EMPTY HORIZONS

by James Schwartz 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." —Ephesians 2:8-9

Prayers heard 

Or unheard,

Spiritual delusion 

Per authorities, 

Summer's end

She could not, 

Walk on water

As the voices, 

Had commanded 

She had failed,

He had failed 

A test of faith,

As the voices 

Grew louder,

After the lake 

Recieved them,

Highly emotional 

Surfacing diver,

As the voices 

Grew louder. 

Submerged prayers for

A salvation.

Cast into

Empty horizons.

Authors Note: The Amish communities can have a lack of access to professional mental health care and resources. Two mental health crisis resources are 988 and www.nami.org. My condolences to all affected by this tragedy. 

James Schwartz is a poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011) and most recently Big Island Beatnik (Alien Buddha Press, 2025). @queeraspoetry. 

THE CALL

by Maria Lisella

The call came

A three-story roof,

not a big building

serious enough

to break bones.

A day later,

another call comes.

A room

at Jacobi.

 

I plan.

He drives.

I’m the passenger.

She’ll be there, you know.

I know, I hear myself say,

the mother is always there.

 

I hate

the stereotype, but it fits.

The mother takes him back.

He doesn’t get better.

He never leaves except

this way.

 

The cycle—failure,

salvation, failure,

a passive remote control.

Patched up.

Lateral moves

ward to ward.

Suicide watch.

 

From the parameter,

I watch.

Stepmother

not blood

not natural.

Despair respects no borders

legal, illegal.

 

You love what you touch,

love more what touches you.

Maria Lisella is the recipient of a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the American Academy of Poets and the author of Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). She co-curates the Italian American Writers Association readings and is a travel writer by trade.

EPISTLE TO THE DISPLACED

by Martin Willitts Jr

“On December 1st, the World Food Programme (W.F.P.), announced that it was suspending its operations to feed one million seven hundred thousand Syrian refugees—scattered across Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt—because it had run out of money. (The program is under the auspices of the U.N., but funded entirely by voluntary donations.) . . . As vast as the crisis in Syria is, it’s only one of several across the globe. In Iraq, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, huge numbers of refugees are on the move; in West Africa, there is the outbreak of Ebola. Apart from watching all this, what can you do? You can send money. I’ve seen the work of both the World Food Programme and the I.R.C. up close, and I can tell you that both make a difference.” --Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, December 12, 2014. PHOTEO: Syrian Kurdish refugees enter Turkey, September 27, 2014. CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER BROWN/MAGNUM via The New Yorker.

Peace to you in a place where there is no peace,
where grace has no meaning, and you hide
from the violence where there is no shelter.
Where you are is so dangerous, so uncertain,
there is no guarantee this message will reach you
or ease your fears. And I fear, you have died
or lay dying under ruins, wondering
where salvation is, where peace is promised,
and have you the grace necessary to go there.

Where I am, in safe for the moment, but
as we both know, not one moment is certain
or safe, and all my security could be gone,
wiped out in an instance, and my light taken.
So as grace leaves me in search of you,
you shall be making a different peace,
one before death, wiping the slate clean,
professing your faults, as the pieces of life
disassemble around you, lacking grace.


Martin Willitts Jr has 7 full-length collections and 28 chapbooks including his recent social issues poetry chapbook City Of Tents about the Occupy Movement and other historical and political poems (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2014).