The Demise of HIV

Word is, the demise of HIV                                         

May come sooner than believed                             

Its knack to disguise and adapt                 

The undoing, its fatal crack                                         

This would have come someday                              

So they say, I guess time flies                                    

Not for those who die of course                              

But for the larger pie                                     

To be clear and not lie, I thought                              

It was gone for all we hear                                          

Till last Mass it came time to pass                             

The basket to a visiting priest                    

Who to my surprise preached HIV                           

Was fully alive and seemed well                               

He runs a clinic and he tries                                        

But needs help so he brought a guy                       

Who was thankful, even despite                             

Having gotten the disease,                                         

That people care, God’s aware                 

And please, please keep it coming                          

Father must have spies and know                           

It’s evolved, no need to cry                                        

Less deadly as time goes by                                       

So just wait, tempt fate                                               

Too late HIV, you missed us                                       

We’re gone, we have moved on                                              

But why if Father’s so wise                                         

Doesn’t he recognize                                    

It’s almost done, nearly won                     

Just keep me apprised

HIV's ability to cause AIDS is weakening over time, study finds

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/01/us-health-hiv-idUSKCN0JF35320141201                                  

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, where he and his wife raised their four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals and magazines, including the Naugatuck River Review.

Haram

I did not want to come here

Wherever here is

My town was like a cocoon

We the caterpillars

Swinging in every breeze

At the tree tops

I thought of flying one day

Just pushing off

Then they shook all of us down

Burned the branches

I could be squashed on the ground

Under booted feet

So I must be still as stone

And may never fly

©E R Olsen

Boko Haram seize women

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, where he and his wife raised their four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals and magazines, most recently in the Naugatuck River Review.

Monarch

Hung from trees in

high Sierra

Rippling bark

alive with orange

Do you fall when

loggers saw?

Or fly off quick

to who knows where?

Swim the air like

Swallows returning

If you find the

Milkweed’s trail

Else you will not

come again

Else we will

forget your name

Help save Monarch butterflies 

Setting the table for a regal butterfly

©E.R.Olsen

E. R. Olsen lives in Nevada, where he practices law and writes poetry.  His poems have appeared on Poetry24 and other magazines and journals, including the Naugatuck River Review.

Joan Fontaine

I fell for you

in a revival house

Watching you

suspecting Cary Grant

When I was fourteen

and you,



you were

my age now

I think

But on screen

you were 24

Within reach

even in B&W.



B&W

becomes you still

Though you

are nearly ninety-seven

it makes you

24 again,



from where I sit

in the silver shine

on the red seat

turned to gray

Where I too

am B & W

and young

©Eric R. Olsen

http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-joan-fontaine-20131216,0,2145458.story#axzz2neu1XD5E

E. R. Olsen lives in Nevada, where he practices law and writes poetry.  His poems have appeared on Poetry24 and other magazines and journals, including the Naugatuck River Review.

Malala

Little dove
Just wanting
To be a person

Pursuers
Not wanting her
To rise above

Aloft now
They’ve made her
More than

And themselves
“The Students”
Less than

For it all
Must add up
To zero

© E R Olsen

Malala Yousafzai: Pakistan girl 'strong' - doctors

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.

Rachel’s Eagle

When I looked out through a paned glazing
First I saw the eagle sit
In a dead tree meant for perching
Through the gray and common wet

A glorious return surprising
Early in the saving ban
Fruit of just one woman’s warning
Death of our most honored clan

That farmhouse window’s long since breaking
Fit for what should always be
Mighty eagle far outlasting
Short-sighted eyes of you and me

© E R Olsen

Carson's 'Silent Spring' spurred environmental movement

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.  

Shield, Wall and Fortress

Shield, wall, and fortress of our nation.                   
That’s what he called them -- his army.                             
Not ever mentioning the others                              
whose scent only wafts in his rooms,                      
when a window is slightly ajar,                               
but somehow know his every thought.                    

Shield, against the rays of sun that would                         
creep in and light the dark corners                                   
that are never seen and never clean --                     
though the people hoped at first, when                   
he dined in cafes on tea and cake,                           
till the light in his doctor’s eyes changed.                         

Wall. Honecker’s wall --  one that keeps in     
when they say out,  one you can hear cry                
bitte, min fadlik from cracking bricks,                      
one blindfolded shoulders slump against        
because they knew it was time, or thought,      ,                
or simply could not wait another moment.                         

Fortress, where they will all be trapped, as                        
each day the masons arrive with trowels,                          
making sides too high for ladders out;                     
and rescuers come to ram the gates,    
when the sounds die down and smoke turns white,   
then stare and wag their heads, as though               
they did not know it was happening.

© E R Olsen

Syria dispatch: battle for Aleppo hangs in the balance

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking. 

Drone

A bird hovers above the yard,
hanging and humming without
nectar in a plastic feeder --
beady gaze, but with vision
like a giant foil-eyed fish.

I think the saccades are out --
summer, and the din sounds like theirs.
From the back porch, my expanse
is neatly protected by
hanging and hemming foliage.

But as I unscrew the cap from
my sweaty bottle of beer
something seems to be missing --
maybe it’s a long dead shrub,
maybe it’s a thing more dear.

© E R Olsen

Drones: From War Weapon To Homemade Toy

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking. 

Alone-ness

creates and severs

the tethers that hold us together.

Yesterday, a man told me

his father was driven crazy

by doctors locking him

in a dark room for thirty days --

He touched no one for thirty days;

                never could touch anyone again,

                only pee in the corners of their rooms

                as if the lights were still off.

Today, a man told me

his son was shot by a different man –

in the neck – with many others

who did not expect smoke

or flashes illuminating smoke

in a dark room full… full…full.

This other man’s friends could not be located.

This other man’s family was far away;

                he could not touch anyone with

                his fingers so busy on booby-traps;

                writing long sentences with no periods,

                as if in a cabin out in the woods --

                nowhere near a pond.

© E R Olsen

Profile: Aurora cinema shooting suspect James Holmes

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.

It’s My Secret

My brother and I sit and watch TV.
He says to me, What would you do?
What would you say, if like that guy
your son told you that he was gay?

He says to me, I'd punch him in the face;
not to really hurt him I guess, but just to
tell him I was mad, more or less.  Really
mad that he had turned out this way, and that

he did not understand what he'd chosen;
what it would truly mean to be gay.
His life would be hard, he wouldn't have kids
to run in his yard, as if that's what we did.

Honestly, if he told you that's the way
he wants to live, be with men night and day…
I would not have it, but what would you do?

It's my secret, I tell him, and that’s all I'll say.

©   E R Olsen

A Closet by Another Name

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.

Lockerbie at 23

She looked up at me with half-masted eyes;
continuous rhythmic motion draining
warm bottles – it was my shift by then,
an oar finally to the water with
these two o’clock feedings and CNN.
                                                             
In the dark, pale flicker on our faces,
my eyes reflected that trench and debris
in the Scottish village whose sky rained down
a moment of fire and coating blackness
that stuck to the bricks and people like soot.

Time has slipped past the corners of my eyes;
the silk skull, tiny nails, now a woman,
I am up at two just for the body’s
own call, not the innocent cries, but those
somnambular scenes are fresh as Tuesday’s;

the furrow in ancient ground, a ripple
in my brainy surface, a wound to them
--like the scar I’ve since felt burn from a brand
in the shape of a son—looking healed, it
was opened from underneath after years

when the monster was let loose to his cave
and now, again, that he’s gone to his grave.
I cannot think of her sweetness without
their sadness, tender rocking without
the lingering soot – no burial will
change that.

©   E R Olsen

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's funeral held

E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.

Two poems for Syria

We Are Al-Shabaab Soldiers 

we like to chase the mouse.

Weak and afraid and
much smaller than we;

it runs in the corners
so as to not be destroyed;

hungry, for we have cleared
what little grain there is--

-- -- After all, we are people
-- -- with a cause to feed.

Its pups that starve with
ever larger eyes and bellies,
are better filling the ground
than eating our corn
in their tiny nibbles.

Should they escape our door
we leave the granary

to hunt them down so that they
-- ----males, females, the young--
never return here.

God will not rid these pests
so we do it ourselves.

©   E R Olsen

Al-Shabaab bans Red Cross in Somalia
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 E R Olsen writes poetry and practices law in Nevada, in the U.S., where he lives with his wife and four children. His poems have appeared in several U.S. journals, most recently in Viking.

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How do I kill you?

after Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I kill you? Let me count the ways.
I kill you with variety of might
My army shall muster day and night
For the ends of putting you in your place.
I kill all of you and will every day
Till there will be no more persons to strike.
I kill you freely, as men strive to fight.
I kill you in your homes, in a true blaze.
I kill you with all passion I can use
In my position, with alawite faith.
I kill you with a thrill I cannot lose
By God, and I’ll kill you till my last breath,
Smile, last goal of my life; and if God choose,
I shall kill and hate you even more after death.

©  Lavinia Kumar

Syria: 'Civilians dying in droves' - at least 377 killed in Homs in recent days
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Lavinia Kumar lives in New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, in the US and UK.  She writes a blog for her brother’s seniorsmagazine.org, based in Portsmouth, NH.