STANDING UP, POURING OUT

by L. Lois

Vancouverites rallied at the U.S. Consulate [last month] to protest the imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports. —City News, March 4, 2025

runways paved through city
blocks for us to walk
places to put our protest
cars stopped
by the coupling of bodies
massing to chant
the poison must be choked
 
texting the message
email chains binding keyboard wrists
worn raw by tyranny
feet shuffling out the door
marching down
cement plazas giving way
to anger echoing between the buildings
 
hubris weights its own downfall
compassion and arrogance
feel the same in a cold heart
the court jester turns to inform
sacred trust scattered across ballots
gathered by the greedy
presumes civility requires passivity
 
voices lift
to swing their signs
feet pound
freedom's patience
taxed and thin
hydrants knock open
spewing cleansing

Author’s note: As a Canadian, I will be joining the April 5th mass movement by gathering with other concerned global citizens outside the US Consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia.

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Breakfast, Open JA&L, Fictional Cafe, The Mid-Atlantic Review, Washington Square Review, Sparks of Calliope, and other literary publications.

A PROSE-BENT ODE: THE HEAVY VULTURES DO APPEAR, NOW

by L. Lois

Source: Florida Wildlife Trappers

The sky is empty, no hint of cloud, the heavy, dark arc of vultures sweeping low over a world of forgetting. They move in silence, gliding like quick lies from innumerable podcast hosts, words slipping through open doors, hands out for cash, voices telling us there’s nothing left but acquiescence. A slumber here, a kind of wasting, my monsters creep like political dinosaurs too ancient to roar, just the hum of their presence, the crazy crawl of flies, the air filled with echoes of something about to be erased. 

I thought once of building something here— 

an arts sanctuary or maybe a place for fragile things, the way my

 mother cupped her hands

 around a broken bird, holding it in her palms.

 Softest down cradled,

 a thing that didn’t know it could die.

 Like a passkey made of wax,

 the promise of security so thin I felt it would slip away

 under the heat of my fingers.

 But we kept pressing forward— 

as if to stave off the tragedies of suffering, 

telling ourselves that calm and order were always enough. 

This is where reason goes to sleep, 

but we forget, in the moments between dusk and dawn. 

We, too, nod along. We’re calling out, offering our liquor to the night, keeping our doors open and lax, hoping something real will slip through and fill the vacuum hissing threats. But, still, here they come— the vultures. Vile promises sweeping low over places we thought too tender and narrow for their wings. In the last pale light, I see my monsters—they may hide, too, as I fall asleep against our best interests. The faintest memory of feathers, floating where they tromped. No noise at all, except the whimper.

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. Her poems have appeared in Alchemy Magazine, Progenitor Journal, Poetry Breakfast, 300 Days of Sun, Twisted Vine, and other literary publications.