DECEMBER 2024

a Golden Shovel poem based on a line from Wendell Berry’s “Sabbaths 2005 I”

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

distressed     appalled     by all    this

     i set alight    the Christmas Candle

       illumine my soul    against

darkness of hatred    of evil      that the

          culture      carries in the wind

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations. She began writing in her early 70s, and has now been published more than 80 times in anthologies, on-line zines, and magazines. Five poems have been turned into a song cycle titled Resistance by composer Steven Luksan and performed in Seattle and Durham. Her latest chapbook Seasonings (Kelsay Books) was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. She lives in Raleigh, NC.

THE DEMOCRATS' POST-MORTEM 2024

by William Aarnes

Graphic credit: Eniola Odetunde  Axios

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

What tactic worked? Beyoncé’s walk-on song?

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

Resentful people rule. So why inflame

them more with hopeful talk they hear as wrong?    

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

You’d think by now we’d play a better game.    

Why hint at climate? Why not go along—

back fossil fuels? We have ourselves to blame.

The ads we ran were far too nice. So tame.

Why not something like Haitians don’t belong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

Our nuanced stances came across as lame.    

Why didn’t we present ourselves as strong  

enough to bring—in days!—world peace? We’re to blame.

Next time let’s make attracting men our aim.

Why didn’t we bring up that golfer’s schlong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

2024 CAN BE A YEAR OF DELIGHT, PROMISES A TIMES COLUMNIST

by Devon Balwit

Quilter Delight Painting by Karla Gerard

The basic premise of a delight practice (which I learned about in the essay collection “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay) is simple: You make a point to notice things in your everyday life that delight you… Then whenever you notice something that delights you, you lift your arm, raise your index finger in the air and say, out loud and with enthusiasm, “Delight!” (Yes, even if you’re alone.) —Catherine Price, The New York Times, December 31, 2023

I hold up a finger and say Delight!—two shelf mushrooms

in a hollow tree, a squirrel hanging by its feet. I zoom

in on the electric green of moss, a red leaf peeking

from wood chips. Always the teacher’s pet, if seeking

wonder is the task, I’ll find it, if only for the gold

star next to my name on the chart. Behold

the shining face of a baby at the bar, the daffy

hound, a Beethoven riff that makes me laugh! 

 

Expressing simple gratitude does get old—

the litany of health, family, shelter—but marvels

are singular. Even the same street shifts

with the light. I read the essay to the end sold,

ready to dash out and see what’s revealed

as the world sheathes its terrors and bares its gifts.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather and has rediscovered her love of cartooning. Her most recent collection, Spirit Spout [Nixes Mate Books, 2023], storms through Melville’s Moby Dick.

THE PURSUIT

by Alejandro Escudé

Once I thought it was Nietzsche’s

Übermensch crawling up the Minority

Leader’s arm, a furry man, but no 

Sasquatch, a green hue around it.

But then I came to realize it was

Aristotle, his arched beetle back 

On the President’s shoulders, 

having lapped up the milk of logic. 

A stone cave for a poet to live in

and call out of, the trees out there

appearing as just so many lies.

One enters a labyrinth of razors

in the city, having been cooped up

in the house for many months.

Ever noticed that driving fast

is a form of geekiness? I sink

into a neutral speed, observing,

as Whitman did, the dead grass

of the center median. Airliners

crisscross the sky at different

depths of air. Nothing collides.

People only collide with them-

selves these days. Conflict, if 

it takes place at all, takes place

in whispers over false transoms. 

At night, looking up at the stars,

one sees no nature, only an urban

concentration of skyscrapers

formed of galaxies, planet rings

on-ramps and off-ramps, screams

suppressed by cynical tweets, 

statues masking WiFi towers.

I’ve been wrong before, but not

about this. Truth is dead because

truth is romantic. I bring you

to the end of this long car chase

and I bail out, a chopper over me,

its lights illuminating the way 

in or out of the television screen.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.