EMPTY HORIZONS

by James Schwartz 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." —Ephesians 2:8-9

Prayers heard 

Or unheard,

Spiritual delusion 

Per authorities, 

Summer's end

She could not, 

Walk on water

As the voices, 

Had commanded 

She had failed,

He had failed 

A test of faith,

As the voices 

Grew louder,

After the lake 

Recieved them,

Highly emotional 

Surfacing diver,

As the voices 

Grew louder. 

Submerged prayers for

A salvation.

Cast into

Empty horizons.

Authors Note: The Amish communities can have a lack of access to professional mental health care and resources. Two mental health crisis resources are 988 and www.nami.org. My condolences to all affected by this tragedy. 

James Schwartz is a poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011) and most recently Big Island Beatnik (Alien Buddha Press, 2025). @queeraspoetry. 

AMISH GOLDEN AGE

by James Schwartz 

America's famously private Amish people are unreachable by phone or email and refuse to have TVs in their homes. But that didn't stop members of the conservative Christian group turning out on polling day in a trend that appears to have helped Donald Trump win Pennsylvania. —MailOnline, November 6, 2024

I'm walking down Piquette,  

& John R.

Past abandoned Harris-Walz signs,

& ochre brickwork,

On a crisp afternoon, 

After the election 

In Motor City,

Coffee & Sugar Sweet Donut ™ 

In hand,

Heading to work, 

Past the 

Construction workers,

Who shout,

Over their machinery din,

"What the election?!...

I'll tell you what happened with the election...

The Mexicans & those racist ass 

Amish people!"

Their laughter,

Carried by the wind,

In our coming Amish Golden Age,

Or 

Old Order Apocalypse. 

James Schwartz is a Detroit based poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (2011), Punatic (2019), Motor City Mix (2022) and most recently Some Are and Most Aren't and It's Always Been Like That: Selected Poems 2004-2024 from Alien Buddha Press. @queeraspoetry 

AMISH HISTORY LESSON

by James Schwartz

What are you studying?

My Amish father peers at my homework,

History—Martin Luther King Jr.

“We are to be separate from the World,”

Dad explains our Michigan segregation, 

Why no Amish men marched with King,

15 years before my birth, 

150 miles away in Detroit, 

Down Woodward Avenue, 

“Walk to Freedom.”

But we did not walk, never hearing, 

His psalm of brotherhood. 

James Schwartz is a poet & author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City Mix, Sunset in Rome (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He resides in Detroit, Michigan.

THE GREAT AMERICAN AMISH POWER TRIP

by James Schwartz 

Now, some Amish across northern Ohio find themselves clashing with a new state law designed to reduce accidents and enhance traffic safety by requiring flashing yellow lights on Amish buggies and other animal-drawn vehicles. …officers have been issuing citations, and some Amish have been summonsed into courts across northern Ohio on minor misdemeanor charges punishable by a roughly $150 fine. In Ashland County, some Amish are citing their religious beliefs and have told a judge they don't plan to obey the law and that "paying a fine is not an option." —The Daily Record, November 18, 2022

Memories of Monarch butterflies amid spring songs, clover flowers behind the old weatherbeaten shed, the Gregorian-esque voices in praise, the harmonies to heaven, the crisp white shirts, stark black pants & dresses, descendants of martyred interpretations, heretics of our own making, motherless rebels inter-bred in a defiant democracy. We will not guard the Holy Father. We hustle our humble wares amid warfare, bloody handed Bishops playing God, #AmishTikTok survivors. The sinful government wants to lower the body count. Ohio Bishops flex, above the law, statistics be damned, warning signs on dark roads & lost harmonies to the Lord. 

James Schwartz is a poet & author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City Mix, Sunset in Rome (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He resides in Detroit, Michigan.

ELECTRIC DREAMS

by James Schwartz 

ElectReon, a wireless and in-road wireless electric vehicle charging technology company, will deploy its first public wireless EV charging road system in Michigan… ElectrRon's charging infrastructure can wireless charge EVs while they are in motion and stationary. The company said it is the first in the world to be successfully demonstrated on public roads. —WXYZ Detroit, February 2, 2022

I dreamt of all the roads I have walked upon,

Beginning with the long gravel swath,

Cutting through the Midwestern countryside,

Running parrellel to the Amish farm,

Housing my earliest memories,

Of March mud puddles,

Mom buckling my boots,

A nearby creek that roared,

Today is a drainage ditch,

Tamed into a narrow ribbon,

Trickling through a culver,

The dream shifts sequence,

I-75 southbound to Sarasota,

Above the quiet fog,

Palms line the boulevards,

I walked twenty years ago,

Another shift through Spanish moss,

To a red clay road,

Outside Tallahassee,

Another shift,

Through South Pacific sunlight,

Another red road,

This one of cinder,

Curving through,

The Kapoho rainforest,

Up and down Noni Farms Road,

I walked so many times,

I no longer needed the moonlight,

To navigate the now desolate,

Steaming onyx field,

Closer to Kilauea,

Lies Chain of Craters road,

For this walk,

I am accompanied by,

A happy dog,

A shift: 

The City of Refuge,

A shift: 

Across the ocean,

The Olympic National Park,

Houses green, wet,

Shimmering, sacred memories,

Roads in Mexico,

Are bloodstained with history,

The streets of Rosarita bustle,

Dreams never conclude,

Logically,

But here I am,

Waiting on the bus,

On M1,

The first mile,

Of paved highway,

In the US,

Not far from,

The old Ford factory,

As I awaken,

To historical headlines,

Heralding the news 

Of an electric charging road,

Coming to the D,

I cling to,

The last dream fragments,

Where I am walking,

Tomorrow.

James Schwartz is a poet, writer, slam performer and author of 5 poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America. Twitter: @queeraspoetry

WAYS OF THE WORLD

by James Schwartz 

Amish delegation visits White House on December 20, 2019.

No, the televisions, radios, cars, 

Are not for Our People.

No, the televisions, radios, cars, 

Are the Ways of the World.

No, Amish don't enlist: conscientious objectors,

Christ commands to turn our cheek.

Yes, they cheer at his rallies,

About building walls,

No, My People,

Are lost to the Ways of the World.

Yes, the World is a battlefield.

Not for me. 

#NoWarWithIran 

James Schwartz is a poet, writer,  slam performer & author of 5 poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America. Twitter @queeraspoetry

BEING AM-ISH IN AN OLYMPIAD WORLD

by Krista Genevieve Farris

Image source: LGBTAmish.com

I got a call sometime last summer. He was shunned.
I wasn't allowed to cry, the conversation was never about me
but of his death and her muncha muncha on his segmented life,
the unfurling of her wings and a fighting not to be cliché butterfly fragile flight.

I consumed our youth, chewed on Polaroid bits,
tried to digest as I kicked the covers. Didn't say-
it hurt to swallow jigsawed shots  
it slashed each time I couldn't utter his name.

I gurgled I love you with a bloody throat
bi-sected, di-ssected- am-ish- the shunning- her-of-him
the sister who wears make-up, whose hair curls just so,
the one who tells me what it is to be a woman.

She is not Caitlyn Jenner. I am not a cool Kardashian.
We don't have implants, an airbrush, good lighting or awards.
I didn't hear her called beautiful 10 times today
or a hero when she kept her factory job.

He was. They were. She is.
We are.
I am.


Krista Genevieve Farris lives in Winchester, Virginia with her husband and three sons. Her recent poems, essays and stories can be found in The Literary Bohemian, Right Hand Pointing, Cactus Heart, Shot Glass Journal, The Screech Owl, Brain, Child Magazine, Mamalode, Literary Mama, The Rain, Party and Disaster Society, Indiana Voice, Tribeca Poetry Review and elsewhere.