Michael Simms: The Skateboarder
Not sport but defiance
Not lifestyle but thrust and risk
A kick, an aversion to common sense
Michael Simms: Jude the Obscure, Forgiveness
I wish Lea could see this light
lowering itself gently into the arms
of the Aphrodite sweet shrub
and tangling itself in the thorns
of Jude the Obscure named for
the many petals of our sins against others.
Vegan Kitchen: Southwest Kale Salad with Cumin-Tomato Dressing
Here’s a great tasting salad rich in antioxidants, protein and fiber. I serve this dish with a hearty bread and plant-based butter or nut spread.
Nicanor Parra: There is a happy day / Hay un día feliz
I went wandering this afternoon
The lonely streets of my village
Accompanied by the good twilight
Which is the only friend I have left.
Michael Simms: America
Beside the highway outside McKeesport PA
a state trooper has pulled over a black man
who leans against his rusty Ford
palms flat, feet apart
assuming the position
as we say in America
Michael Simms: Thinking of the Rapture at Castriota Metals and Recycling
frying pans fence posts
whole bags of rusty nails
even shoes hanging by
the metal aglets
at the tips of their laces
Vox Populi: The Most Popular Posts of 2024
Thank you so much for helping to make Vox Populi a success in 2024. Since our founding 10 years ago as a newsletter for anti-fracking activists in Western Pennsylvania, we’ve accumulated more than 5,000,000 visits. We now have over 20,000 daily subscribers, about 35% outside the United States.
Michael Simms: Jubilate
Now I shall praise our dog Josie
the bodhisattva of our household
the perfect embodiment
of devotion, always present
in spontaneous awe
Michael Simms: Strange Meadowlark
years later jazz, a free communal experience
embodying love, saved me just as poetry saved me
Michael Simms: A Cowboy in the Chapel of Bones
Where I come from
it’s bad manners to speak of death
except in dead metaphors.
Michael Simms: The Talon Trilogy is Complete!
Dear Friends,
Just want to let you know that The Blessed Isle, the third volume in The Talon Trilogy, is available for pre-order. The books can be read as stand alone novels, or as a sequence.
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.
Ernesto Cardenal: Prayer for Marilyn Monroe
Lord,
welcome this girl known throughout the world as Marilyn Monroe,
although that was not her real name
Michael Simms: Waterfall
In Chatham Woods near our house
a spring bursts
from a hillside and falls
into a rocky pool
