History Poems
Creed
by Steve Turner
We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.
We believe in sex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
......
The City In Which I Loved You
by Li-Young Lee
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
We Refugees
by Benjamin Zephaniah
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
......
Thoreau In Italy
by Robert Francis
Lingo of birds was easier than lingo of peasants-
they were elusive, though, the birds, for excellent reasons.
He thought of Virgil, Virgil who wasn't there to chat with.
History he never forgave for letting Latin
lapse into Italian, a renegade jabbering
musical enough but not enough to call music
So he conversed with stones, imperial and papal.
Even the preposterous popes he could condone
......
Confessions
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
It was around midnight when the
Sun set in to remind me of the
Dangers of running away with the
Murder of innocent horses, which
My village hunters have failed to
Admit to.
The sun had dimples on its frail
Face and the breath of its fire
Was rancid...
......
Further Down
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Further down,
treasures loom, including dead spavined horses.
Estaminets run under siege of currents with crested
bubbles, and hybrid specimens of thereunder
mock my search.
Further down,
beyond the course of Kamby Bolongo,
the icy-blackness of cold pollution,
visceral festivities of committed oath —
......
Confessions
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
It was around midnight when the
Sun set in to remind me of the
Dangers of running away with the
Murder of innocent horses, which
My village hunters have failed to
Admit to.
The sun had dimples on its frail
Face and the breath of its fire
Was rancid...
......
Landscape
by Stuart Payne
Find me a place where stories have grown old,
and wound about the lands where they were told
in other times so that they seem as one
with all that lies beneath a foreign sun,
like vines that grow on warm and weathered stones
or veins that stretch about their living bones.
Or lie to me and say this is that place
and in that story you and I will trace
the past that never was, so that this seems
......
Ukraine (traveler's diary, year 2024/in Ukrainian)
by Halyna Myroslava
Україна (щоденник подорожнього, рік 2024)
-
висіяний з неба біль
перемішує з криком страх і ненависть
вона* ж
стоїть
мужньо обнесена вогнями
хоча життя доокіл розсипається як її будинки
і присипає землею
......
The Soldier's Refrain
by Leon Moon
I awoke to my own corpse
And flowers my lover brought.
The war was fought
And not fought enough.
We had died dutifully
And followed orders perfectly.
The war was understood
But not understood enough.
......
