Behold the Rose Beneath the Torch - and Two Other New Poems

By James Bellanca

Behold the Rose Beneath the Torch

 

Beneath the torch

of Guernica,

behold the rose,

its trembling petals fall

shaking in the ash-choked air,

its roots split by bombs.

 

Behold that single rose.

recalling when the ground was whole,

when light did not blind,

but warmed the seeds of spring,

sprouting hope for dreams to survive.

 

Behold the light above the warrior

slain by the bull’s rampage,

beneath children crushed

in their mother’s arms—

what hope can rise?

 

Above the rose,

behold the bulb’s harsh glare,

below one hundred thousand pounds of bombs

exploding sixteenth hundred bodies,

No voices remain to sing.

 

Behold Mother Niobe’s tears,

Father Job’s loud wails—

sacrificial archetypes of broken bodies,

broken lands, None with light,

to see sword-sliced warriors safely home.

 

Beneath the torch, the rose awaits,

its trembling petals

a silent plea.

After the lies, what hope in sight?

Behold, beneath the torch, is the rose

of Guernica.

 

Inside My Dreaming Place

 

As spiraling dripped raindrops

slide down my wintertime windowpanes,

small spinning gyres of light

that soak unpainted windowsills

inside my dreaming place,

I watch this evening’s wet night

play games of hide and seek

while clouds of curling fog

veil outside puddled streets.

I weep for the fading of my days

flown past,

splashed awry like raindrops

on drip-drowned windowsills.

 

In my deepest sleep, I mount a unicorn.

It flies, wings spread, across far distant galaxies

to land upon a twinkling star.

We rest among white cosmos fields

while pink and blue raindrops

splash, splash, soak, swamp the ground.

In quixotic quiet, I raise my water-cupping hands

to wet my friend’s  smooth silver tongue,

before I quaff my own raindrops,

pink pearls, pure drops of life.

With no storms in sight, I graze my unicorn

in a windless field of white lilacs, pale blue orchids

and dancing, weaving meadowsweets,

their fragrance painting portraits

of sun-bright peace, our welcome gifts, a relief

to find intact slow fading memories

almost gone from my aged dreaming place.

 

 

She Comes to See Her Father Again

Robins sing, church bells ring, kids laugh on the walk to school. Morning Joe blah, blah, blahs TV stale news. Father Time’s hands – Father Time – Father -- Father yet alive-- tick tock tick tock tick tock. His silent words, their sacred ritual, the rockets’ red flash, his war’s life stealing wounds, shell riddled homes, blood-soaked, mine-pocked, burned wheat fields blown on gales of hate. Her wounded heart long hurts to see her fog-lost father whole again. This day, no answer to his doorbell. His wars are done.  No more tick tocks for him.