Chana Bloch: A Marriage
Theirs was the one with the noisy bedsprings.
How does a child solve a riddle like that?
Scritchity-screech
—are they fighting again?
Christine Rhein: The Art of the Deal
Three men sit playing a game, clutching
the cards they hold, the need they feel
to cheat. The biggest man—Elon Musk—
sports a dark, draping cloak, appears proud
of his deep, hidden pockets.
Video: The Arbiter
Two teams of men compete in a game of their own invention. When the game begins to go awry, an arbiter steps in to help them solve their dispute.
Video: A Kind Favor
On the magical coast of Central California, a grandmother reflects on a life filled with art, love, and tragedy.
Robinson Jeffers: The Place for No Story
A herd of cows and the bull
Far distant, hardly apparent up the dark slope;
And the gray air haunted with hawks
Video: A City Fights Back | How LA Defends Itself From ICE
Under Donald Trump’s administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has stepped up arrests and detention of immigrants around the United States. This is how Unión del Barrio is fighting back in Los … Continue reading
Jose Padua: The Summer of Rock and Other Fragile Ecstasies
But it was also another summer of war,
the way just about every summer is a summer of war.
Tom Engelhardt: A Potentially World-Ending President
A Coming Hell on Earth?
Luray Gross: Catching Sight
Take my hand. Let us walk together, even with war raging,
with the sea rising, with the oriole’s winter home
yielding to chainsaw and bulldozer.
With so many songs being left unsung,
let us sing.
Abby Zimet: The Smell of Fascism | What the Absolute Flying Fuck
“Trump is threatening to go to war with an American city,” notes Gov. Pritzer “This is not normal.”
Kristofer Collins: Trying to Read Levis at Drag Brunch 9.28.24
Yes, here is the late style of fire. Here is the burning
and the beauty of the thing engulfed.
Later I will not lack for poetry and my wife and I
will scorch the sheets.
Bradley Blankenship: I’ve Seen States Collapse; Now I See It Happening Here
After years reporting from post-authoritarian states, I now see the same patterns in my own backyard—where justice has collapsed, truth is suppressed, and power no longer answers to the people.
Molly Fisk: Suffer No Fools
I woke in the dark
and watched light rise up
behind the trees, pale gray
to a backlit lemon yellow
turning gold and unlikely
blue, the colors blossoming
Hend Salama Abu Helow: Olive Trees Tie Palestinians to Our Homeland. Israel Treats Them as a Threat
They feared the olive trees — the trees that know, more than anyone, who the true owners of this land are.
