by Howard Richard Debs
I am still waiting.
I was living in Chicago, commuting
downtown, just married, starting a family.
the Vietnam War was raging when I first
heard the song “Imagine”
it hit Billboard’s top ten.
That was ’71, a year of war
between India and Pakistan,
the IRA bombed the Post Office Tower
in London, dictator Idi Amin took control
of Uganda, Greenpeace began.
We moved to upstate New York
the Finger Lakes region, in ’74 our
second was born. the same year
as Watergate; Nixon resigns, there’s
a global recession, Turkey invades
Cyprus, Israel and Syria agree to a
ceasefire on the Golan Heights.
In ’76 we packed up the kids and
the dog and headed south
to Florida, our new home
in a bright red Datsun wagon.
That year Peron was overthrown
in a military coup in Argentina,
there was a conflict they called
“The Cod Wars” between Iceland
and Britain over fishing rights,
the Soweto riots in South Africa occur,
the beginning of the end of apartheid.
Graduations, weddings, baby showers,
funerals, life goes on; it’s 2021,
in the grip of a pandemic
we just marked The 51st anniversary
of Earth Day around the world,
now the Russians say they’ll leave
the International Space Station
and build their own by 2030.
Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally in numerous publications. His photography is featured in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words (Scarlet Leaf Publishing), is the recipient of a 2017 Best Book Award and 2018 Book Excellence Award. His latest work is the chapbook Political (Cyberwit.net). He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust, forthcoming in later 2021 from Vallentine Mitchell of London, publisher of the first English language edition of the diary of Anne Frank. Art by Karyn Kloumann, founder of award-winning indie publisher Nauset Press.
Global Poemic 