Deborah DeNicola: Millennium Jubilee
We were called to attend the fake alien invasion. The subpoena arrived in a blue vellum envelope with a stamp of clouds and empty sky and a watermark hologram of a dove. They gave the date and time but Jim noticed the venue was missing.
Jack Gilbert: A Brief for the Defense
We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
Andrea Mazzarino: How MAGA Uses Violence to Consolidate Power
Cruelty is the point.
Joseph Bathanti: Cletis Pratt
First man I ever saw in irons,
wearing nothing but a pair of scurvy white
long john britches, was Cletis Pratt
Matthew J. Parker: How Courage, Kindness, and Creative Iconoclasm Can Counter the Tramp of Fascist Feet
I’m alarmed by this new wave of attacks on our institutions.
Betsy Sholl: Haibun | Tarantula
Our creature, named Slash, also bulked up. He had a taste for crickets we fed each week…
Ghada Abu Muaileq: In Gaza, Even the Cost of a Grave Has Become a Luxury
We tear up chairs for firewood. Soap is watered down to make it last. Basic necessities are increasingly out of reach.
Moudi Sbeity: Something Rather Than Nothing
What can be more holy than this?
The ground beneath our feet,
the stories we carry from one day to the next,
the fluency of rivers as a reminder of something
rather than nothing.
Baron Wormser: Distressed
Since grade school when I was hunched under my desk during an air-raid drill, I have been distressed by the specter of the atomic bomb.
Eleanor Lerman: Monday, Tuesday
Aqueous lunar days when the sky was plowed
with stars, days of desire in the dance clubs,
days of luster, days of pearl—when was the last time
you remember our days of paradise? The days
before the demon days of pretty things ran out?
Julia Margaret Cameron: Photograph of Julia Jackson (1867)
This poetic image depicts the woman who was the model for the beautiful Mrs. Ramsay in “To the Lighthouse”, Virginia Woolf’s great novel of 1927.
Wallace Stevens: Sunday Morning
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Three Pantoums for My Sister
Enough already! My sister says..
I can’t bear to watch you anymore.
I know she’s right. But I can’t stop.
I mean where would I put my sorrow?
Video: Side Hustle
Interweaving fiction with documentary testimony of sugar babies and sex workers, Side Hustle follows a young dancer making rent with the financial support of her sugar daddy.
