I WEEP FOR THE WORLD

by Mary Saracino

“Weeping World” print by Marinka Bendova at Saatchi Art

I weep for the world,

for women and girls

for boys and men,

living and dying at the mercy

of those without mercy,

the merciless misers,

the autocrats who have sold

their empathy for power,

their compassion for money,

who have sacrificed their souls

for privileges they did not earn—or deserve.

The world they manifest burns

with injustice, oppression, war.

I weep for the planet,

Her essence assaulted,

decimated by greed,

and insatiable lust

for all that is unholy.

I weep for our non-human kin,

all creatures, great and small

all vegetation, too,

that seeks to live and thrive

under the sunlit sky,

bathed in the moonlit darkness,

moving through the seasons

with grace, grit, and gratitude.

We humans have lost our way.

The path is strewn with

obstacles to peace and prosperity,

the carnage of millennia,

the debris of lost memories

of how it should be,

how it could be

if we joined forces and

reclaimed our roots,

celebrated our ancient origins,

honored our connections

to all that is, and ever will be.

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.

THE DEATH OF A POET

by Roxanne Doty

These are the poets and writers who have been killed in Gaza. —Literary Hub, December 21, 2023

Before they were bombed from the sky 

warheads raining on their crucified city

littered with the bones of winter

and blood of children

they were a poet and a teacher

a mother and father who understood 

the hope of words, the way they slipped 

through walls and checkpoints

couldn’t be stopped by soldiers 

or guns, how they empowered

defied the laws of physics

and occupation and oppression

 

To the secretaries of war who murdered the poet

words were sterile instruments, tools

like wrenches and screwdrivers, hammers

from the hardware store, like bunker buster bombs 

and hellfire missiles from a rich country

with democracy and security on its lips

and complicity on its hands, to these priests

of destruction, the poet was a calculation

the result of collateral damage equations

estimates of death rankings of acceptable levels 

of slaughter

 

The poet was killed in their home 

and in a school and a hospital and a UN shelter

and a refugee camp and on a war-torn street

and waving a white flag

before they died the poet had asked

When shall this pass?

 

The poet understood that words are fragile

even with their power could crumble and die

they need an audience to listen

to absorb to act and the poet knew 

that all the children of Gaza 

are poets too

Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her debut novel Out Stealing Water was published by Regal House Press, August 30. 2022.  Her first poetry collection will be published by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2024. Her short story “Turbulence” (Ocotillo Review) was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart prize for short fiction. Other stories and poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Quibble Lit, Superstition Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, The New Verse News, Saranac Review,Gateway Review and Reunion-The Dallas Review.

KNOW THE VICTIM; KNOW THE SHOOTER

by Laura Lindeman

I know the victim!

knew…

Time in suspension 

For his extravagant antics:

Bouncing down the halls,

Bouncing words at teachers,

Bouncing a few punches 

off the faces of his peers.

But his smile races through a room 

Like lightning!

Dreads dancing on his head with the energy of a

Superbowl halftime show…

He was mischief and enthusiasm and zest!

But living in danger

His speed and agility 

Weaving through the violence

Not enough to protect him from the turbulence

Of generations of white oppression’s

Black destruction.

Armed by his family

False security in his sagging waistband.

At sixteen—just smart enough 

To make irrational risk 

Look adventurous.

Maybe this is why there used to be curfews?

Reasoning of the prefrontal cortex not fully formed 

For another half dozen years;

Which he won’t experience.

His unique weapon—fancy firearm

Not a secret.

Proudly waved 

Like a flag…

Or a dare.

During the next news cycle

I realize

I also know the shooter.

He took the dare;

Captured the flag.

Wanted the weapon of his friend.

Like two-year-olds in a sandbox

Tussling over a Tonka Truck.

What did they say?

“Mine.”

“Mine!”

“Give it!”

Bang…

Silence.

I know the shooter.

Smart, articulate

First year in middle school

Studying with headphones—Beats he called them.

Asking deep questions

Seeking complex answers

Quoting Tupac and Jay-Z

But survival on his block

Translates school as

“White people shit”.

Only slick, stark self-preservation

Was rewarded there.

The Seventh Sense

Of street survival.

Cutting classes,

Cursing teachers,

Curtailing disrespect from peers

At all costs.

Take what you want!

Command the room

      the block

      the bitches

      the boys.

So when he wants his bro’s gun,

He takes the weapon;

Takes the shot;

Takes the life.

Takes the arrest,

The parole violation.

Takes his OG’s soul

Her head in her hands in the court room.

Takes residence in a cell

No bail.

Taking traded for youth, freedom and “potential”

Barely a teenager

Playing adult games 

And losing.

Losing high school,

And chess club.

Losing a driver’s license and 

The right to vote.

Losing his siblings and 

His chance to age.

If tried and convicted as an adult

He’ll be incarcerated 45 to life.

Either way, life will be the sentence.

For the rest of his years, days, hours and moments

He will be dogged by the memory and 

Haunted by the choices 

He didn’t make:

To walk away,

To let go of the gun,

To put friendship over face-saving

And laugh at his own pretension

Stuck at fourteen forever.

Trauma imprints

Even if denied by bluster

He can’t out-run

out-shout

out-shoot

or fake out

His own fledgling soul.

I knew the victim;

I know the shooter.

Again.

Laura Lindeman is a new poet who has just decided to submit some poetry for publication with the help of a friend. This poem is a political poem focusing on gun violence, and as you will read, is based on her knowing, as a teacher, two teenagers before they became shooter and victim in a real-life tragedy. The poem speculates based on material revealed in news reports, but the poet has no first-hand knowledge of the crime itself.

REPARATIONS APPROVED: YESSSSSSSS

by Judy Juanita

California is moving forward with its effort to compensate and apologize to Black residents for harm caused by discriminatory policies over generations after the state’s reparations task force voted to approve recommendations Saturday. —USA Today, May 10, 2023

“I can tell you from a psychological perspective that if you take $350,000 or $840,000, and you write a check to any group of people, Black, white, poor, homeless, whatever, you give any group of people that much money and say,” There you go, best of luck,’ you come back in six months, they’re going to be broke,” he said. “Whatever reparations are done, that would be an absolute disaster, as opposed to guidance and help in creating generational wealth, as opposed to income.”

—Dr. Phil

Screw Dr. Phil. I will blow mine wisely
(because the cancer of oppression goes deep)
And furthermore, f**k Dr. Phil
who pimped out Oprah
made $20 mill off her 
and off pimping out people's raw emotional trauma
and has the nerve to say Blacks would go crazy
if we got reparations
NEWSFLASH: We already crazy
The idea of getting our just due 
for the ancestors  
is mind-boggling 
for us and everyone else 
(because the cancer of oppression goes so deep)
And further, further, furthermore, 
if we spend every single penny of it
let's say 400 billion (1619-2019=400 years)
on Land Rovers, Lamborghinis, Louboutin
diamonds and pearls, lavish weddings
gambling in Vegas, Macau, Monte Carlo
yachts, gold-carriage funerals, mansions
lavish baby showers, the luxury life
Gucci, Rolex, trips around the world
why should any single nonblack be upset?
It would snake its way back to their pockets. 
(because the cancer of oppression goes that deep) 

Judy Juanita's latest book of poetry Gawdzilla looks at racism and capitalism side-by-side with the beauty and freedom of California. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland  won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways was published by Livingston Press in 2022. [UWA] in July, 2022.

THE BOARD SPEAKS TO AN ASSEMBLY OF FIFTH-GRADE GIRLS

by Terri Kirby Erickson 

Sunday school at a Baptist church in Kentucky, 1946 

The Board has determined that fifth grade,
which may be too late for some, is the most
optimal time to inform girls that post-birth
females are not fully autonomous human 
beings. No adverse circumstances or plans
or dreams or medical emergencies trump 
your legal and moral responsibility to give 
birth should any male, whether by force or 
consent, plant his seed in the fertile ground 
of a uterus that becomes, immediately upon
conception, the sole property of The State. 
The Board, comprised of five men and two 
wholly compliant women, strives to remain 
sympathetic to how hard it must be for you 
to accept this news, having been so revered 
before birth and deceived into believing you 
have the same rights and post-delivery value 
as boys and men. Let us assure you today, 
that you do not. Indeed, should you become 
pregnant and experience a life-threatening 
situation, the continuation of a fetal heart-
beat is all that matters. Furthermore, there 
are many government agencies dedicated to 
ensuring that, under penalty of death or life 
in prison for all involved, no pregnancy is
unlawfully terminated. No questions? Then 
you are, as will often be the case, dismissed.

 
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53), winner of an International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, JAMA,Poet’s Market, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS), The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Third Wednesday, and many more. Other awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. 

THERE IS A SOUND

by James Bettendorf 

There is a sound in Minneapolis
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where laws favor groups, that oppress
Others to their knees, that rip
Opportunities from small hands,
That flatten hopes, crush
Dreams under their heels
Red tipped white canes are broken
Pieces thrown in the gutter

There is a sound in Minnesota
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where angry men and women are bent
Their backs used as stepping stones
Feeling powerless in the face of money
Neighbors denied rights
Darkness isn’t dispelled
By the light of reason

There is a sound in America
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Eyes of honest people
Covered with blindfolds
Made from the flag
Tower babbling deafens
Knees and backs
Bent by heavy wooden crosses
And more coal is shoveled
Into the furnaces of the wealthy

There is a sound in the world
Like the tearing of heavy cloth

James Bettendorf taught math for 34 years at various levels and in his retirement begin writing classes at the Loft in Minneapolis, MN.  He was accepted for a two year poetry internship in the Loft Master Track program in 2006 and has been working on a manuscript with his mentor/advisor, Thomas R. Smith.  He has had poems published in TheNewVerse.News. Rockhurst Review, Light Quarterly, Ottertail Review, Talking Stick Vols. 18 - 23, and Free Verse.

THRENODY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Detail of the Cover of I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi.

In America now
We can watch real murders
On TV
Then wait for officials to decide
Whether officers
Were justified
In killing the black man
As he lay handcuffed and helpless
Face down on the pavement.
In America now
We can listen to news reports
About whether there might be evidence
That the unarmed black jogger
Behaved in a way
That was threatening in some fashion
To the heavily armed
Father and son
Who jumped out of their pickup truck
And gunned him down.

In America now
We can watch videos
In which white people call the cops
On black children mowing lawns
In the wrong neighborhoods,
On black professionals
Who “seem suspicious”
Entering the lobbies
Of the condominiums where they live,
On black walkers who remind them
To leash their dogs.

In COVID America now
Black people are dying of the virus
At three times the rate
Of whites,
Black people are incarcerated
At six times the rate of whites
Black people are unemployed
At twice the rate of whites.

“I can’t breathe!” cried Eric Garner
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cried George Floyd
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black children
From broken and polluted neighborhoods,
From decaying and crumbling schools.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black parents
From hospital emergency rooms
Holding sons and daughters
In their laps
Who are dangerously ill
Because mom and dad could not afford
Early and dequate health care.
“I can’t breathe!” cry young black couples
Unable to rent or buy homes
And begin family life
In neighborhoods
Where the unspoken understanding
Is “whites only.”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe . . .”

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .