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SQUAB The poem was first published in The Chiron Review Driving to yoga this morning, I saw a flock of pigeons raveling & unraveling above the palm trees. Our city’s poet laureate writes about pigeons as avatars of love. What did I see? Protein on the wing. Our laureate compares feral pigeons to street people, both declared unsanitary urban pests, the birds’ bodies contaminated by heavy metals, but whose aren’t? I want to be a good person, stop child abuse, take back the night, fight poverty. I’m ashamed I eat when I’m not hungry. No more memes on Facebook, no more feel-good marches, let’s learn to mend nets, scald feathers, to gut & to spatchcock, let’s deliver tons & tons of pigeon meat to shelters & soup kitchens, saying, “Enjoy! It’s squab!”  Jefferson Carter has poems in such journals as Barrow Street, Cream City Review, and Rattle. Chax Press published Get Serious: New and Selected Poems, chosen as a Southwest Best Book of 2013 by the Tucson/Pima County Public Library. In 2020, Presa Press released his eleventh collection, Birkenstock Blues.
He lives in Tucson with his wife Connie. He’s a passionate supporter of Sky Island Alliance, a regionally-based environmental organization.
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The Hunger Dialect We sip on tea flavored with righteousness indignation Add a touch of honey dripping in our own gluttony While we slowly speak the dialect of hunger We claim to be ambitious on solutions But truth says we have never met We spread lies evenly As if, evenness eliminates detection Hungry people see a world of excess who view starvation as avoidable Victim shaming is our specialty This dialect of deception is clearly recognizable The language we lie with is so bitter, even when dripping off of sweet religious lips We can’t feed everybody Here comes the lie We embrace the acceptance that doing nothing is equal to trying Yet we continuously knit together new excuses with old lies We shame hungry people on full stomachs and then we rewrite the narrative Imagine a world that throws away enough food to feed the hungry complaining about loss While the population who has food insecurity is waiting to be found Empty stomachs are not looking for empty words We need long term, right now, sustainable actions Let’s plant fruits and vegetables and let freedom be the gardener Allow people to pick fresh food from their community greenery Have community barbeques and well placed public pantries Donate to trusted restaurants so they can offer free meals to those in need Create central areas for restaurants to bring food instead of throwing it away Let’s reinvent how we distribute food Make it easier to ask without asking And no more pretty phrases for ugly things Starvation is not “food insecurity” Is death “breathing insecurity” Our appetite for synonyms seems high Hunger has many levels And a need to make hunger definable to all is needed Let’s make sure we are not using it to avoid saying words that sting Starvation is a “life insecurity” Action is the cure But we’re too busy slicing up excuses While hungry people look at an empty plate full of indecision We don’t even offer them a cup of hope Click on the file below to listen to Kim reading her poem: 
 Kim B Miller is an award winning poet. She is the Poet Laureate for Prince William County, VA. She is the First African American Poet Laureate for PWC. Kim performed nationally in person and internationally online. She is the author of several books. You can find more about Kim at www.kimbmiller.com
HUNGER IS A SYMPTOM WAR AND A RAVAGED LAND, CORRUPT AND INEPT GOVERNMENT, DROUGHT AND PESTILENCE, BOTTOM LINE ENTERPRISES STRIP THE LAND OF OLD GROWTH FOREST, AND MINERALS ARE THE GENESIS OF HUNGER. THE BENEFACTORS OF HUNGER ARE THE PEOPLE, THE POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN. THOSE MOST UNABLE TO FIGHT BACK, THE HELPLESS. THE MOST HELPLESS ARE THE CHILDREN WHO BEAR THE BRUNT OF HUNGER. SO AS ALL CAN SEE, HUNGER IS BUT A SYMPTOM OF MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN, OF GREED AND POWER WHICH FEEDS THE PLAGUE OF HUNGER ON THE MASSES. IT IS A HUMANE ACT TO DOLE OUT MEALS TO THOSE IN NEED, BUT WHAT ABOUT TOMORROW? THE CANCER IS SYSTEMIC. THE CURE IS NOT AN EASY ONE. IT WILL TAKE TIME AND MUCH EFFORT. WHAT IS EASY IS TO START, TODAY WOULD BE GOOD.  Milton Carp from Fort Lauderdale, Florida is a 91 year old who has been writing poetry for a little over a year. He lost his wife of 68 years in 2019, and is reinventing himself through the perfect vehicle of poetry.
There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. -M S Gandhi They helicopter in hay for cows in Chama stuck in nine feet of snow covered grazing land. Cattle huddle together for warmth, less organized than arctic penguins, these girls continuously shuffle towards the center. Where they once grew rice, Haitian families buy mud cookies to fill their bellies, the cost of real fare impossible. Behind the train station in New Delhi, small children, shorter than your waste, scavenge in dumps for scraps of food, fight off dogs for every morsel.... Yet, we count sheep before we sleep. "It is good people who make good places."Anna Sewell  Debbi Brody is an avid attendee and leader of poetry workshops throughout the USA’s southwest. She has been published in numerous national and regional journals and anthologies of note including Poetica, Broomweed, Sin Fronteras. Her newest full length book, In Everything, Birds, (Village Books Press, OKC, OK, 2015) and her chapbook, Walking the Arroyo (Cyberwit, 2019) is available at independent bookstores, on-line book sources and through the author for signed copies.
My Hunger is Real My hands itch With the want to tear into a fresh loaf To have nose tickled by the warm yeasty steam My hands itch With the want to peel the rind from an orange And feel its succulent lobes part under my teeth Sour sticky juices dripping from my chin The nail of my finger scrapes into the fleshy pad of my thumb Anxiously sniffing and searching my empty hands My guts ache and roll like anguished worms I try to breathe, though my eyes go glassy As I choke on empty pain A passing man offers me a magazine Promising hot gossip and tantalizing entries How dare the world offer me brain candy Whilst my knotted stomach threatens to eat itself into nothingness Like an ancient snake I want real candy For my real stomach Click on the file below to hear Zane reading their poem:
 Zane is a 2nd year college student studying botany and Spanish. They are an artist and newfound poet. They hope to use their art as a platform to communicate and share real struggles and experiences.
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