The climate we face
The comments about race
The isolation of many
The wealthy top 20
The animals disappearing
The extinction we're fearing
The communities pull apart
When they need to take part

In mending the world's bleeding heart.

She smiles at speed and leaves my fingers sparkling
with flashes of leather and steel.
She catches my eye in the mirror then falls away
while emerging afresh from around the next bend.  
And somehow she lingers long enough to inject my lap and push me
back deep into each crack in the road, caught in filtered sun
through the crash of leaves, drawing out fear with a surge of adrenaline
pooling in the pit of my stomach and sinking into my sack of stones
that ache and hunger for the straight and the late brake
over the reek of grease, oil and fully leaded fuel,
dyeing my skin a slippery shade of tarmac, diluted by blood
and black rain blinding me with a flimsy sheen shimmering
between me and a dark montage of cries and stillness,
til I pass a pyre that devours young ambition for long life
and casts shadows of a long breath held at the finish,
its threat caught in her smile,
until the next time.

Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go . . .
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.

Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin . . .
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will “win.”

Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through . . .
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.

Keywords/Tags: Armageddon, apocalypse, end, time, arms, race,  nuclear, winter, eve, destruction, nukes, final, countdown

i wanted to visit my ancestors,
so i stepped up to the gate.
i was told “You must be
/this/ dark to be let into this space,
see, there aren’t many people
here that we can match
up to your face,
and by the look of your skin
we couldn’t be certain
you’ve ever felt the sun’s grace,
we’ve seen many colours
but you are another,
do you really belong in this place?”

i wanted to visit my ancestors,
so i stepped up to the door.
i was told “You must be
/this/ light to walk up onto our shores,
see, we saw your curls and thought
Black Pete had come up
from the moors,
and you're familiar,
but that foreign tongue’s
taken several points off your score,
we were only one colour,
there's no room for any others,
so what are you coming to us for?”

i wanted to visit my ancestors
but i wasn’t sure where to go.
they’d shut me out, left me in doubt,
and i was in limbo.
i thought i’d had a birthright,
some kind of claim to make,
i didn’t think that i would be
so easy to forsake.
i hadn’t convinced the ghosts,
and there was nothing left for me,
so i packed my things, tore my branch down,
and went to sow my own tree.

Thank you Corona,
For the awakening call to humanity that was lost in the midst of our busy lives!

Thank you Corona,
For exposing our weakness and vulnerability as human beings, through the power of your invisibility!

Thank you Corona,
For showing us that we are all equal under rule, regardless of age, ***, race, or religion!

Thank you Corona,
For reminding us of the forgotten heroes in the field of healthcare, who are fighting in the front lines, risking their lives to save others.

Thank you Corona,
For teaching a valuable lesson, that by standing together in our fight we can defeat  you under a banner of kindness, love, and humanity!

Hussein Dekmak