MILLER IS TOO GOOD A NAME

by Leonore Hildebrandt

When waxing philosophical 
about the older days, 
a good miller has no reason to say 

it’s been a Western aberration
to grant rights to foreign workers. 
But this one does?

After colonizing, 
this miller wants to decolorize, 
to remake the country 

pallid, blanched, white.
To keep the lowest caste,
a dispensable underclass. 

There’s no life in it. 
A young boy blenches in fear. 
These mean words will be milled–– 

crushed and ground.
Washed out, they'll be left to fade

like the bones bleaching in the desert.

Leonore Hildebrandt has published four collections of poetry: Somewhere the Day Begins, The Work at Hand, The Next Unknown, and Where You Happen to Be. Her poems and translations appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cafe Review, Cerise Press, Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, Harpur Palate, New Letters, Plant Human Quarterly, Poetry Daily, Poetry Salzburg Review, Rhino, and Sugar House Review among other journals. Nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize, she was a finalist for the Maine Writers and Publishers Award in Poetry in 2024. Originally from Germany, Leonore is an editor, gardener, song-writer, and musician, spending her time in Harrington, Maine, and Silver City, NM.

MADURO MADNESS

by Catherine McGuire

Art by Nick Anderson

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight raids, as Trump interferes –

just past the end of 2025

with Miller and Marco, he did connive

to throw the world into chaos and us into fear.

 

He said to Bondi, “since he’s already charged

with drug crimes, that makes it all right

to drop bombs on Caracas then barge

into the palace, kidnap and take flight.

Drag them onto our ships, then launch out to sea

where your crooked lawyers had better be

ready to lie and make hash of the arm

of our law, claim criminal harm

which we will prosecute; thus Epstein’s disarmed.”

 

Then he watched all night, with unmuffled roars

as the airmen and soldiers assaulted the shores

of Venezuela, a country so rich in oil

that oil barons willingly embroil

themselves in an illegal war

to abscond with the goods, and to ignore

true ownership—the hell with rules! Far

better to seize, then let countries chide,

gnash their teeth, try to override.

 

You know the rest. In books we will read

how the Orange Pestilence spread, his misdeeds

piling like dung heaps, and the calls

to impeach and arrest ineffectual –

until true patriots chased red hats down each lane

to uphold the rule of law once again.

Under new-minted Congress, we strove

to repair all the damage, our country re-wove.

 

It starts now: this red line cannot be ignored

our cry is defiance, and not one of fear.

Our voice in the darkness must open the door

to accountability for him and each buccaneer

who soiled our history, and their greed financiers.

 

In this hour of darkness and peril and need

the people must waken and each volunteer

to protest and clamor till the country is freed

from the depredations of this profiteer.

Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep concern for our planet's future, with five decades of published poetry, six poetry chapbooks, a full-length poetry book,  Elegy for the 21st Century, a SF novel, Lifeline, and book of short stories, The Dream Hunt and Other Tales.

SABBATH

by Chris Reed

The deepening fall stalls my step,
invites a seasonal sabbath,
a slowing of time, luring me
to witness the dying world,
the retreat of light, warmth, color,
a trail of endings,
this yearly dress rehearsal.

Here is the world. 
Leaves, red-rimmed, rustle silently
like yesterday’s still photos from Gaza,
Israel, Ukraine, blood-tinged. 
The deck is wet from recent rain,
as water runs out in war-torn lands,
runs out for all, as rivers 
and aquifers shrink, while torrents
wash cities into the sea.

A rest. A time away from politics,
like leaving the red-faced relatives,
arguing in the sunroom, laced
with whisky fumes, surrounded
by blue-blossomed African violets.
I’d sneak into the kitchen 
filled with the smells and warmth 
of my grandmother’s baking bread
as she hugged me and nodded,
a knowing smile on her face.

Was it in Coetzee, I read that politics
is just a form we use for the hate
and frustration already there?
Was it in Miller, I read that when
as children, love is denied, politics
and how we treat our own children,
are where we fine-tune our cruelty?

The leaves turn paler, start to yellow,
the sky, a cleaner blue after the rains.
Sabbath is about sitting with gratitude,
sitting with possibilities,
sitting with some kind of god, 
some kind of love.
I wait.


Author’s Note: The seed for this poem was this week's New York Times story about the Amazon River.


Chris Reed is a retired Unitarian minister. Her poems have recently been published in River Heron Review, The NewVerse News, and US1 Worksheets, among other journals.