LET’S NOT MINCE WORDS ABOUT AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS

by Anne Ramallo

Stop Killer Robots is urging all states to adopt, at the 7th Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) (16–20 November,Geneva), a mandate for negotiations on a new legally binding Protocol to the CCW on autonomous weapons systems, which must be negotiated within one year—by the end of 2027.

You know, set-it-and-forget-it weapons? 

Killer robots, blind moles 

sniffing out pre-programmed targets,

unsupervised scavenger 

hunt for heat signature.

 

Unblinking camera eyes trained

on code over creed,

with unflagging stamina, vulturing

skies without feeling

the sun, and the finger 

that will pull the trigger

has never held a human hand.

 

One hundred twenty-eight UN member states

looked into those cosmic voids

and softened 

their language, not their swords:

Meaningful human control, 

and predictability chopped

on the cutting board of consensus. 

 

But we've seen the sci-fi: 

unmanned devices

unmanning too many, 

mangled massacres. 

 

And when some hotshot missile breaks

the boundary of a non-binding text,

who will open the curtain

of curling smoke to stare

at blood-stained faces?

Who will look suffering

in its leaking eyes and say yes—

I stand by my call? 

Author’s note: An earlier draft of this poem was shared on Instagram under another title. It is no longer available there. 

Anne Ramallo is a writer, editor, and performer living in Los Angeles, CA. Her poetry has been featured in journals and anthologies, including Sky Island, Low Hanging Fruit, Elysium Review, Cosmic Daffodil, Radical Catalyst, and The Poetry Lighthouse. She is a co-founder of indie press Poets in the Pines, publishing the Made From Midnight anthology series. Keep up with her on Instagram @AnneRamallo.

SWIM THROUGH THE VEIL

by H. G.

UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory calls on the Israeli Government to urgently protect Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and ensure his safety, dignity, and physical integrity. The Israeli Government must immediately release Dr. Abu Safiya, or promptly charge him with a recognizable criminal offence and grant him a fair trial. In the meantime, he must be urgently transferred to a civilian hospital to ensure that he receives life-saving medical care. Dr. Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has been held in Israeli custody since December 2024 under Israel’s Unlawful Combatant Law, without charge or trial. He was arrested at the hospital after refusing to evacuate while treating critical patients. According to his lawyers, Dr. Abu Safiya appears to be at imminent risk of death. Information available to UN Human Rights--OPT indicates he has been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement, repeated severe assaults resulting in grave injuries, and denial of medical care. —United Nations, July 9, 2026

Reoccurring
nightmares of my childhood
suddenly surprise my adult dreamscape

I'm drowning again
too deep underwater
sometimes
my ankle tied to a boat
other times
my car went over a bridge 

my chest and lungs
burn building
crescendo of terror
tension rising
behind my eyes
my head:
a pressure cooker

needing to whistle

I accept death
mouth and lungs
a vacuum 
sucking in
only to find

I can breathe underwater 

and I see
my Irish great (times two) grandparents
drowning
as the Staten Island Ferry sinks
with them on board

I feel the rage burning in her chest
the pressure of millions of colonized generations of the Irish

screaming in her head

freedom murdered
death in diaspora 

finally sucking water

into her lungs

and she swims through the veil

into my dreams

bloated

water laden corpses

newly lifeless buoys

bobbing

left behind 

and she breathes underwater with me

she whispers to me,

follow the call

follow our footsteps

to Staten Island

and Jersey City 

to our Palestinian brothers and sisters

and promise

not to leave them behind

even if we all drown

in the blue

of two colonizer flags

and so I wait

in my dreams

with my great (times two) grandmother 
and Refaat Alareer, Michael Collins, and Anne Frank

and the starved, shot, drowned, hanged, gassed, exiled, vaporized, reanimated (and reeliminated), dismembered masses

for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

when he arrives

we swim through the veil

and try again

H.G. is an American poet based in New York. She holds an MA in history and is working on her first verse novel. Her previous poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Inflectionist Review, The Amphibian, Blue Minaret and is forthcoming in Neon & Smoke.

A TROPHYLESS FIRST

by Carol Parris Krauss

Baby’s first steps. The first words uttered.

First day of school. First day of college.

First day on the job. We rush to each

first with celebration. A race to be won,

a ribbon to break through.

 

Until the first Mother’s Day with no call

after the first Christmas without a mother.

The first time reaching for a name

no one answers anymore. No

Mother. 

 

A First without a trophy. Just 

a series of races no one wants to win.

Ms. Parris Krauss is honored to have published poetry in Louisiana Lit, ൪uartet, the Arkansas Review, Salvation South, Eclectica, One Art, Story South, The South Carolina Review, and the Mid/South Sonnet Anthology, among others. Fernwood Press published her full-length book (Mountain.Memory.Marsh.) in November of 2025. Carol was born in S.C., to mystical mountain people, raised in NC, and attended Clemson University. She currently lives in Virginia with her St. Bernard, Martha June. 

HE CALLED FOR HIS MAMA

by Laurie Rosen

When I gave birth to my son without the aid 

of narcotics or an epidural, pain searing, I called 

for my Mama. A grown woman, already a Mama 

and I called for mine. 

It wasn’t something I planned, the cry shot out 

my grimaced mouth, my husband sitting by my side, 

a nurse coaching me on. I shouted for my Mama 

because somewhere in my subconscious I believed 

no one else but my Mama could relieve me of my pain.  

Not even the man who loves me could do that. 

When I heard George Floyd called for his Mama,

(not his girlfriend or brother) I thought, Of course he did. 

Who else but a Mama might rescue a son from the grip

of a cop determined to strangle the life out of him?  

And when I learned Duante Wright called his Mama,

just before a cop shot him dead, I imagined him reaching

for his Mama. Who else but a Mama would lay their body 

across a son to shield him from the bullet 

they both knew was coming. 

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poems have appeared in The London Reader, Muddy River Poetry Review, Beach Reads (an anthology from Third Street Writers), Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, and other journals.