'A Lament for Mariupol' and Other Poems by D.M. Rice
A Lament for Mariupol
In this quiet place we mostly listen
For the sound of car alarms and falling bombs
There are three hundred of us here
In this theatre we have gathered for safety
And hold each other close, knowing the fate
That lingers overhead like falling rain
Here we forget our difference and feign
survival.
And tell our stories — like the three hundred
Spartans at Thermopylae — we laugh at Nana
in a moth-worn toga, vaulting as the children scatter.
Someone should go outside for food and water
But there are no volunteers, no radio, cell service
Always intermittent — K. was on the news yesterday
Crying an appeal for our safety but the video lagged
And the nice man left us shuddered in darkness.
How is it that we will resolve?
The older ones fear starvation
More than the bullets, squadrons
Storming the hallowed stage only
To find, like Hamlet, voiceless carnage,
Or a lone Horatio, barely held to life
, survived upon his bloodkin and storied
as any soldier. More likely will
the ceiling fall and lift us up
to absolution and no one will come
under the rubble that once housed
this stage, whereupon we play for you
this tragedy, our Romeo stands tall
before his Juliet ± We seek consecration
a blinding , deafening reunion with our
loved ones, friends, countrymen, too quick
in their dismissal of the suffering
of ordinary people. Each of us
300 —
Suspension bridge set to burst
Before the in-bound tank procession
Stories carried in the air
From under the rubble.
Call to Prayer
We are the afterthought of Spinoza, Milton
Carried like water in the hands of well wished
Dissymmetry, clove feathers downy with cut
Marble, pages left to smear the coital sheafs.
Hands up against the trinity, arches against
Mayhem, lilting splay of angularity, angel
Brains back-kicking ephemera, demon
Souls in guise of simulacra, forests
Of napalm for to call the mass to prayer.
Hard in the afterbirth, my desktop visionary
All eyes and resembling flesh, nearer to them
That cannot know, that dreams a siren song
To cull us from this odyssey, lost years, gone.
Meagre how the words sum up, bloom into an
A priori, priory, pried from inheritance, begrudging
No second rate citizenry, de facto ignorance
On the factory floor, failed union of democracy.
Hail the size of golf balls through our consciousness
How such a world is conjured, fully formed.
A Journey Abroad with M.
It was through
my friend M.
who lived in
Ukraine
before the bombing
I sent
them an email
wishing safety and
health, as was
customary then, tur
-bulent horror news
reels every day
the violence continued
and anchors looked
with disgust and
indignity at the poor
survivors
;
in no
short time M.
returned my mess
-age with no
incredulity, saying
that Rostov-on-Don
was only beautiful
in the summer
, tracing up
from the Burghölzli
, dusting away the
wrinkled documents to
mute the radio’s per
-sistent violence
;
shrink wrapped
letters and phone
conversations I
scarcely could
discern carried
us over the
Sea of Azov
where we flattered
this our maiden
voyage: two Amer
-icans going about
it like Freud
and Jung, freed
to indulge their
historical instinct
far from the
chaise lounge &
the cluster bombs
, screeching sirens
in the relocation
gulags
;
and my
imagination need not
tarry hard to
contemplate the splen
-dor of Rostov
at the turn of
the century , oil
lights flickering
over the cobbled
city streets
;
M. read the
journals and
the diaries
aloud as I
transcribed, bre
-athless, bou
-nd up in con
-summate att
-ention , struck
in the nuances
of M.’s various
utterances in Eng
-lish & her
urban Russian
which a sophist
-icate like Sp
-ielrein herself
might admire
—
we triggered
something corrosive
, which we each
in our way
knew no text
-book journal art
-icle could con
-tain, drinking Bal
-tika No. 3 as
war settles over
Europe like an
insomniac eases his
waking with worry
and buildings cru
-mble as we
wonder how to
mourn the many
dead
;
she asked
not to be named
but told us
that we could
record the haunting
song her great-
great-great Aunt
had written , pale
frock & a long
black dress adorned
the spacious post-war
kitchenette , rebuilt
after the Shoah
erased the family
name, but could not
erase the song —
she said it
translates to ‘My
Broken Heart’ or
‘My Shattered Soul’
and she believes it
is about Jung,
whom she refers
to as her Siegfried
here
;
the fragile hum
of this voice
abounds even in
the compress
-ed tape played
back as the
typewriter bleeds
I hear again
the haunting words
in all their
gloom and glory
in the idol
that has wrought
this hymn of my
discontent, the in
-cantation my
ambition sought.
Art by Alexander Mils