GUY FAWKES IN AMERICA

David Feela writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his newest chapbook Little Acres in 2019.

GLOBAL STRIKE!

by Katherine West

Geneva (AFP) – A man ended a 39-day-long hunger strike outside the Swiss parliament on Thursday, declaring "Victory!" after the MPs agreed to be briefed by scientists on the latest climate change research. Guillermo Fernandez, who says he has lost 20 kilos since launching his hunger strike on November 1 to push for Swiss MPs to take climate change seriously, ended his fast by gingerly eating a banana outside the parliament building. "Victory!!!!" he announced on Twitter… "Finally the parliament will be confronted with the truth!" His announcement came after the president of the lower house of parliament Irene Kalin, of the Green Party, announced that scientists had been invited to brief MPs on May 2, 2022 about the latest research from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). —France 24, December 9, 2021

I had a dream the millions woke from their dream.  

There was no violence, just numbers.  

Quietly, the millions put down their tools and shut down their computers.  

Quietly, the millions said, "No."  

Quietly, they said, "We want to live."  

Quietly, they marched.  

Quietly, they sang as they marched.  

Quietly, they stood.  

Quietly, they sat. 

Before the capitals of state and country.  

Quietly, they stayed.  

Singing love of forest and river. 

Of life for children and grandchildren.  

Until power returned to the ones who work.  

Until Earth was put first. 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She hs 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. She is also an artist. 

OH, MALCONTENT CHANGING CLIMATE

by Earl J. Wilcox

All the great ones say something about it.

Poets speak of climate because it’s nearby

While they write or sleep or laugh, weep.

Snow, rain, sunshine, hail—even blustery

Tornadoes may flourish in dramatic lines.

In thrall of climate change—like poems—

our weather evolves not just by seasons

but by an hour or day, from lovely, cum

placid, toward splendid feverish havoc.

Myopic romantic writers—like climate

Naysayers-- still focus on sunshine

And blue skies, cloudless balmy days,

Like times we cherish in spring or summer.

It seems fair and realistic to believe

our climate hunches, predictions, history,

great climate-driven works of art and literature

will forever evolve as human cycles change

perhaps subdue even poets, the last and most

Changeless chroniclers of life on this planet

Await nature’s next course, whither we go.

Earl Wilcox awaits nature's next course in South Carolina. 

A "NEW" YEAR BEGINS

by Gordon Gilbert

wild geese, Hudson River Park, NYC

the same earth that buries the dead 

nourishes new life coming forth from that same soil 

 

the same air through which the dead leaves fall 

lifts the wings of those who call it home

 

the same water that overwhelms in sudden storms 

and drowns those who can't escape to higher ground 

gives life and shelter to aquatic beings 

and is from whence we came and still we need

 

the same fire that destroys all in its path 

we harness for our purposes and progress 

 

destruction and creation, condemnation, resurrection 

but alternatives among a multitude 

coexistent in a four dimensional realm 

in one of a multiplex of universes 

the one that we inhabit

 

we are no different from that from which we came 

neither truly good nor evil in our nature 

 

we are but the natural progression and expression 

of a larger whole with this exception:  

we self-conceive and give that self expression 

 

now here we are again the same side of the sun  

this moment that we choose to call a "new" year 

a starting line across the oval track our planet travels 

artificially designated, of recent origin 

not that once chosen by

hunters, gatherers, herders and farmers 

in many lands, in many other eras 

 

we have come so far we tell ourselves 

but we have gone so far from where we were 

and we are lost now to the earth that birthed us 

before it is too late, we must return, reclaim

who and what we truly are 

we must be born again 

Gordon Gilbert is a long-time resident of the West Village in NYC who has found solace and inspiration for the past two years in his walks along the Hudson River, photographing and writing about the wildlife, flora and river traffic during the pandemic as the seasons changed.

JANUARY 1, 2022

by Susan Delaney Spear

Aboard a Colorado National Guard helicopter, Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, Dec. 31, 2021, gets a flyover tour of Boulder County neighborhoods destroyed by wildfires the previous day. He was accompanied by Brig. Gen. Laura Clellan, Adjutant General of Colorado, and Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse also toured the area in a separate helicopter. (POOL: Hart Van Den Burg, CPR) —The Colorado Sun, January 1, 2022

Drop into this darkness.

A first-born charcoal sky

and fire-scorched land

smolder yet remain.

 

Today the sun’s detained.

A sparrow pecks

a pile of ashen snow

for sustenance.

.

Drop into this darkness.

Dig deep.

Light the wick within.

Let this year begin.

 

 

Susan Delaney Spear is an Associate Professor of English at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood. Her poetry collection Beyond All Bearing was published by Wipf & Stock in 2018.

AFRAID

by stella graham-landau

we did not learn 

at the police academy

how to handle traffic leaving costco

while navigating people running in the street carrying pet cats

when the world is burning before our eyes

nor was there a module in crime prevention on 

how to tell the difference between a masked customer

or a masked bandit

and how to stay healthy in either case

in crime scene management

we were only taught a prayer

to deal with multiple mass shooters in a mall

“you better pray that it’s just one shooter and that their gun jams”

on a regular december day in boulder 

with no snow on the ground

an ordinary man

on an ordinary task to buy soup for his sick wife 

knew how bad things were

not from the dense smoke blocking the sky

nor the galloping customers racing to their cars

not even the screams of children being dragged to safety

but the face of the police officer

directing traffic

with fear in his eyes

stella graham-landau is an artist and writer living in richmond, va. she is vaccinated, boosted, masked, and insistently optimistic that we will emerge as better, kinder citizens of the global village.

TO BE, OR TO BE?

by Judith Terzi

A pale blue shirt against pale skin. Crosshatch

tie. Fauci looks tired as the anchor fires away 

questions. He speaks about testing, transmissibility, 

quarantines, & whatever else he must summon

up the vigor to explain, as the science flows

like the rain this morning, mud gushing down 

roads where fires once roared. How many times

the doctor clarifies, like a Spanish teacher

must explain the differences between ser &

estar––to be, or to be. Hundreds of repetitions

throughout one class, millions over a semester.

Like Fauci, the teacher maintaining patience, 

calm, civility. The doctor is tired. Use estar. 

Está cansado. Fauci is a cool dude. Use ser.

Judith Terzi is the author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay) as well as of five chapbooks, including If You Spot Your Brother Floating By and Casbah (Kattywompus). Recent poems appear in Atlanta Review, The Examined Life, Moria, and MacQueen's Quinterly. A poem, "Ode to Malala Yousafzai," was included on a "Heroines" episode of BBC/Radio 3's "Words and Music." She taught French for many years in Pasadena, California, as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. A new chapbook, Now, Somehow, will appear in 2022.

A POEM IN FAVOR OF REMAINING PURPOSEFUL IN DARK TIMES

by Alan Walowitz

It’s late here, afternoon, and for all I know

the solstice might have come and gone.

Another of these sodden days

keeps me in my sleep-clothes—Gatkes,

my mother might say, a little Yiddish

meant to make things light

and shame me into the fray we’ve made

of forced boredom and too much sleep.

 

Not much happening before Christmas,

the true-believers at the mall, avoiding one another

as if they want to remain alive.

Still, here they are in droves

to address our national debt

and resuscitate mankind’s collective desire;

the National Guard poised to calm the streets

so I won’t have to worry the neighbor’s rage:

my leaves blown carelessly on his lawn again;

the cops have promised not to kill anymore.

Why not walk aimlessly around

masked and dazed by the beauty of the Christmas lights?

Underutilized, my own daughter says of me,

though it’s not how I was raised.

 

The moon was part of us once

before it was hoisted and fastened above

and later assigned to werewolves and love--

though we know we’re done with that.

But now the moon, risen low in the sky,

and twice as bright comes into its own --

holding out against any wobble,

any sudden tilt of the earth.

The Sun, that old Palooka,

means to cook us alive and swallow us whole.

Still, the moon remains, attached to the tides,  

and even in times like these,

determined to do its little job, 

whether or not it’s to any avail.

 

Meanwhile, let's not forget to attend to ours.  

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The full-length The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night written with poet Betsy Mars. 

NATIONS REBORN ON THE SALISH SEA

by Alfredo Quarto

                   

My sleep awoke in me last night a vision

that warrior clans returned to Puget Sound.

I dreamt that cedar canoes once more

plied upon steel waters

wooden vessels hewn by hand…

the head of deer carved upon each bow

bounding through the waves

propelled by the flat ends of many legged oars

ruminant hooves slapping against

            the wizened face of sea.

 

Something was reborn when the paddlers pulled again

their oars like tense wings fashioned

from the inner strength of the yew tree…

revival was at hand as a coastal people

once more walked upon the waters

each pull of oar one step in two directions

linking the severed past with future.

 

Deep within the red earth

remnant roots are recalled

as an old people revive

feel their pliant pulse range once more

along the arterials from the breasts of mountains

to the beat of the heart of the sea…

new life may grow from the same soil

            that buries us after all.

 

From the arching stern the captain

steers with eyes fixed towards home

his rhythmic song in the ancient tongue

sets our pace as old wisdom is rediscovered.

Near the shore a lone deer swims

holds its antlered mantle above cold water

behind him, steepled conifers climb green hills

rise to where sea gulls glide and scream

in great excitement, as if proclaiming

            the People have returned.

Alfredo Quarto is an environmental activist and poet living on an organic farm in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains in Washington.  He’s been published in numerous poetry publications including Poetry Seattle, Catalyst, Raindance Journal, Piedmont Review, Haiku Zashi Zo,  Paperbag Poems, Seattle Arts, Spindrift, Arts Focus, Arnazella, Dan River Anthology, Amelia, Americas Review, Vox, Middle House Review, The Closed Eye Open, Elevation Review, Montana Mouthful, Tidepools, and Wild Roof.

THROUGH DESERT CLOUDS

by David Chorlton

An Ariane 5 rocket second stage deployed the James Webb Space Telescope shortly after launch on Dec. 25, 2021. It's 'humanity's last view' of the new observatory, says NASA PAO Rob Navias.

A cloud filled with shadow

floats up towards the gods

veiled in shades of cold

who look out from the mountain

and talk among themselves

about creation and energy

channeled to become this slender ridge

as the first step to infinity

and home for the coyotes

who come out every night to ask the stars

for guidance through the dark.

Word has it

 

from the hawks ascending

that a rocket has left the Earth

to go so far back in time

that all remaining to be seen

are the final ashes from

the cosmic dawn. What

a flash and what an echo

must have issued from the moment,

they reflect. And yet

 

not a single mockingbird

and no woodpeckers flew

from the crash. The day

is chilly but beautiful in how

the sheets of rain drift past

each other, and crossing

the peaks are the souls

the fates could never capture for themselves.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix, who continues writing, painting, and keeping track of the local bird life. His newest book is Unmapped Worlds, a collection of rehabilitated poems from his files of the past.

GODDESS OF THE UNDERWORLD

by Martin Elster 

A newfound species of millipede (Eumillipes Persephone) has more legs than any other creature on the planet—a mind-boggling 1,300 of them. The leggy critters live deep below Earth's surface and are the only known millipedes to live up to their name. Image credit: Paul E. Marek, Bruno A. Buzatto, William A. Shear, Jackson C. Means, Dennis G. Black, Mark S. Harvey, Juanita Rodriguez, Scientific Reports via LiveScience, December 16, 2021.

We look for life on Mars, yet deep below

our feet she’d crept unseen, a creature blessed

with far more legs than any life we know:

thirteen hundred plus! With a great zest

for fungi, she was the world’s cellar-dweller,

ginormously antennaed, lacking eyes—

a tendril. Her recycling skills were stellar

(although she wasn’t looking for a prize!). 

Earth’s only millipede uniquely “milli,”

she was the slenderest and longest weed  

that we had ever hauled up willy-nilly.

We’ve christened her “Persephone.” Indeed,

although she led a life of utter gloom,

our little cousin helped the flowers bloom.

  

Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (now retired). He finds contentment in long woodland walks and writing poetry, often alluding to the creatures and plants he encounters. A full-length collection, Celestial Euphony, was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

BIERSTADT'S CHIMNEY ROCK

by Bill Sullivan

on the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre,

December 29, 1880

From the Collection of Colby College Museum of Art: Albert Bierstadt, "View of Chimney Rock, Ohalilah Sioux Village in the Foreground" (1860).

Eighteen sixty—in his Manhattan studio

Albert Bierstadt studies his year-old photographs

and oil sketches of the Great Plains and foothills

of the Rockies. He then turns to his images of 

the Lakota, the Oglala Sioux and his collection

of their artifacts. He pauses, fills his brush with

oil paint, approaches the board sitting on the easel,

saying silently, "Everything must glow, must shine

like the soft rays of the sun." He adds more dove gray

to the last of the low clouds; steps back, saying, “Yes,

it's all there and more, the luminous amber sky,

the aquamarine river, the lush green bushes

on the bank, the soft shadows, the warmest of suns."

 

And there are the two horsemen in the shallow water,

one with child mounted in front, the other to his right

relaxed, but with a rifle at his side. Far right a woman,

water to her waist, ready to do the morning wash

and on the bank three tepees, shelter for this band

and just beyond another man riding off for the day's

hunt. And all the carefree children and unleashed dogs

scattered about. It is family, clan and tranquility,

life beyond what is and will be and he knows that.

 

Knows that when he includes Chimney Rock—

a storm shaped relic of a violent volcanic past,

a weathered cone that rose some three hundred feet

above the prairie grasses and became a marker for  

the fur traders, Mormons and pioneers tramping a trail

west—to Oregon and California. Knew it when he

and the government surveying team followed the North

Platte River reached the structure, examined the gifts,

messages and drawings left by previous travelers—

determined dreamers who heeded the prophets' call:

"Go west! Our destiny!  God's will! This land, ours from

the Atlantic to the Pacific." Now the creaking oxcart

and wagon, soon the hiss and steam of the locomotive.

 

He places the prominent rocky tower in the distant

background, makes it appear insignificant,

but knows his idyllic world would soon bleed.

He did not conjure up the brutal chapters then—

the butchery, expulsion, internment, deprivation

and suffering. But his life spanned the tale. Yes, he

lived long enough to read the reports of the massacre

at Wounded Knee. Lived long enough to examine

the photos of the corpses—men, women and children—

being tossed into a mass grave—lived long enough

to ponder the photo of Chief Big Foot's frozen body

lying in the blood-soaked snow—his cupped hands

outstretched as if reaching out for his slain followers.

 

And what did Albert say that late December day?

Did he think of that halcyon scene he had painted

thirty years earlier? Did he shrug his shoulders,

conclude that it had to be, or did he weep?       

 

 

Before retiring to Westerly, Rhode Island, Bill Sullivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College, the University System of NH. He has co-authored two studies of twentieth century poetry and co-produced two documentary films. Here Am I, Send Me, The Journey of Jonathan Daniels, aired by numerous PBS stations, streams at PBS.org. His poems have appeared in numerous print and on-line publications. Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose was published in 2015 by Grove Street Press. 

LAUGH

by Ken Purscell

I heard his laugh before I heard the news,

But recognized who made that laugh and why:

He'd overcome their power to refuse

His ballot. Now his laugh could finally fly

Unhindered. Yes, there still was all the pain

Of truth to face. And reconciliation?

Never easy. Yet gentle as the rain,

He worked to foster healing to a nation.

But that one moment, joy sprang out in laughter

Because he’d laughed a thousand times before–

Despite the past behind, what might come after–

Holding tight the faith that was his core:

Christ’s mercy conquers every evil thing,

So even before the news arrives, we sing!

Ken Purscell is a retired retail cashier, adjunct professor, and preacher. He and his wife Koni live in the suburbs of Chicago. He still claims his greatest accomplishment is that he once made Victor Borge laugh.

FOR JOAN DIDION WHO

by Mary K O'Melveny

Told it like it is    Like it was

  if we had been paying better attention

Made us see what she saw   and be grateful

 

Stared into storms  wearing night vision goggles

  in case we missed some essential point

Exposed each slant of light    tone of voice   shadowed figure

 

Crafted a perfect sentence   Drafted a fine line

Saw that a paragraph can hold more weight than gold

  if it opened our eyes wider   and we did not blink

 

Spoke with timbre of choruses and echoing canyons

 we could hear her whispers cutting through darkness

  in case we lost the soundtrack of our own lives

 

Understood more than most   Less is more

  there is little room for error   restraint can be operatic

   understatement can be perfect   is often preferable

 

Laid out the sorrowful news that we will not survive

  recast such tales as memoir   you always lose what you need

Told us don’t bother to weep    Timing is everything

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.