Flowers in Her Hair | Mónika Tóth
Flowers in her hair.
Coca Cola in her veins.
Love in her soul.
And a storm in her heart.
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The Market | Isabelle Law
The cobblestones crunch in the market
Leather hands shaking leather hands
I advance on a shrimp vendor’s table
Thousands of tiny gray crustaceans
Swimming in murky water
They cannot see
The blind Thai slave who farms them
Who sleeps in a cage
Whose skin is bubbling from the sun
I move on
I count the seeds in a strawberry
This one was picked by a man with a family
Waiting for him
Across the border
Unknowing
If the last letter reached its intended
I leave
I would rather starve
Than consume these bitter shattered hopes
Wordplay | Ananya S. Guha
Criticism is not critique
nor is it critical
or criticizing, critical
wordplay is not useless
nor is criticism. Having been
taught it I am critical of those who taught me for
not critiquing adequately,
only indulging in resonant
wordplay.
Now after learning all that
I sport a modernist pant
and a post modernist shirt.
Wordplay.
When I want to say “regards” I say instead “cheers” or “best”.
Wordplay.
Criticism is not critiquing
nor criticism. I’ll leave it
at that and go to my post post modernist bed.
The Story of Any Place | Roger Still
Any place you go
is made up of well-
intentioned people,
selfish people, all
manner of human
beings, but that is
the nature of place.
The Earth Speaks | Neil Creighton
I gave you all, said “Come, lie with me,
on me, in me, by me, through me,
gaze upon me, caress me.
I give you life and beauty too —
all I have is yours to share
but please place me gently in your care.”
But you have torn my garments,
stolen my jewels, scarred my face,
besmeared and besmirched my skin,
groped and gouged my secret parts —
your rule, cruel, your treatment, rough,
so insatiable you can never get enough.
I writhe and cry out in protest.
I heave and crack,
send mighty tempests.
I stop the rain.
I send parching heat.
I must struggle and strive
and cry for help.
I plead too, say,
“Come, repent, be my friend,
be tender, gentle, make amends,
it is not yet too late to start again.
Think for a moment of the future.
Those children left will bemoan your folly,
and, despairing about their hope and fate,
curse your abusive misrule,
and you for being a short-sighted fool.”
O can we not live together?
I give you life and beauty.
Can you then not care for me,
love me, work with me
or must I, at last, finally, regretfully,
in deepest sorrow
turn my back and put you out?
—–
When I walked beside the magnificent Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland, saw how much it had retreated, read about the speed with which this is happening, heard the glib pronouncements from politicians, I was moved by the idea of how exploitative we humans are and our need to act to protect the earth, the only home we will ever have. This poem and its abusive metaphor is the result.
Relapses | Alan Inman
I relapse into poetry,
he said, after long
bouts in between.
I spend a few days away
on a vacation of the mind
then must return
if only for a stanza or two.