I AM THINKING ABOUT AMERICA TODAY

by Cecil Morris

A counselor attends to a grieving woman outside Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, Calif., site of a "politically-motivated hate incident" shooting which left a prominent doctor dead and another five people injured, on May 15. (Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images) Photo illustrating “A weekend of violence punctuates generations of hate.” —The Washington Post, May 18, 2022

I am thinking that more people need more guns, many, many more guns in the hands of many more people, even young people, people too young to be trusted with books or ideas or facts or contraception or health care. If everyone has guns—both long and short and semi-automatic, bump-stopped and rapid-fire, with magazines large and small—then those bad guys with bad aims will be outnumbered and outgunned and no amount of metal-clad body armor will protect them. How else can we be prepared for the communists invading from Russia or Mexico or Cuba or Venezuela? How else stop the socialists spilling out from Blue States, flooding out from urban centers to America the Beautiful home of brave and unalienable rights. I am thinking Kid Rock or Ted Nugent or Lauren Opal Boebert or MTG needs to follow Dolly’s baby-book give-away example: a gun for every real American at birth and a new bullet for every month. I am thinking of growing libraries of arms borne and bared, of personal catalogs of destruction carefully curated and cleaned and oiled and mounted with laser-targeting sights so red dot marks the spot and shows us the way to heaven. I am thinking about teachers with guns and the indoctrination of students. I am thinking about ghost guns haunting America with our forefathers. I am thinking about women’s shelters handing out guns and incorporating target practice in their services, about Guns for Graduation, about CPS with guns and black plastic trash bags, about beaming girls at quinceañeras armed to the nines, about pistols in pews and a line of shopping carts with bullet-proof fairing and guns, about fortune cookie fortunes with guns in bed.

Cecil Morris taught high school English for 37 years. In his retirement, he has turned his attention to writing what he once taught students to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has poems appearing in Cobalt Review, English Journal, Evening Street Review, Hiram Review, Hole in the Head Review, Midwest Quarterly, Poem, Talking River Review, and other literary magazines.

JUST AS THE BIRDS, DISTRACTED

by Paula J. Lambert

Most nights this week, there will be more birds in the air above

this country than people in beds down below.” —Josh Sokol

 

Just as the birds, distracted by light

that splits the star they follow into sparks

and mirrors so they never see the towers

that reach out to kill them, just as the birds,

 

so entranced by needs they cannot explain

that they propel themselves steadfastly

forward through all the wildfires we set 

for them (if they recognize their own 

plummeting numbers when they emerge 

from the smoke, they don’t show it, 

they keep flying) just as the birds 

soar even through their own sleep as, 

one by one by one, they die of thirst 

or starvation or exhaustion, falling into fields 

and ditches and sidewalks, mountain peaks

and seldom-seen valleys, just as they 

keep going, season after season, year after 

year, eon after unfathomable eon, so we 

sleep through it all in our beds below, 

writhing maybe through tangles of sheets 

and the existential threat we’ve made

of our lives—we who’ve lived long enough 

to multiply every problem we inherited, 

who’ve ignored or angrily explained away 

the desperate patterns of our own migration—

but sleeping, blithely unwilling to do more

than worry while, awake, we grab our keys 

and cameras and binoculars and go,

 

to the marshes, waterways and wild places

still left, still untrampled, still—unbeknownst

to us—part of the twisted dreams and difficult

truths we rarely remember, come morning. 

Paula J. Lambert has authored several collections of poetry including The Ghost of Every Feathered Thing (FutureCycle 2022) and How to See the World (Bottom Dog 2020). Awarded PEN America's L'Engle-Rahman Prize for Mentorship, Lambert's poetry and prose has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes.

WHAT WE LEARN FROM BIRDS

by Earl J. Wilcox

If our baby worm formula is not available—

Backup plans with day-old bugs will do.

 

If the five-year old birdie-boy wants

To be a girlie bird, let him dress as he will.

 

If the teen robins won’t sing or play—or fly

Let them consult Papa Owl, not take codeine.

 

If old lady robin’s days are done, do not

Push her out of the nest where foxes await.

 

Find old bird a comfy hole in an elder oak,

There let Sister Robin live out her days in love.

Earl Wilcox has learned from many birds over many years.

PRAYING FOR YOU, GOV

by Darrell Petska

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said Sunday that he will call a special session of his state's legislature to pass a total ban on abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this term. "Nebraska is a pro-life state. I believe life begins at conception, and those are babies too," Ricketts told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" when asked if he thought the state should require a young girl who was raped to carry the pregnancy to term. —CNN, May 15, 2022

Of course rape is evil,

but evil left to proliferate in a woman

tends to strike again and again in all its

suffocating helplessness, trauma, chronic

anxiety and nightmarish violation,

with all its attendant heartache.

Political one-upmanship and pietisms

that insist on allowing rape's evil to live on

by citing "directives" of god or bandying

emotionally fraught trigger words—

manipulating evil to sell one's agenda—

are beneath a purported man of god

and the yea-saying cadres of men sharing

narrow perceptions of a woman's uterus,

including its role in shaping cognitive

and emotional well-being and the drive

for self-determination—the latter a right

not reserved for men alone.

The shelf-life of your brand of religiosity

is short. We who espouse a more merciful,

compassionate religion pray that your efforts

to be both judge and executioner will fall

to the light, lest "Nebraska Nice" succumbs

to the politics clouding your heart and soul.

Darrell Petska lives and writes in Wisconsin, but part of his heart remains in his birth state of Nebraska.

VILLANELLE FOR A POST ROE WORLD

 by Mary K O’Melveny

Cyndi Lauper and Laura Dern

Women have no rights required to be respected

say five jurists whose words hurl us back to ancient time.

What actions are required to see this travesty corrected?

 

This outcome—undesired by most—was not unexpected.

Women have been told for centuries that men’s role is prime,

that women have no rights required to be respected.

 

Some say our decisions must be made by men, elected

but clueless, whose laws transform our choices into crime.

What actions shall we take to see such travesty corrected?  

 

Once a woman’s bodily autonomy has been rejected

by folks who’ve no idea the mountains we must climb,

how can we ensure that anyone’s liberty will be respected?

 

Diminishments of human rights are always quite connected.

Misogyny, like slavery, depends on whose lives we define

as worth the actions needed to see such travesties corrected. 

 

Look in the mirror—do you see the person you expected?

No matter age or circumstance, the time has come for rage sublime.

If women have no rights required to be respected,

revolution is what we need to see this travesty corrected.

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 most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. 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.

BUFFALO HAIKU

Sari Grandstaff is a high school librarian in the Catskill Mountains/Mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. Her work has appeared in many print and online journals including The New Verse News, The Mainichi's Daily Haiku, the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association's Haiku in Action, and Prune Juice. 

LE GRANDE REPLACEMENT

by Susan Cossette

Image credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Blood moon rises over the horizon,

over Minneapolis, Auckland, Buffalo,

over blood spilled in schools and supermarkets,

hot orb, hatred splayed on the pavement.

 

In Minnesota you know you’re dead to the world

if you see your obituary in the Star Tribune a week before you die.

The loons’ eerie tremolos and yodels call to you—

outsider, peculiar threat, excised one, unwelcome.

 

Strange bugs come calling each spring.

They crawl up your walls in curious unison,

fleeing, seeking escape.

You find them on the kitchen floor,

dead in the window wells,

silent and withered.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Vita Brevis, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

IN SEARCH OF DEMOCRACY

by Shirani Rajapakse

The Sri Lankan state is descending into a full blown political and economic crisis, as more people contend with starvation, death and severe disruptions. Now they are also facing the brutal violence of the state. The BBC reports at least nine people died and more than 200 were injured as vehicles and houses were set alight during fighting between government supporters and critics this week. The island is facing its worst economic crisis since independence, and the responses of the state indicate it is incapable of protecting its citizens. The deployment of military force, however, is unlikely to quell unrest. The anger and frustration displayed by the public, aggravated by pro-government protesters, is only likely to grow – fuelling further distrust in the ruling government. —The Conversation, May 12, 2022

Watch the blazing 

snarls of flames 

spitting disgust. 

Bodies stand outside arms raised 

fists wrapped round 

poles ready to beat up dissent 

silence with one stroke 

anyone, anyone who protests 

opposes the wrong 

howling jackals laughing condoning 

acts of violence. 

 

Wrong is the new right. 

No one understands where 

we stand. 

Who are we? How did we 

come to this? 

 

Thirty-five years ago 

I cowered in fear 

of red guerillas stalking streets 

vengeance running in veins 

bloodthirsty hyenas 

                    looting 

                    pilfering 

                    destroying 

                    torturing. 

 

 

                                        Murdering. 

 

 

A new generation that 

                    doesn’t remember 

the knock on doors dragging 

life out pleading screaming begging, 

                    never saw 

bloated corpses floating in waterways 

or have to step over 

roasting moaning bodies unrecognizable 

piled up on the side of roads, 

                    never 

                    lived 

                    through fear 

wondering if they will be next. 

                    Only 

heard about those days 

through history’s sieve. 

Violence 

the norm to get what 

cannot be 

through the ballot. 

 

Is power so blinding we 

gorge on our own? 

Brother against brother, the same 

kind, flesh and blood 

stripping bare to kill for a different 

cause or 

for promises of treats? 

 

The future sheds tears eaten 

up greedily by cackling flames 

                    lamenting 

silently through swirling 

fumes roaring hatred 

and what is left 

to moan for—cinders that were 

once homes now 

kicked to the side 

as vultures from foreign shores 

                    line up behind clouds looming 

                    at the periphery of the island  

 

                                        waiting 

 

to step in and devour the land. 

Shirani Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan poet and short story writer. She is the author of five books including the award-winning Chant of a Million Women as well as I Exist. Therefore I Am. Rajapakse’s work appears in many journals and anthologies including Dove Tales, Buddhist Poetry, Litro, Linnet’s Wings, Berfrois, Flash Fiction International, Voices Israel, About Place, Mascara, Counterpunch, Deep Water, Silver Birch, International Times, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Spark, The Write-In, Asian Signature, Moving Worlds, Harbinger Asylum.

SHIREEN ABU AKLEH (IN MEMORIAM)

by Indran Amirthanayagam

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday declined a request to let Israeli officials examine the bullet that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent reporter for Al Jazeera who was killed in the occupied West Bank during an Israeli raid. Palestinian officials and witnesses accused Israeli soldiers of killing Ms. Abu Akleh, dismissing Israeli claims that the journalist may have been hit by Palestinian fire during a shootout in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank. —The New York Times, May 12, 2022. Photo: The day after she was killed, Palestinian artists were already at work painting a mural of Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank. Credit: Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock via The New York Times)

Who killed Shireen Abu Akleh? Who fired the bullet

into her head? Who raided the neighborhood? Who

has the right to bear arms? Who has the right

to desecrate the dead? Who is crying for justice

where justice has not been served, not for

Rachel Corrie, who stood before a bulldozer. Not

for Shireen who wrote of people how they live

and cook, wash and teach, how they live and die

in an occupied land as second class subjects. Meanwhile

the murderer walks. Meanwhile the struggle continues

between lord and subject. And the girl who loved holding

her bottle before the mirror as a microphone saying

one day I will grow to be Shireen Abu Akleh: what

shall we tell her now? Where can she bury her tears?

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube.

WHAT MONEY CAN BUY

by George Salamon

US billionaires' demand for 'golden passport' schemes that sell citizenships to 'safe' countries for up to $6.5m including New Zealand and Portugal rockets by 337% in three years as fears of civil unrest spike. —Mail Online, May 7, 2022

Good riddance, and safe trip,

but before abandoning our ship,

make them sign a promissory note

forbidding return to their original boat.

George Salamon looks forward to the inevitable movie version, "Ship of Wealthy Fools," starring celebrities who appear in ads for beachwear.

PRIME REAL ESTATE

by Emmie Christie

Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large digger wasp species. —iNaturalist

The cicada killers drone in the park

Small rockets,

A display of gold in the sky.

I glare. I stare them down,

But billionaire buoyancy keeps them

Flying. A confidence fueled by concepts,

On stinger stock options,

Keeping me inside my cardboard home

But even that’s Prime real estate,

This box someone threw out.

And I shouldn’t be sleeping here, no,

Because that nearby bush has a plaque.

Where can I go to sleep?

I guess it’s a crime to have bad luck,

To lose my savings to a fire truck.

Where can I go

When the wealthy claim even the sky,

And I am not allowed to dream?

The cicada killers drone in the park.

Emmie Christie’s work tends to hover around the topics of feminism, mental health, cats, and the speculative such as unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in Flash Fiction Online and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and she graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. She also enjoys narrating audiobooks for Audible. You can find her on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.

COLOSSAL LOSSES

by Timothy Kercher

The Soviet monument symbolising historic ties between ex-Soviet Ukraine and Russia being dismantled in Kyiv on April 26, 2022.

Today I read that Russian

casualties are colossal, Latin

for larger than life,

the Romans using the word

to describe the statue of Helios

in the harbor at Rhodes,

a term now used to describe

abounding death, the day before

a colossal eight meter-tall Soviet

-era statue of two men

representing Russia and Ukraine

holding a banner of friendship

was taken down, the heads

rolling right off in the middle 

of Kyiv, where, in the surrounding

towns, colossal losses

were suffered, larger than life

numbers of dead civilians

strewn in the streets, add 

to this the soldiers on

both sides, the mass 

casualties on the eastern 

front in the cities, apartments, 

theaters, schools, hospitals eclipsed 

by heavy artillery, the war's

collective losses larger

than a toppled statue depicting

friendship, larger still

than a statue of the sun god.

Timothy Kercher lives in southwestern Colorado with his family and teaches on the Navajo Nation. He has lived much of his adult life overseas, including time in Ukraine, Republic of Georgia, Bosnia, Mongolia and Mexico. His essays, poetry, and translations have appeared in many literary journals including Crazyhorse, Plume, Ruminate, Guernica, and Quiddity.

BRISEIS

by Gail White

Apulian Red-Figure Amphora by the Painter of the Berlin Dancing Girl ca. 430-410 BCE depicting Achilles and Briseis. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Women have few speaking parts

in the Iliad. At the beginning,

Briseis is torn away from Achilles

with never a word. But when Agamemnon

finally decides to make up the quarrel

and sends her back, Patroclus is dead

and her grief is for him, the most decent man

in the crowd, and the kindest.

You would not let me grieve, she says,

when Achilles had killed my father and brothers

and taken me captive; you always promised

Achilles would marry me.

That's what the women

have to look forward to in wartime:

with any luck, the man who murdered

your brothers will marry you. Although Achilles

did no such thing. Most likely he shunted

her off to the loom and kept her weaving

new tunics for him while he sent letters

over the wall to young Polyxena,

the bait that would lead him to his death.

Soldiers die, and the race of heroes

is gone: today there is no Achilles,

Patroclus, or angry Agamemnon.

But look at the eyes of captured women:

Briseis is there, forever dragged

away, forever and ever silent.

Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats. 

GHOULS

by Lynn White

Is it ghoulish

to think

that life 

is more

than a small collection of cells

in a uterus.

Is it ghoulish

to think

that 

the life of the mother

and the spillage

of her blood

count for less

than the small collection of cells

in her uterus

that are unable to bleed.

Is it ghoulish

to think

that infant life

needs love

as it grows

and support networks

and things that cost

society

dear

through life

if it does not supply them.

Is it ghoulish 

to ask

how 

the highest court

in the land

was taken over

by ghouls.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.