MAY DAY RECOLLECTION

by B.Z. Niditch





The other name
safeguards
your identity
life's green card
matches the form
of a poem
and works to shelter
our absence
from betrayal
with an urgent
wish to be not an exile
but an open door poet
scenting no caution
to live among others
in sisterhood
as a brother lip syncs
his soul music 
with a solace of speech
here in an open air
labor festival
I am asked
to urban read
my fierce verse
for all soaring singers
peace partisans,
consumers of the sun
survivors of fascism
and freedom rides,
lovers of natural species,
animal shelter providers
and to recollect
those who stood here
before us.


B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

JANUARY POEM

by Patricia Davis

When fascism comes
it will come with two

children, a dog,
tell warm, personal stories,
call us Ladies and

Gentlemen, have a
catch in its throat.

When fascism comes
it will raid
the houses of sleeping

children, use stun
grenades, tasers.

When fascism comes
it will seize filmmakers’
work at the border.

When fascism comes
it will study our e-mails.

When fascism comes
the potential hostile
intent of a child

will be reason to call in
a drone strike.

When fascism comes
there will be no lawyer,
no sentence, only

the bars, the dark.
When fascism comes

it will jail exclusively
those who have
spoken the truth.

When fascism comes
it will rise from the ash

of oppression.  On the wall
will hang the Nobel
Peace Prize.


Patricia Davis’ poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salt Hill, Spoon River Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Quiddity, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Tar River Poetry, and Smartish Pace, which named her a finalist for the Beullah Rose Poetry Prize.   Her translations of Cuban poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol and the New Laurel Review.