WHAT HE DID FOR THEM

by Marge Piercy

Cartoon by Ben Jennings / The Guardian

The Epstein files reveal how

the very rich relate entirely

to each other. They live 

in hermetic opulence.

 

Epstein was not only pimp 

but connector. He gave

the rich and powerful what

they wanted, forbidden

 

sex, a sense of always

being in control, someone

they wanted to hang out

with: the connector.

 

We’re way beneath their

gaze, their understanding

any more than we know 

intricacies of ant life.

 

Too small for us to notice,

we step on them casually

as we go on our way, just

as the rich do to us.

Marge Piercy is the author of twenty one poetry collections and seventeen novels, including Woman at the Edge of Time and SEX WARS. A lifelong feminist, socialist, and anti-war activist, her writing has been exploring labor, environmental justice, and the struggle for a more equitable world over the last five decades. 

WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN

by Pamela Wax

The ants 

are marching 

single 

file, their annual 

exodus across 

faux-granite 

counters, up 

and down door

jambs, through 

the sea of scraps 

in my stainless

steel sink. I’ve 

been told to kill 

them, a stew 

of sugar and boric 

acid. A sweet, 

merciful death.

But I can’t. 

Not this year.

Especially not

this year. May all

who are hungry 

come. Eat.

Pamela Wax is the author of Walking the Labyrinth(Main Street Rag, 2022) and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have received a Best of the Net nomination and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Other publications include Barrow Street, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Chautauqua, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, Solstice, Mudfish, Connecticut River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Slippery Elm. An ordained rabbi, Pam offers spirituality and poetry workshops online and around the country. She lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts.

MYRMIDONS

by Ralph La Rosa

after and with Thoreau

"Hawk Eye" by Tom Tomorrow at The Nib

The main lesson from Afghanistan is that 

the ‘war on terror’ does not work 

—Mary Kaldor, The Guardian, August 24, 2021

Ants battled on my Walden woodpile,

Small reds against much larger blacks.

The wood was strewn with dying and dead:

Imperialist blacks and republican reds.

 

A red clamped on a black ant’s chest

Was shaken till a back leg broke.

I watched another red assault

The black ant’s back and gnaw his neck—

 

An Achilles avenging his Patroclus?

The black destroyed all the reds’ limbs,

Lopped off their heads and left with them.

Who won this internecine bellum?

 

Most warrior Myrmidons soon dead,

Ant squads claimed corpses, black and red.

 

 

Author’s Note: This poem attempts to be a microcosm of Thoreau’s discussion in Walden, Chapter 12: “Brute Neighbors.”

Like Thoreau, Ralph La Rosa finds little to commend ants inhumanity to ants.

NOVEMBER 3RD

by Austin Davis

America is tired. 

We’re a colony of ants

who’ve stopped in a pothole

on this long road ahead

to eat the bread crumbs off our backs.

Tonight I hope for hope.

I don’t know what the next

morning will bring

but if we wake up to a sky full of clouds,

I hope we’ll still remember

that this sun of ours isn’t going anywhere

and neither are we. 

Austin Davis is a poet and student activist currently studying creative writing at ASU and leading a homeless outreach program in Phoenix. Austin is the author of The World Isn’t the Size of Our Neighborhood Anymore (Weasel Press, 2020) and Celestial Night Light (Ghost City Press, 2020).

THE ANTS

by Fred Nagel

Photo from a video provided by Newsy Newslook to USA Today.

Their round, brown bodies twinkling in the sun,
They came together, not like one of Marlborough’s victories,
But in a chocolate flow.

On my knees above the patch, I tried
To make out warriors or lovers.
But so small the ants, and teaming,
That their frenzy blurred their meaning.

Hours later, sun slanted low,
I surveyed again the field below.
Legless, the few that lingered there,
Writhed to follow, I know not where.

Fred Nagel is a US veteran and political activist whose articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Global Exchange, Mondoweiss, Popular Resistance, War Crimes Times (Veterans For Peace publication) and Z Magazine. He also hosts ClassWars, a show on Vassar College Radio, WVKR.