PEACE TO ALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Many people who worked with Pope Leo XIV when he was Bishop Robert Prevost of Chiclayo, Peru, couldn’t hold back tears when his election was announced on May 8. For them, it was not just a sign that God answered their prayers for a new pope who would follow Francis’s path, but also the confirmation that they had been guided by an extraordinary leader. —CRUX, May 9, 2025

Peace be with you. 

We are suffering 
the pandemic. 
We are hungry 
and we need 
to breathe. 

We need 
oxygen tanks 
in Chiclayo. 
I will get you 
the tanks. 

We need food. 

We need to walk 
the empty streets
and knock on 
every door
and leave 

food and water.

We need to bring 
the sick to hospital 
and help them to breathe. 

This is pastoral work.
This is Archbishop 
Robert Prevost,
now Pope Leo 
the Fourteenth.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published his translation of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books, 2025). Other recent publications include Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). 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.

LIMITS OF LANGUAGE

by Amy Small-McKinney

The shootings never stopped during the coronavirus pandemic, they just became less public, researchers say. —The New York Times, December 1, 2021

           

Let’s say you are struggling to speak.

A six-year-old has been ensnared by a shooter

in the sights of his makeshift automatic.

Let’s say you don’t understand his language of righteousness.

You look for oxygen.

For the locust that grows nearly twenty-feet tall.

 

Let’s say his mind empties body disconnects

returns astonished by his own rage.

Let’s say you want to walk a path

through the black locusts that survive drought lousy soil

pollution sea spray light and shade its clusters of white or pink

fragrant as your own body once was.

 

Let’s say the shooter turns his back, decides not to kill.

Notice how the locust’s treetop becomes a bear holding its cub.

Now, a bird. How the Arctic tern lives longest

and travels in its lifetime

almost three times around the moon.

 

Let’s say you loved this path, following your beloved

onto another trail that looped past a waterfall then a stream

where human figures loomed above in the distance

and you could only guess if they held

guns or each other.

Amy Small-McKinney’s chapbook One Day I Am A Field written during Covid after her husband’s death, is forthcoming with Glass Lyre Press. For the 2020 virtual AWP, she co-moderated an interactive discussion, Writing Through Grief & Loss: The Intersection of Social and Personal Grief During Covid.  Her second full-length book of poems, Walking Towards Cranes, won the Kithara Book Prize (Glass Lyre Press, 2017. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, for example, American Poetry Review, Baltimore Review, Connotation Press, and SWWIM. She was the 2011 Montgomery County Poet Laureate, judged by poet Chris Bursk. Her poems have also been translated into Korean and Romanian.  Her book reviews have appeared in journals such as Prairie Schooner and Matter. Small-McKinney resides in Philadelphia.

POEM IN AUGUST

by Julian O. Long

“August Painting” by Ivan Kolisnyk

First day of my eighty fourth

year to heaven, I got up

turned off the O2 machine, hung

its canula over the arm of the walker

beside my bed, intimate with

these acts as I am with my hand

on my thigh the last thing before

throwing off the covers,

                                       intimate too

with comorbidities (only recently

learned that word) my troubled heart

remembered from recent echoes, aftermaths

of strokes that stopped parts of my brain

and legs (maybe other things

as well—hard to tell with all

the medicines.

                        Still, one more stick

and I’m boosted, at least in a qualified

sense; I’ll continue intimacy

with covid fully vaccinated, as I

was those childhood summers with series

of asthma shots, but this birthday

I am choosing as well to quarantine

myself—better that than bronchial

spasms, since this virus kills.

Writ large does the covid pandemic shed

light on die ups such as the great

reptilian? Chances are it will run

its course and become endemic among us

like the flu. But what if it doesn’t?

And what if unlike plagues of past ages

this is the one big one? Will it

usher in new times of dearth,

strife, and loss driven by vicious

death-demanding ideologies?

Will we humans learn care for one

another in such new times, or will we

follow the worst among us and in

ourselves? Chances are we’ll do

the latter.

                        Cogito ergo sum,

unassailable formulation, works

both ways, Latin doesn’t care

it’s the perfect sum of being, balking

at prospect of its own quitclaim

consciousness cannot fail to name

itself, but no heuristic can

afford me knowledge of my death;

I am intimate with that absence.

Conversely, no perception affords

me knowledge of another’s. In these

times it’s a forced option to choose

intimacy as well

                           —with that absence.

Julian O. Long’s poems and essays have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Pembroke Magazine, New Texas, New Mexico Magazine, and Horizon among others. His chapbook High Wire Man is number twenty-two in the Trilobite Poetry series published by the University of North Texas Libraries. A collection of his poems, Reading Evening Prayer in an Empty Church, appeared from Backroom Window Press in 2018. Other online publications have appeared or are forthcoming at The Piker Press, Better Than Starbucks, The Raw Art Review, and Litbreak Magazine.  Long has taught school at the University of North Texas, North Carolina State University, and Saint Louis University. He is now retired and lives in Saint Louis, Missouri.

THE SACKING OF DELHI, 2021

by Joy Dehlavi

Photo by Joy Dehlavi while delivering baked goods to an oxygen camp with medical personnel and Sikh volunteers.

Timur-lane rides again,

to gut the golden bird;

Dilli my jaan

will have the last word.

With just a smidgeon

of his novel potion;

The bandit can bludgeon

an entire nation. 

Bringing no horsemen

with bow and scimitar;

He leaves hordes behind

in Samarkand durbar.

Of defending Delhi,

they have lost all clues;

India’s overlords

charading as world gurus. 

In cold corrupt hearts,

no patriotism stirred;

Dilli my jaan

will have the last word. 

The billboards are huge,

but the vision small;

The news is fake

and economy in free fall.

Bumbling babus

and malicious middlemen;

Let native immunity wane

and bastions broken. 

Timur plots unguarded

burg’s checkmate;

He gently lets loose

the taj plague outbreak. 

Setting sight on crowds,

the virus veered;

Dilli my jaan

will have the last word. 

Lethal contagion wafts

in balmy breeze;

Hard to hide,

from its viperous squeeze. 

Smiting shanty and manor,

mandir and masjid;

Slithering softly with breath,

a malady horrid. 

Froth-corrupted lungs

straining for breath;

Denied relief or air,

no dignity in death. 

Stranded on sidewalks,

calling to be cured;

Dilli my jaan

will have the last word. 

Smoke chokes the city,

from roaring fires;

Trees turn to timber,

feeding endless pyres. 

Remorseless racketeers

cashing in on misery;

Floating carrion speak

of untold butchery. 

Widow women, orphan kids,

aged losing help;

The tormented hear

forsaken pariah's yelp.

Isolation and penury,

pestilence delivered;

Dilli my jaan,

will have the last word. 

Donning face shields 

and suits of plastic armor;

An army arrives

to battle the vile vapor. 

Feeding, sanitizing,

testing and vaccinating;

All castes come together,

in fraught fighting. 

Selfless service ingrained

in their blood;

Steely sardars serve

oxygen to the cursed. 

In succoring the sick,

they dread no hazard;

Dilli meri jaan

will have the last word. 

Ceding sleep and lull,

medicos risk their all;

Even chiefs fall

to the jagged green ball. 

"No one sleeps"

tending the breath machine;

"I will win," says

the nurse to spike protein. 

Hours sweltering,

in stifling protective gear;

They keep on healing,

feeling no fear. 

Dehliwallahs rise up,

audaciously undeterred;

Dilli meri jaan,

will have the last word. 

Soulless charlatans

getting masses misled;

Crack crack crackles

the sky over their head. 

Profiteering politicians

filled with conceit;

Thud thud trembles

the ground under their feet. 

Timur finally falls,

to the common cold;

Heart of Bharat beats,

beautiful and bold. 

With head held high,

it moves forward;

Dilli meri jaan

will always have the last word. 

Author's Note: Dilli is another name for the city of Delhi. "My jaan" means "my life" in Urdu and Hindi. Usually used to address a lover. "Meri" is Hindi for "my". As the poem takes a turn and starts describing positive things that are happening around me, I change to "Dilli meri jaan" as a more intimate way of refering to the city I grew up in. There was a tourism jingle " Dilli meri jaan" used to promote the city to foreigners about 30 years ago. Most people in Delhi or Dehli still use this expression to express their love for the city.

Glossary:

·      Babu - A mid to low level government functionary or clerk (Hindi)

·      Bharat - Another name for India (Hindi)

·      Burg - Medieval fortress or walled city

·      Caste - Stratification system in Indian society with some history of difficulty in working together.

·      Dehliwallah - One who belongs to Dehli/Delhi (Hindi/Urdu)

·      Durbar - Royal court (Hindi/Urdu)

·      Mandir - Place of worship for Hindus (Hindi)

·      Masjid - Place of worship for Muslims (Hindi/Urdu)

·      Native immunity - Scientific term for innate resistance to infections

·      Sardar - Members of the Sikh community known for their courage and charity (Hindi/Punjabi)

·      Taj - Crown or Corona (Hindi/Urdu)

 

References explained:

·      “Crack crack crackles the sky over their head” and “Thud thud trembles the ground under their feet” —Adapted from Urdu poem “Hum dekhenge” by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Frequently used as protest anthem against government policies.

·      “Froth-corrupted lungs” — From “Dulce Et Decorum Est “ by Wilfred Owen. Author described effects of poison gas on unmasked soldiers during The Great War.

·      “No one sleeps” and “I will win”— Lyrics translated to English from “Nessun Dorma,” the aria from Puccini’s Turandot popular in Europe as a rallying cry to encourage frontline healthcare workers during the first coronavirus wave in spring of 2020.

·      “With head held high” — Adapted from Bengali poem “ Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo” by Indian Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore. He wrote this as his vision of new and awakened India.

·      Golden bird (Sone ki Chidiya in Hindi) — Refers to the wealthy land of India in medieval times that made it a target for many plunderers from Central Asia.

·      Timur or Timur-lane — Turco-Mongol conqueror who mercilessly sacked ineptly defended Delhi in December of 1398. Infamous for indiscriminate massacre of a large number of city residents.

Joy Dehlavi wrote “The Sacking of Delhi, 2021” drawing from his experiences during the coronavirus spike lockdown that he spent in Delhi, India. Born in India, he now lives in the USA.

PREAMBLE TO DEATH

by Monica Korde

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, ARE DYING.

Here with only hours to spare, air 

leaving the lungs, families rush 

from hospital to hospital 

begging for a breath, for a bed 

while opulent hotel rooms 

offer a hundred covid beds 

for members of justice.

Here votes matter, deaths don’t. 

Politicians ride chariots, strut 

through reckless rallies and 

use words liberally:

“Nothing to panic. It’s all imaginary.”

“No need for masks, why worry?”

“After all, everyone has to die eventually”.

Here the gravedigger works 24-hour shifts, 

his gloves left behind to 

avoid the spade from slipping. 

It is Ramzan but he must have water before 

he goes on- turning the earth, getting the body

removing it from the makeshift ambulance 

burying it faster than he can count. 

The priest works equally—

he prays for a hundred pyres, stokes the fires, and 

this pandemic pandit of sorts walks round-the-clock 

through this burning mess

roll calling names as the flames get warm enough. 

Here the departed lie outside 

community-built crematoriums. 

No marigold, no silk, no sandalwood 

to adorn the tired bodies. 

Carefully wrapped in outrage, in anguish

they find kinship and unity

these souls on stand-by

waiting for an undignified exit. 

 

ENDLESSLY EMERGING IN BODY BAGS ON GURNEYS—ONE, TWO, THREE DEATHS PER MINUTE, OVER FOUR THOUSAND IN 24 HOURS—ON THIS DAY OF MAY 2021, WE MOURN IN THE MAKING OF THIS REPUBLIC AND QUESTION HEREBY HOW TO ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION. 

Monica Korde, is a poet from India, currently living in Belmont, California. Along with writing poems, she reads at several virtual poetry readings hosted in the Bay area and regularly co-hosts an online poetry open mic. Her poetry has appeared online on the website of San Francisco Public Library, on YouTube published by local poetry open mics, and in anthologies. 

 

A BRIEF GEOGRAPHY OF GOODBYES

by Mary K O'Melveny

"Red Composition" by Jackson Pollock

Everyone who knows grief as it settles onto chests,

humid as a jungle, thick as fog on a heath,

understands that goodbyes can be a gift. A brief

cushion to ease the long emptiness ahead.

 

As I write this, my friend’s husband is dying

in hospice care in New York. He surrendered

after waging a fierce battle with leukemia that,

for a merciful time, he seemed to be winning.

 

Each arc of loss beams wider than celestial skies

on clear summer nights. His young grandchildren

gather at a grassy hospital garden to say goodbye.

Siblings fly from far-flung homes to do the same.

 

My sister and I stood at our mother’s bedside

watching lights on monitors fade and fizzle out.

Without evidence of audibility, we still sang to her,

believing emigration is aided by a sound track.

In Gaza, bereaved households are less blessed.

A fine whine of rockets the only warning before

a family’s cardamom tea and künefe splatters

like a Pollock canvas across living room walls.

 

In Delhi, breaths come to a close after failed searches

for oxygen – it seems there is no price that can be paid

for air though grieving loved ones would mortgage

their own lung capacities if currencies allowed.

 

In North Carolina, police kill a man as he tries

to drive away from death. His story forms a pattern

recurrent as an Escher etching. Each morning’s only

question – will this day mark memory’s final day.

 

COVID focused attention toward microscopic gestures –

the tensile strength of touch, the graceful creases

of a laugh line, the thrill of whispered thank yous.

Such gifts may allow us to survive our diminishments.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

AGGRIEVED

by Karan Kapoor

Many patients across India have died when hospitals suddenly ran out of oxygen. Credit: Atul Loke for The New York Times, May 16, 2021

I

An old friend's father whom I once called father

is now dying. We're hunters who cannot hunt

oxygen for him, or her or the many theys, 

nor god, and the men who bought the internet

know we've tried to find both. Anything below

hundred minus five is a potential threat. 

He is at 51 and going down with the sun.

We carry time on our shoulders as it bleeds.

Souls leave bodies; leaves in autumn, 

pus from an abscess. Everywhere birds 

appear; everywhere there's song.

II

Our premier is deaf without being mute.

Isn't he guilty of all the good he did not do?

Sometimes the body astonishes the mind.

He visits a gurdwara to pray, to pay homage 

to Guru Teg Bahadur, extends greetings 

to a nation dying. He bows to him: a guru

respected globally for his courage and his

efforts to serve the downtrodden, a guru who

refused to bow to tyranny and injustice. 

We're trying to balance on the fence 

between irony and contempt.

III

Some pray for their fathers to be relieved,

some want them to live no matter. The one

who now stands in the queue for oxygen will 

soon stand in the queue for crematoriums.

The sun scorches us like a lover we've

wronged, pissing fire on us. In turn, 

our shaved heads threaten the moon.

Everyone we love plunges deep into a sleep 

there's no waking from, men and women

reduce to rising numbers on television.

We were never taught to count so far.

 

IV

India's spine crushes under the burden

of screams. The newspapers must be full 

of obituaries but they aren't. The trees laugh.

The dead are nameless. The government

is busy filing cases against the aggrieved.

The greatest indication of irresponsibility 

is blame. We get high on camphor, the sky 

falls. We exit the world through a wound.

Is there no god in the heart of a monster? 

He is tearing us apart, and making slow work 

of it. Dear destruction, we dread your old song.

V

When people suffer, they want to scream.

All we hear is an expression of suffering,

not the anguish itself. Time is a window

we cannot pass through. Have you ever

watched someone suffocate slowly?

We are drifted ashore, stripped of all but

our grief which too needs oxygen to survive.

There are no words, all we can do is look

silently at the dead. Sometimes the song

just sings itself apart. The birds disappear.

Future is nothing but a hole in the ground.

Author's Note: A friend's father died today, and another friend's grandfather. Many others have lost many others. India is suffering with an almost-apocalyptic second-wave, which comes directly as a result of failure of the Modi-government to prepare for it. This poem emerged from the angst which is a big, initial part of grief.

Karan Kapoor is the author of a novelette Maya and the co-author of a novel The Dreaming Reality, both independently published. Long-listed for Toto funds the Arts awards, his poems have appeared in The Indian Quarterly, G5A Imprint, Stride, and the Mountain Ink. He's currently working on his debut poetry collection. When not reading or writing, he is obsessing over classical music. Currently in his final semester of MA in Literary Art Creative Writing, he wants to continue to live a life devoted to music and literature.

KNOWING THE GREAT UNKNOWN

by Laura Rodley

Can I keep an Aborigine
alive in the desert
where he can draw up water
from under the sand
if I recycle my cans
can I keep the leaves green
there in the desert
where even the lizards are parched
if I use less gas, change my oil
can I hold out my hand
across this great distance
if I only use the dryer at night
when electricity use is less
easier to trundle along the wires?
And can I carry you in my arms
through the desert when you have given up
past the kangaroos, errant camels,
if I plant more trees, their leaves
giving oxygen to you, to seep
into the desert air, invisible
but still there for you to breathe?
And if I keep my heat down,
will it bring you more water
underneath the sand where you
dip your straw to sip
while I carry you to my house
so I can lay you down;
I’m carrying you to my house
so I can lay you down.      

Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

OF FISH AND FISHERMAN

by Jim Gustafson

Image source: Business Insider

Just South of Lovers Key
the whales have hit the beach.
It is said they are pilots,
though one must wonder
about whales that come to land.

Just outside Sparks, Nevada
100,000 fish washed-up on shore.
It is said the lake‘s ran out of oxygen
and the catfish, bass and trout
died in its breathless water.

Just above Rio De Janeiro
lightening has touched Jesus.
It is said, his finger broke,
He will be healed. He will point
once more to the fish in the sea.


Jim Gustafson’s book, Driving Home, was published by Aldrich Press in 2013. A 2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee, Jim is poetry editor for the Tampa Review OnLine, a MFA candidate at the University of Tampa, teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University, and lives in Fort Myers, Florida, where he reads, writes, and pulls weeds.

THE PLAN

by Daniela Gioseffi

Two weeks of United Nations climate talks ended Saturday with a pair of last-minute deals keeping alive the hope that a global effort can ward off a ruinous rise in temperatures.  . . . Mohamed Adow, an activist with Christian Aid, said the deal showed that “countries have accepted the reality” of the effects of climate change, but that “they seem unwilling to take concrete actions to reduce the severity of these impacts.” --NY Times, November 23, 2013

The plan was for butterflies,
bees and bats to suck among flowers
gathering sweetness to live
as they carried pollen, seed to ova,
to bring fruit from need.

The plan was for waters
to run freshly through
wetland deltas, filtering streams
along their way from mountain tops
quenching thirst running clear
rivers to the sea bringing life to the lips of children,
blossoming from the need for love
from parents, two different animals united
into a new being, ecstatic with rebirth.

The plan was for forests to clean the air
for children's breath in symbiotic balance
using carbon dioxide expelled from animals
to give forth oxygen,
to photosynthesize food from need,
making green leaves that leaf and leaf again
to feed women's breasts, not mere objects of sex,
but factories of milk, first link
in the food chain for children's mouths
to suckle milk from leaves of grass
come from fertile mud for need.

But sheer greed for things
of plastic, polymers from petroleum:
acrylic, polyester, lucite, biogenetics,
nuclear radiation, poisons,
greed for too much meat full of steroids,
land laid waste grazing cattle,
carcinogens, plutonium, filth and waste,
killed the plan slowly, bit
by bit, until the water trickled
with foul waste of industries' mistakes
and what was needed food, water, breath
was suffocated to a barren death.

Bats, bees and butterflies
ceased to buzz around flowers
bearing fruit from their sexual union
and children had no food.
Forests chopped to dust
gave forth no oxygen
or photosynthesis
or atmospheric balance
as fluorocarbons and fuel emissions
opened holes in the ozone
and burned the earth
to a carbon crisp
and love,
which was God itself,
no longer breathed
in the eyes of children,
but was silenced from its song
and art, books, poems,
had no feelings to speak
as all seed,
through "market engineering,"
was lost
to greed.


Daniela Gioseffi is an American Book Award winning author of 16 books of poetry and prose. She is editor/publisher/webmaster of www.Eco-Poetry.org/, a website of poetry and commentary dealing with climate crisis concerns. She has been widely published in innumerable magazines such as The Nation, The Paris Reveiw, Chelsea, Choice, Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and in anthologies from Oxford U. Press, Viking, Simon & Schuster, Harpers. Her latest book is Blood Autumn from VIA Folios / Bordighera Press. Her verse is etched in marble on a Wall of PENN Station with that of Walt Whitman and other poets.