Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren
We sat on the porch swing in the fragrant dark
scented by roses and lilies, knowing we were
about to lose everything, but powerless to stop it.
Molly Fisk: Lapsed Unitarian in Mormon Country
Some bird
shat a mulberry seed whose skyward
reach is nine feet now at least
and equally wide, for perfect shade.
Jennifer L. Freed: Even in Unkind Times
I just saw her last summer, sat two rows behind her
on a folding chair. Stared at the knobs of spine
protruding from beneath her tied-back hair
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Like a Friend
I didn’t land. I fell and I fell and I fell.
At first as I plummeted, I feared the landing,
imagining an imminent crash. Then,
I fell through nights and middays. Fell through
kitchen floors and highways.
James Crews: After Receiving Bad News from a Friend
To offer what we can,
even when a friend lives far away,
to say: I will hold you inside myself
as you pass through this new gate.
Mattea Kramer: After Loneliness
Left for Dead in Donald Trump’s America, Communal Life Stirs
Helen Pletts: In the Presence of Things Flying Slower in a Grey Dusk (4 Poems in English and Chinese)
Rain from the Tang dynasty has re-surged,
all feelings gather in a fine mist, and lighter still is the joy of rain as a witness
to the landscape of fear fleeing like mist up the mountainside
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Late Afternoon Stroll on the Cliffs
We’re fast friends by now. Death much older of course,
but there’s no hierarchy between us: we’re both taking
a break from it all, glad to watch waves collapse on rocks
Virginia Raguin: Why Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’ endures
in 1536, Michelangelo was asked to create a painting for the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. For this 590 square feet, filled with 391 figures, he labored until 1541.
Delmore Schwartz: By Circumstances Fed
By circumstances fedWhich divide attentionAmong the living and the dead,Under the blooms of the blossoming sun,The gaze which is a tower towersDay and night, hour by hour,Critical of all and … Continue reading
Todd Friedman: The World is Filled with Learning
Yes, good and evil are on the table like salt and pepper shakers.
It’s easy to reach for the wrong one.
Jason Irwin: Two Poems
the bejeweled pimp, flashing his Come to Daddy
devil’s grin, at the midwestern girl with stars
in her eyes whose just ridden for over thirty hours,
trying to escape her life
Sydney Lea: Final Visit
He kept awkwardly laying a hand across his forehead, trying to cover his eyes. He’d done that a lot by then. Ever the iron-butt Yankee, he meant to hide his tears, though … Continue reading
Video: The God Man
‘The God Man’ is an animated film of an interview with Jonah Weisman, the man who discovered the entity “The God Man” drifting through space.
