Theft by Petr Hruška

Our things from the stolen satchel
must have been thrown, in disappointment,
in a pile at some quiet spot by the river:
the checked shirt,
the envelopes,
the red hairband.

They must be lying somewhere in the snow,
forever, unused.
Once in a while the envelopes stir.
The blue color weighs down the shirt.
When was the last time
we were so together?

From: https://www.bodyliterature.com/2022/09/07/petr-hruska-4/

Date: 2022 (original in Czech); 2022 (translation in English)

By: Petr Hruška (1964- )

Translated by: Jonathan Bolton (1968- )

Eulogy by Anthony Aguero

The officer’s fists on the door,
many fists on the door
hungry for a body, for blood,
in the name of justice. My father
tending to the garden, a gardener
gardening the language of others:
a criminal, a calloused thief, a weed
in his mouth between his teeth.
At the door, more fists insisting
Let me in! Let us in! His hands
loosening the earth after harvest,
making room for graves, for grass.
His hands touching the plum
then my hair then the earth
touching God’s. Many screams
bloodying the air, hardening it,
and a door broken into, breaking
down. A doored wind gone quiet,
the sound of your voice, a leaf now
quieted. It was a privilege foraging
alongside you, loving you. As they
take him, they leave me
fingering loose earth.

From: https://www.guernicamag.com/eulogy/

Date: 2022

By: Anthony Aguero (19??- )

The Wireless Station, Derrigimlagh by Ben Keattinge

The week the Russians razed Ukraine
on radio, I sat quietly
reading about Ireland and America.
Auden came to mind, bare honesty,
but Kyiv, disfigured and defaced,
looked like Derrigimlagh
just loose bricks, desertedness.
The tense staccato of messages
curved to ships in mid-Atlantic,
bad news sailing east to west.

From: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2023/02/11/poems-of-the-week-the-wireless-station-derrigimlagh-and-ill-pass/

Date: 2022

By: Ben Keattinge (1973- )

Not Knowing How to Begin is a Way to Begin by Maya Janson

Watching bees come back to the hive. Returning
the way we hope our dead ones will, intact.
To see again my mother’s tasseled shoes, heels
crushed. Father’s hat with its small gold feather
in the band, his habit of twirling it in his hands.
The two of them climbing the steps to my house.
There is no greeting that will suffice, seems right.
Instead, I’ll point to the neighbor’s peonies,
their soft fontanels begging to be touched.
Or the new hole the dog dug by the fence.
I’d let him have at it, admiring his resolve.
Made a mental note about his untrimmed claws
ripping through packed sod, nose nudging stones,
rolling them over the rim and how finally, finished
with what he’d begun, he circled three times
and lowered himself in.

From: https://parhelionliterary.com/maya-janson/

Date: 2022

By: Maya Janson (19??- )

Trajectory by Katie Kemple

NASA crashes spacecraft into asteroid, passing planetary defense test
—The Washington Post

How many years does it take to orchestrate
a crash landing? I pretend it’s fifteen,
that engineers conceived of DART
in a room, outrageously courageous.
Their target: Dimorphos, a moon orbiting
an asteroid. While around the same time,
I brought a child onto the earth whose
chosen name rhymes with arrow,
which is a sort of dart. And I see that
the little spacecraft left California last
November, only the size of a refrigerator.
I picture ours, sleek and silver, blast off
from the kitchen through the roof,
traveling ten long months to the high school
whose football field is approximately
the size of the asteroid’s moon.
There’s no coming back from this.
Just as in June, my child lifted off
from the middle school, and now—
touch down! Explodes into the rocky
maze of ninth grade classrooms.
An Italian camera the size of a toaster
followed the ship to record the collision.
The paparazzi takes photos and photos,
like me, to capture the juncture prodigiously,
sending images back to a cheering crowd
of scientists who by now, are family.
They say it takes a village to raise a kid.
But what is their trajectory? To be a parent
is to see your child nudge humanity,
a body that leaves your kitchen and makes
an impact that ripples out for all eternity.

From: https://www.rattle.com/trajectory-by-katie-kemple/

Date: 2022

By: Katie Kemple (19??- )

American as Atomic Pie by Pedro Iniguez

Simple instructions for those in power and on the go:
Start with drilling into the crust.
Pump any oil reservoirs you may find (We’ll use this later).
Take one stick of marginalized people and melt over skillet.
Dial up global warming until ice caps have completely thawed.
Begin making some dough. If you cannot make enough dough,
fire everyone and smother hot crude oil directly onto the panhandlers.
Add one cup of Harvey Milk’s fate.
If not on hand, substitute with baby formula and lead-tainted water mixture.
Toss in Granny Smith.
Bring down heat on her 401K (That’s 262.13°F).
Add a hit of nose sugar.
Dust with plenty of sinner men.
Scramble nuclear jet fighters until everything is mixed up.
Toss dissidents into oven.
As an alternative to ovens, use microwaves and nuke it all.
Caution: Food will be hot.
And there you have it; a wonderful recipe for disaster.

From: http://sfpoetry.com/sl/edchoice/45.4-3.html

Date: 2022

By: Pedro Iniguez (19??- )

The Ruins of Nostalgia 1 by Donna Stonecipher

In the fall we were nostalgic for the summer. In the winter we were nostalgic for
the fall. In the summer we were nostalgic for the spring. But in the spring we
were not nostalgic for the winter, not even for its quiet, or its hot cocoas, or its
video fires, though we did ask our father from time to time to tell us about how,
when he was a child, the man-made lake in the middle of our city froze over
every winter, and how one December day he broke through the ice and was only
saved from drowning by a neighbor boy whose name he can no longer
remember. We were nostalgic for the frozen lake we had never seen, that is, for
the lake we had never seen frozen, the man-made lake we had swum in during
the summers after the lake froze. It was hard to imagine the summer lake frozen.
It was hard to imagine the winter lake summery. It was hard to imagine the lake
being made, and not just spontaneously welling up its murky green effluence.
We were nostalgic for winters that had descended before we were sentient, as if
those winters existed in snow globes we could stow on our nightstands and
dream of falling and falling through the ice we are always rescued from by
neighbors who become strangers over time. The lake is always melting in the
ruins of nostalgia.

From: https://thespectacle.wustl.edu/?p=771

Date: 2022

By: Donna Stonecipher (1969- )

Unromanized Displacement by Sagirah Shahid

I have never been
citizen to a nation that
hasn’t tried to kill

me, some idea of me, my
people. Free until we aren’t.

From: https://www.terrain.org/2022/poetry/sagirah-shahid/

Date: 2022

By: Sagirah Shahid (19??- )

Lines from the Lateral Canthus by Rosemary Norman

of the human eye are called crow’s feet
already by the thirteen-hundreds

and are known besides as witch’s feet
not because witches are old

but because she’d keep foot-of-crow
to cast death spells as if death

didn’t come readily without her curse.
It came in the terrain of forests

and deep valleys in Vietnam marked
Crow’s Foot, full of tight spaces

for ambush, and enemies of a popular
symbol of peace gave the name

to that, though there’s nothing in it
of ragged talon and it’s spared

no-one a slow ageing. Battle fine lines
if you must with fillers, Botox,

peels and laser resurfacing. And yet
studies have found a smile

rated more authentic with crow’s feet
than with none, and the face

itself more intelligent, more pleasing.
Ask a witch. She won’t hear of

electric remedies for eventual death
and our notion of chemical ones

for flaws left by the habit of laughter
is what wrinkles up her grin.

From: http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/rosemarynormanpoems.shtml

Date: 2022

By: Rosemary Norman (1946- )

Harlequin Country by Paul Williamson

Along the tree lined rural highway
past paddocks where canola gleams
so cars stop for golden photographs
past paddocks where sheep graze
then clumps of darker remnant eucalypts
distant hills wear dancing patches of colour.
We drive towards the winding Boorawa River
and the town of Boorawa
a working town in merino country
from early Irish immigrants.

The church conrasts local yellow sandstone with greenstone
and is unlocked even during this Woolfest Day
when thousands of visitors line the main street
of nineteenth century formal buildings
shops and post great war red brick houses.
There are few frills some iron lacework.

Bands pipe down the main street
one orange, one green then community  groups
with troupers in antique uniforms firing loud guns
followed by a flock of sheep and a float with shearers
fast and clean on electric clippers or blade.
A crowd watches kelpie working dogs train.

Lunch is nostalgic Guinness pie with chips.
Hijab wearing women sell sweet cakes at a stall.
Asian stalls offer savory plates.
The town wears patches that richly contrast.

From: https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/harlequin-country

Date: 2022

By: Paul Williamson (19??- )