SORROW OF SIRIK

a wedding requiem

by Nolan Sahand Dannels

they heard the jets before arriving

the kids came to revel with the rest

but now

with immeasured breaths

they stumble ‘cross the bricks

that broke all ‘round them

now surrounded

by the faces of lost loved ones

encircling their heads in midair 

no matter how hard

they close their eyes

no matter how soft

those voices still are

no matter how wide

they extend their arms

no matter how narrow

they squint with eyes

made squalid by knowing

the greatest weight of sorrow

by way of sight

by way of thought

by way of love

joy hope compassion

they heard the jets before arriving

but the kids and the rest still knew

this wasn’t supposed to happen

perhaps enough of the world does too

perhaps most already understand enough

while the rest don’t want to

all our heartaches ablaze in some way

tender to the touch

but too sharp to shut

when the fire wants to stay

wants to burn within us

all the while and all the longer

so we say what we may

knowing it won’t make us stronger

but at least our words and thoughts

can love our lost with honest honor

pinching the kids’ smiling cheeks

as their faces float around us

now surrounded

by worlds and worlds and worlds

holding what we could have been

that sorrow can’t be explained

only understood within

Sirik knows

Minab knows

and many more do too

as you may have guessed

the sorrow burns through the heart

before it makes its way out the eyes

lachrymose and drenched

like a fire that can’t put itself out

no matter how many tears are wept

like a love that must live on

because love is all we have left

they heard the jets before arriving

the kids came to revel with the rest

and then

the jets struck as they went

sticks and stones hitting homes

before they returned to their nest

Nolan Sahand Dannels is a Persian American writer-musician and Best of the Net nominee with a Master's in English Language and Literature from the University of Edinburgh and a Literature PhD from UC San Diego, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Alchemy. His writing has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, Trouvaille Review, Wishbone Words, The New Verse News, Qafiyah Review, San Antonio Review, and elsewhere. His music appears in Hare's Paw Literary Journal. His poetry chapbook, Horizontal Ensemble, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2025.

WHEN DO WE BEGIN, AND HOW SHALL WE END?

by Indran Amirthanayagam

 

 

 

 

The Pope will not attend the 250th birthday party. 

The gold-plated arch will tower over a dwindling 

number of illiberal potentates, driven by armored car 

from the Board of Peace. Orbán will be granted 

honorary American citizenship and sent as ambassador 

to San Salvador. Jesus will reclaim his right to authorize 

any and all uses of his image. Give me a break: Jesus 

with an American flag, warplanes, bald eagles? 

America, I can’t stand my own mind. 

But let’s get back to the future plans 

of Orbán and that miller brewing potions 

in the White House. Or Marco sporting 

platypus shoes, Hegseth strutting about on stage 

before stone-faced generals called in from 

all over the world for a pep talk paid for 

by the American taxpayer. Aah, poor taxpayer, 

your goodwill medicines undelivered 

to far away herders and victims of local wars,

money spent instead on fighter jets

and radar smoking on the ground

in Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

And  the cross: how do we get it back 

into church and the altar at home 

and away from the necks 

of blasphemers, brutes, and butchers?

Tell me, Trump. Or are you 

disqualified from answering?

 

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

NOW THERE IS NOTHING NEW

by Eric Nicholson

Keir Starmer has announced that Britain will “fight for peace in Europe” with a generational increase in defence spending paid for by slashing the foreign aid budget. The move, just two days before the prime minister is due to meet Donald Trump, raised immediate concerns that he was pandering to the US president, and fury from aid groups that say it could cost lives in countries that rely on UK support. —The Guardian, February 25, 2025

Now there is nothing new,

The Minister of Fear has spoken,

We are vulnerable, we must meet force with force

And station Destroyers on the Thames.

Now there is nothing new,

We stand naked on the beaches, in the fields, in the hills

As icy gusts of fear whip across the seas.

Now there is nothing new.

Footsoldiers and tanks must protect our shores,

Drones and jets must command our air space,

Battle ships defend our coastline.

Now there is nothing new.  

Factories must go into overdrive,

Re-armament is good for Growth,

Our conveyor belts must convey security,

Fear must be assembled night and day.

Now there is nothing new.

Office windows must be blacked out,

Street lights switched off,

The London Underground prepared.

Now there is nothing new.

Rule Britannia.

Let the younger generation 

Fight the good fight,

MAD is might is right:

Now there is nothing new.

Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher residing in the UK. He remembers protesting as a member of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in his younger years. He does not often write political poetry but in today's climate finds it difficult not to.

FREE BIDEN

by Indran Amirthanayagam

What we cannot explain. What we cannot 
decipher in mind and heart. What we cannot 
understand. That is the legacy of the man

who supplied 2,000 pound bombs, fighter jets,
attack drones; sent naval gunships to anchor 
within striking distance of the Strip, 

and provided building blocks for the Iron Dome. 
This man who championed and invested 
in America, in more red than blue states, 

besides walking the picket line, this loving 
father and husband, left his mind near Yaffa,
on the road to Bethlehem, yet another

occupied territory. Free Biden I hear 
blowing in the wind. among ashes. Too late.  

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). El bosque de deleites fratricidas is forthcoming from RIL Editores. He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

MY WIFE SENDS ME A VIDEO OF ISRAELI ARABS AND JEWS SINGING “SOMEWHERE” FROM WEST SIDE STORY AND ASKS ME TO WRITE A POEM

by Dick Westheimer

The song sung in three tongues

swells and descends with the beat 

Bernstein intended, “Someday”

in English the tenors hold every note 

as they would hope. In Hebrew, 

full throated soprano voices sing,  

“We'll find a new way of living,”

followed in muted harmony, 

Arabic singers whisper about “a way 

of forgiving.” The music fills me

with the stuff of hope, of a 

new way of living and then 

I remember the plot, 

the Sharks and the Jets

didn’t make their lousy world

and Tony always had to die.

And as the the music fades

Tony rasps, “I didn’t believe 

hard enough.” But then 

I remember Maria’s 

final note was sung 

over the top 

of a major chord.

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or upcoming in Whale Road Review, Rattle, OneArt, Abandon Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Minyan. His chapbook A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine is published by SheilaNaGig.

WITNESS

 by Amy Shimshon-Santo

I am the person formerly known as _____ _____ - _____.

Now she is the bird left behind from the flock.

She is the figure weeping in the sand.

A witness, witnessed only by the sea.

I am not a war correspondent or a social media expert. 

I am not a documentarian of suffering.

Don’t worry. I have nothing to teach you and nothing to say. 

I’m just skipping words like stones along the water, 

knowing they will bounce and then sink down.

The birds laugh at us.

Birds side eye sonic jets and helicopters. 

Maybe they will tell the trees what’s going on — what they see and feel.

Last week I was a writer.

Today I am a barnacle on the belly of a whale. 

I am moaning like an underwater animal.

When did time stop? When will it start back up? 

Will it? Is this the new time, 

the timeless time, lost in unknowing?

I am not a flag.

I am no longer really a woman, I just gave birth to life.

I am not a faith, just faithful.

Oh broken bones and heavy stones

How far will you tumble?

How far down will you fall?

Six days ago was the sabbath. We gathered 

with 29 members of my family across four generations. Cousins with cousins. 

Sisters with sisters. Brothers and children and grandparents.

Six days ago was a Friday.

Today is six days past a moment of miracles, six days past the bomb.

24 hours x 6 ago there was a night where we could all lay down and hope to sleep.

If I am going to sit with the page I have to say that I don’t want to say

I want this to not be true.

Before I speak, I want you to know that I am wrong. 

Not because I know nothing but because everything is wrong. 

Not every thing but the big world of powers that evaporate worlds. 

I don’t want to remind my mind and relive what has become a beginning.

I don’t want to state the facts because the facts are a mush of kindnesses and disasters.

I am the person formerly known as a self.

I melted into the Mediterranean, sonic booms above our heads. 

My tears salt the water and make everything sting.

I want to tell you about the weeping. 

The mother collapsing onto her belly like a conch shell whose life has departed. 

She is the throw away, the detritus of those left behind.

Author’s note: I have been in three cities in Israel during this past week. I am from Los Angeles. My mother was born here in 1932 as a Jewish person under the British Mandate Palestine. I am a mother, a teacher, and a culture maker. I am deeply opposed to murder, torture, war, and intergenerational harm. War is the loss of lives and infrastructure and dreams and time. Torture and war are the worst uses of human energy and potential.