Greg McBride
Broken Hearts
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it. . . .
Your poems must be more than want ads for broken hearts. . . .
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2008
Russia ravages Georgia again,
threatens Tblisi. Again, tanks rattle
the front pages. My reach for a pen
produces a shaft of living light,
so crowded with carefree motes they remind me
how plentiful were freestone peaches
this year, and how sweet were those my mother
served when she was well early in the Cold War.
But a stench wafts over the globe again,
the burning oil, acrid air, the raised voice
of unreason, the timeless wail of the weak.
Somehow, she survived my year in Vietnam
day by day—that year’s two-page spread
in Life of one week’s dead, the horror
of strident raps at her front door.
When I was a boy, she gave me kisses
and her beauty and her youth, leaning back
against a Texas Red Oak during the War.
I’ve searched out time and war and luck and posted
ads for any shard of her long-broken heart,
something I might repair and bind with love.
Greg McBride is the author of Porthole (Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry, Briery Creek Press, 2012), Guest of Time (Pond Road Press (2023), and Back of the Envelope (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2009). His work appears in such journals as Alaska Review, Bellevue, Boulevard, Gettysburg Review, New Ohio Review, River Styx, Salmagundi, and Southern Poetry Review. His awards include the Boulevard Emerging Poet prize and grants in poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. A Vietnam veteran and lawyer, he edits the Innisfree Poetry Journal.
Return to May 2024 Edition
The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it. . . .
Your poems must be more than want ads for broken hearts. . . .
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2008
Russia ravages Georgia again,
threatens Tblisi. Again, tanks rattle
the front pages. My reach for a pen
produces a shaft of living light,
so crowded with carefree motes they remind me
how plentiful were freestone peaches
this year, and how sweet were those my mother
served when she was well early in the Cold War.
But a stench wafts over the globe again,
the burning oil, acrid air, the raised voice
of unreason, the timeless wail of the weak.
Somehow, she survived my year in Vietnam
day by day—that year’s two-page spread
in Life of one week’s dead, the horror
of strident raps at her front door.
When I was a boy, she gave me kisses
and her beauty and her youth, leaning back
against a Texas Red Oak during the War.
I’ve searched out time and war and luck and posted
ads for any shard of her long-broken heart,
something I might repair and bind with love.
Greg McBride is the author of Porthole (Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry, Briery Creek Press, 2012), Guest of Time (Pond Road Press (2023), and Back of the Envelope (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2009). His work appears in such journals as Alaska Review, Bellevue, Boulevard, Gettysburg Review, New Ohio Review, River Styx, Salmagundi, and Southern Poetry Review. His awards include the Boulevard Emerging Poet prize and grants in poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. A Vietnam veteran and lawyer, he edits the Innisfree Poetry Journal.
Return to May 2024 Edition