Mark Blickley grew up within walking distance of the Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Scholarship Award for Drama. His latest book is the text-based art collaboration with fine arts photographer Amy Bassin, Dream Streams.

Robert Funaro is a New York-based actor best known for his work as a regular in The Sopranos where he created the role of Eugene Pontecorvo. Recent credits include The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese and a recurring role as Lt. Bricker on the hit Showtime series Ray Donovan.  Film credits include American Gangster directed by Ridley Scott and Not Fade Away directed by David Chase

 Joe John Battista has been involved in over 100 plays and musicals as an actor, musician, songwriter, and director. As a professional photographer, he covered the United States Wheel Chair Team at the Special Olympics in Korea. For six years he was Artistic Director at New York City’s 13^th Street Repertory Theater. Since the recent closing of that historic theater, Joe has assumed leadership of the 13^th Street Repertory Company.

 
  
 THE BOMBING OF THE BERLIN ZOO
 A SUITE IN EIGHT PARTS
  
 PRELUDE
 1948
  
 Lion tails cartwheel through the smoke.
 Landing softly on the Screaming Platz.
 Zebras.
 Black White.
 Red.
 The earth vomits its crust and 
 Yes.
 There are secrets to be kept so open wide.
 Such Beauty.
 Eyes clouded glass like watered milk.
 When it was over the sky wiped its chin.
  
 Everyone Loves The Zoo
 A Poem by Mila Roth
 Survivor and Witness of
 The Bombing of the Berlin Zoo
  
  
  
 BERLIN ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN
 November 22, 1943
  
 Father Ernst Mueller
 Mitte Borough, Berlin
 Sunday Morning
 The 22nd
 **********
 See them kneeling.
 Kneeling before The Altar.
 Kneeling like those they have shot.
 They take their Christ on crackers.
 Their Wehrmacht lips opening as one and
 I can see Hell in their mouths.
 Bless you my Child.
 I say.
  
 Let us Prey.
  
 Joram Fuhrmann
 A Jewish Boy of Nine
 The Tiergarten
 Sunday Afternoon
 ***************
  
 Halten.
 Don’t move.
 They will not see you.
 You will not see them.
 Slapping and screaming.
 Lightning and Skulls.
 Mama.
 Papa.
 We will love you forever the Zoo Joram the Zoo.
 Run run soil your pants.
 The sky is full of veins.
 Rank with animal fear.
 Joram falls to his knees and cries.
 Cries for the life he knew.
 God delivered the Torah.
 And went back to a world of sleep.
  
  
  
 Mila Roth and Anna Berg
 Animal Attendants
 Berlin Zoologischer Garten
 Sunday Afternoon
 ***************
  
 Hunger.
 The Great Beast.
 Meat.
 Only squirrels.
 Mila: “Adept with the stone we have killed them all!”
 Anna: “No. They have gone to the East. They will return when it is over.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 Cameroon
 Male Black Leopard
 Cage 159
 Berlin Zoologischer Garten
 Sunday Afternoon
 ***************
  
 The concrete is cold.
 Unyielding.
 Gone the touch of earth.
 Propelling him across the Savanna.
 He had killed at will.
 Carcasses.
 Mapping his journey of pain.
 Thirty steps to the left.
 I am Iron.
 Thirty steps to the right.
 I am Death.
 I will break free.
 I will kill everything in my path.
  
  
  
  
 Father Ernst Mueller
 The Blessing of the Animals
 Sunday Evening
 *************
  
 All the pets have been eaten.
 Fat Goering.
 Full of Spaniel.
 Only the Zoo makes sense.
 Holy Water for Hippos.
 Wafers for Wolves.
 Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.
 A Droning of Bees.
 High in the Sky.
 Praise Him all Creatures Here Below.
 Flesh.
 Grays and Reds.
 Claws.
 Hooves and Heads.
  
  
  
 Joram Fuhrmann
 Sunday Evening
 *************
  
 Shock.
 Screaming Metal.
 Earth Rock Iron Wood.
 Joram.
 You have blood in your ears.
 Your legs.
 Bone and gristle.
 Something is wrong.
 Deep in the chest.
 Close your sweet eyes.
 It’s just a brief rest.
 I shall go to the East and will return.
 When it is over.
  
  
  
  
 Mila Roth and Anna Berg
 Sunday Evening
 *************
  
 Shock.
 Screaming metal.
 A troop of monkeys fall shredded.
 The bombs no interest in Who.
 Anna staggers to the nearest cage.
 Flames.
 Coils of smoke.
 Feeling her way she opens the gate.
 And now it’s Too Late.
 Now it’s Too Late.
 Cameroon.
 Leaping to freedom.
 Pausing to rip out her throat.
  
 Such Beauty.
 Eyes.
 Clouded glass.
 Like watered milk.
  
  
  
  
 The Living and the Dead
 ********************
  
 Shock.
 Screaming metal.
 The earth buckles.
 Vomiting her crust white hot.
 A cage blows open sucking Mila inside.
 A pair of dead Zebras.
 Breaking her fall.
 Black White.
 Red.
  
  
 The ground is littered with animal dead.
 Mila.
 Peering through the bars.
 One of the bodies is moving.
 She sees the Collar white as his face and she cries.
 Pray for us Father.
 Now and at the Hour of our Death.
 The Priest lifts his head.
 His eyes are huge and see nothing.
  
  
 The Jackals are first.
 Blue meat in their jaws.
 Mila.
 Hearing the tearing of flesh.
 Knowing it’s part of the deal.
 The Priest at the end of the meal.
  
 Everyone loves the Zoo.
 That will never change.
   

 Post Calamity
 By Raquel Silberman


 What lurks behind the spine of disaster?
 stiff standing behind a
 vertebrae tree
 blinks in the dark of it’s
 shadows,
 apparitions of its grief
 when disaster walks away
 watch the darkness shrink.
 glimpses of bone in a flock of silk
 flip a penny and watch it
 sink
 when koi swims by,
 it feasts
 becoming just another shiny scale
 plotting by my feet
 A mess to clean.
 drapes strewn across power line
 sputtered with forgetful ink
 dense is the mind by virtue of
 limit
 What is disaster if not
 a moment to
 think

When She’s Gone

 When she’s gone;
 No more endearing smile to greet my return
 or laugh at wry and corny puns.
 No caress of the neck or tender rub of the arm. 
 An absence of affection even in inconsequential moments.
 When she’s gone;
 A silence in place of wistful songs of love.
 No more care in moments of need.
 An absence of knowing she will be there, always, but then not 
 there.
 When she’s gone;
 A longing for words that admonished when things went wrong, 
 and yet its demand required.
 A hole of improvement to be filled, but left undone.
 When she’s gone;
 No pride in watching her dance, a beautiful Golden Follies 
 Bergere, feathers o’er her smiling face.
 When she’s gone; 
 No reassuring clack of her loom in distant room.
 The joy of accomplishment left behind, as costumes hang 
 lifeless, and woven towels and scarves lay hidden in drawers, no 
 longer given.
 When she’s gone;
 No feeling of wanting, of sexual yearn.
 A reassurance of manhood, as this figure waned.
 Her body still haunting after years of toil and age.
 When she’s gone;
 A lack of anticipation for things to come.
 No crazy impulses to thrill the hour. 
 A day at the ocean, now only nostalgic, as waves wash over the 
 the memories of the water sign that was her.
 When she’s gone;
 A hush reigns where voices rang out in congenial times. Her gregariousness no longer dampening my loneliness.
 She was best for me in many ways. 
 Now I am left once again on my own, to muse and remember, for 
 she is gone

Three Poems
By Chinese Poet Yuan Hongri
Translated by Manu Mangattu
 
The Song of the Universe – Thy Song
 
Sweet soul,
Let thy breath be sweet
Let thine eyes shine as the stars
Reflect about what thou shalt see!
Thou shalt forget the words
The song of the universe is thy song
The peace of the universe is thy peace
If thou shall speak
It is almost like God
Let there be light! And there was light.
 
宇宙的歌声是你的歌声
 
甜美的灵魂
让你的呼吸甜美
让你的眼晴多如星辰
想想吧  那时你将看到什么
你将忘了词语
宇宙的歌声是你的歌声
宇宙的宁静是你的宁静
如果你说话
那就如同上帝
要有光  于是就有了光
 
On Angel Wings Heaven-Bound
 
Pluck out a star from the night sky above
And let it sing to you within your cranium
It shall bring to you the interplanetary song.
Let thine eyes reach the edge of the Milky Way
The earth is just a small stone;
Yesterday is just a butterfly.
When the angel wings conduct you to the Kingdom of Heaven
Ah! That sweet lightning will indeed make you forget the world.
 
当天使的翅翼驮来了天国
 
摘一颗星辰在夜空之上
让它在你的头颅里歌唱
它将带给你星际的乐曲
让你的目光抵达  末来的银河之城
地球只是一枚小小的石头
昨日只是一只蝴蝶
当天使的翅翼驮来了天国
哦  那甜蜜的闪电让你把世界遗忘
 
Home Sweet Home beyond Milky Way
 
Nestled in the wings of night
After the pearl gem sets in heaven
I climb to the roof of the earth
To gaze at the star.
Gazing at the star,
To witness the coming century, the city of the giant
Blossom like a silver Garden.
The Music from that mysterious Galaxy
Soothes my soul like the rain.
In the light, let my form alight
Back to my home, beyond the Milky Way.
2015.9.9
 
银河之外的家园
 
黑夜的翅翼
镶嵌了天堂的珍珠宝石
我在地球的屋顶之上
向星际凝望
仿佛看见未来世纪的巨城
绽放如白银的花园
 
 
来自神秘星系的乐曲
是一阵阵灵魂的甘雨
让我的身体乘光而行
回到了那银河之外的家园
 
Bio: Hongri Yuan, born in China in 1962, is a poet and philosopher interested particularly in creation. Representative works include Platinum City, The City of Gold , Golden Paradise , Gold Sun and Golden Giant. His poetry has been more widely published in the UK, USA ,India ,New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria.
 
Phone:+86 15263747339 ZIP cod 272100  Email:3112362909@qq.com
Address:No.18 middle school Yanzhou District ,Jining City, Shandong Province, China

Into the Wild by Mike Honeycutt

Into The Wild is one man’s journey travelling all over the world big game hunting. Mr. Honeycutt includes many photos of his travels. It is an interesting book for the person who enjoys big game hunting. I personally do not believe in hunting. However, for those who do and enjoy it would be a perfect quick read.

Mike Honeycutt’s Into the Wild is available here.