"A Gift" to the Serbian People (Srebrenica 1995)

 

1.  Srebrenica,

The name sounds like a sweet pastry,

like something you bite into, crinkled layers, revealing a saccharine syrup that dances around the crevices between your teeth - like your tongue would long for -

Can I have some more Srebrenica?

I never made it there in my travels.

To be honest, amongst the Yugoslav cities, I’d never heard it pronounced.

And you have to hear them pronounced or you can’t buy a bus ticket, because you say things like an American:

L jub l johna…    Sara gevo  …  Mostar

Far more honey-lull and fairytale sweet, of their true names. 

But again to be fair, I was told not to show interest, or lose myself in the cities like I am wont to do, or go hiking in the forested hills and definitely not the valleys between them.

told not to go at all… and if you must -

2. Don’t ask!

Better to keep these sounds from the tongue  

-so as not to hear,

some guttural knot passed from wall to wall through the esophagus, the nausea- constricted, an ancient growl when words don’t suffice, like a whimper escaping tight to the teeth, a whispered name that can’t fill the hollows

     Silence please

plead the muscles of the face,

the down turned eyes,

eyes that look away,  blink too slowly, blink too much, don’t blink at all.

The silence of eyes pressed so tight ---that what ---cannot be choked,

cascades.

 

 

3. What a clatter it must have been, they say more than ten thousand

-fathers and sons, their tennis shoes, business loafers, flip flips,

under a July sky -tap ; smack ; clapping along  the road to Tuzla.

 

Sometimes in the stories they call it a column. Lined up one by one, each father and son, one by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one, by one…

 

-there are 206 bones in the human skeleton, what does it sound like when each one is quivering… one by one, by one, by one, beside a loved one whose bones, all 206 of them are quivering… one by one, by one, by one. Through the long march, until bullet holes fill them…  one by one by one by one… until of that 10 -8,000 fathers and sons... gone.

 

4.          Every one of my nephews’ 206 bones and flesh, seems to love trucks, fire trucks, monster trucks, but especially construction trucks -dump trucks, cement mixers, bulldozers… he plays with his toys, crashes them into one another, imitates the sounds, and he corrects me when I get it wrong… but he still invites me to come over and play.

I wonder how many of those boys played with trucks, if they could imitate the sounds just right, if they invited their neighbors to come over and do the same.

I bet not in a million billion trillion years did a single one of those kids,

Bosniak or Serb -ever -ever -ever -ever!

imitate the sound,

of their bulldozer,

plowing through the bones

of their playmates.

 

5.           On the radio today, I heard the Butcher of Bosnia died in his prison cell.

               And I started weeping,

               Because Ljubljana converted their military base to a free space for artists and musicians.  

               Because I've seen the dead commemorated with roses in Sarajevo.

               Because the bridge Stari Most was rebuilt to mend the divided community.

               But the once sweet sounding name of Srebrenica, makes me fuckin sick to my stomach.

Potato (?)

 Sometimes you just sit with the nuisance,

The alarm in the background that

Becomes the white noise of the day to day

Clanging? No, just the underlying vibration

That keeps a tension headache on the horizon,

That keeps a stomach from settling.

Who would give you their full attention?

Knowing it will never be enough,

To soothe the dull ache, the inflamed limb - which

As long as you don’t jostle it,

Is more bearable than flailing in an unknown direction for possibility 

Stay still, motionless, convenient

You’ve already spent too much

Goodwill, or energy

Conserve, retreat, isolate. 

Intention

One time you told me 

You lied to everyone 

Even your therapist

And I questioned their capabilities

Rather than noticing 

You were motionless, 

And staring. 

Killers amongst us (2/20/26)

 

I’m standing in front of a

bouquet of flowers, 

                        and a display case

      of sandwiches, croissants, 

                        scotcheroos, 

 

I’m standing somewhat

            impatiently

                        w/ memories

            of past experiences, 

                        I’d rather not 

                               recall,

Reading the names of the

            teas           as

               the elderly lady tries

                   her stack of cards.

 

American Express…   tap it   -Declined

            try to slide it…

            Declined.

            try to stick in in the card reader…

            Declined.

She returns the card to the bottom of the stack.  (I notice her VA –ID amongst the others)

 

Citibank   -Declined.

            try to slide it…

            Declined.

            try the card reader…

            Declined.

Another to the back of the stack.       (her elderly friend comes over)

 

Visa     -Declined.

            try to slide it…

            Declined. 

            try the card reader…

            Declined.         

Another to the back of the stack.         

 

I watch the barista continue to make their coffee, 

-wave him a few $20s

 After all, I came to the 

            neighborhood  because of increased ICE reports, 

            clearly I want to be the 

            hero.

I tell her not to worry –and hand him my cash

            

She doesn’t understand and 

            pulls out her check book.

 

The barista says

                        he paid for you.

 She and her friend thank me, 

            but one more graciously, 

            she turns and plants 

                        herself   -  square

"You paid for the coffee of a flying killer

                        you should know that."

 

            oh? *I ask awkwardly

 

“When I trained pilots

            at the air academy, 

            that’s what we’d tell people… "  

 

(I’m intimidated by an octogenarian)  ...her friend thanks me again, pulling her arm, 

 

she stays square off. 

-letting me know 

            no man had ever saved her, 

            she is her own hero, 

            her own killer if need be, 

 

“Mostly I just kill flies and mosquitos though…”

 

...I thank her for her service. 

"...when I speak my knees bowed" (fall 2025?)

 

…when I speak with such great authority

when I speak my thoughts already three

       sentences ahead

when I speak mimicking the creator  

       when I speak the anxious babbler

when I speak tongue tied and twisted

       when I speak blessing and curses

              when I speak, the teacher, the nurturer

when I speak amalgamated sources 

              when I speak the child, the elder

when I speak mumbles and laughter

       when I speak, the silence, the holder

              when I speak vocal fry and valley girl

when I speak calmly and half smiled-soothing 

       when I speak validation or judgment

when I speak the sound of my Mother

       when I speak the gifts, of loved ones

when I speak a slip of the accent, a foreign lingua

             when I speak a muse come through me

when I speak, a plea and a prayer.

* the title is a song lyric from Jeremy Enigk from "Shade and the Black Hat" - "can they hear me (?) when I speak, my knees bowed."  He also says the line "can they hear me, when I speak my tongue's tied." Which is why I darkened that line.

*how to help, when to help

My mind is blank, 
yet underneath I
know there are caverns
full of words, adjoining
rooms, hallways of doors, 
some just closets, others
ballrooms, lounges, 
meditative spaces.

I pass judgment
and analyze,
I listen to my guts tumbling, 
my shoulders rolling
into their vice grip
position.

 

We take sides, draw lines, 

dig trenches, divide

and conquer.

All the while

I’m just trying to

say is this a 

true fit

            or a moment

            of despair

and if it’s the latter don’t call it sacred. 

*found this in my hand writing on a scrap of paper and I don't know when it is from...

Phoenix (Feb 2026 work in progress?)

What will you rise for?

What calls you from sheets, 

and the fantastic unreality,

calls you back into connection

with singed wings, flaunting 

and bright as the sun,

tail feathers, a smile on your beak

a home in your heart, not yet created...

 

Will it be a grail

of your own design,

or a passion

pressed upon you

by a world in need of guidance,

of purification, 

of…