Poets Respond

November 12, 2023

“War Sonnet with a Simile Borrowed from Kyle Okoke’s ‘Matthew 6:28′” by Devon BalwitPosted by

Devon Balwit

WAR SONNET WITH A SIMILE BORROWED FROM KYLE OKOKE’S “MATTHEW 6:28”

Chest like a trapdoor and me a medic,
parachuting in, leaning over the body shattered
on the rubbled road, I listen to the heart ticking
like unexploded ordnance, hoping to delay the surd
that is death, to deny its nothingness purchase,
me a robber with my pressure bandages, codeine,
and comfort, my eight-week training scarcely
enough to differentiate me from the gawkers who lean
in to get a better view of someone else’s
tragedy. What can I do other than crudely
splint the broken bones, halt the pulse
of blood until the surgeon can do her work? Only
a stopgap, still I throw myself there,
where the line of being and not-being wavers.
 

—from Poets Respond
November 12, 2023

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Devon Balwit: “The first simile comes from Kyle Okoke’s poem ‘Matthew 6:28’ in this month’s Poetry magazine. It is for all those called to be first responders.” (web)

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November 7, 2023

“Boundary Conditions” by Sneha Madhavan-ReesePosted by

Sneha Madhavan-Reese

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

who but men blame the angels for the wild
exceptionalism of men?
—Sam Sax, “Anti-Zionist Abecedarian”

Along the border of any governed region, there exists a value which must
satisfy its laws. This is a rule I learned for solving differential equations.
 
Math seems like it doesn’t exist, my newly graduated kindergartner declares.
It’s just rules that someone made up. She’s brilliant beyond her years.
 
On the surface of the ocean exist propagating dynamic disturbances;
in other words, waves. In other words, the boundary between air and water,
 
between the requirements for life, between dark and light, wrong and right,
between what can be held and what can only be imagined, between dreams
 
and the realities that shatter them, the things that keep us awake at night,
at every boundary there are laws, and sometimes these laws make no sense.
 
Of course it’s made up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. There is math
in the air we breathe, I tell her. People die for made up reasons every day.
 
There is math in the shuddering earth. Find equations that govern its motion,
whether by earthquake or explosion. Try and fail, try again and fail, to solve.
 

—from Poets Respond
November 7, 2023

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Sneha Madhavan-Reese: “Nothing I can say about current events seems sufficient.”

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November 5, 2023

“This Again” by Bob HicokPosted by

Bob Hicok

THIS AGAIN

The recommendation from some website quoted on the news
is to rape, cut the throats of, and throw female Jews
off a cliff. But how far are the cliffs of Ithaca
from Cornell, where the raping and throat slashing
is supposed to occur? And if you don’t have a car,
are you supposed to borrow one or can you Uber a body
to a cliff and ask the driver to wait while you chuck it off?
And what if you’re afraid of heights? It’s time we address
the shocking lack of detail in antisemitism. It’s one thing
to hate Jews but another to ask me to hate Jews
without telling me how to hate Jews or why I should hate anyone
when loving everyone is an option. A difficult one, I admit,
impossible even, but in a process sense, it requires no knives
or cars or evil and can be conveyed in a simple phrase:
See someone, love someone. Or, Love thy neighbor
as thou loves apple pie. Or, love thy stranger
as thou loves starlight for touching us
without knowing our names. Have you ever felt
as brittle as kindling shattering to pieces
just under the shower curtain of your skin?
It’s a rhetorical question because I know you have
and will, as I have and do right now.
So screw every cult of hate. Every bullet and knife
and bomb and shitty thing said under the breath
or with the full conviction of the lungs. If you see a Jew,
be a Jew. If you see a Muslim, be a Muslim. If you see a human,
be a human. The lend-an-ear or a hand kind.
The “how’s it going” kind. The kind kind. No one chooses who
or where or when to be. We just sort of collectively are.
So hating you for being you makes no more sense
than you hating me for being me. And I don’t want to be raped
or have my throat slashed or get thrown off a cliff,
hard as that is to believe. I want to see the cliffs of Ithaca
in moonlight. The Kaaba in Mecca circled by a crowd
pulsing with faith. The Ice Hotel in a snow storm.
I want a really good pizza with an egg on it.
To kiss my wife on top of the Eiffel Tower.
All the parts of her that are Jewish
and all the parts that are human
and all the parts that make her sigh and moan.
Being human means understanding that being human
is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
That we’re all partisans in this struggle,
fellow teamsters in not knowing
what the hell is going on, brothers and sisters
stuffing our befuddlement every morning
into pants and dresses we hope
don’t make us look fat and stupid and lost.
Everyone I know feels lost. The trick is
to feel lost together. Maybe you have a map
and I have a canteen. Certainly someone
has a pogo stick or cyclotron. We need food
and light and harmonicas and theremins
and stories about monsters
who decide not to eat the child
or stomp the village or fly over the night
with death on their wings. Lost together,
our nowhere becomes our somewhere. Lost together,
the dream of home never dies.
 

—from Poets Respond
November 5, 2023

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Bob Hicok: “Don’t know what to say about this, other than what the poem does.”

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October 29, 2023

“Maybe Lewiston” by Katherine Hagopian BerryPosted by

Katherine Hagopian Berry

MAYBE LEWISTON

Maybe we will see Katahdin, we tell our children; maybe we will see a moose.
Pulling over at the Lewiston Travel Center,
trucks at the tagging station, hunting season just beginning.
Death like a warm meal; Death like a family reunion; Death like a game.
 
We always take precautions hiking,
blaze-orange hats in the back of the car.
Once a woman weeding her garden was mistaken for a deer.
Death like a stray bullet; Death like a mistake.
 
Inside the Circle K everyone is grabbing whoopie pies and hot slices.
My son wants a Halloween skull.
We tell him there will be plenty of time for souvenirs.
Death like a pirate; Death like a clown.
 
Heading north the road is empty, ambulance screaming in the other direction,
police cars, helicopter searchlight desperate circling.
What’s happening, I wonder. Someone is lost, my husband answers.
Death like a whisper; Death like a broken mirror; Death like a Passover prayer.
 
We are too late to see Katahdin, pass the turnoff, scenic view;
we keep right on driving. I imagine a moose
behind the dark trees, watching; a sign to stay grounded.
Death like a book gently closing; Death like a leaf softening the ground.
 
We find out that night. First thing in the morning,
detouring past Lewiston, I keep searching the woods for meaning:
Amber leaves a tracksuit; frost a car of interest; shadow a man with a gun;
Death in the passenger seat. Death on manhunt. Death still at large. Death on the run.
 

—from Poets Respond
October 29, 2023

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Katherine Hagopian Berry: “Mainers will know I took liberties moving the Auburn travel center to Lewiston (they are sister towns) and by putting the tagging station inside the convenience store (as is often the case in rural Maine). Forgive me. I love you all. Stay strong.” (web)

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October 24, 2023

“The American Political Sestina” by Alexandra UmlasPosted by

Alexandra Umlas

THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SESTINA

… the American political poem is a safe poem.
—from “Political Poetry” by Kwame Dawes

A daughter asks her mother if humanitarian is the
same thing as volunteer. They are an American
family—a wine-salesman, a teacher, far from political.
They eat boxes of cereal, pet their cats. Sometimes a poem
will begin to form in the mother’s head, and life is
slow enough that there is time to write it, safe
 
from forgetfulness, on the page, which is also safe,
because even when it gets there, it can stay put. The
cat purrs in the corner. Sometimes dinner is
cooking on the stove. The National Public American
radio station is playing news or sometimes a poem
will weave its way onto the station. Sometimes it’s political,
 
but mostly it’s a poem about nothing political,
about hats, or who wears them, or about other safe
activities, like eating a peach. Or sometimes the poem
is slightly political, but the message is quiet, the
lines full of assonance and other beautiful American
things like sitting in a park one evening because it is
 
a Tuesday, and you can. Sometimes the poem is
filled with a quote about something, maybe political,
but the author of the poem is an American
and likes to write sestinas, and we know how safe
sestinas are—all those words repeating so that the
message just keeps recycling. The words in the poem
 
are the, American, political, is, safe, and poem,
because the careful author of the poem is
trying (of course) to write more than just words, the
important stuff evades her, in part because the political
is not the cereal box or the purr of the cat or anything safe,
and she is driving with her daughter on American
 
roads, and there will always be the problem of American
writers wanting to make a difference with a poem,
and the woman’s daughter is just coming home safe
from school and she asks something—she is
listening to the radio, listening to the news, the political
comes into the car. Why am I the one eating the
 
snack, safe because of where I was born, (on American
soil) but the girl on the radio is running from bombs? No poem
can explain this. Fair is the opposite of political.
 

—from Poets Respond
October 24, 2023

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Alexandra Umlas: “On Monday I took my daughter to get a treat after school. On the way home, we were listening to NPR’s replay of the morning news that described people leaving their homes in Gaza. She asked me how it is possible that she can be eating a snack while a girl in another place is leaving home because of bombing. That night, I read Kwame Dawes’ article, ‘Political Poetry,’ on the Poetry Foundation website. This is the poem that I wrote.” (web)

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October 22, 2023

“Who” by Susan DambroffPosted by

Susan Dambroff

WHO

who
more inhumane
than
who
 
more brutal
than
who
 
who
pounded
bloodied
broken
 
who
with more
weapons
than
who
 
who
hiding
dying
mourning
 
who
lifeless
pummeled
kidnapped
starved
stranded
 
who
in a hospital
who
at a festival
who
waking up
who
going to sleep
 
who
without water
 
who
without home
without hope
 
whose land
whose history
whose mosque
whose temple
whose anger
whose fear
 
who
with a baby
in her arms
running
 

—from Poets Respond
October 22, 2023

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Susan Dambroff: “‘Wh0’ is my attempt to speak to the complexity and context of the Israeli-Hamas war, with all of its absolute heartbreak.”

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October 15, 2023

“The Bush” by Alicia Rebecca MyersPosted by

Alicia Rebecca Myers

THE BUSH

Every time I thought of anger, or fear or revenge, I breathed it out. I tried to think of what I was grateful for—the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.
—Maya Alper, survivor of Hamas’ attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival

The extraordinary arms of the bush.
Trap music still echoing: the singing
birds another cover. The conscious hush.
 
The sky that was so blue above the rush.
The sound of blood pooling, shots ringing.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
 
The bush wasn’t burning, the birds weren’t ash.
A prayer for breath. The rigid thorns clinging.
Birds another cover. The conscious hush.
 
Lungs instead of terror, the labored wish
to survive. Birds that landed, kept going.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
 
The roar of explosives, the forceful push
of gratitude against anger. Morning
birds another cover. The conscious hush.
 
The thorns, the sky, the breath, the birds, the bush.
The hidden body contorted, living.
The extraordinary arms of the bush.
Birds another cover. The conscious hush.
 

—from Poets Respond
October 15, 2023

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Alicia Rebecca Myers: “I wrote this after learning that my brother-in-law’s good friend lost his life in the attack.” (web)

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