Abdullah Zaman Babar is a poet and an author. He studies Electrical Engineering at Air University, Islamabad. He currently resides in Islamabad, Pakistan.

​                   GOOD BYE FOREVER (TRUE INCIDENT)
 
Today, athirst and disheveled, I was late to school,
Just near to break its fundamental rule,
Sharp at 8:00, I appeared in front of the gates,
Perhaps I was the last legal one to flow unobstructed towards my fate,
 
Time passed like always, and my hard work continued,
I did my work until I was amused,
And now we were told to write an article on “Patriotism”,
Merely to make us understand who we were, thus not to follow any criticism,
 
I wrote in my way and purely expressed my love for my nation,
I promised to make all the sacrifices in my own fashion,
When I was about to end it,
I, unwantedly, broke my pencils point,
 
A moment later, I heard some flawless gun shots,
We stood afraid and shocked,
We knew we were up against some coward intruders,
Still we mustered up courage and retaliated against those soulless shooters,
 
Many fell down, and many ran towards them,
Just to save others and to stop them,  
“Oh Lord! Help us” was the ascending mantra,
No life, that collapsed, could be termed as an extra,
 
I was among the brave ones who fell down,
While breathing the last breaths I thought of my mom,
Her smile was the only thing I could remember,
But now her child was ready to leave on this 16th of December,
 
Somebody, please console her heart,
Tell her that her son has fulfilled, for his nation, the devotional part,
Tell her that her son is standing among the valiant ones,
And that’s a true place for a real Pashtun,
 
While leaving I had this utmost desire,
As I couldn’t finish my article that I once wished to be admired,
I wish that someone who takes my place can complete it in my mood,
If not by a pencil, finish it with my blood. 

 
​                      Interpreting His Feeling


​In despair, I'm sitting next to sadness,
And holding tightly grief's harness,
Never freely letting my feelings to flow,
Not ready to experience another severe blow,

Darkening the dark valleys of my mind,
And scattering, in them, all the hardships I faced in time,
But really they are too many to forget,
Perhaps the only choice is to choose death,

Oh! But death is what cowards choose,
Who perceive that life is of no use,
As it takes a life to explain a life,
May be mine would suggest a reason to live.
 
                                                                                                                                      

                                     THE BITTER FACT

I wish I could stay alone and happy,
In this world of terror and brutality,
Where people know nothing,
Except to kindle a fire in heaven,

When I came to know about this bitter fact,
I contemplated upon the signed pact,
Which humanity had agreed with GOD,
Not to harm any life never and forever,

They are consistent in making mistakes intentionally,
Not knowing that they will have to face him eventually,
They will have to pay for it,
Sooner or later they will be asked for it,

O People of the WORLD! Mend your ways,
Devote your life for others in some case,
This life is too short to live,                                                                        
Better to pass it with good wills.
                                                                                                                       

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a young Nigerian poet/ writer and a graduate of Estate Management. She has some experience in banking and broadcasting. She has published some works abroad in some foreign magazines in Ghana, Liberia, India and Canada, among others. She enjoys writing.

                        POLITICS A COAT OF MANY COLOURS

Root and route of propaganda
Eclipse of natural conscience,
Prejudice and injustice
Titanic of religion
Fiery furnace of terrorism,
Politics, a coat of many colours.

Greedy gigantic masquerade
Selfish-achievement ambassador
Human-destroying grenade
Worst disappointing model,
Heartless betraying partner,
Politics, a coat of many colours.

Agony coated in harmony
War presented by peace,
Division booked by tourism
Evil deeds planted as seeds,
Racism tied to summits,
Politics, a coat of many colours.

Colonization, singing civilization
Corruption embalming power
Hate attaining diplomacy
Cruelty achieving royalty,
Barbarity uplifting dynasty
Politics, a coat of many colours.

Sophisticated wickedness
Mirage of freedom
Bondage,o for emancipation
Darkness against libration
Doom in place of development,
Politics, a coat of many colours.

                                 SOFT LANGUAGE

After listening to comedian George Carlin
 
First it was called shell shock,
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
Then it became battle fatigue,
Softer than shell shock,
Easier on the ear but still the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
Then it became operational exhaustion,
No more shock or fatigue
More of a sigh, exhaustion, but still the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
And now, it’s post traumatic stress disorder,
Four words to absorb the shock,
To soak up the fatigue and exhaustion,
To create a fancy-words condition,
To soften the language, to take away the truth,
To use friendlier marketing jargon for the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.


               TIME TO DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE
                        BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT
 
This is the year to live on a grand scale,
To make breathless art, to spray paint
Your true feelings on sacred walls,
To sculpt the impossible dream in ice,
Then watch it melt to a puddle of tears,
A year to mix with prophets and geniuses,
To teeter on a cliff edge and risk whatever comes,
To throw off history’s baggage, live now,
Climb a monument and make a speech,
Olivier-rich in emotion and clarity,
To ride a horse, to make music, to caress
A hand across a table in a rooftop café,
Carefree to fall in and out of love in a heartbeat,
A year to ditch nostalgia and waste time
On meaningless and whimsical notions,
To enjoy being a jigsaw with missing pieces,
To realize that up to this moment, wherever
You have come from, wherever you have been,
Whoever you cared for and loathed, whoever
You are or pretended to be, you can choose
To not do a damn thing about the rest of your life
Or pick a road that is unfamiliar and prepare
For a journey of unknowns and strangers.
This is the year. There might not be a next year.
 
 
                                                      BEARD
 
When will my beard phase come?
Younger me liked the look of a scraggy folk singer,
Mussel-beard as some kind of a rebellious symbol
That I was in the revolution, looking odd and smelling odder,
Doing that nasal-Dylan thing to disguise a lack of talent.
Onward the years and Ronnie Drew’s bush was an ambition
But I’d never have gotten away with that working
In the menswear fashion department of British Home Stores.
I had to make do with stubble, maximum three days before
The scruffball comments and the tuts in the church pews.
I never liked the goatee because it looked villainous, sported
By guest stars in The Saint and Danger Man, foreign baddies,
Not my cup of tea. I was Roger Moore and Pat McGoohan,
Smooth baby-bum chins, as all heroes should have. Now,
Scant hair on top and less inclination to push for a full set,
I’m less Simon Templar and John Drake and more like Shaggy
Out of Scooby Doo, the icon of the mussel-beardies and the scraggies,
Letting bristles take their course, letting them grow wild and free,
Just how my hopes and dreams used to be.
 
 

Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs

(Photo: Carol Bales)

                    Empathy Is Not Pete’s Forte
 
Pete’s never needed 
anything from childhood on.
His parents had it all 
and gave it to him so it’s hard 
for him to understand why 
people who have nothing 
march with placards in the streets
or sneak into another country
to find enough to eat, a place to live,
and raise and educate a family.
 
Empathy is not Pete's forte 
and that can happen when
parents give you everything,
send you to the finest schools,
leave you money you can build 
a business with, go broke 
and still become a billionaire. 
Finally you have everything
and life becomes so boring 
you decide the time has come
to run for president. Such fun.
 
 
                           A Self-Made Man Today
 
I flew out to see  
a high school friend.
from many years ago. 
He was poor back then 
and I was better off.
A matter of parents
and what they did.
 
His mother was a maid
and his father a drunk.
He flunked out of school
and joined the Army
then built a business 
and became a millionaire.
 
He picked me up 
in a black Mercedes
and as we drove off
we saw a young couple 
on the side of the road
holding a sign,  
"Will Work for Food.”
A not uncommon 
sign these days.
 
My friend told me
they’re throwaway people
and America must find
a way to throw them away.
It was a short reunion.
My wife was sick, I said.
I flew home the next day.
My old friend, poor in youth,
is a self-made man today.


                               It Can Happen in a Second
 
Solid middle class he is
always has been
always will be 
 
until tomorrow
on the highway 
in the rain this bus 
 
topples over
on his Dodge Durango.
He will never walk 
 
or work again.
In six months or a year
his savings will be gone.
 
He will be for life
a ward of the state
and people will
 
forever feed 
and bathe him for
the minimum wage
 
a sum he always said
folks like these 
were worth.
 

                    Jimmy from across the Street
 
I take my wife to dinner
at a fancy place for us
to talk about money
because stocks have a virus
and we should move 
money into silver and gold
in case we don’t die before 
that rainy day comes
 
but first she asks 
did I hear about Jimmy 
from across the street
and I say he’s out of work
two months or more 
and she says his wife’s 
lost her job too and they
have kids in private school
shouldn’t we do something
 
and I ask what can we do
because Jimmy would never
take any help and she says 
we could put cash in an  
envelope in his mailbox
at night and he wouldn’t 
know who to blame  
 
just as something gross 
on the half shell arrives
at our table with sauces 
and I drop the whole idea 
of talking about money 
we’re lucky enough to have. 
Stocks go up and go down
and jobs are lost and found.
We talk about Jimmy
from across the street
the rest of the night.


                             A Life Without Guard Rails
 
You think you got problems?
You probably do but would 
you trade with Phillip,
a Vietnam vet who still thinks 
Agent Orange lurks in 
every puddle he steps 
around after a heavy rain,
who shovels snow, 
cuts lawns and rakes leaves
to make his disability  
check go further?
 
He has a snow shovel
but someone stole his mower
and the grass is growing
and customers are waiting.
He saved three months
to buy a used car to replace
the van that died and that car 
died yesterday in the street but 
the payments are still due.
 
Some people think Phillip  
causes his own problems 
but no one has the answer 
as to how he can change 
a life that hasn't changed 
much since Vietnam.
 
It took ten years 
to qualify for disability.
He’s been doing odd jobs
and he’ll keep doing them 
until he can no longer walk.
He says a Veterans Home
has promised to take him in.
 

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a Published Poet and Author originally from New Hampshire, now residing in Oklahoma. He enjoys the outdoors, playing guitar and spending time with his cats Merlin and Willa. He is the Co-Editor of the new Poetry Anthology titled, "Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze" available at Amazon.com. His published work can be found in Journals, Magazines and Blogs throughout the Web including:
 
Indiana Voice Journal, Belle Reve Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, Peeking Cat Magazine, Dead Snakes, Bewildering Stories and many others.

                                       Bug Opera
 
Late July afternoon
setting sun relents
end of day arrives
gone much too soon
the heart beats on
as wings of a Swan
the moon rising high
light shimmers dancing
night troubadours sing
to dew faeries peeking
cold can of lager beer
munch a hot pretzel
walk along the shore
owl hoots from pines
white noise, bug opera
a distant howling louder
haunting walking faster
homeward bound, soon.
 
 
 
 
                                                Love Stands
 
Love knows no time
limits to its longevity;
no end to its serenity;
no fading to its faith;
no rhyme to its reason;
it can outlast eternity.
Love shall stand proud
when all else has fallen.
For what is love but;
to love someone for who
they are, who they were,
who they can be and
who they shall become.
 
 
 
                                                                   Adrift

 
Whilst adrift within this fantasy of rhyme,
many men have said they have watched
as the faeries danced until the sunrise.
But I have now cast my eyes upon thee,
and am quite satisfied to have kissed
your cheek witnessing an Angel smile!
 
 

                                                              Shaken Not Stirred
 

In the evening transcending;
my lonely heart not adjusting
as the rabbits play at chasing
shadows in flat mottled grass.
Warbling of self righteousness
fragile mourning screaming
echoing within a mirrored eye
the abominable crispy breath
Flame to the wick ignited but
the candle dreams of darkness
entombed within subtle empathy
grasping at Angels floating high.
Orbs in pastels orbit your soul
a percolated sadness wreaks
my mutation reeks of change
purple rain shaken not stirred.
 

                                                               An Ancient Soul

 
You are a child
of this vast universe.
You are as beautiful
as a spectacular sunrise.
Your soul is as ancient
as the tallest mountains.
You are an impassioned
spark of divine love.
Through your heart
virtue and devotion flow.
You are the human race;
show humanity every day.
 
 

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. His latest P.O.D. amazon release is an art-text hybrid, "According to the Order of Nature (We too are Cosmos Made)", a work which takes to task the words which have been used against LGBT folks from time immemorial. In 2014 he began a webpage to gather links of his poetry being published in such zines as Great Works, Unlikely Stories, Quill & Parchment, etc., in one place: http://stephenmead.weebly.com/links-to/poetry-on-the-line-stephen-mead 

Michael Marrotti is an author from Pittsburgh using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy. His primary goal is to help other people. He considers poetry to be a form of philanthropy. When he's not writing, he's volunteering at the Light Of Life homeless shelter on a weekly basis. If you appreciate the man's work, please check out his blog:www.thoughtsofapoeticmind.blogspot.com for his latest poetry and short stories.

                     Socialism Is Not A Dirty Word
 
Socialism is
a water
fountain
in the park
that comes
between
you and
dehydration
 
Socialism is
the street light
that illuminates
your path of
choice
depending
on what
you're after
 
Socialism is
the police who
sometime
protect your
wellbeing
And the firemen
who rescue you
from burning
down buildings
 
It's the remedy
to a crumbling
infrastructure
Food for the poor
A way to exist
for the disabled
And a benefit to
those who paid
into the system
 
It's a helping hand
Made for the people
It's not capitalism
It's a social service
Hence the name
Socialism
 
The media lies
and you're
susceptible
to the rhetoric
They've made
Socialism into
a dirty word
I've come
with soap
to scrub away
their propaganda
 
 
 
                         When Dealing With A Narcissist
 
 
I make sure
I'm equipped
with two ice
cold beers
 
It's going
to be awhile
Her self obsessed
monologue is
endless
 
I listen as she
rambles on
about everything
from what she
claims to be her
latest achievements
to family gossip
It all goes back
to her
 
After an hour
I attempt to
mention
The publication
of one of my
poems
 
It's dismissed
like a misbehaving
child in the
principles office
 
I casually finish
my cold beer
Raise my
insignificant
body to my feet
and say goodbye
to apathy (mom)
 
I know I'm an author
but this was supposed
to be a day of leisure
I didn't come here
to write your
autobiography


                                For The Sake Of Art
 
 
Nothing says new
like fresh staples
in the cranium
After a long night
of drinking and
running in to
Dormont's finest
 
Excitement is
unorganized
gang warfare
on the streets
of south side
Throwing bricks
at human beings
Then tossing
them in the
river
 
Any argument
worth having
with a crazy
girlfriend
should include
self mutilation
in discreet places
 
A trip to the
public library
isn't complete
without an all
out screaming
match against
a neb shit
librarian who
hasn't swallowed
her medication
 
Giving into
temptation for
the sake of art
and self gratification
can be rewarding
for me and also
my ever growing
vast audience
But it almost
cost me my life
Which means more
to me than any
bullshit poem in my
cliche catalogue
of literary
masturbation
 
I've done plenty
of raunchy
and morally
reprehensible
things in my
lifetime
 
Now it's your turn
to point that liberal
finger and judge me
like the perverted priest
you wish you were
decent enough to be
 
Yes, I'm guilty
as charged
I've done all
the wrong things
For all the
right reasons
 
 

                              For David Rocklin

The job of the poet is to kill
Slaughter the animals, and their faces
Be contagious
Be outrageous

And be healed
Be healed by me,
Strange brew,
And I'll give you the world.

It's not an ancient thing
It's new.
You too.

I can't carry it all.
Here,
Help out.
These things are ours.
I've seen them here.

Spirits
Attending on us

It's not okay to say
You'll send them away
They're here now
For better or for worse

Say you'll do better
Say you'll do midnight

The midnight show

If you can do the midnight show
We will do better.

Long wings cast slow shadows;
It's terrible to be afraid.
I haven't seen you before
Did I know you somewhere else?

I've seen so many things now
Have I told you?

My job is to kill



                                           love poem

what may you remind me

what for and when
when my last act

when my last act

burning signature midnight
beating you
breaking you
burying you
I'll bury you

and I'll laugh

and I'll grow my beard.

these evenings it's more clear
who loves me best.

I told her which parts she needed to hear
which parts weren't old yet.

I told her the funny parts
and left out the parts that didn't nake sense.

I told her why.

And I'll tell you too.

It goes like this:

Because you're a fuckup.

Oh my glorious fuckup Los Angles read me like my right hand
still eloquent and familiar
still stranded
without one dollar
nor any cell phone

no one shall know you

no one is here.

I am alone.

come with me and I'll show you what I mean
despite the catcalls
and the roses.
despite the feeling that we've been doing it too often
that we've all been here before.
I wrote this poem for the future me
so I could remind me
where I'll be when I'm there

who you'll be
still stupid and familiar
still by my side.

I made a poem and I wrote it out
and then I tore it up
(or at least deleted the file)
when you betrayed me

betray me again
it feels better each time

each time you never trust me to take you after this beam
this better beam
each time I told you where and when
and how
and why
each time I went there and saw.

It's midnight.

This moon the earth
This moon over the earth.
Are you still there?

Are you still there?

Under these negro streets at dawn.

or at some other time?

Is it at some other time?
Is it near?

Near as your faces
Your sermons
Near your deliverance
from mediocrity
religion
from Los Angeles.

Take me back
Take me back to Los ANgeles
so I can be reminded who I've become.

Take me to Echo Park or Koreatown so I can hear the gunshots and the
calls to Jesus.

Tell me better.

All these seasons
marking the time to market
and the time to seed.

all the times to market
All the times to seed

Stutter me
over your page
stutter me again
send me again
stuttering to your midnight oil
over the airwaves los angeles

and I'll deliver you too
I am meant to deliver you
that is what I've been remembering.

No messianic fervor for me
Messiah only means, anoinited
and I gave up the marijuana.

You shall have a sober priest.

Still tending fires you didn't know were there.

I burn for you, but it's all right that you will never know that
that you have never seen the flame.

I burn brighter.

Over
and over
and over again.

Tell me who it was and I'll tell you why
and I'll tell you why you'll never care enough.
I'll tell you where you went to the poem
to the corner
to the crouch
and waited too long.

It's calvin and hobbes again
writing poems for the masses
after jerusalem is lost
after the walls are fell
and mr fell comes testing rocks to see which one will make it through the window
and I'll be there too

saying:

"Why wasn't it your Negro streets too?"

Why didn't you
Why weren't you
you could have
should have
made done with
gone under
understood
made known
and made part
undertaken
and held hostage
strained and remembered
loved

you should have loved

should have loved better.

it's not nice to know the truth but that's our job, remember.

know it and weep.

know it and weep.

know it and weep
know it and weep for you are delivered from madness
into madness
by my side
in the perfect midnight storm
in the perfect midnight alley
with my knife agaisnt your throat

I have a knife by your throat
it's love.

Don't move

​John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Silkworm work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.   

HOW DECEMBER FITS INTO OUR PLANS
 
It's the season of love.
They all are.
For now, day falls,
is put on hold.
Night's returning.
Wood is brought in
from the pile.
Sunset settles on the
bottom of the world. .
 
Evening's not about
gleaming mountains,
red lakes,
but flesh and blood.
It's time for cords
of oak and maple
and wine dribbling
down the backs of throats.
 
You pull me out
of the season's narrative
into home and hearth.
You warm my skin,
which in turn,
ensures the rising
of my heart's temperature.
It's what together
is famous for.
 
 
 
                                    DOWN THE LINE
 
I'm stepping in and out of old railway lines
on a New England track
that hasn't seen a locomotive
in half a century.
Ballast is decayed,
steel rusted,
and yet I'm walking down the line
though it goes nowhere
either way.
Must be the hobo in me.
Now all I need
is a freight train idling by.
and I can jump aboard,
be Woody Guthrie
for as long as I can stay clear
of the railroad detectives.
 
I just love these places
that unmoor my imagination.
These woods bring out
the Hawkeye in me.
Are those the footsteps
of the Huron Magua?
The quaint village
has me looking about
for the scandalous lass
with the A burnt into her breast.
 
But railway lines are something special.
They can never be a destination.
They're all about restlessness,
getting somewhere else.
My life is lived in real time.
Except when tracks are laid down for me.
And in the real world.
Except when it's not.
 
 
 
                                     LONG TIME GONE
 
This is a room
which dwells on its own emptiness.
Sec how the posters, the banners, sag.
And the wallpaper peels
one palomino at a time.
 
The bed is made
but more in desperation than hope.
It's not quite a shrine
for an absence is a hard thing to worship.
 
But you spend more time in here
than in the kitchen or parlor.
You even lie down on the sheets.
The indentation you make
is your only company.
 
You're a prime example
of doing what you can.
The carpet is vacuumed,
the ceiling brushed free of cobwebs.
But neatness remains
a lifetime away from godliness.
 
 
 
                                   SUNFLOWERS IN FALL
 
Deserted by the heat, their stalks
atrophy, blooms shrink into a
blackness their gold never saw coming.
They dry up, waste away,
like a good young athlete might do
if left in the game too long
or two lovers kissing and kissing
who forget to eat and dwindle to
mere skeletons of gnat-infested love.
 
They're like shriveled testimonies
to a long ago vitality, to the
failure of the most brilliant flowers.
They won't even rejuvenate next spring.
I'll have to plant more seed, more brevity
Another young man will come this way
with a great right arm.
Two people will fall in love
out there when the sun shines brightest.
Only death could think to keep on planting
such unsuspecting beauty.
 
 
                           MY SEPTEMBER SONG
 
Footballs fly and swallows don't.
The lock is on the municipal pool.
My street fills with college-bound traffic.
The leaves have yet to change color
but the buses are in their full bloom of yellow.
 
Only yesterday, it seems it was May
and the pink petals opened,
cherry-blossomed the neighborhood,
and bees emerged from wherever they hibernate
as no bud went un-buzzed.
 
The flowers still make the most of the day
but they intuitively know what's next.
The weeds are about to find that
even their relentless grabbing and grasping
must have a stop.
 
Around four in the afternoon,
the light suddenly seems lost,
aimlessly wanders the trees, the rooftops,
at the mercy of coming darkness.
 
My stereo plays
the old Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson classic,
"September Song."
Of course, the song's September
is the time in a man's life
not a month of the year.
 
But the difference is as thin as a wren's beak.
And I've not seen one lately.

​The doctor said she would live in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair, crippled by pain. That was thirteen years ago. Instead, Mirissa D. Price is a 2019 DMD candidate at Harvard School of Dental Medicine, spreading pain-free smiles, writing through her nights, and, once again, walking through her days.  As a Huffington Post blogger and emerging writer, Mirissa has publications in Yellow Chair Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, and more. Follow Mirissa’s writing at https://mirissaprice.wordpress.com/.

​                       The Differential Diagnosis of Terror
 
I can tell you
why your heart scribbles
in irregularly irregular markings
on the printout
of an ECG, and I can
 
tell you why you’re living
on the edge
of cardiac dysfunction when
your chest starts
 
to burn.  I was trained
to understand senility in your
drawing of a clock
at half past
 
ten, and I understand
your dyspnea when you start to pant
after two steps of
work.  I can
 
explain to you the
difference in your blood pressure
from when you rest
to the moment
 
when you rise, and I can
deduce why your bones
ache now that
you have aged.  I was
 
taught to hear
your triumph through your words,
and to use caution
when calling your pain
 
a chief complaint.  But I never
took a class
in how to comfort a refugee
of terrorism,
 
and I never
felt the pulse of a man
taking cover
from a bomb.  I only
 
can imagine
the smell of flesh
turning grey under scalding
flames, and can’t even
 
picture the arrhythmia
of thoughts
that must traverse
your mind when trapped
 
in the hatred of
an extremist plot. Because
that’s what it was –
 
Hatred
that turned you from
a Turkish brother
to a patient,
 
victim of a blast
at 18:40, a time I wouldn’t even
recognize on a clock.  And
that’s what it was –
 
Extreme
violence that impeded
the sinus tachycardia
of your heart
 
in a moment
I couldn’t even begin
to diagnose
 
the condition of a terrorist
who saw no other meaning
in an irregularly irregular rhythm
than as that –
 
a target.  And I wish
I could interpret this violence, too,
as a mere fibrillation
without consequence, an electrical
 
anomaly in LED lines, because
then I wouldn’t
see your bloodied body as
familiar, your tears
 
as misdiagnosed pain; when
I was trained
as a doctor to look
for solutions buried
in the physiology of a fracture,
 
and after
Paris, Beirut, New
York and Ankara, I still have
no scientific rationale for
what the news tries to explain.   

​                            The Color of an Oscar
 
‘Needle lace’ - that's what the store clerk told me.  Only the best attire for the Oscars.  And the winner is.  Never the blacks, to be politically correct.  But it comes in red, mauve, and skin tone.  She said, in a store five blocks from the QuikTrip.  Where an unarmed man was shot.  He was brown, though.  I noticed, in the microfiber rubbings of my sofa.  But at 4:37 p.m., the death certificate only had four boxes: White. Hispanic. Asian. African.  American, they called this spectacle of stars on commercial break.  I pick mauve.  The color of my flesh. 
 
 
 
 

​                                    One Click Away
 
I feel dirty sometimes
when I turn the lipstick out of the tube,
I think it’s the shape;
and the color,
so ripe,
like a pop-up notification on my msn homepage. 
And that’s how I get
my news – in dirty little pop-ups
of what google says I should read
like the breaking story that Cesar Millan’s whispers
are damning
to my golden retriever’s carefree clicks
 
of his salivating tongue.  And though my dog is
two-thousand miles away,
I can hear those carefree clicks
each time I follow the internet’s lure
to the next trending topic – because trends define
our nation’s focus: on a woman with bi-
paternal twins, a medical anomaly, a
personal curiosity.  I turn to the comments
often, before finishing
the content, wondering what hypotheses are stirring
to explain the miracle of two men
fertilizing
 
one woman
within the same ovulatory cycle.  I’m sure
the reporters asked
that question, the same way I’m sure they asked
‘how’
could a baby die unvaccinated, but that’s
not their job, or is it - stirring the pot
of Facebook uproar,
 
and ‘uproar’ happened to be highlighted
in the article, linking me
to news of middle school graffiti –
art and swastikas
burning the minds of children.  They really are just children
when they first log into Facebook, onto e-mail,
when they first
browse across the tale of lawmakers
proposing a break
 
from Eastern Time. And
if not for hashtags, those kids
wouldn’t know it’s a story, replayed
the same each year, planting seeds of progress
in the hidden truth of complacency.  I would call it that – complacency, our acceptance of
dual core processing speed of ideas
in a society still running on dial-up. 
 
But I control-plus’ed
on the jpeg clock on the http page
on the digital tablet of the news,
and I found that crack
in the space between two and three,
the twenty-fifth hour.  They never
taught us to read like that
in school, when we still read news
on the ink-stained pages of
rolled-up paper, in the days when
I didn’t know about 9/11
because I didn’t know how to read, because
I wasn’t yet tall enough
to reach the remote,
 
control is what I’d call
the dirty little secret
that news is happening faster than
I can click, and creativity is how I’d paint
the pop-up reality
that msn tells me what to know,
as I choose the screen magnification
suitable
for opioid overdose.
 
And I wonder
how I’ll explain to my kids
that I feel dirty sometimes, to read that
Trump is done debating and to know
that their seventeen-year-old babysitters
have a voice in our future
without their hands ever touching
the grease
of printer-pressed reports, without my hands
absorbing the sweat-
smeared tone of importance
that ink once gave
to news that Times have changed.
 
 

​                          Wait for the Second Ring

I wonder if Obama used a landline
to call Putin - for the
prestige in tangled
cords, after all
 
after all the children were
bludgeoned
by terrorism for over five
years, just remember,
 
and this weekend when one-hundred
thirty died near Damascus,
for our leaders to pick up the phone – I wonder
 
if the Syrian residents
listened at the door once
that last thirty-one mattered.
 
To the news - it sounded majestic
declaring peace in hushed whispers,
all the men sent to war
with their wives, all the leaders
setting deadlines they’ll change;
 
but I wonder
if Lavrov and Kerry wore white
while talking - about what color they’d choose
to sign their names
in history,
 
though in retrospect,
a history book only buries
white words
scratched in principle, under ink
 
of real change, and I have to wonder
if the Oval Office plans to use a fax machine
in The Event: when they actually sign
 
a cease-fire diplomacy – it’s tradition
in the digital age
to return to basics of humanity:
 
We will not kill
We will not fire
We will not devastate
with words no one entrusts
 
to hold power; and I have to wonder
if Obama put Putin on hold
when his secretary called, “Come and answer.”