Who Am I?[Originally published in the Somerville Times & Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self]
if you peel layer
upon layer
upon layer
maybe then and only then
you will find me...
for i am a multilayered entity...
a building block of heterogeneity
i can be fierce and unflinching
apathetic and also doting
docile and also volatile
lovable and also irritable
compulsive and also discernible
I am a man
I am a “black” man
I am an American
I am a “black” American
I am a DNA test from
Ancestry dot com’s family tree
And twenty-three and me
I am African ancestry
I am Afro Haitian ancestry
I am European ancestry
I am the legacy of a middle class family in Haiti
I am the legacy of America’s social and economic disparity
I am the story of Horatio Alger’s characters thriving over adversity
I am a malady
I am a remedy
i am a rainbow
i am a shadow
I am a son
I am a brother
I am an uncle
I am an author
I am an educator
And pervasive human valor coconspirator
I am in attrition
I am in progression
I am an amalgamation
I am perfectly imperfect
And imperfect perfectly
I am a thesis of social injustice
I am a vision of personal apotheosis
I am all this and more...
I am ME!
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self
Jacques Fleury is a Haitian-American poet, author, educator and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His book “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at public libraries, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…
Your father’s sermon, your teacher’s praising words?
Where are those reflections?
Those waves of sound?
Are they wandering somewhere forsaken?
Whizzing like maniacs, following skewed paths?
Or did they fade away into nothingness?
Are they beyond the point of no return?
Annihilated in a singularity?
Can I zoom into spacetime’s reciprocity?
Follow those mysterious curved trajectories?
Delve into a wild spatiotemporal trip?
Reach the galaxy’s outer bounds?
Grasp the shadows of past ruminations?
See faces, hear words long over and done?
Reverse time’s stalwart forward tendency?
Can I tell my parents thank you, forgive me?
Can I ask my teacher questions never asked?
What is the universe?
Is the soul real?
Is there life after death after all?
Zillo
I miss my summer days in beautiful Bradillo,
my grandma’s village on the slopes of mount Gravillow,
its wide wheatfields sparkling with gold and yellow,
its watermill and the spring at the chirping rivulet below.
Summers were hot, apples and pears were ripe and mellow.
I enjoyed leisure days with my friends Blaise and Marcello.
We swam in the creek, despite it being brisk and shallow,
gathered wild blackberries uphill from my grandma’s bungalow.
There was a small woman with a big hump, named Zillo;
she carried water daily with a copper jug, as big as a cello.
Kids would tease her regularly, yelling “Hey Zillo, Zillo,
why don’t you marry me? I’m a real good fellow.”
Once I saw Zillo sitting all alone in the shade of a willow,
like weighed down by her hump. I approached and said “Hello, Zillo.”
She turned, then frowned her eyebrows resembling the wings of a swallow.
Zillo said nothing, yet I was certain she was ready to bellow.
It was many years later when I revisited Bradillo.
I asked my grandma – all grey-haired now – about Blaise and Marcello.
They both had left the village, she said, then I inquired about Zillo.
“Zillo died last year,” she gave me the bitter pill that was hard to swallow.
I didn’t cry, but deep inside I felt a big hollow.
What my grandma said next, I was unable to follow.
Memories of Zillo were full of remorse and sorrow.
Had she left forgiveness for me, I would gratefully borrow.
Oh you poor hunchback woman, my dear Zillo,
you come to my mind every time I think of Bradillo,
why did you refuse to utter the simple word “Hello”
when I tried to talk to you under that old, weeping willow?
Yellow leaves
Yellow leaves blown by late October wind,
drab sky obscured by frosty, tedious rain
drearily drumming on the windowpane…
they bring back memories I thought were bygone.
Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.
The shady alleyway, the old oak tree and the bench below,
you and I, and the evening, the moon’s timid glow,
Will you come tomorrow? you pleaded gently seeking reliance.
The wind responded with a soft whistle, then there was silence.
Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.
Now I am dreaming that it was today
and that tomorrow was one midnight away.
Alas, it was yesteryear before yesteryear before yesteryear.
Time does not cure; memories will never be wiped away by years.
Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.
What I lost one evening is revisiting me on a rainy day.
I should have known, real things come seldom, they come only once.
The void cannot be filled by belated regret.
I wish someone had told me: You can lose easily but will not forget.
Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.
Dreadful mornings
It’s morning again.
I feel the dim light scattered in the room with my eyes still closed.
My brain is waking up to face the terror,
to encounter the reality,
to deal with the twirl of terrifying thoughts…
I wish it was night, a never-ending night.
I would then submerge in a deep slumber,
hide in the bushes, or behind the rocks,
squeeze in my sleeping bag and fasten it tight,
run from the unbearable weight of actuality,
from the creepy spiderlike creature advancing toward me to procure my life,
turn off my conscience,
return to the realm of my whimsical dreams,
the times when life was so cozy, so calm,
when biggest worries were a lost keychain, a rejected poem, a departed train.
The biggest miseries of yesterday’s life would seem like an invigorating breeze.
Now I’m in a boat that seems to be a flake lost in a rough sea.
I’m unwillingly drifting in empty space encircled with an ominous halo.
My train is nearing a final station…
Still there is a chance, even though a slim, an improbable chance.
Maybe God will be merciful to me.
God?
Someone who never appreciated God suddenly is referring to God’s authority,
asking for almighty God’s benevolence, hoping to be spared by a miracle…
I know some people survive the disease while others do not.
Yes, it’s a slim chance, it’s all in God’s hands.
But if God saved all, then God’s existence would be meaningless,
and if God saved me, then he would instead take someone else’s life,
so my survival would be corrupted, I’d be culpable for someone’s misery.
What should I wish then?
I feel gone astray in a deep forest, a lifeless wilderness.
Fear of death is worse than real death!
I get up, get dressed,
put on my best look and walk down the street.
I smile to people, some smile back to me—
nobody knows what’s hidden inside.
Now my soul is like a swirling typhoon,
next moment it transforms into a desert,
a hollow phantom with bleeding insides.
Still, I am trying to remain focused, to make sense of it.
There should be some kind of justification.
How did I come to this tribulation,
this nonsensical desolate ordeal?
Oh, I think I know, I see the meaning of my destiny.
Yes, it’s payback time—
I pay for the sins I have committed.
I have never been a perfect human,
played a decent man while being a cad,
have betrayed my friends, been insensitive,
have sought gain at the expense of other’s pain…
Oh, how comforting are these memories!
So, I keep digging, digging deep and far,
opening the dark pages of my life.
The spiderlike creature is now my friend.
We dig together and we find bad things, disgusting misdeeds,
shameful acts that you’d never imagine.
The worst of my deeds are the most consoling,
like a sip of water under scorching sun.
They bring ease, relief, gratification.
I feel so relaxed.
What I am facing is so meaningful, so agreeable.
Life’s repudiation seems just and fair after all my sins.
The white horse
(A talented person with a terrible addiction)
You were born to ride a horse,
a white one, a beautiful one,
one that will take you to the top of the hill,
jump over the creek in a magnificent leap,
then gallop fiercely,
ascend and conquer the mountain’s snowy peak,
but the slopes were too steep, the bushes were thorny,
the shrub scratched to blood all your horse’s legs,
the sheer slopes made him wacked and weary,
so your horse opted a different path
into a black forest so dark and dreary,
descending into a watershed valley,
galloping madly, so wild, unruly,
all covered with repugnant black sludge,
unheeding your calls to stop or turn back,
leading you, instead, into a ghastly swamp,
making you whimper and hopelessly bellow:
“I lost my white horse, I lost my white horse,
I lost my white horse…”
Days
Days come and go like flickering flashes of a firefly, nature changes colors like a chameleon. Daybreak, noon, nightfall—one more day is gone, today becomes past, tomorrow—present.
Days are the black and white keys of a clavichord that play the concerto of our life— elating tunes like a rhapsody or chords that echo with your broken heart.
Days are paintbrush strokes on a vast canvas made of the fabric of our destiny. Some brushstrokes are bright, the others—murky; the resulting masterwork is what we call life.
Days are paved like the cells of a chess board. Some days we walk straight like a magnificent queen, but then—find ourselves traipsing like a pawn or crisscrossing wonky paths like a forlorn knight.
Days… There are days we laugh, and days when we cry,
We want to believe that most brilliant days are waiting ahead,
but before they come, we live on borrowed time
and submit ourselves to the wheel of fate.
I had a nickel
I was a schoolboy when I first met her.
We walked down the street and stumbled upon a group of gypsies.
One held my love’s hand and started telling what’s waiting ahead.
The other offered a lovely necklace that I couldn’t buy—
I had a nickel but needed a dime.
I saw a flower in someone’s backyard lawn.
The flower enthralled me by its magic charm.
I came to pick it, but the owner said it was in his yard.
I said I’d buy it, but the price was high—
I had a nickel but needed a dime.
I left my parent’s home, traveled many miles seeking good wages
but most of the days barely earned enough for a piece of bread.
I received a note that my mother was sick.
I set out fast, but couldn’t afford the journey’s fare—
I had a nickel but needed a dime.
I was like a leaf blown by vicious winds, a motherless child,
Not only were my pockets empty, but also my heart.
I had grit and courage but not a pinch of luck.
My good intentions never came to life for one damn reason—
I had a nickel but needed a dime.
When I grew older and finally managed to save a whole dime,
I came to a path leading to two doors.
The left one was the door to Eden with an entrance fee of mere ten cents.
The one on the right had a sign saying Inferno, five cents.
I knocked on the right door, extended the dime and said Keep the change.
Dreams
My good time is night time
when I am asleep.
I am by myself,
securely shielded by my coverlet
from the grim darkness of the other side,
away from the day’s preposterous whims,
alone with my dreams.
At night I am whole;
none of my troubles bothers me at all.
I can feel no pain,
the images I see are so rich, so pure,
I hear music of fantastic allure,
my feelings are deep,
the ambiences are a milieu of spectacular scenes.
But my dreams are so real,
yet so perplexing and inexplicable,
sometimes so dreadful and formidable,
often mystical,
supernatural and psycho-analytical,
at times enchanting and inspirational,
at times so unreal, metaphysical.
Yet nighttime remains my favorite time,
when I am alone with my reveries
intertwined with numinous enigmas and awes
that keep me secure from the reality’s frightening claws.
I cannot resist the enticing appeal of the siren songs
calling me to a sublime world made up by my brain,
away from the life’s insipid terrain.
In visible darkness
In visible darkness of a misty morning
a willow bends to a quiescent pond
to drink, or whisper fond words of friendship
in the obscurity of invisible light.
Silence is hung thick upon the dormant pond,
numinous and dark are the shades of the forest,
all motion has ceased, time is nonexistent,
the nature, it’s no more than a nebulous myth.
A subtle quiver disturbs the languor,
a star timidly flickers in the sky,
a ripple idly freewheels to the shore,
the forest heaves a surreptitious sigh.
A pale silhouette of a unicorn
appears in the far side of the pond,
the breeze opens up the willow’s foliage,
the pond freezes in exasperation.
The unicorn glides slowly ‘round the pond,
from behind the clouds emerges the moon,
the willow sparkles with enchanted gleam,
the pond remains still, soundless and cold.
The unicorn gently nears the willow,
touches the branches, caresses the twigs.
Embraced by myriads tender floral arms
the unicorn takes shelter in the tree.
The crescent slithers back behind the cloud,
all shadows vanish in the nightly haze,
the willow leisurely waves her supple sprays,
the pond stays somber, desolate and dazed.
The unicorn retreats, wanders to the woods
uncaring for the willow’s longing gaze,
the forest stands unwavering, calm,
hiding ages of mysteries inside.
The nature submerges in tranquility,
the sky is murky, the dawn is far,
the ether murmurs a soft lullaby,
the quiet pond reflects a lonely star.
In my life
excuse me,
in my existence
I have reveries, recollections, contemplations,
I have doubts, questions, lengthy conversations
with me, my memories, and my sub-conscience.
I try to untangle knots,
to make sense of my mystical thoughts,
to comprehend my baffling misadventures,
to discern light in the nebulous brume,
to find justification for life’s repudiation.
In my mind, I travel the landscape of the creation,
ridges, canyons, and dreadful depressions.
At times, it seems to me I see uncanny reflections,
familiar patters coming from the past,
peculiar shades blown from the future.
The knots become more tortuously disheveled,
yet bleak traces of light blink at a distance,
hence, I’ll go on trying to make sense of my life,
Rain, finally, after months of dry. Bucketing down. So dark I turn the lights on at 1.30 p.m. only to have them go out five minutes later as the power goes off. Thunder & lightning, directly overhead, only nanoseconds between flash & crash, not even enough time to say one thousand one. I sit in the open area beneath the house, some meters back but not far enough to escape the rain which sweeps in everywhere. I do not care. The gutters flood. Through a blurring curtain falling off the roof I watch the water start to lap over the edges of the pool. Ten minutes ago it was several centimeters lower down. The cat cowers under another chair. The turtles of the Woolwash Lagoon will be hurrying to lay their eggs. At the first sign of rain . . . Branches break off trees. There are no birds.
The storm moves away. The birds return. The power takes another twenty minutes.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and The Asylum Floor. His book with Casey Renee Kiser, Altered States of The Unflinching Souls, was recently published by RaVenGhost Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
The Creation of Hope
Take a memory.
Add a thought,
a handful of questions,
and five tears.
Add the wings
of a mourning dove,
a cruel caress,
a love, a lie,
a betrayed promise,
an aimless rage,
three sleepless nights,
and seven years.
Place in a pan, that,
each summer wide,
is ten winters long.
Finally, dust
with a cloud of doubt.
Place in the oven
of a heart that is broken,
and bake for an hour
or a lifetime.
*
You will know it is done
when the stars are brighter
than when you began,
when the sea chants
to the sleeping hill
and blind with morning
is the sun,
when the birds dance
in the sky and shout
with castanets
gold and shrill,
when the snake slips
from its curdled skin,
and the chrysalis
peels back to free
the Monarch’s brief,
painful beauty,
and you see an angel
cross the sky,
its wings transparent
as a dragonfly’s,
when, with the sun,
the old earth leaps
in the savage dance
of all beginnings,
and you wake, weeping
with a wild joy,
wondering where
your despair has died.
Take a spoon
of distant sigh,
silver whisper,
finch’s cry,
and feast on it,
o dearest love,
on the shortest day
of the longest year,
at the darkest hour
of the deepest night.
_____
Christopher Bernard is an award-winning poet, novelist and essayist. His most recent books are the first two stories in the “Otherwise” series: If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . . and
The Judgment Of Biestia.
Black Sea and War: How does Russian aggression affect the Black Sea ecosystem?
In 2022, the Ukrainian South became a theater of active warfare. This, in its turn, couldn’t pass without leaving a mark on ecology, as Russians fight dirtily, not sparing shells and pressuring with numbers instead of accuracy. The war is still being fought, and part of the Ukrainian South is still under occupation, but scientists try to keep their finger on the pulse. Kunsht has visited Mykhailo Son, a Doctor of Biology, and a leading scientist at The Institute of Marine Biology of NASU in Odesa.
Three years ago, the Institute lived through a horrible fire that took the lives of the Institute employees, valuable collections, and scientific materials. Nowadays, the institute is scattered around the city. Mr. Mykhailo has agreed to meet us in the administrative building.
Our conversation began with a general evaluation of the situation. The scientist marked that war is a double-edged sword. On one hand, ecology suffers from battles, sunk ships, artillery shells, and destroyed industrial facilities. But on the other hand, because of the limits on fishing, mining, paralyzed tourism, and construction on the coast, the sea has a chance for revival, especially in those coastal areas where there are no active battles.
An analysis of the consequences of war on the marine ecosystem is complicated by many factors. First, it’s impossible to evaluate the situation in the occupied territories. And the Azov Sea is occupied as a whole. It’s hard to know what consequences the ruining of the industrial Mariupol and coastal Azovstal has led to. Second, in the territories under Ukrainian control, a lot of zones are controlled by the military, and there are many mine barriers, so the research isn’t currently done there. Last year, the Institute of Marine Biology was able to do research only in the delta of the Danube, northern parts of the estuaries (Tylihulsky, Sukhy, Kuyalnytsky, Hryhoriivsky), and a small part of the sea near the mouth of the Danube that was opened for fishing. Third, during the war, both national and international ecological institutions are weakened, and monitoring and research get interrupted. Ukraine was planning to inaugurate complex monitoring of the marine ecosystem in 2022, under the efforts for Eurointegration. The research should have been done by Borys Aleksandrov, a ship gifted to Ukraine by Belgium, but its launch was postponed because of the war. Fourth, the analysis of the ecological situation has to be done with a complex analysis of all the sources, including the Russian ones, and they are impossible to take into consideration now, given that when Russia gives data on “Russian Black Sea territory” in its reports, this includes the occupied territories. Because of this confusion, the International Black Sea Commission (which includes all the countries on the coast of the Black Sea) cannot work correctly.
Image c/o Valentyn Kuzan
All these factors complicate the analysis a lot, but the scientists try out alternative methods of research – for instance, using satellite imagery to evaluate the extent of sea pollution because of war based on the color of the water.
The marine environment differs in that it’s not as mosaic as the land one. This means that in the mountains, forests, and lakes small habitats with unique species that are easy to destroy are much more common. The sea has very vast monotonous stretches. If a part of some habitat is damaged it will renew soon. But the marine ecosystem is also vulnerable, especially in the lagoons, estuaries, bays, and coastal areas. In the depth of the Black Sea, there are unique fields with the Phyllophora algae that create landscapes with valuable biota. “Such vast zones of continuous algal biocoenoses outside of the tidal zone of the coast are unique. The Sargasso Sea can be considered an analog of such an ecosystem. Such vast clusters of Phyllophora and corresponding groups of animals that colonize them don’t exist anywhere else in the world,” – Mr. Mykhailo explains. Last year’s hostilities were a direct threat to them.
Zmiiny Isle is one more victim of this war. The battles for it were rather intensive as it was the key to the opening of the grain corridor. Once, it could boast of unique rocks with peculiar biota that differed from Crimea and the Odesa region. *Any islands form unique ecosystems due to their isolation from the continent. This uniqueness may also stem from the paucity of their biota. Then, the biodiversity is lower and there are species that take the niches of others. If the island is big, this triggers evolution with formation of new species. Zmiiny has landscapes of “hard” rocks (metamorphic rocks), and due to this its biological formations resemble those characteristic to the Crimean rocks in their function. Nonetheless, it is situated in the zone of lower salinity (like all the north-west parts of the Black Sea), and many of the species characteristic of Crimea are absent here. In consequence, a specific group is formed that differs from others, for example, by high numbers of the warty crab and the marbled rock crab and a presence of marine lichens. Part of the rocks is physically destroyed. The birds also used Zmiiny to rest, especially those that don’t use to visit the continent. Currently, scientists can’t evaluate the scale of the damage to the island’s ecosystem, as all the monitoring and research missions on it are stopped. Before the invasion, a biological station of the university was functioning there (it researched the spread of viruses in birds among other things), and the employees of the Institute of Marine Biology use to visit the island.
The topic of the anomalously high death rate among dolphins and porpoises in the Black Sea has probably become most known to the public. Ecologists hypothesize that active combat is a possible reason for this, as the animals react to underwater waves, sounds of explosions, and the work of sonars. Mr. Mykhailo notes that the topic needs verified scientific research, and, fortunately, it is happening. It’s one of the few instances when scientists were allowed to do research for a criminal investigation. The scientists from the Institute of Zoology of NASU took samples of different brain tissues of the animals. The molecular samples are currently being researched in Europe.
Image c/o Valentyn Kusan
One more ecologically vulnerable habitat is Kakhovka Reservoir; Russians barbarously drop big amounts of water from it. This may damage the ecosystem of the Reservoir itself, bringing disbalance to its hydrological and oxygen regime, and the lower area of Dnipro under the dam, including its delta, can become a victim of flooding, which brings the risks of polluting the water with trash and industrial waste.
Mr. Mykhailo dreams that, after the war, it will be possible to launch the sea monitoring system, which will give accurate and full data, and the institute will be able to use them for its specialized research.
Mr. Mykhailo answers the question of what is needed to evaluate the consequences of war for ecosystems like this: “First of all, of course, we need access to the sea, and we also need funding for the expeditions and equipment. At the current stage, we can use new scientific methods that aren’t yet practiced in Ukraine, for example, genetic research that can show a short-term impact on an organism. **Such an indicator for pollution may be, for example, transcriptomics – an analysis of the totality of the RNA that is formed in a cell based on the genetic code in DNA. This shows, for instance, differences in expression of genes connected to immunity. Other possible analyses are an analysis of the proteins characteristic of stress, an analysis of the number of mutations, including chromosome abnormalities, incorrect work of the mitosis mechanism and abnormalities in the structure of the cell membranes. This may show if the organism is under stress, or whether there are influences of toxic chemicals and so on.”
After our conversation, we went to the beach in Odesa – that part of it where you can go without a military convoy. Public utility workers approached us and warned us that a mine could be washed on the shore. They let us stay but asked us to be careful. Passers-by from Odesa couldn’t miss an opportunity for a joke and told us to bring all the mines to their scrap metal collecting spot.
In a couple of hours, Mr. Mykhailo, having solved all his work issues, was able to join us with his research equipment. On the beach, he dug some sand looking for a Donacilla mollusk. They didn’t come all the way to Odesa shores as the tourists accidentally destroyed them, but after a dead tourism season, the researchers started to find specimens of this species on the beaches of the city.
We weren’t lucky enough to find a Donacilla, but Mr. Mykhailo found Zostera sea grass washed on the shore nearby that used to be rare on the city beaches for decades.
In a pile of seashells, Mr. Mykhailo picked up those of Black Sea oysters. An invasive species of Rapana has almost destroyed this species.
One of the versions says that Rapanas appeared in the Black Sea at the end of the 1940s because of WWII. First, Japan had contact with Italy, and its fleet brought Rapana from the Japanese to the Adriatic Sea. And then, when the USSR took a part of the Italian fleet as reparations, they brought this carnivorous mollusk with it, which had a big impact on the ecosystem of the Black Sea.
Mr. Mykhailo mentions the Crimean War, where the cavalry had an important role, in this context. Forage and hay for the horses were brought there from all over Europe, and this way a whole number of new plants appeared in Crimea.
The current war also brings great risks of the appearance of invasive species. Russians bring warships from the Baltic and Caspian Seas to the Black Sea. Russian oil is being transported by new routes under the sanctions. It may be, that one of the consequences of the full-scale Russian invasion will be a vast-scale appearance of new invasive species in our ecosystems.
This report has been developed within the project supported by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. government.
