NVN Thursday: What Are We To Believe In? — 2 Poems
“War” by Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan and “Prayer for the Non-Believer” by Alan Walowitz
WAR
by Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan
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"War, what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing." —Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, “War,” sung notably by The Temptations and by Edwin Starr.
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Mothers Mary, Teresa, and Cabrini were spotted on the # 17 bus, headed to the city to go shoe shopping. Buddha sat cross-legged, waiting for his plane, while Jonathan Edwards read a magazine. John Wesley, Bodhidharma, and Mary Baker Eddy contemplated the meaning of one and two and three. Krishna looked at his reflection and saw Vishnu looking back at him chewing bubble gum. The Dalai Lama and L Ron Hubbard argued politics, music, and art while sipping French wine. Martin Luther marched at the protest, shouting how change is needed, and Zoroaster banged his drum. Mohammed and Moses were searching land surveys as to where they should build their houses. Confucius was heard reading from The Analects, as Lao Tsu was seen in Central Park writing a poem. Jesus was whispering to his cousin, John the Baptist, about today’s newspaper headlines. Pythagoras put down the math problem to play a game of chess with St Francis of Assisi. Ramachandra was seen talking to the incarnation of Mahavira, each texting with someone else. Mani and Guru Nanak wore sunglasses and laughed while crowning each other in checkers. George Fox, John Wycliffe, and Joseph Smith debated the alignment of the stars in Tuyuca. Adi Shankara and Emanuel Swedenborg played double Dutch with Baal Shem Tov and Brigham Young. Helena Blavatsky, Aurobindo, Zarathustra, and Thich Nhat Hanh practiced downward dog. Saint Teresa of Ávila listened while William Booth asked Ramana-Maharshi “Who are you?” And all the while, all the gods that have ever been, are, and will be, were busy eating McDonald’s.
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Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan is the first woman to be appointed Suffolk County Poet Laureate (2009-2011). She was awarded by the Walt Whitman Birthplace the title of 2017 Long Island Poet of the Year. She has been honored with a Long Island Writers Group Community Service Award and the MOBIOUS Editor-In-Chief’s Choice Award. She is the founder and president of Long Island Poetry & Literature Repository, and the Editor of Long Island Sounds Anthology. She has penned six chapbooks and a children’s book, Would You Hug a Porcupine. Tammy has earned her Ph.D. in Humanities & Culture in the Interdisciplinary Studies program at Union Institute & University. Her dissertation was on: The Healing Power of Poetry. She teaches at Long Island University at the C W P
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PRAYER FOR THE NON-BELIEVER
by Alan Walowitz
Romano-British iron ploughshare. Flat bar with rounded edges tapering to an asymmetrical point at one end, with a flanged socket at the other. —The British Museum
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C’mon, we can pray as well as anyone If we only suspend our disbelief and try. The bombs are dropping on a hospital So we pray, at least, it wasn’t us. Is that too much? Not enough? If so, Then let’s go all the way And pray that the bombs will stop, Let them be bursting in air, The way we’ve always sung About them since the time we were young. Or better yet, Beaten into ploughshares. Though we’ve never known what ploughshares are, Oh, God, if you’re out there, I swear, I’m gonna call Amazon and order some.
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Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The full-length The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night written with poet Betsy Mars. Now available for free download is the collection The Poems of the Air from Red Wolf Editions.