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.

THE SUPREME COURT COURTS ITS OWN SUPREMACY

A Modern Petrarchan Sonnet 

by Kimberly Russo

The Supreme Court on Friday reduced the authority of executive agencies, sweeping aside a longstanding legal precedent that required courts to defer to the expertise of federal administrators in carrying out laws passed by Congress. —The New York Times, June 28, 2024. Above is an excerpt from Justice Kagan’s dissent.

History names you as “Final Arbiter,”
To eagle-eye each branch, limit its power
and strike down laws in violation of our
country’s pact. You are humanity’s harbinger.
“EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW” leans starboard
erasing civil rights from their ivory tower
with six of nine lying disavowers
dumb to the public’s dreams dearly harbored.

All women, surrender your uterus,
lovers and race and Affirmative Action
flee in disgrace and die in the closet.
What ill minds embrace rulings ludicrous?
Judges, pious in self-satisfaction
perished in politics’ pockets, I posit.

Kimberly Russo is an English teacher in Aurora, Colorado where she resides with her husband, Tony.  She is the mother of four children, Nicholas (Stephanie,) Audrey, Grace, and Maritza, and grandmother to Doc Wilder and Willa Cassidy. Kimberly spends her free time gardening & bird-watching. Much of her writing is dedicated to marriage/family, social issues, including the perpetuating inequality among genders/races, and the stigma associated with mental illness. Her poetry has appeared in River Poets Journal, Open Minds Quarterly, PDXX Collective, Sixfold (Summer 2016,) Sixfold (Summer 2018,) Sixfold (Winter 2022,) Cricket Media: Spider Magazine, ACM, Another Chicago Magazine, and Backwards Trajectory.