
Their roots run deep
to support aspirations soaring high.
This is the song of Leuane and Chanty,
the Mukdahanhs … refugees of Laos.
Two young lovers facing the unknown,
straddling cultures.
They are fearless, without hesitancy.
They stand hand in hand,
hands holding children,
fleeing the land of ten thousand elephants,
seeking refuge in a land of ten thousand lakes.
From rain forests to blizzards
they hold on to their dream
like they hold on to their children
and their … love.
Standing hand in hand
in this new land,
they continue to … dream … the American Dream.
A dream that promises, freedom and prosperity
through hard work and sacrifice.
They had come to America
embracing hope and offering respect
to neighbor and stranger alike.
Leuane and Chanty arrived dreaming …
the American Dream,
where hope springs eternal.
But it had become “Winter in America.”
And too many of our people had become cold
and could not recall the birth of their own dreams.
So, seeing themselves superior,
these uber-americans,
these super-americans
built an economic and social fortress
of solitude
to isolate the immigrants.
But the Mukdahanhs had been forged in the land
of Suriyothai queens and kings,
farmers and builders, philosophers and scholars.
They came from generations of a people
who tamed the jungles to build temples
and foster beliefs of love, peace and enlightenment.
The Mukdahanhs were not afraid
of adversity nor obstacles.
So, they held on to one another
and continued to seek their dream
of a better life for their progeny,
and a place to live out their love.
So they worked.
They worked hard.
Educated their seed.
Lived their lives honest and true,
withstood tempests and maelstroms,
bigotry and misfortune.
All the while remaining a family … an American family.
Then without fanfare nor opulence
they did more than simply find
the American Dream …
they became the American Dream:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free”
because they are the chosen ones.
They built this country
and are still building our country.
Let us never forget
that the global immigrant
is the well spring of our nation’s wealth.
The American Dream
is a dream of immigrants
and it always has been.
Let us celebrate
the two young Lao lovers
who crossed jungles and rivers,
faced soldiers and camps,
fought poverty and racism,
all for a chance to … love,
raise their children
and grow old … together.
This is the song of
Leuane and Chanty Mukdahanh …
an American family.
Artist and About the Piece:
DaRell Pittman: “The poem is a testament to the love, persistence and faith of my in-laws. They overcame tremendous obstacles to simply stay alive in Laos and Thailand. Then once here in the United States, they were forced to continue to have to stand against injustice. My father-in-law, Leuane Mukdahanh is one of my heroes and I wanted to pay tribute to “The Mukdahanh story.”
Tall Tales
When I was a child
America was full giants
Of a huge man with an axe
That left footprints as lakes in his wake
Ate through logging towns
Felled entire forests with a single swipe
Worked better alone
But always had his Babe
The cowboy was never filmed with cows in the same shot
That was left for offscreen vaqueros
American Cowboys got stars and big guns
Never missed
Never left the shoot out to find those clapboard houses offer no protection for the family cowering inside
The child in the gingham dress is still corpse no matter which gang shot her
The Hammerman we loved for his size
He’s “too dumb to quit” even as it killed him
Nobody worried about the teaching his big black hands a skill
We just cheered on from bandstands in the desert as America sacrificial gladiator fought the machines were meant to save him
As a child the only thing I learned of giants is
they kill everything they love
die alone
Sleep giants.
Rest on the earth as mountains.
You were never really here
And our gingham dressed daughters have someplace to go.
Upbringing: A found poem of quotes from Donald and Ivanka Trump
Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice
If being complicit means…1
Locker room banter 2
You have to treat ‘em like shit 3
And when you’re a star 4
Grab them by the pussy 5
Perhaps I would be dating her 6
Quality for me is key 7
My father values talent 8
Low I.Q. crazy 9
A special place in hell for… 10
You are a pussy 11
Hard to be a ten 12
Gosh, I sound like my father 13
That’s part of the fun 14
1 Trump, Ivanka. Television Interview with Gayle King. CBS This Morning. CBS. April 5, 2017
2 Trump, Donald. Campaign Statement. Donald Trump Presidential Campaign. October 06, 2016
3 Trump, Donald. Told to friend Philip Johnson according to New York Magazine. 1992
4 Trump, Donald. Video Recording with Billy Bush. Access Hollywood. NBC. 2005
5 Trump, Donald. Video Recording with Billy Bush. Access Hollywood. NBC. 2005
6 Trump, Donald. Television Interview. The View. ABC. March 6, 2006
7 Trump, Ivanka. Online Interview with Andrew Bevan. TeenVogue. March 28, 2012
8 Trump, Ivanka. Listed as Headliner. 2016 Republican Convention. July 21, 2016
9 Trump, Donald. Tweet. Twitter. June 29,2017
10 Trump, Ivanka. Interview with unnamed reporter from Associated Press. Ivanka Trump says child tax credit ‘not a pet project’ by Catherine Lucey. Associated Press November 15, 2017
11 Trump, Donald. Video Recording with Billy Bush. Access Hollywood. NBC. 2005
12 Trump, Donald. Radio Interview with Howard Stern. The Howard Stern Show. WXRK. September 2005
13 Trump, Ivanka. The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. Touchstone. April 20, 2010
14 Trump, Ivanka. Interview with Rachel Gillett. Ivanka Trump describes her life as the daughter of a potential US president, running the Trump empire, and building her own brand. Yahoo Finance. March 17, 2016
About the Artist:
HanaLena Fennel is a Jewish-Hawaiian American poet. She has writtten a book, Letters to the Leader, published by Moon Tide Press in response to the numerous executive orders issued during Trump’s term in office.
Follow This Artist:
instagram.com/hanalena.fennel.poetry
African Myths And Lore
I mislay my book of African Myths & Lore,
vaguely recall one most burrowing that makes me sore –
about a civilian Government and nakedness,
albeit I may make a mistake; this recalling process
is like the body of a refugee swept ashore.
In the milieu drums the sea.
Our eyes smile in white.
Gulls’ aerobics loop a muss.
Where else can I misplace a book but on the shelf of conscience?
Artist Bio:
Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)
To Follow This Artist:
Author Page – amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe
