Iolanda Scripca

Iolanda Scripca, published poet, translator, journalist, and photographer, lived in Eastern Europe for the first twenty four years of her life, in a loving family. Her mom was a teacher, a high school principal, and a cultural promoter. Her dad was a published novelist, poet and TV producer. An unforgettable moment was her collaboration with her Dad in the translation and adaptation of a children's book by the Bulgarian author Leda Mileva. She is a graduate of Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Bucuresti/Romania. Nowadays she enjoys Southern California and possesses a CA Teaching Credential from Chapman University. Ms. Scripca publishes in several Romanian-American Newspapers both in Romanian and English. "Lava Of My Soul" is her recently released collection of poems and essays. Iolanda's photography has been published in several magazines and featured on national TV at HLN Evening Express News and KTLA Channel 5.

MY POEM

Shock and Awe, Coming Back Home

My friends come home draped in flags 

I pause at the edge of the airplane door

Facing a tunnel leading me to a muffled joy

Strangers tell me I am related to them...

I deny a woman with three kids... her kiss

My friends are slipping in trucks with flags

They are loaded and back doors explode shut...

..............................................................

I wake up in a trench of blood and clean pillows

The same woman from the airport next to me

 Peacefully breathing...and I thought she was dead...

I think I am finally home, fans are not propellers

Camouflage doesn't bear swing sets in backyards

My friends' helmets, guns and boots line up in my head

Patrolling with weapons made of aluminum foil

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There is too much silence for a dead soldier walking...

I think I FEEL the kiss of the woman with three kids ...

copyright@iolandascripca