Another Birthday for Dr. Martin Luther King

A Poem by Donal Mahoney

The longer I live the greater Martin Luther King looks
compared with those who have tried to carry on his work.
The man had integrity, guts, ideas and class.

It was heartbreaking in the Sixties to be young and
filled with hope for change in America, only to see
JFK, MLK and RFK murdered in the same decade.

Young people of all kinds had hope back then even if
we saw little change. We thought it was time for a quiet
revolution of ideas in America. That never happened.

My hope is Mike Pence doesn’t succeed Donald Trump
the way Lyndon Johnson succeeded Jack Kennedy. We must
find a peaceful way to get through these next four years.

Eye

A Poem by Allen Palmeri

Somehow evolution made
a human eye with complex
lines, dots, and colors in an
iris fit for an ID.

Somehow evolution made
2 million working parts spin
inside an eye’s infinite
beauty like autumn ablaze.

Somehow evolution made
light strike rods and cones so that
an electric signal moves
throughout the brain for insight.

Somehow evolution made
the family of pupil,
cornea, retina, and
lens dance like dadaism.

Somehow there is sarcasm.