SUDANESE LAMENT

by Maia Justine Storm 

Escaping Darfur: Mothers face starvation under trees in Chad —Al Jazeera, June 26, 2026

i give her a breast

that is empty

 

a bowl 

that is broken

 

a cracked cup

 

i offer my daughter

weeds and leaves

 

crushed and boiled

 

but she 

is too hungry to eat them

and i am too sad 

to cry

Maia Justine Storm is a 78-year-old woman living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has been an immigration attorney for 25 years and has returned to her adolescent dream of being a poet. Most recently, she has been published in the Poetry Superhighway where she was a Poet of the Week, haikuniverse, Antifa Lit Journal, The Mersey Review, Shot Glass Journal, and forthcoming issues of several more journals.

HATE

by  F.I. Goldhaber

Hands up, don't shoot. Outrage in Missouri over police shooting of black teen #MichaelBrown http://pic.twitter.com/ziXRNVgeUf http://youtu.be/NRaqVIcXIdk

Billy said we didn't start the fire
But the world burns.
Muslims slaughter Christians in Iraq.
Yazidi flee.
Israelis and Gaza break truce once more.
ISIS fights Kurds.
Indians gang rape women daily.
Exiles swarm Chad.
Russia marches on Ukraine again.
Pakistan riots.
Azerbaijans kill Armenians.
Al-Qaeda plots.
Boko Haram kidnaps young girls, boys.
Syria bleeds.

And in the land of the free cops kill.
Unarmed black men
executed by police daily.
Four black deaths in
one month capture the nation's concern.
But we don't learn
of so many more who die only
because their skin
color offended men of privilege.
Driving while black
in U.S., a capital offense.
Mothers teach sons
to raise hands, acquiesce ... but still
must bury them.


After more than three decades, poet and storyteller  F.I. Goldhaber continues writing professionally. As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, she produced words for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states.