WAR BREAKS OUT…

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Source: The Spectator

in every field, on every street,
booming, blooming, blasting, 
blathering, while fishmonger

and greengrocer, student
and priest, run home until
walls shudder and windows

crack and shrapnel rains
on the silver,  the cats,
the children, oh the children

bleeding and screaming.
What absolute lack of 
foresight, no bunkers, 

no caverns, no metro 
tunnels close by to wait 
until bombers and drones 

return to base, nowhere 
to hide. In the fields, 
farmer on a tractor, another 

with a hoe; tally ho, 
fellow, go now to your God. 
We the executioners

rule the skies. 
War did not break 
like a pimple

or rash
or pus-ridden
bacterial flesh.

A human being
ordered bombers
and bombs 

to launch. 
A human being, 
otherwise known 

as a  leader, 
a democrat,
of what’s otherwise 

seen as a democracy.
And by the way,
the State is me.

Cartoon by Ramón Díaz Yanes.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published his translation of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books, 2025). Other recent publications include Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

IN THE PROMISED LAND OF BROKEN DREAMS ANOTHER RESTLESS NIGHT

by Dick Altman

I imagine
my grandparents,
who traded
the Old Country
for America,
asking me today,
Should we come?
Should we come,
given the chance?
 
I try clearing
the knotted throat
of my mind,
to find an answer.
Would I
want to start
life over,
tattered
and patched,
I ask myself,
in a land,
that didn’t
want me?
 
I reel from today’s
headlines,
sleepless,
as I wander
the streets
of my American
Dream,
comforting,
familiar,
welcoming
no longer.
 
But where to go,
begin anew?
America,
you’ve shaken
the globe
off its footings.
Turned yourself,
in many minds,
into a nightmare
of economic
submission.
Turned your back
on those
yearning,
deserving,
to be free.
 
I feel estranged,
increasingly
out of touch.
The periodic table
of my life—
all the elements
that spark mind/
body/spirit—
my American
Dream’s
essence,
runs riot.
 
Have I reached
the terminus,
where it’s
no longer
if you,
my country,
want me?
I plumb the dark
for harmony,
once heart
of the American
Dream.
The day’s unfurling,
a rampage
of dissonance,
ravages my sleep.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, aming others. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems published on four continents.

ODE TO PROGRESS

by Tim Walker

Where are the mayflies of years past?
Or their descendants for that matter,
missed for many a May? But hey, at least
our windshield’s free of bug splatter.

Are night-blooming plants bereft of pollination
by moths confused by light pollution?
Praise be to LED lights, so productive,
we splurge on ever greater wattage!

And how does the little busy bee
keep up morale in its collapsing colony?
Being a social insect is overrated, vastly,
like being a seed-dispersing beasty.

The plants will learn to do without them.
We’re all tightening our belts. In the long run
we’ll concoct “honey” from sorghum
and petroleum byproducts, Amen.

Tim Walker read, for pleasure, the complete novels of Charles Dickens while earning a BA in Environmental Studies, and the complete novels of Anthony Trollope while earning a PhD in Geological Sciences, and has worked as a computer programmer, healthcare data analyst, used book seller, and pet sitter. He lives largely in his own head, while he corporeally resides in Santa Barbara with his son Dana and their cat Cassiopeia. His essays and poems most recently appeared in Harpy Hybrid Review, 3:AM, Fatal Flaw, Rock Salt Journal, and are forthcoming in Sneaker Wave Magazine and TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes.

DOWN

by Matthew Murrey

Some nights I think, 

“What a wretched day. 
Tomorrow has to be 
better.” In the morning I 
ride that hope. How it lifts 
up from this bitter earth.
Maybe food will get through.
Maybe safe walls will shelter 
the terrified and displaced. 
Maybe missiles will stay 
stowed in their crates.
 
How it leaves the ground. 
How wide the wingspan is.
How I watch knowing this 
—like so much captured 
footage these days—
does not end well. 
It climbs, then does not. 
Nose up, it goes down, 
more glide than plunge, 
until it disappears among 
low buildings on the ground.
 
A huge billow of fire 
and black smoke tells me 
more than I want to know.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and the forthcoming collection Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026). Recent poems are in Dissident Voice, One, Anthropocene, and elsewhere. He was a public school librarian for more than 20 years and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.

A POLICY STATEMENT FROM HOMELAND SECURITY

by Pepper Trail

US President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal authorities to ramp up deportation efforts in Democratic-led cities, doubling down on a politicized anti-immigration drive after major protests in Los Angeles. "We must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center," he claimed, citing debunked right-wing conspiracy theories that undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections in significant numbers. —AFP News, June 16, 2025

Welcome to the New America
Homeland Security will not be interrupted
Agents stand ready with their zip-ties
See? The Senator is thrown to the floor
 
Homeland Security will not be interrupted
No dissent, no questions are permitted
The Senator is thrown to the floor
Understand? You are powerless. You are all powerless
 
No dissent, no questions are permitted
Every immigrant is “the worst of the worst”
Understand? You are all powerless.
Don’t want the National Guard? Here are the Marines
 
Every immigrant is “the worst of the worst”
Every day laborer, janitor, and nanny—a criminal

Don’t want the National Guard? Here are the Marines
Let’s be clear—there is nothing we won’t do
 
Every day laborer, janitor, and nanny—a criminal
Nowhere is safe—no school, courthouse, or church
There is nothing we won’t do
We have a mandate. You have no rights
 
Nowhere is safe—no school, courthouse, or church
We will take you, and you are gone.
You have no rights. We have a mandate
We will dispose of you as we please
 
Our agents stand ready with their zip-ties
We will take you, and you are gone
We will dispose of your rights as we please
Welcome to the New America
 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

MADE FOR THESE TIMES

by David Rosenthal

     In memoriam Brian Wilson

If everything is upside down
and backwards, as it seems to be,
then we should see fragility
as virtuous, and hear the sound

of weeping love as strength. We should
behold a penchant to break down
with awe, and bless the hallowed ground
of teary joy and childish good.

A guy I knew in grad school said,
“I’d hate to see the freak who’s well
adjusted to this world.” We tell
ourselves that isn’t us, we’ve fed

our egos with a comforting
belief that someone who adapts
survives. But without a collapse,
without an aching, broken string

of failures, we can never be
resilient, never truly sing
a harmony that makes a wing
of sorrow, fluttering but free.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California. He has contributed to Rattle, HAD, Rust & Moth, Birmingham Poetry Review, Teachers & Writers Magazine, and others. He’s been a Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and Pushcart Nominee. He’s the author of The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things (Kelsay Books).

WE WANT YOU TO KNOW

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

While tanks roll through our streets
We want you to know
We are vulnerable and resilient like you
 
This police state wannabe is not us
We are the fish jumping in the Potomac
The magnolia filling the air
 
We are fireflies testing the night
The bullfrog and the cathedral bell
The convergence of rivers
 
As this martial maelstrom
Storms land and sky
Our osprey nestlings hope only to fledge

 
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and author of Wild Walking, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and City of Trees. Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Plenty Magazine.

CONNECTING THE DISCONNECT

by Dana Yost

“A strange unrest hovers over the nation: / 

This is the last dance.” —Robert Bly, “Unrest”

I wake to the harshest

of dreams. I make a poster

one weekend—photo of a little

girl from Gaza, hungry. Afraid.

Arms reaching out, a begging,

pleading moment—so much

agony on that little face.

I write a caption:

"Please don’t kill me."

I show this to people, and they

say you can't share this: 

it's too terrible, too severe.

So it sits on my desk.

Someone wants me to write

about my earlier days,

But do they really matter?

I try, humoring them, but get

nowhere. Those days seem

puny. Even childhood, formative,

but so far away, lost to thunder

and the blasts of artillery

in another land. Someone says

there is goodness yet. They point

to flowers in a garden

down the street. They smell nice,

but, for me, it doesn't last. A man holds

a woman's hand down at the

beach, but I don’t sit with them.

In Ellay, the masks come

as the faces of hatred serving

power, power serving hatred.

The same. I come from

the same farmland as Robert

Bly, forty years later. The snow

blows across fields, the corn

groans to be born. 

But the prairie is no barrier

to speaking truth about evil,

no hindrance to fulminating

about the big wrongdoing.

I wake from a new dream

alive with anger and clarity:

these words must be said.

I want the men in masks

to lift them from their faces,

join the masses, the evil

to be buried at the point

of a pen. Then, I will sit.

Dana Yost grew up in southwestern Minnesota, an hour from Robert Bly’s farm, forty years after him. But Yost shares Bly’s early interest in taking on the establishment.

TROMPE-L’OEIL

by Suzanne Morris

Whenever I look at the

portrait of him 50 years ago

peering out from beneath

the smart billed cap

of his U.S. Army

dress uniform,

his eyes seem fixed on

grim reality:

he was drafted just before

his 25th birthday

during a war that he

already suspected

we should not be fighting,

and the casualties were

mounting at an alarming rate.

What a relief when he was made

a levee clerk in the Medical Corps,

posted at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Yet... sending others into action

while remaining safely behind

left its own set of scars.

Long after the war was over,

he suffered nightmares

of being under fire in Viet Nam.

I would lay beside him in the dark,

transfixed as he described

in terrifying detail

the first-hand experience of

a combat veteran.

This year I watched the

Memorial Day Concert on PBS,

with patriotic music and

stories of valor—

a resounding tribute to all who had died

defending American ideals

over the last 250 years.

By the time the show closed

with a haunting rendition of Taps

I was clutching his picture

against my heart,

knowing how grim

his face would be

had he lived long enough to see

the abdication of those ideals

by a President afflicted with

gilded bone spurs,

and thinking ahead to the

taxpayer-financed military parade

scheduled in Washington, D.C.

on June 14th,

a faux tribute to the U.S. Army that is

sure to make Trump’s pal Vladimir

red-faced with envy.

Anyone who dares to crash Trump’s

45-million-dollar birthday party

will be met with great force

as in the case of the protests

against his immigration raids in L.A.,

drafting U.S. troops

to engage in a war

they should not be fighting.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet. Her poems have appeared in online journals including The New Verse News and Texas Poetry Assignment, and anthologies including The Senior Class - 100 Poets on Aging (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024). A native Houstonian, she has resided in Cherokee County, Texas, since 2008. 

TO THE DEMOCRATS WAITING FOR MIDTERMS TO SAVE US

by Jenne Kaivo 

The dog that will bow 

when hearing a growl

to placate the foe

is no longer the way.

 

When our foes have fangs

that are ready and mouths 

that are drooling for blood,

to bite back is good.

 

Remember, they go for the throat

to silence and choke.

Make your mark.

Let resistance be shown

 

instead of unheard.

Leave a scar.

Leave an indelible word.

 

It’s a struggle for life.

You must fight if you can

for the young, for the weak

for the foster kids torn from their homes

for the hundreds in CECOT

for the land they would tear up

and stain. 

Let them know

that protectors remain.

Jenne Kaivo saw this shit coming years ago. She lives in California.

PILLOW FROM PALESTINE

by Debra Orben

Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, most of them as they were seeking food from a US-Israeli distribution scheme, according to local health authorities. Medical officials said at least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded as they approached a food distribution centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), near Netzarim in central Gaza. Later in the day, at least 14 people were killed by Israeli gunfire as they were moving towards another GHF distribution site, in Rafah, at Gaza’s southern border. On Tuesday Israeli troops killed 17 Palestinians around GHF sites. –The Guardian, June 11, 2025

           Resting silently on our couch

        a pillow we have had for a long time

off-white woven fabric, hand embroidery,

four rows of a repeating pattern, star flowers

mingled with hearts that touch and overlap

  stitched only in my favorite color, turquoise

  purchased from a friend of a friend visiting

    from the Middle East, selling handwork

      by women, women sewing designs

          to help their families survive 

            and thrive under difficult  

                       circumstances.

 

                 Today, I gaze at our pillow

              soft and lovely in its simple artistry

         noticing only harsh edges and rough reality

     seeing famished faces, bloodshot vacant eyes,

      people devoid of hope, hungry, and destitute

      and the silence of our gentle keepsake mocks

          the unrelenting screams of unheard cries

            ignores the daily suffering of all in Gaza

            cruelty fueled by the fervor of revenge

               an excess of indifference, what more

                  can we do to end war, change

                            circumstances?

Debra Orben is a retired elementary teacher who believes in life-long learning.  She enjoys volunteering with children, gardening, reading, and writing.  She works to plant trees, protect biodiversity, and address climate change.  As a Quaker she believes that all people deserve a just, healthy, and peaceful world.  She appreciates the beauty and diversity of human beliefs and cultures and the diversity of the natural world.  She has much to learn and writes about it.