IMAGINAL POEM MEANT TO BE READ ON A ROOFTOP

by Richard Jackson

You begin / somewhere/ to cry the/ murmur of life

     —Parnia Abasi, d. June 13, 2025

 

This is a poem about hope despite the fact that it

begins with the death of the twenty three year old

Iranian poet, Parnia Abassi, along with her family,

among the twisted pipes and chunks of concrete,

amid the fragments of some missile that targeted

her apartment building.

                                       This is a poem about hope 

despite the presence of swarms of flies investigating 

the ruins, searching for pieces of flesh pasted to concrete, 

despite the satellite photos that hold these specifics 

at a safe distance.

                             This is a poem that makes its appeal 

to the Imaginal world of the Persian mystics, Suhrawardi 

and Hafiz, of a world where rocks become clouds, where 

cypresses dance, where graves become doorways to

the gods and angels, a world between this one and

the one we hope to rejoin.

                                           I will become the most beautiful 

poem in the world, wrote Parnia. I’ll be the extinguished 

star/in your sky/ like smoke.

                                              This is a poem that makes

its appeal with the rooftop dwellers of Tehran, and

their own imaginal world between the rubble and the

sky, chanting slogans against the regime and us,

hoping for a life without bombs, without oppression,

unable to see where the sun is in the sky on the worst days, 

one says, but knowing it is there.

                                                     This is a poem about 

hope, for it prays with Hafiz, with Suhrawardi, with Parnia

who wrote, I row into your embrace, into this poem that

cannot go on without your own fragile lines and hopes, into 

a world only our poems can make, a world where they 

dance with the cypresses, and chant from the heart’s rooftops.

Richard Jackson is the author of 18 books of poetry including, Footprints, The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems, and 16 books of translation, Interviews, criticism and anthologies, as well as 30 chapbooks from eastern and central European poets.. Translated into 17 languages, he was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal by the President of Slovenia for Humanitarian and literary work during the Balkan Wars and has received Guggenheim, Fulbright, NEA, NEH and Witter-Bynner, Fellowships.

SILENCED

by Lynn White

It’s all you can hear now

the journalists are silenced.

It’s all you can see now

the placards are forbidden.

It’s all you can hear now

Other voices are silenced.

It’s all you can see now

the flags are forbidden.

Truth

lies

buried

in silence.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

MEDEA ALSO KILLED HER CHILDREN

by Kathy Gilbert

Medea on her golden chariot, by Germán Hernández Amores

I need to write a poem
But
413 people who were alive
Yesterday are dead
 
I need to write a poem…
Bombed without warning
In the night
167 children killed
 
I need to write a poem?
What happened
To the ceasefire?
 
The poem I thought I’d write
Was how yesterday
I saw ravens collecting
Stout twigs and branches
To build and fortify their nests
Home for their future children
 
The poem I thought I’d write
Was about spring and new life
But
It’s winter all over the world
 
I need to write a poem
 
Only love can save us
Love of action. Gathering twigs
To protect new life
Of spring/ offspring
Those babies in Gaza are
our children we have murdered.

 
Kathy Gilbert resides in the Bay Area and received her MFA from SFSU. She is retired, has written two books and practices tai chi.

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

in memory of Wadea Al-Fayoume (6 years old)

The last words of a six-year-old US Muslim boy stabbed to death in a suspected hate crime over the weekend were "Mom, I'm fine", his uncle said as hundreds gathered to lay the child to rest… Police say Wadea al-Fayoume was attacked because he was Muslim. His funeral was held as the family's landlord appeared in court charged with the boy's murder. The 71-year-old accused was allegedly upset about the Israel-Hamas war. —BBC, October 16, 3023

Six-year-old sons are supposed to live the dream of a free-range American boyhood.
Cowboys and Indians. Minecraft and mumps inoculations. Even gender-neutral pronouns. 
 
Muslim or Christian, it shouldn’t matter since we, the people, possess a constitution
once amended to address that there is no sin in being subaltern.
 
But our land is filled with weapons. Frontier remnants, perhaps. Anger makes fathers
guard their daughters with rifles. We should never ignore that faith is a live wire.
 
What about knives. A mother discovers how a landlord’s grandfatherly fondness for her son
turns to murder. He raises his blade to the boy twenty-six times, practically a lunar cycle.
 
How did a man who carpentered nails and boards to build young Wadea a house
decide to enlist in sorrow’s circle. Was it Iblis or X. OAN perhaps. Maybe Fox. 
 
Did he go mad from the whisper of his neighbor’s dog
(like Berkowitz)
who said never trust anyone who abstains from swine.
 
I believe property is a theft. Claim a land, claim a life.
Now our nation reckons with a terrible debt.
 
Who but a martyred boy can account for that.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. His latest book is Flint River (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). New and recent work appears/will appear in Mobius, Rattle, Terrain.org, Writers Resist, Topical Poetry, and Belt Magazine. He holds two passports.

THE MALL THIS TIME

by Anna Evans

Allen Premium Outlets, Texas, May 6, 2023

He strolls the mall as if he owns the place,
his open carry rifle in plain sight
but there is something missing from his face,
 
the eyes a little wild, the grin off-base.
In matte black body armor strapped on tight,
he strolls the mall as if he owns the place,
 
as if it is a job, a joint to case,
as if it is a calling—no, a right—
but there is something missing from his face.
 
He starts to shoot. It seems like time and space
stand petrified, before the bullets bite.
He strafes the mall as if he owns the place
 
till death by cop with no crossfire, no chase,
his body dropping in blood sticky bright,
that ugly smile at least wiped off his face.
 
And spokesmen’s thoughts and prayers clang through the night.
Guns don’t kill people, they insist, despite
the broken bodies scattered every place,
the murdered young girl with a missing face.

Anna M. Evans gained her MFA from Bennington College and has received Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is available from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

TARGET

by Joe Amaral

Is it a person?
Oh no, did it get burned?
Looted? Robbed? Murdered?
Is it okay?

That’s a big box store.
Thick-necked. Hard to press.
Sells hoodies and jeans.
Dresses provocatively.
Damaging.
So empty inside now.
Gutted.

Seriously though, can it breathe?
Does it need water? Mama?
Call the police knee. Did it die?

Poor store, almost like a person.
Hard to fit in a bodybag.
There is video evidence.
Linoleum riot for inanimate rights!

Did it have a family? Friends?
Coworkers? A soul?
Will people miss it forever?
What is its past history?
Arrest record?
Stock market trend?

Ahem.      For profit.
Portfolio is looking up.
Tax sheltered. Bailout ready.
Owner made millions.
In a hazardous pandemic.
Workers get paid shit.
Unprotected. Wage theft.

Why are we only mourning
the humanity of lost property?
Joe Amaral,
Injustice reaction:
“Cleanup on Aisle 7”

Insurance will cover.
Nice being able to live again.
Exist. Mend.

Corporate thug.
Got what it deserved.

Joe Amaral’s first poetry collection The Street Medic won the 2018 Palooka Press Chapbook  Contest.

PRICELESS

by Richard Schnap

James Foley on The Early Show, 2011. Image source: CBS Boston

What is the value of a heart

That dares to dodge bullets and bombs?

And what is the value of a spirit

Who exposes the horrors of the world?

And what is the value of a soul

Whose fate is determined by monsters?

Who offer his freedom for millions

But sell him for an ocean of tears.

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.