Archive | History

J. C. (The First)

Gaius Julius Caesar he is born,
Becomes a Roman general, conquers Gaul
Then turns and conquers Italy, Rome and all,
And treats her nervous Senators with scorn.
He has himself made first dictator for life,
Beds Cleopatra and a lot of others,
Leaves bastard sons and disappointed mothers
Which greatly annoys Calpurnia, his wife –
And several Senators (who strategize
With patriotic motives) even more so –
They plunge their bloody daggers in his torso.
Surprised, he cries Et tu Brute, and dies.
He lives today in movie, play and ballad,
Obstetrical procedures, and a salad.

– Sheila Blume

Falcons and Their Kings

A hooded hawk
knows it is blind.
Cold winds ruffle
dusty feathers
of once-bright pinions.
It hears the king’s voice:
“I have covered your eyes,
you are kept from your kind.
You shall know only me.”
Hawks do not know
the language of kings.
Kings are too grand
to fiddle with bonds.
A devoted drudge
comes hooding the captives
and cleans their cages.
He brings dead mice.
The birds receive
that royal bounty.

On rainless mornings
the falcon’s master
rides to the hunt,
raptor chained upright
on gloved fist.

Eyes open, it’s free
to harry from heaven
whatever remains
of colour and song.

There are no kings left.
All have been thrown
from palace windows,
shot down in cellars
by bearded dreamers,
sent to grow cabbage
in lowland gardens.

Everything flows,
says the old dark wisdom.
Blood flows, tears flow,
falcons are flown.

– Francis Sparshott

Unknown

I never met the man
I would have married
Loved, honored and cherished

He was killed in war

Heart and breath, rhythms of life
Brutally ended
Before we could begin.
He died before he had time to live
And us to love

We did not share children
To embrace in joy
To hold in hurt
Because death did us part
Before we met

In a war to end all wars
Which did not stop them
In a war to make the world safe for democracy
Which did not bring safety nor democracy

In the “good” war which freed the camps of death
But left the world in nuclear fear
In jungle/desert wars of futility
Which as always exposed killing fields

I never met the man
I would have loved

For in any war
There is

No rhyme
No reason.

– Joan S Nist

Photo of Whitechapel High Street

London 1958

Lanternflame of tulips blanched by cold,
Their faces glow in dark of morning light
With frowns that sigh the covenant of wounds
Sam Johnson knew that man was chosen for.
Children of the Pentateuch or Cross,
Gin’s pale armour . . . even cloven hoof;
They could not know that Hitler’s cleansers soon
Would kill the whores of Cable Street and equally

The kindly hearths of nanas’ kitchen wombs.
Stammered buildings loom above the trove
Of faces only God is keen to loot:
In eyes that wage the war on pain with love
– Time dying at its birth . . . forever gone
Reborn forever where the photo longs.

– Ralph Cunningham

wings

a sparrow flew too near the center –
he was somewhat jaded, somewhat careless,
the world being what it is these days –
in the city where everything is something else
so you can’t locate a leaf in a whirlwind
but he liked the square opposite the university
known once to einstein and bonhoeffer
who sometimes left their studies at night
and heard the mobs entering the opera house
and thought life makes sense, doesn’t it.
After all his nose sniffing, the sparrow landed
like a fleck of dandruff on a brown shirt.
He spotted other sparrows and the preoccupied
strolling arm in arm across the square
and – puzzled – a couple kneeling
before thick glass set into gray pavers,
not knowing there was a memorial under
the stones of perfectly white bookshelves,
empty as the thronged streets after the sirens,
on this spot where once the fuhrer shrilled
and whipped his party boys into misbehavior –
that is, to burning books hauled from the library
across the street. The sparrow skipped sideways,
quicker than quick, as sparrows will do
when curious. But really nothing
there much to see presented itself, just
a few spiders racing back and forth, fixing
nets around minuscule wings, wings slighter
than torn fingernails. The sparrow moved on,
letting warm thermals loft him out of Berlin
where, you’ll agree, nothing was happening,
towards the latest dustup in the desert region.

– Daniel Daly

Holocaust

I went left
She went right
I walked by the ovens.

Why has that
Unnatural selection
That burned her, spared me?

I exist
A living envelope
With a dead letter.

My skin was spared
My heart was charred.

– Bennett Gurian

Bogdan Wlosik

Hear me out, old friend.

We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik,
and even you would not believe your eyes.
Thousands came to say their last good-byes.
This many people you had never met.
They vowed they would not let the world forget
the senseless way in which you were gunned down.
I told you you should not go into town.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

Everyone from the mill passed in review.
They had to say their last farewells to you.
And all the guys from Solidarity
spread banners on your box in sympathy.
It got to be a pretty festive day.
We fought to see who’d carry you away.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

The guys at work pitched in and got a band.
You know how they all liked to lend a hand.
Your sister cried a lot but you know girls,
they weep at anything as life unfurls.
Your mother hugged your casket while she could.
She can’t accept the fact you’re gone for good.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

The priests keep telling us to keep our cool.
Anyone making trouble is a fool.
They say it like they don’t believe it’s true.
They witnessed all the violence as it grew.

They’re telling us that we should not get sore
But some guys want to even up the score.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

There’s quite a rhubarb here since you’ve been gone.
The underground keeps urging people on
to fight against the rule of martial law.
It’s worse now than it’s ever been before.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

Sleep peacefully, old friend. We all regret
your tragic death. It’s one we won’t forget.
Nowa Huta, once communism’s jewel
now is your shrine whose earth will keep you cool.
We buried you today Bogdan Wlosik.

– Edward Grocki

Remembering Anna Politkovskaya

Not a brash and green reporter
But a journalist extraordinaire;
All knew the gov’mint had committed
Many heinous hidden crimes:
Assassinations, executions,
Disappearances, tortures, threats,
But she had the hidden facts, the dates
That others could not find.
(There was no disputing that
Highest authority made the calls.)
Seventeen murdered journalists
And no murder had ever been solved . . .
Now she had the full report
And the media awaited.

As she walked the boulevard
A fast car came up very close,
Men grabbed her, dragged her, hog-tied her, shot her
And dumped her on the edge of town.
She’d yelled for help but no one spoke:
Paralyzed with fear no one gave help.

With Chechnya’s chief fighter gone
Lesser flames soon sputtered out.
So mourn, weep and shout “Outrage;”
Then say, “We’ll not forget you,
Anna Politkovskaya, journalist extrordinaire.”

– Joan Lee

9/11

The streets marched
like an obedient army
around the steel and glass
colossus, seen from the sea,
a captain tall, invincible
until molested by devils in the sky.
Screams, racing hearts, and running feet
to escape the monster cloud.
Eyes of disbelief dared not look back
could not look back at the horror.

Yet, beyond that holocaust
babies were born, toast burned,
coffee perked, scholars lectured,
bees gathered nectar,
and moms made peanut butter sandwiches.

News on the TV came
in machine gun words rat-a-tat -a tat
while my neighbor frantically
mowed his grass back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth
until the ground was bare.

– Jane E Pearce