THE ARCHITECTURE OF DEMOCRACY

by Jim Kelly

To replace a house,
it is ill-advised
to randomly weaken
the foundation.

To tamper with gas lines
while informed only
by ignorance.

To pull wires
without knowing
where they lead
or what they serve.

To rip out windows
and collapse
the hand-designed,
custom wooden frames.

To remove the roof
during rain
before the expensive,
antique floors
are protected.

To pull down walls
without understanding
how weight is distributed—
how each beam,
each brace,
each hidden support
helps hold up
the whole frame
of Democracy.

And some now shout:

“Damn the building codes.”
“Damn the building plans.”

As if survival itself
were an inconvenience.

As if restraint,
inspection,
and measured repair
were enemies
instead of protections.

Forgetting:
a reckless demolition
does not always end
with open sky.

Sometimes
it ends
with collapsed Democracy.

Jim Kelly is a California poet whose work explores democracy, race, and social justice. His poetry has appeared in Litro Magazine, Urban Pen Magazine, and Urban Poems.

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF HOME

by Dick Altman

Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. —The New York Times, January 21, 2025

Reports of Navajo people being detained in immigration sweeps sparks concern from tribal leaders: The DOJ argued in court that Indigenous people don’t have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, so neither should children of noncitizens born in the US. —Arizona Mirror, January 24, 2025

I marvel,

over six months,

as crews,

of master

craftsmen,

mostly

undocumented,

give birth 

to my house,

overlooking

Rio Grande’s

valley.

 

I watch as raw hunks

of sandstone

bewitch

into new life

as Anasazi-style

walls.

Slabs

of the same rock

sculpted

into geometric

mosaics

of outdoor

walkways

and portals.

 

Amaze

as a Rumsford

fireplace,

known

for its high heat,

transforms

out of nothing

more than

firebrick,

cinder block,

and plaster,

into a work

of art,

reminding

of Spain’s

Middle Ages.

And so

the entire house

evolves

in that spirit.

 

I begin to wonder,

as the birthright

of countless

newborns,

of alien parents,

is in effect,

stripped

from the Constitution,

could

the government

call into question

the legality

of my house,

conceived

by undocumented

foreign labor,

to exist

on American soil?

 

I imagine

coming home

one day

to an empty lot,

not even a trace

of the concrete

underpinnings.

Posted on one

of many Aspen

I planted

over the years,

a document

claiming to be

an executive

order.

 

It reads:

“Your home,

propagated

by illegal

foreign labor,

has lost

its birthright

to shelter you.

The government

has no recourse

but to remove it

from your

property.

You’re welcome

to rebuild

with trades

of authentic

American

descent.”

 

What can I say,

as I look down

at Pueblos,

diminished

by untold eras, 

so they must

have seemed,

of America’s

dispossession?

What    can   I   say?

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

ON EDGE

by Beth Paulson

NYT, January 14, 2025

It always was where urban met the wild
hilly interface of forest land and city
where on a clear day you could see the sea, 
where roads rose up or meandered into
the steeper, southern side of the San Gabriels. 
 
Today smoky air hangs heavy, sun’s blotted out
where avenues lined with old deodar cedars
grown tall, a firebreak for lucky residents
where we walk uphill from our saved home 
amid downed branches, dangling power lines.
 
The fireman on one corner let us pass
if we promised to head back to our car
down the next road. We don’t talk much,
know sirens in the distance signal fires
still spark and smolder east of Lake Avenue. 
 
Our block of Santa Anita escaped the fire
where this morning knots of neighbors gather
who surely know the line is thin and tenuous
between being a victim or survivor.
We bend to scoop up embers from the grass
 
yet around the corner a home burned to the ground.
A plume of burning gas marks the backyard,
ash pile with charred beams, blackened bricks,
twisted metal, a chimney all that’s standing,
a concrete driveway leading in and out.

Beth Paulson moved recently to Altadena, California from Ouray County, Colorado where she founded the Poetica Workshop, directed Poetry at the Tavern, and served as Poet Laureate. Her poems have been published nationally in over 200 journals and have four times been nominated for Pushcart Prizes.  Luminous (Kelsay Books, 2021) is her sixth collection.  

HELENE

by Terri Kirby Erickson

Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina on Tuesday looking for more victims ofHurricane Helene days after the storm carved a deadly and destructive path through the Southeast. —AP, October 1, 2024

He found his wife’s body draped over

a limb, her skirt flapping in the wind

 

like a bedsheet pinned to a line, her

long hair hanging like Spanish moss.

 

He dropped to his knees in the mud,

moaning like a bear caught in a steel

 

trap, ready to gnaw off its leg to stop 

the pain. He didn’t care, anymore,

 

about their splintered house floating 

like matchsticks down the river, never

 

felt the dog’s rough tongue trying to 

lick the agony from his face. Still, he

 

could not make himself believe what 

he was seeing—pictured her, instead, 

 

walking down the aisle with flowers 

tumbling from her hands. He vaguely

recalled saying to her, Till death do us 

part, but it tasted like gibberish in his 

 

mouth, words with no meaning about 

a time he was sure would never come.

Author's Note: My poem, ‘Helene,’ is an imagined narrative prompted by reading and hearing about the devastating destruction and loss of life in western North Carolina (my beloved home state) that occurred as a result of Hurricane Helene. I also drew upon my own experiences with trauma, grief, and sudden loss while writing this poem.

 

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Rattle, The SUN, and numerous other publications. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize among many others. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

MASSACHUSETTS MAN BUYS $395,000 HOUSE DESPITE WARNINGS IT WILL ‘FALL INTO OCEAN’

haibun by Jerome Berglund

with found prose quotations from headlines for the September 11, 2024 Guardian article by Maya Yang.

David Moot…

 

smoking with

the windows up

ball lightning

 

…nabs ‘dream’ Cape Cod home…

 

intelligent 

design 

splitting adam

 

…next to eroding cliff…

 

overcast 

a hot spot 

in the blues

 

…in imminent danger of crumbling…

 

we buy 

neglected properties 

skeleton key

 

“A man who says life’s too short…

 

under 

the rock 

hard fast rules 

 

…to resist buying a home that might fall 

off a cliff in a few years…

 

bible belt 

center 

mass

 

…has taken ownership of a house with a beautiful view…

 

stroke 

of luck 

arching back

 

…of the slowly encroaching ocean.”

 

three fingers 

the trees dropped are removed 

in the night

Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat For Tea, Mōtus Audāx press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.

THE COLD

by Liz Ahl

The wind tries every latch, each seam, but

it’s the knuckle-cracking record-breaking cold 

whose fists pound hourly the walls, the roof, 

cop-heavy menace, tree-fall percussive, 

making the house itself a booming bass drum 

or splintering ax fall or too-close shotgun blast—

anything but a place you'd want to rest your head.

No use trying to bar the door: the cold knocks 

from deep already inside, beneath the stain, 

in the tightest betweens, down in the grain 

where some breath of moisture kept its own counsel 

for as long as it could before it finally froze and fractured, 

abruptly unloading its long-kept secret, releasing

in a compulsive shout what was once unspeakable.

All day and into evening the house tries to undo itself

like this, in some weird winter molt—clapboards and nails 

popping in a deconstruction zone of home-unmaking, 

house un-warming—and so tonight we'll play at sleep, 

pray we'll wake to the still-ticking of the faucets

we left open to slow drip, to prevent the pipes 

from joining the home’s involuntary revolt against itself.

Liz Ahl is the author of A Case for Solace (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022) and Beating the Bounds (Hobblebush Books, 2016), as well as several chapbooks. She lives in New Hampshire.

ANOTHER DEAL

by Michel Steven Krug

Call back after call back.

Each reel like a test flight

Because my peers look at

 

My prior roles like an IMDB,

(Although I call it DIMB)

Because the country as a whole

 

Won’t embrace me,

Though I’ve acted out every role

To perfection. So here I am now,

 

The 14th, 15th, who knows how

Many rounds, still standing, but my smile

Muscles so fatigued. I need a drink. But

 

Craft service won’t serve on the House floor

Anymore, the way they did, I’m sure,

When Frederick H. Gillett could get

 

All the recesses and bourbon he needed

To convince the zealots that the Roaring 20s

Would only prevail under his leadership,

 

And lead to unrivaled economic prosperity.

And what about Speaker William Pennington?

He maintained his 1859 principled approach to

 

State’s rights, bringing the Country to

Brinksmanship, where it belongs again, so

Who, I ask, is the real reformer?

 

Fine, I will pledge to insurrect.

I will pledge to abandon rules.

I will pledge to renege.

 

I can’t be Hakeem

I can’t alliterate

I can’t inspire, but

 

I must be your next leader. Don’t pull the plug,

Please don’t, surely, we can strike

A deal for more donations, another deal, for G*d’s sake.

 

 

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz, Portside, The New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag, and Brooklyn Review.

THE RELICS OF MARIUPOL

by Agnieszka Tworek

A Reuters photo shows the building of a theatre destroyed in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine on April 10, 2022.

grey butterflies of ashes

rise and fall on Mariupol

after each missile or bomb

is dropped

 

bridges and roads

to safety are gone,

no way in or out

 

many can’t pass

the threshold to the other

world because even Death

is overwhelmed in Mariupol

 

ghosts help wounded

soldiers reload their guns

 

the lacerated land

bleeds into the sea

shadowed by the enemy fleet

 

sirens lull children

to sleep and wake them up

 

what is for breakfast?                         

a spoonful of air

 

what’s to drink?

a cup of rain

 

what is a house?                     

fire and smoke

 

what is a school?                    

a gaping hole

 

what are the walls?                

your mother’s arms

 

the city landmarks endure

on maps stored

in survivors’ hearts

 

grey butterflies of ashes

rise and fall on Mariupol

at dawn, noon, and dusk

 

a woman covered in dust

presses her hands on the ground,

as if trying to resuscitate

her hometown

 

wailing and blood

are spilling out

from the underground

 

does anybody know? 

everyone knows

does anybody come? 

nobody comes

except for bullets, rockets,

and bombs.

Agnieszka Tworek was born and raised in Poland. Her poems have been published in Ploughshares, The Sun, Best American Poetry, The Southern Review, Rattle (Poets Respond), and in other journals.  She lives on Staten Island.  

BUILDING MATERIALS

by John Kaufmann

The enemies of American democracy? Big lie, big anger and big money. Saving American democracy will require stopping these three powerful forces already on the way to destroying it. —Robert Reich, The Guardian, December 19, 2021

A pallet of salt,

a bucket of chlorine, cement blocks,

two-by-six, one-by-two, shims, PVC, Pex.

I measure you by dollar figures, volume,

weight, time (although that’s the same

as money). Weigh

 

me, you say. Feel me.

 

Skirting panels, J-channels, trusses,

purlins, OSB.  A rust-bucket

excavator and a skid steer.  That was big.

 

I buy you because the lid

tends to blow off. Pipes burst, roofs collapse, septics clog.

Things fall apart. That’s 9,999,999 years

of kidney stones and payment plans,

and another 666,666 of holes you can’t stop digging.

And it gets worse;

it’s the fine print that will kill you,

but it’s the finer print that will grind you down. 

 

Pipe cutter, jig saw, ozone machine, tamper—

I buy you to shape the world, 

but the world shapes me.

Still, I use you to bang against it.

 

A caudillo with hair the color of a lion, a gaze

blank and pitiless as I-don’t-know-what and stubby hands

is moving his greasy thighs among the indignant desert birds—

but it’s not in Egypt this time. It’s here,

in the cracked septic tanks, the water mains made of electrical conduit and duct tape,

the shoddy foundations, the rotting window frames and leaky roofs.

It’s in the kung flu, the water boiling

slowly as the frogs hump, the Vulpine

chants to lock her up—or him—someone, please—

We have traced the call, ma’am, and it’s coming from inside the house.

 

Nuts, bolts, washers, screws (“I love you”, they say),

Wingnuts, eye bolts, U-bolts, hanger bolts, sex bolts.

Common nails, box nails, roofing nails, brads. I love you, too.

Not because you’ll bind us together. We are fated to spin out

like a bunch of Balkan states, a rogue galaxy or a pyrotechnic display.

I love you for the way you ding! when I drive you home, the way

you marry your two halves when I tighten you, how

you cleave a roof panel to a truss and how you bite into cement.

I love you because you don’t budge—because you

stay put while we are thrown against the fan, emerge

and float off into blue heaven, scattered.

John Kaufmann is a former lawyer, current mobile home park owner who lives in southern New York State.  His writing has been published in The High Plains Register, Off Assignment, Litro, The Journal of the Taxation of Financial Products, The Journal of Taxation of Investments, and Tax Notes. 

POSTSCRIPT TO AN ACTIVIST'S LIFE

by David Chorlton

Unrest #1, a painting by Alyssa Liles-Amponsah

                nobody rich or famous…

                                Richard Shelton

 

The car in the driveway

has barely a pulse

and the windows don’t let in the light.

The palm trees no longer

aspire to the sky

and the garden hose hangs

on a hook.

Something’s eating the house from inside

say the neighbors,

no one answers the door when

they knock. The ceiling gave way

and a bucket of grief

stands under a hole where

time drips day

after day. The telephone’s hoarse

from repeating

I’m sorry I can’t speak now…,

the doorbell plays a dirge

and every minute makes

a tiny splash as it falls

into the unwashed dishes

in the kitchen sink.

 

He brought the border home with him,

unrolled it on the floor,

ran it through the kitchen to

the living room and cut

it into strips to hang instead of curtains

at the windows where a light

shone upon every nationality and exposed

the fault line between the rich

and poor. His trash bin

was filled with tailings from a mine

and every day he emptied it and

every next day it was full

again but he kept emptying. When the nails

fell out from where they held

the world together, he picked them up

to hammer back. Meetings.

Petitions. Meetings. Letters.

Meetings. Always somewhere to be,

to drive across town

on the sweating summer asphalt

with the windows down

to save money for gas.

 

Nobody knows for sure. It was

a mystery. The neighbors didn’t care much

for the man. He kept

largely to himself. Didn’t have a lot

to say. Kept going out, revving up

his car and coming back

then leaving again six

or eight times a day. The lady who lives across

from his house knows; she kept count.

Never really spoke

to him. And he spoke only

when spoken to. He was alone the last

few weeks. Come and go. Feed

the cats. People watched but didn’t know

what they were seeing. Didn’t

ask. Left him alone. And the weeds grew

like secrets in his yard

until one night the moon tipped

on its side, spilling

silver dust onto the moths around it

asking ancient questions

of the passionate light.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix, who continues writing, painting, and keeping track of the local bird life. His newest book is Unmapped Worlds, a collection of rehabilitated poems from his files of the past.