WordCityLit

3 poems by Carole Giangrande

CaroleHeadshot2021

Doctor and Cat
	Gaza; heard on BBC

It doesn’t matter whose side he’s on.
Forget sides. I can’t help thinking 

of this doctor, stunned, soul pierced
by suffering; how, dazed, he searched 

for his terrified cat; knowing the touch 
of his bloodied hand would comfort 

a frightened creature, knowing her softness
would bring him rest. In time, he found her,

cradled her, child-innocent; tiny cries 
against the terrible darkness; how I imagine

his whisper, there now, murmuring 
humble words she could not grasp,

hoping his voice, at least, could calm her,
hoping his gentleness mattered,

having forgotten what battle 
he’s supposed to fight, lost as he was

among the dead, holding 
in his arms inchoate sorrow, cry

of this earth, our grief.






News Loop: Hostages	

	1.

In the video, the child runs
into the arms of the woman
who will comfort her.

Over and over,
the child, locked in the moment
	before she learns
    of her parents’ murder.

	2.

In the video,
	the son keeps running 
		 to his father’s arms, 
wants to bow, kiss his feet.

His father says no need.
My son, my love.

	*

They must all be
	our children,
else why would we watch
over and over

pain too intimate
for the eyes of strangers?





How will it end? 
		      Trees are in bud,
not leaf, not yet. Pale skies vague with morning,
	jittery with birdsong, 
as if the whole world, staccato-bent, 
is trying to find the beat, the rhythmic chord 
	that might get the season going. 

How will it end? The reporter on the other side
of desperation says he doesn’t know, and if he doesn’t
know, who does? 
		            A lost mallard, perched
on a fence, crying to her mate in the grass. 
No place to nest, no stream. 

			        Afraid.

			        She doesn’t know how it will end,
	
			        The weather calls for a chill spring. 

			        None of us knows
					     how the war will end.

Carole Giangrande is the author of ten prose works, including two award-winning novels, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (Inanna, 2017) and The Tender Birds (Inanna, 2019). Her poetry has appeared in Grain, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire and Queens Quarterly; in the US journals Spiritus (Johns Hopkins) and Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics among others. Her poetry chapbook, The Frailty of Living Things, was published by Aeolus House in 2021 and her first poetry collection, This May Be The Year, is forthcoming from Inanna in 2024. Born and raised in the New York City area, she now resides in Toronto.

WordCity Literary Journal is provided free to readers from all around the world, and there is no cost to writers submitting their work. Substantial time and expertise goes into each issue, and if you would like to contribute to those efforts, and the costs associated with maintaining this site, we thank you for your support.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

Untitled, it is. A poem by Jay Yair Brodbar

Untitled, it is

too raw on the eye, 
too raw for the pen. 
The seen cannot 
be unseen. 

A crib—emptied save a small
teddy sodden in curdles of blood.
The young woman yanked out
of an armored jeep, her back 
to the screen, cherry-red 
splotches congealed on her jeans. 
A wall lined with family photos—
young marrieds, elders bearded 
in old country sepias, a smile
at the tractor’s wheel:
all mute, untouched—
all else uprooted, over-
turned. Strewn. More
blood. More bullet holes.

There are attempts at some relief:
the sprawled toddler’s face—
blurred and scrubbed. Grieving
with the newly bereft: we reach back
to the ancients’ vilomah, shakulim—
parents, now sundered, heads prostrate,
hands splayed across tables. We
don’t need to hear the wails. 
We know. We know.

Yes, even the sounds,
somehow, reach us.

It is all 
too much.
Words 
fail.
Craft fails.

So much has failed.

Return to Journal

Jay Yair Brodbar has three passports and an irrelevant PhD and finally is doing what he was meant to be doing. His family in Toronto and writing practice are his two pillars, He has published in various journals including McGill Street, Parchment, Reform Jewish Quarterly. Recently, his poem, What We need Beyond the Pale, appeared in the Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine, with proceeds going to PEN Ukraine and his poem Spatial Relations was selected for the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

3 poems by Poet in Residence Mansour Noorbakhsh

Mansour-Snow-2020 (resized)

How Come? 
After, "Prayer For Sunset" by Leonard Cohen. 

Today could still be a good day. 
Believe in occasional love.

A hunter, a friend of mine, 
spent a whole night atop a tree coaxing a bear 
that followed the smell of burnt honey to its death.

“How come?” I asked him. 
“Leave a door open for imagination. 
A chance to love.”

“Bear symbolizes rebirth 
because of its hibernation 
and re-emergence.” He answered. 

Weapons run out like death itself. 
Prayers come to back up the shortage. 
What does not end is the disturbed sleeps 
of explosions.

There is a market that trades imaginations for weapons. 
Where the imagination of love is sacrificed 
by the myth of rebirth.
Rebirth, a used excuse to justify wars.






What If
	After, The Secret Sits by Robert Frost

We don’t live on the earth.
We live on a geopolitical map, alas.
Broken into pieces,
like chairs for Musical Chairs.
There are no seats for us.

We don’t dance to the music.
We just nervously trembling, 
waiting for our moment to get “Out”.

What if we write to each other
the words that have never uttered.
The forbidden words
that are banished to holy vintages.

We have never lived for each other, alas.






Urgent Need

Let’s breathe each other 
instead of abusing us as a charity.
I don’t feel ashamed to advertise it. 

I need to breathe. 
We all need to breathe. 
Please share it 
as you share with your friends that 
someone urgently needs "blood of this or that group". 

Let all know that 
I need "a breath of all types", urgently.

Return to Journal

Mansour Noorbakhsh writes and translates poems in both English and Farsi, his first language. He tries to be a voice for freedom, human rights and environment in his writings. He believes a dialog between people around the world is an essential need for developing a peaceful world, and poetry helps this dialog echoes the human rights. Currently he is featuring The Contemporary Canadian Poets in a weekly Persian radio program https://persianradio.net/. The poet’s bio and poems are translated into Farsi and read to the Persian-Canadian audiences. Both English (by the poets) and Farsi (by him) readings are on air. This is a project of his to build bridges between the Persian-Canadian communities by way of introducing them to contemporary Canadian poets. His book about the life and work of Sohrab Sepehri entitled, “Be Soragh e Man Agar Miaeed” (trans. “If you come to visit me”) is published in 1997 in Iran. And his English book length poem; “In Search of Shared Wishes” is published in 2017 in Canada. His English poems are published in “WordCity monthly” and “Infinite Passages” (anthology 2020 by The Ontario Poetry Society). He is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society and he is an Electrical Engineer, P.Eng. He lives with his wife, his daughter and his son in Toronto, Canada.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

2 poems by Jameson Chee-Hing

Jameson Chee-Hing(1)

A Fallen Sun

The sun shines
We do not see
Blinded by rage
Wars
Senseless slaughter
We hurt each other

The sun shines
Darkness in our hearts
Consumes us
There is goodness in us
We do not see
That light so bright
Burning like a thousand suns
But buried
Veiled
Like a fallen sun
Why must it be this way?

The sun has fallen
It may never rise again
Why should it?
Why would it?
When will we ever learn?






The Tree Spirit

They call you the hundred-year-old tree
I think you are at least thrice that
With knurled branches and knuckled limbs
A canopy of verdant green
Your crusty girth belies your age

O sentinel of this old forest!
Watcher of the deep woods!
What spirits have come your way?
What events have you bore witness to?
In the solitude and silence
Of the accumulating years

At the cusp of this new year
A leap year no less!
And as I embrace you
What wisdom can you impart to me?
To guide me in this uncertain world.

Return to Journal

Jameson Chee-Hing is a poet, essayist, and writer. His poems have been featured in several anthologies. Jameson writes about relationships, social justice, the environment, and the human condition. He grew up in the inner-city neighbourhoods of Toronto, Canada and attended all three universities in that City. He is currently in the process of compiling his first Collection of Poetry. Jameson can be reached at jchee-hing@sympatico.ca

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

3 poems by Sheila E. Tucker

Sheila E. Tucker

knitting socks

how much more can I hear and see

of our macrocosm
seared onto tv screen
blasted into newspaper
cellphone tablet radio

mother of two naked
lying face down dead
metal screws hammered into torso
bullets through saturated pelvis
husband’s body nearby
except for his head
which rolled down a ditch
eyes and mouth wide open

how much more can I hear and see

children crushed under concrete
bullets tearing through teenagers 
grandmothers’ limbs trapped
boys stiff from hypothermia
fathers carrying dead daughters
cheek bones prominent
jaw line sharp

how much more can I hear and see

through centuries past and future
invasion torture subjugation 
iconoclasm suppression appropriation 
enslavement then and now
one-percenters then and now
apathy fury revolution war
then and now
then 
and
now

how much more can I hear and see

oh yes you say but many are kind
think of doctors without borders
church ladies knitting socks
food kitchens shelters 
second-hand sneakers
charities and don’t forget
a simple smile 
will brighten someone’s day
no! not enough I tell you
not enough







The Gutless Horseman

you fancy yourself the next Bronze Horseman
"Putin the Great," shirtless, a tiny bit flabby,
a huge bit hubristic, egocentric, 
cunningly media-exploitative!

ah yes, you see, I think of the before and after . . .

before that shot 

of your oh-so-manly pursuits on that horsey-worsey 
next to which one of your underlings had placed a step-stool
so that you could actually clamber up there
to pretend you just happened to be trotting by
seemingly oblivious to a professional photographer
who just happened to be standing in the middle of a gravelly terrain
and who clicks a couple hundred times, or maybe a couple thousand

ah yes, you see, I think of the before and after . . .

after that shot 

you got to choose which image to flood into the world
to scrutinize and think "in this one, I look rather fat,
that one makes me look weedy, in this my shoulders are too round
but here . . .  I sit up straight and oh, good, the profile,
three-quarter body shot with my arm mostly hiding my waist
a stern countenance, fierce even, a "don't mess with me"

and indeed, they don't mess with you, do they, for they know 
you get off on terrorizing even your inner circle: oh
your delight in watching their stricken faces 
if they think they annoyed you even for a minute . . .
will you force-feed them a Siberian vacation to break rocks 
or arrange for their noose be novichok?

you are one-point-seven metres tall, Putin—five feet six,
exact same height as Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine—and there
the similarity ends

I'll speak plainly: you are a chinless heartless spineless 
waste of space
he is none of those things

we all see plainly: he is a valiant patriotic steadfast
tower of strength
you are none of these things

you pay handsomely for your bodyguards . . . 
they protect you because their bread is buttered well

Zelenskyy does not pay a penny . . . he does not need to
for his people love him, will defend their leader to the death

I tell you now—
Zelenskyy is worth a million of you! 

who knew the low-key, polite, brand-new politician 
had it in him? never judge a book by its cover!

whether Zelenskyy lives or dies he will always, always,
always be remembered as standing up to a superpower, 
to an infamous, ruthless, vicious, murderous power-addict
— Zelenskyy the hero—
for staying put, for doing his best to fulfill the duties of a leader 
who cares for his land, his people, his culture

ah yes! Bronze Horseman—really, Putin? 
indeed you will be remembered for the horse photo
but with the same mirth with which it was always met
outside of your brainwashed masses

whilst the better man, the leader with a strong backbone
in the face of unspeakable odds 

he will be remembered 
for all time, whether he stands or falls,

—in the free world, Zelenskyy is the one 
surrounded by admiration and love: a champion! 







the battle

she is

a fish swimming upstream while the others
swim downstream

she is also

a fish swimming downstream while the others
swim upstream

he is 

part of the street parade making music but he’s
marching to a different drum

and when change is needed 

when the protests begin

these two

will lead the way

Return to Journal

Sheila E. Tucker’s short stories and poetry have won contests and appeared in anthologies, magazines and newspapers both in Canada and in her home country of Britain. Sheila served as editor-in-chief of an anthology for Toronto’s Heliconian Club for Women in the Arts and Letters, and co-edited a collection for a Mississauga-based literary group. Her own books include the memoir Rag Dolls and Rage, plus two children’s books. A member of The Writers’ Union of Canada and The Ontario Poetry Society, she is currently working on a science fiction novel and a collection of poetry, both of which will touch upon social issues and climate change, as well as our relationships with each other. Sheila previously worked as an editor and graphic designer for the publications department of an international firm.

Sheila blogs on her site, https://ragdollsandrage.com/ and is also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/OakvilleSheilaTucker/

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

4 poems by Masayuki Tanabe

Masayuki Tanabe Picture

The Little Girl in a Bomb Shelter

As Putin’s war rages
Like the fire of the netherworld
A little girl sings “Let it go”
In a bomb shelter
To lift the dampened spirits
Of the people there
If I could speak to her heart
I would say
“Keep singing brave child
Don’t let your heavenly voice be silenced
And encourage others to burst into song
No matter how infernal life gets
You are the Anne Frank of your generation
The world needs people like you
To inspire them
To douse the flames of their indifference
History will remember you
As a bastion of hope
And an emblem of courage
If you don’t let dire circumstances
Slay the beautiful cherub within you”





A Thousand Paper Cranes

At the Hiroshima peace memorial  
A girl named Sadako Sasaki has been immortalized  
Her statue holds a golden crane  
And the plaque at the base echoes her dream for all of us  
It says “This is our cry  
This is our prayer  
Peace in the world”  
Sadako was two years old when the atomic bomb  
Vaporized many human beings  
And caused a sea of blackened corpses  
She survived but the assault of atom bomb disease  
Viciously commenced in her body when she was twelve  
But she made a decision in the hospice  
That inspired many all over the globe to fight for change  
With fierce determination she started a goal  
To make a thousand paper cranes  
Because in the land of the rising sun there is a belief  
That this artistic objective will cause a wish to be granted  
Her wish was for a world without the horror of bloodshed  
She passed away near the completion of the origami birds  
However her classmates finished her goal  
And to guide her spirit to blissful eternity  
A candle lit lantern was placed on a river  
As the moon danced to a serene melody  
In Japan this hauntingly beautiful ceremony is called Toro Nagashi  
Sadako is the embodiment of the hope for a better world  
I see her face on the myriad of white poppies  
That bloom in the gardens of peace workers                                                   After children are slain in war  






The Ghost at Auschwitz

When I visited the Auschwitz site in Poland
Forty years ago
The phantom of a ten-year-old girl
Appeared before me in the crematorium
She said to me
“Hello my name is Liesel
I died on May 5th 1943
That day I was relieved
When I entered “the shower room”
Because I wanted hot water and soap
To cleanse my body
But soon I felt a terrible pain in my chest
And I started vomiting blood
Like the women next to me
Then panic ensued
Everyone was screaming
In a blood-curdling way
When they realized it was a gas chamber”
Liesel’s story made me weep profusely
“I hate Germans!” I cried
“No No No don’t hate
Look around you
Hate caused all of this
German people today
Don’t have holocaust blood on their hands
What the Nazis did horrifies them” she said
Liesel hugged me then she vanished
And I never saw her again.






Hiroshima Photos

When men, women and children were vaporized
By the atomic bomb
Ghostly images of them were imprinted on walls and steps
When I saw photos of these nuclear shadows
At the Hiroshima Museum
It appeared that they were frozen in time
But I quickly realized this is an illusion
For in reality they have all vanished from the earth forever
The shadows of my pacifist parents
Who refused to deify the Japanese Emperor
Are in one of those photos
When I saw this I wept
Because it was like reading a powerful antiwar message
For the world
That Mom and Dad left behind

Return to Journal

Masayuki Tanabe is a long-time Canadian poet whose parents came from Japan. He lives in Burlington, Ontario, and works in Oakville. He writes poetry in a fictitious first-person point of view, thus putting himself in the shoes of those caught up in wars, affected in various ways. He also writes poems of love and hope. His poetry books are titles A Garden of Ecletic Poems, and My Voice, My Pain, My Love. Masayuki enjoys music, movies and walks in nature, as well as reading at local open mic events.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

The Meditation of a South Sudanese Refugee. A poem by Geraldine Sinyuy

from Africa with Love

The Meditation of a South Sudanese Refugee

Why has the ground under my feet become so shifty?
Why has the comportment of the government become so dirty?
When and how did we get here?
Why are the mountains grumbling like a charged diarrhea?
How long shall I walk these winding roads of displacement?
I behold cracked feet and broken faces,
Starveling children clinging to dehydrated mother’s breast,
Can’t you see the eyes baked white in hunger?
Oh you that cause this displacement,
Tell me,
Can one person occupy a whole nation?
Why can’t you let the people be?
I mourn the loss of loved ones
Slashed by the swords of the enemies,
Swarming in on humans like bees,
The senseless helpless gun bearers,
How long will you wait to repent?
You soldiers
 of death!
How long will you torment the innocent with your charged irons?
How long will you keep doing wrong?
Let there be peace in Sudan,
Let the sounds of joy and gladness be heard in her streets.
Though I walk this winding road,
 I still expect a return call from home,
A ceasefire, a call to celebrate,
And though my feet are cracked and weary,
I shall happily return,
And rebuild the ruins,
Clean the graves,
Patch the huts,
And light a fire,
A fire at home that’s always the warmest.
I hope that someday, very soon,
A call shall I hear,
A call of ceasefire,
And though my feet are cracked and my limbs are weary,
I shall gladly return,
Though the journey be long and the road winding,
The way home is never too long,
I’ll happily walk back home,
And till the fields once again,
Feed the cattle,
And pray to my God.
Yes, I expect a call to return home,
That my people shall again walk on the land of their birth.
I expect a call to return home,
A home safer than what it is now.
A safer home,
Yes,
A safe Sudan.
And like babies in their mother’s arms,
We shall once again sing songs of holiness,
South Sudan shall once again smile,
Singing the songs of victory,
The songs of peace,
The songs of unity.
I expect a call from home.

Return to Journal

Dr Sinyuy Geraldine is a budding creative writer resident in the North West Region of Cameroon. Sinyuy trained as an English Language and Literature in English Teacher in the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon. She earned her PhD in Commonwealth Literature from the same university in 2018. Dr Sinyuy started writing poems in her teens and most of her poems and folktales were read and discussed on the North West Provincial Station of the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) Bamenda where she was often a guest writer for the programme: Literary Workshop: A Programme for Creative Writing and Literary Criticism. She is a critical book review editor at WordCity Literary Journal. She is also does copy editing and proofreading under the cover of the comply she founded in 2022, ‘The Rising Sun Editing Company Ltd’.

Sinyuy Geraldine has had the following awards; Featured Change Maker at World Pulse #She Transforms Tech Featured Change Makers Program; Featured Storyteller on World Pulse Story Awards, May 2017; Prize of Excellence as Best Teacher of the Year in CETIC Bangoulap, Bangangte, 23 October, 2010; Winner of the British Council Essay Writing Competition, Yaoundé, 2007; Winner of Short Story Runner-Up Prize, Literary Workshop: CRTV Bamenda, 1998.

Her publications include: Music in the Wood: and Other Folktales (September 2020), Poetry in Times of Conflict (Eds. Meera Chakravorty and Geraldine Sinyuy, 2020), “Stripped” FemAsia: Asian Women’s Journal; “Invisble Barriers: Food Taboos in V. S. Naipaul and Samuel Selvon.” Tabous: Représentations, Functions et Impacts; “Migration related malnutrition among war-instigated refugee children in the northern part of Cameroon.” South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition; “Cultural Translocation in Three Novels of V. S. Naipaul.” International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities. Vol. IV, Issue XII; “Journey without End: A Closer Look at V. S. Naipaul’s Fiction.” International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities. Vol. IV, Issue IV; “Which Other Way? Migration and Ways of Seeing in V. S. Naipaul.” Migration, Culture and Transnational Identities: Critical Essays. She is a contributor in an international poetry anthology: Love Letters to Water which is pending release.

Some of her poems are featured in, WordCity Monthly, Time of the Poet Republic; Africa Writers Caravan; For Creative Girls Magazine; and Fired Up Magazine. Dr Sinyuy is an advocate for organic gardening and environmental care. She equally runs an online cookery group via WhatsApp where she teaches women how to cook good and healthy food for their families. She is also a lover of photography and spends her spare time taking photos. She is currently working on a collection of poems and her first novel. Above all, Sinyuy is philanthropist and has been working as a volunteer at the Garden for Education and Healing Orphanage (GEH) Bamenda since the early 2000.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

In the Slips. A poem by Pratibha Castle

Pratibha Castle(1)

In the Slips
 
While the world watches, 
Violetta, clad in years
the measure of a week,
journeys from Odessa 
with her doll and cat 
 
and a Granny, face 
a crumpled map 
of lifetime drills 
framed by a scarf 
the colour of loss
compels a soldier boy
put this flower in your pocket
 
hopes his flesh, rotted 
into trampled mud
bone and blood
transmutes to 
a claggy womb, 
will birth a crop 
of smiling sunflowers
 
and a mob 
of men in black 
as if spectators 
at a cricket match 
watch a tank 
grizzle over cobblestones
across the city square 
while a man
sprints into its path  
scoops up a hand- grenade 
underarms it 
at a pile of stones
the dog-end 
dangling from his lip 
a red-eyed fuse

Return to Journal

Pratibha Castle, an Irish born poet living in West Sussex, is widely anthologised and published in journals and ezines including Agenda, The Friday Poem, High Window, Orbis, Spelt, Stand, Tears in The Fence, Word City Lit and One Hand Clapping. A Pushcart nominee, short listed in The Bridport Prize 2023, her work has additionally been highly commended and shortlisted in numerous poetry competitions including Indigo Press, Repton, King Lear Award and the Welsh Poetry Competition. Her latest pamphlet, Miniskirts in The Waste Land, a Poetry Book Society Winter Selection 2023, takes the reader on a trip through Notting Hill and India in the late 60s/early 70s. She is currently working towards a full collection.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

Shaheed شهيد A poem by Adriana Oniță

Shaheed شهيد

      "As you prepare your breakfast, think of others."

      — Mahmoud Darwish

Today, I learned a new word.

شهيد Shaheed. Witness.

One letter separates martor from martir.

One who knows / One who knows the truth.

* *

Reem—a cerulean laugh when your grandfather Khaled 

tosses you into the air.

Hind—two pigtails, braided with almond blossoms.

A high-pitched voice on the phone: come and get me, please come.

* *

Israel kills five children in Gaza every hour.

You tell me: This line isn't necessary.

A poem should be a refuge.

* *

A refuge should be a crooked olive tree.

A blossoming tangerine tree

in whose shade two girls play together.

Not the refugee camp

where an Israeli bomb killed you, Reem,

while you slept with your brother Tarek

in your mother's long arms,

the same night you pleaded

with your grandfather to find you a tangerine.

Not the car you escaped in, Hind,

with your uncle, aunt, and cousins,

the car you were trapped in

surrounded by your dead relatives,

the car where your tiny body was found

12 days after your desperate calls for help,

just a few steps from the ambulance

sent to save you.

* *

You say: Focus on Rafael, your son.

Think of your own family.

Me: Israel has killed 12,660 children in 134 days.

If you attended one funeral each day

for every child killed in Gaza,

you would write an elegy every day for 27 years.

* *

Reem, I drew you from memory.

Your grandfather was trying to open your eyes.

She is the soul of my soul,

he said, kissing your dusty eyelids.

On a beach, five kilometers of children's clothes:

each garment, a child killed in Gaza

with American,

German,

British,

Canadian,

French,

Romanian

weapons exported to Israel.

None of that belongs in a poem, I know.

* *

Reem, your grandfather found you a tangerine.

Rafael is keeping it safe for you, at breakfast.

Return to Journal

Adriana Oniță is a poet, artist, educator, translator, publisher, and researcher with a PhD in language education. She writes and teaches in English, Romanian, Spanish, French, and Italian. Her multilingual poems have appeared in CBC Books, The Globe and Mail, The Ex-Puritan, Tint Journal, Canthius, The Humber Literary Review, periodicities, the Romanian Women Voices in North America series, and in her chapbooks: Misremembered Proverbs (above/ground press, 2023) and Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). As founding editor of The Polyglot, Adriana is proud to have published more than 220 writers and artists working in over 60 languages. She works as editorial director for the Griffin Poetry Prize and lives between Edmonton and Sicily.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly

Shavasana. A poem by Marthese Fenech

Marthese Fenech - Author

Shavasana

And how can the light in me

Honour the light in you

When my light burns so dim

Because I can’t hold

Downward dog for fifteen seconds

Without thinking about the

Fifteen children

Who have lost limbs and lives to rockets

In the time it takes me to get the pose

Right

Or when I stand in Vrksasana and stretch my arms

Like branches to the sky

I do not see the stars

Just a constellation of scars

And I think of all the olive trees

Uprooted like so many lives

And child’s pose

How do I rest in child’s pose

When

When

When

New phrases have been born to describe

A wounded child with no surviving family

And tin foil serves as an incubator

How do I breathe a deep Ujjayi breath

When the generator has just run out and the

Oxygen stops and that final gasp comes

And

Shavasana.

Return to Journal

Marthese Fenech is the number one bestselling author of epic historical novels set in sixteenth-century Malta and Turkey. She has also written the pilot episode of a television series based on her books.

Research has taken her to the ancient streets her characters roamed, the fortresses they defended, the seas they sailed, and the dungeons they escaped.

Obstinate curiosity has led her to sixty-five countries across six continents. She does her best plot-weaving while hiking mountain trails, wandering local markets, paddle boarding cliff-sheltered bays, and sitting at home with her Siberian husky curled at her feet.

The youngest of five, Marthese was born in Toronto to Maltese parents. At twelve, she moved to Malta for six months and was enrolled in an all-girls private school run by nuns; she lasted three days before getting kicked out for talking too much. Back in Toronto, she started a business editing and selling bootleg heavy metal concerts. She later worked with special needs children and adults, witnessing small miracles daily.

Mar has a Master’s degree in Education and teaches high school English. She speaks fluent Maltese and French and knows how to ask where the bathroom is in Spanish and Italian. She took up archery and wound up accidentally becoming a licensed coach. A former kickboxing instructor, she snowboards, surfs, scuba-dives, climbs, skydives, throws axes, and practices yoga—which may sometimes include goats or puppies. She lives north of Toronto with her brilliant, mathematically-inclined husband and brilliant, musically-inclined dog, known to lead family howl sessions on occasion.

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

C$5.00

C$15.00

C$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Donate monthly Donate yearly