Writing is an act of resistance
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No More Cream Puffs
By Darrell Petska Can’t you feel it? That chokehold on our throats— write like this say it like that be dignified, calm, aloof— Hell, today’s hands demand poems hard as a brick. Frilly little rhymes? Maybe Sundays with tea. Something afraid of us wants our words meek, not defiant: “Go ahead, throw your cream puffs.…
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Something More
By Cynthia Romanowski 2017: January. Huntington Beach. I’m on my couch. Tears rolling down. Obama just thanked Michelle in his farewell and I’ve finally lost it. This is not about politics, at least it doesn’t feel like it, it feels like something more. In the kitchen my boyfriend opens a package from the mail. It’s…
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Patriotism Reconsidered
By Lucinda Marshall My anthem is the serenade of birds, sung without regard for map lines delineating human assumption of dominion over that which cannot be possessed, and I will not pledge allegiance to, or defend a flag of illusory freedom. As the sun greets each day, I will bravely stand up—against racism, gendered…
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Brother, Can You Spare the Time?
By Kevin Patrick McCarthy Every day, impoverished buskers lay down a diverse soundtrack on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Even as we studiously avoid their eyes, we’re ensnared in their webs of mood and memory. They count on our collective wondering and remembered joys. My favorite is a skinny longhair. His white whiskers are…
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New Madonna
By Celeste Schantz Visiting a gallery of religious art I can no longer relate to these dusty framed virgins and whores. Your Madonnas are too beautiful; poor, pale, mute dolls propped against empty cerulean skies. I want to see some new Madonnas. Of the scars, of the streets. Our Lady of Goodwill, hunched at…
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The Daylight Underground
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free, The Barbarian Nurseries, mass deportation, Fiction, Héctor Tobar, dystopian futureBy Héctor Tobar For the last time, we share a moment of sensual repose. My hand in yours. The sweat on our bare skin, a salty moistness in the desert air. My mestiza, Maritza Melanie. And me, your James, your lover for one hour more. We weren’t supposed to happen. That chance meeting at…
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Declaration of Defendence
By Conney D. Williams I save my tears for weddings and presidential elections while America the beneficent thrusts anthems up our spleens the pasty ballot of deprecation without representation please GOD, bless Ol’ Glory with sufficient stars and stripes to vandalize my person until even bowels lose their allegiance I am a casualty of…
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Consoling My Poem
By Rebecca L’Bahy Imagine him at night, sleepless in his tacky golden bed. How he tosses, turns, finally rising at 3 a.m. to check his phone, its glow a salve to his tiny soul. What if it were you lighting up his screen, what would you say? Think hard, dear poem, be brave. It’s true…
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Winning Campaign, a poem by Karthik Purushothaman
I wear 140 characters as pinstripes and say what I think without thinking. My superpower is fitting both feet in my mouth and projectile vomiting the stuff between my toes. I save the reporters from jumping off buildings, leaping across canyon -deep cracks and swimming upstream to the source where the current is strongest and…