By: Sheila Henry Slavery was abolished in America almost 200 years agobut the system refuses to relinquish a sad historybinding young black men as they remain preyand are locked up in a system to perform free laborblue mood cops the…
By: Moulay Cherif CHEBIHI HASSANI It rains on the sheets of the half-opened notebookLaying there before you, now useless,When inspiration, in infertile tears,pours its solitude into your heart in winter… From the edge of the inkwell a feather fliesAnd the…
By Justin Permenter There will come a last songA requiem for the passing of an ageIts melody will echo across the great gulf of timeAnd testify to the bright beginning and wretched end of our kind There will come a…
By: Roger G. Singer THE OUTSIZE OF LIFE walkingin the skinof day,under the flightof a summer sun shoes covered witha solemn dustwhile searchingfor a balancebetween lands knowing somewherein the shapeof a city or towntraffic is moving as a crossing shadowstirs…
By: Jerry Durick Runaway Dog What do you say when she runs away?You run after her of coursecalling her name and promisesand to stop.You can see the future evolve asyou run –this will happen, then that.Everyone is a stranger at…
By: Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal Transatlantic Song Singing childvoice of airand wind. Night of starshalf-moon likea breast. Evening birdsmimic thechild’s song. Ocean breezeswirls and joinsthe birds. Takes the child’ssong acrossthe sea. ### Out of the Shadows Sleeping in shadows,rocked to sleepby…
By: Cristina DeSouza Hospice Night goes high,filled with gentle moaning,the calmness of death approaching.Her eyes semi-shut, while reality’s by my side.I examine the body whose soul isgetting ready to leave it: coldand tender, it’s about to shed its suffering away….
By Nancy Machlis Rechtman The images have been seared into our brainsOf babies ripped away from the arms of their mothersAnd fathersAnd children sobbing in cagesWhen the most primal of bonds were severedBy maliceAnd indifference. Those seeking asylum chose to…
By: Alex Andy Phuong A reason without passionCould result in deceptionAnd destruction.Restraining oneselfAs The Great Library of AlexandriaBurns like the romantic lifeOf CleopatraModern heroinesLike Elle WoodsReveal the possibleAs wisdom helps determineThe philosophical,And living lifeWith both honesty and sincerityWhile respectingLimitations realistically
By: Karoline Wimmer A rolling tidecannot hide,in the worst of dreams,it lights the matchthat sets the fireto the darkest of desires. If seas had been sweeterthan the fairest of all ladies,they would have metwith great contemptthe most hunch-backed of all…