Village life surrounded by farms and cows
Cobblestoned streets where Romans had once
Walked marching to battles across the hills
Into valleys ringed in snow and forest,
Unwilling grandfathers, victims, one German,
The other Polish caught in the vacuum of war
Walking the Russian tundra feeling their bones freeze,
One mangled by gun bursts leaving his arms dangling
The other lost, wandering, his hollow eyes keep safe
the dying
Breaths of family engulfed in flames, walking out of
the
Emptiness of Russia and over the bodies and burning
tanks
Littering the countryside as pools of melting snow
bleeding out
And gobbling up the memories of every living thing
For thousands of miles. Neither believed in war but
what
Does that matter when killing and dying is what you
live for.
One Jewish, the other German, one a peddler, the other
drafted
And a soldier, both leaving young children to remember
chimney stacks
And warm knees, Friday night Seders and Church
Sundays, both righteous
And afraid, both sharing the hatred, both living out
the bone and blood
Of nations turned to rubble.
How different and alike they were, walking into the
vast emptiness
Their skin thinned, veins bulging, their narrow frames
more glass
Than human, shadows made of willows and air as if
non-existent
Purged of whatever being human is.
Did their brains tighten and freeze. Could they stay
alive by eating
The rotten food left in pockets or did they tear away
flesh from a body
Forever looking down to smoke and chew to the sounds
of hovering vultures.
You wonder if they talked of love or if they could remember what it is.
We saw it on the side
Of the road raising its
Ancient head filling the
Grass and turning it brown.
Its agile but thick body,
A slithering Halloween mask,
Made me think of horror movies
Where a city is destroyed by some
Crawling mythical monster or
Worshiped by an old civilization
As a God, and as it sat there and poked
Its head out, Its ridged hard skin
And bulging eye evoked the end
Of the world, overrun by the usual
Suspects, rats and cockroaches,
Lizards that deflower the earth
And crawl over the ruins of mankind,
A wild thing that understands the earth
Better than I, that thrives in the Florida
Sun when I shrivel and lose energy.
It seemed larger than a kitten and its
Craggy appearance almost royal
And dignified was mysterious
And perhaps dangerous.
I felt that way once, as a child
When a stranger approached
And when goosebumps traveled
My body with fear.
I stared at that lizard for minutes admiring
It and wondering where it goes in the dark
Nights, if it takes shelter in the rain or if
At the end of the world who would eat whom.
I
Eat blueberries for breakfast,
And
taste their darkness in my mouth,
The
forest rolls through me
Breathing
in the early winter air
And
lingering sweetness.
As children, we picked blueberries
Carrying
straw baskets in the woods
Surrounding
South Fallsburg,
And
in tree shadows they looked
Like
pearls, little fists clutching
The
night sky at dusk, shining
And
withholding secrets
That
it shared with the forest,
Just
sitting there almost begging
Us
to hold them, daring us to taste
Their
blueness on our fingers and
Mouths,
coating our tongues with
Words
sweeter than the cool air,
But
we dared not, knowing
It
would spoil their perfection.
They
sat still but the scent of pie
Swirled
and you could almost taste
The
crust and berry juice flowing
Out
and see mother’s hands opening
The
oven door and feeling the warmth.
Some
darker than early October nights
Shaking
on branches as I picked them,
They
dangled in silence ready for plucking,
Some
overripe, others bulging and hanging low
As if saying, they had the last laugh.
Trust in the stars
Has brought him
To stand firm
Against the rolling
Waves that leap
Out of the dark sea
And sweep across the deck
With loving hands
Guided by eager dolphins
Leaving a trace of algae
Luminescence and sparkling light
Falling and dripping wet.
He steers into emptiness,
Into a black wall of air and wind,
And the muffled sounds of sea life,
And cannot escape fear and memories
Of childhood and a mother sinking,
Tumbling and pulled into the unknown.
As he drifts across
Steep cliffs and rocky shores
Of Lastovo where coves
Have buried the voices
Of sailors that have learned
To love the deep waters
Their bones have adorned and
Shipwrecks that lie beneath
The Adriatic for centuries,
Nesting among the brittle,
Aged wood and floating
Gems and silver coins.
The shoreline littered
With pine trees perfuming
The air mingles with the smells
Of Baklava and the distant voices
Of the Illyrians and Romans
Where the conquering never stopped.
Ancient forests of Oak and Pine
Dotted with nests of hawks and
Falcons stare out at the shadows
Of lobsters and crabs crawling
Across the windy sands drenched
In glaring white light.
Sailing the seas is more than
Water and stars, more than
The darkness that holds him,
More than the water in his body
That floats dreams of sails
Flapping in the wind.
It is a journey of time
Forever revolving,
It is his soul
Seeking light,
And swallowing the darkness
Full of fear and joy.
Her lips felt like land,
Dry and grisly, her eyes
Watered into tears,
Her body at the root
Longing for air
That held her
Firm, knowing
She could rise
On her own, hearing
Voices like blood
Stirring within her,
And that being human,
Was its own freedom.
Touch held warmth,
Color was as she
Had dreamed it,
And sound and movement
Were spatial and as she
Fell out, the earth
Was reborn.
Once again, miracles
Come to life
In the fleshy reality
Of eyes wandering
Fingers Curling and
Grasping for life,
A memory rehearsed
And practiced and
Religion was not prayer,
Or God, it was the light.
Steven Pelcman is a writer of poetry and short stories, a novelist and photographer who has been published in magazines including: The Windsor Review, The Baltimore Review Lit Mag, Fourth River Magazine, and many others. He has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes. Steven spent twenty-seven years residing in Germany where he taught in academia and as a language communications trainer and consultant. “Capturing the voices of humor or pain, making the small moments epic and witnessing the trials and tribulations of the human experience which captures the heart and mind is what drives the work.”
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