<![CDATA[Poetry X Hunger - Now More than Ever: Submitted poems]]>

<![CDATA[Poetry X Hunger - Now More than Ever: Submitted poems]]>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 11:39:33 -0500Weebly<![CDATA[Poem by Cliff Bernier]]>Sun, 10 Oct 2021 17:23:09 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-clifford-bernierBacon and Egg Blues
Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Got no bacon, eggs too rotten to use.
I’ll make some coffee, sweeten it with milk.
I’ll make some coffee, sweeten it with milk.
Milk’s gone sour, gotta dump it in the sink.
Toast me some bread, gotta get something to eat.
Toast me some bread, gotta have something to eat.
Bread’s all moldy, couldn’t weather the heat.
I’ll raid the pantry, eat some canned beans.
I’ll raid the pantry, maybe eat some canned beans.
Shelves are empty, no cans to be seen.
Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Said woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Got no bacon, got nothing to lose.

Here is a YouTube link to Bacon and Egg Blues - Cliff Bernier is reading his poem and playing harmonica:
https://youtu.be/MCvhP4QMM-c

Clifford Bernier is active in the Washington, DC poetry and harmonica communities. His most recent poems are part of the book The Write Blend, a collaboration between six DC-area poets celebrating diversity.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Lavina Blossom]]>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 23:54:41 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-lavina-blossomObsession

A morsel of sparrow darts

across the window.  And because

you cannot sleep for the rumbling
under your ribs, and because the lemon-drop
sun is seeping into the deep dark
of the kitchen where you sit with
a needle stitches together
the sides of your stomach--
you imagine taking the lettuce-
green shadows, balling them
together, throwing them
against the wall.

Night swims upstream, while
you suck the collar of your
shirt, taste fish.  An itch,
a pinch, a pang for that
butter knife that’s only
knife now, that fruit bowl that’s
only bowl.  You lick your
parched lips, take
your blood-orange
head in your hands.

It breaks
into sections.

Lavina Blossom is a painter and mixed media artist as well as a poet. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including 3Elements Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Literary Review, The Paris Review, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Poemeleon, Common Ground Review, and Ekphrastic Review. She is an Editor of Poetry for Inlandia: a Literary Journey.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Charles Perrone]]>Tue, 21 Jul 2020 01:00:47 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-charles-perroneSolving a Domestic Hunger Crisis

The question of coupons has resurfaced with vigor
as our resources have steadily dwindled
and our exigencies at home
have soared with equal rigor
Thus it is we who are aspiring to acquire
some of those handy slips of paper
that pave the way to edible gratuities
as if we too were deserving servers

After a forty year absence to pursue an academic career, Charles A. Perrone has returned to the glorious environs of Santa Cruz, California to enjoy retirement between the sands and the redwoods. His critical work, translations and poetry have appeared over the decades in USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and virtual (on-line) domains.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Cathy Porter]]>Mon, 13 Jul 2020 22:54:29 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-cathy-porter

ARE WE GREAT YET?

My neighbor’s dog jumped his fence
the other day and took off running.

Across the city, on the west side,
the neighbors are shocked that a string
of cars have been broken into:

“This just doesn’t happen here!”

These winter months bring out
the cold in too many hearts. Sends people
to the streets in acts of desperation.

Sara and Scott were kicked out of the bar
for pissing in each other’s drinks.
Just like the government.

They still haven’t found my neighbor’s dog.
He was last seen trying to jump over
a higher fence down the road –
probably to get inside a warm house
for a bite to eat.

I don’t know his name, but it doesn’t matter –
nothing does, when you’re scared and hungry.

The poem first appeared it first appeared in Trajectory.

Cathy Porter’s poetry has appeared in Plainsongs, Homestead Review, California Quarterly, Hubbub, Cottonwood, Comstock Review, and various other journals. She has two chapbooks available from Finishing Line Press: A Life In The Day (2012), and Dust And Angels (2014), as well as two chapbooks published by Dancing Girl Press in Chicago: Exit Songs (2016), and 16 Days (2019). Her latest collection, The Skin Of Uncertainty, is now available from Maverick Duck Press. Cathy is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and serves as a special editor for the journal Fine Lines in Omaha, NE, where she lives with her husband Lenny and their dog Marley, and cats Cody and Mini.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Nick Romeo]]>Sat, 11 Jul 2020 20:13:45 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-nick-romeoReactor

Phones reach around the world.
GPS / vast information streamed.
Mass transportation connects.
Even a space station orbits.
But how?
And I ask:
How,
Did we forget the basics?
Hunting / gathering.
What happens,
When the few,
Who do it for us,
Are no longer,
Able?

Nick Romeo is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer. Nick lives in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with his wife and cat named Megatron. Poet’s Haven press has recently released his first chapbook entitled, “The Insolent Somnambulist.”

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Waseeq Mohammad]]>Sat, 11 Jul 2020 19:31:24 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-mohammad-waseeq

Hunger pain

Hungry for the rain
Hungry for the fall
Hunger for all
As the drops fill me with hope
I breathe a sigh of relief
I spot green growth underneath
my rumbling stomach disagrees
so I imagine the fruits of my labor
fruits that will deceive
Hungry for the truth
Hunger rises up
Hunger and its pain

Below is the video of Waseeq reading his poem:

Waseeq Mohammad is a Karachi born Houston raised poet. He has self published his first chapbook titled Nature Animalis. If you want to get him talking, just mention superheroes, tea, anime, or video games.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Phyllis Klein]]>Wed, 08 Jul 2020 02:06:11 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-phyllis-kleinFamine

The grocery store gave us seven bananas we didn’t ask for
in our curbside pickup bag. Our next door neighbor said
he’d take three off our hands for his trip tomorrow to Utah.

His wife with dementia gone just a week. The other three are going
to our neighbor on the other side, who gave up sugar but not fruit,
so God would let her daughter keep the newly adopted baby

during the trial period. And we’re keeping one. Banana. The New York
Times asks if we have been hungry and the answer is no. But I wish
I could find more bananas for all the hungry people, children

and their parents. Then I would be doing more than writing about it.
About how this pandemic is starving some of us. I would figure out
a way to feed the people who are ravenous, give them food trucks,

restaurants, unlimited curbside pickups. Because it’s not okay
to be famished, to be craving security when there isn’t so much,
people dying as usual and more than usual. At least the baby
is going to stay where she is. At least one less tragedy to face.

Click on the file below to listen to Phyllis reading her poem:

phyllis_klein-famine.mp3
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Phyllis Klein’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She has a new book, The Full Moon Herald from Grayson Books. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, she sees writing as artistic dialogue between author and readers—an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by María Teresa Ogliastri]]>Tue, 30 Jun 2020 23:26:48 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-maria-teresa-ogliastriRacionamiento

En la fila una mujer grita
llegó harina

Pienso en panecillos horneados

Poco después oigo
solo queda arroz
pero mi alegría es vana

Van a sacar azúcar
¡oh! Milagro
esperaré
escucho palabras en rebote
se acabó la azúcar

La cola comienza a deshacerse

Persisto
algo van a sacar más tarde
al final una mano me entrega un pollo
salgo de allí con mi tesoro

En una librería cercana
un amigo se atreve a leerme un poema largo
el poeta no sabe por qué me despido
lo prosaico de mi huida me hace sentir culpable

Hay que vivir en un país con hambre
para entender cómo se puede romper
la simetría de un poema
por un ligero goteo de vísceras y sangre

Translated by Yvette Neisser

RATIONING

In the line a woman shouts
there’s flour

I think of warm biscuits

Soon I hear
only rice is left
but my happiness is futile

They’re bringing sugar
Oh! miracle
I will wait
I hear words ricochet
the sugar is gone

The line begins to disperse

I persist
eventually they will bring something
finally a hand offers me a chicken
I leave with my treasure

In a bookstore nearby
a friend has the nerve to read me a long poem
the poet doesn’t know why I flee
such an ordinary goodbye fills me with guilt

You must live in a country with hunger
to understand how a poem’s symmetry
can be broken
by the slow drip of guts and blood

María Teresa Ogliastri was born in Venezuela and lives in Caracas. She is the author of five collections of poems: Del diario de la señora Mao (From the Diary of Madame Mao, 2011), Polo Sur (South Pole, 2008. English translation by Settlement House, 2011), Brotes de Alfalfa (Alfalfa Sprouts 2007), Nosotros los inmortales (We, the Immortals, 1997) and Cola de Plata (Silver Tail,1994). Brooklyn Rail first published the English version of the poem by María Teresa Ogliastri:
https://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/spanish/100-refutations-day-69/

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Giulianna DiNapoli]]>Wed, 17 Jun 2020 21:55:29 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-giulianna-dinapoliI Want Cake

Cake
is all I want, of
ancestral Egyptian spelt,
Demeter descended within wispy chaff
speared like Roman warriors, god-gifted
Cleopatra on the Nile where they can eat cake,
wise like winds that swept the plains, swept the seed.
And you, my sweet descendent, gift of goddesses’ seed I
planted on this earth, seed that sprouted across the plain,
golden like fields of spelt, fermented in foreign wind,
I wish you all the icing.

Image: Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

Other poems and essays by G. DiNapoli have appeared in literary journals and reviews, as well as Stanford Medical blog, in Europe and the US. She is an Italian American from Washington, DC.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Lisa Reynolds]]>Wed, 17 Jun 2020 01:30:54 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-lisa-reynoldsI’m Hungry
The words aren’t spoken
They’re said through eyes
That watch others eat
Longing for a carrot
Piece of apple
Potato chip

Alone by choice
They sit
Gulp water
Devour bread
Without protein
Always craving more

To hide envy
They fidget in desks
Search backpacks
While waiting
For recess
To begin

im_hungry_poem.m4a
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Lisa Reynolds is a teacher and an award-winning Canadian poet, published internationally in anthologies, literary journals, and magazines. Translations of her poetry were released in 2022. She is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society, the Writing Community of Durham Region, and an associate member of The League of Canadian Poets. She lives and writes in a small community east of Toronto, Ontario.

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