Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Noʻu RevillaWe drink this and share the same taste with you.
We mixed the kava in the parking lot, face-to-face with you.
What becomes of children who drink war instead of water?
The rubble, a chronic obituary. I will never waste a name with you.
By Miller ObermanPreposition, before location. An indeclinable
word or particle. Indeclinable. That which
cannot be turned aside or shunned. Inevitable,
un-deviating. I practice a kind
of time travel. Bringing beside me
ancestors I never knew existed before,
beneath, under, towards. This travel
unimpacted by time, space or death.
By S. J. GhausNearby a spring lamb wobbles
like a song on its first feet, while
somewhere in the same field a lamb dies
in its mother’s womb. This season is all
one choir, the geese on the roof, the ticks
in the grass, the shadowy black
of sunflower seeds oversleeping
in my pocket.
By Jaden FieldsIt is the steadiest “I love you”
Until the moon loses their footing in the sky
Which is to say - never
Or
I love you beyond time
Or
I love me beyond time
By Subhaga Crystal BaconThis is the anti-garden. It tends itself.
Its shine of blooms a blanket of sun.
It has its own water in hidden springs
bathing aspen, burdock and sage.
By féi hernandezSimultaneously I am
alone and crowded, this…
the pulsing wound of being extinct,
whole
enough for a morning forage,
yet scant for the onlookers
of lineage,
of nation,
myths in the mulberry tree.
By Mandy ShunnarahWe might have told them, if they’d asked,
the poppies wouldn’t make it to their melancholy
island, no matter how swift their sails snapped
across the sea. Then again, we love our land more
than they love theirs; we long to return, not flee.
That’s why you don’t see us boarding clippers
to claim to ground not ours. With our bountiful
fertile crescent, who needs more plenty?
By Aiya SakrOn the day of the first flour massacre,
nothing I have ever said has been untrue.
Fourteen thousand and three hundred white
PVC flags flutter in the early spring morning.
By the time I cross the lawn, the IDF have killed
another child, and another flag springs up
Like a poppy.
This simile is too easy.
By Janine Mogannam“I’m
pretty awful, all things considered. A few weeks ago
I couldn’t eat anything and now I’m constantly starving.
I know that’s a terrible thing to say.
I think my house plants might be dying but I’m not really sure?
They’re sad and limp-necked. I guess that’s a metaphor.
By Kyle Carrero LopezIn 1994, U.S. Senator Bob Torricelli (D-New Jersey) introduced the Cuban Democracy Act, designed to “wreak havoc on that island.”
I’ll wreak havoc on that island I’ll ravage
that island I’ll plunder
that island see torn asunder that island