GLORIA MINDOCK

GLORIA MINDOCK

Air

Is there no more hope for the brave?

There are tears for the widowed families,

for those who lost friends, and prayers offered.

Why is there such violence?

Hate?

People strangling the heart out of existence

until only valves lay in the street.

Events are bloody.

Broken bones stay broken.

Killing is natural for some.

Fires set to burn out buildings.

The heart cold with anger.

Rage engulfing life.

Not everyone believes in destruction.

All the heart wants is to beat.

Angel, wrap your wings around the oppressed.

Hold and protect against evil and the hands entangling

the last breath…the last gasp…

The dead bodies cannot sing,

therefore, the world is empty.

Gloria Mindock

editor@cervenabarvapress.com

Destiny

Drops of water, mixed with ash,

will make it paste-like, weigh the

ash down.

If you rub it on your chest,

you will feel me.

Ignition to a powerful heartbeat.

A calming peace, weaving the love between

us for eternity.

Destiny is something that happens.

We both know it produces stars.

This is our inheritance.

Gloria Mindock

editor@cervenabarvapress.com

Rise

Smoke rises so I crawl on the floor.

Where is the door?

He locked it—

made it disappear from sight.

He will never wake up.

How does that feel?

This place now buried by plows,

ground up, tossed like my heart.

What is left is not much.

I’ve lost my patience for this place.

Good it burnt down.

My clothes are tattered, boots muddy

from the firehose water.

The next day, I return to look.

To witness the aftermath.

Wondering where they took his body.

I am not as sad as I thought I would be.

It is windy outside.

The garbage truck is full.

Pulls away grinding.

The air feels brisk today.

Gloria Mindock

editor@cervenabarvapress.com

GLORIA MINDOCK

GLORIA MINDOCK is the founding editor of Červená Barva Press and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). She is the author of, I wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate Books, 2018), Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press, 2016), La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania, 2010) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here, (U Šoku Štampa. 2010), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson, 2007). Widely published in the USA and abroad, her poetry has been translated and published into the Romanian, Croation, Serbian, Montenegrin, Spanish, Estonian, Albanian, and French. Gloria has been published in numerous literary journals including Gargoyle, Web Del Sol, Poet Lore, Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Ibbetson, Muddy River Poetry Review, Unlikely Stories and Nixes Mate Review and anthology. Gloria has been awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award and was the recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award for Community Service by the Newton Writing and Publishing Center. She was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018.