EXODUS-TO-DUST

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote

For Palestinians, Israeli elections signal deepening occupation --Haaretz, January 21, 2013

Emptiness echo full of itself
Reverberating eardrum downbeat tambour percussion
Vainglorious ambitions disconnected unanswered prayers
Orchestrated symphony forever left unfinished

Terra not so firma quaking
Earth reopened bottomless sinkhole aftershocks
Natural depression hollow subway passages
Ants streaming through clogged arteries

Shorn sheep led to slaughter
Tough tasteless mutton gyros grilled
Axis rotating in wrong direction
Anti-clockwise alarm no turning back

Unholy land-grab borderless uncivil war
Black white gray distinctions obliterated
Singed hawk feathers decalcified plumes
Phoenix smoldering in spitfire embers

Fearless hate-mongers playing for keeps
Recycled unsettled grievances sold out
Unruly mob committing unjustifiable offences
Numbed conscience bleeding cardinal sins

Mauve dusk undermining tomorrow’s dawn
After dark luminous eclipsed aura
Overshadowed neon deep purple afterglow
Nocturnal rhapsody evocative fallen stars

 No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

INVASION OF GAZA 2012

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Image source: Occupy Wall Street

Inside the heart of the invader
There is a cave where the corpses are stored
A cave of ice that keeps the bodies
From decomposing and putrefying
So the invader needn’t suffer the stink
Deep cold freezes the last expressions of terror
On children’s faces
Freezes the arms of dead parents
Around their slaughtered infants

The frozen bodies are neatly stacked
In the lightless cavern inside the invader’s heart
To make the most efficient use of space
So there will always be room for more
Because the bodies keep coming and coming
And they must be put away somewhere
The grandfather mowed down
In his olive grove
The teen picked off trying to get home to family
The pregnant mother crushed
By her collapsing roof
The toddler burnt to a crisp
By white phosphorous

Inside the heart of the occupier
Are bleak frigid factories that turn the murdered
Into building materials
For constructing homes on stolen land
With lovely gardens and swimming pools
Inside the heart of the occupier
Are bitterly cold prisons
Of torture and indefinite detention
For those who resist
The relentless encroachments
Of the mad blind machine

Inside the heart of the nation
In a cave of black ice
The explosive voice of self-righteous hypocrisy
Booms and echoes off the walls
We are defending ourselves
We are the upright and the good
We are the chosen and
All we do is the will of God

But there are other voices as well
Inside the heart of the nation
And inside the heart of the world
The small voices of grasses in green pastures
The healing voices of warm rain and still waters
The steadfast valiant voices of those
Who refuse to cooperate with bulldozer politicians
With marauding colonists
With tormentors of the rightful inhabitants
Voices nearly impossible to hear
In the roar of war and propaganda
But necessary to hear and to heed
If true justice is to roll down like waters
And true righteousness like a mighty stream


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective). He lives in northern California.

INSTRUCTIONS

by Laurie Lamon

Image source: Mind Maps

Put them into the scissors’ ovals made for making

parts; fold them into the shape of the bird

crossing a wall, then vanishing into light’s room.

Let one warm the face turned on its side;

let one come to the breast as a sleepwalker touches

a door. Let them both envy the tongue.            

Let them count money like miseries that close

the eyes. Have them write in pencil the forty-two

resolutions against Israel. Have them handle

and return the identity cards of those who are here

and not here. Let them ease the burdens of smoke.

Instruct them to scatter straw, earth’s estate

to be carried in the mouths of the smallest animals.

Laurie Lamon's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Criterion, Ploughshares, Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture, Plume, and other magazines and journals, including 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Ordinary Days, edited by Billy Collins, and thePoetry Daily and Verse Daily websites. In 2007 Lamon received a Witter Bynner award, selected by Poet Laureate Donald Hall. Lamon has also received a Pushcart Prize. Laurie Lamon has two collections of poetry are The Fork Without Hunger and Without Wings, CavanKerry Press (NJ), 2005 and 2009. Lamon is a professor of English at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington and the poetry editor for Rock & Sling.