MANIFESTO OF AN ANGRY LIBERAL

by Alex Silvestri

Love your neighbor.

Even the loud one with the truck flags and no brake lights.

Even the banker.

Even the bureaucrat.

Even the kid at the drive-thru who got your order wrong again.

Pay your taxes,

but don’t forget to ask

why billionaires don’t.

Plant tomatoes.

Support public schools.

Wave at the mail carrier.

Vote.

Raise your kids to tell the truth,

then tell them why the world sometimes punishes people who do.

Don’t let that make them bitter.

Let it make them brave.

Live as if healthcare were a right.

Live as if no one should die of a treatable disease

in the richest country on Earth.

Live as if your neighbor’s insulin is your business.

(It is.)

Stand up for public libraries.

For school lunches.

For clean water.

For the kid who comes out in a small town.

For the mother who can’t afford day care.

For the dad who took a second job to afford rent.

For the old man choosing between heat and food.

Get mad.

But not so mad you stop seeing people.

Especially the ones who disagree with you.

Listen longer than is comfortable.

Then speak clearly, without apology:

No, I don’t believe poor people are lazy.

Yes, I think workers deserve a living wage.

No, I don’t think guns are more sacred than children.

Yes, I believe Black lives matter.

No, I don’t think being queer is a threat to anyone’s freedom.

Yes, I think women are people.

No, I don’t think corporations should write our laws.

Yes, I still believe in democracy, even when it’s messy.

Protect the wild things:

the wetlands, the whistleblowers,

the bees, the books they try to ban.

Refuse cruelty,

even when it’s dressed in law.

Refuse greed,

even when it calls itself freedom.

Refuse hate,

even when it wears a flag.

Don’t just resist.

Build.

Build coalitions.

Build gardens.

Build unions.

Build broadband in the holler.

Build policy with working people in the room.

Don’t get cynical.

Cynicism is a luxury belief.

Hope is cheaper, but costs more effort.

Hope plants itself anyway.

So should you.

Love the country like you’d love a sick child—

not blindly,

but with everything you’ve got,

because you know it can get better.

Walk into rooms where you’re outnumbered

and say it anyway:

We can take care of each other.

We can build something decent.

We are worth saving.

Be stubborn in joy.

Radical in kindness.

Unyielding in truth.

Start with what you know:

We belong to one another.

Let’s act like it.

Alex Silvestri is a Michigan poet whose work is rooted in place, nature, community, and the ordinary experiences of daily life. This poem was inspired in part by Wendell Berry’s writing on community, neighborliness, stewardship, and our obligations to one another.

OUTBOUND MESSAGE

by Lynne Barnes

Today is National Suicide Prevention Day
and I have spent it oblivious 
to the day’s significance.
Me, of all people.

Today was a long stream of stressful things to tame,
hacked computer—my fault—sheesh,
followed by little things going awry all day—

triangulating with roofers and unhappy neighbors,
treating a caffeine-withdrawal migraine,
scanning the people garden
to make sure I’ve not neglected any roses
in this rainstorm of prosaics.

Now it is evening and I am trying 
to stop reviewing and complaining.

Now I am breathing in that 
medicinal feeling of gratitude.
I am here, not back in my past.
I am overwhelmed 
but I care deeply about life.

Swimming through any rough waters
in my life jacket of gratitude,

I pause now at the end of my 
bumps-in-the-road day, me, a vet,
calling out to you who might be
slipping under the waves—
I love you, I feel you, please

Call 988!

Author’s note: The poem was written on September 10, National Suicide Prevention Day.

Lynne Barnes is a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian from Georgia who has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) won the 2017 Goodreads Rainbow Award for Best Gay and Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award. One of her ongoing gratitudes is occasionally being an accepted contributor to James Penha’s The New Verse News.

ABOUT LOVE

by Ryan Caidic

 

 

Nearly 200,000 people in 124 villages in the northeastern Philippines were affected and over 5,400 fled massive plumes of ash that billowed from Mayon volcano over the weekend due to the collapse of lava deposits from its slopes, officials said Monday. —AP, May 4, 2026

Mayon is the most active volcano in the Philippines, erupting over 52 times in the past 500 years... Its most destructive recorded eruption occurred on February 1, 1814. The volcano belched dark ash and eventually bombarded the town of Cagsawa [where] about 1,200 locals perished in what is considered to be the most lethal eruption in Mayon's history. —Wikipedia

 

 

We live in the time of ash and awe,

where the bell tower of a ruined

cathedral frames the perfect dome

 

its crater glow combusting in pallid

pyroclastic smoke, thousands have fled

its strombolian show

 

of affection, amid the terrible beauty

engulfing kilometers of sky and city

under siege of nature’s desire

 

to shape itself, they say that Mayon

was the womb that rose from the burial

tomb of lovers Magayon and Panganoron

 

passion in the form of fire turned crust

then magma, then igneous stone

then lava, then a quiet, then rage,

 

then warmth, then grief, then ash again—

layers that unravel histories, unpredictable

yet predictable all the same.

 

Those who were burned have forgotten

relocating closer to the pulse

where the fire of Ibalon resides.

 

That’s the theology of love.

To be close enough to feel the rumble

of a molten heart, to be in the shadow

 

of its ending, and to exist,

every time a little more consumed

by its divine ravishing of flame.  

 

 

Ryan Caidic is a Filipino poet and advertising creative living in Denmark. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Columbia Review, The Missouri Review, Southeast Review, Apricity, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere, and has been highly commended by the Bridport Prize and Munster Literature Center.  

MASS SHOOTING #11

21740 W McNichols, Detroit, MI, April 19, 2026

 

 

"Suspect arrested after allegedly shooting 3 people at Detroit gas station. —MSN 

 

 

by Ron Riekki

 

 

 

 

 “beside some Shreveport-like expanse.
 But now you see it,”
—Bill Berkson
from “The Obvious Tradition”
 
“Haunted by ‘Dark Thoughts,’
Louisiana Father Kills 8 Children”

Literally this happens: I’m driving to a mass shooting
and on the way to the mass shooting I drive by
another mass shooting, recognizing the area, and,
 
at the same time, on the radio comes the news of
another mass shooting.  Welcome to America.
I think of the Childish Gambino video “This is
 
America,” the hyperviolence that’s so normative.
I think of the name Childish Gambino, Gambino
meaning ‘little gambler,’ like a child gambler,
 
a childish child gambler, and we’re in gang
territory, but all of Detroit is gang map on
the gang maps I’ve seen online, if those are
 
accurate.  And I think of the words ‘drive by’
at the start of this poem, the dual meaning,
and I’m exhausted, driving, and I’m tired
 
of these mass shootings, but I’m realizing
America is number one in mass shootings,
that America has perfected mass shootings,
 
that America equals mass shootings, that
other countries laugh at us for our mass
shootings, how we do nothing.  Jesus Christ,
 
I’m sick of it.  I’ve been going to every single
mass shooting in Michigan for the last ten
months and no changes are made.  None.
 
Nothing.  At the site of the mass shooting,
I talk with Pretty Eyes.  She wants to be
called Pretty Eyes.  Her name is accurate.
 
She tells me, “It’s something we got used to.”
She’s used to the shootings.  “You can’t
change people,” she says.  She adds that
 
“there’s no hope.”  I look around, this feel
of homelessness and hopelessness, this feel
of hole.  This massive feel that this isn’t
 
home.  I’m born and raised in Michigan.
Trash is speckled everywhere, the way
I’ve seen cooks on Top Chef sprinkle
 
salt so generously: white grocery bags,
paper cups, tissues, what looks like piled-
up abandoned old slabs of concrete curbs.
 
This is gang territory and, to be honest,
I feel perfectly safe.  This is a feeling
that’s grown, where I realize a sort of
 
ridiculousness that black men are some-
how inherently dangerous.  If anything,
they’re inherently courteous.  Rushed,
 
Bill tells me that he doesn’t have
time to talk, but says I won’t like his
answer to what needs to be done to
 
curb mass shootings.  “It’s strictly
God,” he says, “God and prayer.”
I like that it’s strictly God, reading
 
into how he’s worded it.  A woman
named T tells me, “It’s been like that
since I been here.”  She says, “You
 
get used to it,” echoing Pretty Eyes.
Nearby, the auto repair sign has
the word SHOCKS in caps and
 
that’s what this is, shock like lack
of blood flow to the tissues, shock
like feeling distress, shock like violent
 
collision, and, yes, that’s what led to
the mass shooting.  Bill tells me it was
“just road rage.”  Just road rage?  Says
 
it like it’s not a shock that road rage
would lead into a mass shooting.
Three killed.  Where we stand.
 
He has to go.  Pretty Eyes has to
get going.  T needs to run.  I stand
there at another gas station where
 
another mass shooting has happened.
I have no idea why, but constantly
these mass shootings are at gas
 
stations.  I think of the Strait of
Hormuz, the Exxon Valdez, Deep-
water Horizon, oil wars, petro-
 
aggression, petrostates, petrocracy,
a sort of arson of the world, and
a sort of prison of the world; we’re
 
at a Sunoco, listed online as an
“American vehicle gasoline master
limited partnership company”
 
started in 1886.  Master?  Why that
word?  Because it’s dead-on.
I talk with Bam.  He eats potato
 
chips, says the answer is “gun laws.”
He says, “mental issues cause
violence.”  He says, “You should
 
carry.”  He says he doesn’t have
a gun on him, but has one at home,
for protection.  He tells me about
 
his collapsed lung.  I asked if he
was shot.  “No.”  “Never.”  But
“I know a lot of people who’ve
 
been shot, by accident, or gang-
banging.”  He’s never been in
a gang, says people join gangs
 
because “they feel they got some-
body who loves them.”  Love.
I didn’t expect that word.  Love.
 
. . .
. . .
. . .
 
I drive away, heading home,
alone, passing a massive sign
above: $499 HEADSTONES.

 

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

OVER THE MOON: A GOLDEN SHOVEL

by Liam Boyle

Now’s a time to celebrate, drink

a toast with best French wine,

gather friends to break bread and 

sing patriotic anthems. Look

into the eyes of your guests, smile at

the thought of what’s been done, the 

great news, a return to the Moon.

 

Before radio silence, and

across 250,000 miles, the astronauts think 

of love—of our love for them, of

their love for us—“we love you” and all

that love is on the dark side of the 

moon, while back on Earth civilisations

 

are dying, rockets carry destruction; the 

truth is, we can no longer see the moon

as benign. This coincidence of time has 

undone all lyric, all hope. We have seen

the darkness passing

overhead. It will not go by.

Liam Boyle lives in Galway, Ireland. His work has been published in various journals in Ireland and internationally. He was a featured reader in the New Writing Showcase at Galway's Cúirt International Festival of Literature 2025.  

NO KINGS DAY

by Ron Shapiro

 

 

 

 
What if signs of discontent,
Anger, frustration and hatred
Line every nook-and-cranny
Of the amerikan landscape
On this national day of protest?

What if everyone set down
Their phones, turned off
The hypnotic hum buzzing
In their ears, feeding them
What they want to hear rather
Than what they need to hear?
This morning I wonder
What I can do today?
How can I manifest
The sadness of witnessing
Amerika’s descent into darkness?

While bombs drop on buildings
And streets in the Middle East,
Bombs of deception and corruption
Drop daily, one after another,
Boom
boom
boom
into the fragile fabric of democracy.

Collateral damage of such weapons
Invite suffering, disease and division
Mocking ideas of “liberty and justice
For all.” In these times, words empty
Themselves of meaning replaced
With ignorance and exceptionalism
Along with a foundation of fear.

On this day, which should be everyday,
People of all ages who resist the dumbing
Down of amerika, the purging of skin
Color, gender diversity, critical thinking,
And the failure of elected officials to
Follow their conscience instead of money
And power, take to the streets. Not carrying
Weapons that kill but weapons of kindness,
Compassion, love, and hope that children
And grandchildren will grow up into
A world that favors peace not destruction.

So I’ll head out to add my voice
To those who gather with intention.
We will not succumb to a government
Whose lies, carelessness and stupidity
Try to steal the breath from our lungs.
On this day we will be heard.
Our voices will not be silenced. 

 

 

Ron Shapiro, an award-winning teacher, has published over 20 poems in publications including Nova Bards 24 & 25, Virginia Writers Project, The New Verse News, Poetry X Hunger, Minute Musings, Backchannels, Gezer Kibbutz Gallery, All Your Poems, Paper Cranes Literary Magazine, Zest of the Lemon and two chapbooks: Sacred Spaces, Wonderings and Understory, a collection of nature poetry. 

HOW DO YOU SURVIVE A WAR?

by Bruce Black

 

 

GIF by Glen Le Lievre

It’s the stories that you don’t read 

in the news that break your heart.

The old dog who can’t make it to the safe room

in the one minute you have to get downstairs.

The young children who blow out the candles on their

birthday cakes in the darkness of bomb shelters.

The couples whose weddings are held as missiles explode 

overhead, bride and groom weeping in joy and sadness.

Life, I’m told, goes on in wartime but the war

changes the way you live your life.

Love still exists but hides in the bomb shelter

with you in order to survive.

Kindness still exists but stays out of sight

while the missiles are falling.

Hope huddles under an overpass or in the shelter of underground 

stations where it can breathe and show itself again.

How do you survive a war without losing the ability to love,

to show others kindness, to safeguard and preserve one’s humanity?

Even when you live miles away from the war zone

and can’t hear the bombs exploding.

Even when you can only read about them or watch them fall

on the news or in your Facebook feed.

How do you hold onto faith 

in the goodness of people?

How do you trust in kindness and love

to prevail?

How do you hope and believe—in spite of the bleakness

of the present moment—in a better future?

In a future without war? In a future of peace?

How do you survive a war?

Bruce Black received his MFA from Vermont College. He is the author of Writing Yoga (Shambhala) and editorial director of The Jewish Writing Project. His poetry, personal essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The MidAtlantic Review, The Amethyst Review, Write-Haus, Bearings, Super Poetry Highway, Poetica, The Lehrhaus, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere. He lives in Highland Park, IL.