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WHENCE
When you ask me from wheremy family comes, do notlook surprised when I answerthat it depends on the directionof the wind, but with natureas no more than a passive observer.In my case it is the fickle windsof war and diplomacy that markmy origins, my maternal rootsdeeply planted in soil Lithuanian orperhaps Russian or briefly Polish.And…
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FOR SPACIOUS SKIES
It is a clear sign of my agethat I recall the hours we spentlearning about America, whatit stood for, how it was welcomingto immigrants from everywhere,why America was the greatestcountry in the world, and weincredibly naively ate it up.Vietnam brought us a large doseof the ugly reality of the modern age.Half a century on that…
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AND TO YOU WE LEAVE . . .
Of course we did not heedthe warnings, what did they know,and anyway we were sure we had won. History is a poor teacher, thatmuch we have demonstrated againand yet again, lessons never learned. It is how we got here, how wehave no clear path to leave here,things assumed lying in ruin around us. We are…
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PRAVDA
If I was in Russia Iwould have no problemfinding a title for this poemfor it would be The Last. I would write that I mournthe children, men, and womensacrificed to assuage hiswarped need for domination. I would write that I detesthis disregard of truth,supplanting it with his liesto justify his megalomania. I would write that…
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VICTOR
In our timeof never-ending war,punctured by the briefestlulls we now call peace,someone, someonesmore likely, will talkabout whom will bethe victor, to whomshall go the spoils.Bierce, that perpetualcynic, reminded usthat peace was a periodof cheating betweentwo periods of fighting.But no one pausesto consider thatin any war there areno true victorsonly the victimsunwillingly offered upin sacrifice to…
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RETURN
He arrived todayalthough none saw him coming.He had been here before,been quickly ignored,despite his pleas and prayers,they twisted his wordsto suit their venal desires,his message forever lost in translation.They were not ready,and in their hate fueled world,they might never be.
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WE FIND OURSELVES
We are wholly innocentwe are wracked with guilt.There is nothing we did,but what is there that wedid not do, that we should have done, that wemight have said so it wouldnever have happened, orhappened less, or happeneddespite everything we did? We carry our innocenceas a badge, we wear our guiltas an albatross around our neck,dragging…
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WE WANT, AGAIN
We want to cry out,but we have no words. We want to screambut all we give is silence. We want to curse the invaderbut cannot be heardover the tanks, bombsand rockets. We want to mournbut there are so manyinnocents, wheredo we begin? We want to act,but we are incapableand can offeronly silent prayer.
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AND PEACE?
Santayana said, “Only the deadhave seen the end of the war.”We have grown adept at wars,no longer global in scope, butubiquitous in frequency. Mine was fought in the ricepaddies of Vietnam, and on thecampus where we struggledvaliantly and vainly to protest,and when that failed, in the heatof Texas, marching about, goingthankfully nowhere, shippedto Niagara Falls…
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KYIV
From the moment it began, we knew, it wasobvious that peace and freedom were under assault,Russia had thrown societal norms to the wind. Under gunmetal gray skies they attacked by air,killing women, children, destroying hospitals, homesraining hell on the innocents with nowhere to turn.All we could do was watch, pray and offer paltry aidin the…
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an old writer and his words 