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Meditation on Hunger So this was our harvest. A single tomato from two vines. Some said there was too much sun or too much rain, but we got what we got. Be grateful, I said, with wisdom that came from thinking about hunger for many days and images and words that had shattered my imagination; at 12, an old man rummaging through the trash for food on my first field trip to the UN; at 14, kwashiorkor - the pot bellies and slatted ribs of Biafran children and forever the ghost faces of the newly liberated from the concentration camp Dachau. Who feeds the Heaven-dreams of the hungry? We will have a ceremony my friend said, so we cut the fruit in equal parts, which I salted and held on my tongue as she began the Shehecheyanu - Baruch ata Adonai - singsonging to the finish. Then we clinked our glasses and toasted L’Chaim! To Life! My Master once gave these instructions: “Buy this girl some food”, he said on my birthday. It was his affection, but now I’m thinking “When was my famine?” When had it begun for each of us? an insatiable hunger, an unquenchable thirst. My cat comes to the door after a heavy rain. As long as she is with me I will feed her. Soon it will be time to put on my sari (perhaps the one with butterflies) and continue the nurturing task of feeding others. Let me not forget this benediction, this prayer for plentitude, Annam Brahma Food is God.  Bhikshuni Weisbrot is the President of the UNSRC Society of Writers. She is the editor, along with Elizabeth Lara and Darrel Alejandro Holnes, of "Happiness, The Delight-Tree", An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry.
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BOGEY He is the maestro of the misbegotten don of the destitute headliner for the homeless. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter Bogey sits on the bench of an outstretched folding table head hung down, eyes clinging to the cement floor of one of two adjacent pavilions, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his stained and faded evergreen hoodie. In spring, summer, autumn —but never winter-- pretty women in pastel-colored exercise outfits park their gleaming Subarus, SUVs, and Mercedes along a tree-lined park drive and hurry over to the pavilion next to the one where Bogey sits. They wave their long arms like tulip stems to the rhythms of their leader. “One…two…three…come on, ladies! Four…five…six You’re almost there!” Bogey, frozen on the bench in his open-air theater wing, watches them curiously as he waits for Squire the squirrel to leap onto the table and feast on the peanuts that Bogey has lined up for him like tiny communion cups. Soon, as he does most mornings, a gray-haired man with a Labrador retriever will sit down beside Bogey and talk to him in hushed but intense tones, like a theater director urging a Shakespearean actor not to be afraid, but simply to be. -end-  Richard Stukey is a freelance writer who also writes fiction, poetry, and songs. His articles and columns have appeared in many publications, including the (North Jersey) Record, the Washington Examiner, and the Boston Globe. He grew up in Teaneck Jersey, and lives in the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia.
Click to listen to the poet read the poem: Food Shortage corralled by crates till inside number reaches fifty signal given carts driven on great race to gather up troves in bulk new lineup new panic did I purchase enough? return tomorrow to replenished shelves *first published in March 2020: A COVID-19 Anthology (2020) by 845 Press.  Ryan Gibbs is an English professor who lives in London, Canada. His over forty poems have appeared in journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Malta, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon. His children’s poetry has been included in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. Twitter: @RyanGibbsWriter
Click to listen to the poet read the poem: Comes a time… A subliminal nibbling, a foreboding: famines we have seen are how we may be. No need, there is food for all. Turn the tide of history, settle for less, share the largesse. Pick your story: Stone Soup, the loaves and fish, today’s farmers with extra hay sending it to those without. Emulate that spirit: stock the foodbank shelves, protest/prevent the desiccation of farmland, do what you can to stop the melting of glaciers which feed our rivers. The revolution has to be generous. Care for each other. Give, share food, resources, knowledge. We are – all are – one with the Earth no matter how far separate we may seem.  "I’ve been a writer all my life while moving through a career path that included printing, proof-reading, composing room work, reporting, eventually editing and publishing my own newspaper, teaching, and union work. I’ve written non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and songs."
Click to listen to the poet read the poem: A Southern Farmers Market Summer sun freckles your shoulders I follow your cotton dress Between stalls carrying canvas bags Soon overflowing with booty From our morning expedition Cauliflower white yellow And unbelievably purple Fondled by your whisper long fingers While choosing the ideal Head for greedy consumption Greens mustard collard turnip Fibrous deep verdant Leaves that will shrivel To potent nutrition With vinegar and fatback The canvas cornucopia Spills across our kitchen table You prepare a lunch Sharpened with flavors Purchased mere minutes ago We eat on the deck Ignore air conditioning Feed each other blueberries With our lips reveling in primal nature  Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in North Carolina. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
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