top of page
Writer's pictureHOW Blog

To Those Watching and Listening - Nancy Manning

Based on CNN Reporting: “Drone video team turns

the tables on hiding Russian vehicle”


There was no staging what bombs have destroyed

in my grandparents’ Ukraine. This Armageddon.

The ash thickens the air, settles deep in the lungs.


No one pretends to be a corpse shot or run over

by a tank, lies down on a road, and makes blood

pool on pavement. A person can’t partially bury

himself in sand and claim, See what they have done.


There aren’t enough coffins and body bags to empty

the streets. There aren’t enough people to pull dead

from the rubble, bury, mark each grave.


Those who stay have no home, no heat, no food,

no water. Their days are numbered. They cry

before a camera and beg for these atrocities to end.


Drone footage captures how Z tanks hidden in forest aim, fire,

murder more innocent. How Russian soldiers drag away

the lifeless, loot them, discard bodies like unwanted trash.

This footage disturbs, speaks truth.

 

Nancy Manning graduated last May with an MFA in poetry from Southern Connecticut State University. Her poems and short stories have appeared in an eclectic mix of literary journals. Nancy's collections of poems include the recent The Unspoken Of Our Days from Antrim House Books and Amethyst Garden from Jasmin Press; her YA novel is entitled Undertow of Silence. Nancy is also a high school English teacher.

48 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page