AN UNDESIRABLE SILENCE

by Katy Z. Allen

I first noticed it early in the morning, isolated orange rays of light passing between the trees, the unusual color catching my eye, and so I went looking for the Sun, hidden from sight, and stopped abruptly when I saw it, not far above the horizon, a deep orange disc in the foggy, hazy, cloudy sky. Later, stepping outside for a second time, the light was so strange and eerie it gave me the shivers. I thought a storm was coming, maybe even a tornado, for the feel of the air was foreboding, so I checked all three weather apps on my phone, but none said anything about rain. The unease remained with me as I journeyed from errand to errand, wondering why I had heard nothing, although to be honest I hadn’t gone searching beyond my weather apps, but each time I stepped out of the car I felt that unease and when at last I arrived home and checked my email I saw a subject line, “The sky looks ominous and the air quality is bad. When will it end?” and that was when I learned—perhaps having had my head in the sand for longer than I should have—about the latest wildfires across Canada and Minnesota and the smoke from those fires arriving on our doorstep, so to speak, here in New England, and at last I understood, but all day I’d been feeling the silence of an explanation and only when it was so bad that everyone would notice did some brief and insufficient explanation arrive. I don’t have my head so far into the sand to be fully unaware that as long as we’re not seeing it, we’re not hearing it, we’re not experiencing it, the fact that the world is on fire is greeted with silence, even though it is a deep, dark  heaviness that breaks our hearts and weighs us down, no matter what the color of the Sun as it rises above the horizon in the morning.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, poet, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, former healthcare chaplain, and co-founder of a Jewish climate organization. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as The New Verse News, Amethyst Review, The Bluebird Word, Cosmic Daffodil, The Soliloquist Journal and Art on the Trails: Number 9. She was awarded Honorable Mention in The Prose Poem’s 2025 Prose Poetry Competition, and her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing. 

MASS SHOOTING #4

2700 block, W Michigan Ave, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, September 20, 2025

by Ron Riekki

I see fog: the feel of San Francisco,
of swamp, of isolation, of Gothic,
 
of Dickens, of Doyle, of death.
A girl's dressed Goth, smoking
outside the bar across the street.
The air is thick with cannabis,
 
so much so that I feel high just
walking.  I get food.  While I
wait, I go to other businesses
nearby.  There’s multiple, all
 
supplying either food or drink,
signs with a bright white VAPE
and a thick red BEER/LIQUOR.
I’ve come late, to get a feel for
 
what it was like at the time that
the shooting happened.  This is
Michigan’s fourth mass shooting
in two months.  We’re borderline
 
on campus/off campus.  I wonder
where in the parking lot that it
happened.  I go to a pizza place
while waiting for my food.  They
 
nod that, yes, they know about
the shooting.  It happened at
the building next door.  I go
across the street, to a bar, ask
 
for water.  They give me some.
I talk to the security guard, ask
him if he knows anything about
the shooting.  He points where
 
it happened, across the street.
I ask if he’s worried about any
more shootings.  No, he says.
I go in Two Fellas Grill.  Its
 
name reminds me of the film
Goodfellas.  “Layla.”  Tommy
gets whacked.  The place is
empty, totally empty, except
 
four employees.  I ask if they
heard about the shooting.
They look me over.  Why’m
I asking about the shooting?
 
One guy looks to see what’s
in my hand.  I’m holding
a notebook.  I don’t take
notes.  The guy says he
 
took video, of the aftermath.
Was he here when it happened?
No.  But he lives nearby.
He came right away.  I ask
 
what caused it.  A girl
behind the counter says
there’s lots of rumors,
maybe gang-related, or
 
maybe somebody got
jumped.  She says that
Kalamazoo used to be
the 4^th most dangerous
 
city, but now it’s 2^nd.
The guy says changes
are going to happen.
I ask what.  He says,
 
Changes.  Like what?
He says that’s being
talked about, but they
used to close at 4 a.m.,
 
but now they’re going
to close at 3 a.m. instead.
I ask about cameras and
he says they have those
 
already.  I tell him that
there must be incentive,
since this is campus and
there’s students to protect.
 
He says we have to protect
everyone.  He asks if I’m
going to order anything.
I can tell he’s done.  I go
 
back to the place where I
ordered food.  I eat next
to another table covered
with boxes, old computer
 
screens, a big bag of soy
sauce, the feel more like
warehouse than restaurant.
I talk to the workers there—
 
a chef, a driver, a guy who
takes the orders.  One says
he lives in Battle Creek, sees
shootings all the time, more
 
than I can count on my hands,
that’s for sure.  I ask what can
be done to lessen the violence.
It can’t be helped.  I ask if there
 
is anything we can do.  All three
say that they don’t think anything
is going to change gun violence
in America.  Nothing.  There’s
 
a tip jar nearby that’s marked:
Tiperoni 😊 Thank yoooooooo
The phone rings constantly.
Nobody eats inside, but Door
 
Dash people keep coming in
and out.  The guy asks me if
I want to see the footage of
the shooting.  I’m stunned.
 
You have it on camera?  He
pulls out his phone and in
a few seconds I’m seeing it
happen in front of me.  It’s
 
five black kids.  Children,
really.  Looking high-school
age.  And it lasts for just
seconds.  Maybe eight or
 
so seconds.  An ugly brawl
where fists are flailing and
it feels a bit like four against
one, except it’s too chaotic
 
to fully know who fights who
and quick, incredibly quick,
so quick that I have him show
me the footage three times:
 
one of them pulls out a gun
and starts shooting.  One kid
shot in the stomach and three
shot in the feet.  This is what
 
I realize—how incredibly
fast someone can pull out
a gun.  Another revelation:
how having a gun doesn’t
 
protect you.  He fired five
shots before I even realized
he’d pulled a gun out.  Where
did he get it? I ask.  It seems
 
like it just magically appeared.
From his pants, the guy says,
taking his phone back.  That’s
how fast, in three seconds, less,
 
you can shoot four people.  I
pull out my phone, time it.
It’s maybe two seconds and
four people have been shot.
 
And all of them could have
concealed weapons/permits
and it would do nothing.
We have this conversation
 
just ten days after Charlie
Kirk’s debating gun violence
was ended by gun violence
and I ask the three in front
 
of me, saying, you must have
some ideas of solutions, and
they say, no, there is nothing
we can do, and I push them
 
on this, but they stick to it,
this feeling of hopelessness.
I leave.  I’ve gone to three
other mass shootings and
 
people there have had ideas
of how to fix things, but now
the feeling is there’s nothing
we can do.  I go to the parking
 
lot and have this revelation that
the shooting happened inside
the restaurant.  I had just seen
the footage.  I’d assumed it
 
was in the parking lot, but
it was inside.  I get in my car.
A podcast starts up.  It’s three
men talking in toxic hyper-
 
masculine language.  I turn
it off.  I start to drive down
the street.  A car is alongside
me, going the exact same speed.
 
They’re in the passing lane, but
they don’t pass, just riding along-
side.  I make a turn I don’t need
to make.  I stop to get some gas.
 
The signs here say:
5 C OFF A GAL
REWARDS
and
 
2 SLICE S OF
P IZZA   &
L G  BI G GLUP
4 W  RE WARDS
 
I’m feeling depressed, but I laugh
at the word “GLUP.”  I pay, sit
down and look up to see another
sign on a pawn shop nearby:
 
GUNS &
AMMO

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

NAVALNY, RAFAH

by dana yost

burning cars.

gas in the air.

navalny dead.

someone lights

a cigarette.

marley’s words.

bottle of teeth

on the vanity.

navalny dead.

arctic nights.

while we stand

aside and look.

forgive them?

not yet.

pick at the meat

with your 

squirmy fingers.

roasted logs

by the missouri.

fog in daylight,

doorways

and dust.

in rafah

women

and children

are the real

poets.

Dana Yost was a journalist for 29 years and, still, sometimes, when news happens he can’t help but comment on events as they happen. He wrote the poem in lower case to try, in some way, a mode of protest or a bit of anarchy in response to too many strongmen and would-be strongmen. We have to speak against them.

THE VIEW FROM WHERE I SIT

by Brooke Herter James

 

The cloud of fog

hovering

over the mountain

has shaped itself

into a jaunty cap—

the kind one might wear

to a party 

or a parade.

Brooke Herter James is a poet living in Vermont.

AIR QUALITY INDEX: 519

by Devon Balwit

SEATTLE, WA - SEPTEMBER 12: A man wearing a mask walks along Kerry Park as smoke from wildfires fills the air on September 12, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. According to the National Weather Service, the air quality in Seattle remained at "unhealthy" levels Saturday after a large smoke cloud from wildfires on the West Coast settled over the area. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images via Seattle PI)

Take a deep breath, the meditation app advises—
I breathe in. I only cough a little.
I can’t see my chickens although I know they’re there.
The redwood’s ghostly one house over.

I breathe in. I only cough a little.
The front door gaps. We keep meaning to fix it.
The redwood’s ghostly one house over.
My usual view is lost to fog.

The front door gaps. We keep meaning to fix it.
Tendrils seep in, the smell of burning.
My usual view is lost to fog.
It’s like London in 1952.

Tendrils seep in, the smell of burning.
I wear a headlamp when I walk the dog.
It’s like London in 1952.
Thousands died. I don’t want to.

I wear a headlamp when I walk the dog.
I pray the coming rain will make a difference.
Thousands died. I don’t want to.
I worry for the mailman, the UPS lady with her dog biscuits.

I pray the coming rain will make a difference.
So many acres are aflame. The firefighters can’t be everywhere.
I worry for the mailman, the UPS lady with her dog biscuits.
The hummingbirds’ wings whisk smoke.

Too many acres are aflame. The firefighters can’t be everywhere.
I can’t see my chickens although I know they’re there.
The hummingbirds’ wings whisk smoke.
Take a deep breath, the meditation app advises—

When not teaching, Devon Balwit chases chickens in the Pacific Northwest. She has two collections forthcoming: Rubbing Shoulders with the Greats [Seven Kitchens Press, 2020] and Dog-Walking in the Shadow of Pyongyang [Nixes Mate Books, 2020]. 

ECLIPSE

by Gail Goepfert

Thick plumes of smoke rise from bush fires on the coast of East Gippsland in Victoria, Australia, on Saturday. (Australian Maritime Safety Authority/Reuters via The Washington Post, January 5, 2020)

Fog out the window. Low-
slung and grayed,
eddying
near the ground.
Veiling what will come of this day.

Waken, light summons.

©

I read snippets—
weigh want and need
to know
against my belly’s grit.

Bulletins. Updates.

Winter. Closed in.
No sound of the wire-buzz,
outside—safety and beauty de-
flowered by a string of high-
voltage lines, transmits
news that’s breaking.

©

Nothing gray about cancer.

I shouldn’t be recycling
store receipts—paper
with Bisphenol A, a cancer-
causing chemical that contaminates
what China recycles
of “foreign trash”—
yang laji.

How to recycle the unrecyclable.

©

Australian bushfires
beyond beyond.
A smoke cloud
discernible by satellite vaster
than our continent.

The ache of witness—
beneath plumes and plumes
of orange haze, droves
of charred carcasses, kangaroo
and koala, slumped
on the roadsides.

People wobble
on their heels in the sand,
imprint the beaches
of retreat and escape—
lungs’ bronchi robbed
of oxygen.

Who cannot succumb
to the fire-slaughter?
The news of it?

Some still blind-eyed
though they see.

©

At home, in the land
of the free, I skim word
of the playground bravado
vis-à-vis the erasure of Iran’s
Soleimani as if erasure
will cure anything.

Tarzan-­ian inflated chests
playing Red Rover
with weapons
forgetting others left to spin
on the merry-go-round.

He should have been killed years ago.

Promises of hard revenge,
the boasts of bullies.

You started it. We will end it.

©

Will anyone be left to weep
where the gravediggers bury?

©

Forecast: ashen.

Gail Goepfert, an associate editor at RHINO Poetry, is a Midwest poet and photographer. She has two published books—A Mind on Pain in 2015 and Tapping Roots 2018. Get Up Said the World will appear in 2020 from Červená Barva Press. Recent publications include Kudzu House, Stone Boat, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Bluestem, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters, SWWIM, and Beloit Poetry Journal.

THE FOGGIEST IDEA

by Tricia Knoll

Caribou Silhouette by Peter Mather. Caribou bull 

silhouetted in fog along the coastal plain of

Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

the calving grounds for the 170,000 strong herd.

A provision in the #GOPTaxScamBill allows

a section of the ANWR to be opened to

oil exploration.

A two-page summary,
all that some of them knew.
Enough to know Corker
got his money. Forget
the bullets that sneak in
special funds for Senator
Toomey. How the landed
white gentry pass through,
pass upwards wealth.
Claim simplicity. A tax bill
opens up drilling in the Arctic
Refuge for one more vote
to sully and abuse
the wild space the first people
sing to, songs of we are
the caribou people. Focus
your cameras carefully
if you want to catch winks,
or that the fog drips chill
into hearts of the many
who say no. Our national
mirror clouds over
in the face of privilege.
We see dimly.
The fog settles, not just
into the mist of war, a shawl
of sadness over us, the, kin
to the tired, the poor, yes kin
even to the caribou people.  

Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet well accustomed to fog and rain. What she cannot excuse is the claims of Senators voting for the tax bill that they did not know or care how much each stood to gain from passage of the bill. 

SYRIA

by Antonia Clark

A man breathes through an oxygen mask as another one receives treatment, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday Reuters via The Independent, April 6, 2017.

The heart overflows,
a deluge of hard
salty rain that can’t
wash away

the yellow fog that rusts
the sheet-metal sky,
fills lungs with fluid
and foam

or obscure the naked
and torn, the rows
of pale corpses
in the streets.

Sorrow’s burnt offering
of smoke and dust
scorches the throat,
sears the tongue
of the world.


Antonia Clark has taught creative writing and co-administers an online poetry forum, The Waters. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Smoke and Mirrors and the full-length collection Chameleon Moon. Her poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals, including The Cortland Review, Eclectica, The Pedestal Magazine, and Rattle.

SHORT DAYS

Widely-published writer Lewis Gardner blogs here.

FOG FORCES CANCELLATION OF MILWAUKEE AIR SHOW

by Ed Werstein

Fog leads to cancellation of Milwaukee lakefront air show Saturday  --Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, June 21, 2014

If only it were that easy
to stop a real bombing raid
mothers all over the world
would pray for bad weather
everyday
to spare their homes
their homelands
their children.

But here on Milwaukee’s lakefront
the spectacle is rescheduled for tomorrow.

This roaring assault on eardrums
and sensibilities is nothing
compared to the price paid by others
for the live ammo show
rain or shine.

Here, parents bring the kids
wave flags
eat ice cream.


Ed Werstein, Milwaukee, Wisconsin spent 22 years in manufacturing and union activity before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, his poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Mobius: Journal of Social Change, Stoneboat. His first chapbook Who Are We Then? was published in 2013 by Partisan Press.