Edge Of Humanity Magazine
Poetry Anthology
JUNE 2026 · A

Edge of Humanity Magazine

4 hours ago

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A COMPANY AND GHOSTS

What do you say, Dr. Pozzoni,
regarding the surveillance costs
of our warehouse?
How many guards would you place
at the barrier post?

For me, none, unless one decides
to pursue an increase in the public image
of our beloved company.

What do you say, Dr. Pozzoni, what do you say?

Well…, I would place none, unless one wished
to pursue an increase in the public image
of our beloved company.

How many would you place, Dr. Pozzoni?
What do you say?

Every decision implies costs.

(silence)

They are non-amortizable costs.

How many would you place?
How many?

As many as you want.

A ghost, before the ubiquity of company men
inclined to wheeling and dealing,
fluttering from cost to cost
on a spit-roast.

Poetry By Julie Brinson

Green Army Man

The Government declared victory
But he came home broken and defeated
Hated by his own, in his own country
Consumed by incessant guilt for surviving
All that he’d seen and all that he’d done
Haunted by nightmares and flashbacks
So much death, so much suffering
Terrors of unspeakable atrocities
And a stench that never left his memory

He would spend a lifetime battling
Everything and everyone, his war never ended
Addictions were many, but never enough
To escape the horrors of still being alive
He was just a kid, really
Sent all the way around the world
To fight in places unknown
Against people unknown, for reasons unknown
All innocence lost, all faith destroyed.

Poetry By Yongbo Ma

I tirelessly translate poems all day long

I translate poems all day long, unaware that dusk is approaching
the day is entirely gray
the night is filled with the light of snow and transparent black
there are no other colors, monotony is my will
as long as I can find an equally monotonous tune
I can unfold those sentences one by one
like unwinding a ball of yarn in a maze
as if there is no other need
as if it doesn’t matter whether there is a monster
in the center of the maze or not
I lie by the stream all day long like an old dog
I can smell the ferns and the silt
there, the sun always sets for the first time

Poetry By Wilma Fellman

Clues from The Silver Screen

We hear music
As their fingers lock
Above the candle-lit table
Eyes holding a forever stare
the violins
are slow and sad
and now we know

We hear music
While she whispers with her confidant
Darting questions
Only trusting sounds dare ask
the symphony
grows frantic with warning
and then we know

We hear music
As he leaves his painful life behind
Walking towards
Whatever world beyond
the melody
is quick with hope
and so we know

WE don’t hear music
At each scene
Where OUR script
Takes us this way or that
the orchestra
must signal clear and loud
then WE WOULD KNOW

Poetry By Cameron Kimber

Practicing Minimalism

I’ve been throwing out my old junk lately

Starting with the desk drawer crammed with high school classmates
They’ve been rolling around in there so long
I can hardly remember their names

And my old coworkers from all those restaurants
Packed haphazardly into the closet
Piled on top of the people in the year books
And the box of random encounters

Strangers when we met,
and strangers we’ve become again

On the bookshelf was an old Rolodex
pressed between the pages
were doctors and neighbors from my old home town
None of them any sparked joy

I made a post in the community marketplace
Trying to give it all away
But nobody called me back

So I binned the lot
Now there’s finally some space in here
For all my books and pens and the packaging my blender came in
I can really stretch out and be myself

Poetry By Fr. Nate Harburg

What If/Even If

What if the biopsy knocks down, then kicks me?
Or what if the loan is refused?
What if my landlord plays tricks and evicts me?
Or mem’ry (or marbles!) I lose
And I’m clearly…
Confused?

What if, whilst bussing, the brakes bust at random?
The sky falls? The world won’t go round?
What if I’m fired, convicted, abandoned?
The tiniest break I can’t catch?
I’d be fixin’ to
Break down!

What if, like Job, I lose all of my kin?
Or drown in my mountain-high debts?
What if I relapse? I’m sick of this sin!
I’m ‘fraid I’ll forever be fraught
With those relished…
Regrets!

Even if every last “what if” I’ve listed
So happened to happen to me
Or Death, without knocking, popped in for a visit
I’d never be parted from Love
In Whose grasp… I’m Free

Poetry By Richard LeDue

The Human Condition

The human condition is like a copy
of one of my favorite books,
aging along with me:
creases for wrinkles and torn
pages for all the things that bothered me
but I was always too polite
to say anything about to anyone
who could have changed my situation,
and some of the best lines ruminate
the same as old memories,
making the past seem both better
and worse than it was, which is pretty
human, while the dust that settles on it
every so often, reminds me of why
whisky still offers a better immortality
(to me anyway and I’m human too)
than the words of another dead writer.

Poetry By Lynn White

Where Equivalence Goes To Die

We soon found out that Native Americans
were the bad guys.
We watched the Hollywood portrayals
of the cowardly braves
deserving of death
and the brave, honest settlers
who rightly prevailed.
If propaganda is successful
it won’t even be recognised.
And successful it was for a long time.
That is not to say
that all ‘indians’ were good people,
that they never committed atrocities
or preached hatred and abuse.
But the power was so disproportionate
that they could be no equivalence.
The scales were already tipping over.
To pretend balance was possible
would be a distortion.
Then there were the Nazi’s.
No one now thinks that
their arguments
of superiority,
of paranoia and racism
should find an open ear.
But ears were open then.
Wide open.
And eyes were closed to
enslavement,
starvation
and death.
That is not to say
that all Jews, Slavs and gypsies were good people,
that they never committed atrocities
or preached hatred and abuse.
But the power was so disproportionate
that they could be no equivalence.
The scales were already tipping over.
To pretend balance was possible
would be a distortion.
And in South Africa, a new ideology,
separate development
for the benefit of each culture.
So it was justified
in the propaganda,
the dominant discourse.
And it found the open ears
of the powerful.
So segregated townships were created
and Bantustan homelands.
far away.
Separation, control,
humiliation, harassment,
impoverishment, exploitation.
That is not to say
that all the black people were good,
that they never committed atrocities
or preached hatred and abuse.
But the power was so disproportionate
that they could be no equivalence.
The scales were already tipping over.
To pretend balance was possible
would be a distortion.
And now in Israel
the same game is being played,
separation, control,
humiliation, harassment,
impoverishment,
destruction, death
with the same justifications,
the same ears open
to the powerful,
closed to the oppressed
That is not to say
that all Palestinians are good people,
that they never commit atrocities
or preach hatred and abuse.
But the power is so disproportionate
that there can be no equivalence.
The scales are already tipping over.
To pretend balance is possible
would be a distortion.
So now we must wait
for some ears to be closed
and others to be opened
as history moves on
Relentlessly.

Poetry By Paul Glover

Cast offs

Cast off that mask!
You know – the one you wear
in every public task.
The camouflage that stops your tears,
and hides away your daily fears
as insulating as a vacuum flask.
Some are pitiless as glass,
pretending deep disregard
when deep inside kindness resides.
Some seem so full of joy,
yet cover up the cracks
where grief and sorrow lurks.
Some are saintly but disguise
the rage and hurt inside.
Beware, your mask, for all
it may work for you awhile
it’s no more than a wall
to keep out all the world.
Is it too much to ask
to let, at least, your lover see
yourself behind the mask.

Cast off that deceitful coat you wear
to deflect the glances and the stares
(it makes your shoulders stoop)
and stand upright,
be more honest with your friends and foes.
If you stand up straight,
it’s easier to bear the weight
of all your worries and your woes,
and then perhaps you can show
to others that you can take
some of their burden, and then
true happiness bestow.

Cast off those shoes!
They pinch your toes,
and try of these;
the shoes of someone else
whose needs are so much greater
than any one of yours.
Think, on every common street
are those whose every step
is a painful memory
of the limits of their hateful lives;
the relentless elastic bands
of life that constrain our
struggle and our striving
to be ourselves, and not
what the world would want for us;
downtrodden in the dust.
And yet a little consideration
may help our daily push
if we take the time to swap our shoes
in the insensible routine rush
and make empathy the news.

Poetry By Madlynn Haber

Looking Back

Don’t cringe when you look back
at the young self who didn’t know enough.
That person who lost opportunities, people,
places, and possibilities. She would have done
otherwise, if you had been there to guide her,
but wisdom came after her abrupt departures,
her impulsive, door-slamming exits.

Looking back to make amends, to relocate
missing pieces in a jumble of mismatched sequences.
the puzzle of a lifetime looks like an abstract
painting with bursts of color and expression,
loud and bright between muted shadows,
lacking order and coherence.

It may not be a pretty picture but in its fullness,
it tells one story on top of another story.
It is all deserving of respect.
Each has its own dignity and purpose.

Don’t cringe, don’t doubt, don’t regret.
Bask in the wonder of surprise, of mistake and repair,
losing and finding, obscurity and clarity.
Always keep going forward while, only occasionally,
glancing back with nostalgic delight.