28 November 2009

Ann Hostetler

Mark A. Murphy

Diana Woodcock

Ann Hostetler

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Martyr

In memory of Marwa El-Sherbini, d. 1 July 2009 in Dresden, Germany


It all began on the playground.
Her three-year-old son tugged at her skirts.
A grown man sat on the swing.
Please allow my son to use the swing, she said.
“Go back where you came from,” he shouted.
“Terrorist. Whore. You’ve no right to be here.”

She’d been a handball champion
in Alexandria, earned a degree in Pharmacy,
married a Geneticist, who came to Dresden
to work in the Max Planck Institute.
How dare he speak to her like that in front of her son?
To him she was just a woman in a headscarf. Noxious Muslim.
She called the police. He was arrested and fined.
It should have ended then and there.

But he fought the fine,
compelled her to meet him in the courtroom.
Three months pregnant, she came with husband and son,
all she had. In front of the judge
he shouted: “You have no right to live,”
pulled out a knife, stabbed her eighteen times.
Everyone stood still. Only her husband rushed to her side,
shared the stab wounds, was shot mistakenly by police.

In Egypt where thousands came to her funeral
they call her the headscarf martyr,
but her son still calls her mama
when he looks behind the picture of the smiling woman,
her dark eyes shining with love,
for the one who asked if he could have
a turn on the playground swing.


Bio:
Ann Hostetler is the author of Empty Room with Light, a collection of poems, and editor of A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. This year she is a Guest Professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany and at the Technical University of Dresden.



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Mark A. Murphy

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Night-wanderer’s Plea

for Ernesto Cardenal

Brother, a prayer, if you will,
in the encroaching dark for the lady of the night
who shares my meal of onion and tomatoes
and never finishes it, perhaps out of politeness,
though her stomach has shrunk
to the size of a walnut.
Tell me the right words to say to take away the pain
that demolishes self and leaves only longing?

In what century do we disparage a girl
for being poor while the baron and the banker
dine at the gala luncheon
with the business man and policy maker?
In what century do we praise the millionaire,
whilst the mother in exile,
only moments away begs for pennies
on the subway train with her daughter?

Ernesto, you who have always been of the people,
a kindness for the pole dancer
in your night rosary who lost her only son
and shares my lonely room in times of poverty.
You who have cared for so many,
a hope for the cam-girl who I courted every night
throughout April, seeking not a union of the body,
but a refuge from the weight of compassion.

A blessing, then, for all our sisters,
still innocent but much used,
born to servitude and self-doubt,
forced to endure the endless nights of the flesh
whilst the pimp and the thief make merry.
These are the travesties we live by –
old friend, a plea for all the poor,
before the night swallows us all in darkness.


Bio:
Most recently my poems have been published by Poetry New Zealand, Quarterly Poetry Review Singapore, Apollo's Lyre (Canada), Poetry Scotland, The Warwick Review (UK), Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey), Contemporary Literary Horizons (Romania), The Paris Atlantic Journal (France), The American Dissident (US), The Tampa Review (US), Left Curve (US) and The Stinging Fly (Ireland).
I was born in 1969 and currently live in Huddersfield, England. I studied philosophy (BA) and poetry (MA) at University. I am currently looking for a publisher for my MS, Night-watch Man & Muse.



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Diana Woodcock

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AFTER THE BOMBING

After the bombing, the taste of hatred
hung in the air, pain of injury and despair,
doubt and darkness in eyes and everywhere—
sadness reigned. I set about consoling,
tenderly loving the wounded, the next suicide
bomber. I gave, pardoned, died a little more
each day—only by grace feeling the embrace
of the Divine penetrating all time and space.

Earth carried on with its task of annual greening.
Maple Syrup Festival in Vermont. Point of equal
balance light and dark. Rivulets flowing with
melted snow. I wondered where the souls of the
damned go. Morning glories climbing my garden
wall might know. Not me—mere ascetic and seeker
still, waiting for a frog to jump into the old pond.

Slightest breeze pleases me these days—
seeking only simplicity, patience, compassion,
emptiness. Pitied a seagull pushing against
a strong headwind blowing in off the coast this dawn.
Begged my neighbor cementing into place a
chevaux-de-frise around his property wall,
Don’t, please!

For ten days once, I listened only to the teachings of
crickets, dragonflies, flowing water. Left even my
divining bone behind. Mad with love, no one around
to see. Thought of freight yards, boat docks, calls
to prayer and ticking clocks—everyone else going
somewhere. Stayed still all those ten long days—
kept silent save for an evening song. No one else to
touch, I threw my arms around sun and moon till all
too soon time came to climb down the mountain,
take the ferry that fortunately was in no hurry
to get me back on the fast track.

After that—and now this bombing
a reminder—it’s all been clear profit:
every waking moment.


Bio:
Diana Woodcock’s first chapbook, Travels of a Gwai Lo, was published in 2009 by Toadlily Press, which also nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. Forthcoming chapbooks include Mandala (the 14th in Foothills Publishing's Poets on Peace series) and In the Shade of the Sidra Tree (Finishing Line Press). Recipient of the 2007 Creekwalker Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2008 (selected by Mark Strand), Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, Atlanta Review and other journals and anthologies. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, she has lived in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.



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14 November 2009

Jess Del Balzo

Kristin LaTour

Robert Verdon

Jess Del Balzo

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Who Let You Out of the Womb?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: one in three women—isn’t that a bit redundant? I went to school for writing, shouldn’t I know a cliché when I spit one out? And therein lies the problem: there are too many like me, trying to outrun the shadows crowding close until we realize, one day, that somehow we’re only haunting ourselves here.

No time for “why” and “how,” we’ve learned the oldest, truest arts—honesty and pried-open legs— the proper names for what we can’t say out loud. Before we stood onstage, products of cause-effect collisions on rushing rivers of statistics, we had names once too, you know.

I was not born to be your electric light, your future daughter’s shining example. It’s pretty to think that danger can be labeled clearly and the path away well lit, but really, kid, you’ve got to be kidding me. If you hear “rape” and think “victim,” then that’s your problem.

Seriously, who let you out of the womb? Guys like you are the reason I take birth-control pills with my vitamins: The last thing this world needs is more privileged assholes, more big stupid mouths sprouting opinions on things they’ll never have to worry about.

Telling me you have a bra-burning mother won’t make me hate you any less. The way she may have been too busy throwing symbols into a bonfire to tell you why, we get tired, kid. I worry about how I’d explain these dark circles under the eyes to a daughter, how to tell a son not to draw any for the girls brave enough to let him love them.

Your lineage isn’t a “get out of the doghouse free” card. If you really knew all about that “blah-blah feminist thing” and that rape has been “done before,” you’d know it’s only going to get worse if you’d rather hear a well-rounded three-minute poem called, “How I Got Over It.” You don’t just “bounce back,” turn the other cheek and sew the wound between the legs back together. You put on your boots and you start fucking walking.

Do you know what it is to survive, kid? To get in bed at the end of another long day and sigh with relief that you made it through? Recovery isn’t just something that happens—a neat beginning, middle and end—it’s something you live for the rest of your life.

So maybe you’re a little young to have met too many of us. Why don’t you come see me in a few years, after some pretty thing you love cries through the night in your arms over something you can’t fix. We’ll see how far your blah-blah bullshit gets you then.


Bio:
My work has appeared in various print and online journals, anthologies and other publications, most recently, Damselfly Press, CRIT Journal and DecomP Magazine. A graduate of Emerson College, I was also an active member of the Boston performance poetry scene, appearing in venues in and around the city. I have self-published two chapbooks and released an album of spoken word and music called Lampshade Girls & Other Renegades. I currently live and work in New York City.



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Kristin LaTour

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Lecture 12: War Problems

“There is no fixed mathematical calculation for what is or isn’t an acceptable level of civilian casualties” Colonel Jim Hellis, U.S. Army War College.

If we are x, and y is others,
we can assume that our lives are of a higher value
because we follow the rules of war.
And our churches and skyscrapers
are more valuable than y’s since y uses theirs for cover.
So if our lives and buildings are more valuable,
we can use force against y until y is overcome
or shows itself as more equal to us.

Furthermore, let’s say that x equals one school full of children,
but we must add in z, the number of men with missiles hiding in the building too,
and subtract the number of our soldiers said men have killed.
And say the number of children is 25,
and the number of terrorists with missiles is 3,
and there are 10 dead soldiers.
And if we add in the cost to train each of those soldiers,
divide by the cosine of the arc of their lives,
and factor in their families’ grief and public opinion,
we arrive at 18,
which is also the age when those young soldiers could join the Army,
and there we have it.

We can bomb that school since the young men who were killed
cannot have died in vain and at such expense,
and since more will die if those 3 terrorists aren’t killed,
and since the children in the school will just grow up to become 25 more gunmen.

The questions you may have about the lives of innocent children
being more valuable than those of grown men,
about their eyes being more sad, their tears more wet, their parents more loving,
about how people feel guilt when they see a child bloodied, missing a hand or a leg
as he is carried from a bombed school,

the answer to all of these is no.

There is no assigned value for a child without hands.


Bio:
I'm a poet living outside of Chicago in Aurora, IL. I teach at Joliet Jr. College, and am active in Chicago's poetry circles, especially by performing at open mics. I have two chapbooks, Red Beaver Lake, Minnesota published by Pudding house Press, and Blood published by Naked Mannequin press. My work has appeared in After Hours, Pearl, and online at LaFovea.org and New Verse News.



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Robert Verdon

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Anzac Day at Tuross

things we can’t quite recall …
north of Coila lake
grey clouds mirror the low range
the surf comes in like a country train
king parrots land on the bird-feeder
like the arrival of the bee-box
in this paragon of coastal development
Tuross, mate

and I missed the Dawn Service

suddenly the sun explodes
a nuclear tiara over the sea
we’re from inland
nowhere near Hiroshima

the comely clouds pink, then cottony
the planet spins
another profitable day begins

… things we can't quite recall
the busker at the shops who makes me cry
glissandos of genocide
our own little world war

how many died here and dreamed
213 years ago?


Bio:
Born in London in 1954, I have been a writer since the age of 8. I came close to winning the Anutech Prize (Canberra, Australia) in 1992 and was a finalist in 1994 and 1998. I live in Canberra and have much short fiction and poetry published here and abroad. I was a member of the collective Aberrant Genotype Press 1998-2002 until admitted to hospital with cirrhosis of the lover, sorry, a typo, liver. (I have nothing to do with the Pheasant Pluckers, www.pheasantpluckers.com.au.) My books include The Well-Scrubbed Desert (Polonius, 1994), Her Brilliant Career (Aberrant Genotype Press, 1998), My Cat Eats Spaghetti (Ginninderra Press, 1999), and The Artful Dole-Bludger [with Caroline Ambrus] (Irrepressible Press, 2000). I have an Honours degree in English and (almost) a Masters in Applied Linguistics. A PhD is possibly on the way. And they say the poor get children.



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