GLORIA MINDOCK

 

GLORIA MINDOCK

 

Playtime

 

Political parties will not end this war.

People protest for a paradise…

a place where there are no bullets or machetes ripping bodies apart.

As a young girl, I saw it all—

the memory haunts me…

an inheritance I had no choice over.

 

Each night, before I go to sleep, I pray for quiet.

I can never play with dolls.

My childhood is soaked with blood.

The stains are what I play with.

Swirling the red to make stick figures.

Pretending it’s my parents to take care of me.

 

Today, I put on the prettiest dress I have—

wait for this camouflage

to take me elsewhere.

 

Memory

 

I cannot open my mouth.

It is taped shut.

My hands tied behind my back, feet in chains,

hurting my ankles, digging into skin, bone, cutting…

 

The sky is red.

The mountains are red.

The rivers are red.

My heart is not.

 

The bombs go off.

I hear them getting closer and closer.

The loudness hurts my ears, they ring…

I cannot hear my thoughts…

 

Crying, scared, a senseless death awaits—

Why am I in this world at all?

 

The moon inspects the earth—

does not like what it sees…

Murder, witnessed with its pale brightness…

 

I did not want to be erased like this.

Another number, a body, with no hope visible…

I bleed soundless.

 

The Threat

 

Why must we die in our own country, if another country can help us live?

Let us go! No need to watch us from the window so closely. We shut our blinds to an

obscure lightness and need no residence with your death schedule. Our pictures will not be put on a wall for remembrance. A journey up the stairs would be nice, emerging us from the depths that

threatened us with coffins.

 

GLORIA MINDOCK

 

GLORIA MINDOCK is editor of Cervena Barva Press. She is the author of 6 poetry collections, 3 chapbooks and a children’s book. Her poems have been published and translated into eleven languages. Her recent book Ash, published by Glass Lyre Press, won the International Impact Award, the NYC Big Book Award and the Firebird Speak Up Talk Radio Award. Ash also has been translated into Serbian by Milutin Djurickovic and published in Serbia this year. Gloria was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018.