Two Poems | Kitty Jospé

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/

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_the_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.

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