WHAT THE LIVING HAVE SEEN

by Lynne Rappaport

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How many days has it been now, since 10/7,

that those Israelis held captive in tunnels in Gaza

have been without their freedom,

separated from all of life?

 

Their faces are plastered onto giant posters

for passersby in Tel Aviv to see,

burning these hostages’ plight into memory,

their country longing for it to end.

 

What can the prisoners know of the crisis above the tunnels?

The violence, devastation, rubble, blocked aid trucks, hunger,

children’s lives cut short.

Failed attempts at a lasting ceasefire.

Instead, more retaliations, an eye for an eye,

an endless war.

 

Bring them safely home.

Let them begin healing.

 

The Palestinian family I’m sending money to in Gaza—

Home destroyed, living in a tent,

subsisting on lentils and hot salt water—

Had a moment of joy welcoming a baby boy,

Husband venturing out to buy overpriced flour

for his wife and 2-year-old son. 

She needed medication to prevent blood clots,

needs nourishment to sustain their newborn child. 

They all need superhuman strength.

 

Almost 500 online donors, sending funds for a year,

trying to keep this family going, give them some hope. 

Will they rebuild their home in Gaza someday? How will they manage until then?

Will Gaza even still exist for them? Will they be displaced again?

Will these two children who’ve survived ever know a free Palestine?

What can the Gazans know of the air raid sirens, during the night,

Families hurrying to bomb shelters and safe rooms

In Tel Aviv apartment buildings?

 

Bring all safely home. 

End the occupation,

The unholy bloodshed.

 

The ghosts of the lost ones permeate the ashen air. 

Restless dreams, nightmares, 

and oh,

what the living have seen,

have seen,

have endured.

Author’s note: This poem came out of a freewrite session to the poem “Beannacht” by John O’Donahue, in Kathryn Santana Goldman’s Your Write to Resilience OLLI class, summer 2025.

Lynne Rappaport is a 72-year-old woman originally from New York who has lived in San Francisco for over 50 years. Retired from teaching ESL to immigrant adults, she enjoys poetry, nature, music, and Tai Chi. She dedicates this poem to her late cousin, Canadian poet Bobbie Ogletree, and to our late grandfather Jacob B. Sacks, born in Palestine (Jerusalem) in 1888. He immigrated to New York in 1912. 

TOXIC REDUX

by Diane Elayne Dees

Video: Britney Spears’ full opening testimony during her conservatorship hearing. She speaks directly to Judge Brenda Penny and asks her to end the conservatorship.

“I want to feel heard, and I’m telling you this again so maybe you can understand the depth and the degree and the damage that they did to me... ” —Britney Spears

Hysteria was said to be cured 

by having sex. Or giving birth. 

Or having the Devil cast out

of a woman’s body.

Or being touched by magnetic hands.

Or hanged from a tree until dead.

“Don’t worry your pretty head, take this pill”—

and they danced as fast as they could,

then wound up shaking and quivering

in hospital rooms, sweating in bedrooms, 

and dazed in the dark rooms inside their heads.

“No one did that to you—the therapist put it

in your head.” 

“It’s your imagination.” 

“Why would you say those things about our family?”

“Stop acting like a child.”

Crazy women make good stories, 

good movies, good punchlines, 

good alibis.

You can drug them, wind them up, 

watch them dance, and steal their money.

All you need is a judge, a doctor, a lawyer,

some nurses, and the right genitalia.

The court declared you a protector—

of a mind, a uterus, a woman.

But crazy women everywhere know

that what is protected 

are your bank account,

your delusions, and your secret desire

to cast the Devil out of all of us.

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbook Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books) and two forthcoming chapbooks. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women's professional tennis throughout the world.

"PERHAPS YOU SHOULD ADOPT A MORE CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ORIENTATION"

by Katherine West

In Memoriam for victims of the Rochester, New York shooting.

My doctor suggests after a complete physical 

He has failed to discover 

The source of my trouble 

Though I feel as if I will never recover 

He finds nothing in the blue pools of my eyes 

What could cause this endless weeping?

Blood pressure numbers don't lie

I will have a long time yet to live 

No medication for what ails me 

I am simply living inside-out 

He seems to imply, wearing my heart on my sleeve 

Where it has no business being, it has no clout 

In the streets, in the slums 

At the parties that are not fun 

Where students lie in pools of blood 

Too much love, he claims, not enough guns

Too much love, he claims, not enough guns 

Where students lie in pools of blood 

At the parties that are not fun 

In the streets, in the slums 

Where it has no business being, it has no clout 

He seems to imply, wearing my heart on my sleeve

I am simply living inside-out 

No medication for what ails me 

I will have a long time yet to live 

Blood pressure numbers don't lie 

What could cause this endless weeping?

He finds nothing in the blue pools of my eyes 

Though I feel as if I will never recover 

The source of my trouble 

He has failed to discover 

My doctor suggests after a complete physical 

"Perhaps you should adopt a more 

conservative political orientation."

Katherine West is the author of three collections of poetry and one novel: Scimitar Dreams, The Bone Train, Riddle, and Lion Tamer, respectively.  She has had poetry published in Bombay Gin, Lalitamba, Tanka Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and TheNewVerse.News who nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019.  She lives in the mountains outside of Silver City, New Mexico where she translates Mexican revolutionary poetry and creates custom, hand-made poetry chapbooks.

TOWARD A GENTLER GOOD NIGHT

by Elane Gutterman

N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy signs the Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act Friday, April 12, 2019 at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. New Jersey joins seven other states and Washington, D.C. to enact a law permitting terminally ill patients to seek life ending medication. The law takes effect in August. (Credit: New Jersey Office of the Governor via WHYY)

The trigger for me was the research for a poem, my artful
turn on two decades of Oregon envy, wanting their Death
with Dignity to apply in New Jersey as a law abiding act.

I stumbled on the lobbying group and the way grew less abstract.
Supporters met up at the State House. Our message fine-tuned art,
we engaged lawmakers on the need for choice when near to death.

Those opposed called it suicide, minimized long-suffering death.
Finally, the bills came up for a vote, would they be enacted?
I stared at the display as votes in favor mounted like hanging art.

Work of art, my state enters the pact. Governor affirms choice in death.

In this tritina, Elane Gutterman celebrates a milestone in advocacy work with Compassion & Choices. Her poems have been published in U.S 1 Summer Fiction Issue, Kelsey Review, Patterson Literary Review, and TheNewVerse.News.