MEDITATION ON OUR DIFFICULT NATIONAL SITUATION

by Lynne Barnes

“Give Me Shelter” by Kate Langlois

Empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.

            —Elon Musk

 

I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that does a lot of damage.

            —Charlie Kirk

 

I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.

            —Donald Trump, President of the United States, at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk

 

Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another…The first known use of empathy was in 1909

            —Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

Woke: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice); first known use, 1925.

            —Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

 

Yes, I am woke,

and I hear you speaking out

from a dream, talking in your sleep.

 

I’m afraid to shake you, I know you

startle easily.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

As you yell at me from your dream,

I’m afraid my voice, my touch

might trigger you to kick out,

hurt me.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

In your dream state, you shout

about erasing my Me

that I struggled so hard to free.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

Yes, I am woke and

I love the word empathy—

I too have talked in my sleep.

I feel you.

Lynne Barnes is a lesbian and a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian. Born in Augusta, Georgia, she has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir, Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

CODE-SWITCHING

by Daniel Romo

Art by Clay Jones

And the congregation fell to their knees, 
praying for their savior to supply them with 

All-American manna and a fiery plague on 
their snowflake neighbors where brimstone 

reigns down on their households because 
we are to honor thy mother and forefathers. 

And the pastor calls for the parishioners 
to regain strength like Sampson because, 

Empathy is the new Delilah and no one is 

shaving my locks or taking away my Glocks! 

The second commandment forbids idol 

worship, but the second amendment’s 

exempt in the Patriot’s New Abridged Version

Bible. And the choir rejoices in celebration of 

flag and faith because sacrilege doesn’t apply 

to those proudly waving stars and stripes. And 

Eve was created during Adam’s deep sleep 

so it’s no wonder woke is synonymous with 

nightmare. And here we are, my brethren, 
attempting to love and expel our neighbor 

from this country, deporting the sinners 
from the sanctuary, building walls higher

than Jericho’s.

Daniel Romo's latest book is American Manscape (Moon Tide Press 2026).

AS EMPATHY FAILED

by Imogen Arate

Cartoon by Nate Beeler (Cagle Cartoons) via Tulsa World.

Let them face the insecurity of not knowing 

if home will remain haven 

in the hours separating dawn and dusk

Let them taste the bitter metal of cruelty

that tosses life into uncertainty

while hiding behind secured gates

Let them be exposed without retreat

to ready canines famished for sinking

into the bleeding of abused flesh

As empathy could not sway

the concrete heart

let them be cast into the weight

of lead shoes drowning 

without fail in the muck 

below the azure of waterlines

Let the stirring chaos made

by unsympathetic hands

swallow their owners 

into the whirlwind they 

conjured with others in mind

Let this ouroboros birthed

in ill intent latch onto

its diseased umbilical tail 

and ensnare those who

envisioned its callous trap

in its tightening coil

Imogen Arate is an award-winning Asian-American poet and writer and the Executive Producer and Host of Poets and Muses, a weekly poetry podcast that won second place at National Federation of Press Women's 2020 Communications Contest. She proudly hails from an immigrant family whose previous undocumented status and associated economic burdens nearly robbed her the opportunity to pursue higher education.  She has written in four languages and published in two. Her works were most recently published on the Global Vaccine Poem Project and Documented Experiences and in The Opiate. You can find her @PoetsandMuses on Twitter and Instagram.

500,000

by Cathy Hailey

Ascent and descent

Symmetrical staircases

Move candlelight bent

Flames flicker faces

Pathways towards transcendency

Spirits drifting in

Liminality

A presidential burden

Despite empathy

Comforts multitudes

In national eulogy

Church bell interludes

Ritual “Amazing Grace”

All, Requiescat en Pace

Cathy Hailey teaches as an adjunct in Johns Hopkins University’s online MA in Teaching Writing program and previously taught high school English and Creative Writing in Prince William County, VA. She is northern region vice president of The Poetry Society of Virginia and organizes In the Company of Laureates, a biennial reading of poets laureate held in PWC. Her writing has been published in Poetry Virginia, The Journal of the Virginia Writing Project, Written in Arlington, The Prince William Poetry Review, Grid Poems, and in anthologies associated with ekphrastic collaborations.

POEM FOR THE INAUGURATION

by Amy Elizabeth Robinson

So much blood

on his lie-drenched tongue.

Too much

to explore

in a poem. This poem

chooses

to turn in a new direction. 

It hears 

the heavy gates

of justice 

closing 

on his reign of infancy 

and terror.

It applauds 

the sharp-shinned 

hawks 

of empathy

who guard the precarious 

scales. This poem

will not forget, yet

it turns

towards 

the dawn. 

You know this dawn, this

tender filigree of

sun-soaked web. 

The spiders have been spinning

all through the night.

Their webs of diligence,

and promise, and 

shimmer of delight. This poem 

insists on making

a plea deal

with the moment. Guilty

of exhaustion, 

it ends its 

fractured sentences

with care. 

Amy Elizabeth Robinson is a poet, writer, historian, mother, and many other things. She did live in the eastern mountains of Sonoma County, California, but her collectively-owned community recently burned in the Glass Fire. She is a community leader at Flower Mountain Zen, and her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Literary Mama, West Marin Review, West Trestle Review, Vine Leaves, Rattle’s Poets Respond program, and elsewhere. She blogs at www.turningplanet.org.

TWO OLD PROTESTERS STILL READY TO PROTEST

by Jane Yolen and Peter Tacy

1965

JY:

So, sit down on this stoop,
not that close,
I can hear you through your mask.
The words are familiar,
that hoarse enthusiasm,
your passion for the cause.
Even old legs can march,
though not run away.
Do you have your water bottle?
City map?
Inhaler?
Tissues?
My cell phone number?
The lawyer’s?
I have yours.
Remember:
the arc bends towards justice.
It’s not what we stand against.
It’s what we stand for.

PT:

I learned early—close to home;

What’s wrong—what we all know
To be wrong—can’t be accepted.

My grandmother said it:
Accepting doesn’t just mean
You agree, either; it means
You’ve done nothing to stop wrong.

Wrong, she said, is not static, or
Passive; its impulse is to grow,
To add mass and momentum.
So we have to stop wrong, she said.

If we don’t stop wrong, then
Wrong will grow like a cancer
And consume us all, even if we
Hate wrong. That’s what she said.

I’ve found ever since that she
Was right. So—when I see wrong,
I don’t just sit there. Like she said,
Good intentions don’t equal good.

But what she didn’t say, and I
Know now, is that fighting
Wrong doesn’t establish good.

You’ve got to let your living
Teach you good. Live with the pores
Of your soul, your empathy, open —

Your sense of wonder and awe
Open like a trawl-net, to find good.

And whenever you find some good,
Hide it in your heart.  Because with it
Hating wrong no longer equals hatred.
A miracle happens—and hate

Transmutes to love. My grandmother
Never said that to me; but now
I know she lived it. How? My grandkids
Have taught me—as I did her.

JY:

Or as I always said
to my kids
and grandkids:
Leave the world
a better place
than you found it.
Not so hard now.
Or maybe harder.
You dropped your inhaler.
I’ll help you stand.
It will be a long walk.
But we’re used to them.
And the company—
all those young people—
the best.
In case enthusiasm
distracts them,
we’re here to remind:
it’s not what we stand against,
but what we stand for
‘cause the arc of justice
doesn’t just bend itself, you know.

Jane Yolen is a Hatfield writer with over 389 books published. 10 of them books of adult poetry. Peter Tacy, Yiolen’s fiancé, lives both in Hatfield and Mystic Ct and has been an educator and writer/poet for most of his life.

AT THE CROSSROADS

by James Cronin

The Seven Acts of Mercy by Caravaggio

The first time I saw "The Seven Acts of Mercy" . . .  I knew I wanted to write a play about it: its generosity, its complications, its aggressive, violent compassion. —Anders Lustgarden in his introduction to the 2016 Bloomsbury Methuen edition of his play The Seven Acts of Mercy.

The artist painted a swarming crossroads where
two alleys, winged heaven and Naples did
intersect; all to show the fruits of fair
mercy, with the knife edge of its need not hid.

The city’s shame is so public, its wanton
cruelty on display. Does it want us
to keep moving, and not gaze at that fountain
replenished on its own? No, the chorus

reaching from the heavens bids us instead
to stare: as a noble hands a cloak to a nude
beggar; a weary pilgrim with a red
beard is pointed to shelter and food;

a servant moves a corpse for burial;
and a prisoner, condemned to starve in jail,
is suckled by his child, a surreal
story of old Rome. All true? Isms fail

where story succeeds. We are numbed
by numbers. Empathy demands a tale,
a face in the crowd. Compassion can’t be summed.
But now, even a clear summons can fail.

Where once only moral truth was needed,
our leader, peacock-brained, sees but his tail.
With miles of devastation unheeded,
his gloried behind dims all loss from the gale.

And those enablers of killing still stick
to their guns and sanctify murders’ ease.
No compassion! No mercy! What sick
huckster sells as freedom a deadly disease.

After a four decade career in the law, James Cronin returned to his first love, literature. Since his judicial retirement in 2007, he has participated in three poetry groups and has served as a facilitator in numerous courses for a lifelong learning program in Fall River, MA.

FOR THE ESTRANGED ON MOTHER'S DAY

Imps of Insomnia
by Larry Litt

Image source: Becky Says Things

True Nature doesn’t give a damn.
Imps in darkest tossed nights
Sleepless chattering monkeys
Waken me analyzing
My life screaming
“Tragedy begets Empathy!”
As if I needed a
Hole in my heart repaired.
Monkeys feel estrangement
Shout “What’s it for?
What’s this silent pain all about?
Why can’t it be healed?”
I know now there’s no healing
Just accepting the boundaries
Of betrayal, anger
And eternal shame.
The mad poet took all offered
In his path of pleasure.
The payout is never
To hold a child with
Love again.
Biting lips with empathy
At families reconciled
In Hollywood movies
With a sadness too great
Even for the big fake screen.
True Nature is silent
Does not give a damn
Or consent to relief.
Were I more like True Nature
Could I still write this poem?


Larry Litt is a writer and performer who can't decide if he’s a 'dirty old man, 'smart olfart' or 'recently bathed geezer.’The NY Times has called his work "Wryly conceived, politically provocative." New Littany Editions coming soon.