Terror’s Bruise
by Janet Buck
Terror’s bruise begins to spread.
Have I just ignored
these puddles of noir --
considered bloodshed
part of velvet cinemas
with cushioned chairs and purple drapes,
popcorn floating in the aisles.
Before two towers slid to earth,
like Popsicles melt in raging suns,
I didn’t see this grimy globe
in nooses of the cinching rope.
My innocence in clouds of luck,
their ether numbing sacred nerves.
Amid the rumbling army tanks
chewing up the gutted streets --
Ayat al-Akhras, 18 years
of youth and dream,
her hair like braids of hollyhock
blackened by religious fuel,
wasted in explosive fire.
She takes two dozen other souls
to places which they didn’t choose.
So much for walking to the market,
picking up a plum or peach --
coming home tortilla grains
of bibles crushed and pulverized.
Lips of April seem to frown.
Vile tantrums, ancient grudges
take their tolls, leave
the earth a filling grave.
All these painted Easter eggs
in paltry panacea shapes.
***Author’s Note: 3/31/2002. It’s Easter Sunday. A little girl
skates the sidewalk by our house. The sky is a sanguine blue, the air
both fresh and promising. Even the weeds in the yard are moistened whiskers
under smiles. She carries a colorful basket of eggs. I’m scanning
the news on AOL -- another round of suicides in Israel. Staring hard,
resenting so -- the hideous discrepancies between objectives and the soil.
Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal
Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly,
Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting
Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse,
Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide.
Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World"
Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000.
In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry
and music called Before the Rose. It is available at:
http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm
To hear a sample from the CD, go to:
http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured
author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The
Orphan", "Caught
in Lesser Tragedies", "The
Broken Promise", "The
Gargoyle", "The
Going", "The
Bag Lady", "Rushing
Toward Entelechy", "The
Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen
Sonnets", "New
York, New York", "Live
on CNN", "America
Under Siege", "Gutter
Balls"
Links: Hot Links:
Janet I. Buck, Janet's
Latest Interview, Desideratum's
Doggie Dish, Author's Den,
Active Amp.org—Features
Janet I. Buck, Poetry
Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The
Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San
Francisco Salvo, Moongate:
Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October
Country , Cafe
Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga
Square, The
Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog
Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens
Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One
World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil:
Issue 9 September 2000