Keith Flynn: Granularities
Each organ seems like a streetlight in a neighborhood
viewed from the mountaintop at midnight,
going out slowly one by one. “It’s all downhill from
here, Son,” he tells me, “‘til I hit the bottom.”
Linda Parsons: Two Poems
I’m not a healer, though maybe
I am—my ordinary hands laid on the scathing past
to cool its sear, my palms a bowl cupping
the last drop of day in blind descent.
Yehuda Amichai: God has Pity on Kindergarten Children
God has pity on kindergarten children. He has less pity on school children And on grownups he has no pity at all, he leaves them alone, and sometimes they must … Continue reading
Shaheen Dil: Properties of the Number Nineteen
There are nineteen angels guarding the gates of Muslim Hell—
which seems odd—who would be trying to break into Hell?
Or is it to keep the residents from getting out?
Baron Wormser: The Dark Sky | Politics and Its Discontents
It may be that the love that lives within us cannot be turned toward something as large and seemingly abstract as the earth. But the earth isn’t abstract at all. Each moment is local and real and is always a place where we might begin.
Chelsea Cleveland: Loneliness as Fermentation
Just as foods undergo significant changes, evolving into something more intricate and nuanced, we, too, experience compelling transformations in our lives.
Douglas Penick: “I am old”
As more and more of us live to advanced years, it is crucial to accept and even embrace our condition.
Doug Anderson: Charon
The boat came by my bed, Charon poling through the murk. Get in, He said, and so we drifted through a night of broken trees and burning cars.
Ippen Shonin: Sorrow
those things we have longed for most
have not been attained
Abby Zimet: May Men Learn to Replace Bitterness and Violence with Love, Love, Love, Love
Birmingham churches rang their bells four times in tribute – in a synagogue, a shofar was blown – as hundreds of people black and white filled the church for a remembrance ceremony.
Baruch November: Two Poems
I would like to trade all
these bitter flavors
for a few holy sparks,
a bit of heavy
forgetting, a long kiss
Kathleen O’Toole: Her Grip
Now, her magnificent grasp
of language diminished, her hands
express all there is to say: hold me,
stay with me. Don’t leave me alone.
Chard deNiord: To the Muse
You wakened me to a dream of waking
in which I approached you and sang
your name.
Michael T. Young: How to Survive the End of the World
these strangers random as bits of sea glass
collected and admired
