DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT TILL IT’S GONE

by Debra Orben

A fierce wind blew, background music played,
the crowd flowed along Sellersville’s Main Street,
signs and banners streamed high and low 
as young and old joined in the chant NO KINGS.
 
Conversations swirled around me, as I tried
to steady my handmade sign buffeted 
by gusts of variable winds, changing rules
and alliances, an ongoing litany of losses.
 
Gone in a gale, diversity, equity, inclusion,
swept away in the squall, federal workers
who protected our health, welfare, and security,
anyone who dared mention The Gulf of Mexico.
 
We protested as one, the storm of cruel changes,
the orders of self-proclaimed kings and billionaires
proclamations cutting aid to the poor, new rules
attacking differences and our environment.
 
Grabbed by uncertainty, sensing the agony 
of the poor, undocumented, unrecognized,
I no longer understand my country of birth
our supposed democracy of red, white, and blue. 
 
Our flag appears fragile and tattered
as the federal government turns its back 
on ordinary people, rules, laws, and precedents,
does an about-face on foreign policy.
 
But then I look around me, at banners 
and signs, at wrinkled faces and bent backs,
at young mothers with children in tow,
at men and women who dare say no.

Democracy is here, not only in this small town.
Look for it in schools, libraries, voting booths.
Listen for it in houses of worship,
messages to Congress, letters to the editor.

We won’t know what we’ve lost till it’s gone.
My sign printed on recycled cardboard 
states Diversity, Honesty, Justice Matter.
Like me, keep holding your signs high.
It’s not all gone yet.

Debra Orben is a retired elementary teacher who cares deeply about the world we are leaving for our children. She is grateful to live in a beautiful part of Bucks County, PA and strive to protect the natural world that she is a part of. As a Quaker, she values truth, peace, and integrity. As an aspiring writer, she is mindful of the words she uses and grateful for the power of the words we share.

DISMANTLING THE DEPARTMENT OF DEMOCRATS

by William Palmer

MoveOn

Delete each leg

so there is nothing to stand on.

 

Delete each hand

so no one can point any fingers.

 

Delete each arm

so no one can wave them like bats.

 

Delete each head

so no one can understand.

 

Delete each heart

so no one can care.

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in Ecotone, I-70, JAMA, The New Verse News, One Art and elsewhere. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan. 

SQUIRREL SPOTTING

by Sarah P. Blanchard

Dead Canary Art Print Designed and sold by artfulprovender

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

— T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

Squirrel spotting

A sincere apology for nothing

for doing nothing

for becoming the nothing we have become.

A heartfelt apology in advance

for whatever comes next.

squirrel

Warnings? Of course we had those.

We had our cameras out, recording everything:

grievances, outrages, lies, and the

infinite variations of a canary’s death. We

added our comments to all the

shrill unpleasant alarms

squirrel

raised by popular prophets nodding somberly

at those shrill cries of doom. But too many alarms

were smothered beneath clever ridicule

squirrel

about painted clowns and bitcoin plunges.

Yes we raised shields. But only a few

too late, too slowly, and only after

reading the manual twice. Always

mistaking shields for weapons

squirrel

we searched instead for the familiar

smiling faces of traitors who counseled

easy appeasements, comfortable conciliations

squirrel

while murderers performed overtime.

We were warned about the sky falling

squirrel

but we’re good now. We’ve got our cameras ready.

Sarah P. Blanchard is the author of the novel Drawn from Life, the story collection Playing Chess with Bulls, and a poetry chapbook titled river, horse, morning. A former instructor of English and writing at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, she writes now from her home in northeastern Connecticut.

I HEAR PEOPLE ARE MEMORIZING POEMS AND PRAYERS AGAIN

by Janice Lloyd

Janice Lloyd is a former editor and writer at USA TODAY. She has taken poetry seminars with Danusha Lameris, Richard Blanco, and Major Jackson and is working on her first chap book. 

MY OPEN LETTER TO ALL CHRISTIAN CLERGY FOR LENT

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS

                           for jill, preacher

the season of purple has returned

and you will preach

either giving up or taking on

and for forty days most who listen   will

but what will you say to those

whose lent has been years of forty days

who  so tired

have become shadows

yet those shadows are the ashes

crossed on ash wednesday foreheads . . .

instead of the proclamation

of giving up or taking on

perhaps you could speak for them—

the voiceless

those who have already taken on

perhaps you could speak up

for all the invisible

who must bear alone

their long and savage lent

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024.) She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.  Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City.

MARRIED TO A FIBER ARTIST MARRIED TO JOANN’S

by Dick Altman

A farewell to a beloved emporium that ralllied the
artistic spirits of generations

Your quilting ideas
all begin humble
enough—with a visit
to the base of Joann’s
multi-hued tree,
whose fruit feeds
your artistic passions,
blooming eventually,
perhaps months later,
into fabric canvases,
selected for eyes
of a dozen countries
or more.
 
You don’t create
for the prize.
Your true love,
a love since
childhood,
is breathing life
into your imaginings,
using a paint brush
of needle and thread,
and blossoms
of fabric culled
from Joann’s
garden
of visual delights,
almost beyond
number.
 
Nothing,
it seems,
lies beyond
your reach.
A portrait
of a distant cousin,
wounded
in America’s
Civil War.
Raised arms
whose fingers
transmute
into a ululation
of flames,
recalling conflict
in the Middle East.
A storm at sea,
whose
three dimensional
sea gulls,
appear to rise
off the canvas,
as they
weave themselves
amid waves
seeking to touch
the clouds.
 
I often stand
in wonder—
I who struggle
to turn a patchwork
of words
into a caress of lines—
as you sketch
your ideas into being,
with a sureness,
I could never wring
from a first draft.
You call Joann’s
your bazaar
of inspiration.
I call it
a spinning wheel
of miracles.

Storm at Sea—Dance of the Gulls by Holly Altman

 
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, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  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.

CLEVER KEIR

by Paul A. Freeman

The praises of Trump suck-ups sing,
While others try kissing the ring.
To dodge such debasement,
Keir found a replacement—
An invite from Charlie, our King.

Paul A. Freeman is an English teacher. He is the author of Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel taught at ‘O’ level in Zimbabwean high schools and which has been translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul is the author of scores of published short stories, poems and articles. He is a member of the Society of Authors and of the Crime Writers’ Association, and has appeared several times in the CWA’s annual anthology. He works and resides in Mauritania, Africa.

RIP JOHN DONNE

by Lynn White

No man is an island wrote Donne
centuries ago.
He understood the predicament
understood
that man, or woman
is one part
of a whole
which is one part
of something larger
and so on
into mind-blowing infinity.

No man, or woman can stand alone
and reach their potential 
in isolation
or when isolated
on some small island 
however grandiose
the delusion.

An island alone cannot thrive,
except here in Britain of course,
so it was once said by some.

And now,
what now
when it stands 
triangulated 
in the centre 
of three egos, 
Trump, Putin 
and Zelenskyy.
Stuck in the middle
of such super egos,
TPZ Keir Starmer.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

And now, 

THE WORLD AFTER MORALITY

by Philip Kitcher

Cartoon by Zez Vaz

In honor of his troops, he comes in black.
To save his shattered nation he needs aid.
He’s desperate.  The last defense may crack.
Their only interest: to be obeyed.
 
No ghost from Bucha whispers in this room,
a precinct where the truth is not allowed.
He craves security.  They talk of doom.
He asks for help.  They offer him a shroud.
 
Their callous lips mouth platitudes of peace,
heedless of all the wounds his people feel.
Their “gift”: an interval for war to cease—
and, in exchange, demand that he should kneel.
 
More than a nation’s honor’s left for dead;
they do more than encourage future strife;
the damage wreaked within this room will shred
the moral fabric that sustains our life.
 
What are these creatures in their costly suits,
obsessed with vulgar thoughts of squalid gain?
Do they know what divides us from the brutes?
We’re fully human as we are humane.
 
Indifferent to their or others’ crimes,
to any words a moralist might pen:
what foul distemper has convulsed our times
to vomit forth such parodies of men?

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

BOTH DOORS ARE OPEN

by Joanne De Simone Reynolds

Will he be called back at last

Or granted a stay—

The ultimate ordinary Francis

Reassuring the faithful

Shepherding

The convert

As to ordo amoris

(Heart of the father)

(Mother to each and all)

(Delicate radiant essence)

Refers to Aquinas—

Love dilates the heart

 

What could be more

catholic than that?

Fit to write to the last letter

The ultimate ordinary Francis

Says in essence—

Advance the orders 

Of your heart

Reassuring the faithful

Reminding the convert

Of what it can mean

(A pasture)

To the lost the least . . . the last 

Joanne De Simone Reynolds has been an ekphrastic poetry participant in Art On The Trails at Beals Preserve in Southborough, Massachusetts for many years.She won first prize in poetry in 2022 and was poetry judge in 2023. Her series of sixteen ekphrastic poems for 2020 Art Ramble, in Concord, Ma, can be viewed online alongside images of the sculptures at theumbrellaarts.org.

THERE ARE STILL WONDERFUL THINGS AWAITING DISCOVERY

by Joan Leotta

A new butterfly was recently discovered in Italy. It was identified in the woods of the province of Cosenza in Calabria by researchers from CREA, the Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics. The scholars decided to dedicate their discovery to Giulio Regeni, the young researcher from Friuli who was tortured and killed in Egypt in 2016 by christening the insect with the name Diplodoma giulioregenii. —La Voce di New York, February 18, 2025

In Calabria, in a forest my  grandfather might have once explored, scientists are touting the discovery of a previously unknown species  of butterfly—dappled as if its golden wings were brushed by forest shadows, like today’s  shadows of poverty, of war. But still, the creature’s alive,  beautiful, and new to us,  its dappled color  perhaps the very reason this unique dna specimen was not noticed earlier. The scientists named it for a young Italian researcher cut down by violence in Cairo in 2016. This butterfly both new life, and momento mori, named for,  reminding us of a young man whose joy was in  discovering new things, reminding us that the thrill of the discovery of new beauty of gentle creatures like this  butterfly whose wings can fan the warm calm air  of love over us, if only we open our eyes to search for them. Welcome, we salute you, “Diplodoma giulioregenii” Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She’s been published as essayist, poet, short story writer, novelist, and a two-time nominee for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her poetry and stories have appeared in Spillwords,  One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, The Lake, and many others. She performs folktale programs most often highlighting  food, family, and strong women and has just debuted a one-woman show, “Meet Louisa May Alcott, Nurse and a Force in Healing America post Civil War.” Contact joanleotta[at]gmail[dot]com .

THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

If you can see the moon from your window
even through the wall of branches
then it is calling you to worship.
Hard to stay in bed,
impossible to stay in the house.  
If you can see the moon from the front porch,
you can see raccoons and the seven doe
in blue shadows. The owl wonders
what you are doing here.  Thick
wandering roots reach from the trees, 
dusted with a skin of snow, like veins 
on the backs of your hands going 
where they must go. 
If you can see the moon from Earth,
the cataclysm is still in the future.
Your breath is a cloud without shape.

Elizabeth Kerlikowske’s latest chapbook is Falling Women, with painter Mary Hatch.

CRUELTY

by Bonnie Naradzay

Some people say
that, having stopped 
reading the news, they 
feel better.
 
The old Chinese poets
remind me to include
today’s weather report
in each poem.
 
Dr Issam Abu Ajwa said
he was forced to sleep
on a floor covered with small, 
sharp rocks, hands and legs tied,
eyes blindfolded.
 
The weather is warm this week—
in fact, the cherry blossoms
here are projected to peak
somewhat earlier this spring.
 
Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia
was tortured for seven months 
then released without charge. 
“I was clubbed, beaten with rifle butts, 
attacked by dogs. I was beaten so badly 
I couldn’t use my legs or walk, he said.
 
Dr Ahmad Mhanna, director
of al-Awda hospital in north Gaza, 
has been in Israeli prisons 
more than a year without charge.
 
Nightfall here, and the evening
becomes a still life—
it glistens like a Chinese lantern
in a garden without strife.
 
Some people try to memorize
a meaningful poem one line
at a time as a way to neutralize 
the news.  In severe winter cold
 
seven children froze to death
in Gaza in the last 48 hours
but today’s weather elsewhere
is quite pleasant overall.

Bonnie Naradzay’s manuscript will be published this year by Slant Books.  For years, she has led weekly poetry sessions at homeless shelters and a retirement community.  Poems, three of which have been nominated for Pushcarts, have appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Tampa Review, EPOCH, Dappled Things, and other places. While at Harvard she was in Robert Lowell’s class on “The King James Bible as English Literature.” In 2010 she was awarded the University of New Orleans Poetry Prize – a month’s stay in Northern Italy – in the South Tyrol castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary.  There, Bonnie had tea with Mary, hiked the Dolomites, and read drafts of Pound’s translations. 

NOW THERE IS NOTHING NEW

by Eric Nicholson

Keir Starmer has announced that Britain will “fight for peace in Europe” with a generational increase in defence spending paid for by slashing the foreign aid budget. The move, just two days before the prime minister is due to meet Donald Trump, raised immediate concerns that he was pandering to the US president, and fury from aid groups that say it could cost lives in countries that rely on UK support. —The Guardian, February 25, 2025

Now there is nothing new,

The Minister of Fear has spoken,

We are vulnerable, we must meet force with force

And station Destroyers on the Thames.

Now there is nothing new,

We stand naked on the beaches, in the fields, in the hills

As icy gusts of fear whip across the seas.

Now there is nothing new.

Footsoldiers and tanks must protect our shores,

Drones and jets must command our air space,

Battle ships defend our coastline.

Now there is nothing new.  

Factories must go into overdrive,

Re-armament is good for Growth,

Our conveyor belts must convey security,

Fear must be assembled night and day.

Now there is nothing new.

Office windows must be blacked out,

Street lights switched off,

The London Underground prepared.

Now there is nothing new.

Rule Britannia.

Let the younger generation 

Fight the good fight,

MAD is might is right:

Now there is nothing new.

Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher residing in the UK. He remembers protesting as a member of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in his younger years. He does not often write political poetry but in today's climate finds it difficult not to.