{"id":84796,"date":"2017-01-02T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84796"},"modified":"2017-01-02T12:45:27","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:45:27","slug":"aleppo-falls-as-winter-fog-settles-on-the-chitose-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/aleppo-falls-as-winter-fog-settles-on-the-chitose-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Aleppo Falls as Winter Fog Settles on the Chitose River"},"content":{"rendered":"

smoke rising from a snuffed-out candle
\nthe heady scent of cinnamon
\nmoments before you come<\/p>\n

and fall to earth like bricks
\nscreaming out lamentations
\nfrom inside a refugee\u2019s mouth<\/p>\n

wild swans cursing the cold all night
\nice growing like mold along the riverbank
\nbuttery fog slowly melting in the moonlight\u2019s glare<\/p>\n

Japan Air Self-Defense Force jets buzzing low over the river all morning
\nthe letters tucked under sweptback metal wings bleeding
\ninto this prayer for the bombed children of Aleppo<\/p>\n

and for floating salmon feasted upon by foxes
\ntheir skeletons strewn on terraced riverbanks
\ntoothy jaws frozen wide singing one final song<\/p>\n

of the powder snow brushed from uncut greens
\na tiny black & white jumping spider both hands up
\nreciting an identical poem on a frostbit shred of kale\u2014<\/p>\n

how the world let an entire city be bombed and massacred
\nbecause of elections and gifts to buy and capitulation to power
\nsearch & rescue dogs sniffing out spoils of war rotting under rubble
\n____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stephen Toskar is a longtime resident of Japan. His poems have appeared in<\/em> Arc Poetry Magazine, Tokyo Poetry Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, LA Progressive, Hollywood Progressive, Chattahoochee Review, Dissident Voice, Poetry Nippon, Jayanta Mayapatra’s Chandrabhaga, and<\/em> Cyrano’s Journal. Also in the anthologies<\/em> Manifestations and<\/em> Farewell to Nuclear, Welcome to Renewable Energy, the latter a bilingual collection of poems assembled in reaction to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Living on the northern island of Hokkaido with his wife and young son near the banks of the Chitose River, he is a professor in the Dept. of International Language Studies at Hokkaido Bunkyo University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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