NUESTRA NUEVA CASA

by Philip C. Kolin

Corona is a cruel landlord taking over people's bodies,
cancelling their lease on life and throwing them out

of their hovels and apartments, as many as
40 million this year. How can they pay back

rent when they have no jobs. Corona profiteers
hide their eyes and close their hearts and hands

as the least of these, many Latin strangers in
a strange land, become street people overnight.

Portfolioers like death-grip Mitch advise the evicted
to declare bankruptcy, the easiest way to go.

It begins with a knock, a summons,  and ends with  a padlock.
All their belongings packed in black plastic bags

for the trip to the curb. But how can you put sheets
over the pavement or where can you hang

clothes or curtains. Will the post office deliver
to an address that has no address.

Their only furniture a donated  empty
box  used to ship a refrigerator;

passers-by glibly say these outcasts should
be grateful that America has donated the air

fouled corona air, too, they can't get with such abundance
in their own country. Some wait outside funeral parlors

for a vacancy, or sneak into a post office
to bring back some heat in a blanket

to a child or a wife too sick to walk.
The street becomes their hospital, too.

Ambulances rushing by the only medical
care they will get all night.

Other desalojos crowd into a friend's already
crowded apt. setting up households in a hallway

or sharing a bedroom with four generations,
the best housing arrangement for Corona

to spread. Shelters, too, are welcoming centers
for Corona tenants packed face to face, coughs

and sneezes in lieu of rent. Corona quips
it never evicts anyone. Everyone's lungs are welcome.


Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus) and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published more than 40 books on Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, African American playwrights as well as ten collections of poems. His most recent books are Reaching Forever: Poems in the Poiema Series of Cascade Books and, forthcoming from Main Street Rag, Delta Tears.

RENT FOR OUR ROOM ON EARTH

by Barbara Simmons  

after Muhammed Ali

Not sure where that is, sometimes, my room, my home,
but this west coast city has too many zip codes,
and too many faces that turn away
don’t look at you, sometimes beyond, afraid connecting might mean
you want something and here there are too many
whose wants aren’t being met
whose needs go unwatched whose backs we don’t have.
Sounds on this hot Sunday rise like hot air sending gospel notes
beyond the outdoors stage, lifting words that catch up with my feet
so I am walking keeping time
walking and watching and walking and listening and walking and hearing
“Give me your arms for the broken hearted    and San Jose cried with Dayton and El Paso and Gilroy.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten   and San Jose cries for all who don’t have refuge.
Give me your eyes so I can see”   and I cry until my tears clear my eyes, and I hear
the words on your t-shirt sing to me of  Ali, you walking towards me, me looking at you with you.
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth
My room here on earth—so many rooms where I’ve slept and risen
loved, been lost, saved, often still looking for redemption, my many lives
spent trying to understand  words we wear, words we feel, words I say.
I stop to mouth the words to you, to all of you, that yes I’ll have your back
I’ll read and listen and watch and hear and see and see and see.

Barbara Simmons grew up in Boston and lives in California; her dual environment—shapes, skylines, even color wheels—informs her poetry, as do her families of origin and extended. She graduated from Wellesley College, received an MA in The Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA in Educational Administration from Santa Clara University. As a secondary school English teacher, she was able to revisit texts she loved with students who inspired her to think more about how we communicate with each other on pages/screens as well as face-to-face. Retired, Simmins savors the smaller parts of life and language, exploring the communion of words as ways to remember and to envision and to heal. Publications have included Santa Clara Review, Hartskill Review, Boston Accent, Soul Lit, Hamline Review, Oasis Anthology, Writing it Real and Common Ground, among others, as well as short Perspectives on NPR affiliate. 

r > g

by Tim Kahl

French economist Thomas Piketty has spurned the Legion of Honour, the country’s highest distinction, on the grounds that the government should not decide who is honourable. Piketty, author of the bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which has become compulsory reading for world leaders, added: “They’d be better off concentrating on boosting growth in France and Europe.” --The Guardian, January 1, 2015

after Thomas Piketty

In the space between profit and economic rent

the wood of the forest grows to have a price placed

on it. Who is to pay for the license to gather it?

The owner comes to realize his land is earning more

than he is. He lines up a string of assets to

satisfy conditions for maintaining the wealth effect.

The rate of return on capital (r) is bigger in

the room than any of the tables and chairs,

the knives and forks, the working doors on cabinets.

Everyone sits down to eat and secretly they

are served by the incorrigible invisible hand

that has been replaced by the hand that grabs

and is giving the middle class the middle finger.

What is wealth doing now? No one seems to know.

It travels into safe crevices that are not

upset by light. It goes by the name of anonymous

and hypnosis. It is surreptitious and tries its best to

reinvest where its privilege won't be revealed.

If someone understands how to apply a tax to it, 

in just a moment it will melt again into the dark.

The amount of economic growth (g) measured

between the polar caps will always lag behind

the impact of a good amount of capital 

whose managerial class will rise to the apex

of steadfast vigilance. They shepherd funds

across the borders to come to peaceful rest 

in their blessed state of inheritance.

Work hard, play by the rules, and you get a stake

in the outcome. But that notion is so passé.

The holders of debt have foreclosed on the government.

Run for the hills and take your children with you.

Build a bunker. Get a gun. Are there any ideas that 

can prevail in this cynical age, in this grim era of discipline?

Tim Kahl is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009) and The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Mad Hatters' Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban and many other journals in the U.S. He appears as Victor Schnickelfritz at the poetry and poetics blog The Great American Pinup and the poetry video blog Linebreak Studios. He is also editor of Bald Trickster Press and Clade Song. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Center. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He currently houses his father's literary estate—one volume: Robert Gerstmann's book of photos of Chile, 1932.