Blessed Bones

Blessed Bones

Blessed are the bones of the beloved
Though the marrow has seeped away.

Bleached white they lie uncovered
Their remains revealed in riverbed.

No longer bearing cruelties inflicted
Holy relics of cherished days.

Blessed are the dreams of the beloved
Though they never saw the light of day.

Leslie Neustadt
Niskayuna, NY
World Jewish Service

Oh, Haiti!

Oh, Haiti!

Oh, Haiti!
How you suffer
We, too, suffer

Oh, Haiti!
How you grieve
We, too, grieve

Oh, Haiti!
How you plead
We answer you

We your brothers
And sisters
Hear your cries
We are one with you
Always

We send help
We send love

Oh, Haiti!
We hold you dear
In your darkest hour

We your brothers
And sisters
Will not abandon you
We want you whole
Again

Oh, Haiti!
How you will recover
How you will rebuild
How you will rejoice

Ron Cooper
Louisville, KY
American Red Cross

Grandpa's Violin

Grandpa's Violin

The strings of the old violin that grandpa played
Sets in corner out of the way
His fingers would grace the strings
Making the old violin sing
The dust has covered the strings that once were played
Hoping for master's hands to adore them again one day
The years have long past
Memories of melodies have been cast
The day will come when Angels will arrive
Taking my soul for a heavenly ride
The heavenly gates where all things come true
Will welcome me and you
I will ask the angels at this special time
One front row center seat in the heaven of mine
There I will set on God's heavenly shore
Listening to grandpa play the old violin once more

Steve Capell
Shawnee, KS, USA
American Red Cross & United Methodist Church

Forgetfulness and Frozen Waffles

Forgetfulness and Frozen Waffles

In the morning mirror
eyes still caked with sleep
are chided upon by decaffeinated drawls.

Slaps of cold water are ineffective.
Brush bristles fail to untangle grizzled frizz.
I hear the wind howl and harmonize.

There are children asleep upstairs
who wake and say things I can't imagine.
They hide the truth. Dare me to bite,

Well aware of my handicap
between forgetfulness and frozen waffles.


Robert J Savino
West Islip NY
American Red Cross

Searchlights

Searchlights

Coming home late
the other night,
swans were gathering
in the harbor
under a cowled sky
with the smallest glimmer
of moon showing through.
They floated near the marsh:

little searchlights of life
on such a starless night.

Barbara Southard
Miller Place, New York
Doctors Without Borders

Non-Collige Virgo Rosas

Non-Collige Virgo Rosas
"Gather, Girl, the Roses"

Morning gathers
at the curtains; my girl
with her cheeks like summer roses,
my child with sleepy blue eyes sees
the first bright moment of the day,
and laughs out loud. Now

as the kitten scrambles, just now,
beneath the covers, that laughter gathers
over our heads and the day
light disappears with the kitten and girl,
until my sleepy eyed child sees
the pink and yellow roses

of her blanket and thinks of the roses
in our garden that are just now
beginning to bloom, and wants to see
them (now!) and smell them and gather
them into a very little girl
sized bouquet today.

The blankets fly, her Fri-day
smile bright with promised roses -
this pink cheeked girl,
my blue eyed child. Now,
in her striped dress with gathers
at the waist, her hair braided, see

her jump from the the bed, see-
saw-and-swinging towards a day
in the garden; we gather
up the blanket with the roses
and the kitten, napping now,
and step out into the morning, my girl,

my blue eyed girl and I. She sees
only those flowers, now; but I see our days
filled with all the roses she can gather.

Sandra Erickson

East Barre, Vermont

UNICEF

During Yoga

During Yoga

Out of sound a silence creating
space between the joints, posturing
the spine to elongate

while busy thinking sides taken, causes stated
fingers pointed, name-calling-beyond-just-calling,
deep seated hatreds flaring explosions

and myself in yoga centering myself,
seated with the sit bones pressed into the earth
the spine lifted, the heart center, forward

into the atmosphere, acid rain, global warming,
erratic weather patterns, asthmatic population clusters,
earthquakes, PCPs, fish dying, oceans dying,

air dying, people dying, being born, babies entering
standing on one leg, lifting the other, straightening,
bending forward one leg rooted to the ground,

concentrating on the breath, taking the movement into flow,
flowing in movement, moving past the ages, past aging,
past such times as these that call for hope,

compassion rising to its fullest, we are forever one
with as many as ever were - elongating
the spine and neck, raising the arms in prayer.

Karen Neuberg
Brooklyn, NY
American Jewish World Service & Doctors Without Borders

Nude

NUDE

i shall remember forever
that dull rainy morning when
i saw my mother naked

the long swerving curves of her
waist mysteriously familiar;
modern like a steel skyscraper

standing in the dampness of
the garden i struggle to keep my gaze
from sinking into the depths of her shadow

i shall remember forever
the stillness in her eyes;
the stirring stream behind

perhaps the faintest breeze
would have caused her to cover herself
and remain my mother

Michael Ernest Sweet
Montreal, Quebec
UNICEF

Allen Theater Matinee

Allen Theater Matinee

The plump white-haired woman played
the upright piano, polyester slacks hanging
off the bench, keys tinkling Gershwin while
couples, singles, book club or Red Hat
gals sat down, popcorn and soda in hand.

She played, facing the red velvet curtain,
mindless of her just-taken-out-of-the-box
creases in the back of her white sweater,
head bobbing to the tunes, turning pages
crisply, never looking behind or side to side.

At exactly 4:30 p.m. the owner approached
the stage, waiting for her to finish the tune,
close the book, turn off the light, place it on
the floor, gather her purse, straighten that
shapeless sweater and turn to the audience.

Beaming at the low applause, she slowly thrust
those heavy legs, one in front of the other,
up the carpeted aisle, greeting this one,
that one, patting the locals on the hand,
disappearing into the light, a prom queen.

Kim King
Hershey, PA USA
Doctors without Borders

April

April

From the back, I can
scan this room, stacked and layered,
counting the faces and names,
folded and pressed, saved in a notebook for later.

The Pope is not here.

But if he were, he’d probably be sitting in the corner at the upright,
picking out a ballad in a major key, or
slamming out a wild ragtime jam.

Instead of the pope, this little man stands
in the auditorium shell,
elvish, or maybe a fugitive cobbler, one of
Jakob und Wilhelm’s runaways,
tucked carefully
in his jacket of moss and leaves.

He pulls giant pearls—the size of his hand
and gripping a faint pink glow—
from his jacket pocket, rolling
them across the wood and marble, a slow hum.

I stole one.

Rolling down the windows to let in the April night,
I can hear them, calling, calling, as the deer
lope past the interstate, and I plan
to plant that stolen pearl, tonight,
at the lap of the maple overhanging the kitchen.
I plan for the care of the golden outlines,
the open mouths and the eyelids that
I will find in the maple bark
tomorrow morning. And I plan
for a glorious exit.

T.M. Göttl
Brunswick, OH
The Salvation Army

The Blackberry Tree

THE BLACKBERRY TREE

embraced the ground
under its shawl of leaves and berries.
Its scent was the final
element of its perfection.

The ground, sprinkled with the tree's fruit,
fed ants, worms, busy beetles
and anything that deemed to live
in the leaves' magnificent shadow.

As a child I ventured
under those mighty branches,
a six-year-old brat,
nosy, seeking adventure.

Shielded from the sun, in this backyard
kingdom of smashed berries and broken twigs,
I feared the tree's grained bark
with its disease of carved lines.

Later I would learn
the bark was normal,
the stepped-on berries were not blood.
Later I would learn

the world needed more places
as simple as this shelter
where apprehension canceled itself
and meditation was born.

Austin Alexis
New York, NY
American Red Cross

Foot Race

Foot Race

They know only wind

made fast by their own limbs

striving. One boy

twists his head to gauge

the other’s speed,

neck straining

against the backward pitch

of his shoulders. His shallow chest

lifts, clavicles protruding

over the stretched-out neck

of his tee shirt.

The friend ducks his head,

pumps his peaked elbows.

They suck air and smile.

I’ve driven past

before they reach the finish—dead end

of the side street or a line

dragged in the dirt—so I don’t

see if the smaller one trips

over his worn-out Nikes and is

tearful at his friend for always winning.

Or if the big one is slower, unfamiliar

with the new length of his bones.

They are lost behind the curve

when I look for them

in the side mirror.

They are the last beautiful thing

I’ll see for miles.

Robbie Pock

Bisbee, Arizona, USA

American Red Cross

Tea on the Terrace

I'm taking Tea on the Terrace
after Sue Macartney-Snape
with Kitty, Clarissa and Kate.
I'm tete a tete
below the topiary
in a tinkle of china
through the delicate calm of an English afternoon
poured from the Georgian teapot.

In slender chiffons
under straw hats
they cast disdainful glances at noises off:
they are polite
in front of a visitor
who goes hatless in the heat.

They hold the careful languid pose of old money.
It's green diets keep their figures trim
it's green fingers tend their gray coiffeurs
it's green moods stipple their yellow age
among box hedges regimented
like Daddy's infantry at Omdurman.

A thin slice from the chocolate cake
poses on the Royal Doulton
and the strawberry tart's for show against the green
while our Earl Grey scents the terrace.
Beyond their gates, grass threatens to deaden
their brittle diction.

This I may tell in an afternoon's
tete a tete on their estate
with Kitty, Clarissa and Kate.

Maggie Norton
Red Cross & Oxfam

Haiti, 1967

HAITI, 1967

Forty-three years ago
my mother and I,
ignorant and new to travel,
boarded a ship to visit friends
who lived and worked in Jamaica.
The mammoth floating palace of luxury
docked for one short enormous day
at a small port in Haiti.
We walked ashore on dirt roads,
mud-choked water with human waste
running down odorous ditches.
A gargantuan billboard loomed over us
promoting Planned Parenthood.
There were wide-eyed little children
doing hand tricks for money
or just plain begging
if they didn't have anything to perform.
There were no trees in sight,
no vegetables gardens,
no grass for cows or goats to graze.
There may have been chickens,
but I don't remember.
The worst of all was the horror
of young men in little rowboats
circling the ship
holding babies aloft by their small feet
and dropping them into the ocean
asking tourists to throw down
dollar bills.
The little folks paddled frantically up
from the deep and surfaced,
spitting out water
from their tiny noses and mouths.
I can never forget
how desperate the Haitians were
in 1967.

Sally Woolf-Wade
New Harbor, Maine
The Salvation Army

Haiti's Hope

Haiti's Hope Prayers fly like the eagle
In the face of devastation
Praise resounds through a nation
On street corners surrounded by death

Tears are shed for the fallen
Laughter rings out for the living
Strength to face desolation
Joy for days that will come

The spirit of overcoming
Strong throughout the pain
Lives in the heart...s of the people
Fighting for another day

Hope rises every morning
With wonder in their eyes
That breath still keeps them going
In the horrors that abound

A cry from under the rubble
Digging till the ground is red
Hope won't be forsaken
For survival will always endure

Haiti will rise from the ashes
To shine in honor and grace
Trust she places in the Savior
That He will provide for their needs

Valerie Peterson Brown
Jacksonville Fl
American Red Cross

Hispaniola

Hispaniola

On the right side of the line

he envisions

greater things,

his life as a baseball star,

perhaps a house on the hill with a gate,

looking down on all the tourists

who are sunning themselves in the sand.

Left of the Dominican,

in the searing Haitian heat,

she cannot feel her feet,

the fractured concrete ceiling

breaking bones, chalking skin –

a ghost before she is gone.

And from the hovel that was her home

about a half a mile away,

her aunt and brother calling

from the land of the freshly crushed,

food and water coming so they’re told,

coffins too, from the other side

of the border,

being built as fast as they can.

Andreas Gripp

London, Ontario, Canada

UNICEF

Some of What I'm About to Tell You is True

Some of What I'm About to Tell You is True

They started with boiled
Barbie sauce, which they cooled
using snowballs
from the Oort Cloud.

Wound up serving a thick,
pink gravy.

If it weren't for the recession,
NASA would have investigated.

No, not the sauce--the snowballs!

That gravy, over towering mounds
of potato-studded polenta,
looked like lava torching the slopes
of Mount Pinatubo.

Made their anniversary dinner
seem even more explosive.

And the red wine was a bloody challenge,
leaving scabs on their glasses.

But best were the candied yams,
so inundated with brown sugar
and butter--one still-warm bite
and they seemed possible again:

an end to Oort logic and her
serving as his catch cow.

James Bertolino
Bellingham, Washington
Mercy Corps.

A Sea Cycle

A SEA CYCLE
a poem for haiti

i
in the high places tonight
the earth is in its wisdom dress
there is an unhurried patient
ritualistic humming
there is a mountaintop,
a mountaintop, sticking its face
all the way, so far
as it is nearly able,
to heaven

ii
clouds - ocean and
the wind on their
way to eat mountains
and then the rain
in its deep appetite
is on its way too
mumbling to itself
rain-words like rocks

iii
i hear the wind tumbling
there is something in
the stomach of the sea
which has gone sour
needs covering over
death and ruined cities
are in the mouthpit of
the world yet the sea
desires to kiss that mouth
everything alive dies but
the sea wants silt and rock
the sea wants magma
the sea wants to thrust
her tongue into the hot
core of the world

there is fire in the belly
of the world; that and
the sun, even with its
impossible distance, in
the sea's roiling face;
oh how heaven rolls
and rolls tonight, how
the greengilled waves
turn upside down
something is sour in
the belly of the sea
needs covering over
and then the sudden
rising up right out of
her sick bed

iv
me cierra los ojos
says ocean;
we mistake her voice
rolling over sands
as the sound
of waves
only of
surf, only

v
a wise man once told me
there is a bitter aftertaste
to experience, the sea knows
this and, wishing to explain
herself to the world, keeps
repeating a single word
against the shore; death
and life are the same, says
ocean; in our ignorance
and strange preoccupation
with the multitude of things
we do not understand

the one thing

George Wallace
Northport, NY
American Red Cross

Heartbeat Rhythm

HEARTBEAT RHYTHM

Heartbeat rhythm,
feel your pulse through
pounding hands that speak no words;
listen to the language of the drum

Heartbeat rhythm,
tell your truth
like conversation between
old friends, drums dare not lie

Heartbeat rhythm,
spectrum of sounds
talk to each other in
syncopated silence

Heartbeat rhythm,
move my spirit
like a helicopter hovering in
that moment of lift off

Heartbeat rhythm,
hand and heart are one

Gail Goldstein
North Bellmore, New York
American Jewish World Service

Operation

OPERATION

Her theatre-gown
by Anon,
badged up as
`Experienced Practitioner',
she supervises
needles, the local
pain relief.

"I'll be with you
all the time",
she confides,
"if that's alright."

Does she not know
that her eyes
are beautiful?

Bob Ward
Norfolk, UK
Oxfam

Six Inch Syringe

Six Inch Syringe

Restrained at four points
Right hand, strapped to the
Undergirding of the gurney
Left hand, strapped also.
Unable to scratch any itch which might arise
Left ankle, strapped

The torrid, dusty, highlands of Nicaragua
The grief of the mothers of the heroes and martyrs of the revolution
Los Angeles Emergency Room terror (where this happened)

THICK LEATHER AND METAL
The sounds of agony coming from other patients? detainees? prisoners? survivors?
Right ankle, strapped
A meeting of the Sandinist Defense Committee
Here came the six inch syringe
Closer
Closer
First, sweeping over my thorax
to the right
then to the left
I was deliberately made to believe
That at any moment it might be plunged into my body
Definitely brandished like a weapon
Embolisms on my mind
Then to the right, again
I lay, helpless and terrified,
The imminence of death
The terror of medical expertise turned against humanity

D. H. Kerby
Philadelphia, PA
American Red Cross

A Song of Light

A SONG OF LIGHT

the light between dawn and dusk grows perceptibly longer
each new noontime gathers and holds more heat
spring rains falling in series soften the earth's tough hide
whisper to the stirring life dormant just under the skin

in soldier rows in their orchards fruit trees stand taller
salute the passage of time with fragrant blossoms
with flashes of burning color a songbird whistles and preens
as, drab and safe, his mate sets and huddles her eggs to life
a farmer has scraped away winter's thick old matting
naked and open the dark soil receives his seed

and you come to my window singing bright songs
call at my door with hands overfull with light
dumbfounded I stand but then gather you in
touch your lips and your eyes

for I have no reply, no fire and no music
all I can offer is love

Jeff Seffinga

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

The Salvation Army

Still The Cross

Still The Cross

At the height of desperation
All the perils
and the dross,
And we see the all the destruction,
All the dangers and the loss,
Just remember- there's still Jesus!
He will answer, He's paid the cost.
Call to Him and He will hear you!
In the midst -
There's still the cross!

Betty C. Johnson
Georgetown, Kentucky
American Red Cross

For Haiti

For Haiti

so much depends
upon
a slice of bread
next to
a bowl of soup
and
a roof
overhead

Peter V. Dugan
East Rockaway, NY
American Red Cross

Heliotropes

Heliotropes

the tree bed is tucked beneath a crystallized sheet
that the February sun has yet to melt into forgiveness

a yellowgreen bud pokes its face through the cover
peeking out from beneath a shy veil of snow

pedestrians pause

some bow or kneel in awe
others raise their pale weary faces to the eastern light

Deborah Hauser
Babylon, NY
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

Freedom

FREEDOM

what could be more beautiful than freedom?
asked the bee
and a voice answered
a swim in a cool lake at midnight
cocoon of silk in a heatwave
taste of honey on the tip
of your lover's tongue
night and the long slow drip of peace
after pain
the song a father croons to his baby
smell of sweet bay crushed between fingers
the soaring melody lover's listen to in silence
what could be sweeter, said the bee, than freedom
slow heaving of waves
air opening and closing behind a lost lover
sea salted skin and the earth's silk cocoon
lover's tongues song of peace sweet myrtle and pain
all these, the sweet afterglow of freedom.

Geraldine Green
Cumbria, UK
American Red Cross

Charity

Charity

My mother's fading voice curled
like a tin cup shaking a single coin
when she remembered the alley singers
of her youth in the Great Depression.

Their sonorous voices soared
through curtains of faded laundry,
releasing a spray of pigeons
and rising to the clouded panes

of her window. With an outstretched
hand she would clutch a handkerchief
of tarnished change, dropping
the bundle to the minstrel below

whose poverty cried more loudly
than her own. "There's always something
you can give," she told me.
I'll keep those words as long as I live.

Mindy Kronenberg
Miller Place, NY
Oxfam

Cloud walking

Cloud walking

First experience of Qi Kung

Your bare left foot kisses the grass goodbye

and rises ten thousand feet

into sunshine and silence. Far below

traffic still drones, birds chatter,

time still runs too fast.

Your upturned sole advances, proud

as a Zulu warrior; your raised right palm

holds no assegai but declares: Stop!

Make way: this footfall belongs to ME.

A gilded insect validates the triumph.

But now your heel sinks tenderly

into the shivery dew, a softened hand

lowers with utmost care through

the rarefied air, trying not to

wake it from its baby-sleep.

Meanwhile, right foot, left hand

have begun their journey to claim

the next yard of experience.

You are dignified and daft

as a hen. You can be here any time.

Stevie Krayer
Lampeter, Wales, UK
Disasters Emergency Committee

Study of Water Lilies 1908

STUDY OF WATER -LILIES 1908
Oil on canvas by Claude Monet

Green and yellow fill the eyes
water lilies arched by wild grass and shrubs
a walking bridge pinnacles the top half of the painting
beyond it a growth of trees walling us in this one spot.

I blink as I stare at it
but focus remains somewhere in its past
forever in the eye of Monet
gone from him into brush and paint
canvas and carapace.

If I stood on that bridge
I would smell the warmth of a mild day
see the stream clearly choked with abundance
lush green filling the void everywhere
but the path to its existence is lost
this picture all that is left.

I see the weeping willow in the corner
and know why it is there.

Paula Camacho
Farmingdale, NY
American Red Cross

Joy

Joy

A seed sprouts, lifts its head to greet
the world and in return, the world
ignores it - yet its smile still grows.
A world that must recycle life
can't worry about a minor
portion of itself - still, the seed
keeps smiling as it continues
to grow distorted and hungry.

The clouds look down, but they don't cry -
they retreated when hatred grew
on a dying land, too arid
to feed one that's hungry for life.
Sun and moon shine out of routine -
dry-eyed, without remorse or care,
they look away, as the problem
belongs not to them, but the world.

The seedling dies without a drop
of water while the earth rotates
to another day and the next,
recycles dust over the land.
The joy that should have been is now
a memory harvested by
the wind - taking it to where peace
will be found in forgotten bliss.

Patricia Carragon
Brooklyn, NY
American Red Cross

Legacy

Legacy Before he died, he worried about
the small stuff. Perhaps he bruised
a cloud with his sharp tongue,
or praised a fool with his leather throat.
Just enough of this belief breezed
like a whisper through a funeral song.

He worried about a legacy,
whether the cool slag of his tough years
might bare its teeth and tear
a hole in the moon. They say
angels, who carry balm for festering sores,
wrap the souls of the dying with their hair.

After he died, he slid down
the cheekbone of the moon, another tear
to hang among her stars.
A few hectic winds had blown
his seedlings through the air.
They might not flower for a hundred years.

N. Colwell Snell
Salt Lake City, UT
American Red Cross

The Scream

The Scream

(“The mass of (people) lead lives of quiet desperation”)

Henry David Thoreau

the bump that blue purpes the skin after a fall

when a mosquito bite is scratched yelling red

or death lurks its tumor head up to full zero color

is the scream I could feel all month

snake like shedding its colors behind

sorry

it’s all right

doesn’t matter

shit happens

and like the 20 inch steam pipe

which burst in Manhattan spewing forth

decades of rock metal asbestos debris

imagine one day I’ll be walking down the street

alone or with a friend

an ordinary day like any other

and suddently gripped with fear

feel that scream rush thru the city

I’ll race after it but will never find

what I’ve stopped feeling to reclaim

a day just like that one

an ordinary day....

Linda Lerner

Brooklyn, N.Y.

American Red Cross

Christ Was Already There

Christ Was Already There

Even before the rumbles

the shuttering of the ground

before the tragedy of the quake

all falling down

Christ was already there

working in that place

hands and feet of God

serving our brothers, our sisters

in little acts of grace

Some even falling,

dying in that land

that moment holy

finding eternity,

sacred ground

More to do, so much more

where but in prayer must we start

offering love, from around the world

to lift these people up

Raymond A. Foss

Suncook, NH
United Methodist Committee on Relief

Afterstorm

Afterstorm

Approaching clouds disrupt serenity
as thunder pounds its drums across the sea
and gusts and gales that seem unmerciful
wreck havoc with a whole community.
Tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes pull
the plug on peace and steal complacent lull
to leave folks frantic, weeping, at a loss
to make some sense of nature's tragic toll.
Storms play no favorites, but whirl and toss
playing war with everything they come across--
seems nothing's spared if it is in their path.
But peace waits in the wings when wind exhausts:
Now help pours in throughout the aftermath,
a rainbow's smile replaces nature's wrath
and we rise strong from the chaotic bath.

Vivian Ramsey Stewart
Oklahoma City, OK
Church of the Nazarene

"The Pillow Book" (Happy Poem #4)

"The Pillow Book" (Happy Poem #4)

Reading Sei Shonagon’s lists of things, even her list of "hateful
things,"
even her list of "things that give an icky feeling"
even her list of "things that I made up":

it’s not the lists themselves, though item after item shine.
It’s not "a mantis broken in the sash."
It’s not "the crack in one’s Chinese mirror from Cho-fu-sa";

rather, it is that feel of a mind so arranging itself that images,
like tools*"the brush, the silver tweezer, the cherry-pruning saw"
should slip just so into appointed places

as though all the untowardness of a normal life
were tallied up at one’s pillow and not
not quite, not always found wanting

Jeremy M. Downes
Auburn, AL
USA
UNICEF and American Red Cross.

Three Weavers

Three Weavers

Someone has threaded a wee basket
securely through the branches of a tree,
and it has made all the difference
to the bird whose nest has fallen,
to that generous hand who held his own
quivering happiness as the bird's beating breast,
and to me weaving my afternoon's way
into that resonating vicinity
of secret little gift

Gayl Teller
Plainview/ New York/USA
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

The Earth Quakes Miracles

The Earth Quakes Miracles

One man rescued by one man
Driven by need to reach, reaches
Becomes god, becomes saver-savior
Simple man manning an ambulance
Back home, defending his own
Rockets flare, save the victims
One man rescuing one man
One at a time.
Listen: murmurs, breathing, still breathing
Hurry ambulance, hurry rescue team
A baby is born, hallelujah
Born to despair, born into hope
Growing up to be one man,
Saved, saver, savior.

Dd. Spungin
North Woodmere, NY
American Jewish World Service

Syllabic Tongues

SYLLABIC TONGUES
(An Indian-ish poem for peace)

Airy words cultivated in England
hyphenated here by tribes of nomads
wrapped in shawls and feathers to mark their band
faith in Spirit, Earth, and tribal comrades.

Ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics
in a labyrinth of caves and sheltered homes.
Ancient races born in age of mystics
plead with those in love with cynical tomes.

Words roll off tongues foreign to tribal ears
using phonetics to mock King's English.
Halting, guttural, turns anger to sneers
nothing left for peace but ancient Yiddish.

Great white father; Shaman Mez-uz-hah talks
face-to-face, hats on, tent is the Yesh-iv-a
U.S. Army versus tribe of Sch-mo-hawks
President Grant and Chief Sitting Shi-va.

Two states side-by-side, in peace and secure.
Sound familiar? Hurrah for Yom-Kippur!

Herb Siegel
Long Beach, NY
American Red Cross

No Holds Bard

Victims disappearing without a trace
Beyond belief hope buried alive
Who they were Whatsoever Howbeit
Whys Whereabouts forever remaining unknown

Mass graves human garbage dumps
Dismembered limbs poking through rubbish
Stacked deck house of discards
Spade Ace digging bottomless hole

Dr. Charles Frederickson
Bangkok, Thailand
Red Cross & Save the Children

Blood

Blood

Shed by whites killing native Americans
where my home now stands beneath an oak.

Raised by the whip on the backs
of people who built our lawmakers’ walls.

Pooled deeper than oil wells
but only if you count civilians.
***
The lines that join
parents to children.

The platelets you choose to give
a seventy-year-old stranger.

The common thread that rushes with a heartbeat
to let all of us, every cell in the body, live.

Ellen Pickus
Baldwin, NY
American Jewish World Services

Family Ties

Family Ties

Born in 1930,
Clothed in art deco
she was the eldest child,
Tall and strong,
Towering above all who preceded her.

A mere 11 months later,
He came into this world,
surpassing his older sister.
For years he reigned supreme,
Titan of the city's skyline.

Decades later they watched
As the twins grew,
Rising higher than they,
Heralding a new generation,
The new twinkle in the family's eye.

Until the fall.

Do sister Chrysler
and brother Empire State
Ever gaze southward
And miss their younger siblings?

Tony Iovino
Rockville Centre, NY
American Red Cross

Poets for Haiti: Instructions

Here's the project, plain and simple:

1) Send a poem (Can be previously published, as long as you have the rights)

2) Send a donation to an established charities--our site has some we believe are worthwhile.

3) We'll publish your poem and recognize the donation (not the amount, but the donee).

Poems:

The poem can be on any topic, but must meet the following criteria:

• The language must be PG rated;
• Can be on any topic--does NOT have to be on Haiti, natural disasters, suffering, etc. In fact, light-hearted material will be appreciated
• 30 lines or less
• Include the poem in the body of your email--no attachments!!
• 1 poem per donation--but you can send as many as you like
• send all poems to poets4haiti@gmail.com
• Include your name, city/state/country & tell me the name of the charity you donated to-- no proof needed--you are on your honor
• Donations must be made to one of the recognized charities appearing on this site (if you know of others you want us to include, let me know) It can be in any amount--please let us know how much you've donated so we can keep a tally--but we will NOT publish or reveal the amount
• By sending the poem you attest you have the right to allow us to publish it--that it is your work. We are taking only the right to publish the poem here on this site, one time use only.

Any questions, let me know!
Tony Iovino
poets4haiti@gmail.com