Yemen Girl young girl with a thousand names stands in the doorways of Yemen long skirt billows in the breeze young girl stands in the jaws of war and hunger no rain but bombs fall from the sky she clutches her headscarf confronts the camera level-eyed one eye steeled in the pugnacity of life the other convulsed in horror the roofs fall on the uncles the walls crash onto cribs the ground erupts in blisters under the shrapnel sky the young girl is our grandmothers hands past and future clasped together in a star-lit continuum a long procession of endurance loss and love ![]() Argos MacCallum has published two chapbooks of poetry-- She Loved Gravity and Would Fall Down Exquisitely Anywhere (Synergetic Press, 1987), and Sleeping Woman Mountain (Kelsay Books, 2022). His poems have appeared in Malpais Review, :Lummox Anthology, and PoetryXHunger. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.
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News Story dead giraffes in the Kenyan bush dissolve like rancid butter in the heat of the unending drought emaciated cattle lie down in the desert sand serrated ribs sink into rivulets of erosion carved long before by extinct rain the village digs deep in the earth to find the trembling brown water lifted to the light bucket by bucket the four year old girl too weak to raise her head eyes like dead fish a childhood without a childhood where laughter never rains only dust so eager to devour and way to the North an oozing caramel of cars scarifies the land in toxic opulence and a child’s balloon is caught on power lines in dark descending twilight -- Boys brothers and cousins emerge from the family compound and follow snow-dusted lanes to the busy avenues in Kabul with their shoeshine kits a group of four in case they encounter hostile competition to earn a few coins worth an american nickel to buy bread to take home to family they wish they were in school to become doctors or engineers when they grow up but since their fathers have no work they shine shoes unless like this morning no one needs their services stomachs pang eyes are proud wait— a few pairs of shoes thrust out of a door the boys sit on the ground and work just enough for a bread split four ways after all workers have to be fed the veiled sun begins to descend in the grey winter sky behind minarets the mantle of responsibility doesn’t ward off the cold shoulders hunch forward night will be long again take the long way home in case fortune might smile and fill a few pockets with bread for the sisters mothers and the fathers who scratch proverbs in the dust with stunted sticks and count exhausted prayer beads simmering in frustration afraid to look in mirrors the boys’ shadows stretch homewards sweet delay of a few more transactions muffled laughter at an inside joke warm bread warms the hand child is father to the man give all a fair portion of dignity give all the means to be the lion will hold high his head ![]() Argos MacCallum is an actor, director, carpenter, theatre manager, and co-founder of Teatro Paraguas, a bilingual theatre company promoting Latinx plays in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has lived the past 50 years in his homestead in the shadow of the Cerrillos Hills off the Turquoise Trail outside Santa Fe, where the coyotes party all night long. |
AboutThe poems that follow are powerful evidence that Poetry Speaks Back to Hunger! Archives
October 2022
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