David Kirby: Two Poems
Let us be like my friend Rick’s grandma,
who Rick remembers trotting alongside the car as his dad
drove him and his brother down the long driveway from
her house, tapping on a window until one of the boys
rolled it down so she could ask, “Did you get enough pie?
Dawn Potter: Why, as the evening steps forward,
as the late noise of traffic, of shrill birdsong,
dies away, do I always recall
those brief summers, when the old folks
reclined in the grass on the hill
Donna Spruijt-Metz: Person
I wouldn’t call you back—not
to a body that would be unable
to walk the mountains freely. Even though I miss you—
even though the hole you left in me is vast—please—
trust me.
Video: Goodnight, Moon
Stephen Gailule wants closure. After hijacking his father’s ashes, he makes a suburban pilgrimage, trespassing onto the grounds of his childhood home. Things change when the new tenant takes a … Continue reading
Langston Hughes: Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Ron Koertge: An Old Farmer
still has a few cows and goats he helped into this world, then fed with a bottle. They follow him everywhere, eyes rolled up in adoration.
Barbara Crooker: Economics 101
What if the GDP was really made up of birdsong,
the limitless arithmetic of joy?
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The One Great Story
we might find we are held
by strands of birdsong, by the even beat
of eagle’s wings, by the blue moonlight
that reflects off the snow.
Miriam Levine: Ego Is Not Your Amigo: Cop to It, Mim
You love the language of Twelve Step meetings—
don’t drink even if your ass falls off,
shitty committee, issues in the tissues,
attitude of gratitude, stinkin thinkin, dry drunk
Robert Okaji: Four Poems
The nine lesions
in my brain have not yet diminished language
receptors. Nor my imagination. But
how will I know when it happens?
Sister Lou Ella Hickman: Two Poems
earth will have her own way with hunger
green springing up devouring light
roots singing down into darkness
Baron Wormser: Thought Nothing
The Separatists, as the religious settlers of New England were denominated, saw themselves as people similar to the Israelites in the Bible, people who were in a covenant with the Lord and who faced an enemy who stood in the way of occupying destined land.
Mary Jane White: Rain, In Riverview Cemetery, Martins Ferry, Ohio
The rain
Already hangs a grey shawl in front of the blue domes of the Ohio
Greek Orthodox church, standing cheek by jowl by an industrial dairy.
Nasser Rabah: We Are Not Iron
We are not iron, O God, so that we can be melted down every year. We are not copper or lead that they fire among the armies and leave behind after the end of the war as mere ammunition and ashes.
