LEFT TO PERISH

by Tricia L. Somers

This is a screenshot from the [WARNING!] sensitive video described in the poem.

This is the beginning

of the end of humanity 

At 11:30pm I logged 

onto my Instagram feed 

First clip 

from Motaz Azaiza 

They removed 

but he replaced it

Over one million likes 

"Fully engulfed tents"

means people burn alive 

I didn't cheat this time

I turned on the audio 

Someone yelling 

A man on the ground

kept raising his hand 

into the air 

Once, twice, again

slower each time 

No one to save him 

Innocence is not enough 

Just like all the teachers

and their students in 

over 500 bombed schools 

The end of all humanity 

begins with the end 

of humanity

Trish is out of L. A. Ca. where she lives with her Significant Other and some crazy cat or two. She debates and provides some kind of opposite viewpoint, to that of the cantankerous editor's, in the semi- annual print journal The American Dissident. Online poetry can be found at Rat's Ass Review, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. For a different perspective on current topics, please visit Bitch n Complain on Substack.

A FAIR WITNESS

by Gina A. Turner

 

A Fair Witness [a profession invented in Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein] is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what is seen and heard, making no extrapolations or assumptions. – Wikipedia

I hear that people who shouldn’t be in this country are eating pets

I see state troopers at schools in Springfield, Ohio

I hear a candidate say “I have to create stories so that the media pays attention”

I see Springfield’s CultureFest cancelled over safety concerns

I hear what the 45th president said: people from Haiti “all have AIDS”

I see colleges in Ohio holding classes remotely

I hear lawful residents in Ohio called “illegal aliens”

I see elementary schools evacuated due to dozens of bomb threats

I hear what our country’s former leader said: Haiti is one of the “shithole countries” 

I see my Haitian friend promote her book on achieving a just economy

I hear a member of the Haitian community say

“We’ve been receiving a lot of threats, physically and verbally”

I hear parents say that their children are terrified

 

I hear people say that they are still undecided about their vote

Gina A. Turner is a Professor of Psychology at a community college in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poets Online, The New Verse News, and her school’s literary magazine The Laconic. She lives with her husband and dog in Lambertville, New Jersey. 

THE FEARED GENERATION

by Colin Dardis

Plans to tackle misogyny in schools could take up to 20 years to have an impact on society, the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said as she outlined measures to protect women and girls. Phillips spoke the day after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) estimated that 2 million women were victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency.” —The Guardian, July 25, 2024

Fear for a lost generation,

already losing itself

inside a national emergency,

the beartrap of masculinity 

lying in wait

on every fresh field.

But who needs teeth

or blade or object

when a fist is enough?

Hands closed by culture,

clenched by mistruth,

the lie of servitude.

Pray we can reform

the expectations

of millions:

divorce boy from incel,

girl from object,

violence from sex.

Colin Dardis is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023) and What We Look Like in the Future (Red Wolf Editions, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor, and sound artist, his work has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA.

DEAR JASON ALDEAN

by Laurie Rosen

In my little town there were

moms at home doing laundry,

schools we could walk to,

one car in every driveway, sometimes two. 

Our neighborhoods teemed with children —

kick ball or wiffle ball in the middle of the street.

There was a bowling alley, ice cream parlor

and golf driving range, 

In my little town there were teachers 

who required us to memorize poems, 

write haikus, read Icarus, Hiroshima,

Shakespeare and the Bible. 

And in my little town, a football coach taught 

health class. A young teacher who spoke

openly on the VietNam war, civil rights 

and the slaughter of indigenous people

was disappeared, replaced

by an elderly retired teacher who bored us 

with dates and white washed facts,

screamed at us to pay attention. 

Our only lake, once a summer retreat, 

was declared a Superfund waste site. 

There was rampant drug and alcohol abuse, 

breast cancer, brain tumors, overdoses and suicides. 

In my little town, mostly white and Christian,

we sang China Town is Burning down, 

during recess, to the tune of ring-around-the-rosy 

at the one Chinese American boy 

in our third grade class, who stood

off to the side, while we held hands 

and skipped round and round.

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, Gyroscope Review, The New Verse News, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of  The New School, One Art, and elsewhere.

AFTERMATH

by Erin Murphy

"Children Under the Rubble" is a drawing by Mohammad Hayssam Kattaa.

“After natural and man-made disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and explosions, victims may survive in voids that are formed naturally in collapsed structures.” —Science Direct 

 

 

First, look for voids: 

bathtubs, stairwells, ribcages 

 

of infant cribs, the clumsy  

geometry of cantilevers and lean-tos  

 

from collapsed roofs, gaps  

beneath desks where small bodies 

 

just yesterday learned  

to add and subtract. 

 

Next, make your own voids: 

slide flat bags between rubble 

 

to inflate makeshift rooms  

of dusty birthday balloons.  

 

Finally, chisel dates in your  

mind: one week, one month,  

 

one year since you packed  

a lunch satchel and walked  

 

your only child to school.  

This is when the void finds you.  

Erin Murphy’s latest book of poetry Human Resources is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review. 

LIKE MERCURY

by Rachel R. Baum

A memorial for Shayma Roman, 17, who was killed in front of her grandmother’s house in Brooklyn. Credit: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York Times, December 27, 2022

Guns are now the No. 1 cause of deaths among American children and teens, ahead of car crashes, other injuries and congenital disease. —The New York Times, December 15, 2022

measure guns, like AR-15s, in linear feet,

or add up the dead, war’s body count

 

more guns for everyone, more bullets,

more spent shells, more active shooter drills

 

more school playgrounds empty of play

blinds closed, lights off, how many will fit

 

in a supply closet, behind its door, they turn 

and bump, constellations in a night sky

 

stars hiding in quiet deep black holes

listening for hallway footsteps in space

 

no light will pierce their sealed vacuum, 

like Mercury, another moonless messenger

 

without wings on their backpacks

they orbit in locked classrooms

 

holding their teacher’s hand, no talking,

only texting their mothers goodbye.

 

Rachel R. Baum is the editor of Funeral and Memorial Service Readings Poems and Tributes (McFarland, 1999) and the author of the long-running blog Bark: Confessions of a Dog Trainer. Her poems have appeared in Poetica Review, Raven’s Perch, OneArt, Crosswinds, and others. She chairs the committee that will select the first Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs.

BAD BREATH

by Dick Altman

Pump jacks at sunset near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says. —The Washington Post headline, October 26, 2022

NASA said a methane plume about two miles (3.3 kilometers) long was detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. —Barron’s, October 25, 2022

Northern New Mexico

Pump jacks looked to me—as a child

on the West Coast—like animated

Tinker Toys—Half a century later—

here on the high desert prairie—

they terrify me—Cows wander

and forage next to them—Hay

grows in the same field—Backyards

brim with them—Schools look out

on them—Indian reservations dance

with them—Oil and sister gas ops

balloon the air with toxic methane

wherever I look—Except I can’t see it—

unless—over the next hill—a flame

three-stories high—shatters the view—

Drive through “jack country”

and you’re afraid to breathe—

afraid—in mid-summer—to run AC—

afraid to hike ruins—because you

never know when you’re going

to run into “jack”—and all his bad

friends—Sometimes—at a distance—

they remind me of grazing buffalo—

their humped backs—connected

to bobbing heads—glaring down

from bluffs—I know they’re

machines—but unlike most—

they exhale—and what they

breathe out—you don’t want

to be caught breathing in—unless

of course—you want—over time—

to be caught dead—New Mexico’s

called “The Land of Enchantment”—

I call it “The Land of Bad Breath”

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

THE CLASSROOM

by Gary Glauber

This undated photo shows special education teacher Jennifer Graves, at Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School, in New Haven, Conn. When her classroom aide didn't show up for work and no substitutes were available for the day because staffing levels have been decimated by the surge in COVID-19 infections, she borrowed paraprofessionals from other classrooms for short stretches to get through. (Courtesy Jennifer Graves via AP) —US News, January 6, 2022

We ask them to identify global issues

at a time when their own lives are the global issue,

when identity comes masked and at a remove

measured and circumscribed for safety

according to the latest recommendations.

 

This remains a social place, as it must,

where exchanged ideas ignite the fires

that fuel internal growth alongside 

the social and the physical, and we bear witness

daily to the awesome and real act of becoming.

 

Now we are in a prolonged fugue, a limbo

wherein they better grasp the repetitive hopes

of Vladimir and Estragon, awaiting further instruction.

As news brings forth each sobering tidal wave

of rising numbers, it grows harder to pretend.

 

Every week brings a new normal.

Haggard-looking administrators roam hallways

with official clipboards of doom,

asking four questions to trace

the trails of those not virally passed over.   

 

And all the while we take attendance,

having learned to smile with our eyes,

and dispense daily lessons that pale

against these larger life lessons

that challenge and instruct us all.

 

Here in our smart modern classrooms

we muster the safest havens we can manage,

sharing screens and hearts and minds,

knowing that with each period’s gathering

comes a strong dose of social healing.

 

All pandemics come to an end,

the wisdom of the ages suggests.

Yet until that ancient saw becomes reality,

there’s a remedy called the classroom

that brings the dream closer, uniting us in wisdom.

 

With this new world comes higher order questions 

that Bloom’s taxonomy never considered.

Through shared crisis come unmasked truths:

together we feel shared love that helps us through

what often seems these most trying of times.

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog while negotiating life’s absurdities. He has four collections, Small Consolations  (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit), and most recently, A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing); and two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. A new collection will be forthcoming soon from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

SHOOTER

by Stan Pisle

@Walt_Handelsman

Shooter 

Reported in Florida…

Forget how many times. 

An involuntary pulse throbbing 

in the dark, in the light,

Our schools, our arenas, our malls, courts, playgrounds, homes. 

 

A shooter took the life four cops in Oakland, 

five in Dallas, 

two in New York, 

26 people at a Sutherland Springs Church 

Nine in Charleston

58 in Las Vegas

—with 851 shot. 

Eight hundred and fifty-one people shot by one man. 

The numbers grow too much for a poem.

Stop 

Telling us life stories of the dead.

Window dressing over crackles of bullets.

Building fences between shooters and the shot.

NPRing, obits of people murdered for mercantile. 

Attempting animal warmth on cold dead bodies piled up.

Dividing and parsing the pile, determining which shot member counts. 

 

Show

Bullet riddled heads.

Emmette Till open coffin the funerals.

Zoom in where the casing entered under the nose, ejecting the soul.

Fuck that, assault rifle hollow points facture on contact.

Nothing’s left, only pulverized.

Narrate the blood cone spurting across theaters, schools, country music festivals.

Interview the bump stocked woman baren from five shells raping her womb. 

Collect the pools of bone and hamburger from the 100,000 shot each year.

Let gravity channel it to the twits and fat bros of Fox.

To the manufacturer of the hollow points 

Let them wipe up the fragments flowing in a bath the rest of us are forced to take.  

Stan Pisle is a Berkeley California poet. His work as appeared in the Arroyo Magazine, on KQED San Francisco, The Ravens Perch, and The New Verse News. 

LETTER FROM SOLITARY

by Katherine West

March 2021

The birds are singing 

and it isn't snowing 

We have our vaccines 

and schools are open 

It is warm enough to sit outside 

but too cool for forest fires 

In sunny spots brown grasses are turning green

from the inside out 

The cat hasn't shed her winter down

still sits on my lap for warmth

She is my most intimate companion 

on this March afternoon in 2021

I have survived the shipwreck 

that tossed me up on this desert island 

on this alien planet 

this solitary confinement 

for a crime 

I didn't commit 

And although Spring is coming 

I'm cold

I could be old and all 

my relationships memories 

I could be dead 

and all my lovers ghosts 

sitting on the side of my bed 

that empty symbol of sleep

and love 

that flag 

that empty symbol of unity 

at half mast 

Half the time 

the ghosts hold my cold 

hands in their cold hands 

whispering platitudes 

like therapists 

over the phone 

like friends 

on a screen 

They cannot hold me 

They cannot hold me down 

as I drift like old smoke 

old scarves 

as I fray

unravel 

silk skeins 

cool 

weightless 

slim 

as threads 

of red sunset 

resting like raptors 

on the updraft 

like strands

of blood 

lovely 

and unloved 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel, When Night Comes, A Christmas Carol Revisited has just been released, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in March of 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing. She is presently at work on the sequel to When Night Comes. It is called Slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist.  

PROCTORING THE ACT DURING A PANDEMIC

by Katie Chicquette

I steal moments

scribble on scraps

pretend I am writing

a reminder, recording

the test start-time,

but really it’s this

poem, stolen line by line

from the time we’ve stolen

from them as they fill

in bubbles with something

we pretend is truth

every bubble a stolen moment

to sleep     to heal         to skate

to work     to laugh       or cry

or eat        or breathe    to reboot

retreat       recreate    

every line of this poem 

a string or scrap

a robin steals 

to build a nest

Katie Chicquette is an alternative education teacher in Appleton, Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in various journals and local publications, including Poets Reading the News, Riggwelter, Bramble, Wallopzine, and Mothers Always Write. She’s fortunate to be surrounded by so many active poets in Wisconsin. Contact her at k.chicquette.adams<at>gmail.com. 

WHITE TURNS TO BLACK

by Mary Clurman

i.

don’t know Black

don’t think Black

don’t speak Black

but like to listen

hear the sharp breaks

twists and turns

White is privilege.

In COVID

we garden

        cook

 think bitter thoughts

await a different regime.

ii.

Hasn’t changed yet!

Not for better:

Made the ballot secret 

  Blacks can’t vote if they can’t read—

can’t win anyway—

  Don’t even try!

  Only eggheads need good schools

   and what do eggheads know?

 Bus ‘em!
     so what,

      got no brains to think with anyway.

Then came jazz.

Music changed.

Boys of Summer

black, winning

Shut the doors!

  Keep ‘em out!

basketball 

Blues 

Hip-Hop

Thurgood Marshall Martin King Anita Hill

strong black middle class

iii.

Who was it

Packed the court,

just stacked ‘em in!

forgetting

           They still get to serve us coffee

coughing 

while our white blood flows as red as it can get. 

It’s time Whites learn from Black.

Mary Clurman, Princeton, NJ, retired Montessori teacher, struggling with the virus news and changing what I can.

THIS DANGEROUS PLACE

by Ann E. Wallace

New Jersey’s virus transmission rate jumped to 1.35 and Governor Phil Murphy warned of rising cases due to a lack of compliance with mask and social distancing rules. The state, where cases peaked months ago, is in “a very dangerous place,” Murphy said at a Trenton news conference. Photographer: Michael Mancuso/Pool via Getty Images —Bloomberg News, August 1, 2020

We are standing 

in a very dangerous place

calling the children to peer over the edge

of the precipice

as if it is a class trip

to the Grand Canyon.

We call out be safe,

don’t go too far,

but also 

don’t lag,

you need to be here,

we are here because of you. 

Yet we know 

that when one falls, 

others, 

perhaps we, 

will follow, 

linked arm 

to arm 

like a barrel

of plastic monkeys

tossed 

over the edge.

And though many 

will break free,

catch themselves

on ledges and climb up 

scraped,

battered, bruised, 

to laugh at the close 

call or scoff 

that it was nothing, 

a breeze even, 

some 

will fall

all the way 

down.

Ann E. Wallace is a longhaul COVID-19 survivor, writing essays and poetry on the pandemic from her home in Jersey City, NJ as she recovers. Her poetry collection Counting by Sevens (2019) is available from Main Street Rag. She is on Twitter @annwlace409.