Poets Respond

April 28, 2024

“[translate me render me into the martian tongue …]” by Dmitry BlizniukPosted by

Dmitry Blizniuk

* * *

translate me render me into the martian tongue
across the black night
where the gun stock reaches the star.
beheaded houses hum in the gloom.
the neck vertebra of the torn staircases are exposed.
moonlight is bitter like the sap of killwort.
Lord translate my words.
we have not been born yet, but died already.
the evil sorcerer in his bunker gave the order
to annihilate all Ukrainians.
to burn all forms of memory. of life.
he poured a bucketful of flash drives into a bonfire.
our days are melting in the flames.
masses of memories of the universe.
 
I was young and once in a village I went diving
into the river after a running start.
rebar rods stood hidden underwater.
sharp rusted spikes.
the wooden fishing dock rotted away long ago.
for hours I chucked myself into the black river.
in the morning girl look here—you are covered with scratches.
on the legs, stomach, arms.
I was insanely lucky back then.
will I be lucky this day?
 
readers-refugees.
we pick the books off the shelves and knock
at every book’s cover. the classics.
let us into your paper worlds.
ray bradbury, sholokhov, leo tolstoy.
but no matter where I poke, it’s all For Thee the Bell Tolls.
I end up in War and insane Peace.
in Slaughterhouse-Number.
now the reality of our life is
Valley of the Red Data Book.
now every city is served
the cocktail Bloody Vlad.
crimson yolks float in dense murk
over the booze of events.
bombs gnaw at houses, schools, kindergartens, hospitals,
churches.
we are being freed of freedom and of lives.
the howling of sirens glides foreboding
air raid alarm—here comes flying
a purple swan with his head ripped away.
 
the dawn—a gray-blue
bigheaded infant resembling a shrimp.
labored breathing. pneumonia.
because of nights in a basement
a baby bird of mucus made its nest in the lungs.
yet another artillery barrage.
a rocket blasted an apartment in a skyscraper. a conflagration.
devil’s retrospective.
mom and the elder sister in the kitchen
are killed instantly by the explosion.
black thick smoke pours out of the corridor. billows.
burns a child’s eyes.
it’s not smoke-like, but black cotton candy.
the cat named Buttercup
is the first to tumble down to the asphalt
from the seventh-story window ledge.
thirteen-year old Misha follows him, leaps like a kitten
onto the enormous spire poplar—
planted three meters away from the balcony.
dry, slender branches break beneath the small body.
crackle.
it’s as if he is falling into an empty well,
inside it
sprouts a stinging biting tree.
the boy Misha finds a way
to snag his elbow on a thick branch
at the third-story level.
his ribs and left wrist are broken, but he’s alive.
he faints. translated, rendered safe.
 
people in the apartments.
butterflies under broken glass panes—
apollo, sailor. swallowtail, morpho menelaus—
with shrapnel-pins in their velvety backs
slowly, slowly
they lift off from the earth.
they rise together with the cement boxes.
but that’s impossible.
the butterfly collector is surprised.
how many more people will perish,
how many more worlds will vanish unexplored,
unnoticed. just like that.
by the sorcerous wish of the kremlin maniac.
 
Kharkiv 451.
two fire engines are already on the way.
carving corners an ambulance arrives at the entrance.
imperturbable medical angels.
dark-red scrubs. kevlars.
next to the car the cat
drags his back paws. crawls
towards the poplar. lifts his snout. screams horribly.
and the ambulance driver notices stuck in the crown
a child.
no stranger will save the people
the close ones and the distant ones
except us ourselves.
that’s why the boy Misha absolutely must survive.
that’s why we will win.
 
Translated from Russian by Yana Kane, edited by Bruce Esrig
 

—from Poets Respond
April 28, 2024

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Note from the translator Yana Kane: “Week after week, month after month, year after year I hear about Russia’s relentless attacks on Ukraine. Kharkiv is the city that has been subjected to especially vicious bombings. Yet each time the citizens of Ukraine, the citizens of Kharkiv respond with resilience and courage; each time they push back the darkness with their love of life. One of the ways I express my solidarity with them is by translating contemporary poetry written by Ukrainian authors. Dmitry Blizniuk is a Kharkiv poet who chronicles his city’s suffering and the indomitable spirit. Note that ‘we are being freed of freedom and our lives’ is a reference to Putin’s claim that he started the war in order to defend the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine against the discrimination by the Ukrainian government.”

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April 21, 2024

“What to Do if You’re Barely Scraping By” by Chera HammonsPosted by

Chera Hammons

WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE BARELY SCRAPING BY

Have you tried paying down the balances of your debts?
That’s always the first step to financial freedom.
Have you tried having a savings account?
Here’s what you do. Start by saving a penny,
then double what you save every day.
On the second day, set two pennies aside.
On the third day, four. Soon you’ll have
pennies coming out your ears.
Have you tried making more money?
Have you tried filling out online surveys in your spare time?
Have you tried changing your career?
If none of these work for you, there’s always
something you have right now
that you could live without.
Have you tried living in your car?
You’ll save on rent. Have you tried
not having a car? You’ll save on maintenance.
Have you tried not having a cell phone?
Connection is a luxury. Have you tried giving up
your daily latte? Oh, you don’t have
a daily latte? In that case, have you tried
not eating out, or in, or around?
But don’t forget the importance of self-care. Stress
is a killer. Have you tried yoga?
Have you tried not being depressed?
Have you tried growing an insulating undercoat
and becoming an animal?
Have you tried running soundlessly
through the forest unclothed,
drinking from chilly mountain streams
and startling at sudden noises?
Have you tried lying softly on a bed of moss?
Have you tried needing nothing,
except what the world gives to you?
 

—from Poets Respond
April 21, 2024

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Chera Hammons: “This week I read that two-thirds of baby boomers, the wealthiest generation, don’t have enough saved for retirement as they reach retirement age (with a quarter having no savings at all). I also saw a story about people who have lost their entire life savings to a wire transfer scam, with no recourse available to them. My internet browser keeps recommending an article to me titled, ‘What to Do if You’re Barely Scraping By Financially.’ These things made me think of all the financial advice I’ve heard before, how it’s so often completely out of touch with reality.” (web)

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April 14, 2024

“Against the Solar Eclipse” by Alejandro EscudéPosted by

Alejandro Escudé

AGAINST THE SOLAR ECLIPSE

It’s a black swath that cuts across
A part of the country that’s a myth.
Does Ohio even exist? Not here,
Where the post office blends
With the sky and the cops drive
Black and white cars off freeway
Overpasses. In one photo, a man
Peers down at a brass contraption
Like some 21st century Galileo,
A pinprick on the sun shadowed
By that communist rock in the sky.
Or was it the other way around?
I can’t recall. It’s all mathematical
Gibberish, if you ask me. A train
Stopped the traffic the other day
And that was more real than the
Eclipse. The sun is like an orange
At the grocery store at age fifty.
Who still buys the citrusy orbs?
If fact, the supermarket aisles
Are too bright these days. I should
Wear those ISO glasses they all
Wore to observe the eclipse.
See what? Nature? Apocalypse?
Down on this planet, it’s light
Pandemonium. Hysteria denied.
I’ve had enough of branded news.
Music mimicking music. It’s called
The cosmos. That death-trap
Beyond the atmosphere. Boneless
Graveyard, aqueduct to nothingness.
Honestly, I’ll take God. He’s not
In fashion right now. But I prefer
The ambiguity of faith to ignorance,
Which is what you see in crowds,
Lawn chairs and binoculars, tents,
Motorhomes, a sheet afloat, the sun
Figured there, reflected, swallowed
By time’s stupid, arcing mouth.
 

—from Poets Respond
April 14, 2024

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Alejandro Escudé: “Human beings, in my point of view, are absolute masters of denial and distraction. The eclipse was just another event that reminded me of how well society can turn its gaze up and away from real societal issues, personal problems, true miracles, thought, insight, love, in order to participate in one more pointless venture.” (web)

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April 7, 2024

“What Will We See When the Lights Go Out?” by Ryan McCartyPosted by

Ryan McCarty

WHAT WILL WE SEE WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT?

My neighbor, near me on the bus, moves his lips
while looking at his phone. They’re like two
little birds whispering to that tiny sunrise he holds.
He will finish, snap out, look up, and laugh with me
at the empty roads, I know it, because we’re speeding
reckless in the wide open streets. The whole
world flew south to find a place to watch
one unimaginably distant body come
between us and another even more
distant body. If we believe the old stories,
they’re men and women, our mother
dancing, shielding us, hiding our father’s glare.
If we believe the new stories, roads will turn
to parking lots and children will forget
the names of their families, wandering lost
in a sea of empty gas stations and dehydration.
If we believe only the story that something
inevitable is happening, we will marvel
at the precision, at our predictive powers,
at the blurred lines between chirping crickets
and the notifications ringing in our pants.
Or, instead, on the roads, in our yards, high
behind windows built for silence, ludicrous
in our magical glasses, could we just lose
the tale? Know what the end might look like?
In the momentary darkness, fumbling
for our offerings to coax the daytime back—
our multitools and battery-powered radios,
our spare cash and backup maps, will we breathe
in that chill air, when everything purples,
when the birds change key, when millions
of us look, not to the sky but left and right, and see
each other, gone out of our way to stand,
together, where the light disappears.
 

—from Poets Respond
April 7, 2024

__________

Ryan McCarty: “I’ve been so struck by all the people I hear talking about their plans to watch the solar eclipse. Everyone is traveling, planning, convening. Thirty-one million people are supposed to be traveling to get somewhere within range. I love cosmic phenomena, but I love the way people obsess about them even more. I find myself wondering exactly what they hope to see—what they imagine—and if there’s any chance that one of these hyped-up celestial flickers might just one day change everything while we’re all standing around staring, together. Add in the almost apocalyptic warnings that accompany these kinds of events – communications breakdowns, gas shortages, traffic pileups, snack shortages—and I can’t stop imagining. That’s where this poem started.”

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March 31, 2024

“Exodus 15:21” by Miguel Barretto GarciaPosted by

Miguel Barretto Garcia

EXODUS 15:21

There are pages of home
work left open on the table.
The way there are plenty
of leftovers in the fridge.
Here I am left on the fringes.
 
This desolate place I call
home. The TV at some point
started to hiss. No more reality
show kissing scenes. No more
breaking news. Reality is white
 
noise with a white dress dancing
to a Poltergeist. Kitchen cabinets
stocked with bottles of
prescriptions. White tablets
of antacids for upset stomachs.
 
Light blue sertraline pills
for the nerves. In the morning
I break the fast. All I know
that something is broken:
The yellow bus no longer passes by
 
my street. My teacher keeps
calling our landline but my mother
is wearing thick black headphones,
cancelling all her appointments
including motherhood.
 
I crack the egg and whisk it
until my mother stops breaking down.
I learned how to change the oil
of our car, but I’m still figuring
the ways to keep the ballerina figurines
 
from falling onto the hardwood floor.
Our house leaves no secrets
and our house has plenty of them.
All of them demons in the freezer
waiting for the day the social
 
worker knocks on our door
and takes me to another version
of hell. I do have faith
in our Protective Services just as I
have faith in the God
 
Moses prayed to. The last
time I was in Sunday School
the needle screeched on the turntable
and the living room was the sound
of old ‘50s Hollywood. My father
 
used to be a happy man. My father
used to be alive. When he checked
out from this world, I checked out
the cold silence of my mother’s bed.
Death sleeps beside my mother
 
the way a child clings to their mother
to the sound of thunder.
My mother is the child. Nothing
in our textbooks prepared me
to mother my mother.
 
Nothing is the mother
I bring close to my milkless bosom.
Here, I sing to the Lord America’s
requiem. Here, I hold her close as if
we were no longer the parted sea.
 

—from Poets Respond
March 31, 2024

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Miguel Barretto Garcia: “I wrote this poem as a form of response to the problem of chronic absenteeism in US schools. Currently, the student absences have only exacerbated since the pandemic. I feel like there is more to the story. The pandemic not only affected children’s relationship with schools, but it has also affected the way families have to navigate through the frictions in the workforce. Post-pandemic, parents also suffer from anxieties and work-related imposter’s syndrome in ways that are similar or even more concerning. In several cases, it’s the children that end up buffering the internal struggles that parents have to deal with, and in some instances, they end up stepping up to the role of parent, and consequently foregoing their education. This is a dimension of post-pandemic life that I wanted to explore through this poem.”

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March 24, 2024

“Abecedarian for Alabama Libraries” by Pamela ManascoPosted by

Pamela Manasco

ABECEDARIAN FOR ALABAMA LIBRARIES

Alder to ash: what can be sacrificed,
boned, defanged, let it be. Burn it to
cinders to keep children civil.
Don’t end until not only paper’s
extinguished, but cards & computers, too.
Florida can’t win this heat. Don’t forget
gardens—sensory, learning—the kids’ tract,
hay mulched over marigold seeds
in the beds too early, and inside,
juried tables of books for belonging.
Keep matches to snuff out even
labels, hands that write, seed-like ideas—
maybe then it will be enough.
Never fix the broken down bridge
over Selma, unwalkable routes to food
pantries, potholes blowing tires, unfeeling,
quiet. Never pay the school lunch debts
rolling month to month. Why must we feed
starving children? Make sure they’re born,
that’s your job done. Do all in your power
until you have it all, so we look back with
vertigo at everything you took from us with
white noise. Don’t pay for college, for
Xanax, for unkillable hospital bills, and
years from now, we will not be 50th but
zero, praying daily at your altar.
 

—from Poets Respond
March 24, 2024

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Pamela Manasco: “This poem responds to the recent firing of several employees at a Prattville, Alabama, library, which itself is related to the recent decision of the Alabama Senate to pass SB10, a bill which allows local city councils to fire library board members. After Prattville library director Andrew Foster publicly shared emails from a board member who requested that some juvenile library materials be moved or removed from the library, Foster was fired without the board of trustees providing information about which library rule he supposedly violated. Later, four librarians closed the library in response to the firing—and they were also fired. It’s a messy story and a scary one which shows the future Alabama’s Republican government members want: remove any library material which violates ‘Alabama values’ (good luck finding a definition for those, by the way), and fire anyone who disagrees.” (web)

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March 19, 2024

“Poem in which Barbie Qualifies for Medicare” by Denise DuhamelPosted by

Denise Duhamel

POEM IN WHICH BARBIE QUALIFIES FOR MEDICARE

March 9, 2024

Barbie never thought too much about her eligibility.
She’d loved AARP—the discounts at Sunglass Hut
and Outback Steakhouse—when she waved
her bright red card. She’d been born to shop,
but the medical world was still a mystery to her.
Sure, one of her first careers was as a Registered Nurse,
and a decade later, she became an MD. But she had
little experience being a patient except when children
made her a papier mâché arm cast or shaved off her hair
in play-chemo. Without vertebrae or femur,
Barbie never took a bone density test or had to worry
about osteoporosis. Menopause had been a breeze—
no hot flashes, no bleeding to miss. She was spotless
when it came to age spots, even after all those years
in the sun. No pee when she sneezed. No cataracts
despite the fact that she never blinked. She still drove
at night but was considering trading in her convertible
for a cushy Lincoln town car to arrive in Medicare-style
for her annual checkups. She was looking forward to a ride
in an MRI then consulting a podiatrist to see if anyone could
at last help ease her feet into New Balance sneakers.
The dermatologist told her Botox was covered if Barbie
suffered from migraines. Her smile had never given way
to laugh lines or crow’s feet. Still, Barbie lifted her hands
to her temples and told a white lie—why yes,
those headaches have sometimes been so fierce I’ve had to retreat
into my dark box to rest. After all, Barbie
was an American boomer and wanted her fair share,
what she thought she deserved, what was coming to her.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Denise Duhamel: “I didn’t think I had another Barbie poem in me! (I thought I’d put her to rest in 1997 after the publication of my book Kinky.) But I couldn’t resist the idea of Barbie being eligible for Medicare.” (web)

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