Gold Filter

by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

The barbershop pole spins. It’s Wednesday.
My hair is on strike. Hiding behind a mask
I pick up my prescription and pop in the bank.

Man in a wheelchair asks for help across 14th,
a purple velvet throw covering bent legs.
Majesty and misery share his mobile throne.

I post my last holiday parcel to Chapel Hill.
A red-tailed hawk circles the park. Bells clamor.
My granddaughter asks what an omen is.

Midas brushes leftover leaves and gold appears.
Touch me, Midas, if you dare. Go ahead!
My heart will baptize you, drown you in fire.

How much love can one lover bear?
Touch me, Midas. I’ll put a knot in your beard.

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright got his MFA in poetry after studying with Allen Ginsberg. He is a publisher, critic, eco-activist, impresario, and artist, best known as a New Romantic, Post-Surrealist poet. He is author of 17 books of verse, including Blue Lyre from Dos Madres Press and Party Everywhere from Xanadu. Currently he publishes Live Mag!, a journal of art and poetry. He is a Kathy Acker Award recipient and recently produced a film highlighting his puppet shows called “Pandemic Puppet Jam” on Youtube. Subhasree Soorya is busy every day with classical dance lessons, music, painting, and mural art alongside shooting videos for social media. This 22-year-old final year BCom student sits in the evening on the long veranda of her ancestral home in Mahe, India and weaves her dreams of becoming a noted artist someday.    

Lockdown

by Jyoti Nair

Another smouldering day
Some inflamed breakfast porridge
Some simmering enraged lentils
Served alongside, some meek bland rice
Thrusted into our gullets
Our destinies applauded, not one morsel should be wasted
Chosen mortals, greater mortals! 
We are! Cower in gratitude! 
“Even to almighty’s chagrin, those migrants have been eye sores… “
Some rebukes stirred into the air
“But now they have footwear, special trains being released…”
Some patronizing splashes, tainted electronic tabloid’s face
Incessantly, some opinions, shoved and jostled, in most homes
Amidst some resentment, ruminated by many, during nights 
Only to be callously spit, with some toothpaste, the next morning

The quintessential transformation evangelist, Jyoti Nair has acquired professional prowess in the capability development and project management gamut, incessantly catering to rapidly diversifying business needs. She spearheads multiple operations for L & D and Quality Assurance, spanning HR and Recruitment, for an Indian multinational technology company. She finds the process of writing therapeutic and nurtures the poetry raiment as her second skin. Her works feature in numerous global poetry anthologies and distinguished poetry journals, and she has won many accolades for her literary pursuits. However, she cherishes her solitary quill and fervently whets her pen in stoic resilience.  Subhasree Soorya is busy every day with classical dance lessons, music, painting, and mural art alongside shooting videos for social media. This 22-year-old final year BCom student sits in the evening on the long veranda of her ancestral home in Mahe, India and weaves her dreams of becoming a noted artist someday.    

Breakfast with Shiva

by Hannah Siden

The orange that was my breakfast
Doesn’t feel tangible
When I read the news
Or maybe it’s the other way around, either way
They can’t both be
True facts of this earth:

401,993 cases in one day in India
Shattering global infection records

And the orange I ate this morning
Sweet juices running down my palm

I read that one in four have received the vaccine
In high income countries
One in more than five hundred
In low income countries

Vaccine manufacturers have paid out
$26 bn in dividends and stock buyouts to shareholders
Enough to cover the cost of vaccinating
The entire population of Africa

I read that without vaccine equity
Our world is doomed to repeat its greedy traumas

The news slips into my dreamscapes
Plays itself out more horrifically and realistically
Than any of my oranges, emails,
TV shows, haircuts, family arguments

I wonder what they’re dreaming of in India tonight
I wonder if maybe they’re the ones dreaming of oranges
I wonder about Shiva, with his many hands –

He who both destroys

And creates

Hannah Siden is a writer and filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. She usually writes non-fiction but has turned towards poetry during the pandemic. She encourages people to check out The People’s Vaccine for information about vaccine equity and taking action. Subhasree Soorya is busy every day with classical dance lessons, music, painting, and mural art alongside shooting videos for social media. This 22-year-old final year BCom student sits in the evening on the long veranda of her ancestral home in Mahe, India and weaves her dreams of becoming a noted artist someday.    

Attention: Passengers Arriving from Kahului, Maui, on Alaska Flight 13

by Carolyn Martin

Would the woman who was seated in 14C
proceed to Baggage Claim to retrieve
one husband and four checked bags.
He regrets what he said on Kamaole Beach.
He didn’t mean you looked overweight
in your Costco one-piece—although he maintains
you’ve griped incessantly about pounds
amassed during the quarantine.
He meant “rounding out” as a joke.

Truth is, I understand. Not
the fudging of his jibe—that was lame—
but additions to tummies and thighs.
Diets never work, so vanity’s a vice I’ve trashed.
I’m at the age when … but I digress.
Attention, 14C. Your husband’s stuck
at the Alaska carousel. He’s the one
pacing in a Hilo Hattie’s shirt,
mopping heat off his sunburned face.

Carolyn Martin, from associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 130 journals and anthologies throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. Her fifth collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments, will be released in 2021. Currently, she is the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation. Subhasree Soorya is busy every day with classical dance lessons, music, painting, and mural art alongside shooting videos for social media. This 22-year-old final year BCom student sits in the evening on the long veranda of her ancestral home in Mahe, India and weaves her dreams of becoming a noted artist someday.