Poetry – Page 5 – Writers Resist

When You Swim Out into the Ocean

By Claudia Wair

You float on your back, your face barely above water. There’s nothing but the silence of the ocean in your ears. In the saltwater’s embrace, you drift, weightless. You stare at the clouds above, trying to empty your mind. You’re away from the beach. Not so far that the lifeguard blows her whistle, just far enough from the splashers and the screamers.

The ocean is peace.

Here, you’re a gently bobbing body, not a stupid nigger, like the man on the boardwalk said when he bumped into you. The water doesn’t care that your skin is dark brown or that your hair curls tight. You’re a small human in a vast ocean.

The rage subsides to a dull ache. Your muscles finally relax. You roll over and swim back to shore. Stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, breathe. Then you feel gravity again, feel the sand, feel the breeze. You find your white friends and sit on your towel. No one asks how you are.

And you pretend you are fine.

Claudia Wair is a writer and editor from Virginia. Her work has appeared in JMWW, The Wondrous Real Magazine, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Corvid Queen, and elsewhere. You can read more at claudiawair.com, or find her on Twitter @CWTellsTales.

Photo credit: “At Sunset” by Giuseppe Milo via a Creative Commons license.

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Vile Affections

By Soon Jones

I grow up in a Florida church being warned about
god-hating bull dykes and sissy fairy fags
leaving the natural use of the woman,
which is sex, because
all a woman is good for
is sex and tempting men.

Yet when a woman tempts another woman
somehow that is not about sex,
though I’m pretty sure it is:
I want Crystal instead of Stephen,
the hottest boy in youth group,
apparently.

At a sleepover with church girls
I panic when they throw
down a copy of J-14 magazine
with *NSync on the cover,
and interrogate me on who
I want to marry.
This is a trap:
there have been rumors about me
and they’re all true.

I pick Lance Bass for his friendly face.
This is not the wrong answer,
but it is still not the right answer.
I should have said Justin Timberlake or JC Chasez,
apparently, but I’ve made my bed

so now I have to buy Lance Bass stickers
and say how hot Lance Bass is at youth group
and now everything I own is covered
in Lance Bass. I even write about him
in my diary, in case someone reads it.

I doodle in my Lance Bass notebook
while my pastor rants about an “it”
with “hips of a woman, but a face like a man”
who served him coffee in some roadside diner.
He shares his fantasy of renting a room
in a Miami hotel close to the gay bars
on Memorial Day weekend, and how,

God willing,

he would hide in the air ducts
and descend on the bull dykes and sissy fags
with an AK-47 and a Bowie knife, for
they which commit such things
are worthy of death.
He throws his head back in ecstasy,
licks his lips at the thought
of all those queers he would sacrifice
on the altar before the Lord.

I hold Lance Bass to my chest
as the men shout “Amen!”
tossing hymnals at the pulpit
like panties.

Soon Jones is a Korean lesbian poet from the rural countryside of the American South. Their work has been published in Juke Joint, Westerly, beestung, and Moon City Review, among others. They can be found at soonjones.com, on Twitter, and on Instagram.

Poet’s note: Passages in italics are taken from Romans 1:27 and 1:32.

Photo Credit: “Ungodly Hate” by K-B Gressitt.

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Feeding Stray Cats in Ukraine

By Rebecca K. Leet

As molecules of steel madness
concussed the air
and no next breath was sure

a vibration in his unbowed soul
prompted Sasha to step outside
and feed a posse of stray cats.

The offering –
from one displaced in the world
to others also beggared –
cost Sasha his right foot.

War presents, at times,
a tableau for tenderness –
often anonymous, usually unseen.

It always presents
a canvas for cruelty – unfathomable

yet undaunting
to the merciful who step outside
to succor the world.

Rebecca K. Leet has spent a lifetime across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, seeing the best of times and the worst. Writing poetry keeps her sane.

Photo credit: Yael Beeri via a Creative Commons license.

Editor’s note: Paws of War is helping to care for abandoned pets in Ukraine. The nonprofit has received a 4 of 4 stars rating on Charity Navigator, so it’s safe to assume your contribution will be well-spent.

Displacement

By Antony Owen

I am
the fox-flame in the wood
jumping through snow an ember
chased to extinction by lesser beasts.

I am
permanent as the moth in amber
its patterns decided by the white sun
its fate decided by the earthlings.

I am
the glass-blower’s lips’ creation
to consume whatever is put in me
if I break, I become injurious to touch.

I am
the exhausted bee in the shying rose
the heartbeat bass of my distant hive
preferring my own cruel natures.

I am
insignificant as a cloudy starlit night
yet everything is still revealed just hidden
like Greek Gods who move us to sea.

Antony Owen is a writer of conflict translated in English, Japanese and German. His work has been recognised internationally, including, a full bilingual collection translated in 2021 by Thelem Press and an award in the British Army Poetry Competition in 2018. His work has also been shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry.

Photo credit: “Glassblower” by Kairon Gnothi via a Creative Commons license.

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“I can experience joy alone”

By Tristan Richards

I meditate on this line while hiking
away from the waterfall, and a doe
pokes her head out of the snow,
watching me, her eyes black and beady,
her body sandy, the color of spring
gravel turned mud. She is beautiful.
I freeze, my heart in my throat.
I become too aware of the ice
surrounding me, melting but still
cold enough to take me down.
She tracks me as I walk, alert
but faking confidence, toward
the parking lot. I think about how
strange it is to be so close to nature
and also surrounded by cars.
It is wild to set natural growth next
to what comes at you so quickly.
When I pass, she stands on top of
the hill and I see her full body,
white stripe running from her throat
down her belly, somehow calm and
ready to bolt at the same time.
I think each of us scared the other.
It is hard to exist in this world
as a woman and not be afraid.

Tristan Richards (she/her) is a poet and student affairs professional from Minnesota. She is the author of two self-published chapbooks: Not All Challenges Are For Us (2022) and The Year Was Done Right (2019). Her poems have been published in Preposition: The Undercurrent Anthology, on the Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride, and in Firethorne. In 2022, Tristan facilitated daily poetry writing workshops throughout the month of April for National Poetry Writing Month. She holds an MA in Leadership in Student Affairs from the University of St. Thomas and a BA in Communication Studies from Gustavus Adolphus College. You can find her on Instagram @tristanwritespoems or at tristanwritespoems.weebly.com.

Photo credit: “Doe in the Snow” by Richard Carter via a Creative Commons license.

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What Is Truth?

By Wells Burgess

Deep in the South, men gather.
First among equals, the Kingfish,
upstage, and it is only he
whose face you see; his minions –
that includes me, Markie –
have their backs to you. The Boss
plays solitaire; the cards slap
the table. “Markie,” he says,
where we gon’ put that road?”
“DeVreaux and the boys got
them all whupped up in Jasmine,”
I say. “Chairman talkin’ like
it’s yesterday. Folks
so starved for traffic, they’ll
walk ten miles on crutches
to vote for you.” Kingfish
looks me in the eye. “Markie,”
he says, “I got a debt to pay.
Judge in Bayou goin’ on and on
bout how we are ‘destroyin
rural culture’ with the highway
projects. Owns a big tract. We
gon’ run that road right thoo
it so he hears them big eight wheelers
when he lays him down to rest.”
“Boss,” I says, “we got a rally
in Jasmine, big parade and all.
Tenth-grader singin a song he made up
about the highway they’re gettin.
Shall I call it off?” “Hell, no,”
says the Boss. He looks me right
in the eye. “Markie,” he says,
“Do you trust me?” And I say
back, “I do.”
The scene goes dark; another lights:
Jasmine Parish: scrub country,
hard-bitten faces, an old dirt road,
a boy, a wheel, a stick, Kingfish
on the stump. “We gonna’
put my big new highway right
thoo this ol’ Parish,” he says.
“Hire your boys to build it. Only
ramp for 60 miles go right to
this town. You folks gonna
be eatin the fat o’ the land.
Ain’t that right, Markie,”
he says to me. “Amen,” I say.
The scene goes dark. Another lights:
the Kingfish’s election headquarters,
a victory celebration. “I want a
Parish by Parish count,”
the Kingfish yells. When it comes
to Jasmine, DeVreaux shouts
“Eighty percent!” So I ask
the Boss, “So we gon’ give em
their road?” “Hell no,” he says.
“Goin’ thoo Bayou. Plans drawn,
press release tomorrow.” “What
we gon’ tell em down in Jasmine?”
The Kingfish looks me right in
the eye. “Tell em I lied,” he says.
DeVreaux won’t do it, so I make
the trip myself. Press release
come out, Chairman calls
a meetin’ of the Parish Council.
I show up. “Wha’ happened?”
Chairman asks. “He bout
guarantee us that road.” I
step right up. “Boss told me
to tell you he lied,” I say.
Folks bustin out cryin
and cursin, bout half of em
run on out the hall. Chairman
and others, DeVreaux’s people,
they stay quiet, and pretty soon
Chairman starts to chuckle.
“That’s the Kingfish for ya,”
he says. “Thoo and thoo.
Our turn will come.
He gon’ see to it.”

Wells Burgess began writing poetry late in life. His work has appeared in The Lyric, Measure, The Beltway Quarterly, Light, Think, Passager,, The Federal Poet, and Better Than Starbucks. In retirement, he teaches poetry at Encore Learning in Arlington, Virginia.

Photo credit: “I Win” by Kevin Labianco via a Creative Commons license.

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September Together

By Elizabeth Shack

Last September, we hiked the forest
beside the fog-drenched sea.
Followed a swift stream
bridged with salmon spawning,
returning from gray Pacific homes.
Switchbacked beside a waterfall
sparkling down steep granite.

Emerged into sunlight with a view
of lichen-painted rock
and the blue-white ice
that once sculpted this verdant valley.

Is still sculpting:
Just as moss and fern carpeted bare rock,
as alder and spruce sprouted,
as forest appeared where glacier receded,

today melting ice reshapes coasts,
forests flame to ash,
grasslands wither to desert,
rivers run to dust.

This September, whales still sing in the sea.

Will you fight with me
for this vibrant,
dying world?

Elizabeth Shack lives in central Illinois with her spouse, cat, and an expanding collection of art supplies and fitness equipment. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in The MacGuffin, Writers Resist, Daily Science Fiction, and other magazines and anthologies. She attended the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop for poetry in 2022. For more of Elizabeth’s work, visit her website.

Photo credit: “Humpback Whale” by J. Maughn via a Creative Commons license.

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Scylla

By Bex Hainsworth

A nymph unburdened by beauty is a nightmare.

My barnacle flesh scratches against stone
as I curl up in my cave, full of octopus cunning;
folding many limbs around myself, cruel, content.

This was Circe’s gift: to make me a monster,
a maneater. The distant roar of Charybdis
rocks me to an easy sleep each night.

I know they will take the dangerous road,
right to my mountain door. The men,
the soldiers, the heroes. The semi-divine.

They taste of revenge, of justice
for the ripped dresses, for the temple maids
who lost the chase, the dryads who couldn’t
get away, and the goddesses who never escaped.
For Leda, and Persephone, and Helen. For Hera.

This is for my own golden bruises.

I hold vigil. My teeth are tapers, glinting in the dark,
for all my sacrificial sisters. No offerings
are made in my name, no altars, no prayers.
No matter. The sea provides settlement.

You should hear them scream for me.
I rip the last words from their throats
with claws like scythes.

Afterwards, wiggling a thigh bone free
with the stick of a ship’s mast,
I recite my affirmations:

let them know how it felt beneath their bodies,
let their hearts freeze at the thought of me,
let them know what it is to be truly afraid.

A nymph unburdened by beauty is their nightmare.

Bex Hainsworth (she/her) is a bisexual poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Ethel Zine, Atrium, Okay Donkey, trampset, and bath magg. Find her on Twitter @PoetBex.

Illustration of “Pesce Donna” from Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi’s Istorica descrizione de’ tre’ regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola, 1687, via Public Domain Review.

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Islands of No Nation

By Ada Ardére

We give them our children to fight in jungles and deserts,
we give them our taxes to pave their roads,
we give them our land to build their businesses,
we give them our coasts to moor their battleships,
we give them our waters to test nuclear weapons,
and we have received nothing.

Hurricanes and earthquakes ravage us
and only deafened ears sit on the mainland
as we watch the light go out in our hospitals
as we hear of emergency rations withheld at ports.

Where is the medicine needed in San Juan?
Where is the common courtesy owed the Virgin Islands?
Where are the passports for the people of Guam?
Where are the houses for Samoa?
Where are the services for our veterans?
Where are the schools for our children?

They respond.

They call us niggers, spics, and pretenders,
subconsciously lumping us into one group
they whisper: inbetweener.

They refuse to meet us on our shores,
removing us from public memory
they ask us who we even are.

They call us savage and uncivilized,
speaking slowly and loudly
they consider us for zoos.

They see us pouring into recruiting stations,
greedily licking their lips and growling
they see guerrilla soldiers signing up.

They use us hard and fast.
Emptying VA hospital funds,
they kick us to the streets.

They think us incapable of thought or reason.
While building a third theater in their child’s school,
they accuse us of overbreeding.

Until we are held in common,
until the law is not chain and whip,
until our shores are ours to have,
until our pain is paid for,
until we have a future as ourselves,
until we too are free

We can answer to no one,
no duty to higher powers,
nothing owed to foreign chambers.
We hold neither oaths nor allegiance.
We are islands of no nation.

Ada Ardére is a Puerto Rican poet from New Orleans who now lives in Kansas City. She studied philosophy of art and Plato, and loves beat poetry. Her works have appeared in 34th Parallel Magazine, Wussy Mag, and The New Southern Fugitives.

Image of Donald Trump, throwing papers towels at a press event in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017, used for purposes of commentary and education under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 allowing for “fair use.”

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Reputation

TW: SA

By Frances Koziar

He speaks of his reputation
while I think of fates worse than death,
his name, when I would gladly give up mine
for a good night’s sleep, to see those nightmares
shaped like ordinary men slain
before their groping hands reach me; he speaks
of having a life ruined, not knowing
what that really means, not understanding
how men can form packs like wolves
at the first sound of a woman’s
assertiveness, ready
to tear that voice from her neck, carnage
be damned, not seeing our loss of reputation
every time we speak our names, our shame,
even when the evidence convinces anyone
who’ll let it; I laugh
when I want to cry, hold still
when I shake with fear, walk with poise
when I am running away, because attention
is the most dangerous thing of all. Smile
they tell you while you bleed out from the throat;
Speak, Pretty One,
but only if you say frivolous things; Sing—
but I can only hear screams.

Frances Koziar has published poetry in over 35 different literary magazines, including Vallum and Acta Victoriana. A young (disabled) retiree and a social justice advocate, she lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Visit her website and follow her on Facebook.

Photo credit: “Eve in Shame” by Stanley Zimny via a Creative Commons license.

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Justice Clarence Thomas Ate My Fucking Plums

By Christina Bagni

after William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
relying on
forever

Forgive me
you didn’t deserve them
they were always
mine to take

Forgive me
but the icebox
was always meant
to be empty

it came that way
and that’s how god
told me
it should be

So I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

to return order
to your cold
empty
world

I did it for you,
you see.

Forgive me.

Christina Bagni’s creative work has been published in Asterism, Lit202, and Underground Literary Magazine, among others. She is the Chief Editor at Wandering Words Media and a writer on the Captain Bitcoin comic book series. Her first novel is forthcoming with Deep Hearts YA (2023).

Photo credit: Public domain.

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The North Wind & The Sun

By Jacqueline Jules

“Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.”
—The North Wind and the Sun, Aesop

The woman seated next to me
on the plane, sees the star
around my neck and begins
asking questions.

How can I be happy without eating ham?
she wants to know. Or live in America
without a Christmas tree?

I could tell her to ask the internet,
my eyes as cold as the tiny soda cans
we’ve just been served.

I could bluster and howl
like Aesop’s North Wind
forcing her to pull
her blue silk shawl
tighter and tighter.

Or we could have a conversation.

And I could be like Aesop’s Sun,
shining with gentle beams, until
she feels too warm to stay wrapped
in her misconceptions.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in more than 100 publications, including K’in, The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. Visit her website at www.jacquelinejules.com.

Photo credit: Garland Cannon via a Creative Commons license.

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Two Poems by Renee McClellan

Black Listopia

I feel like an idiom that drips from Baldwin’s pen
“that” angry Black woman negotiating sin
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO! A thing to be had
Thick lips, curvaceous hips, or a fashion fad
You can’t set me like diamonds
Or string me like pearls
Pick on my afro, then appropriate my curls

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
Why are you fucking with me? I don’t fuck with you.

I feel like a literary assault by Langston Hughes
An angry Black woman and her Weary Blues
I, TOO, SING AMERICA, a pejorative dream
Ghosts of my ancestors flow in my blood stream
That white picket fence and that sweet apple pie
That dream wasn’t mine, that nightmare’s a lie
Like a Raisin in the sun, do I fester, do I run
What happens to a dream Deferred, you’re looking at it
You haven’t heard?

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
Stop fucking with me and I won’t fuck with you

I feel like a mythical logophile, words linger & prod
Like Zora Neale Hurston
MY EYES ARE WATCHING GOD
Truth be told, Every tongue must Confess
Like Dust on the Road, I’m God’s perfect mess
Perfectly flawed and divinely conceived
All of Africa holds the mystery that is me
Ripped from my familiar, felt the soul of my seed
My daughters are raped and my sons can’t breathe
I’m a paradigm of potency, a leather-bound force,
An African fused American on a reparation course

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
Black, Brown, and Yella, too
I will NOT apologize for this trauma, FUCK YOU!

Angelou knew and her encouragement wise
Like a phoenix from its ashes – Still I rise
A PHENOMENAL WOMAN, phenomenally
I’m a Queen like Sheba with the bones of Lucy
With all that was taken on that infamous boat ride
My womb for stock and trade for my babies genocide
I should be angry, it’s justifiably so,
You auction the fruit of my womb then call me a ho
You ripped from mother African, the Proverbs of her son
And refused to Honor her for the work that she has done
Her children will RISE like the sun bathed in blue
Ebony warriors and the daughters of Shaka Zulu
I AM A BLACK WOMAN & I’m angry as fuck
But forgiveness in this moment, bitch, Good Luck!
I’m not the PEACE you seek, I wont lay down and die,
I wont turn the other cheek, I want an eye-for-a-mother-fucking-eye

I AM A BLACK WOMAN
This is the America I Sing
But you keep fucking with me,
HERE!
Hold my mother-fucking earrings!

That Tree

Strange fruit hanging from that tree
The crown shudders with each crosswind
Leaves of humanity blow like flecks of dust on the sea
Seeds sprinkled on top of soil
The roots spiral deep and strong,
The branches sway,
reaching for the sun limbs refusing to break
Spiny twigs like fingers closed around a tight fist
The trunk solid taking shape
Searching for a place to exist
Branches reaching toward the warmth of the sun
But meeting the coldness of too much shade
flailing in mercy

No sustenance to nurture its existence

Life dangles from that tree
Dangling shapeless
caught in the ambiguity of the whistling wind
the fruit falls from the tree
pulled to the ground by desire
thick tentacles of hope
Strange fruit growing on that tree

Renee McClellan, a Chicago native and writer of the EMMY award winning PSA, Pick Me! – Toy Loan, began her career performing with elite theater groups in Chicago. As a film and television actor, she performed in such productions as Brewster’s Place, Seinfield, and Deep Impact. She continued on to writing, directing and producing various film and television projects. A graduate of Chapman University with a BFA in Film Production, she also has an MFA in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute (AFI). A Long Beach resident, Renee has produced many award-winning productions often using Long Beach as the backdrop of her artistic expression. She is currently a professor at Pepperdine University, a best-selling author, and an award-winning filmmaker.

Photo credit: Lynne Hand via a Creative Commons license.

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Prolapse

By Tara Campbell

The uterus is tired.

The uterus is sorry
but it can’t seem to stay
in one place anymore,
which isn’t surprising
considering how often
it’s been poked
and prodded
and pricked
by congressmen’s pens.

The uterus would like
to get in a word of its own,
just one, even edgewise
just one goddamn word.

The uterus wishes
it could remember the words
to that song you sang
when you didn’t have to worry
about your uterus all the time,
when you didn’t have to be
so goddamn vigilant,
didn’t have to keep twisting
and turning away from men
shoving laws into it
edgewise.

The uterus is tired
so very tired.

The uterus would like
just one goddamn moment
to itself. The uterus just wants
to be. The uterus is sorry
it can’t give you that.
The uterus remembers when
it was barely aware of itself
which sounds like a contradiction
but was merely a state of grace.

The uterus is small and pink
and lovely and valued
and sacred and blessed.

But no, the uterus doesn’t believe
its own press. . .
well, it didn’t. . .
well, it shouldn’t have, and now
the uterus is continually disappointed
to find it is neither valued
nor sacred
nor blessed
nor even safe.

The uterus is tired
so goddamn tired.

The uterus is sorry it’s letting you down
because now it’s letting itself down
slowly, uncomfortably—
this is called “prolapse”
and the uterus wants you to know
this is not your fault either,
and it would have told you
everything sooner, but the truth
just gets the uterus bullied,
harassed, and threatened with rape
for upsetting men
(and, when the truth
is too educational,
it just gets the uterus kicked
off the socials for “porn”).

Some days the uterus feels philosophical,
and some days the uterus feels angry—
who are we kidding,
most days the uterus feels angry
if not for itself
then on behalf of other uteruses
who are told they’re overreacting
to getting bullied,
harassed, and threatened with rape
for upsetting men.

The uterus is often depressed
but today the uterus is simply tired
the uterus needs a break
to forget how everyone
is always talking about it
even when it’s not in the room—
especially when it’s not in the room.

The uterus is tired,
and the uterus is tired
of being asked why it’s tired.
The uterus no longer wishes
to be interrogated.

The uterus just needs a little time
a little goddamn time
to itself, and who can blame it
for feeling heavy
for wanting to slide
just a little bit lower
and rest after everything
it’s had to endure.

The uterus simply wants to sit
in the warm and the dark,
mind its own business
and quietly sink, baptized
in silence, blessed
finally
with one goddamn
moment of
peace.

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University’s MFA in Creative Writing. Her publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, CRAFT Literary, and Writers Resist. She’s the author of a novel and four multi-genre collections including her newest, Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. She teaches writing at venues such as American University, Johns Hopkins University, the Writer’s Center, Catapult, and the National Gallery of Art.

Photo credit: Ittmust via a Creative Commons license.

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hegemony: footnotes in future history

By Yvonne Patterson

bookended with blood, The Reaving Era births in the conflagration
of Origin Crusades, subjugates the populace and banishes science,
ending in funeral pyres of anti-pogrom riots: The Reclamation Years.

closing scenes, unlike the exuberance of symphonic finales, manifest
in discordant notes. bright allegros falter. sonorous glissades collapse
in coarse staccato. dark notation seeps into public view. audience exits.

the Great Court assumes sombre hues: meticulously carved mahogany
chairs line the High Bench in a barren row. the antique red carpet, woven
with faded battle sigils, colloquially known as the river of blood, stagnates.

only stalwart readers remain, squinting, hunched over Library manuscripts
chained to tables. the edifice, deeply veined with cracks, blackened
with ingrained dirt, brittled with fetid breath of centuries, suffocates.

fables of self-proclaimed hegemony, echoing former eminence, lie
embalmed in stained glass windows. glass shards, encrusted with grime,
colours leeched by vicissitudes of relevance, obscure daylight, mute hubris.

Yvonne Patterson is New Zealand born, living in Perth Western Australia, proving that kiwis do fly. She enjoys the freedom of poetry after a career in human services in clinical psychology and policy in mental health, disability, community and justice areas and holds an M.Psych (Clin) and MBA from UWA. Her poetry explores borders and fault lines around us as human beings living within social and political contexts. It asks questions about the ethics of how we behave towards each other and our environment. It draws from career experience and personal interests in arts, science, politics and especially social justice and equity. She has poems published in Anthologies and Journals including Not Very Quiet, Grieve Anthology, Writers Resist, Creatrix, the Australian Rationalist Journal.

Photo credit: Marco Orazi via a Creative Commons license.

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On Hearing of Russian Soldiers Booby-Trapping Dead Ukrainian Civilians with Land Mines

By Karen Kilcup

How do they do it—
lift a heavy head
and place the bomb
beneath an ear? Slide
the metal disc under
a shoulder or thigh?
Or worse: do they slice
the swollen
long-dead chest, flies
fluttering, the stink
unbearable, nearly?
Do they carve
a red-rimmed cavity
large enough to implant
the device, which mimics
a hockey puck, a nippled breast?
How could they tuck it in?
How could they close the
hole, back away,
hope for the best?

A teacher and writer for more than forty years, Karen Kilcup is the Elizabeth Rosenthal Professor of American Literature, Environmental & Sustainability Studies, and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UNC Greensboro. She feels fortunate to work with many students of color, first-generation students, and LGBTQI+ students at this Minority-Serving Institution. Their courage and imagination inspire her and give her hope. Her forthcoming book, winner of the 2021 Winter Goose Poetry Prize, is titled The Art of Restoration.

Photo credit: Chi Wai Un via a Creative Commons license.

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Duplex with Gun

By Dotty LeMieux

The gun tucked neatly in the large man’s waist
I avoid his stare, move slowly, lock the door

I move slowly out the door
Cap pistol held at the ready

The gun moves out in the large man’s hand
Children run fast across the lawn

I cross the lawn going pop pop pop
Children scream and then they drop

Children scream, I watch them drop
One by one, as the big man shoots

The children laugh, they jump up, shoot back
Harmless popping under the sun

The popping stops, the sun is gone
The gun tucked back in the large man’s waist.

Dotty LeMieux is the author of four chapbooks, Five Angels, Five Trees Press; Let Us Not Blame Foolish Women, Tombouctou Books; The Land, Smithereens Press, and most recently Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune, Finishing Line Press. A new chapbook is forthcoming from Main Street Rag, likely to appear in 2023. In the late 1970s to mid-1980s, she edited the eclectic literary and art journal Turkey Buzzard Review in the poetic haven of Bolinas, California. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies, including Writers Resist. Dotty lives with her husband and two aging dogs in Northern California, where she practices environmental law and helps elect progressive candidates to office. You may read more at her blog.

The photograph, “Halloween at Gun World, Burbank,” is by Stephen Sossaman, a writer living in Burbank, California. His primary resistance work is within the peace movement.

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just-ice

By Samy S. Swayd

don’t drink from this dripping
cracked cup, for it’s my own heart—
my beats poured into words for broken
lines, making this page perplexing
and pale.

but if you take a taste, you must sail with
a deep breath and an active mind, and paint
a spirited sign to remind you of Thoreau’s
tender daring triplet daughters—
“simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.”

unlike the daughters’ times, today’s
world is complex and keeps birthing
busy people, or people with big blind
spots, causing stable slices of life to slide
back into the deepest, darkest ends.

only sensible sailors see
the ice silencing
the just
in the name of justice.

as for the i, me, and myself—three wide eyes,
on Monday, we weep and wail

watching caskets of kids
and baskets of gun-shells
piled in schoolyards’ corners.

on Tuesday, we whistle with tears

seeing bees and birds, with
chemicals-washed wings, seeking
sustenance and safe landings.

on Wednesday, we witness or overhear

the same simulated politics—
tuning down voters’ intellects
and pruning people’s primary rights.

and then it’s all over again, like the rain,

not of America’s Alaska,
but of India’s Meghalaya.

so, what are we to do, besides being mindful?
turtle-talk our minds to articulate

the many similar unfolding trends?

circle-walk our hearts to remain humming—

despite the Court’s “daggers” and bites?

quick-axe the frightening forecasts

and the long-term side-effects?

or book a room inside our heads

and ask denial for a dance?

Samy S. Swayd is a retired adjunct faculty-researcher in religious studies, who has taught in a few Southern California universities, mostly at San Diego State University. His courses included American religious diversity, spirituality and the environment, and comparative mysticism. After a decade long career in administration, he then earned initial degrees from the University of Washington, Seattle, and a Ph.D. from UCLA. The present selection is from a book manuscript in progress on spirituality and goodness.

Photo credit: Liz West via a Creative Commons license.

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Ode to My Reflection in the Mirror (on just one day)

By Kathy Kremins

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” – C.S. Lewis

We are better than this No, we are this Always have been

Columbus mission schools Tulsa Race Massacre Charlottesville
La Operacion children in cages smallpox pipelines voter suppression

We are better than this

Michael Brown Vieques ICE Indian Removal Act fracking Jim Crow
Breonna Taylor Ponce Massacre MAGA Trail of Tears lynching

No, we are this

16th St. Baptist Church bombing Trayvon Martin Hurricane Maria
Trump California Gold Rush slavery Emmett Till Elijah McClain

Always have been

Japanese internment camps Proud Boys Wounded Knee Ku Klux Klan
Charleston church shooting Tuskegee experiment eugenics Brett Kavanaugh

We are better than this No, we have never been

Kathy Kremins (she/her) is a Newark, N.J., native of Irish-Catholic immigrant parents and a retired public school teacher and coach. Her poetry chapbook, Undressing the World, was published by Finishing Line Press (2022). Kathy’s recent work appears in Gallery Affero’s ongoing Poem Booth Project: Make Me Want to Holler, Drunk Monkeys, Digging Through the Fat, Limp Wrist Magazine, Platform Review, Paterson Literary Review, Soup Can Magazine, The Night Heron Barks, Stay Salty; Life in the Garden State Anthology, Stillwater Review, Lavender Review, and Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry & Art By Womxn and Non-Binary Folx, and other publications.

Photo credit: Cathy Baird via a Creative Commons license.

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Hollow

By William Palmer

What happened January 6
was forgettably minor,
the most popular Fox host
claimed on June 9, the first night
of the House Select Committee’s Report,

so forgettably minor
he did not allow any
commercials during his show,
decreasing the chances
viewers might stray,

or might consider the view
that what had happened was
unforgettably major

and that the host
was therefore
lying

and that when they hear him
claim January 6 was not
an insurrection but simply
vandalism, they might
question what he says
in the future

and hear the thump
of his hollow heart.

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Photo credit: John Spade via a Creative Commons license.

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