A Portrait of America in Trash
By Jose PaduaI give to you a portrait of America in trash.
I give it to you with love and respect, America:
mountains of beer cans crumpled, plastic figures
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Jose PaduaI give to you a portrait of America in trash.
I give it to you with love and respect, America:
mountains of beer cans crumpled, plastic figures
By Patricia MonaghanAfter the nightly news and four martinis
he quietly begins to draw the inner workings
of the bomb, knowing the explosion needed
By Patricia Spears JonesAnd I am full of worry I wrote to a friend
Worry, she replied about what—love, money, health?
All of them, I wrote back. It’s autumn, the air is clear
By Yael Flusbergafter the first three hours
the temperature dropped to visible breath.
my fall coat no longer protected and my toes
By Tiffany HigginsI shall build a city upon a hill
and upon a hill and upon a hill and upon a hill
I am a little shepherd piping low
By Jeff GundyA good day for late wildflowers--daisies and burrs
leaned out into the path for a better view, brilliant
blue somethings with tiny blooms on tall stalks.
By Alison Roh ParkIf it were not so scarred from your accidental
rages—uptown, upstate—I would have rested
on the cinder block of your chest.
By Heather DavisThe lights in your home channel 29 men, their
soot stained clothes, last breaths, crystalline sweat
let loose on black rock
By Gregory PardloUnfinished, the road turns off the fill
from the gulf coast, tracing the bay, to follow
the inland waterway.
By Chris AugustAmerica, don’t we love like oil?
Don’t our slippery arms
Pave the pores of those who need us?