I once visited a terrible prison.
As I came back out into the sunshine
All I could think—did they really do that?
Put men in a dungeon; that’s almost indescribable.
The fetid air, the dampness, the utter pallor.
Please tell me men didn’t spend years there.
How could any human retain any semblance
Of still being human after a year inside.
Why do some men treat other human beings
Worse than they would wild, untamed animals.
Can men actually be that inhumane
To their fellow creatures and still be sane?
And my history tells of even worse cruelties.
Is taking a simple loaf of bread punishable
By cutting off that man’s hand? How depraved.
Who is the greater criminal—-the jailer or
The judge who orders such insane punishments?
Who first decreed the set-up for debtors?
Imprisonment for some minor debt for years.
Sometimes with their family.
What sort of civilization creates a skein of laws
That exact an inhumane form of punishment?
Are we really not yet civilized?
How much longer will it take to make judgments
That really fit all those ordinary crimes?
SPLINTERS FOR SEPTEMBER 2023
HOVERING
I am guilty, I admit.
I am also victim.
So, I speak
With authority
When I say—
Hovering is aggression.
It is troops massing
In “war games”
At your border.
Hovering is—
Disrespect,
Faithlessness—
Even if motivated
By love or compassion.
To hover suggests
Expected failure
Suspected ignorance
And doubting
Another’s abilities.
Hovering is
Selfishness.
Hovering’s victims
Are treated of less value
Their needs less important
Their promises worthless.
Hovering
Is often silent
But no less a threat
No less a destroyer
When accompanied
By love or compassion.
UPON SILENT SANDS
Dark rivers roar their tortuous runs
Through the carved canyons of night
While amid the scattered spent shells
Upon the silent sands
The ghost of gentle Sappho weeping stands
WHY HOME IS A SHORE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
My first memory of a beach is from early childhood. I stand no higher than my mother’s knees as she holds my hands while a shallow spent wave laps over my feet splashing up my legs. I hold on tight for with each surge, my feet sink deeper into the mud-like sand which attempts to unbalance me.
Next, I remember the first time I rode a wave, a baby wave, to the shore when I was four or five. Then in the blink of memory, I am out in deep water racing with my mom and dad to catch a breaker rising five feet above the inflowing tide. Coasting atop the crest just behind the foam, I feel I am flying like the sea gulls swooping overhead.
It is these wonderful early days I remember first when I think of the ocean—the joy, the laughter, the love. They forever shaped the instant feeling of home I experience as I stand on a shore anywhere in the world.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“UPON SILENT SANDS” alludes to the ancient Greek poet Sapho, a person and talent who fascinated Margaret Roxby when she first learned of this person in high school. The idea of an island where poets, especially female poet (like herself) might go to live with, among and within poetry while creating it yourself seemed ideal.
REFRACTIONS –an essay by Kathleen Roxby
“WHY HOME IS A SHORE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD” is a recent essay written as part a writing workshop, Writing Through the Apocolypse, led by Marcia Meier. This piece reflects the discovery the author made when feeling vaguely unwell during an extended trip in the British Isles. On a free day rather than resting in bed, she went for a walk along the nearby shore of a firth near Troon, Scotland. Slowly she found all her dis-ease seeped away revealing to her the ill feeling had been homesickness, something she had never felt before and which the salt air, waves lapping the shore, shells and sands of the beach had cured.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“HOVERING” describes a situation the author experienced more than once when she worked as a secretary and manager of a computer system. The poem is included this week for bring your manners to work day, September 4.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR SEPTEMBER 2023
TO ANNEKE
(An Author Writes to the Character She Created)
I remember you,
Anneke,
Though you lived
For only one evening
And the length
Of one diary page
Filed with my schoolwork.
PIRACY
Blood-red cutlasses gleaming bright
In the glare of a pillaged town’s firelight.
Each lonely Phoenix must find new skies
From dust-destroyed days, replumaged rise.
YUMA
I once visited a terrible prison.
As I came back out into the sunshine
All I could think—did they really do that?
Put men in a dungeon; that’s almost indescribable.
The fetid air, the dampness, the utter pallor.
Please tell me men didn’t spend years there.
How could any human retain any semblance
Of still being human after a year inside.
Why do some men treat other human beings
Worse than they would wild, untamed animals.
Can men actually be that inhumane
To their fellow creatures and still be sane?
And my history tells of even worse cruelties.
Is taking a simple loaf of bread punishable
By cutting off that man’s hand? How depraved.
Who is the greater criminal—-the jailer or
The judge who orders such insane punishments?
Who first decreed the set-up for debtors?
Imprisonment for some minor debt for years.
Sometimes with their family.
What sort of civilization creates a skein of laws
That exact an inhumane form of punishment?
Are we really not yet civilized?
How much longer will it take to make judgments
That really fit all those ordinary crimes?