WHAT WORDS MEAN

by Michael T. Young

Cartoon By Nick Anderson

          For Alex Pretti, Nurse Executed by ICE Agents

 

They say “domestic terrorist.” 

We say “citizen.” 

They say “violent radical.” 

We say “peaceful protestor.” 

They say “he brandished a gun.” 

We say “he had a phone.” 

They say “absolute immunity.” 

We say “first amendment.” 

 

At the end of each sentence a life is at stake. It’s how 

words form in the mouth. Some unfold like a flower 

 

scenting the air with an aroma 

reminding you of a summer day 

when you knew your mother and father 

loved you and time seemed 

endless, full of light and warmth. 

 

But other words form like an ache 

where the bullet entered 

and a pain where it blew out 

the other side, red 

not just with the usual blood, 

but with speech and every other right.

Michael T. Young's fourth collection, Mountain Climbing a River, was just published by Broadstone Books. His third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including Chiron Review, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Mid-Atlantic Review, and Vox Populi.

FLOUR MASSACRE

by Shelley Ettinger

‘Flour massacre’: Lifesaving aid becomes a deadly struggle in Gaza

At least 112 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured on Thursday after Israeli troops opened fire on civilians gathered at a convoy of food trucks southwest of Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said. Israel denied it was to blame, saying that many victims were run over by aid trucks in a rush to obtain food. The massacre comes as the UN warns of an “almost inevitable famine” in the besieged Palestinian enclave amid increasing reports of children dying of starvation. —France 24, March 1, 2024

You think it’s irony at first

it’s spelled wrong at first

in your head a fun metaphor

it’s blossoms buds stems scents

you picture birds maybe

or animals eating petals maybe

insects descending in swarms

devouring flowers in fields on trees

it’s ironic because it’s iconic

nature doing its cyclical thing

pure innocent instinctive

 

You spelled it wrong in your head

now you know not metaphor it’s actual

no bees no flying beings not natural

it’s people downed mass as in murder

acre as in designated slaughter site

the hungry strafed their bodies bloodied

arms outstretched for flour sacks dropped

because feeding starving children is not

permitted must be swiftly stopped because

the death deliverers determine eating to be

a capital crime in Palestine

Shelley Ettinger is the author of Vera's Will. Her work has been in Allium, The Wild Word, Gertrude, Nimrod, Mississippi Review, Mizna, The New Verse News in August 2007, and other journals. She is a Lambda Literary Foundation LGBTQ Writers' Retreat fellow. A queer social-justice activist for fifty years, Shelley now lives in San Antonio.

WE CAN STILL DREAM

by Katherine West

American Dream, mixed media in resin artwork by Raphael Mazzucco.

            "I have a dream... we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."  —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

Last night I dreamed of rain

It overflowed the culverts 

It washed out the road in waves 

Like a sea in the desert 

It filled the arroyos like a lover 

Or the tide before love the opening 

Before the opening the flower 

Dreaming of the bee dreaming 

Of pollen generations of honey 

The wealth of the hive 

And the queen humming 

Her birth song of infinite flight 

Over a globe of no boundaries 

One garden all colors 

A palette of rainy territories 

Mixing new shades forgetting borders 

Katherine West is the author of three collections of poetry and one novel: Scimitar Dreams, The Bone Train, Riddle, and Lion Tamer, respectively.  She has had poetry published in Bombay Gin, Lalitamba, Tanka Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and TheNewVerse.News who nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019.  She lives in the mountains outside of Silver City, New Mexico where she translates Mexican revolutionary poetry and creates custom, hand-made poetry chapbooks.

INSTANT CLASSIC

by Alan Catlin

Jonathan Bachman's Reuters photo of the moment that police arrested Ieshia Evans.

The subject is

a tall, well-dressed

black woman

standing in middle

of a road, hands crossed

at the wrists

facing heavily armed

police-in-riot-gear

so like the blonde

hippie chick inserting

a flower in gun/muzzle

of a heavily armed-primed

for- attack national

guardsman

so like the 60’s:

a black woman arrested

for a silent, non-violent

protest

so like the 60’s

but without the peace

or love

just the wars,

the violence,

the murders,

the riots sure to follow,

and the guns

always

the guns

Alan Catlin is poetry editor of online journal misfitmagazine.net. His latest book of poetry is American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press.

TITUM ARUM

by Joan Colby



  The "corpse flower" at the Chicago Botanic Garden was manually opened Sunday morning after it failed to bloom, but the flower did not emit its trademark odor as expected. —NBC Chicago, August 31, 2015


At the Botanic Garden,
The corpse flower was getting ready
To bloom—a once in a lifetime affair.
Fifteen feet high, its vast hulk bulged
Ready to release the stench
That dung beetles adore,
That maggots desire.
But at the seminal moment
Spike decided it could not
Compete in a state rotten
With the stink of politicians:
Four of the last seven governors
Did time—fraud, bribery,
Racketeering, corruption.
The putrid fly leaves in the book
Of their chicaneries
Overwhelm any official flower.


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 was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). 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) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press. 

AUTUMN EQUINOX

by Howie Good

Image source: Country Wives

A swirling cloud of rocks & gravel
sweeps along the ground,
& before I have time to develop
a plausible theory about it,

the woman staggers up to me,
an eye missing, a hand gone,
a brittle blue flower tucked saucily
behind her remaining ear,
& I suddenly know of what the future consists:

a certain unrest in all there has been,

the desire to rescue scrap
& then serve celebratory champagne
to saints & alcoholics,

an unpremeditated encounter
at the breakfast table with an apple, pears,
a heart cut with a cake knife.


Howie Good's latest book of poetry is The Complete Absence of Twilight (2014) from MadHat Press.