DISMANTLING THE DEPARTMENT OF DEMOCRATS

by William Palmer

MoveOn

Delete each leg

so there is nothing to stand on.

 

Delete each hand

so no one can point any fingers.

 

Delete each arm

so no one can wave them like bats.

 

Delete each head

so no one can understand.

 

Delete each heart

so no one can care.

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in Ecotone, I-70, JAMA, The New Verse News, One Art and elsewhere. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan. 

ONE MORE

by Ann Malaspina

Graphic by Imad Abu Shtayyah.

Off the island of Kos
you crawl through the sea
coughing salt
flailing arms—
while all around,
fishermen scoop babies,
haul grown men,
rescue women
from sunken boats
and slippery rocks
all day and night
for weeks
and months
until there is no
room on the beach
for even one more.

Still you splash to shore,
eyes stinging, skin raw
from terror nights and hunger days,
from lost husband,
lost roof,
lost country.
You swallow sea.
You fight the wind.
It is no use.
It is all there is.
It is.

When suddenly a wave
lifts you high and clean--
the same wave
that drove Odysseus
so far away
and home again.
Frothy warm and curled
like your mother's arms,
the wave lifts you,
carries you,
tumbles you
onto earthly sand
of despair and hope,
breathless,
breathing,
alive,
and the people make room.


A poet and a children's author living in New Jersey, Ann Malaspina has published two poems at TheNewVerse.News.