Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Protest
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many.
Arlene Weiner: A Photo of Jalen, Age 12, in a Batman Costume
Say yes, sir when the officers stop you
for the fourteenth time, looking
for somebody
Michael Simms: And Jesus Wept
Our friend Christian, an African-American and one of the best men I know, told my wife that when he saw the video of the murder of George Floyd, he wept for hours.
Gaby Garcia: Heat
When the world burns, we will be like the women
of Pompeii who left their bread loaves to bake—
our laundry mid-cycle, newspapers turned
to the op-eds, windows open to catch a breeze.
Stephen Dobyns: Fly
They can hide. What’s the point of hiding?
They can run. Why bother running?
They feel defeated by the world’s terrors.
Michelle Bitting: Walls
Worst I had to deal with, well, I suppose that time my son was shut in a padded room and shit himself at the special needs school. He was 13 and having one helluva wiring crisis. I got called to come get him after he graffitied his feces across white walls.
Video: Wavy Gravy & Ace of Cups | “Basic Human Needs”
And wouldn’t it be neat if the people that you meet had shoes upon their feet
And something to eat
And wouldn’t it be fine, now if all of human kind had shelter
Judith A. Brice: Notes On A Postcard
The picture would portray a few
flowering apple trees profuse in bloom
their parchment petals set
to sail with the wind, take off
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
Sydney Lea: Spring Poem in the Season of Corona
I’ve lived enough to expect odd snow-squalls, slapped
To anger by nasty winds. I predict more hours
In which we’re sealed in rooms foursquare and flat,
Where we’ll dream of the past…
Christine Skarbek: Musings with the Nightingale
A friend in Connecticut has lost
over 40 friends and relatives to covid-19.
Overwhelmed with grief,
he can no longer speak.
Robert Wrigley: The Consciousness of Everything
That time’s lost now, when a stone could hurt,
when a feather missed its wing,
when sky kissed clouds and grass kissed dirt
and nothing thought itself just a thing.
Ellery Akers: Smoke
And so rubble, shrapnel,
a girl in a torn skirt
face down in a ditch.
Siegfried Sassoon: Grandeur of Ghosts
How can they use such names and be not humble?
I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered.
