Jose Padua: Driving Out of Town on the Day Before What Would Have Been My Mother’s 93rd Birthday
she would have loved the blue and yellow tones of this early evening
Pennsylvania sky as busy as a symphony over the landscape of this small town
so far from Asia
Abby Zimet: Optuse Sexual Predator Approved
In honor of his speech at the UN, wherein he raved, bloviated and browbeat world leaders, patriots have erected a new statue in D.C. of Trump and his “closest friend” Jeffrey Epstein
John Ashbery: A Worldly Country
For night, as usual, knew what it was doing,
providing sleep to offset the great ungluing
that tomorrow again would surely bring.
Michelle Zacarias: In Southern California, Small Groups of Activists Quietly Undermine ICE Operations
Organizers confront ICE wherever they can be found, from the hotels where agents sleep to the streets they patrol.
Ted Kooser: Abandoned Farmhouse
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
Thom Hartmann: Will US Democracy Survive? This Is a Threshold Moment
The moment is urgent. If we don’t speak up and rise up now, we may not get another chance.
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Hardware Stores
Where have all the hardware stores gone—dusty, sixty-watt
warrens with wood floors, cracked linoleum,
poured concrete painted blood red?
Video: Let There Be Light (John Huston’s 1946 documentary about PTSD)
The film was intended to educate the public about post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment among returning veterans, but its unscripted presentation of mental disability caused the U.S. government to suppress the film.
Baruch November: Victor “Young” Perez
The Jewish flyweight from Tunisia—
who modeled himself after the Battling Siki,
a boxer from Senegal—
should have died early in the ring,
Michael Simms: Two Poems Inspired by Sean Sexton
Some people should be allowed to live forever
on the basis of our world’s great need. — Sean Sexton
Lisa M. Hase-Jackson: Post Solstice Academics
my ancestors are
druid tree-dwellers, forest dancers
intimate with boreal communities
and life’s brief promise—
Kenneth A. Carlson: Does Character Still Matter in the Age of Trump?
Democracies with high levels of corruption and low trust in leaders’ integrity are significantly more prone to backsliding toward authoritarianism.
Sharon Zhang: After Bombing 6 Countries This Year, Netanyahu Pins Israeli Isolation on Muslims
“We’ll need to develop our weapons industry — we’re going to be Athens and super Sparta combined,” Netanyahu said.
Tony Hoagland: Sweet Ruin
Maybe that is what he was after,
my father, when he arranged, ten years ago,
to be discovered in a mobile home
with a woman named Roxanne, an attractive,
recently divorced masseuse.
