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. 

PASSOVER IN PLAGUE-TIME

by Betsy Mars

after Saeed Jones’s “Boy in a Whalebone Corset”  in  Prelude to Bruise

“The acre of grass is a sleeping swarm of locusts,
and in the house beside it,
tears too are mistaken” for a dark sea,
into which we dip our egg
hoping it will ignite in fertility,
that it will part, a million times—
or whatever is needed—

dividing into heart, lung, legs,
the brain and whatever refrain
we choose to utter
on this, one of the holy days,
to mark our division, and our coming together
a tribe in the end, passed over,
we find our bitter herbs
our unleavened bread

our toilet paper and paper towels shared:
the treasures of this day,
when we marked our doors,
hid inside and hoped to God
he’d pass us by.

Betsy Mars is a poet, educator, photographer, and occasional publisher. Her Kingly Street Press published its first anthology, Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife, in October 2019. Her work has recently appeared in Verse-Virtual, The Blue Nib, The Ekphrastic Review, and Silver Birch Press. The daughter of a professor and a social worker, she has had a lifelong interest in issues pertaining to social justice.

ANOTHER BREXIT POEM

by Freya Jackson

Three years on & Brexit
is still hypothetical, defined only
as itself, by itself. Brexit is Brexit.
It has been measured, weighed.

It is no heavier than
the glue on the back of a postage
stamp (and tastes like God save
us all) and it is no lighter than

the shield of Saint George,
built from jingoism & thin plastic
painted to look like bronze;
it is ungraspable: too like itself to hold.

This land inherits division
from itself. Brexit, Brexit, Brexit,
something is chanting in the street,
I am not sure who is speaking

or what they want from me.
Every day thousands of calls
gush into the home office, each
orison: all these years, I’ve been here,

lived here, pay taxes, have loved,
even the rain, isn’t that what home is:
the sound of your keys dropped in
the bowl by the door, I need to know,

how much more, please, hold,
please, hold, please, please,
listen—isn’t the definition of citizen
those who live inside the city?

Even the smog outside us is swollen
with conjecture. Doubt distorts
thought. Every time we attempt
to perceive the word

it loses some part of itself:
look at a thing often enough,
it loses definition, becomes
sharp toothed & meaningless.

Strip the bones off of a ghost
& you are left only with hot air.
Bodiless, it winds around us all—
certain only in its uncertainty.

Freya Jackson is a writer from Leeds. Her poetry has previously been published in places including Magma, Arc Magazine, The Cadaverine and The Interpreters House. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her graphic short story “Joy” in 2016. She is a winner of one of New Writing North’s New North Poets Awards for 2019.

THE COLOR OF LIES

by Peter Witt



via GIPHY


White lies are weak and promote privilege
Black lies darken the history of a proud people
Brown lies hold back migrants
Yellow lies are evil in intent
Red lies abandon truth for power
Orange lies hold back a nation

All lies matter whatever their color
They twist our perceptions
Divide us, create angst and tears
Demean our welfare
Trap us in darkness

Peter Witt is a retired professor who now writes poetry and family history. He is the uthor of numerous articles and books on youth development, and a biography, through the Texas A&M Press, about the WWII Red Cross service and progressive life of his aunt, Edith Witt.

BUILDING WALLS

by Megan Merchant

I have seen the most beautiful walls painted by children,
walls with crowds of hands shaped into doves and flowers
tall. I have seen the most beautiful walls sledged by exhausted
fathers who wear the stucco-dust home and lull their babies
into sleep with tales about how they gutted that great beast.
I have seen the most beautiful walls dressed for carnival, lined
with stars, and helmets in remembrance of our fallen. I have seen
the most beautiful walls drenched with ivy, an accord with nature,
water dripping into buckets down brick. I have heard the word
wall in a thousand clumsy ways, the buzz saw and hammer
being cleaned in the toolbox of his mouth, the easy-dirt of his words,
where we tunnel. I have seen the way men resurrect walls to keep
the light out, too afraid to meet the eyes of a woman directly. Because
he knows she has learned to see around the symbol, that it is not a greater
means of division, or a blockade, but a chance to climb, to see people
holding hands from a different perspective, high enough that their
bodies blur into one.

Megan Merchant is mostly forthcoming. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Gravel Ghosts (Glass Lyre Press, 2016 Book of the Year), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Prize, Glass Lyre Press, forthcoming 2017), four chapbooks, and a children’s book with Philomel Books.