Dear Reader,
It's been an fascinating week for news junkies like me. The new majority in the House provided the perfect rebuttal to this week's State of the Union (where Trump threatened "If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation!"). On Wednesday, they announced the launch of sweeping investigations into Trump's finances, foreign influences, and 2016 election activities, along with potential Mar-a-Lago corruption within Veteran's Affairs.
Despite these flashy headlines, I'm grateful to the poets of the world for reminding me of the conflicts and lives receiving less attention. We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, and Megan Merchant writes an ode to remembrance - "Oh, America the bluetiful. Why not name the color / thoughts & prayers." Also in America, there are now a record 44,631 people imprisoned by ICE, and Mary Turck describes the paradox of their plight. In Afghanistan, Steve Gerson writes about a veteran's experience after a haunting injury. Lastly, Matthew Murrey reads us the Sports section in the newspaper and shows us what's in the margins of being the greatest of all time.
It's Sunday - let's read together.
In poetry,
J Spagnolo
Co-Founder
Bleuet/Bluetiful/Blue
By Megan Merchant
“The bleuet de France is the symbol of memory for, and solidarity
with, veterans, victims of war, widows, and orphans …”
—Wikipedia
Reading my grandfather’s letters home, 1945,
I learn that he saw Madame Butterfly in Paris,
after the war, that there was enough of him left
to feel the rain and realize the lapse since he’d last
laughed. The same day, I read online about a new
color of blue going into a box of crayons. As if
there is a lapse in the tints of sad made available
to our children so that they might be able to draw
the world. Brighter than cobalt, robin’s egg,
cerulean and sky. Bluetiful. I think of the blue
morpho butterfly, it’s scopic wingspan, flinch-bright,
it’s underside camouflaged drab, but still nearing
extinct. Oh, America the bluetiful. Why not name the color
thoughts & prayers. A blue not allowed to rest, bright
as in blood before it stains. The cold rain on my grandfather’s
face. I used to wonder why the average German man did
nothing to stop such unspeakable horrors. I know now, what
little can be done. So, I will buy this new color for my son
and tell him all is not lost, see—we have given you a way to
fluent tragedy. In your hands, it might morph it into something
almost beautiful, but mostly blue.
The Detained Calendar
By Mary Turck
Each not-criminal in an orange jump suit
does the shackle shuffle into the courtroom,
looks hopefully at the spectator benches for
anyone familiar, friendly,
stands, sits, stands again before the judge
hands manacled in front, chain just long enough
for hands to grasp a folder of forms,
not long enough to hold the folder open and place inside
another piece of white paper
from the white judge
or the white immigration attorney
as the white interpreter conveys their legalese to
all the brown not-criminals in orange jumpsuits
hoping not to be deported.
Phantom Pain: Afghanistan, December 12, 2018, 11:01 GMT
By Steve Gerson
On a wet day in a land mostly dry,
on a day dimmed where life normally glared,
our 12-man squadron was decimated.
I walked point, a two-by-two formation,
through a valley slice. “Incoming!” First whine,
then scream, the air singed, creosote acrid,
land roiling, men thrown skyward combusting,
shrapnel blown from a gnarled hand as petals
through limbs, severed then, cauterizing next.
Concussed, minutes, moments later, I saw
eleven depressions where men once lived.
Now, PTSD cracked, I carry them:
Day, my prosthetic pounding nails in nerves;
Night, my stump jolting, they my phantom pain.
GOAT
By Matthew Murrey
Who doesn’t want to be
the argued over GOAT
like Serena, LeBron, Tom—
greatest of all time
in other words? Fans love
to champion their champs,
chomp at the bit to weigh in
on who is better, who
is best. But no one
wants to be the one dropping
the perfect pass, choking
the clutch but easy shot
as the clock runs out. Clocks
always run out. How bad
I’ve felt for goats, like Wild Thing
over twenty years ago
in Toronto throwing himself
into every pitch, throwing
himself off the mound
and throwing away a World
Series with one fastball.
And now a lean kicker hangs
his head like a baited bear
succumbing to the dogs,
crowd howling jeers on him
for a kick that would have iced
the game, but strayed left,
hit the upright, dropped
to the cross bar, then
bounced backwards, worthless.
He looks as if he could kick
himself, then a teammate
far bigger than him, takes him
in the crook of his thick arm
and cradles his head. Oh, the goat
knows nothing of the jugular
and carotid pulsing in its throat,
though maybe wonders why
this hour, this field. The shift
from all’s fine to shock is sharp
and swift. The goat doesn’t see
the blade, just feels it suddenly
the moment before its throat is slit.