Poems
published in Abrazo, DoveTales,
A Writing for Peace Literary journal of the Arts, 2021.
Abrazos is the name of the 10th-anniversary edition of DoveTales. Sam Hamill is its honored guest,
in addition to its feature, Letter from the Self to the
World, Abrazos is guest-edited by Adriana Paramo.
According to its editor Carmel Mawle, The
nearly 600 pages of poetry, essays, fiction, and art feature selected work from
the years of DoveTales, as well as thoughtful
and profound current work from 2021. The anthology is dedicated to advisor Sam
Hamill (1943-2018) and titled Abrazos in
memory of the way he always signed his emails. The beautiful cover was adapted
by artist-in-residence Juniper Moon from one of Sam’s original paintings.
Letter from self to the World
Carrying the
Spirit of a Siafu
Dear “Red Ant,”
you didn’t know
that this hated
name
hurled at you in
anger,
during a school
yard fight,
would later suit
you.
Your voice would
not
be lit by vengeful
anger,
nor would your
words
bear a venomous
sting.
You would become
a quiet striver,
not caving into
failure,
but driven by it,
and
piloted by your
dreams.
The voracious
reading of mythologies
would tap into
your inner explorer,
lead you to crisscross
continents.
Armed with hope
and determination,
you would bounce
back after missteps,
bending, not
breaking, soldiering on.
You would carry
the spirit of a Siafu,
red survivor ants,
leaders of their world.
Althea
Romeo Mark 2021
Note:
Driver ants Dorylus, also known as safari ants, or siafu, is a large genus of army ants found primarily in central and east Africa, although the range also extends to southern Africa and tropical Asia. The success of the ant in so many environments has been attributed to their social organization and their ability to modify habitats, tap resources, and defend themselves.
Nyam
I am telling you that thirty years ago,
at age forty, in Switzerland,
I was like a child
once again,
alone at a table,
and told I could
not leave
until I had cleaned my plate.
Nyam! Eat!
My soul cried,
stomach churned,
but only I could
consume
the new words in
German and Swiss-German,
bitter on my
tongue.
Nyam! Eat!
New languages,
like spinach and Brussel sprouts,
would make me strong,
everyone said.
Nyam! Eat!
And crawling time
witnessed me
shuddering,
witnessed me
struggling to clear
the
challenged-filled plate.
Nyam! Eat!
I have learned that
new languages
like hated
vegetables
are good for me,
are stepping
stones
in seeking a
secure place
within a new
society.
Nyam! Eat!
© Althea Mark-Romeo 2021
(Nyam-Antigua-Barbudan
English creole which means-eat)
The Endless Tugging
At first, the tug of war
from living
is not felt too deeply.
When young and feeling
invincible,
conflicts and tribulations
are flicked off
like annoying insects on
your shoulders.
Jolting moments in your
life will warn you—
the crushing death of a
school mate
leaping up to dunk a
basketball;
another, collapsing on
the sidewalk
while on summer holiday.
Your aging parents,
will give you notice—
the piling up of pills,
the complaints of
failing knees and hips.
Human fragility will
parade
its naked self in front
of you,
will tug at your sleeves,
yap at your feet.
Those whom you treasure,
your family archivists,
and keepers of lore
will take their leave.
You will try to ignore
mortality following on
your heels.
But it is ever present.
© Althea Romeo-Mark 2020
Born in Antigua, West
Indies, Althea Romeo Mark is an educator and internationally published writer
who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in the Virgin
Islands, USA, Liberia, England, and Switzerland since 1991. A dual American and
Swiss citizen, she writes short stories and
personal essays in addition to poetry. and has been published. in the Virgin Islands, Puerto
Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, USA, England,
Germany, Norway, Portugal, Colombia, India, U.K., Kenya, Liberia, Romania,
Spain, and Switzerland. Her last poetry collection, The Nakedness of New, was
published in 2018. She has participated in International Poetry Festivals in Romania,
Kenya, and Colombia. And in Literary festival in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Martin/Marten, and the US Virgin Islands.
2. I love the drama, captured and continued, in "Nyam" - the child and the patent so well drawn. Wonderful, the parallel drawn between the nourishment to be drawn from dishes a child might not like readily and the benefits of learning a new language in spite of initial resistance to it. 3. I cannot help but hear Andrew Marvell's "Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;" as I near the end of "The Endless Tugging" with its images so extremely well drawn - the emotions so poignant that the cup containing the reader's tears could easily overturn. 1. Well the red ants, like the author, have crisscrossed continent and similarly they have survived. I love the personification throughout this poem and the fact that it is an apostrophe: the entire poem addresses the red ants. Your technical skills resulting in a work that is so well made - so well constructed. This is just as true though of all the poems that you have built or made or constructed that I have read.
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