Gloria Mindock
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Gloria Mindock is editor and publisher of Cervena Barva Press and editor of the Istanbul Literary Review based in Turkey. She is the author of two chapbooks, Doppleganger (S. Press) and Oh Angel (U Soku Stampa) and three poetry collections, Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson St. Press, 2007), Nothing Divine Here and Whiteness of Bone, forthcoming . Gloria has been published in numerous journals including UNU: Revista de Dultura and Citadela in Romania with translations by Flavia Cosma, Arabesques, Poesia, Phoebe, Poet Lore, Blackbox, River Styx, Bogg, Ibbetson St., and WHLR to name a few and numerous anthologies including Murmur of Voices by Cogito Publishing House in Romania. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was awarded a fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council. From 1984-1994, she edited the Boston Literary Review/BLuR and was co-founder of Theatre S & S. Press, Inc. Theatre S received grants from the Polaroid Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Globe Foundatioin, New England for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Somerville Arts Council. Gloria works as a Social Worker and freelances editing manuscripts and conduction workshops for writers. She moderates (part owner of one) two writing groups online based in the UK.
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EL SALVADOR, 1983
Somewhere, someone is mourning
for the body of a brilliant one.
Man or woman, it doesn’t matter.
The tears in this country, an entrance
to a void… shadows touching skin like frost.
A star fell north of this city. Armies parade around
in their uniforms bragging about the killings.
Dead bodies thrown into a pit, cry.
Flesh hits wind, wind hits flesh.
How many dead?
Finally, they are covered with dirt at noon.
All eyelids are closed.
No one knows nothing.
No breathing assaults to hold us. The bitter ash
weeps over the world, and no other country
wants to see it, taste
the dead on their tongue or wipe away all
the weeping sounds.
LIFE MOURNS
Parents, you carry your children’s coffins well.
Along the road, see the little gifts
left for you: blood stains, teeth, shoes.
The clouds gather up all the tears you cry
so everyone feels them when it rains.
The military buttons up its coats.
Children, you gather the bones of your parents quickly.
Identified by a piece of cloth, a shirt, a guess…
Sometimes you find bones at the front door, but never
where you hid. You were lucky.
But even you are the already dead
dying slowly from brutality.
Husband, body parts hang in trees.
The earth is sad today. Trees are sacred
as the lives of those whose hands,
heads, fingers, organs eyes touch the branches
with their longing…
Husband, I know that you are on the first branch.
In this procession of sadness, I stand and console life.
Life embarrassed, cries out to the Death Squads.
They do not hear.
Their ears are filled, and their hearts drowning.
From the book, Blood Soaked Dresses by Gloria Mindock (Ibbetson St. Press, 2007)
