Uttara: Fire
As dawn was breaking,
wisdom rose in the east—
and set fire to the long dark night.
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: The Toddler
Almost anything will break
The toddler’s heart: His mommy’s keys
Singing from the bowl of loose ends
And change on her way out the door
For work.
Nancy Krygowski: “Here’s a Partial List of Mass Shootings in the United States So Far This Year”
Here’s the full list of the people the murdered have kissed.
Here’s a pair of slippers made of birds’ beaks, ear plugs made of screams.
Tony Gloeggler: Working Class Heroes
My father opened the trunk,
tossed me my glove with a worn
hardball tucked in its pocket, eased
into a catcher’s crouch as I paced
60 feet away.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Erecting Stones
Here, in Congo Town, I’m picking up debris
from twenty years ago. Some remnants of bombs
and missile splinters, old pieces of shells from
the unknown past.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Prayers
I had not imagined drowning
was the way to reach the shore.
Video: Kae Tempest performs More Pressure | Grace
I used to think
Things were so clear
I was so near to nowhere
Fred Everett Maus: Listening to Bach, Three Days after a Shooting
It’s quiet in the room where I am writing.
Bright afternoon sun flows in, oblique,
glorious light in these days of mourning,
perfection pouring down on a shattered world.
Christina Rossetti: A Dirge
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
Barbara Crooker: Poem For My Birthday
Send me a heart of gratitude for this long afternoon
of goldenrod light falling across my typewriter
and a sky so blue I want to bite it like an apple.
Gerard Robledo: Off Brand Man
No woman
can resist a man who cooks for them,
my brother said. It’s your only hope to find love
Denise Duhamel: Ego
I just didn’t get it— even with the teacher holding an orange (the earth) in one hand and a lemon (the moon) in the other, her favorite student (the sun) … Continue reading
Lasse Söderberg: The dead children in the Tajo River
They have left the city
and their blind games
under the white bone of the sun
John Crowe Ransom: Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond
The lazy geese
Vox Populi 