Barbara Hamby: Ode on My Wasted Youth
Other people were getting married and buying cars,
but not me, and I wasn’t even looking for Truth,
just some kind of minor grip on the whole enchilada
Ellen Bryant Voigt | At the Movie: Virginia, 1956
When finally we got our own TV, the evening news
with its hooded figures of the Ku Klux Klan
seemed like another movie
Charles Davidson: Are We Prepared for the Knock on the Door?
Brutality has become ICE’s signature policy. Trump’s “barbed-wire” signature has dictated the ungodly means and ungodly ends of what rapidly has become the Trumpian version of the Nazi Gestapo and the Communist NKVD.
Mel Packer: We Must Lay Our Bodies Down
We must stand up against a tyrannical state power that is clearly moving toward fascism, or more and more of us will wake one day to find families and friends gone.
Michael Simms: Last Testaments
at dawn you’ll arrive
having thrown your luggage in the River Styx
and we’ll drink from the silver cup of day
Matthew J. Parker: AI is Stupidity’s BFF
My real life encounters with AI, however, mostly on plagiarized student papers, have proven that when it comes to inventive and even fantastical falsehoods, today’s AI not only surpasses our current president, but is in fact unwittingly in league with him.
Audio: Adrienne Rich introduces and reads “What Kind of Times Are These”
the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows
John Guzlowski: Fear
You could hear the fear in my mom’s voice. She feared everything, the sky in the morning, a drink of water, a sparrow singing in a dream, me whistling some stupid little Mickey Mouse Club tune I picked up on TV.
Barbara Crooker: Praise Songs for Autumn
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Brett Wilkins: Trump Murder Spree Continues as Hegseth Says 14 Killed in 3 New Boat Bombings
US forces have conducted over a dozen strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 57 people, according to Trump administration figures.
Abby Zimet: Pity the Nation/ Whose Shepherds Mislead Them
Amidst plunging polls and righteous rage at his Epstein Memorial Ballroom, the inept manchild faces growing resistance, sublime to ridiculous, to his nascent kingship.
David Kirby: Leg Day at the Gym
Life isn’t always hard, but it’s almost never easy.
Steve Nolan: Destroying America, The Brand
A malignant narcissist has come to power.
