"Last Call" by Yoni Hammer-Kossoy, Poet of the Week

"Caw!" Ink on Paper

By J. Artemus Gordon

Last Call

Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

One crow caws

and I'm awake

blue-faced babies

on screen

where I left them

hours ago

broken bodies

struck down

by a monstrous hand.

Oh poetry – 

curly-haired beauty

obsessed over without end

where are you now?

Poet’s Notes:  This is a variation on the never-ending question of "Why Poetry?" with which I constantly struggle as a writer. On the one hand, it sometimes feels good enough simply to write poetry for poetry's sake, creating a beautiful artifice. But other times, poetry feels terribly over-matched by a world that never ceases to amaze me with its brutality and evil. There obviously isn't a single correct answer, which is one reason why I ended this poem with a question. But it is also a personal challenge to strike the right balance between beauty and social relevancy when writing.

Editor's Note:  And with this thought-provoking bit of ars poetica, we must bid farewell to Yoni as a Frequent Contributor to Songs of Eretz.  I hope you enjoyed his Poet of the Week feature this week.