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
Ellery Akers: Four Prose Poems
Each of us is a struck bell that still reverberates. Walk down the street, and everyone who passes you is echoing inside.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Night Sky
We’re arguing about the stars again. It’s midnight when he pulls/drags me outside into the frozen dark. Look up! he says.
Adrian Rice: Among the Lavender
Honeybees spend their busy day
hovering among the lavender
with constant co-workers for company.
Brett Wilkins: Israel Kills Daughter, Infant Grandson of Slain Palestinian Poet Refaat Alareer
The daughter, infant grandson, and son-in-law of Refaat Alareer—the renowned Palestinian poet assassinated last year in an Israeli airstrike—were killed Friday in another Israel Defense Forces bombing, this one reportedly targeting a building hosting an international relief charity in Gaza City.
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
Michael T. Young: Two Poems
we never see that ball of light cradled
in their green palms
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Brief
It happens so often: there — somewhere
in a line, waiting room or store — I see you,
& it’s something about your work-wrecked
hands, cow-lick, the perfect curl of your lips
Tony Gloeggler: Blessings
The moral of these stories is that all blessings are mixed —From John Updike’s TOO FAR TO GO These days we make appointments to play slow motion basketball in Long … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: Remembering Sanora Babb
Ray Bradbury knew Babb from a longtime workshop: The author of a promising Dust Bowl novel that editor Bennet Cerf shelved in ‘39, saying— What rotten luck! claiming her work … Continue reading
Al Maginnes: Lydia Loveless’s X
And just over her heart,
a tattooed X, a set of crossed sticks, stitched
into the skin with a sewing needle and ink,
jailhouse style.
Laurence Musgrove: All
We learn all kinds of things
Whether they are taught to us or not,
And nothing is more deeply learned than
What it means to be among our own.
Rose Mary Boehm: “Apolitical Preferences” by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The cellist’s little smile
after the cadenza in the second movement,
even though the Security Council
just convened
Naomi Shihab Nye: Bees Were Better
I studied bees, who were able
to convey messages through dancing
and could find their ways
home to their hives
