By Cheryl Caesar

(What one reader said of Cheryl’s poem: your poem sent chills throughout my body! I love the juxtaposition of the moth and spider and the rally of people with wings of resistance~At first, it is only a blurring of wings,”

a frenzied sphere of movement. So fast

I cannot discern color or shape. Nearly all

its mass has turned to energy, vibrating

in the lower left corner of my kitchen window.

I go to lift the sash, and see

for the first time a small dark dot

gliding down the white frame, its eight

legs motionless. Arriving at the captive,

who is not trapped between panes, but tethered

By Traci Neal

(What one readers commented on Traci’s poem: Thank you for your deed of words...Registered! "Dig Through The Darkness"...Yes! "Fight to be a sanctuary"...What an amazing goal to fight for. LiVe Long Enough to LoVe Your Self. Nourish inner power. Reach farther .”)

in the mind. Thinking is a thing

to be thickened. Shadows are shells.

They suffer sadness at certain times.

Depression dumped its lies on me.

I debated with death as a teenager,

but won wellness by choosing life.

I left bitterness alone, threw it away.

By Neil Vincent Scott

respect and honor
    courage and compassion
           gratitude and grace

these i wish for you
as we recognize and remember

those
     whose
          lives
              were
                   lost

in the countless battles of our lifetime

By Becca Lavin

and if nothing more
she would feel some connection
to whatever myth she could conjure
in the moment

somehow she would gather strength
weathered, worn and beautiful
like autumns’ leaves
to her basket-bosom

By Craig Kirchner

We left the trash sit too long, chicken paper,

they call it, the scraps and packaging

from what was a delicious Marsala,

made the kitchen unbearable.

The smell gags, the mind knows

immediately, the deterioration of flesh.

By Cheryl Caesar

Nothing has ever been

seen before, nothing like.

Mind without memory.

Life without history.

Actor and audience,

each day he plays anew

on the exhausted screens

of our unwilling eyes.

By Richard Wells

without light
there is no vision

without vision
the people perish.

 our leaders are
hollow men

 as far from the border
of redemption

 as any who have lived

 soul sick men
who inflict suffering 

as if they had
invented it

By  Craig Kirchner

I wrote about it, we argued, not nasty,

but disagreed about whether to leave.

We stayed, I made risotto. We planned

to sleep in the master bedroom closet,

Swedish death cleaned, stocked with

bottled water, a small mattress.

Its closest to the middle of the building,

furthest from the windows, very stable,

if this condo complex blows away or ends up

under water, so will the rest of Florida.

By  Craig Kirchner

There is a routine, it starts with getting out of bed
and squirting the sleep from my eyes with Refresh.
I won’t bore you with the bore of the rest,
you have your own to remember.

There have been interruptions to it over the years
that usually involve an infirmity or natural disaster.
I used to play golf twice a month, practice during the week,
now arthritis in my knees makes it too hard to turn.
We had the strongest storm to ever form in the Gulf
relocate sleeping to the closet, away from the windows. 

But never in 75 years has the government altered my life,
it always held up its part of the bargain. I paid taxes
and voted. It kept the roads open and the food safe,
never interfered with my daily regimen.

By  Lyn Coffin

please hear our

pleas

lord

heavy laden

we are here

hear

your flock

flocking here

By  Miriam Bassuk

No way to encapsulate this period.

No rhyme or reason can iron out

our daily terror squashed deep

in the gutter of our bellies. What

makes it hard, there are no safe-

guards against a regime that lays

waste to all we hold dear, a regime

By  Peter Asco

Burdens will be cut down to size

Workload will become much lighter

Regrets will make you laugh

Impossibilities will look within reach

By  Robert Kokan

Beneath the tower of the fourteenth street bridge

it's dark and it's the last tired night.

All men now with sorrow filled eyes

and sad contentments of heart 

have given over to the dreams of new birth

(when your time comes, it comes

there is nothing a hand or a blood-borne

can do to prevent it).

By  Millie Renfrow

Fellow Citizens of the United States of America,

we meet at the axis of a revolution –

both political and social –

sweeping through our national life

such as we have never experienced

in most of our lives to date.

We enter a new war.

What poem will emerge

to fill this void?

There’s the key…

to alter the relationships

between this poet and others…

By  Margaret Roncone

We listen to the voice

that says 'grass and stars'

the voice that knows perfectly how to describe

luminescence.

we wait patiently on

the foothold

of March to see early daffodils

and crocus pushing through earth’s cold skin.

By  Mary Ellen Talley

(a found collaborative poem created from snippets of a phone chat with houseboundMillie Renfrow, age 84, on 11-16-2020)

Somebody sent me a sketch book

They started some doodles

I kept scribbling

It’s all black ink.

You can go from very light

to very very dark.

By  Craig Kirchner

I wanted to leave, you said no.

I wanted you to come with me.

Malta became a reference point,

a not so funny inside joke.

I was no longer betting on America,

a personality disorder was President.

He appointed a sexual assaulter

to be his Secretary of Defense.

By Leszek Chudzinski

“Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—because I was not an immigrant.”

***

ICE has been given a quota

to catch each day and deport

1,200 to 1,500 illegales

schools

churches

hospitals

houses

raided

people rounded up

in the streets

at work

at home

By J.I. Kleinberg

— THE PROMISE

— hubris

— his bloodcurdling

By Craig R. Kirchner

I’m told constantly not to talk about it.

Half your friends and family will be offended.

You don’t want to express your disgust,

and you can’t quote their guy.

Quoting his remarks is damning,

there’s always a disconnect.

If you take one of his threats,

or rants on his hatred out of context,

you’re accused of misrepresentation.

If you put them back into their context

they become worse, unhinged, long winded.

I don’t want to talk about it, it makes me ill.