Gloria Mindock
(USA)
BARRIER
It is summer.
No, I am not an animal
nor
a car of blue.
What I really am
is a bed of petals
layering the air.
The window won't open.
I can't speak right.
I'm startled and feel like
a long passage in a book.
Soon, I will dash out the door and
stand on wasted ground.
My husband feels the same.
We never arrive and try
to free ourselves.
While we are doing this,
the pavement changes.
The tumors in his body have their
own little community. Talking daily
with each other, they warn when the Chemo starts…
the liquid of kill.
Shrinkage, drown and cut. What a thing to look forward to.
They brace themselves for death like he does.
The surgeons knife today is dull.
He may be asleep but the hours of sadness, touches him.
Such bitter tears weep when his eyes look at me.
My heart caves in when overwhelmed.
This life could have been longer, better and more exotic
if he would have let it.
When he says good-bye to me, it will crush his
bones into the coffin sooner.
The nights will bleed red and form a friendship.
Night after night, he hopes I will think of him,
remember, laugh, over the things we said.
On these nights, my soul will give him strength.
He will dance and have thoughts of ice.
KILL
The Janjaweed attacked the village,
raped the women out in the open, and
took their clothes. A wave of horror
surrounds them, hopelessness.
So many throats slit today. What was
once comfortable, isn’t.
What was once beautiful, isn’t.
There is no fresh air, just the sound
of explosions and smoke filling the air.
Screaming is heard over all other sounds.
The world is witness. They do nothing.
2.5 million displaced, telling stories but
no one hears.
*They wait for the “white people” to help.
Their tears fall as all hope is buried.
*From the film, “Darfur Now.”
ANNIHILATION
Annihilation is just around the corner.
Peeking through the curtains—
Any moment, we will be gone.
When I think of this, I feel paralyzed.
Did I do enough?
Will my words spin in eternity trying
to land in someone’s hand?
Read with a calmness—
a poem where a person can make
their own conclusions about me.
I cannot persuade anyone to get my meaning.
My thoughts just mourn.
WHITENESS OF BONE
The rain washes the blood
into the earth today.
For some strange reason, the
rain is only heard. No gunshots,
no screams, no wind blowing
death around, just a silence.
Bodies, unburied, sometimes
unrecognizable, motionless.
I need to cover them.
Let them rest in peace.
Nothing was accomplished
by this slaughter.
Cruel men murder and go milling
about with a mission in their eyes.
This is horrible but not unique.
There has always been war and genocide,
so many bodies piled onto the soil.
Burial sites, if you could call it that,
are difficult to look at.
Tears fall from my defenseless sight.
I must be in a dream.
Bones pushing out of bodies, filleted into
whiteness, brutal.
The dead, are on a different journey with worn-out hearts.
How much can I say or do to stop this?
No one pays attention in this world.
Suffering has been here since the beginning:
shimmering, drifting, whispering, screaming, crying,
filling the void between peace and death.
All the bones saturate the ground.
One can learn about the life and death of the
dead by holding them.
I hear you, know you, there is no vacancy
in my heart as your life closes in.
The whiteness of bone, I caress, kiss and
retrieve your memories for a better life.
___________________________________
Gloria Mindock is the author of La Porţile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, 2010, Romania) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here (U Soku Stampa, 2010, Montenegro), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson Street Press, 2007). She is editor of Cervena Barva Press and the Istanbul Literary Review. Gloria’s poetry has been translated into Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, and French. Widely published, her poetry recently has appeared in Levure Litteraire (France), Vatra Veche (Romania) and in the anthology Hildagards Daughters (Belgium). She has work forthcoming in The Muddy River Poetry Review and Ibbetson Street. From 1984-1994, Gloria was editor of the Boston Literary Review/BLuR. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, St. Botolph Award, and was awarded a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council distributed by the Somerville Arts Council. Gloria currently works as a Social Worker and freelances teaching poetry workshops and editing manuscripts.
Gloria
Mindock, Editor
editor@cervenabarvapress.com
www.cervenabarvapress.com