DATA CENTERS

by Mariana Mcdonald

   

  For Abeline, Texas

As farmers say goodbye to farms

and crops lie withering on the soil,

the eyes of AI tech bros widen,

enthralled with prospects of cheap land

soon on the selling block, to build

gigantic Data Centers, some the size

of Central Park like the one in Abeline,

meant to make “its own” energy,

with ten gas turbines, fifty planned,

five dozen diesel generators, to power

an industry that plots and plunders.

While locals gaze at threatened vistas

of endless fields framed by the sun,

breathe toxic air and drink dank water,

face raised bills for heat and cooling, 

Data Centers generate heat islands.

All horrors hidden by a scheme of secrecy

and NDAs, without a single question posed

to those who live there: “Do you want this?

Give consent? Are there ways it hurts you?”

The CEOs don’t want to hear from locals,

use permits that will circumvent them,

don’t want to hear about the headaches, asthma.

To them, all land is an AI site without a people,

for an AI industry without a site. Their tax breaks

gut the county budgets, cutting schools and fire  

departments, while AI moguls’ pockets overflow.

A painful microcosm of the plague that daily

spreads and grows, infects, now kills our nation.

But people are not silent or compliant. 

They rise up angry all around the country,

from Oregon to Texas to Virginia, protest

three thousand Data Centers up and running,

fifteen hundred more planned or in process.

“You can’t drink data!” people cry, and so far, 

they’ve blocked sixteen Centers in seven states.

Erin Brockovich is back in headlines, hosts

a website tracking Data Centers, while arrogant  

tech oligarchs brush off concern for how AI

is damaging where we live and how we think.

From sea to littered sea the fight is growing.

Governors, reps, and senators take action,

call for moratoriums with enforcement

of new rules for how Centers are greenlit.

Let struggle be how we stop this violation

of the Earth, the land, the waters, air, and

people, in this dangerous time of cruelty

and corruption, fraught with lawless

theft and broad denial of basic rights

we fought for, won, and we want back.

Oh, Abeline, Abeline! May your heavenly vistas

remain, with turquoise skies and dappled sunsets.

May the air you breathe be poison-free and fitting

for all your toiling people, and all life.

 

Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, writer, activist, and scientist. Her work has been published and anthologized widely. A southerner with lifelong ties to Puerto Rico, she lives in Atlanta.

ON THE MORNING THE CITY CHANGED ITS WALK

by Khayelihle Benghu

 

 

 

 

On the morning the march moved through Johannesburg,
shop gates came down early.


Metal shutters lowered like tired eyelids


before the day had fully spoken.
Foreign-owned stores locked their doors


before noon,


keys turning twice


as if once was no longer enough


to believe in safety.
The taxi driver changed his route again,


avoiding streets where voices


had grown sharper than traffic,


where even the robots seemed unsure


who they were guiding anymore.
No one calls it fear,


but everyone adjusts their walking speed.


Everyone becomes a little more careful


with how they look at strangers.
Somewhere, a shopkeeper counts what might be lost


stock, rent, the years built behind a counter.


Somewhere else, a protester counts what has already been taken


jobs, space, the weight of being seen.
And between them,


the city keeps breathing uneven, uncertain,


but still holding everyone inside it.
A child watches from a doorway


that is neither open nor closed.


A flag lifts, then folds back into itself


as if unsure what it is becoming.
No one says the same story.


But everyone carries the same heat


under their skin.
Later, when the streets grow quiet again,


when footsteps return to ordinary distances,


there is still this question left behind:
how do we live here together


without teaching ourselves


to fear each other's names.

Khayelihle Benghu is a South African writer and an author of The Names We Carry. She explores the themes of resilience grieve, silence and love in every day setting.

SYMPHONY OF THOUSANDS

by Barbara H. Williams

 

 

         

 

   after No Kings Day 2, October 18, 2025

 

Each played a part 

and played it well

just by being there––

good-natured fellow humans 

there for all that binds us

 

who face a common threat 

and care about our neighbors––

don’t we all need safety 

shelter, air and water

peace and equal possibility

a government which functions

for the good of all?

 

And we wore yellow, primal

bright and jovial yellow

listened, clapped

and raised our voices––

at least five thousand 

stood together 

in our little town

five thousand of us

 

and it felt intimate 

and neighborly–– 

skins all shades 

a rich array of ancestries 

and mother tongues––

 

carrying the red, white and blue 

in concert, jubilant

with twenty-seven hundred 

other towns and cities, communities

in every state across the land

 

more than seven million 

citizens together––in agreement.

 

Barbara H. Williams is Managing Editor of US 1 Worksheets. Based in Princeton, New Jersey,  she was for many years a professional flutist and music teacher. She began writing poetry in 2013, with poems appearing in The Raven’s Perch, US 1 Worksheets, The Paterson Review, and The New Verse News. A member of the DVP/US1 Poets Collective, and a Pushcart Prize nominee, her first collection of poems, Continuo, was published in 2024 (Cool Women Press). 

THE LIVING

by Tina Williams

by Argo at Fine Art America

“Fuck you, fuck you"
he said to the poet 
and nurse 
as sure as he said it 
to the autoworker
shouting “pedophile protector!”
Every day, 
he middle fingers
the command
to clear the streets
one way
or another
but the living
come back.
They arm
themselves
with poster board
and their children’s 
future.
They return
on the shoulders
of the dead. 
They dress
for the cold.

Tina Williams lives in Round Rock, Texas. She wants to be part of the solution.

CITY OF ANGELS

by Raymond Nat Turner

“There is no power greater than a community discovering what it  cares about.”  

—Margaret J. Wheatley, Turning to One Another

City Of Angels where

Camouflaged kidnappers; Fascist wrecking-crews rip

Seamstress, roofer, warehouse worker, dishwasher families

Apart. Apart for private prison-profiteers. Apart for a flash-

Bang-buffoon-king of chaos and cruelty. Whose strongman

Handler has him by the short-hairs— Dancing for dollars

City Of Angels where 

Folks know that masters of misdirection mix fantasy with

Fascism. Sprinkle spectacle in with torture.  And laugh

In teargas and rubber bullets—All the way to the bank—

Stealing SNAP; Medicaid; Social Security; and veterans’

Benefits 

City Of Angels ruled by devils

Reflecting fire and ICE.

City Of Angels where everyday 

Angelenos strap on resistance

Wings— And fly in solidarity

Formations through fog

City Of Angels where

Everyday Angelenos strap on mutual aid

Wings— And fly warp speed

Through blitzkrieg. Through hurricanes 

Of big lies. 

Through whirlwinds of racist rubbish

City Of Angels where

“To protect and serve” translates into sonic boom slogans

Bouncing off buildings! Ricocheting as linked arms.

Morphing shoulder-to-shoulder. Out from unlikely alliances.

Into united fronts ten toes down! Into militant movements

Organizing and building. Mastering pressure, mastering choke-points

City Of Angels where 

Everyday Angelenos know it’s no video game

On colorful screens. Know it’s soldiers on their streets

And Marines. Know “less lethal” is Pig Latin for Palestine—

On the down-low—Cookin’ slow … Know Gaza is Raza—

Writ large …

City Of Angels where 

The streets are universities of class struggle

Attended by allies, accomplices, comrades.

The streets are universities of class struggle paved with smoking tear-

Gas canisters; bloody, rubber-coated, steel bullets. And goose-steppers

Coming for Mexicans in the morning— And back for Blacks by noon 

City Of Angels where

Everyday Angelenos hate The Orange Age—

Its latest outrage of tilted table. Loaded dice.

Marked cards. Everyday Angelenos hate the

Capitalist decay—that must be swept Away

With 8.5-hour days of resistance!

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

EVERYWHERE FRACTURED BONE/IT SEEMS

by Al Ortolani

los angeles is in the air/a few

acres of protest within five hundred 

 

miles of city/stretched/tendons

in the streets/now

 

muscled by federal policy/bent 

to hyperextension/bone

 

in socket grinding: a home

for some/a charnel house

 

for others/this America 

not the America we learned

 

to love/the disruption/

the disunity/the distemper/

 

troops in riot gear/rubber bullets

a bicep flex/

 

the fist/well-knuckled

in the face of the weak:

 

this new scapegoat of migration

is shaken in our faces/blinding us

 

to the Samaritan within:

all the while/a sleight of hand

 

finger tipping through the

streets as planned

Al Ortolani, a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize, has been featured in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, and George Bilgere’s Poetry Town. He was the recipient of the Bill Hickok Humor Award from I-70 Review. He’s a contributing editor to the Chiron Review.

PAGES OF LIGHT (IN DARK TIMES)

by David Chorlton

(1)

Hard to tell

whether the wind 

last night was social unrest

or coyotes’ dreams as darkness flowing.

The lightness of touch suggested

nature whispering

                                 in the face of human discord

yet in the absence of a moon

and with so few stars

to give direction there were only the neighborhood palms

leaning on the moment

                                            as if time

had taken solid form and claimed

the desert underneath

the city as its first

and only home.

 

(2)

Stone-bright the way ahead

runs true to course, rising by the step

to a view of all things possible

and some

                 forever out of reach. All those things

that never change come what may

are out there, stubborn and holding their ground

through traffic jams and newscasts,

analyses and polls, discussions

that take truth

                           away just as the sun

has stripped first the outer skin

of the saguaro lying

where it fell two summers back

                                                            and subsequently

dried its flesh revealing the core

connecting tip to root, the inner life

revealed in code, an alphabet

surviving after language ends.

(3)

The peaks and dips along the ridge

rest easily this morning

against clouds too closely packed

for news to pass

                               from worlds beyond our own. 

Grey light, pigeon feathers

scattering from the rooftop cooling unit at house

four-three-four-seven

where a hawk endures a mockingbird’s attention

until he stretches out

                                        and eases into day’s grey light.

Nothing exists outside

his range of vision, he’s the headline and the story

circling higher than opinion columns

reach. Doesn’t need words

to know what he knows. Leaves emptiness alone

because the entire sky

                                          isn’t worth

the area he’s taken for a home.

 

(4)

A bright and tranquil morning

on the way around the pond where red-

eared sliders and secrets

move just beneath the sky

that floats across the surface to the reeds

at the farthest edge.

                                      A Black phoebe picks flies

and rumors from the air.

None are too fast for him,

neither the latest out of Hollywood

nor royalty’s ongoing

struggle to be important. What is true tastes no different

from what is not; he keeps dipping

and swerving

                         through politics, finance

and all the way down

to the feathers and bones left on the ground

still with a glaze of moonlight.

 

(5)

Arroyo walk, sidestepping the facts and

speculating whether

the boulder resting on the slope just past

where the trail dips came

to be exactly in position after

falling through space

                                        or was coughed out of the Earth.

Some facts are immoveable, too heavy

to be argued about. But someone’s always

naming parts, allocating

numbers, holding science

to the light and insisting explanations

matter more

                       than the experience

of stopping every time

to contemplate the mystery

that built the world before there was

a truth

             to lie about, when

only the stars kept records. 

 

(6)

Darkness left, light straight

ahead, the first sky of the day can’t decide

which mood to promise. The clouds

are carrying concealed, the sun’s

a lonely heart just waking up. 

One day looks

                          much like another, give or take

the shadows and the low high

in the forecast, rain

this afternoon on a street

for all weathers where showers dance

on asphalt,

                    heat soaks in

and wishes for a better world

go barefoot, once around the cul-de-sac

and back, beyond the visible, beyond

reality, beyond what even

                                                 the hawk can see

from his throne of wind.

David Chorlton lives in Phoenix with a view of a desert mountain and more interesting local bird life than many people expect in a city. The desert still teaches him about poetry in a way academies can never do.

THE MILLER'S TALE

by Lynnie Gobeille

I tend to be on the lighter side of white,

don’t often get singled out—

in fact at 74 I am barely noticed.

I can walk down (mostly) any street and feel safe.

No fear of being deported.

I have no tattoo that would taunt them.

No affiliation with some unseen gang.

No radical disclaimer required

I can roam my country freely.

Little do they know of my SDS ancient background—

Or my scars from protests long since past.

I tend to be on the lighter shade of pale.

Students for a Democratic Society button circa 1965

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry. She is one of the cofounders/editors of The Origami Poems Project, a world wide “free poetry event.” She was the Editor of the Providence Journal Poetry Corner (St.Cty Section). Her poetry has been published online & in numerous journals. Her work has also been read on NPR & ELFIN radio in England. She currently works at her local Library, with fingers crossed that the funding continues to keep the doors open.

WE'RE SITTING AROUND A TABLE NOT FAR FROM THE RUSSIAN BORDER

by Ron Riekki

A Chinese artist, a Russian musician, and American poet,

and we talk about surveillance, sharing how dangerous it is

to be an artist, after speaking with a local who told us about

the tensions with Russia, how they're like a choking fog,

and the musician from Russia says it's all propaganda there,

says she doesn't care, that her voice will never be voiceless,

tells us about being taken in by the Russian police and how

she brutalized them with truth, was let go, and then let go

of her country, emigrating, immigrating, Euro-ricocheting around,

and hanging out with Pussy Riot, doing anti-war campaigns,

and we speak of the ten percent of the Russian population

being tortured, and she speaks of physical torture and

emotional torture and the torture of propaganda, and

the Chinese artist talks about holding up signs in Hong

Kong that were all white, not allowed to have signs with

actual words, so this haunting image, this effective image

of hundreds of artists and writers and protestors and students

holding up these white signs, ghost signs meant to haunt

politicians, and the American poet talks about being hunted

by the Trump administration for a pro-Islamic, pro-immigrant

tweet, how the administration administered paperwork to his

home, pages and pages and pages of warning, how watched

we are everywhere, he says, he thinks, he feels, and we are

near the Russian border, except it's shut down, too dangerous,

and here we are, doing art that is too dangerous, and having

this conversation that is too dangerous, so dangerous that

we turn off our phones to make sure we are not being listened

to, because we want to create the form of our words, rush

home and turn our conversations into lyrics and artwork

and this poem you are reading now, written near a border

that is rotting with worry, a border that lacks moonlight tonight.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.