I – “The Ukraine”
Oskars …
“Three days in Mariupol”
left me numb and outraged
tossed between tears and
powerless anger.
A newscast …
witnessed Der Trumper and Der Grosser
from Hungary
forsaking Ukraine
Putin puppets.
My mind’s eye …
pictures Mis-spoken Johnson off
in a corner thumb in his mouth
lest the House Magas shove his shoe
into it …. War criminals all.
Remedies?
Sit them all in straight-backed
chairs taped
arms and legs and eye-lids
wide open obliged
to watch “20 Days …” in its entirety.
Then on to the Hague
charged with consigning to die
thousands of defenseless Ukrainians.
Lest we forget!
“20 Days …” records the early days of
the Russian invasion before NATO sent
armaments and munitions to the
Ukraine. Chillingly
it previews what will occur should
the Ukrainian people be again left
without hands and arms and weapons.
The past is always present.
II – GAZA
This dirty little war
might have begun
Israeli v. Palestinian
Jew v. Arab
but has moved well
beyond that …
a homicidal criminal
determined to keep
killing whoever is trapped
in Gaza
until Israelis and Americans
forget his true banal intent
to stay out of prison and
hold onto political power
for so long as he can.
My early political and professional
mentors were Jews
New York Jews, left-wing
red diaper Jews committed to
performing mitzvahs, good deeds,
every day of their lives.
Whoever of them might still be
alive, must be heartbroken,
distraught that the Israel
access to which was granted
diaspora Jews at the cost of
six million lives has been
betrayed.
O what a loss!
Soaked in more blood!
My heart breaks with theirs.
III – SOUTHERN BORDER
[Conversations with poets, cont …
“Warsan Shire, “Home”]
“Lies & Shame” …
What can I say? What could I, would I?
I find myself doubled over in shame,
after reading these words,
after seeing Der Trumper construct
the immigrants seeking asylum as scapegoats
accused of a crime wave fiction
in his own mind and Fox newscasts with
no protest from the journalists
who know the lie.
Where is the outrage?
Why is no one calling out Der Trumper
and his Maga Sturmers as
liars? Have we regressed a full century
become again a nation willing to hate outsiders,
to blame them for problems
that don’t exist diverting us from
problems that do?
I’m ashamed of us, outraged by our
absence of rage, of humanity, our
inability to comprehend that those
seeking refuge will be the last to
jeopardize it. Or is it our impotence
inability to see a direct path to quiet
Der Trumper now? I know that’s the
wellspring of my anger.
Martin knew the answer, why the same
supremacists killed him — not violence
but mass non-violent confrontation with
those who would poison our social democratic roots –
the Flint sitdowns were led by immigrants and their sons. Not
without risk rather risk unavoidable and
necessary, I, we might then be able to stand
upright.