by Ronald Koertge

And maybe
you should sit
down for this
because it’s
something
we’ve talked
about a lot
even prayed for
so I’m just now
back from my
poetry workshop
and at last
it’s official.

I’m poignant!

by Larry Goodell

Give me a pot with a little water
to boil my bone.
I’m happy with less than I own.
All I need is one or two molecules of air to breathe.
I have a very humble chest.
I sleep on two threads stretched between
two match sticks.
It doesn’t take much for
a good night’s sleep.
Just bring my wine portion
a couple gallons a day will do it
and I’ll write a haiku for you
or a coan to pee on.

by Larry Goodell

The purpose of religion is to confer Godhead
on lowly humans, make them feel special and blessed.
A religion will do anything to perpetuate itself
and to hell with anything that stands in its way
including Nature.
A religion is extremely selfish and doesn’t like
other religions.  It wants to grow and be more powerful
and blesses man and woman marriages
so they can produce children to grow up and support the religion.
A religion likes beautiful houses for itself
and will not pay any taxes.
A religion uses God as its Commander in Chief
to control its subjects and make them slaves to its commands.

by Bill Nevins

Kabul Sunset Version II
Kabul Sunset — “Mourn Your Dead Now,
Land of the Free”

(As proud-robed mujahideen
Give wary thanks in bearded faces
To Allah in the ruins
Of Forward Operating Bases
Daubed in sad skull-graffiti boasts
Of long-departed Yanks
In shadows of rusting Russian tanks.)

I have heard or read wise poignant words.
They’ve sewn together my shifting drifting worlds.
Kipling, Shakespeare, John Prine, James Wright,
Lennon, Dylan, whatever gets me through the night

Larry Kirwan’s “Fallujah” song or Patrick Sky,

Diving into the wreck of the Iliad, the Tain,

With sweet Ocean Vuong or some haughty Irish bard

Hoping not to shatter,
I read old battle-poems for wary solace:
My own true minstrel-boy gone to war for so long.

Star-flecked American war-guidons above each letterhead:
“Rest assured, Sir, you are in our thoughts.”

I watched the Albuquerque sun rise

For him, as I feared he had no eyes.

That awful morning long ago.

I was a foolish dad, for he saw, I know.

Went mad a month then as I first wrote frantic lines —

“Dover Base” and other cries,
Bitter sighs.  I knew he was dead.
We’ve gone years now to these Coronavirus times —
“changed utterly” as old Yeats said.

Do old poets ever heal, as nations move on?
In Marigold-Sunset blaze of Sunday of the Beloved Dead.

When all holy red sun banners had finally set,
and the dark came to wrap our mortal souls,
Spanish prayers were said
and yes at peace we are, he and I
these many years of peace dropping slow
these years of a war that should have ended long ago