WHERE DOES THE CHILD SLEEP TONIGHT? Where does the old man sleep tonight? In his stately home on a quiet street, away from the city’s noise, and the stress of governing, of calculating returns on investments, profit margins, and collateral damage. Where does the young girl sleep tonight? In her mother’s arms in the desert night. In the squalor of a camp or a fetid slum. On the side of a Mexican road, fleeing the violence that grows from corporate greed and trickle-down fantasies-- surplus for Empire to count and cast aside. Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer and poet who lives and writes between Baltimore and Washington. When he is not writing poetry, he manages geographic programs and teaches population geography.
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More Than Just Food For Thought Hunger has no borders, it impacts all ages in many places. Besides many living from paycheck to paycheck or who may have not yet to received unemployment, whatever the reason, hunger is a reality for many. Let’s stop dividing each other into categories. This is not the time to argue over basic human needs. Humanity doesn’t ask why, rather it asks us to share and provide food without questions. Here is the link to Nina reading her poem on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcmgUT2m-Kc&feature=youtu.be Nina Padolf, EdD. co-edited: Nasty Women and Bad Hombres Poetry Anthology, (Lascaux Editions, 2017);Is It Hot In Here Or Is it Just Me?: Women Over Forty Write on Aging, (Social Justice Anthologies, Amazon, 2019) and poetry has appeared in various journals such as Chiron’s Review and Ekphrastic Review. She is currently working on a memoir which explores growing up adopted, overcoming difficulty in school, and the unfortunate murder of her sister. Rescuers Rescuers on fork-lifts bring us boxes Filled with peanut butter, tuna, rice. Rescuers answer phones, say thank you to those who bring bags To the warehouse door. Rescuers drive trucks to churches, Safe houses, community centers, Places where the poor are given Food, a smile, and a promise of more. Rescuers stand on cold December days Outside of grocery stores, Asking for donations—a can Or a dollar, while music from a local station Warms them with golden oldies. Rescuers bring healthy snacks to children In summer where after basketball or Puppet-making, their sweet bellies growl. We are all rescuers and rescued. Kindness is an antidote to fear. Hot soup, a sandwich fills us, Both the giver and the given With gratitude. Sue Budin is a retired librarian who volunteers with Food Gatherers, a food rescue program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She also works with English as a Second Language students, and is a docent for children at the University of Michigan Art Museum. FOUR WALLS CAN'T HOLD ME TONIGHT Four Walls can’t hold me tonight Of course, they never have: A slab of stone hardly a salve For lone hands reaching into trash For a pitiable stash of food Enough to make it through Unfettered and unchained Called out of name for just wanting A drink, a touch, and not much else prerequisite. Four walls can’t hold me tonight My flight in air A safer fare for folk Anxious for a place to just lay down And not found sullied by morning. And Not found blighted by morning By man-contrived live viruses Eschewing the virtue of open space Lacing homeless man With menace-mangled death. It is because I’m homeless It is because I hunger It is because my clothes hang about me In shreds. And the dread you’d feel Stepping into my shoes Crying my blues And losing a piece of yourself To call me friend. Four walls can’t hold me tonight And won’t As the earth decries the sight Of me, loosely sheltered under K-Street Bridge And you safely snuggled under coverlet Of your feather bed. Billye Okera has been writing poetry since the age of seventeen. Considering herself a Folk-Performance Poets, she is the author of two books The Mourners’ Bench, and The Days of Me and God. At seventy, she has several other projects for publication within the next year. She is the mother of three, and grandmother of eight. She resides in Ft. Washington, MD. To aid or not to aid: that is the question: Whether ‘tis better for others to suffer The baskets of maize from lands of foreign, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by giving end them. To listen: to dictate; No more; and by dead aid to say we end The malnutrition, and the thousand natural shocks That the lands are bound to, ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be evaded. To listen, to dictate; To listen: perchance to care: ay there's the rub; For in that aid, corruption arises, When we’ve extracted all resources, Must give us pause; there’s the alliance That grants access to exploitation; For who would bear the prosperity and not the graves. The poem is modelled on Mr. Shakespeare's famous lines form Hamlet. Chantal Do is a second-year student at UC Davis majoring in International Agricultural Development (with an emphasis on Economics & Trade). Chantal hopes to make a change in the world so that less people have to suffer. Reflections on a Global Crisis under African Skies Calloused feet on hardpack path, Brick-red clay snaking through emerald oceans, She plies survival with shouldered hoe, Wondering idly of other worlds, Where trying times occasion “crises,” As though not daily specter of woe. Where luxury of plenty prompts hoarding, And misery trickles down unordained, Unholy, Cascading, crashing Thunderously on the fragile lives Of those who can least sustain. You can listen to the poet reading his poem clicking on the button below: it will open the audio file in a new window John William Medendorp is an international development practitioner and lifelong humanitarian, devoted tooth and nail to the elimination of hunger and poverty. The Spinning Plate of Hunger When I think of hunger it's usually in terms of the most innocent – the babies of the world. Babies, be they black, white, pink, brown, yellow, tan, even blue, no wait, blue babies happen when hunger wins. When they loll in mother's arms covered in flies with their little eyes glazed over in Africa or India or some other foreign land, flies feasting on their innocence but always somewhere else, never here! Not here in the good old USA [it can't happen here] oh but yes it can! We pride ourselves in maintaining a higher quality of poverty than the rest of the world As if one could quantify suffering per capita, as in “what level is your hunger today?” We are conscientious about records keeping, quantifying, measuring, comparing... we don't know much about this disease but we have lots of data. One thing we do know is that Hunger is a constant, no matter what diseases are making the rounds Hunger is a spinning plate that no food can ever stick on, a plate that must keep spinning come hell or high water. It's our cross to bear, our national obsession. But what good is a plate if you can't get the food to stay on it? What kind of a joke is this? Nobody around here is laughing. RD Armstrong from California, USA has been serving the muse and poets everywhere for 25 years. He writes, (tho poems are few and far these day). He publishes others and himself. His Lummox Press (https://www.lummoxpress.com/lc) is almost as old and has published some 200+ titles. Because he is a loner, all this remains a big secret that only a few poets know about. Bread in Hand But even after all of this farmers keep farming for every one of us They bend the sun and raise the earth each day for us They round each rough and tamp down these fears for each of us Yes after all of this They’re the bells of life for us And even after all of this the grocers pickers baggers stackers sorters drivers checkers and sweepers too are here for us Like bowls of life they give us each our every day and so renew that sense of trust for us And even after all of this and just as much are those who volunteer to serve the soup The ones who help and give and care on our behalf Their hands and hearts shape our thanks -- No matter what else happens they are life And yes even after all of this These days seem like fields to us with shadows deep across the view but with hope there too a full green that grins as ever just like those who stand and wave bread in hand through all of this Click on the button to listen to Hiram Larew reading his poem. The link will open and start playing in the same tab. Hiram Larew founded the informal Poetry X Hunger initiative in 2017 as a way to bring two areas of interest – poetry and hunger prevention – together. Upon retiring from the U.S. Department of Agriculture where he helped guide international agriculture programs, he noticed that relatively little poetry about hunger was available. Believing in the power of poetry to touch hearts and minds, he launched Poetry X Hunger as a way to encourage poets to write about hunger. |
Now more than everThese poems have been submitted to the call for poetry "Now more than ever" Archives
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