Far away from Home

January 2020 | poetry

There are countries, states, laws, constitutions,

Bible, Koran, catechisms, versicles.

Multiple versions, different procedures,

corrections and penalties.

As if we, humans, because having spread ourselves

around our entire world, were diverse,

dissimilar, incompatible beings.

The truth, so little faced and assumed,

and indoctrinated with so little faith,

is that we came destined to keep alive

the flame of mutual and supportive love,

free from color, race, religion walls and borders.

We have had intelligence and culture to, unluckily,

only improve our mismatches and idiosyncrasies.

The longer we stay on this strange route,

we will be farther from the promised land,

that Canaan where milk and honey flow,

and evil has no place and hides,

defeated, confused and humiliated.

Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Mr. Ferreira, 76 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Largely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67, after retirement as a bank employee. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize 2017, his first Poetry Collection, Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems, was launched in London, November 2018. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

Six White Feathers

January 2020 | poetry

Something happened here.

Beneath this tree, a pigeon’s worth

of feathers lies scattered among stones.

In the dazzling desert light, six white

strong-shafted quills designed for flight

catch my eye. I bend to pluck them,

take them home. Blocks away, near

her old apartment, hawks nest. Sometimes

I pass for a view of those high branches

that leaf and lose their leaves,

for a glimpse of hawks,

for a longer walk and the long run

of memories we made. But why save

these six feathers? A pigeon became

a raptor’s meal—that’s the story

I imagine—and why commemorate

a death I only guess has happened?

A souvenir is nothing but a wish

to preserve the evanescent,

a pretense of permanence.

Take, for instance, a seventh feather

I spotted as we stood sealed, embracing

beside a train. All the colors of ash,

it had come to rest between the rails.

I warned her not to reach

beneath the wheels to pick it up,

though she hadn’t moved to leave

my arms. Soon, the train would roll

away, but for now there was no

danger. So I let that feather go

and wisely made the most of one last

chance to hold her close. Now

six feathers lie scattered on my desk:

not the pure white I detected from afar,

not the white silence of a blank page

in the face of a myriad unasked questions

and too much left to say, but white

smudged pale gray at their tips and edges.

Still I keep them, to spite their lack

of meaning and the way they take me

back to a mid-October day, a train

on a westbound track, a woman I call

love, who promised nothing, and a lone

pigeon feather, gone. Lost forever.

Marisa P. Clark

Marisa P. Clark is a queer writer from the South whose work has appeared in Apalachee Review, Cream City Review, Foglifter, Potomac Review, Rust + Moth, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere, with work forthcoming in Shenandoah, Nimrod, Epiphany, and Evening Street Review, among others. She was twice the winner of the Agnes Scott College Writers’ Festival Prizes (in fiction, 1996; in nonfiction, 1997), and Best American Essays 2011 recognized her creative nonfiction among its Notable Essays. She reads fiction for New England Review and makes her home in New Mexico with three parrots and two dogs.

Damnatio Memoriae

January 2020 | poetry

To resist through nonviolence, yes—

I’ll do what the data says is wise.¹

But to love is another matter:

I may wave the flag, but I am no patriot;

Is it not better to burn what they betray?

If the house is rotten, I leave it to the carpenter

To destroy or Reconstruct. I am fine with either.

Yes, nothing grows without rot—

No rich soil, no history to study and to learn—

But the illiterate draw their own lessons, wield

Their own weapons.

I have run out of words of outrage.

One day there will be monuments

To tell of this dangerous time:

What structures will the architects design?

What wild rantings will the walls inscribe?

I am no thief. All that is mine is mine.

Shall I first confiscate this epoch,

Make it mine to censure or delete? ^{2 3}

What of the graffiti I may not find?

The encrypted hard drive I can’t erase?

The yard signs yet to decay…?

No, it would take millions to do the job.

We, redeemers of what—an idea?

Nearly half the population?

At Appomattox no treaty was signed,

For there was no truce to be had:

Democracy always teeters between deliverance

And decay…

My greatest pleasure in overcoming this trial

Would be to never have reason to relive it.

¹ Robson, David. The ‘3,5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world. May 14, 2019. BBC. <http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world>

² Robey, Tracy. The Long History of ‘Damnatio Memoriae’ and the Destruction of Monuments.  August 16, 2019. Jezebel. <https://pictorial.jezebel.com/the-long-history-of-damnatio-memoriae-and-the-destructi-1797860410>

³ [3] Bond, Sarah. Erasing the Face of History. May 14, 2011. The New York Times. <https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15bond.html>

Andy Posner

Andy Posner grew up in Los Angeles and earned an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial services to low-income families. When not working, he enjoys reading, writing, watching documentaries, and ranting about the state of the world. He has had his poetry published in several journals, including Burningword Literary Journal (which nominated his poem ‘The Machinery of the State’ for the Pushcart Poetry Prize), Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Esthetic Apostle.