Best friends for never
Ariya Mobaraki Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Three people contemplate the cadaver of Saint Petronilla. Etching by James Basire, 1764, after Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino… Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) I stand looking over you, Wishing I could turn back time. Wondering what wisdom you would give me, Back in your prime. […]
Hope quarantined
Prasad Iyer Singapore Poet’s statement: This fictional poem expresses the feelings of a migrant separated from his family during the COVID pandemic. Photo by Logan Fisher on Unsplash Quarantine forceth divorced souls Distanced families and broken wholes Shards of thoughts, impaling my core Locked down borders’ hearts a sore Shallow slumber, […]
Prayer to St. Roch, patron of plague sufferers
Jack Coulehan Stony Brook, New York San Roque. Francisco Ribalta, between circa 1600 and circa 1610. Museu de Belles Arts de València. Via Wikimedia. Please take your work to the next step, St. Roch, beyond being a friendly ghost to the lost. Bring us back from the edge. Pour out the healing grace of your […]
COVID time
Norelle Lickiss Hobart, Tasmania, Australia View of Earth, showing Africa, Europe, and Asia–taken by Apollo 11 crewmember. 17 July 1969. Image by NASA, Johnson Space Center. Who will be the chronicler of this? of how the tower fell, of how the tolling bell sounded the world’s crying. And how the darkness fell, […]
Death in the time of corona
Nivetha Subramanian Palo Alto, California, United States The Garden of Death. Hugo Simberg. 1896. Ateneum Museum. Source When several years ago, a virus, continents away, barred grieving families from holding their loved ones, I thought how lonely it must be, to breathe a last breath, surrounded by masked strangers. I greet you this morning, […]
Ode to my stethoscope
Hilton Koppe Lennox Head, Australia Poet’s note My Littman stethoscope has accompanied me on my journey in medicine across five decades into premature medical retirement. It was definitely more difficult to lay down my stethoscope than it had been for me to recommend medical retirement to many of my patients. This poem includes a […]
To see or not to see
J. Trig Brown Durham, North Carolina, United States Walter Cronkite. U.S. Marine Corps photo in Clark Dougan and Stephen Weiss, Nineteen Sixty-Eight. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1983. Wikimedia. In my youth I watched the body count mount. In black and white the nightly news “and that’s the way it is” Saint Walter mouthed, to […]
Ignes Fatui of the neurotic mind
Ashten R. Duncan Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States Rocking in my vessel sturdy Upon the waters of a swamp so dirty, I am in the crow’s nest En route to my impending test. Ever since I was young, I have been given to the far-flung: Quiet panic of a possible foe, Wishes to never disturb […]
Reporting a pandemic
Francis Christian Saskatoon, Canada Nonno watching the news. Jakob Montrasio. Taken on December 21, 2011. From Flickr. CC BY 2.0 Dust to dust and doom delivered by newscasts dripping irony in considered doses of despair; feigning knowledge of ignorance, feigning ignorance of absent panic and knowledge from experts claiming uncertainty. But the web […]
Blessed is the heart
Jeanne Bryner Newton Falls, Ohio, United States Study of standing chute. Dominik Skutecký. 1880-1900. Slovak National Gallery. Image Source Peacemaker inside the great barn father of us all, he passes the meat plate, its thick roast to the left his fork last in line. Bless his bulbous nose, ruddy face and bloodshot eyes, his slur […]