Patricia Spears Jones: The Devil’s Wife looks at America to understand the necessity of wordsmiths
Yes, the Devil is making quite a mess of America,
and here I am swabbing yet another wound and offering up unanswered prayers.
Our names are on fire.
Meg Pokrass: Three Poems
When I said, I miss America
I meant that what is nestled in my brain feels like a harbor.
Walt Whitman: I Hear America Singing
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown…
Steve Nolan: Destroying America, The Brand
A malignant narcissist has come to power.
Robert Cording: An Unasked for Inauguration Prayer, 2025
Lord of the light that reveals
how we have failed and failed again
the one requirement asked of us—
to love one another.
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
Laurence Musgrove: America Windows
A dreamer awakens, holds up
her pen like Liberty, writes
in moonlight page after page,
sails on a ship, bird in a tree,
songs to a yellow sun shining.
Dawn Potter: To the Republic
Those last moments, before the sun drops behind the hills,
you linger, not yet yourself—no darkness, no stars—
still waiting, waiting for the curtain to sigh shut
Michael Simms: America
Beside the highway outside McKeesport PA
a state trooper has pulled over a black man
who leans against his rusty Ford
palms flat, feet apart
assuming the position
as we say in America
Barbara Crooker: The Vultures
Will we
recognize the bones of our constitution after they’ve been
picked clean, or will we be too baffled to recognize their white
gleaming?
Jane McCafferty: In the Winter of 2025
Who is making time for you/ who knows/ time is clay/can be shaped/ into bowls/ placed on wooden tables/ under sky/ that is impossible/ to love/
Barbara Crooker: Gravy
Hand the wooden baton
to one of your daughters; it’s time for her
to start learning this music, the bubble and
seethe as it plays the score.
Jeffrey Harrison: Stalinesque
We don’t recognize our own country,
and our words don’t carry more than ten feet,
but the snippets that can still be made out
are all about the Emperor Felonius.
Sophie Cabot Black: Democracy Until
And to set fire before heading on
Is also to say it does not matter
Which part is played
But that it gets played.
