They’re sending out bird machines pasted to the sky over a smoke-filled collage of clouds and burning buildings. In the silence of departure, on a pathway of storms, I turn away from the life I’ve known towards the unforeseen, tangled in bare branches, winter, all of it retreating from a world that contains no escape.
Between the above and the below, floating uneasily, ghostly silhouettes shadow my footsteps as I head blind into a collision with the invisible horizon, held captive by a threshold that seems to extend forever.
No shelter appears here on this road of leaving.
Clinging to tattered wings, sparrow searches for some anywhere to land.
Merril at dVerse has given us some wind-tossed paintings to use as inspiration for Ekphrastic verse. I chose the painting below, by Joseph Farquharson, ‘Cauld Blaws the Wind Frae East to West’
World spinning dark in trembled night– morning returns and still no light except in fiery landscape, stark. An emptied people, desperate flight from history’s repeated arc– in trembled night, world spinning, dark.
This collage was done for the Kick-About prompt inspired by the work of artist John Stezaker. I took Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, cut it up, and inserted it into works by Monet, Gauguin, Matisse and Homer. This pairing is with one of Monet’s water lilies paintings.
The poem is, like many of the responses to the dverse prompt of the sparrowlet form (introduced to us by Grace), inspired by world events.
And in a bit of serendipity, one of my poems is included in The Ekphrastic Review ebook of responses to Van Gogh’s Starry Night, which you can download here. My thanks to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for her continued support of my work and of Ekphrastic writing.
The same foolishness everywhere. We talk over each other, repeat words until they are erased. The lines become solid form.
We can’t see either forest or trees. We respond without listening. The same actions, recast, broken up, taken down. Angry
outlines drawn like guns. Hanging over cliffs, waiting. Holding on, out, back. We banish heart, soul. Burning every single bridge. Drowning.
Early in my blogging life, on memadtwo, I did a series of paintings titled what is it good for? Then I did some embroideries titled war is not healthy (for children and other living things). Unfortunately, it’s (always) (still) relevant. Even in my city (mostly) young men are killing and being killed every day by gang and turf wars that are little more than macho posturing. And of course, as in every war, civilians are merely collateral damage.
memory fails to stop enduring grief daily farewell face death alone
In 2015, when this post originally appeared, the New York Times published a chart explaining some of the ways civilians have died in the Syrian War. A little research online shows that in modern warfare it is estimated that 85-90% of all casualties are civilians (June 2014 American Journal of Public Health). War also wreaks havoc on the environment, leading to more death.
A Hard Rain
has fallen shadowed by endless endings, ghosts both multiplied and lost
Some estimates of civilians killed in recent and ongoing conflicts: Sudan-Darfur 200,000 Iraq 170,000 Syria 200, 000 Congo 60,000 Afghanistan 45,000 Pakistan 35,000 Mexico 50,000 Libya 30,000 Chechnya 100,000 Eritrea-Ethiopia 70,000 Sierra Leone 70,000
These numbers have only increased since 2015.
There are not enough tears to encompass all this sorrow.
Bjorn at dVerse asked us to write poems of war. I decided to repost some of my headline haiku embroideries–I did a number of them from 2015-2017 when war was in the headlines every day. Now we’ve moved on to other things, but lest we forget, civilians and soldiers are still losing both their lives and homes every single day all over the world
Silence weeps and eyes refuse sight. No questions can be posed, nor answers given. Light is erased. Dust and blood.
If there’s a deadly sin, it’s power. It’s wanting to be more, by making others less—less than less. It’s controlling with physical force, psychological terror, subjugation. And if you don’t possess the genetic make-up to manipulate others directly, you make it up with a knife, a whip, a chain, fear, lies, starvation, locks, poverty, cages, technology, homelessness, isolation, guns, an army, explosives, drugs, religion, words, the law, bombs, lack of medical care, money, corporations, willful ignorance.
There is no end to the expressions of superiority and omnipotence.
Aren’t we rich? Barren
land, rivers of blood flowing–
empty to the core.
As Dylan observed, “all the money you made will never buy back your soul.”
I’ve posted so many times on gun violence, I’ve stopped counting. The last time was on June 1 of this year.
Every day 88 people die by gun violence in the United States.
Silence weeps
and eyes refuse sight.
No questions
can be posed,
nor answers given. Light is
erased. Dust and blood.
What is the color of mourning?
morning
of empty spaces, and Where?
wear
black, but it has no reply.
Why?
just questions and sorrow.
Tomorrow
will remain unfilled,
killed,
killed. More shots from another gun.
When?
Again.
As Dylan knew, you can’t separate a gun mentality from a war mentality.
Who are we?
It’s haibun Monday on dVerse. Frank asked us to talk about peace to commemorate Hiroshima. I’m not feeling it right now.