{"id":50443,"date":"2022-03-28T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=50443"},"modified":"2022-03-28T10:00:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T14:00:38","slug":"a-poet-recalls-odessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2022\/03\/a-poet-recalls-odessa.html","title":{"rendered":"A Poet Recalls Odessa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><strong>NO MORE<\/strong>\n\nNo more crowding those Kiosks\nThat look like guard towers \nProtected by hard currency\nAnd the insect eyes peering out of them\nHuman eyes preying off their own kind\nNo more tram drivers drinking their coffee\nWhile you wait for hours to get home to your child\nNo more swarming in the market\nHaving to spit out rancid cheese in front of the woman selling it\nNo Christ to toss those thieves out of the temple\nThe temple has been a ruin for centuries\nIt is a time of barbarian hordes\nNo more running into the drug store to face empty shelves\nAnd even emptier stares\nFrom shop girls in white smocks polishing their nails\nNo they haven't seen vitamin C for years\nNo more going to the hairdresser\nAshamed of a sore or welt that is erupting from your skin\nWhat's wrong with your insides?\nNo more murderous clenching of the buttocks\nIn freezing temperatures in the outhouse\nWhile you clench your jaws\nTrying to free your body of the shit\nOf one of the rottenest systems on this earth\nNo more being spied upon by quick-change artists\nPosing as doctors and as comrades\nTaking furtive looks at your ass\nTo see if it's worth the trouble\nTo sign the form\nNo more being forced to wear your mother's starched uniforms\nAfter she was left to dry out on radiation machines\nNo drunken next-door neighbor mafia cut throats\nThreatening to kill one another\nCircling like beasts over the spoils of spit and cum\nRunning down the torn slip of a wife whose time has come\nTo pay back the boss\nNo more having your daughter forced to listen to the bird's song\nOf redemption after the tearing out of their hair\nNo more shivering and body curling into heat that fades\nLike a distant horizon as the radiator goes dead\nNo more waiting for the miracle to happen\nThe airlift from the civilized world to put you out of your misery\nIn a mud hole of corruption and indifference\nNo more sharing of communal kitchens and toilets\nWith lives so battered and betrayed there isn't enough\nHope to light a candle\nNo more intrigues by businessmen over visas\nThat can be purchased under the counter\nNo more hope for us...\n\n<em><strong>William Cody Maher<\/strong><\/em>\n<em>Odessa, 1992<\/em><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No more crowding those Kiosks<br \/>\nThat look like guard towers<br \/>\nProtected by hard currency<br \/>\nAnd the insect eyes peering out of them<br \/>\nHuman eyes preying off their own kind<br \/>\nNo more tram drivers drinking their coffee<br \/>\nWhile you wait for hours to get home to your child . . . \u2014 William Cody Maher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-literature","8":"category-main","9":"category-news","10":"category-political-culture","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/BEING-HUMAN-4-750.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-d7B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50443"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50452,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50443\/revisions\/50452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}