Written on the threshold of the Cold War, as hostilities between the US and the USSR emerged, two countries who had once been strong allies in the war against fascism, the preceding section of this poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda spoke of the danger of a third World War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Now and again one comes across a poem which seems to have another and perhaps better poem inside it. John Berryman's Homage to Mistress Bradstreet is a work of this sort.

May 2009 poems include "Free Ehren Watada," by Jack Hirschman, "Poppies," by Maggie Jaffe, and "Work Ethic," by Amy Groshek.

Praise song for the day. Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

I never knew death until I saw the bombing of a refugee camp
Craters filled with disfigured ankles and splattered torsos
But no sign of a face, the only impression a fading scream...

"Seeds of Fire" the new, Jon Andersen edited anthology from Smokestack Books is the best collection of political poetry since Lowenfels' "Poets of Today" (1965).

The last day & it's raining.
We hear it on the tin roof--
soft as the tap of the questing sticks
of blind martyrs.