Member Contributions

Towards Peace

Throttled voices, in gutted cries, scarcely a stutter towards Peace.
Prayers, falling into sky, hover: slight as feathers, towards Peace.

Isaac and Ishmael, bound as brothers. As were Abel and Cain.
To bless the common ground of kinship; as we kill each other towards Peace.

Drums, fireworks – in celebration? No – explosions: gunfire, grenades.
In the schoolyard, children scatter. Duck and cover – towards Peace?

An earthquake splits the headwaters: two rivers once were one. My body
wails this disconnection: to return – to source, to mother; towards Peace.

Is this the Dead Sea or the Galilee? A white flag is my only compass.
Unmoored in vicious storms, I can’t set my rudder towards Peace.

Eight moons until eclipse. Perhaps by then some sliver of justice?
Mark reckonings for wealth and power in years we suffer towards Peace.

What new flood shall scrub such horrors from this scarred and sacred world?
To fantasize apocalypse denies the true hunger towards Peace.

Tears bleed from every tear. I turn away, seek escape. And shut down:
the luxury for those who have the privilege to recover; towards Peace?

Reengineer the eye to unify this fractive reality:
each lens a dual mirror – to see the self in others; towards Peace.

Hafez and the Baal Shem Tov meet for tea and halva in my mind.
Invent a new deck of cards, strategies yet to discover towards Peace.

Wool shorn from a single sheep, she weaves both tallit and keffiyeh
to mend a broken world, from Shalom to Salaam – a tether, towards Peace.

Bright stars bead the darkness, Shuki; words breathed between lovers.
Breed the silences behind each whisper I offer – towards Peace.

— Joshua Davies

All That Remains

My homeland’s been stolen. The sky’s gone blank, unnamed.
The birds have flown; forests clearcut and rendered,
saplings riven. Is there some buried bulb, some root that remains?

I cannot thread the pulse to unwind any hope the heart retains.
No cataract flows through an opening so tenuous, so tender.
As I cry, in silence – is there some echo that remains?

Behind prison walls, dissidents still chant freedom’s refrain.
In the aftermath the earth still reeks and roils with tremors
as I stack stones among the ruins. Let no anthem own my name:

any flag I flourish solely where the wound has wept a stain.
Bleach my clothes, shred and tie them to the banner of Surrender.
Naked and exposed, is there still some essence that remains?

Assault or mock me or negate me; my soul remains unmaimed.
As wildfires free dormant seeds beneath the splint and embers.
Despite all the devastation brings, I will not unsing my name.

These hands, this tongue a skein of leaves, flickering in vicious rain.
But no violence, no violations disavow the touch of splendor –
binding all that devastation brings, to light all that remains:
every fallen star a sacred fuse that sings my secret name

— Joshua Davies

Not Resistance, Celebration

Formatted poem available as a pdf

— Joshua Davies