John Guzlowski: Four Poems
My mother never thought she’d survive
that first winter in the slave labor camps.
Michael Simms: Against Prayer
Okay,
God of crib death
and dirty needles,
of heroin and fentanyl,
God of twisted steel
burning beside the road
Sydney Lea: What Shines?
Astonishing, this never-ending effort
to have had a happy childhood. Why does it matter
now, why will yourself into all that forgetting?
She may have been a good mother– at least she tried.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat on the floor.
Matthew J. Parker: One of Those Years
They had found a body in Phoenix, she said, and the cops were convinced it was John. But the body had no tattoos, and my mom had convinced herself that John, like my younger brother Mark and I, had at least one tattoo. I, however, knew better, and told her so.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Tonight, When I Turn Right on Ogden
By the time I turn onto the highway toward home
it is fifteen years ago
and my father is sitting in his favorite chair
Video: A Broken House
The Syrian architect Mohamad Hafez received a one-way ticket to the United States. Missing his homeland, he decided to create a stand-in, sculpting life-like miniatures of the Damascus cityscape he had left behind.
Michael Simms: Zed
rock the baby in our arms
so mom can sleep in the next room,
hours sliding by like gentle ghosts
David Hassler: Vocata George
My clamped jaw, in its extreme symptoms, is like a fire door, a castle gate that has slammed shut.
Mary Jane White: When Was I Ever So Happy
No, I agreed with you, soberly,
It would not be good if I fell. To wind up
In the hospital in Venice, when, yes,
I had just escaped the hospital at home.
Video: John O’Donohue | Beanacht
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
Claude McKay: December, 1919
‘Tis ten years since you died, mother,
Just ten dark years of pain,
And oh, I only wish that I
Could weep just once again.
Video: Faraway
The film follows the passing of seasons in the life of Omar Al Shakra, a young Arab man living in Montreal, after he’s cast aside by his family’s older generation following a difficult conversation about his homosexuality.
James Crews: I Keep the Window Open
Life’s too fragile
to waste on money or importance,
handing over the hours that will never
be returned to us.
