Barbara Crooker: Pentimento
In the lost rooms of my childhood,
cinnamon and nutmeg float in the air
David Kirby: My Sunday
My Sunday is doing great
it’s driving along at 35 mph with its sleeves rolled up
and one arm out the window
dog with its head out the window barking at nothing
Fred Johnston: With My Father on Broadway in the Rain
I wanted to be back in our hotel room
Looking out the single window from that height
Knowing I could not fall, that if all gave way I could always fly
Pascale Petit: Roebuck
Tell me there is a meadow, afterwards,
that the roebuck will come
to the top of my garden
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Grand Quilt
I don’t believe we can stitch together
only scraps of beauty, squares of light.
John Edward Simms: The Friendship Sweater and Radical Neutrality
A Response to the Editor’s “A Note to Our Readers Concerning Vox Populi’s Coverage of the War on Gaza”
James Crews: Finding my Mother
The day you passed away, I stumbled
along icy sidewalks, searching for any
sign of you
Michael Simms: Leaving Walden
Is it true the distance between atoms
is proportionate to the distance between stars
and the world we know is mostly empty space?
Yongbo Ma: Midway Stop
It was an autumn long ago
I was still young then, still in love with something
Donna Hilbert: Two Poems
You are the rosemary I add to the soup:
how you pressed pungent bristles
between thumb and finger
James Crews: Choosing the Light
Relentless
as the urge that also blooms in us—
to find the things that bring us alive,
and open ourselves fully to them, never
giving up
Michael Simms: A note to our readers concerning Vox Populi’s coverage of the war on Gaza
I’ve received a number of complaints that Vox Populi’s coverage of the current conflict in Gaza is one-sided, and I have to admit it is true.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Killing Sadness
the emcee said at the start
of the evening, “Here we are killing
sadness,” and the music did take the sting
out of the night
Howard Zinn: Thoughts on Civil Disobedience
They’ll say we’re disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war.
