by Toni Ortner | Sep 29, 2021 | Poems
Omyra Sanchez The camera is my eye. I open and shut the lens. I sweep the horizon clean. It is hard to focus with so much dust. My eyes burn. Focus I must. That is my job. That is what I am paid for and that is why I am here. I turn and all that I see stretching...
by Toni Ortner | Sep 29, 2021 | Poems
From DH There it is, the Douglas DC-6 SE-BDY / the instrument of my destruction. The mechanics are doing the last checks of the engines, but men have no knowledge of Divine Intention much less His last minute interventions. This is an ordinary day of September l8 in...
by Toni Ortner | Sep 29, 2021 | Poems
Strike Out The man in the pale brown linen suit struts across the room. He scratches his head and lights a Marlboro cigarette.It is so warm he removes his jacket.He is surrounded by maps and charts and lines and screens. His job is statistical analysis, and he has an...
by Toni Ortner | Sep 29, 2021 | Poems
It was six am Two men in dirty overalls were digging a hole. They air was cold. One man smoked a cigarette; the other sipped coffee from a paper cup. The men dug. They stopped and peered into the hole. They stopped and dug again. It was Sunday. Children ran around the...
by Toni Ortner | Sep 29, 2021 | Poems
You must walk even when you step over severed heads and hands. Don’t be an idiot throw out the orange pills weep for the dead. Look at the Real Estate section of the papers at homes worth millions of dollars and the six caret diamond rings look at the high rise...
by Toni Ortner | Nov 21, 2016 | Poems
The boats are coming over the rim of the world and they just keep coming hour after hour until I stop counting. The horizon is rimmed with boats & rafts bobbing up and down waiting to drift in. Men paddle with oars and boards and hands. Women clutch babies in...