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.

ENOUGH WITH THE VISTAS ALREADY

by Mark Hendrickson

Luke Dexter kneels as he sifts through the remains of his father’s fire-ravaged beach front property in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher via Newslooks)

Yeah, I get it, you poets of yore—

you've got your virgin forests, hummocks and swards,

mountains and oceans and mist and foam.

 

I, too, see an island out my front window:

a chicane raised and strewn with rock and gravel,

serving as the median between northbound

and southbound cars from the library down the block.

 

I, too, see forest hues of deepest green

and rich earthy tones of black and brown:

they are reflected in the colors of the recycling bins

in driveways down the alley, waiting

like lonesome lovers for their men to come

and lift them, open them, fulfill them—

then leave them wanting again, for another two weeks.

 

From your high vantage point you speak with awe

of looking out and down upon the spectacle of Nature,

to behold God looking back, revealed in all His glory,

sunbathing nude in every valley, kissing every stream;

while I stand looking out my window,

attempting to avoid direct eye contact

with my neighbors in their curtainless condos

straight across the street.

 

Normally, I would tolerate your arboretums of language,

your botanical metaphors, your pastoral poetry;

but today great men are being buried,

books are being banned,

there is talk of annexing nations,

love is being parsed and threatened

and is likely to be outlawed, again.

 

I just can't wax eloquent today.

I need real and raw.

Your landscapes are burning,

and I'm choking on the ashes of the flowers.

Mark Hendrickson (he/him/his) is a gay poet and writer in the Des Moines area. His work has appeared in Variant Lit, Five Minutes, Leaf, Spellbinder, and others. Mark worked for many years as a Mental Health Technician in a locked psychiatric unit. He has advanced degrees in marriage & family therapy, health information management, and music. Connect with him @MarkHPoetry.

CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL POET

by Israel Wasserstein

“...artists who use their media of choice to advocate specific political agendas should always warrant our suspicion...” --Sam Lasman

I will confess I have little patience

for pastorals, for experiments, for post-

modern explorations, for poetry written

in circles to subvert patriarchy,

for lyrics that earnestly explore

how communication is impossible.

I confess such things seem a luxury,

and so I embrace unpoeticism,

and admit that I sometimes think

about those bankers who destroyed

millions’ pensions, profiting

on the misery of the soon-to-be

homeless, fantasize about lining up those bastards

and putting two bullets in their heads. I am not

a violent man, and I would rather write

about occult patterns the rain

creates, mixing with oil and garbage

on city streets. How can I write

of the squirrels in my backyard

who antagonize my dog

while Colorado burns, crops wither,

ice caps melt? These are ugly sentiments

for a poet. I can’t write small poems

about autumn with Trayvon Martin dead,

about subverting the paradigm of I

while the people of Syria are murdered,

while politicians label anyone killed by drones

enemy combatants, while polio and T.B.

return, while women die in back-alley

abortions and churches preach stay

with your abuser. While football coaches,

Archbishops, politicians cover for rapists,

while the children of the powerful

become the powerful, while wealth

piles in the hands of the rich

and the poor go without jobs, without

healthcare, without hope. I confess

if I knew how, I would rather be a poet

of revolution, to bend my words

against injustice. I confess

I am not that poet--too middle-

class, too white, too straight,

too soft-spoken. In my defense,

I can say only this: I

reject the sin of silence.

Israel Wasserstein, a Lecturer in English at Washburn University, was born and raised on the Great Plains. His first poetry collection, This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, is a 2013 Kansas Notable Book. His poetry and prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere.