Mike Vargo: Living in the Republic of Unreality
The practice of living in unreality consists of three sub-practices: Denying real reality. Bingeing on pseudo-reality. And adopting a myth.
Mary B. Moore: Ab Ovum
could say anything’s inside me, Gloria, Dad, Mom,
the old Royal typewriter, Xs, Ys, a blue ’58 Hudson . . .
but I Wiki-checked the car and learn they quit making them
in ’57 so then I wonder if I mean the Hudson River
José A. Alcántara: Two Extras
We prefer our violence subtle
managed, predictable.
Not for us the hunter and his rifle
but the factory farm, the feedlot, the killing floor.
Donna Hilbert: Three Poems
It’s the walkers I wonder about:
sad faces, our caps pulled down, moving fast,
no place special to go, so fierce to get there.
Sean Sexton: Semen Testing the Herd Bulls
We push them in trios
and quartets—bellowing down the lane
—a rider betwixt to stage them
strategically in the pens. Once
arrived, the usual upstart gets thrown
through a fence.
Judson Mitcham: Poison
But it’s too late now. We are riding in his car,
and he’s three sheets to the nuclear wind,
he’s roaring drunk on the con that he ran
to put us where we are
Davis Price, Ilima-Lei MacFarlane: Climate Resilience Is Sacred
As a tidal wave of authoritarianism crashes across the U.S., it may seem as if nothing is sacred. But in these moments of uncertainty, it is the sacred to which we must return.
Molly Fisk: Early
Small towns at daybreak are so nostalgic:
the only thing missing’s a train whistle.
Good morning, America. Mercenaries
in Portland last night teargassed a wall
of mothers. How long will we remember?
Barbara Huntington: Our Big Toes
I’d let that old woman repeat her crime if
I could see
Fred’s happy faces
one more time
Delmore Schwartz: The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep
Jessica Corbett: Trump Proposal Called a ‘Death Sentence for Plants and Animals on the Brink of Extinction’
The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis.
Arun Gupta: 10 Organizing Principles for Defeating Trumpism 2.0
Here are the organizing lessons I learned from movements for worker organizing, immigrant rights, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, climate justice, Palestine solidarity, and abortion rights. These lessons may serve us well under Trump 2.0.
José A. Alcántara: To a Friend Who Does Not Believe in God
from the first chord
on the guitar, her body stilled, her face went slack.
For two minutes, she went somewhere else,
somewhere quiet, beautiful, free of pain.
Miriam Levine: They Call It Menopause
my brain
lit up with fantasies in
which I was dominant, a top,
not on men but women.
My thrusts were cruel.
