A Lament for Mariupol

In this quiet place we mostly listen
For the sound of car alarms and falling bombs
There are three hundred of us here
In this theatre we have gathered for safety
And hold each other close, knowing the fate
That lingers overhead like falling rain
Here we forget our difference and feign
                                                               survival. 

And tell our stories — like the three hundred
Spartans at Thermopylae — we laugh at Nana
in a moth-worn toga, vaulting as the children scatter.
Someone should go outside for food and water
But there are no volunteers, no radio, cell service
Always intermittent — K. was on the news yesterday
Crying an appeal for our safety but the video lagged
And the nice man left us shuddered in darkness.

How is it that we will resolve?
The older ones fear starvation
More than the bullets, squadrons
Storming the hallowed stage only
To find, like Hamlet, voiceless carnage,
Or a lone Horatio, barely held to life
, survived upon his bloodkin and storied
  as any soldier. More likely will
  the ceiling fall and lift us up
  to absolution and no one will come
  under the rubble that once housed
  this stage, whereupon we play for you
  this tragedy, our Romeo stands tall
  before his Juliet ± We seek consecration
  a blinding , deafening reunion with our
  loved ones, friends, countrymen, too quick
  in their dismissal of the suffering
  of ordinary people. Each of us
                                                   300 —

Suspension bridge set to burst
Before the in-bound tank procession
Stories carried in the air
From under the rubble. 

Call to Prayer

We are the afterthought of Spinoza, Milton
Carried like water in the hands of well wished
Dissymmetry, clove feathers downy with cut
Marble, pages left to smear the coital sheafs.

Hands up against the trinity, arches against
Mayhem, lilting splay of angularity, angel
Brains back-kicking ephemera, demon
Souls in guise of simulacra, forests
Of napalm for to call the mass to prayer.

Hard in the afterbirth, my desktop visionary
All eyes and resembling flesh, nearer to them
That cannot know, that dreams a siren song
To cull us from this odyssey, lost years, gone.

Meagre how the words sum up, bloom into an
A priori, priory, pried from inheritance, begrudging
No second rate citizenry, de facto ignorance
On the factory floor, failed union of democracy.

Hail the size of golf balls through our consciousness
How such a world is conjured, fully formed.

A Journey Abroad with M.

It was through
my friend M.
who lived in
                   Ukraine
before the bombing
I sent
them an email
wishing safety and
health, as was
customary then, tur
-bulent horror news
reels   every    day
the violence continued
and anchors looked
with disgust and
indignity at the poor
survivors
               ;
in no
short time M.
returned my mess
-age with no
incredulity, saying
that Rostov-on-Don
was only beautiful
in the summer
, tracing up
from the Burghölzli
, dusting away the
wrinkled documents to
mute the radio’s per
-sistent violence
                           ;
shrink wrapped
letters and phone
conversations I
scarcely could
discern carried
us over the
Sea of Azov
where we flattered
this our maiden
voyage: two Amer
-icans going about
it like Freud
and Jung, freed
to indulge their
historical instinct
far from the
chaise lounge &
the cluster bombs
, screeching sirens
in the relocation
gulags
           ;
              and my 
imagination need not
tarry    hard     to
contemplate the splen
-dor of Rostov
at the turn of
the century , oil
lights flickering
over the cobbled
city streets
                  ;
M. read the
journals and
the diaries
aloud as I
transcribed, bre
-athless, bou
-nd up in con
-summate att
-ention , struck
in the nuances
of M.’s various
utterances in Eng
-lish & her
urban Russian
which a sophist
-icate like Sp
-ielrein herself
might admire
                      —
                          we triggered
something corrosive
, which we each
  in our way
  knew no text
  -book journal art
  -icle could con
  -tain, drinking Bal
  -tika No. 3 as
  war settles over
  Europe like an
  insomniac eases his
  waking with worry
  and buildings cru
  -mble as we
  wonder how to
  mourn the many
  dead
          ;
            she asked
not to be named
but told us
that we could
record the haunting
song her great-
great-great Aunt
had written , pale
frock  &  a long
black   dress adorned
the spacious  post-war
kitchenette  ,    rebuilt
after the Shoah
erased the family
name,  but could not
erase   the  song —
she said it
translates to ‘My
Broken Heart’ or
‘My Shattered Soul’
and she believes it
is    about  Jung,
whom she refers
to  as     her Siegfried
here
        ;
         the fragile hum
         of this voice
         abounds even in
         the compress
         -ed tape played
         back as the
         typewriter bleeds
         I hear again
         the haunting words
         in all their
         gloom and glory
         in the idol
         that has wrought
         this hymn of my
         discontent, the in
         -cantation  my
         ambition  sought.