Two Poems | Kitty Jospé
POETRY
10/23/20242 min read
Mission Impossible-- Watching "Dead Reckoning" travelling on July 4, 2024
Everything about those double s's
spells impossible
the improbable car crashes
doors flying off — impossible
odds of handcuffed drivers
the odd paperclip, perfectly
placed on a passport picture
to undo the handcuffs—
the yellow mini perfected poised
and ready to continue the impossible
mission — of getting away from
the entity playing 4-D chess
with algorithms. Nothing suspicious
of course when doubling the s
in impossible, descending down the Spanish Steps
backwards in that yellow mini
followed by its summersaults
(passengers still handcuffed), incredible
chases and stunts— the super spy against the super spy
with the most modern technology making the mission
look
impossible as it somehow prospers.
If I spelled out Abu Dhabi airport, ghosts,
or promises in Rome, delivery of essentials
in Venice, carrying on in the orient express,
and a command of a jump off an alp in Innsbruck,
you might not stay in the audience...
but the music crescendos with the steady increase
of drum pulse as Tom Cruise accelerates
up a rocky cliff on his motorcycle and flies
off, (parachute on back of course) the cast
of characters appears doomed except—
that Tom Cruise crashes through the windows
of the train, replete with parachute—
if it weren't so surprisingly impossible
I wouldn't be laughing so hard
and these days, it feels good to double s's
of impossible, living with absurdities.
Bastille Day in America, 2024
235 years ago, it was to storm the prison jailing innocents
on arbitrary charges by those in power,
followed by executions, that make me think about
Anne Boleyn in 1536, framed by Henry, his lust for power
and lascivious ways demanding her beheading.
We interrupt with news the morning after the attempted assassination of Presidential candidate, former power-
hungry US President Trump...
f-l-a-s-h-b-a-c-k!
If you were born over 60 years ago, where were you the day JFK was shot?
Enough. Political violence spreads faster than wildfire, the power
of internet to spread conspiracy theories faster than facts.
I stop reading headlines, this 14th day of July, and turn to a powerful
poem that gives me news of the beheading of the statue of the Virgin Mary,
in Linz, Austria just last week*. What? Inside a church? Yes, to defend the power
of a sacrosanct myth of immaculate conception, to destroy the statue challenging
the beliefs of one of the world's major religions, reducing sacred power
to a human dimension, where a woman births, a baby crowning. Off with that head!
How history repeats murder — even in a cathedral**. We plead for higher power.
*Prayer after Iconoclasm by Nina Peláez who cites these two articles: https://hyperallergic.com/931419/sculpture-of-virgin-mary-in-labor-beheaded-in-austrian-cathedral/
Kitty Jospé is in love with words, champions the power of keen observation and careful reflection. Retired French teacher and art docent, she has been crafting poems since 2005, and since 2008 leading weekly poetry appreciation sessions in Rochester, NY. She is known for her enthusiasm as teacher and reader. Her work is in 7 books and appears in a variety of reviews and anthologies.
Photo by tbsh Studio