Jennifer Franklin: As Antigone
I will not walk away.
The moment the nurse
pressed your splotched
body into my arms,
your needs fixed my fate.
Wally Swist: The Caregiver
the depth of bad
feeling is in proportion
to how good we are
Richard Michelson: Angels with Guns Guarding the Gates of Heaven
My grandmother didn’t
live to see her youngest son, my father, murdered in a Brooklyn
gutter by a fifth generation, drug-addicted, unemployed house-
painter whose ancestors were dragged here like devils in chains.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: When She Was Afraid She Wasn’t Good Enough
When fear scuttled through her thoughts
with its eight slender legs; when she recognized
the shiny black body, the bulbous abdomen
Video: “All the World’s a Stage” by William Shakespeare
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
Michael Simms: Hatred
I scythed, mowed, axed
hoed, trimmed, yanked
and eyed with vicious intent
this intruder eating my garden.
But the satanic bramble would not die.
Video: Suheir Hammad | Poems of war, peace, women, power
Poet Suheir Hammad performs two spine-tingling spoken-word pieces: Wait for the astonishing line: “Do not fear what has blown up. If you must, fear the unexploded.”
James Crews: I Keep the Window Open
Life’s too fragile
to waste on money or importance,
handing over the hours that will never
be returned to us.
Kurt Brown: Fisherman
He’s only felt the shadow
of something enormous darken his life. Or has he?
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Tonight’s Dinner Companions
you, old poet, gone, whose lines I often
say aloud against the ocean’s constant shush
David Kirby: More Than This
you three must be thirsty,
come in and get a drink, and the cowboy says okay,
but what is this place, and the guy says it’s heaven
Carol Moldaw: Game Face
To see the ravages of aging on one’s face used to be inevitable.
Now it means one’s taken a stance.
Gail Langstroth: Easter Sunday
then The Sun This Morning : one round, middle C
