LIVING WITH MA NATURE

by Lenora Rain-Lee Good

Wildfires surround my town

air quality goes from green to red

 

my sister’s town is burning

her air quality is purple

 

I wear mask when outside

would wear it inside, but 

 

they are paper and dissolve 

in my cup of coffee, so I run

 

my air cleaner. Perfumes, smoke,

pollen, dust, anything to irritate

 

my larynx and my voice goes

or I sound like a pubescent boy

 

either was fine when my kids 

were young and full of laughter

 

they have more sympathy now

I wish Ma Nature did.

 

Lenora Rain-Lee Good lives near the Columbia River in Kennewick, WA. Her latest chapbook is Saying Goodbye to Thomas published by Finishing Line Press. She writes fiction, radio dramas, and poetry. Her words have appeared in online and print magazines and anthologies, including Quill and Parchment, Ekphrastic Review, and Notes of Light and Dark: Southwestern Aubades and Nocturnes. Her favorite poetical quote: “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” —Robert Heinlein

MIDDLE AGES CONTEMPORANEITY

by Judith Skillman

Herr Drumpf fastened by the feet

to a wooden panel, drawn behind a horse

as illustrated in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora,

hanged almost to the point

of death. Watch as Drumpf’s emasculated,

disemboweled, beheaded, quartered.

 

See his remains on display (as depicted in the execution

of Hugh Dispenser the Younger),

where a crowd of brightly dressed 13th century men

gather to view a ladder. A fire

blazes on the ground,

logs crisscrossed like bound limbs.

 

Another ladder holds green capped executioner

with his short sharp knife. I watch 

Mr. President’s flesh gape, pulled apart 

at collarbone and genitalia.

At the base of these Elizabethan ladders

placed in perspective by the painter, Froissart of Louise of Gruthuse,

 

a group of top-hatted gentlemen gesture.

Bulldozers sit where the ballroom

would have been, heaps of dirt piled. A group of giant moles

unearthed the newest labyrinth a la Hamas. 

And here we are, dressed to the nines,

wearing ballet-like slippers,

 

talking in low tones, holding not iPhones but harmonicas.

Let this be an example

for any would be high treasonist’s,

as well as Matthew Lambert,

the Irishman who suffered this punishment

as little ago as 1581. 

 

If he’d been a woman

he’d have been burned at the stake 

for reasons of public decency.

Judith Skillman is the author of twenty collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Commonweal, Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Zyzzyva, and numerous other literary journals. She has received funding from The Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, among other organizations. Her new book is Oppression, Shanti Arts, 2026.

TAR

by Jess

The world is burning, 

So I took a lighter and match, 

And set fire to my craft, 

So my nails could saw and sear my keyboard, 

So black plastic can burn and rise, 

Sting wide nostrils, smoke Spanish shaped eyes, 

With memories of my community in zip ties, 

Hoping its loud clack might drown and drown, 

The images of  that little girls tears, 

As her mom was forcefully pushed down, 

By a non-native in a black vest,

Twisting our poetry into tar, 

To gag our syllables and curls, 

As white women recorded and watched, for their performative internet fodder, 

A small brown girl escorted home, without her father. 

So I go deep in the iambics of colonizer language, 

Because they cut, lynched and burned our tongues, 

In the Rio Grande of Texas,

And from Boston, 

I can hear the screams of Chicago and Canal Street. 

They can come and hang me from the Texas Oak Trees, 

In high June, 

Before they take the words  in me,

They can tighten the rope, 

Make it a hundred degree day, 

Scorched earth and crackling grass, 

The smell of magnolias and cookouts, 

They will see the blue come over me, 

Before they take the Mexican me. 

Jess is a Mexican American / Arab Proxmate human rights activist and writer from South Texas. She has been nominated for a PEN Robert J. Dau Prize and Pushcart Prize for her story "Feathers." Her poetry and op-eds have been published by Dissident Voice, The International Human Rights Art Movement, Poets x Hunger, and Missing Perspectives. She has forthcoming work with Writers Resist and Radical Catalyst Literary Journal. She holds a masters from Brandeis in Conflict Resolution. 

THE ART OF WHAT’S LEFT

by Matthew Murrey

 

Banksy confirmed he was responsible for the work with a post on Instagram, showing the graffiti before it was covered over. It has been interpreted by some as a comment on the arrest of hundreds of people for supporting Palestine Action by holding up placards at protests. Palestine Action was banned by the government as a terrorist group in July after activists damaged RAF planes. --BBC, September 10, 2025

What was just one raging judge 

bludgeoning one poor bloke 
lying helpless on his back 
has now been scrubbed 
into anyone, anywhere where 
faceless power hammers 
the harmless: families asleep 
in wrecked schools and sad tents, 
thousands on foot, on donkey carts, 
and in cars fleeing their flattened 
neighborhoods, starving hundreds 
shot while crowding for food, 
the badly wounded and bleeding
on their backs begging for mercy.
A gray afterimage of the mural 
remains on the courthouse wall 
like a blast shadow in Hiroshima, 
like a black-gray pall of smoke 
above human beings being burned, 
like some relentless nightmare ghost 
that ought to haunt us night and day.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and the forthcoming collection, Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026). Recent poems are in Dissident Voice, Escape Into Life, Tiny Wren Lit, and elsewhere. He was a public school librarian for more than 20 years and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.

ENOUGH WITH THE VISTAS ALREADY

by Mark Hendrickson

Luke Dexter kneels as he sifts through the remains of his father’s fire-ravaged beach front property in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher via Newslooks)

Yeah, I get it, you poets of yore—

you've got your virgin forests, hummocks and swards,

mountains and oceans and mist and foam.

 

I, too, see an island out my front window:

a chicane raised and strewn with rock and gravel,

serving as the median between northbound

and southbound cars from the library down the block.

 

I, too, see forest hues of deepest green

and rich earthy tones of black and brown:

they are reflected in the colors of the recycling bins

in driveways down the alley, waiting

like lonesome lovers for their men to come

and lift them, open them, fulfill them—

then leave them wanting again, for another two weeks.

 

From your high vantage point you speak with awe

of looking out and down upon the spectacle of Nature,

to behold God looking back, revealed in all His glory,

sunbathing nude in every valley, kissing every stream;

while I stand looking out my window,

attempting to avoid direct eye contact

with my neighbors in their curtainless condos

straight across the street.

 

Normally, I would tolerate your arboretums of language,

your botanical metaphors, your pastoral poetry;

but today great men are being buried,

books are being banned,

there is talk of annexing nations,

love is being parsed and threatened

and is likely to be outlawed, again.

 

I just can't wax eloquent today.

I need real and raw.

Your landscapes are burning,

and I'm choking on the ashes of the flowers.

Mark Hendrickson (he/him/his) is a gay poet and writer in the Des Moines area. His work has appeared in Variant Lit, Five Minutes, Leaf, Spellbinder, and others. Mark worked for many years as a Mental Health Technician in a locked psychiatric unit. He has advanced degrees in marriage & family therapy, health information management, and music. Connect with him @MarkHPoetry.

LEFT TO PERISH

by Tricia L. Somers

This is a screenshot from the [WARNING!] sensitive video described in the poem.

This is the beginning

of the end of humanity 

At 11:30pm I logged 

onto my Instagram feed 

First clip 

from Motaz Azaiza 

They removed 

but he replaced it

Over one million likes 

"Fully engulfed tents"

means people burn alive 

I didn't cheat this time

I turned on the audio 

Someone yelling 

A man on the ground

kept raising his hand 

into the air 

Once, twice, again

slower each time 

No one to save him 

Innocence is not enough 

Just like all the teachers

and their students in 

over 500 bombed schools 

The end of all humanity 

begins with the end 

of humanity

Trish is out of L. A. Ca. where she lives with her Significant Other and some crazy cat or two. She debates and provides some kind of opposite viewpoint, to that of the cantankerous editor's, in the semi- annual print journal The American Dissident. Online poetry can be found at Rat's Ass Review, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. For a different perspective on current topics, please visit Bitch n Complain on Substack.

WARNING

by Jacob Richards

Dangerous air today
they say,
as if i could hold my breath
or turn back the industrial revolution.

Dangerous air today.
Forests burn all around us
old growth turned sunlight 
into sugars
a strange alchemy
now turning sugars into 
a carbon haze
and air quality alerts.

Dangerous air today.
An “I-told-you-so moment”
if only I could catch my breath.
Ed Abbey laughing–
he tried to warn us–
that we were falling and not flying.

Our fears lulled by PR firms 
and impossibly cheap plastic baubles.
“Please put your seat and tray into the full and upright positions.” 
Falling not flying.
Dangerous air today.
Red flag warning,
no burns,
red-eyes
impossible heat.

Dangerous air today. 
Can’t see the mountains–
might as well live in Kansas–
a long nothing.
Without mountains
how can one tell which way is north?
The cardinal directions
are all mashed potatoes–
featureless like a cartoon heaven–
a special kind of hell.

Dangerous air today.
People breath it in
and hate–
as if
that will clear the skies.

Jacob Richards is a writer, editor, activist, and wilderness guide in Western Colorado.

WARFARE IS THE OPPOSITE OF PRACTICING TONGLEN

by Catherine Gonick

Tonglen, or “taking and giving” is a meditation where you imagine taking in others’ suffering as dark smoke and giving all that they need as bright light. —A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment

Asked to inhale

your pain

and to exhale

my compassion

I instead

inhale your righteous

rage

feel fear

exhale my own

just rage in return

and too fast to notice

a fiery fence

springs up

the burning barricade

of exhaled words

that separates

my dangerous pain

and yours

and makes us equal

in unsafety

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and  Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate. 

BURNING

by Mary Specker Stone

Whenever I make chilli, I use what I find in the refrigerator,

today, two serrano chilis, thirty or so little tomatillos 

from the garden, and some grass-fed beef that’s too tough

for any other purpose than slow-cooking in a chili. Slicing

the serranos lengthwise with my largest chef’s knife, 

I scrape out the tiny seeds and pulp with my index fingernail,

chop them small, not to a mince, but who knows where the line is?

Boiling water loosens the tomatillos’ papery wrappers to allow

me to peel them, cut them in half. My fingers, not yet burning 

as I chop an onion, press a few small garlic cloves, cut open 

the package of ground beef, add all these ingredients 

to the sauté pan. Roe v Wade has been overturned. Liberty,

as in, history of. Herstory, the proper term, the one we used at

the feminist clinic. Yes, I’m thinking about the right to abortion 

as I cook this meal, and my fingers begin to burn. More burning 

as I wash the dishes. The more water, the more burn. That’s how 

capsaicin infuses the flesh. I might have worn gloves to handle

the serranos, but I didn’t protect my fingers with latex, I wanted 

to feel the chilis’ crisp greenness, so I used my bare hands, 

and now, an hour later, I can barely grip the pen for the burning.

Mary Specker Stone’s work has been published in The Gyroscope Review, The Healing Art of Writing, vol. 1, Paradise Review, and Gila River Review. Mary lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she works as a spiritual director and facilitates a monthly poetry salon. 

ANOTHER FALSE NARRATIVE

by Catherine Gonick

Wojciech Kossak "Cossack on Horseback", 1918, watercolour on paper, 24 x 14.5 cm

My Cossacks just left, taking with them

everything they could carry.

As usual, my books, notebooks,

my rubber crutch. I can’t even climb

the walls. But deep in my closet,

a locust swarm gathers. I ride it

back to the desert, scan for signs,

a dung-beetle track, ripple of sand,

to find an oasis of laughing doves.

 

Scribbling again has meaning, yet certain

as ink on paper, as bullies’ lies

on social media, these scimitared

thugs will return. In a garden

of sunflowers outside Odessa, my aunt

fell in love with one of the Cossacks

on horseback passing her house.

 

She was only a child, but her story

reminds me not to be fooled

if now and then, they are handsome.

A pogrom against words is still a pogrom.

 

Catherine Gonick’s poetry has appeared in publications including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Sukoon, and in anthologies including in plein air, Grabbed, and Dead of Winter 2021.  She is part of a company that fights  global warming through climate repair and restoration projects around the world. Pogroms early in the last century drove her grandparents and their first two children from Odessa to California, where her aunt painted sunflowers and worked in the San Francisco Public Library, and her uncle was a leader in the Longshoremen's Strike of 1933 and a lifelong activist. 

BOOK TITLES NOT ACCESSIBLE FOR CLASSROOM USE

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S.

“School librarians are professionals dedicated to the education and protection of children while cultivating a thirst for knowledge. We should trust them to do their jobs – while holding them accountable – not subvert their expertise by searching for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. There are already processes in place if a parent wants to challenge a book that they find inappropriate or have concerns about. These processes are designed at the local level to adjudicate the challenges because one size does not fit all when it comes to education. The state should respect the local processes in place in Texas.” —Texas Library Association, January 20, 2022. Photo by Getty; Adam Maida at "This Is a Shakedown: Texas has a book-banning problem" by Emma Sarappo at The Atlantic, December 9, 2021

                                     

deep in the heart of texas 

there is a bonfire of books 

burning words  

like witches 

there is no white heat   

no smoke 

but still they burn 

in their sealed boxes 

by those who would coffin thought 

beware 

those who would scatter the ashes 

what is written on paper 

is also written in stone 

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and The New Verse News as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 (Press 53.) On May 11, 2021, five poems from her book which had been set to music by James Lee III were performed by the opera star Susanna Phillips, star clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Mayra Huang at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.”

WHITEWASH

by Eileen Ivey Sirota

About 100 people, many of them Native Americans, held a protest in Pierre in September to push for improved teaching of Native American history and culture in South Dakota schools and to decry removal of Native references from proposed social studies standards. Photo: Courtesy DRG Media Group via Kelo, November 14, 2021.

All the white pages lovely, unspoiled

by time, untouched by torment.

All aboard. 

 

An uninterrupted arc of progress. 

Heroes on horseback.  See Dick and Jane

in their triumphant ignorance. 

 

We have torn you

from our history books, those fairy tales

for innocents and children.

 

Unseen and unheard are the children we ripped

from their mothers, sent away

to boarding schools to be laundered

and whitened, their mother tongue ripped out.

 

“Kill the Indian and save the man,” proclaimed Richard Pratt. 

At the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania,

one hundred eighty-six graves

cradle their small bones.

 

From your mouths we tore         

the sacred place names and stamped them

on our suburban street signs.                                                 

 

So many ways of killing—the bullet, the blanket,

the exile, the pretending, the silence.                                   

The silence.

 

 

Eileen Ivey Sirota is a poet and psychotherapist, the author of a chapbook, Out of Order, published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.  Her poems also have appeared in Calyx, Ekphrastic Review, District Lines, The New Verse News, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly.