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Spring 2026
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Poetry Samples from the Latest Issue
Alexis Driving to the Airport
The freeway is hardly a free way.
Bumper to bumper and barely moving.
Low on gas and may be late for work.
Can this be real?
I need to get through,
is there a way?
Now traffic not moving at all.
There are cars with parents and kids.
People looking frustrated.
Wait till they get to the airport, then they will know frustration
and they will be pissy to me.
Why did I ever join TSA?
'Cause I need to support my kids, health insurance, something for me.
When I dropped my kids off at Mom's, she said, "You look good
in that uniform." What does she know about it?
I spend days looking inside traveler's luggage. All these nice
things for trips to Mexico, Bali, Italy, Thailand, Costa Rica. Places
I'll never see. Or to fly to Peru and pay some Indian and smoke
some ayahuasca, or whatever it is (do they smoke it?).
They could just stay here and smoke weed. I could guide them
through that.
There is a mini van next to me now. Mom, Dad, three kids. I can
see they are getting frustrated. Oh dear, maybe they won't get
to fly down to Orlando and spend more money than I make
in a . . .
Oh wait, I don't make any money. We are not getting paid.
This car. I couldn't fill up or even half up on $4 gas I thought I
would have enough to get to work, but if I sit here much longer,
I will be on empty. The little gas pump icon on the dash is on.
Oh, now people are honking, that will do lots of good. Make
them feel better? No, worse.
We just sit here. Good thing it's not July.
I read a story once about someone being stuck in traffic in what
seemed like forever and finding out that he had died
and was actually in Hell.
I need to just shut this car off.
More honking.
Fuck it. Even if I do get to the airport, then what?
Just get out and walk. Not to the airport, but back to the city.
Questions yelled from unmoving cars:
"Hey, what's going on?'
"The airport is closed, shut down." I lie."
"What" There is a plane taking off right now!"
"No. There is a government shutdown. Everything is shut down.
Only private jets."
"No. that's not a private jet. That is a commercial jet."
"Everything is shut down. Disney World is shut down, Cancun
is shut down, Vegas is shut down. Just turn around and go
home. That's where I am going. I am going home."
I walk through a field.
Grasshoppers spring up
Burt Raabe
Their Eyes Have Turned the Color of Frozen Meat
It is eight in the morning and there is a need to be somewhere,
Be doing something, doing anything. But there is no
imperative reason to be anywhere, do anything. There is only
waiting, for anything.
The morning yawns toward nine as the day drabs into mid-
morning while those alone sit looking at the empty face of a
clock where each second chimes like a crier announcing a
new disappointment.
He mused as he entered the unemployment employment building
It would be funny of you hung a sign over the door that read
"Abandon hope all who enter here."
Once inside he thinks that if this place had a theme song
It would Barber's "Adagio of Strings"
It's packed and has been for months.
The harried woman with the screaming infant,
The laborer uncomfortably enclosed in a suit,
The Spanish speakers eyed suspiciously by the former farmer,
The man in the CBGBs t-shirt who should be in a tie,
The shift supervisor charged with sexual harassment,
The uninsured lady with the limp,
The attorney looking lost,
The old man asking about computer classes,
The college student contemplating stripping,
The guy from the company that closed taking his retirement away,
The Indian with the insulting smile,
The guy with the ill-fitting tattoo cussing,
The pale girl in too-thin pants not caring,
The mother standing with the mortgage on her mind,
The fellow fixing a collar,
The frustrated marketing guru who can't get a lead --
Their eyes have turned the color of frozen meat.
Marc Jannsen
Poem from the Second Book of Job LXIII
Not all of the Jobs have little to lose.
Some of their lives may tell us a story
of the poor, and they have little to lose.
And losing little, they lose every
thing, because losing a little for them
Is losing everything. Sing your Hymn.
Sing your favorite Hymn, You can't save them.
No Hymn will pay their bills. It won't pay them.
He'll visit the unemployment office.
She'll stay home and ward off the advances
She'll visit the unemployment office.
He will go out in search of advances.
Until all that they can give has been spent.
And they have not read the Old Testament.
in peace with our bots.
.
J.T. Whitehead
The History of the Working Class in Lawrence, Mass
I. The Parade of God and Country
We marched opposing godless communists
in 1962, knowing nothing
Of our grandparents, our great-grandparents' strike
in Lawrence, Massechusets 1912.
This was the parade for God and Country
Memorializing the right-wing churchman's blow
Againsst the strikers who won.
After victory, some radicals had raised a banner,
"Without God or Masters"
The church would have none of it
And Catholic Lawrence marched.
Ranks of children, myelf at ten-years old
Marched with Holy Trinity School
In the scond great parade for God and Country,
Not knowing history,
Not knowing of the left-wing priest
At Holy Trinity who supported the strikers
In 1919, the next big labor struggle.
When the Irish bishop tried to remove him
Some Polish men in the parish threatened
To murder his replacement.
So he stayed.
I know why my mother taught
A simple left Catholicism, love the poor
I never heard her say "rich" as a single word.
"Filthy rich" was always her expression
II. History
In the seventies the Lawrence strike was rediscovered
A New York Times reporter
Visited Lawrence to talk to descendants
Of important strikers.
Among them, those of Camela Teoli,
A young girl scalped in the mill,
Her long hair hopelessly tangled in a loom.
When Camela testified before the committee,
Mrs. Taft, the President's wife, sat in the gallery,
Camela's story was on the New York Times front page.
When the reporter found Camela's daughter
She was astonished.
I never knew this story of my mother.
I never knew this happened
You have restored to me my past.
Raymond Mazurak
The American Birthday Party
There will be tricorner hats children will
put down their phones fold them
out of construction paper. Wait, do they
even know what a third is?
There will be music. Regrettably the fife
and drum corps will not be in attendance.
There will be musket shooting demonstrations
it's okay to bring homemade cannons and the like.
There will be abridged renditions of the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, etc.
Do not expect to hear The Virginia Declaration
of Religious Freedom, The Emancipation Proclamation or
anything relating to the
de-historized Also
cakes will be closely inspected for color
non-corruption and relevance . . .
You may not bring your own water or
chairs. Kool Aid and where we tell you to
sit will be provided
Mary Franke
Erysichthon
What did Erysichthon have but pride
and the ruthless power of a strong man
who does what he pleases without opposition to fear.
There was nothing in the world or in the god
that commanded his respect,
no warning that was not to be taken as a challenge.
And so he came to Demeter's grove of sacred oaks'
honing his ax on arrogance
and chopped one down for his fire.
The dryad in the oak begged for her life,
groaned in her dying while Erysichthon laughed
and swung his hungry ax harder.
The surviving dryads shrieked with grief and prayed
to Mother Demeter for revenge,
and their green prayers were nswered . . .
Because he would devour the world and be Death,
Erysichthon was cursed by Demeter with insatiable hunger.
Driven insane by appetite, he sold his daughter for food,
dragging all he could into his mouth,
until he broke his teeth on rocks,
until he tore the meat from his own bones
and dying drank his own blood down.
Just like you, America. Like you.
Robert Edwards
Dream of the Future
Let's dream of
Let's dream
a new future where
one is free to think,
create & be who
they want to be.
Let's dream of a
day where workers
earn a living wage
& own the company
instead of the company
owning the worker.
Let's dream of a night
where everyone has
a place to rest their
head. Let's Dream
of a time without war,
famine, poverty, &
senseless death.
We can make this
future a reality by
speaking truth to
power & defending
those who are being
persecuted by the
powers that be.
that we have not already believed?
Ayler Roskos
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