YESTERDAY'S WREN

by Al Ortolani

My feet are cold. My financial
value is diminishing. I am baffled
by the future, except for my
demise, which is guaranteed
by the history of birds like me.
Birds who sing as if today
is forever, as if all we need is 
enough seed, a few twigs for
a nest, and the egg we share
with its speckled shell, protected
by Social Security, by Medicare,
by whatever we gave ourselves
yesterday when we planned for 
tomorrow, which is cracking today.
I am memorizing country codes
so I can use my phone to call for help.
Hello Portugal, this is an American 
wren speaking, can I rent a birdhouse? 
I am a Boomer. I won’t sing for long.

Al Ortolani, a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize, has been featured in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, and George Bilgere’s Poetry Town. He was the recipient of the Bill Hickok Humor Award from I-70 Review. He’s a contributing editor to the Chiron Review.

WE'RE SITTING AROUND A TABLE NOT FAR FROM THE RUSSIAN BORDER

by Ron Riekki

A Chinese artist, a Russian musician, and American poet,

and we talk about surveillance, sharing how dangerous it is

to be an artist, after speaking with a local who told us about

the tensions with Russia, how they're like a choking fog,

and the musician from Russia says it's all propaganda there,

says she doesn't care, that her voice will never be voiceless,

tells us about being taken in by the Russian police and how

she brutalized them with truth, was let go, and then let go

of her country, emigrating, immigrating, Euro-ricocheting around,

and hanging out with Pussy Riot, doing anti-war campaigns,

and we speak of the ten percent of the Russian population

being tortured, and she speaks of physical torture and

emotional torture and the torture of propaganda, and

the Chinese artist talks about holding up signs in Hong

Kong that were all white, not allowed to have signs with

actual words, so this haunting image, this effective image

of hundreds of artists and writers and protestors and students

holding up these white signs, ghost signs meant to haunt

politicians, and the American poet talks about being hunted

by the Trump administration for a pro-Islamic, pro-immigrant

tweet, how the administration administered paperwork to his

home, pages and pages and pages of warning, how watched

we are everywhere, he says, he thinks, he feels, and we are

near the Russian border, except it's shut down, too dangerous,

and here we are, doing art that is too dangerous, and having

this conversation that is too dangerous, so dangerous that

we turn off our phones to make sure we are not being listened

to, because we want to create the form of our words, rush

home and turn our conversations into lyrics and artwork

and this poem you are reading now, written near a border

that is rotting with worry, a border that lacks moonlight tonight.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

WAY OF LIFE FOR THREE YOUNG WOMEN

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer 

in observance of International Women’s Day

Elizabeth 

20 years old,

junior at an elite US university,

majors in physics.

Awarded a summer internship,

she will fly to Asia,

live at a Japanese university

while conducting research.

 

 

Gabriella

tiene 20 años,

completed high school, 

college beyond reach,

worked menial village jobs

until employment options dried up.

She will travel a perilous journey 

to the US in search of new opportunities. 

 

 

Bahija

تبلغ من العمر 20 عاما

student at college

on a campus now rubble, 

her family is no more, all slaughtered.

Hunger, destruction, death are her relatives.

When bombings start she runs to unsafe shelters

pleading with the world, why are you not helping us?

Author’s Note: UN International Women's Day, March 8, occurs during Women's History Month.  The UN resolution declares "full enjoyment of human rights...(requires women's) active participation, equality and development..." To honor its intention, I imagine and enter into the stories of three women "internationally" to illustrate vast differences in their lived experiences. While there has been modest advancement in some parts of the world, we have a long way to go globally in realizing the UN resolution.

 

Joanne Kennedy Frazer, a former justice and peace educator/director for faith based entities, enjoys spending her silvering years writing poetry and publishing in numerous anthologies, journals, and ezines. Her work is informed by social justice concerns and beauty of the natural world. She has written two chapbooks. Most recently, Seasonings (Kelsay Press) has been nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award.  She lives in Durham, NC.

THE ROLE OF THE POET

by Bonnie Naradzay

Israeli soldiers will not face criminal prosecution for the death of an elderly Palestinian-American man who was stopped at a checkpoint, dragged from a car, bound and blindfolded and then left unresponsive on the ground overnight after apparently suffering a heart attack due to his rough treatment. —AlJazeera, June 14, 2023. Photo: Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank village of Qafin on May 30, 2023 [File: Majdi Mohammed/AP via AlJazeera]

I am thinking of the role of the poet

is it to read through the morning news

and try on the horrors of people’s lives

like today reading again about 

the 78year old American stopped 

by IDF soldiers in the West Bank at night

during a “routine incursion” in the village

of Jiljilya since after the man was dragged

from his car for 200 meters he was gagged 

his wrists bound was left face down for hours

in a cold warehouse with others called 

“detainees” by the news report that said

after hours like that he was found dead 

but his death could not be determined 

to be caused “specifically” by anything

the soldiers had done after leaving him 

which was their routine since he was also 

Palestinian and so the case was closed 

or is the job of the poet to imagine being 

forced to cross the border into Belarus 

or Mexico at gunpoint or watch again 

the video of the Greek Coast Guard

rounding up asylum seekers, including

young children, then taking them to sea,

abandoning them on a raft.  Or is the poet

called on to describe the patterns of leaves 

as someone suggested to me without irony.

Bonnie Naradzay’s poems haver appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Kenyon Review, Tampa Review, EPOCH, and many other sites. She was awarded the New Orleans MFA’s poetry prize:  a month’s stay in the castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary.  For many years, Bonnie has led regular poetry sessions at shelters for the homeless and at a retirement center, all in Washington, D.C.

THE OTHER NEW YORK

by Susana H. Case

A view shows a petrol station, which bears the name of New York in Donetsk Region, Ukraine March 3, 2021. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich. See also Wikipedia.

There is a town called New York in Ukraine.

Stalin gave it a Soviet name that didn't stick.

Many of its houses are empty,

along with the streets and parks.

Young people dream of leaving.

At the store in the town center,

they are out of bread.

In a room with balloons, a child

holds a chocolate and cherry birthday cake,

while the sound of gunfire blasts out

a few miles away. How naive we are

about power, profits—like children holding sparklers.

The few adults at the birthday party fret an errant 

artillery round might hit the chemical plant.

Even in peacetime, it spits out fumes 

from phenol production into the air. 

The streets are worn and tired.

Oh, New York: where is your Donetsk Times Square

full of excited tourists, your skyscrapers

that cause neck aches from people looking up in awe?

Where are your people—like in that other 

New York, the American one—who complain 

how much they suffer because the air is chilly,

the bus ten minutes late?

Susana H. Case has authored eight books of poetry, most recently The Damage Done (Broadstone Books, 2022). Dead Shark on the N Train (Broadstone Books, 2020) won a Pinnacle Book Award for Best Poetry Book, a NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite, and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. She co-edited, with Margo Taft Stever, the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk and Cake Press, 2022).

THREE FLAGS

by Diane Elayne Dees

On my walks to the river, I pass
many American flags, and—
while I don’t like to judge—
I think I know what they stand for. 
In front of one house 
is a large Confederate flag,
and I’m sure I know what that stands for. 
Then, one day, I walk around the corner,
and am surprised and thrilled to see 
a huge rainbow flag in a neighbor’s yard.
The next day, an American flag is hung 
next to it. I wonder if the neighbor hung
the second flag as a means of protection;
I let my imagination run away with me. 
The following day, a third giant flag
appears next to the others—a flag
reminding me to vote for the two
most evil and incompetent men
I can recall having power in my lifetime.
Collective delusion has destroyed
cognitive dissonance. The red, white
and blue of democracy and the 
bright yellow and green and purple
of nature’s prism lift my spirits.
But now, every day, when I turn 
the corner, the colors of diversity
and freedom hurt my eyes,
trigger blood-red visions,
and intimate a sky so dark,

no rainbow can ever be visible.

Diane Elayne Dees's poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, and she has two chapbooks forthcoming. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women's professional tennis throughout the world.

NOT QUITE AMERICAN

by Myriam Arias

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A legal team that recently interviewed over 60 children at a Border Patrol station in Texas says a traumatic and dangerous situation is unfolding for some 250 infants, children and teens locked up for up to 27 days without adequate food, water and sanitation. —NBC News, June 21, 2019

You always have been a lonely traveler,
haven’t you?

Lonely girl with no home;
your body is a house that you are not yet familiar with.

A country you were not born in
but you’re told it’s yours
you’re told it’s lovely
and if you could only see it.

But your body feels more like an almost
Like the distance between your mother’s hands and her home country
A space you don’t really belong in
but force yourself into.

An almost-
Mexicana
Americana
Que eres?
Niña de piel morena
con corazón de arcoiris.

You are the scars on your Mama’s back
and the gold coins in your Papa’s pocket.

Both a blessing and curse
you do not belong here.

What gave you the right
to sit in this American dream?

Dilute your adobe eyes
with the glimmer of white picket fences and nuclear families.

Let this sweet American air
fill the space in your lungs?

Inflate.
Deflate.

Your body will reject it.
Too sweet.

Lines of poems you will never write
will coat the inside of your mouth.

Choke on your words.
Swallow them.

     They do not quite belong here.

Myriam Arias is a third-year writing and literature major at University of California, Santa Barbara. She hopes her art moves forward her narrative and those of others like her so that their voices will be heard.

#HEATHERHEYER

by S.O.Fasrus

Detail from the Cable Street Mural, a large mural painting in the East End of London apinted by Dave Binnington Savage, Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort between 1979 and 1983 to commemorate the street battle in October 1936 against Oswald Moseley and his fascist Black Shirts’ march down Cable Street.

Why the Nazis came to Charlottesville.
And why I was wrong not to confront them.

—Siva Viadhyanathan, The New York Times, August 14, 2017

Ha!

She will not watch from side walks

she will not shrug

and shop.

Speak my language

dare to care

share

think

this crusade will not be rained upon.

Scribble through the night

we wear our placards

high

our fashion will never weary—

proud

clear

and dear

we know who we are

you know who we stand for.

We are our own headlines

our own music—

we are the song you think you heard before

we are the old song with new words

we are the tune from your cradle

This is OUR parade.

OUR parade.

Our parade

is American

It's American.

Ha!

SHE did not watch from side walks

SHE did not shrug

and shop.

S.O.Fasrus has verses at LUPO and is currently writing a YA novel.

FIVE EXPLANATIONS

by Gilbert Allen

Kudzu kills or damages other plants by smothering them under a solid blanket of leaves, encircling woody stems and tree trunks, and breaking branches or uprooting entire trees and shrubs. Once established, kudzu grows at a rate of one foot per day; mature vines can be 100 feet long. Kudzu was introduced into the U.S. at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. From 1935 to the mid-1950s, farmers in the South were encouraged to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion. Kudzu is spread by vines that root at the nodes to form new plants. To successfully control kudzu, its extensive root system must be completely eradicated by cutting vines just above the ground and mowing every month for two growing seasons—all cut material must be destroyed. The U.S. Forest Service is searching for biological control agents for kudzu. —The Nature Conservancy

1. Next to that red American clay, bare
and beckoning as a billionaire’s
baseball cap, it seemed
like a giant green blessing.

2. What else to eat in Nagasaki
in September, 1945,
but its white
indestructible roots?

3. Without kudzu, April in South Carolina
would be too full of blue
skies, flowering dogwoods, azaleas
and itself.

4. Men planted it.
Pigs love it.
Why can’t men be pigs?

5. After the first cold Tuesday in November
it still gives death
a good name.


Gilbert Allen has lived in South Carolina for forty years. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

A SCRAP OF FOUND PARCHMENT (TO AN ATHENIAN SWIMMER)

by Jenna Le

Ryan Lochte explains how a Trojan wall ran into his chariot.

Do you believe you deserve your leisure, drunk spraddle-legged
boy? Did you earn it under the walls of Troy?

You boast that laurel wreathes your brow, but neglect to mention
windblown leaves are piled high
on the juncture of your thighs. Well, if one spends enough time outdoors,
plant life isn’t hard to come by.


Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Anchor & Plume Press, 2016). Her poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations appear or are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Bellevue Literary Review, The Best of the Raintown Review, Denver Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, The Village Voice, and elsewhere.

THE SECOND BOMB

by Frederick Shiels 

Source: Yamahata photographs © Shogo Yamahata, The Day After the Nagasaki Bombing. The Japan Peace Museum via Morningside Center

Honorable Americans:
​there are not many of us left who were there,​
​to remind you that seventy August 9ths ago
you finished your war job
and 75,000 of our lives on green Kyushu island
three days and three mourning hours after killing even more--
Who knows how many?--
on big Honshu to the north, you ​well ​know ​the name,
Hiroshima, you teach it in your schools.
To be sure, we are linked with ​her​
​our  second, final​, high
superheated mushroom of death
​​Y​our Mr. Truman
didn’t give a speech about Us, we guess he just left
our boiling harbor, our children’s ashes
floating down
like leaves
for days,
to work things out
for themselves.​



Frederick Shiels teaches American foreign policy and history at Mercy College in New York. He has published in Sixfold, The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology, and elsewhere. He lived with his family on Kyushu Island, Japan, as a Fulbright Scholar, in 1985, the fortieth anniversary year of the bombing of Nagasaki, not far south. He is the author of a book of foreign policy case studies Preventable Disasters (Rowman & Littlefield) among others. 

THE FALL OF CECIL

Photograph of Cecil taken by Brent Stapelkamp before the lion was killed by the American dentist in July 2015. Source: White Wolf Pack.      Anne Graue is a poet and writing instructor living in New York. Her poems appear in Ginosko Literary Journal, The Westchester Review, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly,  American Tanka,  and The New Verse News.