Sell the car
before it’s repossessed
mortgage the house
before you’re forced into foreclosure
Board the next flight to Berlin
purchase an S-Bahn ticket
back to Babylon’s blue gate
Its oasis of Palms
will make you weep
until the desert sand is washed from your eyes … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Cities have scars
war wounds
that maim walls of viscera
neighborhoods live with
long after
the instruments of infliction
are dust
Cities have scars
decapitated domes
cauterized arteries
bearing witness to gain’s loss … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Buddha’s head
lying broken
spilling roadway
For 4 days I passed
the noble prince
stuck in the spokes of dharma’s spinning wheel … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
If you believe in the god of war
go to Dresden
where charred faces
still look anxiously up at clouds
If you can wash your hands in fountains
where women and children
sought refuge from the firestorm of incendiary bombs
only to boil in water … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
You don’t know how ugly
“America the Beautiful” sounds
until you’ve been to the opera
in Monschau
You must scale a mountainside in the Eifel
take a seat in a 13th century castle
where the soprano will die on stage
before you awaken to find
you have been living behind curtains most your life […] [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
We feel
we’re flying away from sunrise
heavy wings
wishing to be arms
broken fingernails
lifting brick bodies from rubble
our reconstructed selves
shrinking
into plane windows […] [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
No trains
arrive Gate 17 Grunewald Station
A red and white gate flung open
exposes splattered stones
Nameless platform
Of dates, places, numbers
Sorrow is a spike
that crumbles buildings … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
I come back to Germany
because of flower boxes on balconies
bread baked fresh mornings
dogs traveling on trains
I come back to Germany
because she still reads newspapers
awakens with church bells
closes up shop on Sundays … [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Brick by brick workers
Assembled lawns light showers
Rubbing away lines
[Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Eventually
Nobody heard the freeway
Running (Humming) (Drumming) Through backyards [Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
When asked
where you are from
say Montreal Mexico Brazil
Don’t tell the truth
unless you have the balls to take the lies your country has slapped across their faces …
[Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
When flashing lights
pound on soundly sleeping doors
ordering evacuations five minutes
to gather a few items
from a lifetime of belongings … [Read more…]
