A MURDEROUS STATE

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Cartoon by Clay Jones

This is State murder 

even if unintended, 

rammed wrong,

bullets fired 

at a migrant 

driving.

What safety does 

a seatbelt provide,

or an airbag, 

when you drive 

below the speed limit

while a bullet

flies through 

the window?

What safety 

measures 

are advised for 

the migrant driving 

on American roads? 

To give way 

to unmarked cars? 

To stop 

in the middle 

of the road 

and wait? 

What allows 

the plain-clothed 

gunman to shoot 

without asking 

for papers, 

or screaming 

into a bullhorn?

What are 

the circumstances

when witnesses 

are hounded, 

threatened 

with deportation?

What if there are 

no witnesses,

certainly no inconvenient

bodycam imagery? 

We are confronted 

by an extrajudicial 

killing force. 

They don’t leave 

traces. They will 

be protected. 

THE STATE’S ALL,  folks.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

DROUGHT SONG OF THE ELEPHANTS

by Orel Protopopescu

 

We lumber along and sway  

closer to death, stirring dust

like the skirts of the women

eternally searching for water, 

jugs on their heads, 

their children like bundles

of sticks on their backs.

 

We are searching for water,

but keep finding death

in the soot of the grasses 

that once waved to us.

Who took the rain clouds, 

the green from the trees? 

We walk a parched path

where leaves crack and fall

 like birds from the sky.  

            

We remember the pools,

the pools where we played

before days dried in blood

left a burnt orange haze

of dust in our eyes. 

What drives us, who hunts us, 

what beast made of heat?

 

With the children like sticks

we keep drinking the dust.

We drink and they drink

until tongues turn to ash

and milky eyes close.

 

And now we’re forgetting

the clouds and the grasses,

the haze of the heat

with no name and no face.

We’re forgetting the children

who fell on this path 

where our tongues turn to ash

and our clouded eyes close.

Orel Protopopescu has written prize-winning works for children and adults. She won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and 2020. Her first biography Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq (University Press of Florida, 2021) received a starred review in Library Journal. 

KOALA 2022

by Stephen House

Koalas are now considered an endangered species in NSW [New South Wales], Queensland and the ACT [Australian Capital Territory], as numbers plummet due to climate change, land clearing and disease. The Australian icon had previously been rated "vulnerable" under the federal government's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, but its status has now been upgraded. —ABC [Australia] News, February 11, 2022. Koalas have lost the equivalent of 10,000 cricket grounds of habitat in the last decade: In the decade since east coast koalas were first listed as vulnerable, the [Australian] federal government has approved the loss of more than 25,000 hectares of habitat, new analysis shows. Approvals were granted for 63 mostly mining projects in Queensland, NSW and the ACT, the Australian Conservation Foundation says. They allowed for the collective loss of habitat equivalent to 526,000 average-sized blocks of residential land, or about 10,400 Sydney Cricket Grounds. —SBS News, February 9, 2022.  See also “Morrison government spends $50 million saving koalas while taking away their homes” at The Conversation. 

imagine

your disappearing home

habitat never more

confused distressed

misplaced

 

reflect

on your unavailable food

territory search in vain

hungry anxious

distraught  

 

ponder

on your paths wiped away

ancient bush tracks missing

lost trapped

confined

 

grieve

your extended annihilated family

absent once were there

diseased slaughtered

vanished

 

watch

increasing ongoing destruction

shrink your nature daily

machinery clearing

building

 

Koala

on your sacred land

we must assist your plight

action demonstrate

save

 

you

Koala 2022

 

you Koala

you

 

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbook real and unreal was published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. His poetry is published often, and he performs his acclaimed monologues widely.