Bonnie Naradzay

Perchance to Dream

After reading the news, I dreamt of destruction
as if I’d been there.  Nothing is as it should be.
For instance, a country claimed to investigate itself
with pious transparency in the fog of war.
Using precision ammunition made in factories,
men killed aid workers with unerring accuracy.
But the country said there must be some mistake –
 
in war it’s too hard to know when we’re awake.
Besides, people die from natural causes,
like the ones sheltering in that hospital.
But this must be something I dreamed,
before the day unfolded like a tablecloth
to cover the rubble, the amputated limbs,
and the $18 billion in F-15 fighter jets.

Only drama without movement, 
said Simone Weil, is transcendent.
Nothing is as it should be; it must be a fake,
this dream, from the ivory gate in Homer's epic
and just not to be trusted, or else I’m complicit,
for I’d rather contemplate the solar eclipse
and dream of the coming invasion of cicadas.   

Copyright 2024 Bonnie Naradzay

Bonnie Naradzay’s manuscript will be published later this year by Slant Books.  Three times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she leads weekly poetry sessions at a day shelter and also at a retirement center, all in Washington DC. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Kenyon Review, Tampa Review, EPOCH, and other places. In 2010 she was awarded the University of New Orleans Poetry Prize – a month’s stay in the Dolomites, in Northern Italy – in the castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter, Mary.  Her web site is www.bonnienaradzay.com

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review