After Costco, Before Ukraine

You saw the lines weren’t too long
so you went for the gas first—
spend a little time, save a lot of
money you thought. But it took
longer than you expected [too
many ‘tanks’ as you call SUVs
filling up their 50 gallon tanks]
so by the time you went into the
giant store, you were feeling like
a crab trapped in a net as you
wrestled through the weekend
horde of bargain hunters….

Finally at home, you plopped
down in the comfy chair as
the nightly news came on and
sipped the fresh brewed French
roast and ate a piece of rich
chocolate cake you bought at
Costco and felt a bit sad for
those poor people in Ukraine
as you watched war in hi-def.

Still, the thought uppermost in
your mind, as your eyes scanned
so many dead bodies lying quiet
in the streets like stones thrown
randomly, was just how damn
good the coffee was and how
much you had saved going to
the big box store….

.

When Time Melts

When time melts
50 years will shrivel
to a moment, less
than a nod of the
head it will seem
as you are again
and teaching your
native language to
young people on
the other side of
the world in a land
at war with itself….

Then I did not know
of the evil coming
to my students,
a tidal wave of
murder, a self-
inflected genocide
the world had never
seen before…
the killing of old
and young, the
wealthy and the
poor, the holy and
the profane…

And if I could have
skated across time
back then, to see
what was coming,
would it have made
any difference?

I still can’t believe
the Killing Fields
could happen to
my earnest students,
to a people I came
to love… and yet,
time melts for me
everyday as my soul
aches…

.

Nolo Segundo, Bio: I’m 77 and the Vietnam war dominated my youth; I was not drafted, but in 1973 I went to teach in Phnom-Penh, Cambodia, leaving there the next year when the war had gotten so bad all the schools were closed [and no, while I saw the random cruelty of the Khmer Rouge, I did not see the Killing Fields coming–and to this day cannot understand how such a gentle people could have become subject to what amounted to self-genocide.] Re me as a writer: in my 8th decade I’ve had poems and a few essays published in almost 200 lit mags in 15 countries on 4 continents. The trade publisher Cyberwit has released 3 collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022].