Paul Christensen: Nutshells
The inside of a nutshell is chambered like the heart, with little ridges and flanges where the nut grew and prepared itself for falling into the waiting earth. That’s what I smell when I hold up a nutshell to my nose. It is the odor of anticipation, the willingness to be sacrificed to the sharp teeth of an animal worrying the shell until it breaks.
Abby Zimet: The Cruelty is the Point
Sweet mother of God. Racist and cruel doesn’t begin to cover the ongoing atrocities now daily committed – coincidentally, virtually entirely against brown and black people – by the sick demons running our country.
James Wright: A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
Julia Conley: A Solution for All Generations
With her plan for Social Security expansion, Elizabeth Warren demands that the rich pay their fair share to lift 5 million out of poverty: “No one who spends 30 years working and contributing to Social Security should retire in poverty.”
Kathleen O’Toole: Half Italian
The brain’s hard-wired with the impulse to feed
when given the chance, and it’s why I always double
the garlic in any recipe.
Paul Christensen: Summer’s End
Summer is like old gold, dark with age. You feel its strength become mellow and pliable in the soft breezes. There is wisdom in the heat that still simmers along the edges of noon, as if it were trying to tell us that illness or aging are as natural as drawing breath.
Chuck Taylor: Cutting
At first, I had no idea why the dogs were in the cages. I heard stories that the dogs were picked up running loose at night through many neighborhoods and delivered in old trucks to the hospital at night. I could tell that many of these dogs had been pets.
Karen Friedland: Ahimsa
You could say
it was a vegetarian’s revenge
Sarah Chavez: The Story of Death Is the Story of Women
It is clear that our society’s current denial of death is not working. What would our culture look like if we instead met the most mysterious, painful, and transformational aspect of our lives with compassion and clarity?
Elizabeth Romero: Being Poor
It can be waiting
And telling your children to wait
Wait their whole childhoods away.
It’s knowing they blame you.
John Samuel Tieman: What is wrong with Donald Trump?
“The malignant narcissist is presented as pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism.”
Elena Karina Byrne: Reality may still be unacceptable Gerhard Richter
A Repeating Dream I’m Belly-Down at Eleven
beneath barbwire like bedsprings during night-climbs
Abby Zimet: Good Job, Little Man
Before plunging into the grim cauldron that is this week’s news about the ravaging of democracy, decency and our precious, fragile, singular planet, here’s a picture of a small good thing.
Louie Skipper: The Night Nurse
Why are Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali still not speaking after passing through the Crab Nebula together? . Was it necessary for Shakespeare to become anonymous before being made immortal? … Continue reading
