THINGS YOU CAN DO IN 85 SECONDS

by J.R. Solonche

The Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history. —Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 27, 2026. Photo: Jamie Christian

Boil a cup of water in a modern microwave.

Tie both shoes with a deliberate, double-knot of human certainty.

 

Empty a small kitchen trash bin and replace the liner before the infinite notices.

Hand-grind enough coffee beans for a single sardonic cup.

 

Take twelve deep breaths, measuring the air as if it were borrowed property.

Wash your hands thoroughly, scrubbing the January salt from your knuckles.

 

Read three short poems by J.R. Solonche.

Write a brief postcard to a neighbor you haven't spoken to in years.

 

Check the mail, auditing the envelopes for clerical errors.

Wind a manual wristwatch, tightening the spring against the global midnight.

Nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, twice for the National Book Award and three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 50 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

TODO BUENO?

by Andrés Castro

from Macmillan

New York City continues to grow and grate on me.
     Being born at Coney Island Hospital the summer of ’58, 

     after my family arrived from Puerto Rico—Borikén 

to the Indigenous—should make me a Boricua, but no.

Mi familia on the island often says I am from Por Allá, 

     especially those claiming bloodlines to native villages—

     chiefs rabid in their gatekeeping—when calling 
the post-Columbian colonizing label, Taino, inauthentic. 

My genté, speaking from por alla/my over here—

     just call me Nuyorican. My ancestral archipelago remains

a natural wonder; but why erase my mainland city tribe. 
     My adolescence was blessed with a South Bronx block 

of modest homes owned by Black, brown, and white 

families that mixed—no matter the surrounding chaos 

of the sixties. My transplanted island roots took root 
above and below concrete. So what I was born too late 

to be an OG Nuyorican—say The Young Lords or outlaw

poets Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarín, and Miguel Piñero, who

founded the Nuyorican Poets’ Café to welcome everyone. You
can’t grow up where I did and not be Nuyorican—this one, 

given my nature, still needs activism and revolutionary poetry.  

     The stakes are too high now: the world is being set ablaze 

with the U.S. the head arsonist—aren’t the U.S. bombs that made 

Gaza a wasteland and suddenly dropped on Iran enough proof? 

     I only wish my roots were not drying out so quickly. My mother

would say, “Cuídate, de los buenos quedan pocos,” if still alive.

I have gone from little boy to brittle—taking care and being good 

in 2025 is old as analog. The robotic other side is evil and reckless—

signing the Doomsday Clock will strike midnight in my lifetime—
whether I practice Yucayeque rituals in Borikén’s central mountains 

or rattle downtown on the Lexington Ave express. What I really

need to talk about is the genocide of Palestinians given the chance.  

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory and keeps a personal blog,
The Practicing Poet. Andrés is currently working on Militant Humanist, a project for poets, 
writers, artists, and others.

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

by Hallie Dolin

Last Tuesday the pointer moved one second closer 

to destruction. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight.

Around the world, our weapons wait for our command:

all vigilant, sitting patiently through midnight. 

We hear reports of ever-growing plagues passed on,

although information blackout's our new midnight. 

No one draws wheat from chaff, facts from alternative,

or musters effort like we used to do. Midnight 

and its stifling, sleepless depths—no rest for us—

is a bruise seeping blood, this black and blue midnight.

We snipe over who deserves to rain their revenge 

on whom, whose forfeit lives should dim out to midnight,

but we've missed the point. Your fate is mine, my blood is

your bloodstain. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight. 

Hallie Dolin is a pathology resident in Cleveland, Ohio and has been writing for fun for nearly three decades. Her work has previously been published in The Case Reserve Review and the now-defunct Flashes in the Dark. When she isn't trying to discover novel cures for frightening microbes, she spends her time working on an actual novel. She also enjoys knitting, playing the guitar, and spending time with her cat. 

WHAT THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK SAID

by Howie Good

As of January 24, the Doomsday Clock sits at 90 seconds to midnight. Jamie Christiani /   Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

The chemistry set I got for my 10th birthday came with glass test tubes and small bottles of dry chemicals in jewellike colors, plus a booklet with precise instructions on how to rubberize a hardboiled egg. It was the era of the Space Race. The scientist in the white lab coat held the Cold War rank of cultural spokesperson for progress. We were taught in school to worship science, as thousands of years ago a many-eyed beast with a body like a leopard’s and feet like a bear’s was worshipped. The clock declares it’s now nine seconds to midnight. Down in the street, an addled homeless man waves his arms around while remonstrating with a vicious-looking companion only he can see. 

Howie Good's latest poetry book is Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems from Redhawk Publications. He co-edits the journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.