Serving House: A Journal of Literary Arts
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Poem
SHJ Issue 9
Spring 2014

Collateral Damage

by Barry North

In the last raid 
there were some unfortunate errors. 
The hill of Calvary was accidentally 
blown back to bits of dust, 
ordnance, in addition, inadvertently 
blowing apart the Garden of Eden. 
If you look closely at this video, 
you will see that 
God, disguised as the luckiest man alive, 
crossed a narrow bridge to safety, 
just before the bombs exploded. 

As you can see, 
He hesitates, momentarily, 
on the other side, 
before moving on, 
and never looks back. 

 

SHJ Issue 9
Spring 2014

Barry North

is a sixty-nine-year-old retired refrigeration mechanic. Since his retirement in 2007, he has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, won the 2010 A. E. Coppard Prize for Fiction, and, more recently, won Honorable Mention in the 2011 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream, The Dos Passos Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Amoskeag, and others.

He has published two chapbooks. Along the Highway, a collection of fiction, was published by White Eagle Coffee Store Press in 2010, and his first chapbook of poems, Terminally Human, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press.

For more information, visit his website, www.barrynorth.org.

“...we have been born here to witness and celebrate. We wonder at our purpose for living. Our purpose
is to perceive the fantastic. Why have a universe if there is no audience?” — Ray Bradbury