people displaced by climate change are not recognized in international law as “refugees”
“We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our
blood.” – Teresia Teaiwa
distant mountains enshrined in fine mist,
a foreign desert breathing easier, an island,
somewhere, drowning, a family, somewhere,
gathering tears, one by one, to keep the water
at bay, to pacify the storm.
we mark our advent calendars, counting down
to te kabuanibai, counting down the years, the days,
the minutes, the hours, first to see the dawn of the new
millennium, first to make a silenced exit, muffled
under six inches of water,
meanwhile, a family is gathering tears,
old men and women moor their roots deeper
than the banyan trees, ready to die as one rather than live
in the world as motherless ghosts.
were nareau to reach down with his great long legs
and command the eel to dig out the deep, to reawaken
the shore, perhaps, he, too, would break each limb off
at the knee, and lift his people on stilts from the sea,
weave their maneaba among the clouds, and let them
weep their great weeping, so that the world might know
the hollow terror of the rise, might drink the acid rain
of memory as it falls from their eyes stinging
meanwhile, a family is gathering tears
—tahirih bochmann—
Remember, Remember the 4th of December
There once was a meeting in New York
where a hero turned a pig into pork.
“Deny, Defend, Dispose” on casing he wrote.
Instead of outrage the people felt hope
Now is the time to sharpen your pitchfork
—Wat Tyler—
Love/Insanity
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein
I wrote my first poem when I was barely eight years old.
America, that amorphous open horizon in my adolescent eye
was reeling from the consequences of wanton imperialism
3,000 killed in a terrorist attack on our own stolen soil &
childishly oblivious to the scale of this national suffering
I was already immobilized that first encounter with mortality.
Two towers. Two planes. Two days prior. Grandpa died.
What does a mere child know of meter or mourning?
My grandfather’s true passion was planting peonies.
Large hands scarred from the booms and the busts
of the coals mines and the orchard’s bashful bounty
how precisely they tended his paramore’s shy emergence.
I would swear later – in a late night edit of that first draft
that even the flowers in his garden plots wilted that night
so desperate was I to impart some significance to tragedy
in defiance of seasons and the limits of flesh worn form.
The practice of constructing eulogies from unspoken regret
became a rhythm dictating the course of my circuitous grief
every man pruned and parceled and placed in practical lines
wavering will-o-wisps illuminating an unnamed longing.
What is a scientist but an elegist before lamentations supplant
the optimistic pursuit of creation and art worthy of eternity?
Are we only monstrously bionic creatures but half made up
transferring the love we have lost to loves that yet live?
Perhaps every budding poet is just a posturing homunculi
comprised of reticent farewells and neglected forget me nots
in equal measure. Death becomes a lucrative writing career.
How often have I suffocated darling cabbages in soliloquies
buried them in top soil and verse before they begin to bloom?
Love remains a beautiful mystery despite our shortcomings
defiantly sprouting from weather torn pallet boxes unbidden
begging us to remember and return to dust and start anew.
Meanwhile the Milky Way persists in its curlicue insanity –
the waning crescent plays anxious and avoidant with the seas
the sandhill cranes sing-song from nesting grounds surrendered
the final fruit falls and festers in unfulfilled sweet nothings
the bats migrate from their summer caves. Like you 400 miles
away from here still clinging to the permanence of these stanzas
we star-crossed lover boys dancing to gravity’s invincible relativity
find each other once more and plummet in dizzying deference.
Even in death Grampa found wisdom in the ecclesiastical
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
Each of us is bound to stand amongst the ruin of foreign forces
haphazardly stumbling through the desolation of our misfortune
searching for signs of the departed we pray defy the inevitable.
When I write of you now in solitude I am that eight year old
moored to my memories and eyes heaven cast in wonder pleading
that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow I will see you again.
—Caleb Ferganchick—
“Love/Insanity” was written as an exercise for the Voices of the Barrio poetry slam team. Voices of the Barrio will compete in the Chicharra Poetry Slam Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March, 2025.
DEFEND THE TRUTH
It’s spring meadow-marching weather, so Capt. Barefoot is out &; about
listening to meadowlarks on fenceposts & chasing tiger swallowtails
Heshe’s got flowerbeds to tend so shehe’s out pulling weeds as well
tugging the elfin stalks of cheatgrass with their dopey nodding heads
& whitetop – snowy amanita outcrops in a landslide of green, edible
but invasive too. Having to sort through what will live in hisher
landscape & what needs to be gone
Sets herhim thinking. Perhaps “falsifying business records” done in defense of
liberty might pass ethical muster at some of our college campuses – Ah Liberty!
Fickle dame of freedom for all (except you & you
@ you). And perhaps “falsifying business records” for personal gain may indeed
be “typical business practices” as underlined in red in loyalist lawyer Todd
Blanche’s bedside business bible
But as the Log Hill recluse Budada Jack Mueller
would often intone
in circumstances like this: “I don’t think so!”
Damn right no, snarls Capt. B.
Mouthpieces blanched & flushed & beyond make-up
Don’t need be no Catholic to count lying among life’s mortal sins
Call it a catastrophic rupturing of trust
But then “falsifying business records” are crimes of white-collar intent
not passion. Cold, calculating, ruthless. Planned out beforehand not wildly
chosen on the run. Measured in quid pro quos if not outright bribes
Bad intentions like invasive plants can corrupt an economic landscape
which is why we look to our laws, our government to protect us from
the excesses of mercenary capitalism. But, as empires break apart,
sneers Capt. B, it’s hard to trust anyone upholding undeniable truths
in a haves &; have-nots system of winners take all
Juries may convict
weeds may get picked
but crime it seems still pays
—Art Goodtimes—
The Revolutionist 