Song for the Suffering

Tell me: Which is the safest room in which to hide in a burning house?

Song for the Suffering
 © Vincent Hostak
October 2023

I heard you say: “I refuse to take sides.”
Perhaps you meant: your heart is with the suffering.
It is a blister clinging to the wall,
this wall no prayers may penetrate
while all means of refuge are closed. 
Tell me:
Which is the safest room in which to hide in a burning house?

Peace should be deafening, we have thousands
of words to describe it, in our hundreds of tongues
holding still in our mouths, even in grief.
As the days dim to dusk
the heart-stopping thunder returns.
Tell me:
Why shouldn’t we bellow, what is the pain which injures us more?

I heard you say: “It can never be solved,”
perhaps you meant: “what I say will be twisted
by those given quarter in coveys of hate
whom I’ll only enrage.
If they die, may it be softly.”
Tell me:
While we still breath, shouldn’t care have the broadest place to land?

Image, Public Domain, View of Egypt, Gaza Strip and Israel taken during ISS Expedition 14

Privilege Reveal Party

a poem by Vincent Hostak

“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game” Vladimir Nabokov

“When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” Chen Chen 

Welcome to our Privilege Reveal Party
We name the unknowable as if each were
Aspects of light we divine each new day
Troubling little how their “light will be spent.”
You, see, here we have an advantage. You
Could call it immunity, our treasured,
Proprietary Certainty Principle
One can only learn from our cryptic method.
Try it: Just turn your head this way, yes, that’s it
Now repeat: “Away. Away is the Way.”
Also, say this, “We don’t see color here”
Now, here’s a secret: not all we say is true
We declare today only pink and blue will do.

You’ve arrived! Enjoy the flash and fury
Now we can share many secrets to unlearn:
We know a meadow not far away where
Every cactus with a root can reproduce,
family members bloom as each would so resolve.
A saguaro cardon rises, outlives you,
its influence: nearly immeasurable.
White-throated sparrows hold their eyes keenly
to neglected tracts of shade growing briars
uncloaking the colors we’ll never see.
But, worry these matters not a moment more
Let us make non-abundance abundantly clear,
not one from that meadow is invited here.

Eklipsis

a ritual for the twenty-third Total Lunar Eclipse of this century

© Vincent Hostak, November 7, 2022

Sit by a retaining pond
which held back the flood
Or, if your hand is steady
raise a spoon of clear water
one which carried food 
to your family's lips.
Sit quietly, as you would
to honor one confessing their grief
or declaring their joy.
Stay mute as you consider 
this moon's twin in the pool, 
its study in the spoon.
You do not influence its orbit,
its temporary coral hue,
nor its inclination to hide 
for an hour or two 
in your shadow.
But, you may think 
of everyone you wish
to carry to safety.

Before you begin:
vote.

Photo attribution, Creative Commons 0, Public Domain Dedication by Giuseppe Donatiello from Oria (Brindisi), Italy