Bio: Gloria Mindock is editor of ─Мerven├б Barva Press. She is
an award-winning 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 (Glass Lyre Press, 2021) won 7 book awards and was translated into
Serbian by Milutin Durickovic and published by Alma Press in Belgrade. Gloria
was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018. For more
information about Gloria Mindock, visit her website at: www.gloriamindock.com
Shy
Living in resistance where words
don’t feel shy. If
not heard,
they will only float
in the abyss…
My life remains doubtful to
the whims of others.
Pain has become a habit of enduring.
The sign of the cross, a ritual of images,
prayers of rain.
Buildings fall around me.
Concrete so impatient, it has
to crumble.
Death has entered this city.
This waiting is forever.
Taking cover, not knowing
how much longer I have,
my only certainty is the sirens,
howling like wind in my ears.
Flooded by tears, my body
drowns in weariness,
this moment, this time.
A vacuum of sadness…
Grief accompanies me into infinity
for the last rays of light.
***
Fog
It is foggy, clouds nourishing
the ground, sky.
There is something about the way
clouds layer like blankets.
In your country, I would like to think
you are warm, have food
to keep you alive.
It has now become a ritual, this suffering,
day and night missiles strike,
people are shot by the enemy,
dead bodies on the ground.
I want the fog to hide you, lift you up,
take you to a new place, or take the soldiers away,
giving ground back,
where all of Ukraine can live once again,
All that is destroyed
is reborn again.
***
Loss
Today, I threw myself
into the garbage.
Bits of me, memories…
It all will end in the trash anyway.
I must be the one to say good-bye.
Send it all on a journey to the incinerator.
I am mourning the pieces of me
burning
like I was never here.
Maybe you will hear me
crying for all I let go.
