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.

REAL SUPERMAN

(and "nevah" means “not ever”)

by Regina YC Garcia

Superman would nevah….

pledge allegiance to Lex Luthor

beat down the Tamale Lady

snatch a child from a loving mother

snatch a  loving mother from the grasp of  a terrified child

cage them  strip them  from each other 

pull them from the light of hope 

Superman would nevah….

dump Mr. Terrific from his chair

keep him from accessing his reasonable accommodations

cancel his yearly checkup 

lie about his color… his culture… his merit 

leave him hungry… emaciated… prey for predators 

Superman would nevah….

set fire to non-perishable food

soak the ashes in a blood-soaked ground

willingly hand his red cloak to the enemy that they might cover the eyes of the innocents 

     and steal  their liberty

Superman would nevah….

forget the “Golden Rule”

shut down opportunities 

enlist the fools to join a league of injustice

     that they might  overtake the land

Superman would save the alligators 

from the monsters that built shoddy cages and dangled distraught meat from unclean hands 

Superman would nevah….

forget where he came from

forget who helped him and loved him

     all along the way 

forget that we all have a part to play

     a part that bends towards justice

     redefines the American way

     a way that ushers in a prosperity

     that ensures we all stay free 

     and more 

          and even more 

(unnecessary too tall buildings and death waters be damned)

Regina YC Garcia is a national award-winning poet, professor, and language artist from Greenville, NC. She is a twice-nominated Puscart nominee, and her work has been widely published in a variety of journals reviews and anthologies, as well as musical compositions and documentaries. She is the author of two collections of poetry—Whispers from the Multiverse (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, February 2025) and The Firetalker’s Daughter (Finishing Line Press, March 2023).

MADE FOR THESE TIMES

by David Rosenthal

     In memoriam Brian Wilson

If everything is upside down
and backwards, as it seems to be,
then we should see fragility
as virtuous, and hear the sound

of weeping love as strength. We should
behold a penchant to break down
with awe, and bless the hallowed ground
of teary joy and childish good.

A guy I knew in grad school said,
“I’d hate to see the freak who’s well
adjusted to this world.” We tell
ourselves that isn’t us, we’ve fed

our egos with a comforting
belief that someone who adapts
survives. But without a collapse,
without an aching, broken string

of failures, we can never be
resilient, never truly sing
a harmony that makes a wing
of sorrow, fluttering but free.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California. He has contributed to Rattle, HAD, Rust & Moth, Birmingham Poetry Review, Teachers & Writers Magazine, and others. He’s been a Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and Pushcart Nominee. He’s the author of The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things (Kelsay Books).

C’MON PEOPLE NOW, SMILE ON YOUR BROTHER, EVERYBODY GET TOGETHER AND IMPEACH THAT MOTHERFUCKER RIGHT NOW

by Phyllis Klein

Photo used with permission of the photographer.

In spite of despair, dictatorship 

looming, you can color a poster board, drag 

your wide markers over its surface. In spite of hope’s 

burial, your sign is a monument to streets with memories. 

Resistance calls.

You too can have a dream. 

 

Resistance speaks eloquently: Hands off,

National Malignancy, They All Gotta Go,

and the very catchy Fund Science, Fuckwits.

Resistance riffs you with vibrato. 

 

It frees your pursed lips locked 

with fear’s masking tape. Yes it stings, 

the ripping off. You cry out against 

criminals on pedestals, their dissonance.

C’mon people, why is the other side so happy 

to destroy their own futures with yours? 

 

You understand you are fucked, the charred 

neighborhoods, your tarred and pelted planet. 

In spite of this because of this— you get inflamed.

Resistance is a matchmaker, meetup for the terrified. 

Its panoply of choices: Protect the Parks, Support 

the Vets, Rehire Federal Workers, Believe in Science. 

 

So many more, you parade for The Women, 

The Immigrants, Kilmar Almondo Abrego Garcia, 

and the disappeareds whose names 

have been erased. Resistance tells you to notice. 

On the street you are drumrolls, jazz bands. Resistance

doesn’t care about how it looks as long 

as there’s a message. You scroll down its images 

looking for what’s cool, feel your pain in a badass way.

 

There are theories saying it’s as terrible

as it’s ever been here, but resistance remembers

the tribes, the slaves, the wars, hate thorns thick 

as cactus quills. In spite of this because of this 

Resistance tells everyone This can’t go on.

It says, Today you will feel big and big hearted.

Resistance is bands of the bewildered waving desperation

at honking cars. It doesn’t promise to resurrect, 

but maybe…Who knows what will happen when 

Stop Nazi Shit ceases to wave in the wind?

Phyllis Klein’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, has won several finalist awards, and has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. Her book The Full Moon Herald a poetic newspaper, was 2021 finalist in the Eric Hoffer awards. She hosts Poets in Conversation, a Zoom reading series started during the Pandemic. She was having trouble writing about the latest edition of hatred and fascism we are facing, but the words are starting to come.

THE MILLER'S TALE

by Lynnie Gobeille

I tend to be on the lighter side of white,

don’t often get singled out—

in fact at 74 I am barely noticed.

I can walk down (mostly) any street and feel safe.

No fear of being deported.

I have no tattoo that would taunt them.

No affiliation with some unseen gang.

No radical disclaimer required

I can roam my country freely.

Little do they know of my SDS ancient background—

Or my scars from protests long since past.

I tend to be on the lighter shade of pale.

Students for a Democratic Society button circa 1965

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry. She is one of the cofounders/editors of The Origami Poems Project, a world wide “free poetry event.” She was the Editor of the Providence Journal Poetry Corner (St.Cty Section). Her poetry has been published online & in numerous journals. Her work has also been read on NPR & ELFIN radio in England. She currently works at her local Library, with fingers crossed that the funding continues to keep the doors open.

LETTER TO CRAZY HORSE

by Roxanne Doty

Left: A 1934 sketch of Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó) made by a Mormon missionary after interviewing Crazy Horse's sister, who claimed the depiction was accurate. —Wikipedia. Right: The Native American activist Leonard Peltier—convicted in 1975 for the killings of two FBI agents—was released from federal prison on Tuesday after Joe Biden commuted his sentence at the end of his presidency in January. In a statement, Peltier said that he was “finally free!” —The Guardian, February 18, 2025

Innocence is the weakest defense
Leonard Peltier says, it has a single voice,
can only deny, while Guilt has a thousand voices
all of them lies. They said
you were resisting imprisonment
when George Crook’s military guard killed
you with his bayonet. Some call this murder
but language and land prevail.
 
The old medicine man says,
You could make a lovely mountain
into a great paperweight.
Can you make the monument to you
in the Black Hills into a wild, natural mountain again?
 
Today, I see people still longing
for justice and facing defeat,
the lust for stolen lands
still raging, white settlers still rampant.
I hear the thousand voices of guilt.
 
We all need your spirit now, Crazy Horse,
you, the last great figure of resistance
who inflicted defeat on the powerful.
And we need the patience and wisdom
of Leonard Peltier, finally free.

Author’s note: This poem was inspired by William Stafford’s “Report to Crazy Horse.” Italicized quotations by Leonard Peltier are from Prison Writings, My Life is My Sun Dance.

Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her debut novel Out Stealing Water was published by Regal House Publishing, August 30. 2022. Her first poetry collection was published by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2024. She has published stories and poems in Third Wednesday, Amethyst Review, Cloudbank, Quibble Lit, Superstition Review, Cagibi, Espacio Fronterizo, Ocotillo Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, The Blue Guitar, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, The New Verse News, International Times, Saranac Review, Gateway Review, and Reunion-The Dallas Review.

FAITH RINGGOLD WITH MY DAUGHTER, AGE 9

by Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser

in memoriam: Faith Ringgold, October 8, 1930 - April 13, 2024

Part I, #4: Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles by Faith Ringgold

We sit among the adult
audience, you with your pigtail
I with my arm around you. 
Her new French Collection, placing
African American figures in 
white European bastions of art
within her glorious quilts
disconcerting one or two
of the art historians present.
 
When it is time for questions
she calls on you first of all
from among the many raised hands.
You ask why she decided 
to be an artist. 
Faith Ringgold, world famous,
hears the importance of this to you
locks onto your gaze
and says, 

Because when I make art,

then I'm free.

 

Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser is a visual artist and poet who lives in New Jersey. Her art has been included in regional and national exhibits. Her poetry has been published in the Kelsey Review. 

WHO WANTS TO FIND AMELIA EARHART?

by Barbara Simmons

Since Amelia Earhart disappeared more than 85 years ago while attempting to fly around the world, people have been searching for her plane with hopes of solving the mystery behind her final flight. Now, an underwater exploration company says they may have found it about 15,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Deep Sea Vision says it captured a sonar image [above] of a plane that matches the dimensions of the Lockheed Electra aircraft Earhart was flying on July 2, 1937. —The Washington Post, January 31, 2024

We love the story, her setting off
to circle the globe, her route 
marked cleanly on the map, 
as is her disappearing point.  
 
We’ve loved the stories since, scenarios
not yielding happy endings, 
but ways to keep Amelia alive, perhaps
as prisoner, spy, or living out a secret life.
 
We’ve climbed with those aboard Itasca, 
signaling hope along with charts,
shedding tears enough to fill the oceans,
not knowing where she lay, nor why.
 
The sonar image we see now, sent from
a depth much deeper than full fathom five,
resembles what she flew, now resting
far below, scant hundred miles from where
 
she’d chosen to refuel.  And if this proves
to be the place her coral bones and pearl eyes rest,
her story has its ending.  We’re left with answers,
not with mystery. We miss the question
 
we maybe wish unanswered, embedded
forever as you’ve been, still flying,
seeking wide and open and free, beyond
a world of narrow, closed, and occupied.

Barbara Simmons, is a Boston-born Californian, a Wellesley College and The Writing Seminars (Johns Hopkins) alumna, a retired educator. She savors life with words to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, and understand. Publications include Boston Accent, The NewVerse News,  DoubleSpeak, Soul-Lit, Capsule Stories, Journal of  Expressive Writing, and Writing it Real publications.  She was recognized with First Place in the last two annual San Jose Library Spring into Poetry contests, and has published a book of poetry, Offertories: Exclamations and Disequilibriums (Friesen Press), 2022.

TO A CHORUS OF TEARS

by tom bauer

It seems inevitable his eyes would look like that
singing that song, effulgent with yearning
for things lost, as the river weaves towards
the past. Reminds me of cartoon eyebrows,
pointed in an inverted ‘V’, like a tent,
anguished peaks over wounded disks, singing
what might be the saddest song ever made.

An invisible step leads to this next question,
on foot, an actual physical object
moving in space, in the moment of space,
not merely that moment witnessed onscreen,
a moment now in the past, outside this one,
this moment here with the keyboard, the echo,
the cat on the radiator nesting his head.

Are we free? As time waves out, are we free?
Free of the pain, the breath, the trees and light?
For it seems we are not free on earth, to choose
to run or fight, to give or take, we are
in moments welded to our choices,
fixed outside freedom, choosing what we must.

So are we free, then, when we die? Is that it?

tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.

FREE SPEECH

by Alixa Brobbey

Image Credits: Jim Watson/AFP/ (collage by TechCrunch) / Getty Images

You are free to stand on the sidewalk

with your thumbs up. You are free to like

this Tweet. You are free to boo silently.

You are free to clap loudly. You are free

to give me a dollar to vote in this poll.

You are free not to vote. You are free

to choose between silence and tinnitus.

You are free to leave. Here is the back 

door. You are free to leave without a 

goodbye. You are free to swallow

thumb tacks. You are free to live inside

this snake’s nest. You are free to

decide: hunger pains or cyanide.

You are free to give me another dollar

to vote in a new poll. You are free to know

nothing—I change this game at my whim.

You are free to play this game by my rules.

You are free to leave. You are free to

shut up and like this tweet. You are free

to comment well wishes. You are free

to correct my science—once. You are

free to be fired. You are free to leave.

Go stand outside. Sip some blue air.

Ponder the wide and winding road

that led us, somehow, here.

Alixa Brobbey spent portions of her childhood in The Netherlands and Ghana. She has a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University, where she won the Ethel Lowry Handley Poetry Prize in 2020. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Blue Marble Review, Segullah, Inscape, The Albion Review, The Susquehanna Review, The Palouse Review, The Exponent II, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and others. She is currently a law student at Brigham Young University.

I CLIMB ABOARD THE TRAIN

by Hannah L Brooks

Elnaz Rekabi on Instagram

A female Iranian rock climber, who did not wear a hijab at an international competition in South Korea, has returned to Iran as Iranian groups based abroad raised alarms over her fate back home. Elnaz Rekabi, 33, competed without a hijab during the International Federation of Sport Climbing’s Asian Championships in Seoul on Sunday. Videos of her wearing a headband with her hair in a ponytail while competing spread on social media. —CNN, October 19, 2022

I slide into a seat.

I slide through videos tagged @mahsaamini.

Women wave black hijabs as they march.

A cluster of men beat another

curled on the ground.

 

NPR posts: A rock climber forgets,

or forgoes, her hijab; becomes ‘accidental hero.’

Comments exhort the reader 

to pray. 

They say: She was called back. 

They say: She will be arrested.

They say: She will die!

 

I imagine the climber speaking:

                                      Climber.

                              A

             AM

I

                                       Heaven.

                       Toward

        Climb

I

 

I climb.               I go home.

Either way, I move 

closer to heaven.

 

Outside my train window, I see the river 

and a perfect blue October sky.

I watch the waves rise

as the wind whips the water. 

I think: in some places, we cannot move without a hijab.

Here, we are free to wear what we want.

I wear black.

Most of the passengers wear black. 

Black has become de rigueur;

as if we are in mourning,

forced to bear the unwanted.

Hannah L Brooks is a retired surgeon and now writes. Her essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in Chronogram, Hudson Valley Magazine, and the podcast Anamnesis.  She founded the Newburgh Literary Festival because she lives in the Hudson Valley, and it was necessary.