As a Matter of Facts and Fictions

Sumera Saleem

February 7, 2021

When time skins into symbols and numbers,

And our bodies shrink into equations and blunders,

To quantify the values of our valuables,

Statistics matters.

When death materialized in digits of dare or duties,

And life theorized into error and reason, terror and treason,

To differentiate riot from right,

Philosophy matters.

When the present floats on the waves of illusions,

And the illusionists trick the masses towards revolutions,

To scrub the mirror to clarity of vision,

History, Herstory matter.

When war-wizards hocus-pocus the East and the West,

And spell them on globe as fictions or facts,

To unmystify the histories of mysteries,

Art matters.

When unreal doubts dumb the curiosity to dream, 

And buzzily fix it in the borders of beliefs, 

To unborder matter and the matters from myths, 

Science matters.

When rage strikes up wrongs and revenge,

And dialogue sounds as a way to resent,

To free our ears from fitful frenzies,

Music matters.

When democracy depends on data and illusions,

And lies dopamine truth for delusions,

To survive for why I am who I am,

Politics matters.

When the mere idea of "we" brings wars and woes,

And acceptance springs for such ideas, not for the worlds,

To breathe meanings into your rugged bodies,

You, your views matter.

Sumera Saleem is a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature, the University of Sargodha, Sargodha and Gold medalist in English literature from the University of the Punjab for the session 2013-15. Her poems have appeared in Tejascovido, Langdon Review published by Tarleton State University, USA, Blue Minaret, Lit Sphere, Surrey Library UK, The Text Journal, The Ghazal Page, Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters, Word Magazine.

I Sing the Songs of My Country, January 6, 2021

Paul Juhasz

February 4, 2021

My country tis of thee,

Death knell of liberty,

For thee I weep.

Land where the Constitution died

To satisfy a despot’s pride,

From every column’s side,

There, gunshots ring.

Stop. Sorry. That doesn’t sound right.

Let me try again.

O Beautiful for mendacious lies,

For the shimmer of tear-gas reign,

For purple-bruised travesties,

Along the Lafayette Square plain,

America, America,

MAGA bled his rage on thee,

He crowned himself in tyannthood,

From sea to shining sea.

Stop. Wait. I think I have that one wrong, too. 

Let me try once more.

God help America

Land they think they love.

Stand astride her,

And deride her,

With a fight based on no right beyond a shove.

Shit. I just can’t seem to get this right today.

How about this:

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America,

To beat the cops with the same,

Zip ties and body armor, a ghastly game,

With liberty and justice for none.

Fuck!

I’ve been singing these songs for so many years,

Blanketed by the din of patriotic white noise,

That I never paid attention to the words,

Until today.

A graduate of the Red Earth MFA program, Paul Juhasz’s work has appeared in bioStories, Red River Review, Concho River Review, Dragon Poet Review, Voices de la Luna, and Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way. His mock journal, Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, chronicling his seven-month term as a Picker at an Amazon Fulfillment Center, was published by Fine Dog Press in 2020.

Sound Now

Vincent Hostak

February 1, 2021

America, January 6, 2021

It’s a moment that calls for more than prayer

when the posture of the supplicant is no remedy.

It may clear my wits for what is next 

only while the white-hot minds of supremacists

burn now as much as they’re allowed.

It looks too much like mine as I hibernate.

Arms and legs attached already move, 

they gain the ground as they’re allowed

to ease across the passive barriers

we dreamed alone would hold.

I would love to believe in the long arc of justice alone.

This might quiet the squall so in the cabin I can sleep.

But it’s only a hatch board that slows the flood,

shields my eyes from the drowning on the lower deck.

As much, it dulls my witness—still the hull will burst.

Hate metastasizes quicker than such a cure can catch.

I cannot wait for history to make me blamed or blameless.

Sleeping passions turn out nothing but old songs.

Lives whole, just, even well-remembered, sound now.

Vincent Hostak is a poet, essayist, and advocate. Long a resident of Texas, he resides in the intersection of city and wilderness near Denver. His poetry is published in Sonder Midwest (#5), Tejascovido.com, the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and Wild, Abandoned (the blog). His podcast on refugee resettlement & culture: https://anchor.fm/crossingsrefugees.