Naomi Shihab Nye: Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change
Every Tuesday on Morales Street
butchers crack the necks of a hundred hens.
The widow in the tilted house
spices her soup with cinnamon.
Ask her what doesn’t change.
John Feffer: Surviving a Political Dark Age
No longer being able to count on U.S. power or NATO security guarantees in the age of Trump, European Union leaders have decided to visit the gym and muscle up.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Cleaning Lady
The war had already overrun the entire country of Liberia even as we awaited our evacuation in March of 1991. Charles Taylor was making his on and off comeback to kidnap residents in the city suburbs, And missiles were still landing in our backyard soon after the ceasefire agreement.
Barbara Crooker: Stillbirth
Dear Supreme Court Injustices,
you who are so proud of overturning
Roe vs. Wade. Do you have any idea
what it’s like to lose a child, a wanted child,
one who never got to use her pink lungs,
take in this sweet air?
Patricia A. Nugent: Scenes from a Tesla Takedown
When I first heard about it, I knew I’d go. I’ve been showing up for more than fifty years, starting with the Vietnam war.
Geoffrey Levin: Democrats, Call Them Names—But Do It Right
Democrats should be using labels like “Pro-Cancer,” “Job-Killers,” “Anti-Constitution,” and “Healthcare-Cutters” to tar congressional Republicans.
Rachel Hadas: Three Poems
Wait. Something I had never thought to see
again clanks forward from obscurity-
that creaky train I’d once been riding on,
a journey slow and grim.
Baron Wormser: Dissident
Of necessity, the path of the dissident, since it depends on the exactions of conscience, is a solitary one. I think of Henry David Thoreau’s night in a jail … Continue reading
Louise Bogan: The Changed Woman
The cracked glass fuses at a touch,
The wound heals over, and is set
In the whole flesh, and is not much
Quite to remember or forget.
Eloise Goldsmith: ‘Some really sick sh*t’ | Kristi Noem tours a megaprison in El Salvador
“If hell exists, Kristi Noem is a shoo-in,” wrote one pastor.
Rebecca Gordon: Trump Rages to Snuff Out Democracy’s Candle
Allow me to stipulate that I do not wish to die. In fact, had anyone consulted me about the construction of the universe, I would have made my views on … Continue reading
Nidia Hernández: Miami Book Fair 2016 (Spanish and English versions)
a poet and a tree
are always interchangeable
Derrick Z. Jackson: EPA Staff Stand Firm As Administration Lobs Cuts, Baseless Accusations, and Cruelty
A decimated EPA means less scrutiny for another Flint water crisis, less eyeballs on Superfund sites, and limited ability to investigate toxic contamination after train derailments, such as the incident two years ago in East Palestine, Ohio.
Ma Yongbo: Father’s Little Boat (English and Chinese)
She sits beside him all night,
watching the Father’s darkness,
listening to the careful breath of the dark,
listening to the broken winds of another world.
