Song Fragments From the Brokenhearted Chorus
A Composite Poem
Sift dirt from any American lawn: chipped calcium and nitrogen
amendments enrich the roses’ blush past burn with meal ground
from the murdered and the lost. We process: break them down
into chemical components. Their names devolve to naked vowels.
How sweet do the roses smell in Omelas? Who walks anywhere anymore?
The brokenhearted chorus fails to transform tragedy to song.
The brokenhearted chorus sings song fragments between sobs.
We cannot blame summer’s high heat for boiling
temperatures, nor the flintlock alone; the spark
is a mental aggress. Tell me, is this your wall of fame?
I’m afraid of the bullet, crushed
ribs, burst spleen, the stray bullet
meant for somebody else,
the execution style just for me.
The hole left by the bullet was big enough to swallow the world.
after the rape, my mother spits
that’s what men do
I don’t know what this means
’til 8 years later when the doctor claims
it’s a girl
lays the bloody thing on my chest
17 for only three days. Broke Junko
into thoughtless pieces. Encased
the body in cement. Still they walk free
Maybe,
It’s the fact that when the body is broken, it becomes something different entirely; a pinata crafted out of sinew and bone, and we can feel all of the magic fall out in drops.
your fingers, no more bones than my bones
onions in the pale of orgasm, I seek to hide from you
The boomerang effect has been building from war to war.
A clicking of dog tags.
An army of medics and morticians.
If the heart were a garden, bruises could be blooms
and screams could be transposed as songs like those
of bees and hummingbirds. If the heart were a garden,
breaking one would be like breaking the ground in Spring.
God weeps behind the mask tattooed on his face.
By Marvin Bell, Eirean Bradley, Tony Brown, Jenith Charpentier, Lea Deschenes, Richard H. Fox, Victor D. Infante, Suzanne Lummis, Heather J. Macpherson, Ellyn Maybe, Jaimes Palacio and Sholeh Wolpe.
No doctor in sight
They’ve scrambled beyond the border
You gasp
Try to recapture the air rushing
Out of your punctured lungs
Let me give you breath
I have enough for one – maybe
So many more joining the line
Like you
Their sanguine blossoms gushing
Onto asphalt and cement
We gather as many…
No break for lament
As more are dying to join
The Club Thanatos
Hear the whistling bullets thud in flesh
Ricochet, crack,
Crush bones
A new jazz fusion from Hades,
Latest from across The Styx
Drum bones
Wince from pain
Bass of skull hitting hard
Pavement
Seeking escape in the music
Cacophony of cries
Quo vadis?
Take a message
I may join you
Oof! Ouch! Gawwwwwd! This hurts!
Later!!!
Exhalinnnng
Point final
Dear editor,
Please correct typo from “crambled” to scrambled in previous entry.
Thank you.
Thank you for this Victor.
Pas de Deux
Reading this strange samizdat
In the yellow leaves of autumn
And in splintered bones long buried
In the garden of trespasses
At dusk, the heavy roses nod
Like penitents who got the news
Tabloid headlines shouting
Mutant Babies! Walls Are Falling!
Waterwheels And Windmills Are
Our Only Hope!
Neighbors toil in public gardens
Drench roots from the failing spigots
Rescuing peas from collapsed soil
(Which of us weeps for the starving
Children with flies in their eyes, for the broken
People carrying cardboard signs?)
When people will not sing of it
Messages pass from bird to bird
(No character limits for them)
In fall they sing of winter’s coming, of snow
Flakes, no two alike, how lovely alone,
How beautiful together
Today, time stood dumb and still
As I caught grief instead of breath
An angel caught my keening form
And showed that laughter was the legend
On the map to Altamira
© 2014 by Amelie Frank & Michael Paul