THE DAY AFTER KC’S FIRST WORLD CUP GAME

by Al Ortolani

For a while at the farmer’s market

it was a happier America. People

were pleasant, shopping in the shade

under the awning. Multiple languages,

all shades of skin, Christians

and Jews and Muslims. Hindus

and Buddhists and Secular Humanists. 

I bought Hungarian paprika, local garlic,

Mennonite bread, a bouquet of flowers

for my wife from a woman 

who sold bok choi and radishes. 

For lunch there were vine ripened 

Arkansas tomatoes, chili peppers, 

and Mexican Coca Cola. I’m certain 

someone who had never 

watched soccer in their life 

went on and on about Messi’s Hat Trick.

Al Ortolani is a retired public school teacher in the Kansas City area. His poems have appeared widely. He learned the ins and outs of soccer by following his children and grandchildren through the magic of the sport, albeit often confused by the rules.

NO KINGS DAY

by Ron Shapiro

 

 

 

 
What if signs of discontent,
Anger, frustration and hatred
Line every nook-and-cranny
Of the amerikan landscape
On this national day of protest?

What if everyone set down
Their phones, turned off
The hypnotic hum buzzing
In their ears, feeding them
What they want to hear rather
Than what they need to hear?
This morning I wonder
What I can do today?
How can I manifest
The sadness of witnessing
Amerika’s descent into darkness?

While bombs drop on buildings
And streets in the Middle East,
Bombs of deception and corruption
Drop daily, one after another,
Boom
boom
boom
into the fragile fabric of democracy.

Collateral damage of such weapons
Invite suffering, disease and division
Mocking ideas of “liberty and justice
For all.” In these times, words empty
Themselves of meaning replaced
With ignorance and exceptionalism
Along with a foundation of fear.

On this day, which should be everyday,
People of all ages who resist the dumbing
Down of amerika, the purging of skin
Color, gender diversity, critical thinking,
And the failure of elected officials to
Follow their conscience instead of money
And power, take to the streets. Not carrying
Weapons that kill but weapons of kindness,
Compassion, love, and hope that children
And grandchildren will grow up into
A world that favors peace not destruction.

So I’ll head out to add my voice
To those who gather with intention.
We will not succumb to a government
Whose lies, carelessness and stupidity
Try to steal the breath from our lungs.
On this day we will be heard.
Our voices will not be silenced. 

 

 

Ron Shapiro, an award-winning teacher, has published over 20 poems in publications including Nova Bards 24 & 25, Virginia Writers Project, The New Verse News, Poetry X Hunger, Minute Musings, Backchannels, Gezer Kibbutz Gallery, All Your Poems, Paper Cranes Literary Magazine, Zest of the Lemon and two chapbooks: Sacred Spaces, Wonderings and Understory, a collection of nature poetry. 

THE CANADIAN CURRY PEOPLE

by Ain Khan

I try to explain to my coworker

the concept of a Pakistani auntie—

an older woman in the community 

who knows everyone’s business,

opines on every right & wrong, 

wonders why you’re not married 

& whose sword of judgment 

can cause your extradition from society.

 

Jamil raises a hand to interrupt me.

Jamaicans have aunties too. Really, all cultures do.  

Auntie is not a person—it’s a state of mind,

attained by anyone, at any age.

 

I throw my head back in laughter. Victor settles

across us, sets down his warmed curry, scenting

the lunchroom. All the curry people at work—          

South Asians, Filipinos, Jamaicans & Trinis—

tried his Ghanaian goat curry last Christmas 

& GOATed it unanimously. He nods vehemently 

at Jamil’s definition of an auntie.

 

Around us, TV screens are blaring scenes 

from Minneapolis. Our all-glass building 

backs into the woods. Some days a doe emerges.

Today she steps close to the clear walls 

under the flurrying sky, the sun glinting

in her calm brown eyes, the fawn

brawn of her body soft in a state of repose –

a privilege to exist, knowing she is what she is,

knowing she is not hunted. 

Ain Khan is an emerging Pakistani-Canadian poet and writer based in Ottawa. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Thimble, DarkWinter Lit, Republic of Letters and is forthcoming in CV2.

FOR NOW

by Pepper Trail

—The New York Times, May 30, 2025

For now, strip a half-million refugees of any illusion of safety or mercy

Allow honorably-serving transgender troops to be expelled from the military, for now

For now, okay the use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act against Venezulean immigrants

Condone the termination of awarded grants that promote diversity and tolerance, for now

 

Do not get excited.

This is not the end of democracy.

This is “for now.”

Someday, we, the Justices of the Supreme Court, might stand up.

Might defend the Constitution, could uphold the separation of powers.

May act, at last, as a check upon an utterly lawless and corrupt regime.

 

Not today.

But perhaps, someday.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT TILL IT’S GONE

by Debra Orben

A fierce wind blew, background music played,
the crowd flowed along Sellersville’s Main Street,
signs and banners streamed high and low 
as young and old joined in the chant NO KINGS.
 
Conversations swirled around me, as I tried
to steady my handmade sign buffeted 
by gusts of variable winds, changing rules
and alliances, an ongoing litany of losses.
 
Gone in a gale, diversity, equity, inclusion,
swept away in the squall, federal workers
who protected our health, welfare, and security,
anyone who dared mention The Gulf of Mexico.
 
We protested as one, the storm of cruel changes,
the orders of self-proclaimed kings and billionaires
proclamations cutting aid to the poor, new rules
attacking differences and our environment.
 
Grabbed by uncertainty, sensing the agony 
of the poor, undocumented, unrecognized,
I no longer understand my country of birth
our supposed democracy of red, white, and blue. 
 
Our flag appears fragile and tattered
as the federal government turns its back 
on ordinary people, rules, laws, and precedents,
does an about-face on foreign policy.
 
But then I look around me, at banners 
and signs, at wrinkled faces and bent backs,
at young mothers with children in tow,
at men and women who dare say no.

Democracy is here, not only in this small town.
Look for it in schools, libraries, voting booths.
Listen for it in houses of worship,
messages to Congress, letters to the editor.

We won’t know what we’ve lost till it’s gone.
My sign printed on recycled cardboard 
states Diversity, Honesty, Justice Matter.
Like me, keep holding your signs high.
It’s not all gone yet.

Debra Orben is a retired elementary teacher who cares deeply about the world we are leaving for our children. She is grateful to live in a beautiful part of Bucks County, PA and strive to protect the natural world that she is a part of. As a Quaker, she values truth, peace, and integrity. As an aspiring writer, she is mindful of the words she uses and grateful for the power of the words we share.

COSMOPOLITAN

by Catherine Gonick

Shirt available from TEEPUBLIC

When my father used the term for what we were

I didn’t know that cosmopolitan was code for Jew,

a proud but dirty word. I thought being rootless

was a good thing, that a cosmopolitan

was the being most at home in the world,

in cities and the wild, with people of every kind.

It was great to be an American, lucky to be born 

into my nationality, but humanity—that word

was the most important one. I breathed in

this idea from my native air, the mild sun and

comforting fogs that daily swirled about

the newly established U.N. in San Francisco,

and all who lived loyally around the Bay, beings

from multiple races and nations, religions

and tongues. Even for those excluded 

from the country club, the fraternity, good

neighborhoods and jobs, forced to stay

in ghettos, migrant fields, old cars,

beaten and imprisoned for wrong speaking, 

that lovely air was equally available and free,

a promise and a sign. From Athens to Berkeley,

the flowers of democracy seem to have asked

for kind climates in order to grow strong.

Wanted: Cosmopolitan gardener able to plant

new words, root fair practices, clean air;

not afraid to get hands dirty.

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 the recently published 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. 

WE DIDN’T ASK FOR ONLY

by B. Fulton Jennes

We don’t ask the flowers to all be daisies,

or dogs to be only dachshunds.

 

We wouldn’t want all flags to be red, white, and blue,

(although some people would, and that’s a sad truth).

 

Valentine’s Day would disappoint

if those heart-shaped boxes

contained nothing but nougat,

and we’d suffer if orchestras

were nothing but bassoons.

 

Think what we’d miss

if all songs were sung in D minor,

all rooms painted Chantilly blue.

 

The nights would be darker

if heaven held only blue dwarfs.

A forest planted with nothing but maples

would be stark in winter.

 

If all roads led south,

wouldn’t we miss east and west?

 

Imagine…

 

A childhood of puzzles and no other toys,

schools of sturgeon filling the freshwaters

and exclusively stingrays at sea,

libraries with shelves stacked solely with sci-fi,

rom-com the only choice in new film fare,

all eggs, runny, sunny-side-up,

all coffee, decaf, black,

all shoes, brown leather, size 7,

all towels green, all sheets unfitted,

blue ink only in non-retractable pens,

no choice but Times New Roman

to write an essay, eulogy, or epistle…

 

We didn’t ask for only.

We don’t want only.

 

We weren’t born only.

 

We were born blonde, brunette, jet-haired, red,

oval-faced, round, square and pear,

thick-thighed and thin, tall and petite,

in a rainbow of skin colors,

a hodgepodge of histories,

a symphony of sexualities,

a jumble of genders,

with loves gifted by God, not governments.

 

So don’t ask a rainbow to be only red.

 

We will not be only.

B. Fulton Jennes is Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, CT, where she serves as poet-in-residence at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Night Heron Barks, Limp Wrist, Tar River Poetry, SWIMM, Anti-Heroin Chic, Pareidolia Literary, Extreme Sonnets II, and many other journals and anthologies. Her collection Mammoth Spring was a finalist for the 2021 Two Sylvias Wilder Prize and the Small Harbor Press Laureate Prize. Her chapbook Blinded Birds (Finishing Line Press), released in April of 2022, was named Winner of the 2022 International Book Awards in the Poetry: Chapbook category. 

HERE LIE DEAD IN TEXAS

by Amy Worley

Nick Anderson

Here lie dead

a star gazer

a trailblazer

a bodhisattva

2 artists with tiny Mona Lisas

stamped on their still small spirts

not yet emerged.

 

Here lie dead

two seasoned, storied, spirit guides,

who were delicately, precisely, so, so lightly,

tending gossamer spirits.

 

Here lie dead

would-be mothers &

would-be fathers &

all the glorious would-be children &

all the would-be made inside them.

 

Here lie dead

among the bullets & bone fragments

unwritten books & unbuilt churches

un-prayed prayers in the

dark, wet cave of adolescence.

 

Here lie dead

the African-descended

the Mexican-descended

the whatever mix descended

double helixes no longer spiraling.

 

Among the dead

slivering over bloody bodies &

and rising up to stare us in our unseeing eyes

is the serpent of our failure.

 

Not an either/or failure but a slimy sludge

of yes/and foundering and non-doing,

with a forked tongue &

voluminous, sweet-smelling venom.

 

Here lie dead

in this community graveyard

a virologist

an ecologist

a drummer

a plumber

a shattered grandmother whose shards pierce like shrapnel.

 

Here lie dead

what we didn’t do to serve an unwell young man &

what we didn’t do to protect the hatching of the future.

 

Here lie dead

we all

knowing of good & evil

and choosing to hide behind the tall, dark tree

rather than stand naked in the dappled light of truth.

 

Amy Worley is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two boys, and her literary dog, Leroy. She is also an attorney and management consultant. She has a BA in English Literature and a Juris Doctorate. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various online and hardcopy publications.

GOODNIGHT EARTH

a cautionary tale, a cry from the heart,

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

after Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

“Goodbye Earth” by Satovi at Deviant Art.

The fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say, as the world’s leading authority on climate change prepares to warn of an imminent and dire risk to the global climate system. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will on Monday publish a landmark report, the most comprehensive assessment yet, less than three months before vital UN talks that will determine the future course of life on Earth. —The Guardian, August 8, 2021

Goodnight Earth

So blue and white

We’re sad to leave

Your days so bright

And starlit nights

Goodnight Earth

We cannot say

We did our best,

Now there’s no way

That we can stay

Goodnight raging forest fires

Goodnight rising seas

Goodnight melting glaciers

Goodnight honey bees

And so much more than these

Goodnight to the children

Who never breathed clean air

Who ate contaminated food

And didn’t have a prayer

Of a world that was fair

Goodnight to those who fought

For justice and equality

A return to wiser ways

Of diversity and sanity

And universal community

Goodnight friends and loved ones

Goodnight plants and beasts

Of our little planet 

That we caused to overheat

And otherwise mistreat

We won’t be coming back

We had our chance and blew it

Our story has a moral

But no one left to listen to it

(Or again to misconstrue it?)

So goodnight creek

Good night birds

Goodnight music

Goodnight words

Goodnight window

Goodnight door

Goodnight slippers

On the floor

Goodnight games

Goodnight toys

Goodnight girls

And goodnight boys

Goodnight chair

Goodnight spoon

Goodnight stars

And goodnight moon

Goodnight lark

And owl and thrush

Goodnight old lady

Whisphering Hush

Goodnight Earth

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poetry has appeared in many print and online journals.  His new book is At the Driveway Guitar Sale from Main Street Rag Publishing.  He podcasts poems on again, memory, and mortality at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California.

BUFFALO SOLDIER

by Katherine West

America’s growing Black community is “not a monolithic population, but one that has people of many different demographic, social and economic characteristics and many different experiences in their backgrounds.” Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Race and Ethnicity Research at Pew Research Center, told The Root in an interview, March 30, 2021.

On the other side 

of the street 

walks a young

Black man 

going to work 

perhaps 

or perhaps 

like me 

getting a coffee 

while the clothes spin

Perhaps 

his great great great

grandfather 

was a Buffalo Soldier 

Perhaps 

his family 

settled here 

before New Mexico became a state 

Perhaps he's a painter

that paints his

history 

how history 

surrounds him 

like a herd 

steaming and stamping 

in the morning cold 

jumpy

dangerous 

or quietly 

pulling 

at the turf 

The herd contains him

shifts 

when he takes 

a careful 

step 

but any sudden 

movement 

could cause a stampede 

leaving the painter crushed 

to nothing 

at one 

finally 

with his desert home 

with the dry grass 

the wind riffles 

like the tawny fur 

of the great cat 

he becomes 

when he paints 

at one

finally

with the invisible wind 

uncontained 

free to walk the world 

unhated 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel, When Night Comes, A Christmas Carol Revisited has just been released, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in March of 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing. She is presently at work on the sequel to When Night Comes. It is called Slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist.

WESTERN BLUEBIRDS, AMERICAN ROBINS

at the Peace & Justice 2020 (virtual) Fair (Vancouver, U.S.A.)


by Gwendolyn Morgan

Gwendolyn Morgan reads her poem in this video.

this is how it begins
first Light: cheerio song of Robins
loops of blue sky between stars
Eagle whistles before anyone wakes up
prayers in Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew
Chuukese, Cambodian, Russian, Swahili
100 languages spoken here as
the alphabet arcs toward aleph
alleluia of red-breasted Robins
golden dome of Sikh temple
Celtic Cross of Catholic, Presbyterian & Unity Church
Methodist or Lutheran hymns, so many Christians
the Bahá'í and UUs have every symbol represented
even the Pagans are putting peanut butter & raspberry jam
on whole wheat toast before you
who is putting honey on sopapillas, honeycrisp apples,
drinking Masala chai or sweet tea?
who has lost their homes due to fires?
looking at privilege:  who was evicted this week?
who was arrested?
Break it down like the U.S. census
the unmarked car outside the housing complex
“No solicitors” sign outside the apartment door
“I’m not soliciting” the ICE agent says
flashes a gold star or badge with implicit bias
scan the skin color, then license plate
drinking an Americano while they wait for you
Wait! this isn’t justice
the peace & justice fair is on Saturday every year
Sabbath day of rest for everyone
who goes to a synagogue or is Seventh Day
Rainbow Flags flying next to Black Lives Matter
upside down Americana
the Western Bluebirds gather at the river
singing their own prayers, plain song
1000 languages, songs of other species, intersectionality
the watershed of white fragility, white supremacy
unspoken privilege of having more than enough
when the child in front of you hasn’t had breakfast
no money in the purse for groceries, no savings account
no internet access, maybe a chrome book from school
with a sticker of a white llama on it
this child is hungry for more than justice
losing their breath for peace
this is how it begins.

Gwendolyn Morgan is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist who serves in interfaith Spiritual Care in a medical center in the midst of COVID19.  The Clark County Poet Laureate 2018-2020 in Washington State, her third book of poetry Before the Sun Rises is a Nautilus Silver Winner in Poetry. Gwendolyn and her spouse Judy A. Rose focused on poetry and music during a Winter 2020 Centrum Artist Residency. As a multiracial family in a multispecies watershed, they are committed to equity work and inclusion for all.

THREE FLAGS

by Diane Elayne Dees

On my walks to the river, I pass
many American flags, and—
while I don’t like to judge—
I think I know what they stand for. 
In front of one house 
is a large Confederate flag,
and I’m sure I know what that stands for. 
Then, one day, I walk around the corner,
and am surprised and thrilled to see 
a huge rainbow flag in a neighbor’s yard.
The next day, an American flag is hung 
next to it. I wonder if the neighbor hung
the second flag as a means of protection;
I let my imagination run away with me. 
The following day, a third giant flag
appears next to the others—a flag
reminding me to vote for the two
most evil and incompetent men
I can recall having power in my lifetime.
Collective delusion has destroyed
cognitive dissonance. The red, white
and blue of democracy and the 
bright yellow and green and purple
of nature’s prism lift my spirits.
But now, every day, when I turn 
the corner, the colors of diversity
and freedom hurt my eyes,
trigger blood-red visions,
and intimate a sky so dark,

no rainbow can ever be visible.

Diane Elayne Dees's poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, and she has two chapbooks forthcoming. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women's professional tennis throughout the world.

ON THE APPOINTMENT OF JOY HARJO AS POET LAUREATE

by Peter Witt

Portrait by Sophie Herxheimer for Poetry Foundation.

I jumped for Joy
  with her appointment
  her anointment
as poet laureate
  her native background
  her tone, her sound
  her qualities
  beyond a baccalaureate
a musician and author
what does she offer?
  a box checked
  for ancestry
  recognition of her poetry
  her mastery
  ultimate flattery

As a nation
  we're diverse
  should display
  in our verse
different voices
  make different choices
honor perspectives
  varied objectives

Joins Joseph, Louise,
Robert, Rita, Juan
as firsts, but not lasts
there will be more
  in store
for melting cauldron
to remind our children
  not all are white
  not all are male
but if we fail
to honor our diversity
  our history
  our mystery
we lose
  our sanity
  our humanity

So, yes
I jumped for Joy
as we enjoy
the magic
of her
poetic
wisdom

Peter Witt lives in Texas and is a retired professor.  His poetry appears on allpoetry.com and has been included in several publications.

THE CHILDREN MAKE THEIR PRAYER RUGS

by Tricia Knoll

Make new the angel’s carpet.

—Nezami Ganjavi, twelfth-century Iranian poet

Their lesson aimed more at special space
than Islam. Rough sketches to begin –
where an arrow might point to more than home
or maybe home: an old oak with withered ways,
a swing or jungle gym, grandfather’s path
toward twilight. For Marcus the soccer field,
boot to ball. One drew lines of fields of maize.
Another lupine. Lines they erased of bullets
flying, having learned the word trajectory,
painted over with the flame-gold of stars.

Then to measure fabric cut for a lay-down,
a tribute to their sizes. Refuge trimmed to fit.
Help with sewing on a fun of fringe.
Though they could not spell reverence,
a girl with braids cut and pasted spaniel eyes.
The boy who lisped drew his mother’s cello.
Lilacs appeared here and there as the blue vase
in the classroom broadcast May.
Timothy made a map of where his bicycle
could and could not go.

The template suggested a centered door,
open to what lies inside.
Lily drew her heart caught in a rib cage.
Aneshia, the stone library at story time.
John, his father gone to war.
Alejandro, his mother on the other side.

Low, slow background tunes of flutes
and piano. Soft the teacher made the mood
for work, then lowered shades for rest
in a world which all knew well
floated no magic carpets.

Author’s Note: Recently I heard a Unitarian Universalist spiritual education teacher say that kids in her classes were going to make their own prayer rugs in celebration of Ramadan. That sparked my imagination: what would it be like to make your own prayer rug in the days of so many school shootings and the separation of young children from their parents due to immigration injustices. 

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet. Her most recent collection is How I Learned To Be White—poetry that explores the roots of white privilege in education, ancestry, childhood and culture. 

SO SUE US

by Judith Terzi

People protest outside a speech by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on Wednesday in Sacramento, where he admonished state politicians for not cooperating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement issues. (Noah Berger / AFP/Getty Images via the Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2018)


Oddly, we (sort of) welcome the Trump administration's legal challenge in hopes that it will clarify not just for state officials, but for the federal government where the lines of responsibility and culpability might lie. We suspect the courts will side with California on most if not all of the legal issues Session's lawsuit raises, and in the process could underscore the reality that California's menu of state and local laws limiting involvement with federal immigration enforcement do not offer anyone anything remotely like sanctuary. —Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2018




Enjoy your Tuesday dinner at $35,000+
a head in Beverly Hills. If you have time,

Mr. Pres., explore SoCal culinarily. There's
an Indian place up the street from your shindig

called the Spice Affair. But beware. You don't
need more tsuris. Their chicken tikka masala

is excellent. Or try their saag aloo, potatoes
simmering in a spinach curry. Instead of

checking out prototypes of prejudice, try some
pork or beef enchiladas at El Portal. You can

have two, plus rice and beans for under $15.
Let's see, would you order black beans or frijoles?

That might be a tough choice. Or try camarones 
a la diabla. That's shrimp in a spicy red sauce.

Very close to the Mexican place is a Salvadorian
hole-in-the-wall delight. Do you know what

a pupusa is? It's not what you're thinking. If
you've got more time, stop by Saladang. It's close

to Beverly Hills. Have you ever tasted pad thai
or ginger chicken? And what about fried calamari?

That's our fave. BTW, you can have two scoops
of ice cream there. Yes, vanilla, if you don't like

ginger or mint tea. But if you want chocolate sauce,
you'll have to cross the street to Kabuki, where

all the sushi chefs are either Korean or Mexican.
So sue us!

Judith Terzi is the author of Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus). Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in journals and anthologies such as Caesura, Columbia Journal, Good Works Review, Main Street Rag, Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and Net. Museum of Rearranged Objects will be published by Kelsay Books later this year. 

LIFE AFTER THE DECREE

by William Aarnes

“I Have a List of Replacements for the CDC’s 7 Banned Words” —Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, December 15, 2017

The first weekend after the decree
that public norms and preferences
should determine what we know,
my wife and I jokingly wondered
what we should call
the life she’d been carrying
(the sonogram doesn’t show
much of anything).

That Sunday my gleeful parents
skyped to ask us to fly down
to celebrate how the country
was returning to its senses.
They were overjoyed to think
that those unwarranted Social Security
deposits could finally stop
(the wealth that Mom inherited
is just the coolest thing).

By that Wednesday I’d concluded
that my—what would be the right word?—
changeling research assistant  
had stopped coming in to work
(not that I minded,
since any fool could see
that the data we’d been collecting
on the social causes of indigence
didn’t prove a thing).

Now, on the subway, on the streets,
in the building corridors,
on TV, at the gym,
at the construction sites,
in all the classrooms,
even in the military,
everybody’s become a white heterosexual
(thank goodness my DNA test
and particularly my father’s
don’t mean a thing).


William Aarnes lives in South Carolina.

BANNED WORDS

by Joan Colby

When words are banned freedom is vulnerable
As an undesired fetus.
Its existence is not an entitlement.
We thought freedom was science-based
Comprising the diversity
Of race, religion, gender, even the transgender

Of nuance. Not written in stone, transgender
Employs choice in a  way that is vulnerable
To the notion of diversity.
Imagine that a fetus
Could be both science-based
And mystical. An existence less an entitlement

Than a desire. Those who feel entitled
To condemn the idea of transgender
Don’t reckon with what can be science-based
Or perception. If even language is vulnerable
To such dictates-- say the personhood of the fetus—
Then all political diversity

Will be challenged. The world is nothing if not diverse
As Darwin proved. Shape was not an entitlement
But subject to mutation like a fetus
That could be male, female or a transgender
Complexity once entirely vulnerable
To the decisions of science-based

Physicians who assigned gender scientifically based,
Or so they claimed, on diverse
Characteristics. Just like language is vulnerable.
In fact, they felt entitled
To manipulate sexual identity. Transgender
Would not be permitted. The fetus

Was a poltical victim. Its fetal
Nature denied any science based
Authenticity. Words like transgender,
Philosophies such as diversity
Would not be entitled
To exist. Thus we are vulnerable

To the designs of the pseudo science-based ideologues. Vulnerable
As the entitlements. As the fetus,
Male, female, transgender—the very concept of diversity.


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press), Dead Horses and Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press), and Properties of Matter (Aldrich Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

STEVE KING: THIS IS YOUR NOT SO WONDERFUL LIFE

by Michael H. Brownstein

      King said. "I'd ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you're talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?"
      Hayes asked: "Than white people?"
      "Than, than Western civilization itself," King said. "It's rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That's all of Western civilization."

—USA Today, July 18, 2016

So Congressman Steve King of Iowa woke on Monday morning.
The first thing he did was go to the bathroom—outside in a small wooden shack. (1)
He wiped his behind when he was finished with leaves and other weeds. (2)
Then, like a dog, slapped water onto his face, dug his tongue into the pond and drank. (3)
In the house he put on a smock of leaves (4) after a cold snack of simple food. (5)
He walked to work (6) down crooked pathways to his office in a city without focus (7)
and entered a small office in the capitol of no pattern (7 again) —you get it now—
just about everything was designed or invented by someone who was not white.


1. A typical example is the Indus city of Lothal (c. 2350 BCE). In Lothal all houses had their own private toilet which was connected to a covered sewer network constructed of brickwork held together with a gypsum-based mortar that emptied either into the surrounding water bodies or alternatively into cesspits, the latter of which were regularly emptied and cleaned. (Khan, Saifullah. "Sanitation and wastewater technologies in Harappa/Indus valley civilization 2600-1900 BC")

2. 50 B.C. The Chinese first made paper with short lengths of bamboo and then later added cotton linen rags which were soaked in water and pounded into swollen pulp. This was then formed into sheets and dried.
105 A.D: Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese court official, has his name linked to the invention of paper. Most likely, Ts’ai mixed mulberry bark, hemp, and rags with water, mashed it into pulp, pressed out the liquid, and hung the thin mat to dry in the sun.
8th Century: Arabs were known to make writing paper and were the first to use linen in the process. (The Toilet Paper Encyclopedia)

3. Bamboo tubes sealed at the end with clay provided a usable container in Asia, while the inhabitants of the Tehuacan Valley began carving large stone bowls that were permanently set into a hearth as early as 7,000 BC. (Cookware and Bakeware at Wikipedia)

4. Cotton was used for clothing in Ancient India from 5th millennium BC. Linen cloth was made in Ancient Egypt from the Neolithic period. (History of Clothing)

5. The earliest evidence for fire associated with humans comes from Oldowan hominid sites in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya. The site of Koobi Fora (FxJj20, dated 1.6 million years ago) contained oxidized patches of earth to a depth of several centimeters, which some scholars interpret as evidence for fire control. At 1.4 million years of age, the Australopithecine site of Chesowanja in central Kenya also contained burned clay clasts in small areas. Other Lower Paleolithic sites in Africa that contain possible evidence for fire include Gadeb in Ethiopia (burned rock), and Swartkrans (270 burned bones out of a total of 60,000, dated 600,000-1 million years old), and Wonderwerk Cave (burned ash and bone fragments, ca. 1 million years ago), both in South Africa. (K. Kris Hirst, "The Discovery of Fire")

6. C.R. Patterson, born slave, built automobiles before Henry Ford. (Monette Bailey)

7. President Thomas Jefferson recommended Benjamin Banneker (an African-American) to be a part of a surveying team to lay out Washington, D.C. Appointed to the three-man team by President George Washington, Banneker wound up saving the project when the lead architect quit in a fury – taking all the plans with him. Using his meticulous memory, Banneker was able to recreate the plans. Furthermore Banneker invented a perfectly timed working clock. No wonder Steve King was never on time.


Michael H. Brownstein was the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam, 2011.

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.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COLORS GONE?

by Susan P. Blevins

Image source: 7 Themes.com

Now we’re in the centrifuge
spinning faster and faster
away from one another,
when we separate we disintegrate,
when we fall off the wall
who will put us together again?

Carefully, a knife pares
away the colors from our midst,
cutting to the bone of who we are to
make us a monochromatic society.
Does no one understand that poly is
more interesting than mono?
That the Roundup approach to crowd control
will ultimately kill us all?

That We The People do not want
to become a tighty-whitey dogma
driven herd of sheeple?
Without the dark we would not
know the light.  Without black
there would be no white.

Nature thrives when diversity flourishes,
so does society, like ingredients in
delicious healthy smorgasbord.
But no, with shortened vision and
primitive instinct, in fear
they scalpel us apart
bleeding us of life until all that’s left,
a hollowed husk of memories.

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, lived in Italy for 26 years, and is now living in the USA. She became a proud and happy US citizen 20 years ago. Now she is agonizing over the disintegration of US society, and the way fear is being used to manipulate people. She made a conscious decision many years ago never to live her life from a place of fear.