Current Issue

Welcome to the vibrant words and images of spring, celebrating the memory of Marsha P. Johnson, beloved and befamed transgender LGBTQ rights activist and Stonewall Inn heroine. If you’d like the link to the virtual reading for this issue, 18 April at 5:00 pm PACIFIC, please email us at writersresist@gmail.com. Now, join us and our…

By Mx. Asher Everything ends.My five minutes behind a microphone.The vileness of Presidential pedophiles.The bad habit of saying I love you from a youthful after-sex brain.Red hats and alligator crowns.Our tears after cuddling dogs. . .the cuddles end, too. Everything ends,our joy, our pain, our harm, our hope, our lives. But death only plays after…

By Waverly Vernon David,you say poetry is not political,as if Gaza is a metaphorand not a place where childrenfold themselves into rubble. On my television,the anchors call it a war.I count the seconds between bombs.Your voice is nowhere in the smoke.You are busy arranging flowers. I want to be like those poetswho care about the…

By JL Smither People will tell you they run toward things—a thinner body, a stronger heart, their girlfriend’s house. But most people run from things—their own fat ass, their addictions, their girlfriend. Me, I run from voices, from anything that’s out to get me, from everything that could go wrong, from the chaos of the…

By Laura Ann Reed                                   after Osip Mandelstam In the aluminum light poolingon the juniperthe tendrils appear to compressand contract, the blue-green needles to flattenas though made by dread aloneinto a beaten weight.At the same time, no one can believethe expansive passion of the roots.It takes a tractor to extract them.We think it’s theirs: such…

By Johanna Haas In 1980, West Virginia had green hills of magic.The sky was small and the land wide.Others saw only coal.Others saw black diamonds.Fireflies lit dark July skies,A child could chase them forever.My place of Hillbillies.My place without luxury.People say little girls should be quiet,Fed upon sugarplums and restraint.I cannot stay silent.I cannot return…

By Dennis Humphrey So, as I teeter on the dizzying brink of retirement, I am thrilled with a tingling anticipation of a life I have dreamed of since I was a teenager—the life of a full-time writer. For the first time in a lifetime of doing what had to be done to pay the bills,…

By Maxochitl Cortez I too doomscrollscroll a screen of California firesTexas floodsprotests for black and brown kinthe news it flows too easy on the screen I seepolice brutality LA resisting protecting people picked uppiece by        piece offthe      streetsour streets stories seep out of memy language is documentationnot the kind of documents they want to see how…

By John L. Holgerson                                             after the poem Warning by Leonard Cohen If your neighbor disappearsOh if your neighbor disappears The Hispanic man from Venezuelawho helped you paint your houseor the young woman who babysatyour children while dressed proudlyin that rainbow-colored blouse If your neighbor disappearsOh if your neighbor disappears Don’t ask what happenedto the multi-tatted…

The Grand Staircase Railing is Rotted The frayed red carpet a trip hazard.Proceed with caution. Inside the oval office, no light.The thick coat of grime on bay windowsheavier than drapes. Drapes now replaced with lace curtains.On closer inspection, the lace is sticky.Tatted cobwebs. Dead flies. Busted sills. Gold sconces above the white mantelwhere unlit tallow…

By M.R. Mandell Artist’s Statement: I am interested in what surrounds me when I step out of my box and into the streets. What I see while taking a walk, sitting in a café, waiting at a corner. The moments of city life that make us stop, reflect, think, dream, cry. That pull us into…

By Nardien Sadik In the church of lights,where the nuns pray faithfully each morning,beating even the sun in rising.There is undeniable spirituality in every crevice,every knee bowed a testimony to our God’s authorityand a defiant expression of faith in a country that would rather seea Copt shot dead than alive and evangelize. The invasion was…

By Raymond A. Mazurek I. Remembering Towers of brown concrete and steelline the beach and reflect the morning sun,each with a balcony that is private,a capitalist’s dream of peace. Thinking how you, father, would have loved this Vacasa,the vacation you could never afford.But every summer you took us to the beachon day trips, and you…

By Marissa Glover                 “I shall ride like the wind to Samarra . . . and Death will not find me there.”                                                  —from the ancient fable The Appointment in Samarra I met a man in Utahwith a bullet in his neck,shot from a rooftop —a coward’s distancenot like the lady in Minnesota,killed up close by a gunby…

By Alexis Rhodes i watched him stroll the roof:Queen of Hearts with a croquet malletsurveying his kingdom.placingsix hundred and fifty seatsin a ballroom yet to be built. twirling ladies andcaviar truffle burgers dancedacross his pupilsas he tossed cake to the crowd below.Eat Meit read. a cheer, a crowna light game of croquet on thelawn he’ll…

By Dion O’Reilly At Mountain School, the white-faced,clock clicked eight. I stood, right hand to left breast,recited rhythm, felt safety in meter,felt—like a door flown open—the finalfor all, which I took to mean four-legged beasts, bugs, clouds,geese, moons, planets, billions of suns.For all meant us—pinafored girls in cotton socks& patent leather, hemlines to knee,legs pimpled…

By Ann Grogan                                 after former First Lady Michelle Obama at a Kamala Harris for President rally at                                 Kalamazoo, MI on October 27, 2024 “You look amazing” Michelle Obama saidto a lady sitting front and center.When should we senior women not look good?What is amazing about a woman age one hundred?Inherent in what Obama said, a…

By Alice Benson “Watch me, Gram,” Tammy yelled, waving her arms and leaping into the air. Janet smiled, watching her granddaughter bounce on the trampolines. At ten years old, Tammy was athletic and graceful and loved nothing more than playing physically active games. Janet took out her phone, set it on record, and tried to…