Tag: Writers Resist

Welcome to Amplified Voices, a Special Issue of Writers Resist

Since the Vietnam War, violent conflict has been made visible to even the least likely victims—on televisions, then phones, now raging across social media—and its representations are laden with passionate opinions, well-informed and not. From politicians and universities around the globe to PEN America to Oscar Awards speeches, emotionally bloody conflict about conflict reigns over solutions, while innocent civilians suffer.

Hence our enthusiasm, and a bit of trepidation, when former Writers Resist editor DW McKinney suggested this special issue. DW wrote, “I really want to help create an archive so to speak of writers who represent countries and regions that are actively being destroyed right now.” Would we be open to this, DW asked?

“Of course” was the obvious response, and so it is that we celebrate the launch of “Amplified Voices.”

We are grateful to all those who bared their trauma to the submission process; to guest editor DW McKinney; to Writers Resist editors Debbie Hall, Sara Marchant and René Marzuk; and to the brave and generous writers whose work is published herein.

Our profound thanks,
K-B Gressitt, publisher

Amplified Voices Contents

“From the Editor of Amplified Voices” by DW McKinney

“They Are All Terrorists” by Lori Yeghiayan Friedman

Two Poems by Saheed Sunday

“Caught in the Crossfire of a Madding Crowd” by J.D. Harlock

“Gauze” by Lisa Suhair Majaj

“Ofrenda for Resistance” by Jordan Alejandro Rivera

“In Pillars, the Prized City” by Maira Faisal

“Zoo” by N. de Vera

Two Poems by Lonav Ojha

“18 Jennas” by Jenna Mayzouni

“Jannah is a single strand. My father is the complementary prognosticator strand.” by Abdulrazaq Salihu

 

Map credit: International Crisis Group, Crisis Watch Map.

In Pillars, the Prized City

By Maira Faisal

“You ask: What is the meaning of ‘homeland’?

“They will say: The house, the mulberry tree, the chicken coop, the beehive, the smell of bread, and the first sky.

“You ask: Can a word of eight letters be big enough for all of these, yet too small for us?”

— from In the Presence of Absence by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish

 

V. Hajj (pilgrimage)
Stare.

Lock your eyes with mine,
my irises your kaleidoscope

to seek the fractal of Palestine,
absorb the reflection of rubble
staining a land of holy sites,

as apathy-plagued publics
state politics aren’t their forte
while forts, any flickers of shelter,
are licked by the blister of flames,

as the meek, soothed, enchanted
by time’s beguiling hands, (too
often) reject martyrs for monsters:
why run from dark, little things
when one can become a reaper?

IV. Sawm (fasting)
Gaze upon Gaza—

setting sun, a crimson cast
on a mother wiping blood off tile
delicately, lovingly, whispering it
is her Muhammad’s, her son’s last

scrubs clinging to a physician
saying postpartum equals
a hysterectomy, not recovery,
axing branches to save trees

small hearts clattering in small rib cages,
pumping—tick-tick-tick-tick-tick
till they still and stop, slumped bodies
exceeding 5,000 in forty days

children, his flesh and soul,
sealed in grocery bags as severed
limbs, sans warmth and dreams,
visit their Papa in his

carpet bomb flashes and
white phosphorus clouds and
climbing death tolls and

hospital attacks and
church bell chimes and

pets sunk in soot and

and

Israeli officials cheer,
soldiers dance,
civilians chant, “Who has no
electricity, food, water?”

because both sides are
blackened, empty-stomached,
longing for civility

but one thinks the other savages
and ravages, yes, one thirsts for water,

the other hungers for blood.

III. Zakat (charity)
The ummah is one:

“When any limb aches,
the whole body reacts
with sleeplessness and fever.”

Boycotts and banners,
we will not mind manners,

and are marching in streets

Warsaw, Ottawa, Rome,
Lahore, Dublin, Washington,
Istanbul, Doha, Eindhoven

posting for peace

#freepalestine
#savegaza
#stopapartheid

forgoing niceties

“There are NO Two Sides to Genocide”
“End the Palestinian Holocaust”
“Bombing Civilians is a War Crime.”

We, the phantom feet of Palestine,
bastions that won’t sterilize speech
nor forget grotesque portraits of grief—

the tempest-tost, we hear,
and offer aid and alms,
support and a salam.

II. Salah (prayer)
Injuries like rotten peach flesh,
cries absconding sinew,

each second expiates sins,
each breath, an act of worship.

Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha’a,
takbir, qiyyam, ruku, sujud, tashahud,

dawn, noon, midday, dusk, nightfall,
stand, recite, bow, prostrate, sit.

Death lies in the sky.
Palestine rises as it’s razed.

I. Shahada (faith)
In wisps, it sinks from welkin,
seething and seizing around
the cracks of the prized city,
lodging into stalled lungs,
a tide, a tether,

a profession of faith,
smile of iman before burial,
another seed of watermelon:
tough as rind, sweet as fruit,

red as a phoenixing dawn,
with a spring-dandelion sun
cawing wondrously,

“From the river to the sea,
Palestine will be free.”

Stare where, from the debris,
an iris grieves a poppy,

and opens like a cupped palm.

 

Maira Faisal is a Kentucky Youth Poet Laureate representative, a sophomore at Northern Kentucky University, and a writer. Her work has been recognized by multiple university journals, Hanging Loose Press, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. As a Pakistani American and Muslim, her pieces often address Islamophobia—especially as it relates to current events such as the Palestinian genocide and Kashmiri repression.

Photo credit: Marius Arnesen via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

 

Zoo

By N. de Vera

 

I fidgeted at the line for immigration after arriving at LAX. When it was my turn, I calmly answered the officer’s questions, hoping this was a routine interview that would go smoothly. However, when I saw that look on his face, I knew what I was in for—again.

“Wait here, ma’am,” the officer said. “We need to ask further questions.  Another officer will take you to a private room.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I was aware of the drill by now.

The officer asked me to hand over my passport, but it wouldn’t be long until he confiscated my phone too. I texted one word to my mother, who worried about me every time I flew back to America, and to my partner, who was waiting to pick me up at the airport.

“Zoo,” I sent to both of them.

It was our safe word. It was short enough to type and send within seconds—just enough time to alert them about my whereabouts before I lost access to my phone for hours, or however long it took me to convince the immigration officers that I was a legal resident. When my mother and my partner received my single-word message, they would know I was getting detained once again.

A new officer from Customs and Border Protection signaled me to follow him. So I did. I carried a bulky folio with paperwork that should prove my legal status in the United States of America. This new officer led me to an interrogation room and rushed through a brief list of rules, which  I was already too familiar with.

No talking.
No noise.
No devices.
No food or drinks.
No bathroom breaks, unless permitted.

The officer then left and locked the door. I sat and waited alone.

It was quiet in my room, but I could hear a child crying in the room next to mine. It wasn’t uncommon for mothers with children to get detained too, especially if they were entering America without their husbands. I could hear the faint sounds of an officer’s attempts to get the mother to “shut the baby up,” but to no avail. He yelled louder to “tame it,” as if he were competing with the child’s crying—one noise drowning out the other.

I sat in silence, flipping through my folio. I stretched and stood a couple of times, but I never walked around. I was being watched. A colleague had warned me that pacing might be misconstrued as defensiveness and guilt, so I learned to be careful and limited my movements to prevent further suspicion.

Two full hours went by until the immigration officer finally showed up again at my interrogation room.

“State your full name and date of birth for the record,” he demanded.

“Alexandra Estrella Vazquez. September 28, 1990,” I replied.

“What is your purpose for entering the United States, Ms. Vazquez?”

“I live and work here, sir.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“Los Angeles, sir.”

“What is your occupation?”

“I’m a data analyst.”

“Pretty girl like you don’t look like a data analyst to me,” the officer said. “Where’s your proof?”

I pulled out my files from my folio. My visa authorization clearly showing my legal status. My signed employment contract. My pay slips from the last three months.

The officer reviewed the documentation, but he wasn’t satisfied.

I showed printouts of sample presentations with analyses that I’ve put together and screenshots of myself conducting data analytics training sessions. These internal company artifacts were confidential, but I needed to have them in case questioning came to this point. It often did.

The officer still was not convinced.

I asked if I could regain access to my phone to show him more evidence accessible online. The officer was silent and looked at me, unblinking. I exhaled when he authorized it.

The officer leaned next to me, too close for comfort, as I trembled holding my phone, showing him my colleague’s recommendations, data analytics certifications, my email exchanges—everything I could possibly think of to convince him that I was who I said I was, no matter how personal or classified.

Finally, he uttered the three words I’d been waiting to hear for hours. “You can leave.”

I hurriedly collected and placed my paperwork back into my folio then thanked the officer. What should I have been thankful for? He had no explanations for what I did wrong. No suggestions for what I could do differently to prevent myself from going through this trauma every time I enter this country. He hadn’t earned my gratitude, but I did it anyway out of obligation.

It was the seventh time I had been detained, but I knew that I ought to feel blessed because others had it worse than I did. Some didn’t even make it past that room and were sent back home.

I stepped out of the interrogation room and rushed to find my way to the baggage claim area, hoping my luggage was still there before it’s taken off the carousel as unclaimed baggage by airport personnel.

As I took the escalator down, I was met by a large sign that read, “Welcome to the United States of America.”

The irony was not lost on me—to be dehumanized, to be caged until I, a 30-something female Colombian data analyst, was no longer perceived as a threat. Yet here was America again, sweeping this incident under the rug, welcoming me back.

I should be happy, I told myself. I should be grateful that I get to live here.

Ignoring the tears falling down my cheek, I closed my eyes and muttered under my breath, “Land of the free. Home of the brave.”

I repeated the phrase to myself over and over again until I deluded myself into believing it to be true.

Land of the free. Home of the brave.
Land of the free. Home of the brave.
Land of the free. Home of the brave.

 

N. de Vera (she / her) is a queer Asian writer based in Los Angeles. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in over twenty literary magazines and journals.

Photo credit: Molly Haggerty via a Creative Commons License.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

 

Two Poems by Lonav Ojha

To Refaat Alareer,
who became a kite

 

Brother, you looked so loving,

holding very gently

that box of

strawberries, and behind

your home, not yet,

not again,

but incessantly

in ruins.

 

You were not a number,

you were,

an educator,

a cheerful poet,

settler’s boogeyman,

 

and now that you’re dead, English is also

a language for mourning.

 

A strike occurs in a medium

it does not

simply

………

….

…

fall.

 

And your words

hang in air

heavier than any

gravity bombs.¹

 

1. American

•          •          •          •          •          •          •          •          •          •       

 

A letter to a friend explaining the student movement

 

I have been listening

to more Bollywood these

days. I have been writing Press Statements

for the Press that does not state what

must be stated. I live in despair. And I

sometimes wish I didn’t have to, but hearing

love songs, Bollywood love songs, without

having anybody to love in a Bollywood sort of way,

means I’m hoping to learn a few things

about romancing myself.

 

A newly made friend

told me

during the protests that he’s serious about

killing himself, & he was writing

a letter, and another

said she’s cutting herself after many years.

The first person, we don’t talk anymore, because I have

nothing to say.

 

They’re still alive. I am also still alive.

I am listening to Bollywood songs. I am writing

Press Statements.

I am talking to L, and he says,

the Vice-Chancellor is planning something

HUGE!!

He’s been flying back and forth to Delhi. He,

is a bastard, and I’m listening

to Bollywood songs, and I’m doing alright.

And I’m trying to love my friends, the ones I can,

the ones who can love me.

 

Long live that look

on your face, and mine. I am

listening to Bollywood

songs, and I’m imagining someone

who would have me fully.

I suffer egregiously from the main character

syndrome. I suffer from having faith

in people. Long live the crane

behind the Magis block that spent a year

building what it will never occupy.

Long live the cats in the New Academic Block

that don’t give a shit. So I am

writing Press Statements. I’ve always

danced in my room,

when nobody’s watching,

when the world is burning,

and I haven’t stopped.

 

Lonav Ojha is a 22-year-old writer from India. His work has previously appeared on ASAP Art, Agents of Ishq, LiveWire, and The Open Dosa. He was also longlisted for the 2024 TOTO Awards for Creative Writing in English. He writes regularly on his personal blog, Stories Under My Bed, where he attempts to reimagine resistance from the praxis of joy and education. Since the 2014 national elections, his country has plunged into the depths of Hindutva fascism, crushing dissent in all its varied expressions and stifling whatever remained of academic freedom in public universities.

Photo credit: Magne Hagesæter via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

 

18 Jennas

By Jenna Mayzouni

 

A social media influencer had posted that he looked up how many people were killed in Gaza who shared his name. Morbid curiosity seized me, and I searched for mine.

On November 1,[1] there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

On my birthday every year, my mother recounts the story of my birth. How I was a difficult pregnancy, how she labored for 17 hours, and how I probably should have been a Cesarean. How my name came to her in a moment of thoughtful prayer and reflection. How I was facing upward and almost killed us both. And every year, she ends it on the same note: “But everything was worth it after I saw your face.”

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

There was a Jenna in Gaza who died before she reached her first birthday. If her parents are still alive, how are they feeling? How does it feel to be that Jenna’s mother? To have protected that Jenna for months as a part of one’s body, only to send that Jenna into the world and lose her? Who will the mother tell the story of Jenna’s birth to now? The dreams of a relationship they will never have will haunt her instead.

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

الشعر الغجري المجنون
Crazy, curly Romani hair . . .

. . . a line from an Arabic poem my mother loved. My mother said that when I was a child, all my hair was straight except for wisps of curls on the back of my neck. When I was 11, I hit puberty, and the worst transformation of my life began. My hair became wild, untamable, frizzy, thick, and out of my control. When I would scream at it, my mother would laugh and say, “Crazy, curly Romani hair.” A straightener stood no chance against Chicago summers and hijab cotton, creating something of chaos for every holiday and event. It wasn’t until my 20s did I appreciate the glory of curly hair. The wisps of curls on the back of my neck became my title card. The crazy, curly hair became something to love, something that marked me and became a testament to my heritage.

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

Seven of those Jenna’s were 11 years old. Instead of worrying about their hair, about school, about their futures, they spent their last moments on this earth afraid for their lives. Who were the women those Jennas would become? Would they love their hair? Would they love their bodies? Would they struggle with the transformation and an awkward phase? Did they have mothers who put oils in their hair? Who struggled every morning to give them the perfect braid? Who whispered their love in the early hours of the dawn with every hair they straightened, with every curl they put in place? They will never be those women; their mothers will never fix their hair again. Girls in Gaza are shaving their heads, using tents as menstrual products for their first periods. Maybe it’s easier to imagine these seven Jennas focusing on their hair because it was the least of their problems.

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

When I was eight, the world felt enormous. I wanted to be an adult so quickly because I wanted to see the world. I was going to travel, fall in love, and have a family one day. The next day I was going to be a pirate queen. The day after that I was going to be an astronaut. The week after, I was going to be an actress. In between, I would practice the faces I would make for my adoring fans. Some nights, I would stay awake because I would worry about dying in my sleep, afraid I would never accomplish my goals. I wanted to be great, to be remembered, to be loved. I wanted the world to see me, and I didn’t want to die before being seen.

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

As Arabs, our middle names are our father’s names. They are meant to trace our lineage. One Jenna had my first name, and her Baba also shared my Baba’s name. She was eight. My inner world was a galaxy when I was eight years old, and I’m sure Jenna’s was too. But now that galaxy is gone. What were Jenna’s dreams? Were they big? Were they small? Was she steadfast and knew what she wanted? Was she shy and worried about what others might think? Could she even have time to dream, or from a young age did she stop?

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

I think about 8-year-old Jenna often. I imagine a world where her worst fear was not being able to see her dreams come true, not the war. Maybe there is an alternate universe where that is the case. Where all the Jennas grow up and get to be these beautiful women with their own dreams, hopes, and futures. Where they wake in the morning to the sound of birds, not drones. But in this universe, 8-year-old Jenna is gone. Eighteen Jennas are gone.

On November 1, there were 18 Jenna/Janas killed in Gaza.

This is my record to the world that they were here. Even if for a short amount of time, they were here and they lived. The world will see them, even if they died before being seen.

_________________

[1] in 2023

Jenna Mayzouni is a Palestinian Jordanian American author. She has lived in Illinois, Ohio, Jordan, and Morocco, and currently resides in California, where she works as a freelance reporter with BenitoLink. Her stories focus on the narratives of BIPOC and immigrant communities with a special interest in family dynamics. She went to Denison University and majored in International Studies with a minor in English. She has worked as a Bilingual Domestic Violence Victim’s Advocate, was an Authentic Voices 2022 Fellow with the Women’s National Book Association, and as an intern with the Ladderbird Literary Agency. She has a short story in the Women’s National Book Association Authentic Voices 2023 anthology, Between Pleasure and Pain: An Authentic Voices Anthology (Vol. 2). Her work has also been featured in the Posse Newsletter, and Women’s Republic.

Photo credit: Aurelian Săndulescu via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

 

Jannah is a single strand. My father is the complementary prognosticator strand.

By Abdulrazaq Salihu

3’                                                                                                                                                5’
Jannah has seven gates.                                             My father is dead. A dirty cutlass
My people would enter through all.                           Stabbed into his flesh. My father
Jannah is thirsty.                                                         Is dead. Gun to the head, bullet
My people are water. Jannah is shahada.                    To his skull. My father is dead
My people died in sujood. Jannah is a                        I cannot unsee the terror. A flood
Myth. My people are the fate. Jannah                         Cleanses itself with my father’s blood
Is the road, my people are the destinations.               My father is dead. Who did this to me
Jannah is a miracle by the mouth of a                        Father is gone. Gun too soon. Gone.
Wound. My people are casualties.                              The Lokoja sands open and swallow
Jannah is a gun, my people are bullets.                      My father, but he’s only gone when I
Shoot your shot or give the gun,                                Believe. My brother sees Pa in dreams
Jannah is silence. My people                                      I tell him dreams are only dreams until
Are dead. My people are gone.                                   We believe. My father is gone. Jannah
My people are pebbles                                               Is jannah because my father is gone,
The size of light. Jannah                                            Because light left us black,
Is a gift. My people unwrap. Jannah                           Because my father is a blue light
Is touch. My people: shy flowers, fold.                        Full of tenderness. My father is dead
Jannah is poison. My people are milk.                        Jannah is jannah. My father is jannah.
Jannah is black stripe against the skin                       My father is the only door: enter
Of white music. My people are songs.                        Through shahada. Through my father’s
My people are sins. Jannah is forgiveness.                 Delicate skin. Jannah is an RNA strand,
Jannah is jannah because my father died.                  My father is the complement.
Jannah needs my father………………………………………My father needs his people.

Jannah is the gap between my thumb and index.       My people are songs the size of quiet.
5’                                                                                                                                                        3’

 

Abdulrazaq Salihu, TPC I, is a Nigerian poet and member of the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation. He won the Splendours of Dawn Poetry Foundation’s poetry contest, BPKW Poetry Contest, Poetry Archive Poetry Contest, Masks Literary Magazine Poetry Award, Nigerian prize for teen authors (poetry), Hilltop Creative Writing Award, and others. He has received fellowships and residencies from IWE Writers Residency, SPRING, and elsewhere. He has work published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Unstamatic, Bracken, Poetry Quarterly, Rogue, B’K, Jupiter Review, Black Moon Magazine, Angime, Grub Street, and elsewhere. He tweets @Arazaqsalihu; Instagram, @Abdulrazaq._salihu. He’s the author of Constellations (poetry) and Hiccups (prose).

Photo credit: BBC, under “Fair Use” for commentary.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

One Nation, Indivisible

By Laura Grace Weldon

 

Our daily walk is a simple
necessary practice,
especially now
when each day’s news
spirals us into tighter circles.
Beyond birdsong and breezes we hear
jeering laughter, see teens
jumping on an elderly neighbor’s hay bales,
hooting as their weight breaks
his farm’s winter food into uselessness.
They grew up on this street.
They’ve seen the old man walk the pasture
handpicking weeds wrong for cows
before letting his 30 or so Jerseys,
Guernseys, and Holsteins out to graze.
Seen his falling down house, his rotting fenceposts,
his shoulders bent like a question mark
curving ever closer to the ground.
My husband calls to them,
his voice lost to the wind,
advances toward them, calls again.
Only when he holds up his phone,
yells “dialing the sheriff”
do they angrily leave,
first dumping cans of Coke
on a bale still standing.
All the way home my eyes water in the wind,
streaming as if scratched
by hayseed tossed in the air.
So much already crumbling into chaff.

 

Laura Grace Weldon is the author of the poetry collections Blackbird  and Tending as well as a handbook of alternative education titled Free Range Learning. She works as an editor and leads workshops on memoir, poetry, and creative thinking. Her poetry appears in Verse Daily, J Journal, One: Jacar Press, Neurology, Penman Review, Mom Egg Review, and others. She lives on a small farm in a conservative community, but has strange sculptures in her gardens and peace flags on her porch.

Photo by Art Wave on Unsplash.

The Way You Talk About Love: A Found Poem Like What Is Discovered at Autopsy After a Massive Coronary Thrombosis

by stephanie roberts

            for Shay Stewart Bouley

 

At 1:51PM, on 02 July 2017, @blackgirlinmain said, To all the white
folks who are waking up, stop blocking and ignoring your racist peeps.
Talk to them, work with them. That’s your work.

The first comment was from self described Owner/Attorney, “Learning to
do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the
fatherless; plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17.” Artesia, New
Mexico [population 72.25% white, 1.44% African American*]

That’s not my work, Owner/Attorney/Bible Quoter said, Nope, Thats
not my work any more than it’s your. They won’t listen & I’m not wasting my
breath on them.

Once termed, hang out to dry, when such quaint actions were more
common, now we say thrown under the bus, a strengthened idiom, with
its visual of mangled body inevitable result of washing one’s hands of
one’s responsibility. Pontius Pilate gleams evergreen.

What I’ll never understand about the way white people talk about love is
how it hurts so to hear it and what little energy it has to hold me free.
Love and hate are first cousins, not opposites, and thus shouldn’t marry.
White love bounces as de facto beach ball of indifference. Who doesn’t
enjoy beach ball? The Black and Latinx shuttled from school to prison
wish they could, while good people see having conversation over this
pipeline of tears as, wasting my breath.

At night, I pray love and hate hold hands and strangle indifference in his
bed. Bury the body in the graveyard of Bible Quotations. I am singing,
into a starry abyss, hoping hate outfits love with ice axe, ushering her
toward courage-free suburban ice castles, where love wreaks justice.

 

*Wikipedia

stephanie roberts is a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee and a Silver Needle Press Poem of the Week Contest winner. Her work is featured or forthcoming in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including, Verse Daily, Atlanta Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, L’Éphémère Review, and Crannóg Magazine. She was born in Central America, grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and is a longtime inhabitant of Québec, Canada. Follow her on the following: twitter: @ringtales, instagram: @ringtales, and soundcloud.

If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. – Debbie Millman

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.

 

Lazarus Force

By Jemshed Khan

 

That day over lunch, I was going to write about the Yemenites starving while the Saudis build five new palaces on the Red Sea. A poem might make a difference. But the sun was shining, 75 degrees in October, and the outdoor pool is heated, so I went for a swim instead. As I swam  laps, I felt joy and splash with each stroke: thankful for clients traveling to see me in their combustion driven vehicles and for cheap fuel that leverages each shiny day. For three laps I considered the convenience of gasoline and writerly leisure. Okay, yes, a Lockheed Martin missile incinerated another Yemeni school bus, but how could a lunchtime poem make amends for fifty dead school children or eight million starving?

Poetry of angel wings and metrical feet,
I thought you were the steed of change,
that with the right words
we would skywrite the nation’s conscience.
Now I see my words never had Lazarus force
and we are no match to the God of gasoline.

The cardiologist said my heart stopped. The apartment manager says I was pulled blue from the pool: resuscitated with CPR and defibrillator paddles across the chest. I survived the ambulance ride, heart stents, ICU, rehab. Today I put my head back in the game. Read an anthology of resistance poetry. Each work smoldered on the page until my chest burst into flame. I rose from the bed, grabbed my pen, began to write again.

 

Jemshed Khan has published about 30 poems in such magazines as Rigorous, NanoText, Unlikely Stories, and I-70Review, and he is working towards a book-length collection.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash.

Birds of America

By Ellen Stone

 

Deep in the bright red
country of the sun,
the birds of America
raucous, wild, immigrant
gather, having flocked in bands
surged over borders as snow melts.
By July, they rise early to the party
in full bloom – voices piercing
our cottony night dreams –
having taken temporary residence
in tiny wooden boxes, old barns
or the cool, damp woods – for now –
for this uncertain summer
where they can dip & soar & glide
like the purest bit of floating fluff
off the cottonwood down by the river
or the drooping milkweed in the garden.

How odd, really, that we welcome them
with open arms – so unabashedly, like tourists
in our own hometown, peering through binoculars.
Build them sturdy homes, feed them
tasty morsels through all seasons, celebrate
their foreign dress, strange plumage. Mating
habits so unlike our own. Lament a young one
fallen from the nest. We are such humanitarians
to birds. It’s sad they cannot talk to us, thank us
for our gracious hospitality. Here, in America,
all traveling birds are welcome – the more
garish, bright & tropical, the better.

 

Ellen Stone teaches at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her poems have appeared recently in Passages North, The Collagist, The Citron Review, The Museum of Americana, and Fifth Wednesday. She is the author of The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press, 2013). Ellen’s poetry has been nominated twice for a Pushcart prize and Best of the Net.

Photo by José Ignacio García Zajaczkowski on Unsplash.

The Wall

By Tim Philippart

 

what worries me is not

a great one in China.

a razed wall in Berlin,

one for holy wailing or,

the proposed between Mexico and the US but,

the barrier that dams the flow of

empathy, compassion and kindness

between you and me.

 

Tim Philippart: For three years, I have been writing pieces that are kind of frothy. I like to write about love and often end with a bit of humor. In these recent days, I think too much about a guy who said, “I will hire all the right people.” I then wonder why he ends up with hair like he has.

Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash.

Milk Duds

By Marleen S. Barr

 

Baby cages were the last straw for Professor Sondra Lear, a feminist science fiction scholar par excellence. She had tears in her eyes whenever she thought about children wrenched from their parents’ arms. Desiring to drown out her sorrows in a morning cup of coffee, she boiled water and placed a skimmed milk carton on her kitchen table. There was nothing unusual about the boiling water. Not so, the milk container. It disappeared. A person-sized breast leaned against the table in its place.

“Okay, I get it,” said Sondra to the breast. “You’re a graduate student engaged in a publicity stunt to garner interest in a Philip Roth memorial event. Great idea to dress up as the sentient breast protagonist in Roth’s ‘The Breast.’ Wonderful breast costume.”

“I am not a costume,” responded the breast.

“Enough already. You can come out of character. I will attend the memorial service.”

“I am a breast.”

“Are you making a #MeToo statement against the harassing male professors in the English department? Attending a department meeting dressed as a breast would be a good protest strategy.”

“Professor Lear, you are a feminist science fiction scholar. You must believe me when I state that I am a breast.”

“I’m open to believing you. But what are you doing in my apartment?”

“I have come to Earth to help the immigrant children Trump is imprisoning. In order to be effective, I need your cooperation.”

“Why?”

“I am a denizen of the feminist separatist planet Mammary. Mammarians patrol the galaxy in search of children whom fascists victimize. Our Maternal Council mandates that we must work in conjunction with at least one native of a planet that requires our intervention. Are you on board?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“Good. My name is Lactavia. Since I would cause a ruckus if I bounced along Manhattan streets, I would like you to drive me to the Lincoln Tunnel’s entrance.”

“Glad to help. But please understand that I need to cover you with a trench coat. I live in a conservative New York co-op apartment building. I don’t what to incur the wrath of the co-op board. Even though New Yorkers keep to themselves, you would be beyond the co-op pale.”

Sondra drove to the Lincoln Tunnel with the trench coat-shrouded breast in tow. She parked and waited after Lactavia exited. Lactavia knew that Air Force One had landed at Newark Airport and Trump and his daughter Ivanka were en route to Trump Tower. When the president’s motorcade emerged from the tunnel, Lactavia positioned herself in the middle of the roadway.

“I have to stop the car,” said Trump’s driver. “We are being blocked by a huge breast.”

“Huge? Huge is priority one in relation to breasts,” Trump said. “But huge or not, breasts do not belong in the street. This must be some sort of feminist protest stunt trap. I’m not going to be stopped by fake news publicity. Keep going!” he bellowed as he looked out the window. “Wow. Big tit. Bigger than Melania’s.”

The limo full frontally hit Lactavia and bounced back. A cascade of milk emerged from her nipple and turned the black limo white. Before the Secret Service agents could stop Trump, he bounded out of the limo and confronted Lactavia.

“I won’t be intimidated by no huge tit.”

Milk covered Trump to the extent that he appeared to be white instead of orange. He was whiter than the homogenous population of Russia.

“People know about your Russian hotel golden shower. Now meet your white shower,” said Lactavia.

“This is a witch hunt,” screamed Trump as he wiped milk from his eyes.

“On the contrary, I am engaged in a fascist monster hunt. I am a feminist extraterrestrial charged with hunting down fascists who hurt children. I am here to close down your baby jails and rescue the children who are suffering for your political benefit.”

Sondra, risking a parking ticket, left the car and walked toward Lactavia and Trump. “I am Professor Sondra Lear, a feminist science fiction expert. You are closely encountering an all-powerful alien from the planet Mammary. It’s in your best interest to do what she tells you.”

“That tit alien is a rapist,” shrieked Trump. He slid his hand inside his oversized suit jacket, drew a gun, and shot Lactavia. The bullet bounced back and fell harmlessly to the asphalt.

“Okay, ya got my attention,” said Trump, as Ivanka stepped outside the limo. “Ivanka, meet an extraterrestrial from Mammary.”

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Ivanka whimpered as milk drenched her. “The milk is ruining my outfit and getting my hair wet. I had a bad hair day yesterday. I can’t face another. Do something!”

“You’re supposed to champion mothers,” said Sondra. “Don’t you like milk?”

“I like my appearance and my brand.”

“Why aren’t you doing something to help the imprisoned children? I will echo Samantha Bee: You’re  a ‘feckless cunt,’” proclaimed Sondra.

Ivanka jumped into her father’s arms.

“This isn’t such a bad day,” he said. “I get to grope my daughter and ogle a huge tit.”

“Oh no, you are not,” Lactavia said. “I am going to remove your daughter from your custody.”

“On what grounds?”

“You are illegally crossing the border separating New Jersey from New York. You are subject to arrest. You have to turn your daughter over to me.”

“There’s no such law.”

“I just made it up. I can enforce whatever law I want. I am more powerful than you.”

“Ivanka,” said Sondra, “I suggest that you detach yourself from your father immediately, if not sooner.”

“Daddy, Daddy, help! I don’t want to go god knows where with an extraterrestrial breast. If the alien deports me to another planet, I will never see you again. What if the breasts on Mammary have a poor fashion sense and wear stretched out bras? I won’t be able to live there. Where will I be taken?”

“I don’t know what Lactavia plans for you,” Sondra said. “She might put you in a freezing cold cage and cover you with a foil blanket.”

“Foil blankets are not in style. Daddy, save me. I don’t want to be put in a cage without you.”

“I am not going to cage you,” said Lactavia. “Two fascist wrongs do not make a right. When Trump goes low, Mammarians go high. I am merely going to force you to live in the housing your husband rents to poor people. You will stay there until all the immigrant children are reunited with their parents.” As soon as Lactavia finished speaking, Ivanka disappeared.

“Where’s my daughter?” shrieked Trump.

“She’s residing in a Kushner rental property.”

“Which one?”

“I am not telling. The better for you to feel the pain you inflict upon the immigrants.”

“OK, well, I don’t care. I have another daughter. Tiffany is hot, too. I’ll just have to start paying more attention to Tiffany.”

But Ivanka was already phoning Tiffany to tell her that the Kushner rental property was tantamount to hell.

Unwilling to suffer the same fate and not at all like her half-sister, Tiffany actually proved to be effective. She saved the day by convincing Trump to reunite the immigrant children with their parents.

Lactavia released Ivanka, who kissed the ground when she crossed the threshold of her mansion, and the Mammarian and Sondra returned to the co-op.

“I never had a chance to drink my coffee. Would you like some?” asked Sondra.

“No. Coffee is not healthy for breasts. It was nice to meet you. I’ll be returning to Mammary. By the way, your milk container will always be full. You’ve got milk forever.”

Sondra raised a glass of skimmed milk to toast the real fact that Lactavia had turned Trump’s baby jails into one huge milk dud.

 

Marleen S. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction and she teaches English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction criticism. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. She has a piece in the anthology, Alternative Truths, ( B Cubed Press, 2017), and she has edited many anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. She is the author of the novels Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir.

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash.

Getting Through

By Harry Youtt

 

Life goes on. Skies turn darker gray,
Lightning has been striking the trees awhile.
We expected the storm, but this hasn’t eased the burden.
Already thunder booms around us,

as we sit down, crouched again together
to another meal, thankful for the way
the fire in the grate keeps us warm enough
through the worst of the storm, and our minds away

from those places outside and down the road,
places we can’t do a thing about right now,
but maybe tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow!
We gaze into each other’s eyes

and understand we’ve been
thinking similar thoughts
as we try not to worry the thunder louder,
or fester the danger of avalanche.

Right now, the mountain is far enough away.
The curtains are drawn to lessen the lightning’s flash.
And we’re well-aware the landslide won’t hesitate
on our account or listen for our advice.

Tomorrow we’ll go outside to what will be new sunlight.
We’ll begin sweeping debris. Then we’ll go over
to check on how the mountain fared in the storm.
We’ll figure out what to do to make things right again.

 

Harry Youtt is a long-time creative writing instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he teaches classes and workshops in memoir writing, narrative nonfiction, fiction, and occasionally, poetry. He has authored numerous poetry collections, including, most recently, Saint Finbarr Visits the Pacific, as well as Getting Through, Outbound for Elsewhere, and Elderverses. All of them are available via Amazon.com. The sentiment behind the title of his collection: Getting Through refers directly to our current ongoing predicament. He assembled the poems there as his effort to assist us to shelter in place and gather back collective wits for the conflicts that are to come. Harry coordinated the Los Angeles Poets Against the War event back in 2003, which, to him, seems like more than a hundred years ago.

Photo by Bethany Laird on Unsplash.