Sophie Cabot Black: As to Why We Will Not Stop (Making the Hats)
We have come to know the truth
As no longer true— the old ways do not work
Against the new.
Mosab Abu Toha: Shrapnel Looking for Laughter
Shrapnel flies in the dark,
looks for the family’s peals of
laughter hiding behind piles of disfigured
walls and bleeding picture frames.
Alfred Corn: Instagram posts of Dr. Ali Tahrawi (second gathering)
We are dying in the longest nightmare in the history of humanity, with the most disgusting and immoral generation in human existence, witnessing the most human abusing and destructive period.
Arlene Weiner: Ghazal
When parting or meeting we wish each other peace.
We show with every greeting that we are lovers of peace.
Abriel Louise Young: Calling on Friends Across the Veil to Help Us Change History
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? Have you succeeded in changing yourself to wine? If so, please report back.
Robert Okaji: Dream Score
I empty my mother’s ashtray of its treasures—
various picks, the broken watch, a mandolin bridge,
that lock of my wife’s hair—then peer through the amber
glass at a distorted day. What looks back at me?
David Kirby: Whatever Happened to Bobby Dunbar?
26 people
were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre,
among them a first grader whose father was later
confronted by a man who said it was all a hoax
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Acceptance
Today grief is a long steady rain
Chard deNiord: I Call Out to You
Any moving object must reach halfway on a course before it reaches the end; and because there are an infinite number of halfway points, a moving object never reaches the … Continue reading
Barbara Hamby: 17 Dollars
That’s how much the man who owned DuBey’s gave me
for my books that time you insisted
they were taking up space and we needed the money.
Michael Simms: Banned!
Vox Populi is not alone in experiencing censorship from Facebook which has often been accused of blocking messages critical of Israel and supportive of Palestine.
Kathryn Levy: Three Poems
The geese are calling—this is
time to depart. They gather and sink and
soar toward somewhere.
Betsy Sholl: Helium
Oh, sweet dream,
stay with lovers afloat and doe-eyed donkeys,
don’t let the wind shift to newsclips of burnt
steeples, smoldering hospitals and schools.
Robert Creeley: The Rain
What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often?
