BAND TOGETHER

by Ron Riekki

Print by Alessandra Roth available at Pixels

If you give gifts for the holidays this year,
I hope you’ll consider Kobabe’s Gender Queer,
 
and don’t forget Mike Curato’s Flamer,
because a tradition that I would love to start
 
is equating the holidays with banned books and banned art,
like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-
 
Time Indian sitting underneath the Christmas tree
alongside The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky—
 
even though it is claimed to be sexually explicit with profanity—
my hope’s for the opposite of Fahrenheit 451
 
where adults have free speech and the children aren’t dumb
and muted and lack understanding of different religions
 
and cultures and worldviews and more.
So please give the gift of George Orwell’s 1984
 
and Feast of the Seaweeds by Haidar Haidar,
and do it before this poem gets banned
 
like North Korea banning The Quran, and Hunan,
China, banning Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
 
Along with the dreidel, matzo, and mistletoe,
I hope your holidays are filled with George by Alex Gino
 
and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier,
 
because they can’t ban books if we give them away
in the thousands, no, millions, this Christmas Day.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

INHERITANCE

by Mary Hills Kuck

To Governor Kristi Noem

My grandmother gave me one sterling spoon

for each of my first twelve years. A wandering

rose fills the neck of the spoon, sends vines

down the stem, with roses here and tiny

leaves there, then finally a clustered bouquet

next to M marked for Mary, the name we happily shared.

 

Did she imagine I’d take out these spoons,

tied year by year in a soft flannel roll,

and set them on linen with vases of roses,

my friends gathered there to talk about art,

song, and church over tea, petit fours?

 

I’m sorry to say I use one at a time

in my mug of strong tea before eight.

Then I race off to teach, attend meetings or shop.

Yet the spoon stirs my thoughts of her love  

for her namesake, her hope for my future, my home.

 

Your granddaughter, Governor, as you have said,

gets a gift every year of your love.

She already owns a gun for each year

of her innocent two-year-old life.

 

Did you engrave on the barrel of each new piece

your name and the year of the gift?

Did you ask the seller to add little blooms,

tiny vines, or sweet pinky hearts?

 

How do you think she’ll make use of these gifts

when she’s reached the allowable age to aim,

indeed, fire; what prey will your granddaughter shoot?

Will she start with the birds, then on to the cats,

and finally seek out the big game?

Mary Hills Kuck has has published poems in print journals, including the Connecticut River Review, SLANT, Tipton Poetry Journal, Burningword Literary Journal, From the Depths, Poetry Quarterly, Main St. Rag, and others online. Intermittent Sacraments, her chapbook, was published in 2021 by Finishing Line Press. She has received a Pushcart Prize nomination.

NO BAD DAYS AT THE FOOD PANTRY

by Deb Freedman

for Lucille Clifton’s “Good Times”

The poet and colleague volunteer at the food pantry.

people drive up

and we put food in their cars

we run hauling bags

meat produce bread desserts

food for dogs and cats

sundry items people choose from the cart

we welcome everyone

greeting people we know like old friends

 

James and Ava have a corner store and a new granddaughter

2 months old

i bought 5 onesies cool for the summer with my friend’s donated $20 kohls cash

and gave Ava a pretty one with a fish on it

for her namesake

she was so excited

she promised she’d take a picture of Baby Ava in it to show me

 

and a woman with a 2-year-old

who just had a baby girl

came for food and diapers

so i gave her a yellow striped onesie

i think she cried behind her glamorous dark sunglasses

 

Jesse said he couldn’t drive himself today

because the surgeon sawed him in half

so we finally met his wife Dina

he brought us a little cardboard bakery box

of his delicious homemade mini cupcakes

like always

and thanked us for helping his family

 

the Steelers fans with rattly truck and 3 cats

got extra cat food

we joked we like them

even though they aren’t Eagles fans

 

there were these 2 guys on bikes

who pedaled over the Calhoun Street Bridge from Trenton

trying to figure out how much stuff they could carry

in their ragged backpacks

even with our reusable bags

they ruefully left a few pounds of their food on the table

and told us to give it to people who needed it

 

after 3 hours I'm sweaty tired

my face sore from smiling at folks

and that was just today

Deb Freedman finds joy in volunteering at a local food pantry as well as writing poetry and hopes to spark recognition, compassion and solutions to the increasing food insecurity of both people and pets in this country.

WHAT MAN HAS MADE OF MAN

by Katherine West

“Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?”

—William Wordsworth, 

“Lines Written in Early Spring”

At first she took everything
Boxes tied with string
Old sugar sacks
Filled
With books
Socks
Grandmother’s sweater
Grandmother’s cider
A journal
A pen

She followed rivers
Creeks
Run-offs
Through orange dirt
She followed the birds
They always knew
Where to find water
And at each
Oasis
She left something behind
A thanks
An offering
A sacrifice
A song

Until it was summer
And she walked barefoot
Over the hot rocks
Of foothills
Hands empty now
Even her songs
Only in her head
Her throat
Her mouth
The cider
Inside her
The socks
Decorating trees
The sweater
A scarecrow

She came at last
To the high country
Green mountains
A long meadow where wild iris
Still bloomed
As if time had stopped
And spring lived always
In this one place
Where a large chair
Throne-like
Had been set on a rise
At one end
Commanding
An eternal view
Of beauty

Red velvet cushions
Gold painted arms
All looked new
As if weather were not allowed
To touch it
She
Did not touch it
Did not sit
She tried to go on
But the throne
Pulled her back
Once
Twice
Three times
She left the meadow behind
Only to turn
To return
Following her own path
Through damp grass

Finally
Exhausted
She lay down at the far end
Of the meadow
And slept
And when she woke the moon
Was up
The meadow filled
With people
Thin
Sick
They surrounded
The throne

A bowl filled with rice
Sat before it
One by one
The people stood
Came forward
And took a single
Grain of rice
Until the bowl
Was empty

Then there was silence
Then out of the silence
Came a song
Like the wind in winter
Rising
From the people
And the words of the song
Were names
Only names
On and on
The people sang
Rocking
Weeping
Singing
Names

Until the sky began to fade
And the song
And the people
Faded too
But the throne
The golden throne
Glittering in the new sun
The throne remained


Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness, performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov, and teaches seasonal poetry workshops that revolve around "wilderness writing."  She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and TheNewVerse.News  which recently nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize.

THE GIFTS

by Carolyn Gregory

Some will order honeycomb soap
with its fragrance and texture
true to nature, small gifts of pollen and wax

though others go gluttonous
with chicken wings and pizza,
downing Virgin Margaritas
blended in the Cuisinart

while they dance down victory steps
to waltz among Southern Belles
in pink and yellow crinoline,
forgetting each promise with a smile.

Oh, honeycomb and frankincense,
the simple gifts of Christmas.
May they outlast the bombast
and rooster fights that will soon commence!

Carolyn Gregory has published poems and music reviews in American Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Seattle Review. Her first and second books were published by Windmill Editions in Florida.

CENTENARIAN OVERLOAD

by Marilyn Peretti

“Japan considers cheaper congratulatory cups for soaring number of centenarians. Ministry cannot afford to keep handing out saucer-like sakazuki, a 100th birthday gift from the government since 1963.” The Guardian, August 20, 2015. Photo: Misao Okawa was born in Tenma, Osaka, on March 5, 1898. GETTY IMAGES via Stuff.co.nz.

We are very well
eating simple rice
fish and seaweed
stretching in the park
we are now 100 years
poised to accept
sterling silver gifts

so well we number
twenty-nine thousand
thus no silver anymore
maybe crisp paper
letters signed
by Shinzo Abe
Congratulations


Marilyn Peretti lives in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She has been published on The New Verse News, Christian Science Monitor, Journal of Modern Poetry, Talking River, Kyoto Journal and others. She has poetry books on blurb.com. She takes interest in international news: politics, conflict, losses and sadness, as well as the humorous twists in life.