News Poems

Zayid Muhammad Zayid Muhammad

pale sun

there was nothing liberating about this day

this eyescalding screaming choking day

the sun went pale in revulsion

as a badged bully stole the breath of legions

on the neck of a helpless man

a man handcuffed, flat on his face,

totally subdued and very afraid

on the neck of a large conquered

expendable black man...

because the bully

sick with settler obsession

said so...

and the bully had buddies

drunk on the same cocktail

who protected the bully

choking the day

choking a people

choking our time...

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Talena Lachelle Queen Talena Lachelle Queen

1A

There is no comfort at thirty thousand feet on a teacher's salary.

The rows are segregated like the country:

according to race -- which is also socio economic status

I look like seat 1A wearing my

$10 jeans and a had- to- have-this sweater.

All of the rich people in my front row seats 

smile at me when I stroll pass.

The middle class people in the middle add a wave to their smile like we are family 

even though my people are shot for being black like the guy in the news today whose name we will certainly forget even though he was shot at work-- a security guard-- by the police after he had done the tremendous job of stopping the gun wielding bad guy in the club

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Talena Lachelle Queen Talena Lachelle Queen

Fly

thirty five thousand feet
above the dying sea,
i slice fluffy white clouds
from the window seat, 25F

the sky, i’m afraid, will never
be this perfect shade of blue again,
not with Forty-five’s dismantling of the EPA
the end begins in as soon ten years

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Junny Ann Hibbert Junny Ann Hibbert

News Poem | For all of us

This morning I got up
slowly.
My hip ached.
Sleep stayed far away.
The weight of the world arrived early,
pressing down on my chest
before I’d even had a chance to rise.
It felt like failure.
It felt like defeat.
But it’s not.
It’s the echo of effort,
the cost of carrying on
when so much feels lost.
I haven’t failed.
Neither have you.
We are tired, not broken.
Quiet, not absent.
Still standing
even when we wish we could lie down
and let the world forget our names for a moment.

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Talena Lachelle Queen Talena Lachelle Queen

Suspicious

Stay in the house and lock the door
I’m telling you this because I love you

Come in the house when the streetlights come on
Keep both of your hands on the steering wheel
Don’t 
make any 
sudden moves
I’m telling you this because I love you

Take your hoodie down when you go in the store
Don’t run, not even while playing
Don’t attract any attention
Take that base out of your voice
Assimilate
I'm telling you this because I love you

If you have a problem, call me - not the police
If the police come, say, “Yes, Sir or “Yes, Ma’am”
Tell the officer your age
Ask to call your mother

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Talena Lachelle Queen Talena Lachelle Queen

Eight

Today we arrived at school without nineteen of the little ones,
The littlest ones, eight years old.
Eight years old,
Eight years old is too young to drive
too young to go to prom, too short to ride the rollercoaster
too young to know better, two years short of the double digits ages, 
but old enough to add to the number 244
That is the number of school shootings before Robb Elementary 
When will it end?

Some of them were nine and ten
Some were 11, all of them are in heaven 
Where they will take classes on 
Visiting dreams, and guardian angelship, 
There’ll be no lessons on guns, 
There is no AK or AR quiz, 
there is no big test on ammunition.

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Zoe Van Gelder Zoe Van Gelder

Hydroplane

Since childhood
I’d watch the rain droplets
race one another down the window
I’d watch droplets swallow one another in the 
race along the pane

Our car zoomed along the highway, the
speed and wind forcing 
Crashes among the droplets against one another
The clouds would be blotched against the sky, 
grey and white

From my car seat it would all only excite me
Which droplet will reach the bottom of the window pane first?
Which droplet will win the race?
But when rain becomes downpour
When grey skies turn red

When the wind stops whooshing and begins howling
When my car seat is gone
I wish the car would slow down
and sputter out
a dull hydroplane 

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Democracy and Politics Ianthe Philips Democracy and Politics Ianthe Philips

Witnessing

When I see the word Palestine
When I hear the place Gaza 
I want to sleep 
I cannot rest but I want to sleep 
It is fitful I thrash 
My breathing is shallow and hoarse
My feet are cold my head is hot 
My skin crawls tickled by the sweat of my worry
I close my eyes and tumble in darkness
I see black and red and brown and grey 
Falling like concrete shattered into sand and dust
I am awake and I cry to dream

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Ianthe Philips Ianthe Philips

Untitled (My country)

There is a certain cruelty here.

It draws parasites, dark beetles, pregnant flies, and vultures

scurrying, poking, feeding, and positioning 

over what appears to remain

It emanates a sickly sweet stench

burns and irritates the eyes like dust and smoke

and echoes hurt and horror in the twisted 

unrecognizable lines of a decomposing thing

So that even the least kindness

a thank you, a patience, an unconscious consideration

momentarily shifts the gaze and quickens the lungs 

with furtive memory of grace, of the unpolluted

It may even rend tired flesh to expose raw and solemn bones

but like all rotten things

The cruelty here cannot last. 

Not for always. Not forever. 

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Ayah Abbassi Ayah Abbassi

In the Summer of 24’

How is it that no one was aware
Of what was being filmed on their own premises? 
Documents were made, and contracts were signed 
So why is no one being fined?
Why is no one facing the consequences 
Of what they forced upon children’s eyes? 

Filming something so sexual

In what’s considered a CHILD’S territory

Not even thinking before acting

Is downright predatory.

From 14 to 18,

Their young minds were contaminated.

A monstrosity occurred in their school,

And that fact goes undebated.

“I was deeply disgusted”

School officials and staff repeat,

But they all refuse to take accountability

From the blame, they retreat. 

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Felicia Sherelle Felicia Sherelle

Dancing to Death

Dancing to death
With ricocheting rockets on the rise.
And heaping helpings of hissing
Hot hints of horror.
Downstream are Dollops of debris atop decaying dead
With a scent of savagery soot
And a fume of fermented. fiery. flesh.
Seeing smoke afar

the sight of a slithering snake

settling on the side of a sunken silhouette.

Of a masked man.

who managed to make it more minutes beyond the mark of madness. 

Then found himself mashed in the middle of this makeshift massacre.

He passed. 

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