ONLY CHILD

a haibun by Roberta Beary

For the past decade, Mu-Ming Poo, the director of the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, has been on a quest to make monkeys that can be used to study human disease. Today, researchers in his institute announced a major milestone: the births of Zhongzhong and Huahua, the first two monkey clones created using the same technique behind Dolly the sheep. —The Atlantic, January 24, 2018. Photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency.

when I hear that scientists in China cloned identical monkeys, when I see twin monkey smiles spread across digital newsprint, I do not think of ethical issues or moral dilemmas, instead I recall my twin, how tightly his hand pulled mine into the asphalt jungle, swearing he would never let me go

midnight storm
a distant voice
calls my name

Roberta Beary is the haibun editor of Modern Haiku. She grew up in Jamaica Estates. As a child she often biked past the T***p family home and thought nothing of it. She lives in County Mayo, Ireland.

SOUND AND SILENCE

by Gil Hoy

He was unwantedly
   relentless

in his impetuous prolix
pronouncements

Could bend even
  the most patient

sturdy ear to
  the breaking point

with his crooked
                       rivers of words

Did he really
    tweet demanding

thanks from UCLA
         basketball players?

Did he really
   tweet an ungrateful

     father's son
should've been left

       in a Chinese jail?


I wish instead

that he'd strode
    confidently into a garden

                  of roses

Winked on top of a dry
         wry smile

Opened his mouth, and said

    nothing at all—like a stone—


While inquisitive listening flies gathered
      in his

suddenly silent mouth

   While fluttering flocking pigeons
flitted

   on suddenly scarecrow arms.

While squirrels around the man’s
      stone cold feet

squirreled away
  just enough acorns

for a suddenly warmer winter

   and the felicitous sun
         rose and set every day 

After day

After day

 After day.


And the man never spoke again.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy's work has appeared most recently in Ariel Chart, The Penmen Review, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, TheNewVerse.News and Clark Street Review. 

Poet Li Bifeng Jailed for 12 Years

Chinese Poet Li Bifeng

 A Chinese poet was sentenced Monday by a court in southwestern China to 12 years in prison for contract fraud. The poet, Li Bifeng, who was formerly imprisoned for five years for his involvement in the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, was sentenced in Sichuan Province. Mr. Li’s wife said the case was related to a sales agreement that her husband had signed with a company to help sell some apartments but that the charges against him were “groundless.” A friend of Mr. Li’s, the exiled  Liao Yiwu, said Mr. Li, 48, was singled out because he was suspected of financing Mr. Liao’s escape from China last year. Mr. Liao said those suspicions were false.

It seems that ripples from the1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations continue to have a resounding effect today after so many years. With my knowledge of China's current strict government and history, I don't think that it would be too far of a stretch to say that Li Bifeng might very well be the target of the Chinese government's wrath.

What do you think?
 
For more information, read the full article at The New York Times website or click here.