David Hassler: Prayer Wheel
At the age of fifteen, I got a summer job mowing grass in Standing Rock Cemetery, where my mother is buried. Early each morning I rode my bike to the garage at the back of the cemetery, where our boss, Al, checked our mowers and sharpened the blades.
Emily Dickinson: Presentiment – is that long Shadow
Presentiment – is that long Shadow – on the Lawn –
Jake Johnson: Summer Lee Blasts GOP’s ‘Pro-Starvation Agenda’ as McCarthy Plots Food Aid Cuts
“Stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
Baron Wormser: Fool
After the fool leaves The Tragedy of King Lear, where
does he go?
Home to see the wife, play ringolevio with the
neighborhood kids?
Wally Swist: The Caregiver
the depth of bad
feeling is in proportion
to how good we are
Jennifer Franklin: As Antigone
I will not walk away.
The moment the nurse
pressed your splotched
body into my arms,
your needs fixed my fate.
Amanda Alexander, Deanna Van Buren: The Care(ful) Work of Abolishing Prisons
How to kick our national addiction to prisons
Richard Michelson: Angels with Guns Guarding the Gates of Heaven
My grandmother didn’t
live to see her youngest son, my father, murdered in a Brooklyn
gutter by a fifth generation, drug-addicted, unemployed house-
painter whose ancestors were dragged here like devils in chains.
Brett Wilkins: US Lawmakers Call on Biden to End US Taxpayer Support of Israeli Human Rights Violations
“Each year, the U.S. funnels billions of tax dollars to the Israeli government, funding obscene human rights violations,” said Rep. Cori Bush, who signed the letter. “We must stop funding Israeli apartheid.”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: When She Was Afraid She Wasn’t Good Enough
When fear scuttled through her thoughts
with its eight slender legs; when she recognized
the shiny black body, the bulbous abdomen
Video: “All the World’s a Stage” by William Shakespeare
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
Paul Christensen: The Future of an Illusion
He is already shriveling into an empty legend, a flimsy cartoon of ruthless malevolence.
Michael Simms: Hatred
I scythed, mowed, axed
hoed, trimmed, yanked
and eyed with vicious intent
this intruder eating my garden.
But the satanic bramble would not die.
Video: Alexis Nikole Nelson | A flavorful field guide to foraging
Whether it’s dandelions blooming in your backyard or purslane sprouting from the sidewalk, vegan forager Alexis Nikole Nelson is on a mission to show how freely growing flora could make its way to your plate.
Vox Populi 