{"id":2399,"date":"2017-01-03T19:50:12","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T00:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=2399"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:12:15","slug":"such-an-ugly-time","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=2399","title":{"rendered":"Such an Ugly Time<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

“. . . you must protest you must protest
\nit is your diamond duty
\nah but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty”<\/i><\/p>\n

So wrote Phil Ochs in the liner notes on his 1967 album Pleasures of the Harbor<\/i>. With that prescience which artists often display, Ochs could as easily have been speaking to us today as to those LBJ-era protestors who were making Vietnam the political issue of their time.
\n 
\nAnd following Ochs’ lead, Rat’s Ass Review spent the first 100 days of the Trump presidency accumulating beauty and speaking artistic truth to ugliness. Not that beauty meant smiling myopic ignorance; our poets met dark times with dark works as well as light ones. But these poems hold out the hope the arts have always offered \u2013 that the best of human effort can go on, and in fact must go on, even in such an ugly time.<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\nPoems were posted in small groups as they came in. For a complete list of poets, go here<\/a><\/strong>.
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\nTRUMP FACE by Mark Spitzer<\/strong>
\n 
\nCover Artist Mark Spitzer is the author of 25 books, mostly about fish. He is currently a professor of creative writing somewhere in Arkansas.
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted April 28 to May 1, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nJane Attanucci<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBUS STOP IN THE RAIN, JANUARY 2017
\n 
\nNo umbrella\u2003 her head draped
\nloosely in a red-print scarf
\nhijab perhaps I don\u2019t know
\nshe checks her app \u2003 It\u2019s coming
\nfour more minutes<\/i>
\nOn the crowded bus \u2003 we sit
\ntalk together \u2003 her job
\nsearch \u2003 my son teaching
\nin Germany \u2003 her falling
\nin love in France \u2003 his move
\nto Russia \u2003 the election
\nour fears \u2003 her wish to live
\nnearer to her elderly father
\n 
\n 
\nI DIDN\u2019T WANT TO TURN AWAY
\n 
\nas the mother robin,
\nlike mothers everywhere,
\nlike my own\u2014 stole each swirling
\ntendril for her grey-streaked bowl.
\n 
\nFeathers coated in pollen, golden-
\ngreen, she sat unmoved,
\nSpring\u2019s wild, whistling gusts
\nrocking the Andromeda bush.
\n 
\nYet still I wonder for her brood,
\nat the emptiness of her nest.
\nTell me what you told me this morning \u2026
\ntell me again and again.
\n 
\n 
\nJane Attanucci has poems published in the Aurorean, Off the Coast, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Quotable<\/i> and Right Hand Pointing<\/i> among others. Her chapbook, First Mud<\/i>, (finalist in the Blast Furnace<\/i> Contest, 2014) was released by Finishing Line Press (2015). She lives in Cambridge, MA. <\/a>
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGO HOME: AFTER WE DRAG YOU OFF THE AIRPLANE
\n 
\nBecause you bought this house
\nand because you moved in and planted a garden,
\nyou believe that you own this house
\nbut we were under no obligation to inform you
\nuntil now that your deed
\nis actually a license.
\nWe want a more important person to live here.
\nUnder terms of this license we will provide another
\nhouse, upgraded, that will be available in a year
\nor two in a neighborhood where the crime rate
\nis not as bad as it used to be.
\nYou have the right to volunteer to go quietly.
\nWe\u2019re sorry you refuse to leave voluntarily but we\u2019re sure
\nyou will understand why it is necessary to break your legs
\nand throw all your possessions to the street.
\nYour wife will remain with us
\nas you have a license of marriage, not an ownership
\nand she will meet our needs.
\nIt is unfortunate we had to shoot the dog
\nbut we have a right to stand our ground
\nand the dog, don\u2019t forget, was licensed.
\nYou will be pleased to know
\nthe garden you planted will remain.
\nLater we will send a photo of the beans and tomatoes
\nyour wife has prepared
\nbefore we eat them.
\nGood day.
\n 
\n 
\nBy day Joe Cottonwood has worked as a carpenter, plumber, electrician for most of his life. Some jobs were pretty; some, shitwork. Nights, he writes. Same split. His most recent book is 99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses<\/i>. joecottonwood.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAmy Marie D’Apice<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOP<\/strong>
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAmy Marie D\u2019Apice is an American painter, writer, teacher, and performer, not necessarily in that order. She has an MFA from the University of Washington. She currently lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAnon<\/strong>
\n 
\nTHE PROMISED LAND
\n 
\nYou began at the bottom of the death pit
\nborn within the bones of dogs and jews
\nand your first breath tasted like death
\nand undeserved power
\nYou climbed out as you grew older
\nunderstanding the nature of existence:
\nour own warfare and
\nhow to shoot
\nto kill.
\nBy sixteen,
\nyou were an expert
\nin the field of charming destruction
\nand your lungs filled with dirty glory
\nthat everyone believed you deserved
\n 
\nYou unplugged from your roots and flew
\nhigher than any drone or plane;
\nyou grew your metallic wings and
\nspat out your charm onto cities and towns.
\nIt stuck like black chewing gum
\nso that the others could not escape
\nand were buried peacefully
\nin the ashes of your perfect power.
\n 
\nYou ended at the bottom of the death pit
\nshot in the back of your beautiful skull
\nwith that rosy gun that had made your
\nmother give you life
\nwhere she did
\nand in return
\nyou gave her death.
\nYou were ended for the \u2018wartime atrocities\u2019
\nthat life entails
\nyou were ended for killing the mother
\nthat was heavily pregnant
\nwith you
\nin the midst of the bones of dogs and
\nall the other jews.
\n 
\n 
\nWhen not writing, Anon enjoy reading poetry, some of her favourite poets being John Donne, Sylvia Plath, Margret Atwood and Arthur Rimbaud. This is her first publication. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Dorroh<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAS GOOD AS IT GETS
\n 
\nI saw him on the news this morning,
\naddressing the NRA, mentioning
\nPocahontas and Elizabeth Warren,
\nwith his sixth-grade vocabulary:
\n 
\n\u201cWe have a great tax plan for you
\nand it\u2019s going to be wonderful.
\nCan\u2019t tell you details yet
\nbut you\u2019ll be the first to know.
\nBefore I do that,
\nwe have to start a thermo-
\nnuclear war with that North Korean
\ndictator\u2026 what\u2019s his name\u2026
\nand can you believe that hair do\u2026”
\n 
\ndon’t believe what you hear and only
\nhalf of what you see. He\u2019s playing
\ngolf again at Key Mal-grow and no
\none ever speaks of his handicap.
\n 
\n 
\nThe verdict is still out as to whether John Dorroh taught high school science for 30 years; however, he showed up every morning at 6:30 with a plan. He thinks he lost friends when they learned he worked for Bernie Sanders. “Even Rubio looks good now,” he said.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarcia Eppich-Harris<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCRAVINGS
\n 
\nI’m an emotional eater.
\nSometimes I eat for the experience,
\nthe celebration of bliss.
\nSometimes I eat out of the greasy paper bag
\nof grief.
\nToday, I want to eat America \u2013
\nso it will
\nstop
\nits
\nfucking
\ninsanity.
\n 
\nAmerica needs Liberty’s womb to nurture it,
\nand if not a womb, then a stomach
\nwill do just as well.
\nPerhaps we can solve each other’s problems.
\nI need to be filled like America needs
\na reason not to give up.
\nIt needs someone to love it enough, hold it close,
\nand say, “Don’t you fucking give up on me, America.”
\n 
\nI like food in America because it’s a map of flavor:
\nTex-Mex, Chinese, Japanese, Sudanese,
\nIndian, California fusion, Italian, Armenian,
\nGreek, and German, hell,
\nI’ll even eat British food
\nbecause I’ll try anything \u2013 once.
\nVeggie, meaty, frothy, sugary, diversity
\nlives in America,
\nmelts in my belly and says,
\n“America, you are so so so so so
\ngoooooood.”
\nSee how we get along inside my body, America?
\n 
\nI cannot give up eating or I would die
\nin a satisfaction desert.
\nAmerica, if I gave up on you,
\nmeals would never taste like
\nthe honey of that one-page parchment
\nabout being created equal,
\nsucculent
\ntruths, self-evident,
\ndelectable.
\n 
\nFor years, I gobbled it up and I think you did too.
\nSee how food equalizes in the body?
\nSee how the combining of flavors does them justice?
\nWe should all be in the Goldilocks zone \u2013
\nJust.
\nRight.
\nBut you are peanuts in an allergy-prone world, America.
\nIf we, the people, eat the shit you’re serving,
\nwill we asphyxiate all the way to Wall Street?
\nYour pundits break the skin with their biting,
\nsuck out the Dow Jones Industrial Average
\nfrom our unaffordable wounds and spit it away from the
\nones who love you for your full-scale menu,
\nnot for your billionaires, America.
\n 
\nAmerica,
\nbe the food that
\nnourishes me and reassure
\nthe world that it’s not over \u2013
\nnot like this \u2013
\nyou’re not going out in a Cheetos haze topped with donut-shaped \u2013
\nn\u00e9e mushroom-shaped \u2013 clouds.
\nNo more junk food, America.
\nThe pleasure of a real meal that you cooked yourself
\ntrumps the high-fructose corn syrup
\nintoxication of power, fame, money,
\nand demands of
\nbrand loyalty.
\nDon’t betray yourself<\/i>, America.
\nDon’t fuck<\/i> with me \u2013 cook<\/i> with me.
\nThere’s chicken soup simmering,
\nenough for me, enough for you.
\n 
\n 
\nMarcia Eppich-Harris\u2019s writing has appeared in Johnny America, Spelk, The Avenue, So It Goes, Down in the Dirt Magazine<\/i>, and Across the Margin<\/i>, where her short story, ‘Play Ball,’ was chosen for the \u2018ATM Best of 2016, Fiction\u2019 list. Marcia teaches literature at Marian University. Follow her on Twitter @EppichHarris<\/a>, or for more information, see: meppichharris.com\/<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarissa Glover<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n2016: THE YEAR THE MUSIC DIED
\na cento<\/i>
\n 
\nLooked through the paper\u2014
\nmakes you want to cry. Knee deep
\nin the hoopla, sinking in your fight. Hold on,
\nhold on, my brother. My sister, hold on tight.
\nFebruary made me shiver with every paper I\u2019d deliver:
\nbad news on the doorstep; insanity laughs.
\nUnder pressure we\u2019re cracking.
\nAre we rolling downhill like a snowball
\nheaded for hell? With no kind of chance
\nfor the flag or the liberty bell?
\n 
\nIt\u2019s hard to love\u2014there\u2019s so much to hate;
\nsomeone\u2019s always playing corporation games.
\nWho counts the money underneath the bar?
\nWho rides the wrecking ball into our guitars?
\nWe\u2019re face to face with the man who sold the world.
\nAs I watched him on the stage,
\nmy hands were clenched in fists of rage.
\nIn the master\u2019s chambers, they gathered
\nfor the feast. They stab it with their steely knives,
\nbut they just can\u2019t kill the beast.
\n 
\nThere are thieves in the temple tonight.
\nMagnified, sanctified be thy holy name
\nvilified, crucified in the human frame\u2014
\nin the streets the children screamed,
\nthe lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
\nWounded skies above say it\u2019s much too late;
\nmaybe we should all be praying for time.
\n 
\nNot a word was spoken\u2014the church bells all were broken.
\n 
\nWhen logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
\nand the White Knight is talking backwards
\nand the Red Queen\u2019s off with her head,
\npoliticians brag about a paperwork solution\u2014it\u2019s a system
\nof survival, future revival, greet the new arrival.
\nI found out there are no rules to the game.
\n 
\nTurned away from it all like a blind man;
\nI made it to the forward deck.
\nI blessed our remnant fleet\u2014and then
\nconsented to be wrecked, a thousand kisses deep.
\nLove, come quick. Love, come in a hurry.
\nDream if you can a courtyard\u2014an ocean of violets
\nin bloom. All we have to do now
\nis take these lies and make them true somehow.
\n 
\nBut here I am again mixing misery and gin,
\nsitting with all my friends and talking to myself.
\nAre the good times really over for good?
\nWhy do we scream at each other?
\nTo the heart and mind, ignorance is kind,
\nbut this is what it sounds like when doves cry.
\nThe rich declare themselves poor
\nand most of us are not sure if we have too much.
\nI work very hard for all I could afford,
\nbut I don\u2019t pretend for a single moment
\nthat what I get is my just reward.
\n 
\nI\u2019m back in the ring with my boxing gloves on\u2014
\nall I wanted: something special, something sacred.
\nDance me to your beauty with a burning violin.
\nDance me through the panic \u2019til I\u2019m gathered safely in.
\nI know, I know, I know times are changing\u2014
\nit\u2019s time we all reach out for something new.
\nStrange fascination, fascinating me,
\nchanges are taking the pace I\u2019m going through.
\nLove\u2019s such an old fashioned word,
\nand love dares you to care for the people
\non the edge of the night. How they dance
\nin the courtyard\u2014sweet summer sweat.
\nSome dance to remember; some dance to forget.
\n 
\nI did my best\u2014it wasn\u2019t much.
\nI couldn\u2019t feel so I tried to touch. I\u2019ve told the truth:
\nDon\u2019t you draw the Queen of Diamonds; she\u2019ll beat you
\nif she\u2019s able. The Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.
\nWhen the night is slow, the wretched and the meek
\ngather up our hearts and go\u2014hanging on to hope
\nwhen there is no hope to speak of.
\n 
\nThere\u2019s a blaze of light in every word\u2014
\nit doesn\u2019t matter which you heard: the holy or the broken
\nHallelujah. Show me the love, the mystery;
\ntake me back to honesty. Come down from your fences\u2014
\nopen the gate. In love we live. In love you breathe.
\nA bright sunrise will contradict the heavy fault
\nthat weighs you down. Dusk will come with fireflies,
\nand whippoorwill and crickets call. Life will call
\nwith daffodils and morning glorious blue skies.
\n 
\n 
\nMarissa Glover teaches and writes in Florida, but she isn\u2019t to blame for election results. Her work has appeared in The Opiate<\/i> and Sandhill Review<\/i> and on her parents’ refrigerator. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBeth Gordon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFINAL EXAM
\n 
\nNo longer able to look and know, the physicist
\ndiagnosed with advanced dementia deconstructs
\nthe clock into three distinct
\nintersections, where the longest hand is the least
\nimportant. Show him a child\u2019s picture book with instructions
\nfor reading analog time and he will falter, consider
\nthe circle, it has no place here. His wife
\nwatches his lips, his tongue, resists the urge
\nto blurt out the answer. He says that losing his ability to tell time opened
\nanother door, a parallel alternative, don\u2019t feel
\nsorry for me, I know more than I used to know<\/i>. He turns
\nhis gaze to the small-screen television, the President
\nhe cannot identify (1970? Richard M. Nixon?), the words:
\nchocolate cake, build a wall, alternative
\nfacts<\/i>, destroy his hard-earned peace of mind. The paper
\nand pencil thrown across the room, he turns
\non loved ones and examiners like a foul-mouthed, feral
\nchild, the open door disappears.
\n 
\nThe smallest hand is the most important, that is where
\nhe must restart, then add a layer in parcels of 5, then add another
\nin parcels of 60, then he can tell you that it is one forty
\nP M on a Tuesday in 2017. The long skinny hand is moving too quickly
\nfor him to keep up. The television is blank and silent. He looks
\nup from the golden watch face on his wife\u2019s
\ntiny familiar wrist.
\n 
\n 
\nBeth Gordon is a writer who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her MFA from American University a long time ago. Her work has recently appeared in Into the Void, Calamus Journal, Slink Chunk Press, Five:2:One, Barzakh<\/i>, and others.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCarole Hall<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON BAGHDAD STREETS
\n 
\nIn Baghdad town please close the door,
\nLay down your weapons on the floor.
\nHold out your hand with palm upheld,
\nAll thoughts of war are now repelled.
\nNo more, no more, you all are one,
\nTake up the cry, this war is done.
\n 
\nAnd so we wait on Baghdad\u2019s streets,
\nWe watch the march of sandaled feet,
\nThe soldiers of a hundred wars,
\nHave been this way a thousand more.
\nAnd nothing gained but bloodied sand,
\nIn this poor, scorched, beleaguered land.
\n 
\nBring home the sons you bravely bore,
\nTurn back the armaments of war.
\nThere is no torch to pass along,
\nNo need to raise a victory song.
\nToo many dead on hell\u2019s foreign ground
\nLet my sweet child be homeward bound.
\n 
\n 
\nCarole Hall is the author of NAIROBI BLOODSTAR published in print and e~book by M\u00e9lange Books Inc available at Amazon, Lulu and Smashword, June 2015, and an e~book KILLING AT THE WHITE SWAN INN published by Winter Print 2011; this book will also be in print July 2017 by Melange Books.
\n 
\nHer novel AN INTERRUPTED LOVE STORY is due out early 2018. She has 14 short stories published in various magazines, and poems in Hot Summer Nights<\/i> (2014) and in NO, ACHILLES<\/i> (2015)<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nErica Hoffmeister<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYOUR MOTHER\u2019S WOMB
\n 
\nI did not go through 43 hours of labor for this
\n 
\nMy mother did not battle through 7 births without medication for this
\n 
\nMy grandmother did not get strapped down to a sterile table in Honolulu, her legs and arms stretched over hooks for dissection as the doctors dislocated the shoulder of her eldest son to
\nforcibly remove him from her bruised body with a cold metal for this
\n 
\nMy great-grandmother did not endure a homebirth in the back woods of Missouri underneath
\na sweet, but incapable alcoholic who lined his pockets with tobacco and hers with fine jewels for this
\n 
\nNow\u2014this is reclamation of our uteri,
\nour mothers\u2019 and sisters\u2019
\nthat have carried so much heavier loads
\nthan our menstrual blood
\n 
\nOur bodies have housed more than children,
\nthough we find our strongest battles are
\nfought with the children\u2019s children of stronger
\nwomen than us\u2014strong women
\nlike us
\n 
\nWho understand the difference between consent and
\ndissent, whose wombs are ours to retreat to
\nwhen there are no more safe spaces to occupy,
\nwhen there is no one else to struggle or fight for two days straight
\nhooked to machine and midwife
\nso my daughter could read in history books
\nabout the year she was born
\nlearn about the elected leader of the free world, how
\neven he has forgotten the
\nimportance \/ beauty \/ safety
\n 
\nstrength that existed
\nin his
\nmother\u2019s womb
\n 
\n 
\nBorn and raised in Southern California, Erica Hoffmeister earned her MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University’s dual degree program in 2015. She has had work published in So To Speak, Split Lip Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review<\/i>, and Shark Reef<\/i>, among others. She was also a runner-up for the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize in 2016, and received an honorable mention for the Lorian Hemingway Award for Short Fiction in 2014. She currently writes and lives in Denver with her husband and daughter, Scout S\u00e9verine, where she teaches English and literature courses, blogs, and constantly misses the ocean.
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSummer Jones<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE NOTORIOUS RBG
\n 
\nGod save the queen,
\nsomeone tell Ruth, ma\u2019am,
\n 
\nI am more than willing to personally donate
\nwhatever organs she may need
\nto keep \u201cfull steam\u201d
\n 
\nMa\u2019am,
\nwe need that better day
\n 
\nSummer Jones is a poet, writer, and general loudmouth. Jones gleefully left Indiana to live in Seattle, WA, and is enrolled in SCC.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Kenney<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBANNON\u2019S WHICH?
\n 
\nCommander is royally rich,
\nRex of rococo and kitsch,
\nand though King of his litter
\nand Titan of Twitter,
\nin the White House, he\u2019s Steve Bannon\u2019s person.
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Kenney’s most recent book is “The One-Strand River” (Knopf, 2007). He teaches in Seattle.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert T. Krantz<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVAGRANT
\n 
\nthese boxcar doors slide
\nopen with great clamors
\nof fear and trembling
\nshake our cups
\nspilling brown coffee onto pine pallets\u2014
\nwe dream generous portions
\nof flaked biscuits and gravy
\nat the diner in the town up ahead
\nBaxter smiles when the first burst of light
\npeaks over the northern plain
\njust in case
\n 
\n 
\nRobert T. Krantz graduated from the University of Akron, OH with a BA in English. His individual works have appeared in Gargoyle, Wilderness House Literary Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review<\/i> and others. Bitterzoet Press recently published two chapbooks of Robert\u2019s work Plus 4<\/i> and Hansel<\/i> and he is currently pursuing the MFA in Poetry at University of Arkansas-Monticello. He makes his living as an industrial sales engineer in the Midwest. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDiane M. Laboda<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE SKINNY
\n 
\ntell the truth skinny
\ntell the truth fat
\nmake it whole, fair
\nnothing but, swear to it
\n 
\nfind your truth
\nwear it naked
\nzipped up in candor
\nredress your heart
\n 
\ntell it random
\ntell it slant
\npuff it, plot it
\ndown to the brass tacks
\n 
\nseek the gospel\u2019s
\ngolden rule
\nread to the bottom line
\nuncover frankness and faith
\n 
\ncurry horse sense
\nbridle fact
\ntake you dogma
\nfor a walk
\n 
\non your honor
\nheart on your sleeve
\npack your scruples
\ndon\u2019t look back
\n 
\nDiane M. Laboda has published poetry, short stories and articles in Huron Winds, Watermark, Lighter Breezes<\/i>, Project Grow’s Community Gardener, Crash<\/i> online literary magazine, Third Wednesday<\/i> literary journal, Current Magazine, WCC\u2019s E-Link, Washtenaw Voice, OP\/T Connection, Gallery One Colors & Voices<\/i> diversity exhibit, The Huron River Review issues 1-15, Blood Orange, The Big Windows Review<\/i> and Poetry Club anthologies. She has published two chapbooks: Facing the Mirror<\/i> and This Poet\u2019s Journey<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Laue<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBEING HUMAN
\n 
\nIn spite of it all —
\nmurders, rapes,
\nbrutal terrorist attacks,
\nendless wars, exploitation
\nof the planet and her resources,
\noverpopulation, starvation—
\n 
\nIn spite of the much discussed
\nprogress toward human evolution
\nwhich may not be true;
\nand the fact that all of us endure
\nwith great symbolic swords
\nperpetually above our heads —
\nI give thanks.
\n 
\nWhile the world situation
\nrolls on like a juggernaut
\ntoward possible extinction,
\nI take what comfort\u2019s granted,
\nstretch it like a finite food supply,
\nstrive to heal my wounds,
\ntriumph over horror.
\n 
\nI have no right to satisfaction
\n(Nero fiddled while Rome burned),
\nyet rays of light can bring relief
\nfrom oppressive charcoal skies.
\nAnd sometimes when I least expect it
\nhappiness breaks over me,
\na cresting wave.
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Laue, a former teacher, editor of Transfer<\/i> and Associate Editor of San Francisco Review<\/i> has five published poetry books to his credit plus one of prose, The Columns of Joel Mobius<\/i>, a guide for psychiatrically diagnosed people. He presently coordinates the reading series of The Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium<\/i> and edits the online magazine Monterey Poetry Review<\/i>. In addition to writing, he interviews artists, writers, and therapists for the local TV series Descendants of the Imagination<\/i>. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSherry Leonard<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDAILY BRIEFINGS
\n 
\nFOX News
\nfor the conservative
\nview of his tweets.
\nThen Breitbart News
\nto confirm how white
\nhe is and why that\u2019s good.
\nNext, the National Enquirer
\nwith stuff
\nthat is very very true.
\nBreakfast with
\nReinz and Kelly Ann
\nto confirm it all.
\nLook for Melania
\nfor a worshipful peck
\nbut she\u2019s wisely
\nin New York.
\nNot a book,
\nnot a paper;
\nwho needs those?
\nHe knows more
\nthan all his advisors,
\nhandpicked to agree.
\nMr. President,
\nis ready
\nfor his day?
\n 
\n 
\nSherry Leonard is a retired University Professor, 30 years in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Medical School, Denver, CO. As a molecular neuroscientist, she studied nicotine addiction at the molecular level in both normal and mentally ill smokers. She moved to Grand Pass, Oregon two years ago to be near family. Her oldest son and his family live there and her youngest son is in Chico, CA, 4 hrs away. She has published 130 scientific papers, but is writing fiction and poetry now, has completed one novel and started another, but write reams of poetry. The Trump Poems just come out; no Obama poems! <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael H. Levin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER DAVID
\n 
\nWhere is my consolation
\nboiling sky? Your lightning lashes
\nwhile my griefs accumulate.
\nYour thunderheads roil outside
\nand within my head, a jumbled
\nimage of confusion. The
\nrod is splintered, and the staff
\npoints aimlessly in mute direction.
\n 
\nThat table you valet\u2019d is
\nlittered with stale vows, gnawed
\nrinds pecked clean by crows.
\nIf nourishment\u2019s to be it must
\narise internally. I\u2019ll compass
\nup despair and hive on till
\n 
\nwindblown horizons and fresh
\nharp strings ease my storm-dazed eyes.
\n 
\n 
\nWANNSEE (III)
\n(A Fable)
\n 
\nAdolf has a theory
\nhe shares it with his dad:
\nthe biome is declining fast
\nit\u2019s scheming Jews, infected bad;
\nonly blood can cleanse the globe
\nthe Volk must nail them to the mast.
\nHis father laughs and kicks him out.
\n 
\nSo roundabout and roundabout
\nand roundabout he goes: behind
\nthe army\u2019s Prussian gray, cropped
\nbusiness barons in their stone estates
\nodd remnants of \u201cund zu\u2019s\u201d and \u201cvons\u201d
\nscarred veterans who deny defeat
\ndetesting change in any form.
\nHe senses they\u2019ll be glad to play.
\n 
\nRetrench! \u2013 Inflation is resolved.
\nThe U.S. lends firms megabucks.
\nVersailles defanged, the nation booms
\na volkisch grace seems far away.
\nHe heads a comic coup, dictates
\na rambling book from jail. Prosperity
\nis poison fruit — the Party shrinks.
\nHe packs up lederhosen, buys
\na double-breasted suit.
\n 
\nThen roundabout and roundabout
\nand back around he goes — revising
\nplanks and terms and rules; conducting
\nminor purges till he\u2019s sharpened all
\nthose tools. Revisiting the barons
\nin a modulated tone, and churchmen
\nwringing hands, distressed by
\ngodless nudie shows. He promises
\nall vanished things, each woman in
\nher place; he pledges to
\n 
\nde-liberalize. He shouts he\u2019ll make
\neach German great, restore a fearsome
\nglorious state. The strippers strip
\nthe nightclubs mock. The steps he takes
\njust make things worse — hypocrisy
\nsells far less well than hate.
\nFrustration is a foaming beast.
\nIt earns him caf\u00e9 nicknames like
\n\u201cthat carpet-chewing freak.\u201d
\n 
\nSo roundabout and roundabout
\nand round again he turns, attending
\nto the ashes where he hopes a coal
\nstill burns. Depression rides to rescue
\nwhen the U.S. loans come due — as
\nstreets fill up with misery, despair
\nbecomes his glue. Maneuvering through outcrops
\nlike a bottom-feeding eel, he scores
\na pile of banknotes from supportive zillionaires
\nacquires a plane to speed campaigns,
\npin-striped attire, a manufactured style.
\n 
\nHe\u2019s featured in a Life piece
\non the decorative arts
\nand quoted daily in the news
\nas pleased to do his part. A bloated S.A.
\nreappears. He rises to respected
\nheights \u2013 still never wins the vote.
\n 
\nSo roundabout and round he goes
\nas governments collapse
\nand offers up some cobbled swill
\nto unify the land. Appointed
\nbecause sponsors think he can be made
\nto blink, he waves triumphant
\nfrom that Chancellor\u2019s sill.
\n 
\nThe New Age is at hand.
\n 
\n 
\nMICHAEL H. LEVIN is a lawyer, solar-energy developer and writer based in Washington DC and Menemsha MA. He has published in Harvard Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Adirondack Review, Poet Lore<\/i> and other periodicals plus several anthologies, and has received numerous poetry and feature journalism awards. His collection Watered Colors<\/i> (Poetica Publishing) was named a Best Book for May 2014 by the Washington Independent Review of Books<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKyle Liang<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nREPEAL AND
\n 
\nsomewhere
\nanother child
\nis born
\nwithout feet
\nwhile
\nan expecting father
\nwhispers
\nto his wife\u2019s doctor
\nthat he wants a son
\nwho can pitch
\na baseball
\none-hundred & twenty
\nmiles per hour
\n& strike women down
\nwith just one look
\nof his piercing
\nblue eyes
\n 
\n 
\nKyle Liang is an Asian-American actor, playwright and poet. His play \u201cField of Trees\u201d recently premiered on The Barrow Group stage in New York City for the 2017 New Play Festival. Kyle serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Montage<\/i> and his work has appeared in Theories of HER, Spillwords Press, Cold Creek Review<\/i> and the forthcoming issue of First-Gen Voices<\/i>. He will be graduating with an MHS in Physician Assistant studies from Quinnipiac University in 2019. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBruce Marsland<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAN ANGRY LETTER THAT I\u2019LL NEVER SEND
\n 
\nOutraged.
\nYes I\u2019m so outraged that I\u2019ll pen
\nan angry letter that I\u2019ll never send.
\n 
\nEx-lover scorns me,
\nsays bad things and leaves. To her,
\nan angry letter that I\u2019ll never send.
\n 
\nDog poop piles outside,
\nit\u2019s time to write the town
\nan angry letter that I\u2019ll never send.
\n 
\nMass protests
\non my television screen,
\nplacards decry
\n 
\noil spills in rising, lapping tides of change,
\nwars on the poor in dusty foreign lands,
\na mass extinction, or the sixth I hear,
\n 
\nprofit on poison in my pies and beer,
\ncash for politicians grabbed in pussy hands,
\nhealth care reduced until we\u2019re all deranged.
\n 
\nI will resist,
\nI\u2019ll do my part right here:
\nan angry letter that I\u2019ll never send.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE MYTHOLOGY OF BEASTS
\n 
\nScientists lately say ostriches keep
\ntheir heads out of the sand,
\n 
\nthough I know some pre-post-truth shrink wrote
\na false diagnosis of avoidant behavior,
\n 
\nwhile superior, non-avoidant humans,
\non the other hand, bury their young
\n 
\nin the blood-drenched
\ndeserts of war, or
\n 
\ncremate them in the heavy
\nfire of police ammunition.
\n 
\nIllusion and delusion.
\nWhat world is it where words like
\n 
\n\u2018black lives matter\u2019
\nconstitute a controversial hypothesis
\n 
\nand suggestions of peace
\nare deemed a threat to national security?
\n 
\nThis is not the fault of the ostrich.
\n 
\n 
\nBruce Marsland is the author and editor of several works on language teaching, most notably ‘Lessons from Nothing,’ published by Cambridge University Press. Born and raised in the United Kingdom, he has also worked in Finland and Bulgaria. Since 2012, he has been living in the USA, self-employed as an editor and writer. He has performed at \u2018Poetry & Jazz\u2019 in Helsinki, and was winner of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition, February 2016. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nElizabeth Martin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSUNRISE
\n 
\n\u201cNo matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning.”
\n\u2014 President Barack Obama<\/i>
\n 
\nWhen he promised the sun
\nwould come up again,
\nhe forgot to mention it would also set \u2013
\nfor every dawn there is a price to pay
\nin long winter nights so dark
\nand overcast that not even stars
\nbreak through, and the moon
\nis a distant dream from lovers\u2019 songs.
\nWe want to believe in sunrises,
\nwe look for messiahs,
\nbut forget they demand
\nwe join them on their crosses \u2013
\nthe wood where redemption meets coercion.
\nWe are on our own here \u2013
\nwe must save ourselves
\nwhile we still have daylight,
\nwhile the last rays slant
\nacross the fields, the streets,
\nthe pages, our floors \u2013
\nbefore the sun sets
\nbefore the dark closes in
\nbefore we are alone in the night.
\n 
\n 
\nElizabeth Martin lives and works in a small city in the Rust Belt. Her poetry has appeared in The Huron River Review, The Bear River Review, American Scholar Magazine<\/i> online, the anthology of winning poems of the Chelsea Poetry Contest (Laura Kasischke, judge) and in the permanent art collection of Washtenaw College. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMargaret Parker<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWAR ON VIOLENCE
\n 
\nLonely boy,
\nhow can I talk
\nthe bullets back
\ninto your gun?
\n 
\nWhat white flag
\nwill you recognize?
\n 
\nWhat would I give
\nin return\u2026
\n 
\nI might have to
\ngive up gun shows
\nand ammo shops
\nclose down the weapons
\nfactories, call back the
\ndrones,
\ndrag the bully
\nout of the classroom
\nand out of the teacher
\nout of the army
\npull the boys and girls
\nback from twelve years
\nin Afghanistan
\nwhere they\u2019re going
\nsuicidal
\ntie the congressmen
\ntogether until they
\nagree to lead the
\nNRA from town to town
\non a walk of shame
\nacross America
\ngo up to the television
\nand turn off the blood
\nspattered cop shows
\nshut down the
\nlocal Cineplex
\nspewing the bodies of
\nwomen strangled and
\nalways naked
\ncut off the rabid radio
\nshooter video games
\nplastic AK-47s
\nkiller rap songs
\ngang rape hip hop
\ngive back the cowboy
\nboots and holster
\n 
\n 
\nMargaret Parker has written poetry all her life while working in visual arts, design for theatre, opera and dance. As the poems became a serious accumulation, she self-published her first book, \u201cDriving Music: In 2000 silver Taurus, I drive Glen Gould and J. S. Bach through 32 Goldberg Variations from parking lot to parking lot\u201d, through CreateSpace in 2015. She\u2019s discovered how much reading her poetry aloud and becoming engaged with the active poetry scene in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has encouraged her. Her poem, \u201cThe Keys,\u201d was first published in the Silver Birch Press Learning to Drive<\/i> Series (March-May 2016). <\/a>
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKathryn Paulsen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n#TWEET #RE-TWEET
\n 
\nFirst named for the sweet sound
\na bird sings\u2014
\nwhat should we call these swarms
\nof vicious stings?
\n 
\n 
\nKathryn Paulsen\u2019s poetry and prose have been published in New Letters, West Branch<\/i>, et al., and are current or forthcoming in Isthmus, Stinging Fly<\/i>, and Spillway<\/i>, among others. For fiction and playwriting, she\u2019s been a fellow at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and other retreats. She lives in New York City but, having grown up in a military family, has roots in many places. She can be found in the blogosphere at ramblesandrevels<\/a>. She doesn’t Tweet. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPenny Peyser<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEEDED
\n 
\nList\u2019ning to the rabble rousing crowd
\nProclaiming this and demonizing that,
\nOpposing views and feelings not allowed,
\nIt hardly pays to be a diplomat.
\nAs list\u2019ning skills and leadership are arts
\nThat need be nurtured, recognized and groomed,
\nThere\u2019s fear that in our ever dark\u2019ning hearts
\nThe light we call democracy is doomed.
\nI don\u2019t accept we\u2019ll never get along
\nAnd find some compromise that fits our herd.
\nIf love and understanding make us strong
\nFind for the opposition one kind word.
\nWhile people push and shove to take a stand
\nAmbassadors to truth are in demand.
\n 
\n 
\nPenny Peyser is a writer \/ actress \/ documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles. Her sonnets have appeared in Chantwood Magazine, Lighten Up Online, White Ash Literary Magazine<\/i> and Blessed Creation<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKatie Mazza Phillips<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEVOS\u2019S ARK
\n 
\nThe bears in Wyoming
\nare plaguing the schools.
\nGuns are the answer,
\nthe best of our tools.
\n 
\nBut what DeVos did not say,
\nthough her warning was great,
\nis that we\u2019ve got problems in schools
\nin all 50 states.
\n 
\nIn Maine giant lobsters
\nare out of control.
\nGroundhogs in PA
\npull kids into their holes.
\n 
\nThe New York schools
\nare where pigeons attack.
\nPlains bison will get you
\nif you don\u2019t watch your back.
\n 
\nFlorida flamingos
\nare known to steal chalk.
\nMoose in Alaska
\nknock kids out of their socks.
\n 
\nDown in the South
\ngators interrupt class.
\nAnd the cattle in Texas
\nwon\u2019t give a hall pass.
\n 
\nYes, from terriers in Boston
\nto armadillos in Tempe,
\nour kids are endangered
\nby an eclectic menagerie.
\n 
\nSo call Congress today
\nfor while these animals are bigger,
\nwe can still save our kids
\nif we just pull the trigger.
\n 
\n 
\nKatie Mazza Phillips graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Psychology and Creative Writing and from Boston University with an MFA in Film Production. Currently she is a Copywriter at an ad agency in NY. She enjoys snarking on social media about the new President and his clown car of staffers. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTala Ra<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWRESTLEMANIA 77
\n 
\nI smell a rat . . . again.
\nYou warn<\/i> your friend
\nyou\u2019re going to punch him
\nbefore you punch him.
\nIt\u2019s a fake punch.
\nTheatrics,
\nwhile the ban prevails.
\nLift the ban.
\nLet them in.
\nGive them shelter.
\nBut you rain bombs.
\nConcuss.
\nMake things great, again<\/i>.
\nBombs for beautiful babies<\/i>
\n…only those babies,
\nnot those drowning,
\nnot those starving,
\nnot those buried in rubble,
\nin six years of fear.
\nBombs because they\u2019re more impactful,
\nphotogenic,
\nat night
\nBrian Williams says they\u2019re beautiful<\/i>.
\nSmackdown!
\nThe crowd erupts.
\nWe<\/i> love our freedom fireworks
\nphosphorescent on TV
\nwe<\/i> love our borders against terrorists
\nwe<\/i> love those beautiful babies<\/i>
\ngod bless the Military Industrial Complex
\nthe Heavyweight Champion
\nthe eternal victor of war.
\n 
\n 
\nTala Ra lives, sleeps, and breathes in Philly, but feeds her head with travel as time and space afford. She writes wherever a cafe, subway seat, or patch of grass allow. Poetry is her form of meditation and truth, a way to honor the earth, and her method for exorcising political rage.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeenal Rajani<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNO WHITE MAN WILL EVER KNOW
\n 
\nno white man will ever know
\nhow it feels to be a brown man
\ngoing through an airport
\n 
\nin the land of the free to
\nbe detained at any moment
\nfor any or no reason
\n 
\nyou wear sunday best
\ndo your hair nice make sure you
\nsmile and look agents firmly
\n 
\nin the eyes thrown glances like
\ngrenades and the oh so random
\nsearches. don\u2019t think I don\u2019t notice
\n 
\nthe extra second looking at
\nmy boarding pass each time
\nI feel each tick
\n 
\nbut maybe now it\u2019s immaterial
\nmaybe I won\u2019t even get a visa
\nmaybe it\u2019s just as well
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT I NEEDED
\n 
\nat least Trump said that something\u2019s shit
\nand needs to be changed. is it any surprise
\nthat people were desperate and responded to
\nanyone who looked like they would shake
\nthings up? and things sure are shaking up.
\nwhat does one ask of a fake plastic man?
\nwhat does one expect a brick wall to say?
\nI say thank you. you\u2019ve given me exactly
\nwhat it was that I needed: motivation
\nto up my game.
\n 
\n 
\nLIGHTHOUSES
\n 
\nThe darkest night is when you most need
\na flashlight. A night like this we need
\na bonfire we need a lighthouse we need
\n 
\nbeacons to guide the unlikely troops in
\nthe battle beginning in our minds our
\ndoorsteps, feeds, families. I stumble
\n 
\ndon\u2019t know where to step but the softest
\nground needs the firmest step so I\u2019ll
\nstep up, I\u2019ll try to be brave and remember
\n 
\nthat lighthouses don\u2019t go running
\nall over an island looking for boats
\nto save. They just stand there shining.
\n 
\n 
\nHeenal Rajani is an Englishman who now lives in the \u201cother\u201d London in Ontario, Canada. He\u2019s about to have a baby.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCrystal Snoddon<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBORDERS CROSSED BY A STRUMPET
\n 
\nA quaint restraint,
\nthis fastened top-button
\nof a sheer shirt,
\nnipples erect in their nests
\nof blond swirling chest hair.
\nNo combover needed here,
\neh, cowboy?
\n 
\nFormality maintained,
\nwe sip lemonade on dry grass,
\nand after debate,
\nI agree to be naked,
\nbut only from the waist down –
\nbetter to twine my legs around
\nyour hefty midsection. I\u2019ll drive
\nthe weight of your gun on my thigh,
\nthank you very much.
\n 
\nLeverage, constraint,
\nhold tight to bent knees
\nthat can\u2019t relax.
\nThis barter, this banter withers.
\nI cover my breasts
\nby hands gloved in tax
\nfrom the lust in your eyes.
\nNo one suckles my milky teats for free,
\noh no. Especially not with pouty lips
\nthat hide a shark-jawed grasp.
\nIt\u2019s what I expect
\nfrom someone blown up
\nwith bombast. So this is where
\nour tryst ends.
\nWhere my geography begins.
\n 
\n 
\nCrystal Snoddon is a Canadian writer. Her most recent laments may be found in Slamchop, Epic Protest Poem<\/i> sponsored by OVS Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Anti-Heroin Chic<\/i>, and Tuck Magazine<\/i>, among others. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Spicer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBURDEN OF THE BUDDHA
\n 
\nThe epidemic began with a virus
\nClare and I found in a tunnel
\nworthy of Jung, its corridor full
\nof spider webs. She and I thought
\nit lunar, trading it to the highest
\nbidder, a barrel-chested man
\nwith the soul of Hitler. He smelled
\nlike jasmine, his orange hair,
\nblank eyes, and pursed lips
\nthreatening us with incineration
\nat a gas station. He told us to leave
\nfor the Moonflower Mountains,
\nstroking Clare\u2019s gold hair, leering
\nlike a sick streetlight, whistling
\nwhen we studied the gold Buddha
\nhe traded to us. Go<\/i>, he said,
\nbut know swapping is my favorite fetish,
\nand I love monsters under a slide,
\nso if this is a fraud, I\u2019ll gut you<\/i>,
\nmarking the transaction in a red
\njournal and hiding the slide in his rolltop.
\nCling to each other while you can,
\nfor only ghosts will live after I
\nunleash your prize<\/i>. We nodded, left
\nfor the mountains by train, the burden
\nof the Buddha making our bodies heavier
\nby the second as we peered down
\nat the valley, waiting for the Nirvana
\nwe suspected would never arrive.
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Spicer has had poems in The Reed Magazine, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Alcatraz, Chiron Review, Gargoyle, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Rat’s Ass Review, The Drunken Llama<\/i>, and elsewhere. He is the author of Everybody Has a Story<\/i> and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw<\/i>, and Ion Books. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMelinda Thomsen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA RED WOLF\u2019S CALL FOR MERCY
\n 
\nListen Little Red Riding Hood;
\nI\u2019ve had a bad rap since those
\nGrimm brothers christened me
\nand my kind anthropomorphic
\nevil: big eyes, big teeth, you know.
\nWill you lend me a few bucks
\nfor a bottle of \u201cLook Like A Friendly
\nEndangered Species\u201d lotion?
\nYou would prefer panda<\/i>, right?
\nHelp me comb white paint
\nthrough my fur and add round
\nblack ears on top of my head.
\nA bit of ebony paint
\nhere and there, voila:
\ncuddly, sweet animal
\nbestseller at Toys-R-US.
\nLook at my before photo!
\nNo wonder hunters shoot me,
\nand my kind then cut up
\nmy guts to rescue missing
\ngrannies, or so they said. Look
\nat my steady eyes, pointy ears,
\nand bone crushing jaws.
\nLet me level with you, Little Red,
\nyou scare the bejesus out of me.
\nCheck out the research.
\nYes, Little Red, you lied.
\nWolves run away from you
\nand grandmothers. We avoid
\npigs building houses, too.
\nAny human behavior scares us.
\nWhere are you now, Little Red?
\nPlease come to North Carolina.
\nProtect us from hunters
\nwho point to saving you. They shoot.
\nWe die and go extinct while
\nyou skip merrily home,
\nholding your favorite stuffed
\nbear in your arms.
\n 
\n 
\nMelinda Thomsen\u2019s poetry has appeared in Heliotrope, Poetry East, Big City Lit, New York Quarterly, Heart of the Order: Baseball Poems, Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews<\/i>, and Token Entry: New York City Subway Poems<\/i>. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Naming Rights<\/i> and Field Rations<\/i>. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJane Travis<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWAR, ALREADY
\n 
\nWe ain’t even to 100 days yet.
\nMy husband took a course – to understand –
\nfor a soldier, taking estrogen to be
\nme.
\nME.
\nWhat does he know, I wonder<\/i>.
\n 
\nWe ain’t even to 100 days yet.
\nDid someone say war?
\n\u201cI do declare,\u201d his grandmamma says.
\nDid someone declare war?
\n 
\nI met a former sister of a former graduate school friend.
\nI said, “he.” \u2003 \u2003 – to be – \u2003 kind? easy? \u2003 \u2003 – to be –
\n“This is my husband and daughter,” he said.
\nI changed my said to “she.” – to fix the mistake –
\nThe husband is mad, now.
\nWe ain’t even to 100 days yet.
\n 
\nWe ain’t even to 100 days yet.
\nRead it. Written there. WAR
\n100 days, ain’t even there yet.
\nAnd already
\n 
\n 
\nJane Travis is a wanna-be poet in North Carolina. Often her poetry marries military, politics, and nature. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Walowitz<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS
\n 
\nMy mother wouldn\u2019t let me have a gun as a toy,
\nwhich made cowboys and indians a burden
\nfor whichever side I was on\u2014nobody wanted
\na guy with a finger but no trigger. You\u2019re shooting blanks<\/i>,
\nmy friends were heard to say, when I\u2019d point in their direction
\nand holler, Gotcha<\/i>. They\u2019d also say, the hell you did!<\/i>
\nand how could I argue except the moral right
\nof a guy who yells, Bang!<\/i> the loudest?–
\nhe ought to get to decide who\u2019s dead
\nand who gets to stay alive?
\n 
\nAll of which is to say, I\u2019m all in favor
\nof MOAB, the Mother of all Bombs,
\n22,000 lbs. most of it explosives,
\nand nothing like a cap gun,
\nbut no civilians hurt, just some
\nbad guys in tunnels–but we can\u2019t be sure
\ncause the tunnels and caves are mostly collapsed
\nand the bad guys mostly got obliterated
\nwith their faces blown off.
\nMy mother would be so proud\u2014
\nshe never told me I couldn\u2019t have a bomb.
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Walowitz has been published in various places on the web–and off. He\u2019s a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual<\/i>, an online journal, and teaches at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY and St. John\u2019s University in Queens. Alan\u2019s chapbook, Exactly Like Love<\/i>, was published by Osedax Press in 2016 and is now in its second printing. His poem, \u201cThe Story of the Milkman\u201d was featured in an article in The New York Times<\/i> on April 16th. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted April 14, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nTiffany Lee Brown<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE THING
\n 
\nHere is one thing
\nThat is not post-truth,
\nThat cannot hide behind
\nAlternative facts,
\nThat will go naked into the streets
\nEven if your president ties a blindfold
\nAround my eyes, around my entire
\nFace.
\n 
\nI love you.
\n 
\nI love you.
\n 
\nI love you.
\n 
\n 
\nTiffany Lee Brown is an unaffiliated voter living on the thin purple line between Red Oregon & Blue Oregon. Her writing has appeared in Utne, Tin House, Oregon Humanities, BoingBoing, Bookforum, & various anthologies. An interdisciplinary artist, musician, & performer, Tiffany is presently curating \u201c_____ is the Opposite of Hate\u201d for the next issue of PLAZM magazine, where she is an editor. Online at tiffanyleebrown.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nYuan Changming<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBRIEF ANALOGIES
\n 
\nPresident Obama is to real change as
\nPresident Bush was to true peace
\n 
\nRepublican senators are to family values as
\nFamily values have been to domestic violence
\n 
\nFire is to forest as
\nHurricane is to beach
\n 
\nAfghanistan was to Iraq as
\nIraq was to Vietnam
\n 
\nBrush is to a painter as
\nWord is to a liar
\n 
\n 
\nYuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart and one-time Best of Net nominee, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Changming currently edits Poetry Pacific<\/i> with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review<\/i> and 1279 others across 38 countries. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT SHITWORK IS
\n 
\nFor a summer resort as a teen
\nI had the job of cleaning latrines,
\nthree months at minimum wage.
\nNobody said, “Good job, well done.”
\nBut it was.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve repaired septic tanks from within.
\nMucked in mud laying pipe.
\nScraped asbestos. Hot-mopped a roof.
\nShoveled bat guano.
\nNobody gave me a medal.
\nJust cash.
\n 
\nBe humble. Do your share.
\nSociety will be better. Civilization more civil,
\nyou a stronger you, it\u2019s really true,
\nmore worthy than those fat cats in their mansions
\nwho I dare not name because even this lowly poem
\nwould prick such pain
\nthey\u2019d send legal thugs to bury me
\nin lawyer manure.
\n 
\nForget latrines. Think billionaires.
\nThey bought the news. Congress. Supreme Court.
\nLearn about salvage, about repair.
\nLearn to fix rot at the foundation and work toward the top.
\nZoning board. Town council. State assembly. Governor.
\nStep by step go higher.
\nThen ask what shitwork is.
\nAnd let\u2019s get busy.
\n 
\n 
\nHARDHAT SPLAT
\n 
\nEnjoying the room?
\nWhat\u2019s the echo, the boom?<\/i>
\nComplimentary champagne?
\nPink, the color of my brain.<\/i>
\n 
\nPay your bill, yes, but pay no heed
\nto those small shadows of hemoglobin
\nseeping from steel and concrete bones
\nwhile you sleep in this tower of gilt
\nI (and others) built.
\n 
\nBoss tells me to hurry up the ladder
\nhurry unsnap the safety harness get up there
\ntime is money says Owner to Boss
\ntime is money says Boss to me
\nas into a wooden form, concrete we pour.
\nAs form collapses, 42nd<\/sup> floor.
\n 
\nSpatter and spray, that\u2019s me.
\nBoss pays the fine for safety violation.
\nMore than I got.
\nOwner pays nada. Nada for the fine,
\nnada to Boss, nada to workers, stiffs them
\nso just as well I vanished when I did
\nexcept as smudge taking shape
\nlike clouds on the wall,
\ndonkey one night, elephant the next.
\nSometimes people enjoy like a game
\nnaming my blotch, my brain.
\n 
\nHere comes Owner to spend the night,
\nSecret Service wraps him tight.
\nThrough his wall
\nwhile he sleeps,
\nmy stain creeps.
\n 
\n 
\nBy day Joe Cottonwood has worked as a carpenter, plumber, electrician for most of his life. Some jobs were pretty; some, shitwork. Nights, he writes. Same split. His most recent book is 99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses<\/i>. joecottonwood.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLisa DeSiro<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIMMIGRANT
\n 
\n 
\nOne of my first childhood memories:
\nwatching the pigs be slaughtered.
\nWe were poor, in my country.
\nWe ate everything, even the feet.
\n 
\nNow I live here, making money
\nenough to treat myself sometimes.
\nToday I tried a kanga burger.
\nIt was tasty, tasty, tasty!
\n 
\nBut, I know. Poor kangaroo.
\n 
\n 
\nPUBLIC DISPLAY OF AFFECTION
\n 
\nthis couple gets on the bus
\nlarger than life
\n 
\nas if stuffed full of love
\nthey stride down the aisle
\n 
\nhim watching her behind from behind
\nblue jeans hugging her hips
\n 
\ntheir bodies snuggle together in the seat
\nin front of mine
\n 
\nthey are not the same color as
\nme or that person I didn\u2019t vote for
\n 
\nwho said people from where they are from
\nare rapists and should be walled out
\n 
\nthe man holds a cell phone wedged
\nbetween shoulder and ear
\n 
\nwhile he chatters in Spanish
\nthe woman peers at his forehead
\n 
\nthen presses his brow
\nwith her ruby thumbnails
\n 
\nliberating a pearl of pus
\nthey gurgle with laughter
\n 
\nhe strokes her lustrous hair
\nkisses her disregarding
\n 
\nthe large mole like a dollop of
\nchocolate on her lip
\n 
\nand I want everyone to stand up
\nfor them and cheer
\n 
\n 
\nLisa DeSiro is the author of the chapbook Grief Dreams<\/i> (White Knuckle Press, June 2017). She is featured in the anthology ThirtyDays: The Best of the Tupelo Press 30\/30 Project\u2019s First Year<\/i>; her poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in Friends Journal, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Healing Muse, Mezzo Cammin, Prodigal\u2019s Chair, Rattle, The Road Not Taken, Salamander<\/i>, and Sixfold<\/i>. Along with her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Lisa has degrees from Binghamton University, Boston Conservatory, and Longy School of Music. She is employed as Production & Editorial Assistant for C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works<\/i>, and she is an accomplished pianist. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJim Feeney<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAMERICAN CARNAGE
\n 
\nNot the export it used to be,
\nnothing like the glory days –
\nHiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia;
\nstill popular at home tho\u2019
\nnearly twelve thousand gun deaths a year
\nthe gun barrel points both ways.
\nThis is not much of a poem, is it?
\nThat last metaphor was a bit clumsy
\nand there\u2019s no music in statistics
\nbut there is a rhyme in that last line
\nand there\u2019s assonance in \u2018American Carnage\u2019
\nand there is an ass in the White House
\nbut enough about that
\nstay away from the low hanging fruit
\nwe need a rhyme
\ncarnage, baggage, garbage, image
\nimagine all the people
\nthat\u2019s what this situation needs
\na protest singer, a protest song
\nthree chords and a chorus
\nthat we can sway and link arms to
\nWhere are you
\nJosh (Ritter)
\nMichael (Stipe)
\nBruce?
\n 
\n 
\nAGENT ORANGE HAS A DARK MOMENT
\n 
\nDo you know who I miss? Jeb Bush. I miss Jeb Bush. He was my first. When I hit him with that low energy jibe and he fell apart and all the Bush family could not put Humpty together again, I knew I was on to something. Then Little Marco and Lyin\u2019 Ted, I miss them too. But most of all, I miss Hillary, Crooked Hillary. Man, she was tough, had me on the ropes. It took Comey and Vlad, that pointy headed villain, to get me back on my feet. I was nearly out for the count, which might not have been a bad thing. Who needs this shit! I should give Vlad a call, I\u2019m a bit worried -there\u2019s no such thing as a free hack.
\n 
\nReince Priebus \u2013 what kind of fucking name is that? It sounds like bad news from the doctor. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Donald, you have a Reince Priebus on your rectum and it doesn\u2019t look good\u201d. Ha, I just made myself laugh. And Bannon, I\u2019ve seen sofas on the side of the road in better shape than that rumpled fucker. Spice Box? Hardest job in the world \u2013 explaining the unexplainable. That Melissa McCarthy just slays me. How come all the cool people are on the other side? Who have I got? Ryan and Pence? Bland and Blander? Where did Pence come from anyway with his brush cut and his antediluvian politics? The best surgeons in the world couldn\u2019t remove the poker from that guy\u2019s ass. Antediluvian, you didn\u2019t expect that did you?
\n 
\nTalking of cool, I should give Barack a call, ask him down to Florida for a game of golf; check his birth certificate again (Joking! How I miss those days). Man, I hate this fucking White House furniture, is it Friday yet?
\n 
\n 
\nJim Feeney was born in Dublin and has lived in Vancouver since 1979. His wife and two daughters complain if they are not mentioned in bio\u2019s, so he would like to thank all three of them for their support.
\n 
\nHe has published previously in Cyphers (Ireland), The sHop (Ireland), In-Flight Literary Magazine, Oddball Magazine, the Galway Review, Anti Heroin Chic and others.
\nHe also writes lyrics for The Mitchell Feeney Project (album \u201cCrossing Lines\u201d available on iTunes and cdbaby)
\n 
\nHe blogs at stopdraggingthepanda.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRyan Forsythe<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE TRUMP ACCORDING TO WORLD (Google)
\n 
\nDonald Trump is the World’s Greatest Troll
\nDonald Trump is having a Twitter Moment
\nDonald Trump is Fast Becoming the World’s Policeman
\nDonald Trump is Bringing Chaos to Our Lives
\n 
\nDonald Trump is Finally Killing the Democratic Party
\nDonald Trump is a Republican
\nDonald Trump is no Republican
\nDonald Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy
\n 
\nDonald Trump is deleting my citations
\nDonald Trump is an international pariah on climate change
\nDonald Trump is the villain in trailer for Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ sequel
\nDonald Trump is a Disaster for the Earth on Every Single Level
\n 
\nDonald Trump is the fifth straight American president to bomb Iraq
\nDonald Trump is Killing Record Amounts of Civilians in Middle East
\nDonald Trump IS an anti-Semite
\n(Johnny Rotten Says) Donald Trump is Not Racist
\n 
\nDonald Trump is Fueling ISIS
\nDonald Trump is a Radical Extremist
\nDonald Trump is actually a fascist
\nDonald Trump is Tearing the NFL Apart
\n 
\nDonald Trump is not good at fractions
\nDonald Trump is not an Artist of the Deal
\nDonald Trump is extremely bad at making deals
\nDonald Trump is Corrupt AF
\n 
\nDonald Trump is Not Your Father
\nDonald Trump is the world’s oldest seven-year old boy
\nDonald Trump is dangerous when he’s losing
\nDonald Trump is Trying to Lose
\n 
\nDonald Trump is Set to Undermine STEM for Young Women
\nDonald Trump is A Walking Billboard For Sexual Assault Awareness
\nDonald Trump is Making Men More Sexist
\nDonald Trump is TIME Person of the Year
\n 
\nDonald Trump is America
\nDonald Trump is Gaslighting America
\nDonald Trump is Making America Meaner
\nDonald Trump is Making America Crazy Again
\n 
\nDonald Trump is the Singularity
\nDonald Trump is A Harbinger of the Anti-Christ to Come
\nDonald Trump is the First Demogogue of the Anthropocene
\nDonald Trump is the first president in 130 years not to have a dog
\n 
\nDonald Trump is the First Brand President
\nDonald Trump is the First President to Turn Postmodernism Against Itself
\nDonald Trump is uniquely unsuited to be president
\nDonald Trump is President
\n 
\nDonald Trump is not the problem — he’s the symptom
\n 
\n 
\nRyan Forsythe is a school administrator, dad, designer of banana slug mandalas, and also publisher of Left Fork Books. His first novel, Dick Cheney Saves Paris<\/i>, was a madcap political satire reimagining why Cheney did what he did, released the same day as Cheney’s own novel\u2014er\u2026memoir. Ryan also serves as Contributing Editor for Fiction International<\/i>, the journal of formal innovation and social activism. He lives off-grid in the woods of Southwest Oregon. Learn more at RyanForsythe.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Halpin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nJINGOISTS
\n 
\nI am looking into the front yard;
\na sparrow hit the window this morning,
\nI buried it round back, under a lilac bush.
\nA faint blood stain remains on the lawn,
\n 
\nrather appropriately, heart shaped. Although
\nalmost completely absorbed into the earth,
\na stain remains-if you know where to look,
\nthere is a lingering, a damp presence.
\n 
\nThe front yard is in throes of life, coming awake
\nto the possibilities of spring, cherry buds
\nand green shoots welcoming a warm west wind.
\nThe racist across the street is debriding flower beds,
\n 
\nthe bigot next door is blustering away about
\nthe exigencies of life in the suburbs as she tars
\nand feathers copiously with her tongue.
\nThey see me at the window and wave.
\n 
\nI ignore them but still they loiter, like a damp stain-
\nif you know how to look. Funny how God works;
\nif it was me, I\u2019d rather have the sparrow.
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Halpin was born some while ago in Northern Ireland, where he left as soon as he could. His life has been ordinary in the usual sense of the word \u2013lived, loved, laughed and cried. He now settles down to the certainty of diminishing years, while not altogether displeasing, like a snail, he feels the need to leave a trail of mucus in his wake, hence, poetry. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPITY THE SUICIDE BOMBER
\n 
\nPity the suicide bomber
\nwho will never see Heaven
\nneither the Heaven of lover and spouse, children, grandchildren,
\nthe Heaven of here and now, of sunrises, sunsets,
\nnor the Heaven of Afterlife, if it exists.
\nBitter, despairing, the suicide bomber consigns herself to hell.
\n 
\nPity the coward who shoots up the outdoor cafe,
\nwho has no combat skills,
\nno worthy adversary,
\nno genuine enemy,
\nbut kills only the unarmed, defenseless and innocent.
\nConfused and deluded, used and betrayed, he consigns himself to hell.
\n 
\nBut have no pity for the preachers of hate,
\nthe preachers in churches and mosques,
\nthe preachers in Parliament and Congress,
\nthe preachers on TV and talk radio,
\nthe preachers of hate who profit from fear,
\nthe preachers of death who profit from strife,
\nthe preachers of war who don\u2019t go to war,
\nthe dog-shit on the walk of life.
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen is British-born but Bahamian-raised. His education came from good schools, hitchhiking on five continents and working all over the place. His poetry has mostly been published in the UK (Snakeskin, Ambit<\/i>, etc), but also in the US (RAR, Love & Ensuing Madness<\/i>, etc), and in Canada, Australia and India. He divides his time between Chapel Hill, NC, and his hometown of Governor’s Harbour on Eleuthera. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBabo Kamel<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON MONDAY
\n 
\nA thunder of orange, brash against the sky
\nthen flash after flash like a migraine.
\n 
\nWe stood stunned as statues or dolls
\nin flames. This was our village.
\n 
\nWe knew our names and the smell of earth
\nwhere we planted our dead. We made sure
\n 
\nthat even the young knew what the days wanted.
\nUntil that morning the stranger soared
\n 
\nabove the roofs, riding his chariot fast and hard
\nlike a high-jacked birthright, flirting with the sun
\n 
\nuntil metal began to melt. And we watched it all.
\nStood in front of our doors and watched it all
\n 
\nas if a godless thing had fallen, burning into the dazzle of himself
\nto leave behind as souvenirs, the singed wings of horses
\n 
\n 
\nFLAGS
\n 
\nNeighbor across the street with the bumper sticker
\nhas put out the flag for remembrance. We have, too.
\nbut we live in different Americas. His house,
\nidentical to ours, built by the very laborers
\nhis president demeans, feels like enemy
\nterritory. I stay clear away, close the shutters.
\n 
\nIn Florida, it\u2019s like we\u2019re secret society
\nof mourners, drinking betrayals away.
\nWe wake up devastated that it wasn\u2019t nightmare
\ntumble into sleep that gives no reprieve. Our
\ngeneration has turned its back on the past.
\nEven John Lennon could not imagine this.
\n 
\nWe must become young again and join our children
\nDig out the signs, relearn the old songs
\nArthritic, hearts aching, it’s time to return
\nto the streets.
\n 
\n 
\nREVISION
\n 
\nHow to see him other than he is
\nthe lost bear of a man
\nwearing his past like a medal he stole
\n 
\nIt\u2019s the same story he tells
\neveryone, mouth twisting
\ninto a wound unhealed
\n 
\nEach time he tells it, he repeats
\nthe endings, like an echo
\nof an echo, of an echo
\n 
\nHe will settle into the big chair
\nthat will groan, not from the weight of him
\nbut from the emptiness it will have to bear.
\n 
\n 
\nBabo Kamel hails from Montreal, Quebec and now resides in Florida. Her poems have appeared in the US, Australia, and Canada. Some of these include Painted Bride Quarterly, Abyss & Apex, The Greensboro Review, Alligator Juniper, The Grolier Poetry Prize, Contemporary Verse 2, Rust +Moth, Mobius, a Journal of Social Change<\/i>, and 2River Review<\/i>. She was a winner of the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize<\/u>, and is a Pushcart nominee. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJemshed Khan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVILLAIN(ELLE)
\n 
\nWitches seethe @ his spells.
\nHeTweets: Make Murika Great Again<\/i>\u2015
\ngoads the villainelle.
\n 
\nPOTUS squats the stall,
\n#mansplains nasty women barking:
\nCasts a smartphone spell.
\n 
\n\u2015Threadjack: Pith@usa.fontanelle
\nBack-alleys unberth #bloodypain.
\nBump is villain or villainelle?\u2015
\n 
\nTweets-up an \u00dcber-wall
\n2 banish migrant gain
\n(b4 breeds swell).
\n 
\nJobsAWOL. Gone. @Global.
\nRust belt stopped up like a drain.
\nWhat stinks is the smell.
\n 
\nUnder bruise and pain:
\nSnowflakes melt @ rednecks gain.
\nWe settle 4 long & toothy spell
\nand argue Villain v. Villainelle<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nJemshed Khan has published poems in Number One Magazine, Wittenberg Review, Unlikely Stories<\/i> (#BlackArtMatters September, 2016), Read Local<\/i> (2016), Rigorous<\/i> (Jan 2017) and the chapbook Paean for Billy Collins (Calliope Club Press, 2017). The author is slated for publication in Clockwise Cat, Issue 36<\/i> (2017), I-70 Review<\/i> (September 2017), and NanoText<\/i> (Medusa’s Laugh Press, February 2017). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJim King<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOOD SPLASH!
\n 
\n\u201cLittle Bush \u2026 says we are at war on terror, but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means. It’s like having a war on dandruff, it’s endless and pointless.\u201d
\n\u2015Gore Vidal, The Independent, 23 June 2006<\/a>
\n 
\nWhite flakes fall in Paradise, \u201csomewhat livable\u201d neighborhood of south-central Las Vegas, ranked 78th in Nevada by latest Livability Index data, where median selling price of one-fifty-one thousand five will secure an SFR such as 3945 Clear View Drive, 1743 square feet two baths en-suite, wherein revenge is sweet for First Lieutenant Rudy who, roused at dusk from a snatch of flashback, hair a husk of itch-and-scratch, declares war on dandruff, splashes on the Scalp 18 Coal Tar Shampoo, re-clothes himself in his rightful worldview, tiger-pattern fatigues, gray and slate blue, hues worn semi-pixellated\u2014like porn
\n 
\nRudy bids \u201cSmell you later!\u201d to his 2.4 kids enrapt on simulator\u2014his Marathon Navigator (standard issue watch to the aviator) reads 2221\u2014Hedy shadows him air kissing down the hall, calls homespun from the porch \u201cGive \u2019em Hellfire, Hun!\u201d\u2014Rudy tramps the rampant yard (corner of earth he\u2019s yet to scorch), elopes with doxy\u2014his \u201969 Pontiac GTO \u201cJudge\u201d, proxy love, post-Iraq\u2014shifts T-handled Hurst into first, gives the gas a burst, spins up the Rally II wheels (without trim rings), burns rubber takes off with a screech, joining the 95 northwest to Creech, Indian Springs, Nevada, to claim his seat with the sedentary Chair-Force armada
\n 
\nV8 skirts strips of Vegas glitz, shrugs off last of burgeoning burbs, hits the Mojave\u2014wind-blown tropes of tumbleweed, bleached bones gleam in lights full-beam\u2014back in the desert Rudy feels the need, the need for speed: pedal to the metal, 370 horses loosed from corral, kick in the pants, boost to morale, precious hour\u2019s hooky as Steve McQueen\u2014scant consolation, no F-16
\n 
\nFebruary 10 2016, night like any other, Rudy swings by Coolbeans Caf\u00e9 in Building 1003, grabbing a latte Venti<\/i> (brewed 24-7 at Starbucks concession, 240 calories, 225 milligrams of caffeine, go-to drug of his profession), reports for duty at 432nd<\/sup> Air Expeditionary Wing, freezing 2 ticks at the turnstile to prime his Battlemind, before punching in for graveyard shift at the UAV Battlelab, unnatural habitat of the \u201cHunters\u201d, who jostle and josh, garbed in last vestige of drab. \u201cListen up!\u201d breezes the Colonel, \u201cLet\u2019s cut us some grass \u2019fore it gets out of control. Grab your lattes two-by-two, let\u2019s do it to them before they do it to you.\u201d Seated in his ergonomic chair in the compound at Creech, Rudy the Reaper has one helluva reach: his touch can be felt\u2014with critical 2-second delay\u2014seven thousand seven hundred and eighteen miles away\u2014
\n 
\n\u2014in Khas Kunar District,
\nKandahar
\narid Afghan warzone
\nwhere two young boys deploy
\nsheep knucklebones
\nmarbles in their game of
\nbujul-bazi<\/i>
\noblivious of the approaching
\nReaper drone
\npiloted remotely by a no-risk
\nkamikaze
\nergonomically seated with skinny latte
\nseven thousand seven hundred and eighteen miles away\u2014
\n 
\n\u2014in Nevada, where it\u2019s once more unto the breach for the displaced Hunters of Creech, time to forge a \u201csignature strike\u201d against virtual insurgents, black smudges on a screen, while smaller shadows spell kids on the scene. Rudy incants Master Arm\u2014On, Weapons\u2014Hot, 3-2-1-Rifle! Missiles Away<\/i> to unleash laser-guided Hellfire, chants 1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi<\/i> in hide-and-seek pastiche, unaware that acronyms conspire SNAFU to TARFU until, framed in his display, two artless youths dart into the fray. Master Arm\u2014Off, Weapons\u2014Safe<\/i>. Re Rudy\u2019s bad hair day: \u201cCollateral damage proportionate<\/i>\u201d accent the Bookkeepers of AFCENT in Strike Report AFG102 memo, while in Creech-speak argot insubordinates dissent \u201cFun-sized terrorists, good splash!\u201d
\n 
\n\u2014white flakes of ash fall in Khas Kunar
\nshaken Snow Globe scene of shattered sheep knucklebones,
\nDesert Storm of pulverized stone
\nsettling like dandruff on the corpses of Aimal and Fardeen
\nblood brothers in their teens
\nhand-in-hand forever in Kandahar
\n 
\n0803 upon the dot The Judge\u2019s windshield blinks uniquely across the lot, end of a hard day\u2019s night, hand on Hurst shifter, Rudy\u2019s in overdrive, taking flight, Tom Cruise-controlled dash down the 95, cast adrift in 2.7 billion year Mojave hiatus, cache of waking dreams \u266b mid the sagebrush and the cactus \/ I’ll watch the fellas practice \/ dropping bombs through the clear desert breeze, Yahoo!<\/i> \u266b Afghanis they hate us Scalp 18 Coal Tar Shampoo Here come de Judge<\/i> jury and executioner all rolled into one Top Gun Grim Reaper peacekeeper setting phasers to stun \u201cGive \u2019em hell, Hun!\u201d Goddam Intell! losing marbles \u2019neath the Joshua tree PTSD shrinks can\u2019t ground me I\u2019m grounded already in my skinny ergonomic latte chair\u2014but what\u2019s the point in self-flagellation when there\u2019ll be no formal investigation into Scalp 18
\n 
\n\u2014white flakes fall in Khas Kunar
\n 
\nThe Judge burbles back through the burbs to 3945, set in his thousand-yard stare Rudy trudges up the drive, trips on the step (still in disrepair), slips inside feeling the need for\u2014I and I, Creech-speak for R and R, tea and sympathy with his little chickadee. \u201cHi hun,\u201d says Hedy, \u201cHow was your day?\u201d \u201c\u2014Daddy, Daddy!\u201d Rudy\u2019s two sons dart into the fray, antsy at pop\u2019s two-second delay, \u201cCan\u2019t we get the new Drone Strike flight simliation app? Y\u2019know, that one where, like, zombies\u2019ve taken over a big desert an\u2019 stuff\u2014\u201d Rudy, speechless, scratches the bejesus out of his scalp\u2014scant consolation as white flakes fall in Paradise.
\n 
\nBorn in Wales and raised in England, Jim King now lives in happy exile in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he washed up after visiting some 60 other countries. The publication of satirical letters in The Times newspaper and The Spectator magazine attests to his success in passing himself off as a bona fide Anglo Saxon; however, during extreme crises of identity, he reverts to pretending to be of Celtic origin. Apart from landfalls, he\u2019s also been known to count footsteps, ruminants in fields, earth tremors and publications, Cornflakes and rejection slips. Before writing poetry, Jim used to be convinced his tallying helped him maintain dominion over body and soul, and other such hostile environments; now he\u2019s enlisted words to do his counting. Jim has acted as MC and been the featured reader at Magic Theatre Poetry in Chiang Mai. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Kurtz & Anni Wilson<\/strong>
\n 
\nAnni Wilson<\/strong>
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a> <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Kurtz<\/strong>
\n 
\nDEMOCRACY\u2019S A DAMNED NUISANCE
\n 
\n\u201cFor Thou shalt<\/i> was from of the old condition of man\u2019s being,
\nand his weal and blessedness was in obeying that. Woe for him
\nwhen, were it on the hest of the clearest necessity, rebellion,
\ndisloyal isolation, and mere I will<\/i>, becomes his rule!\u201d
\n\u2014 Thomas Carlyle.
\n 
\nDemocracy\u2019s a damned nuisance,
\nmy votes\u2019s straight-up no confidence;
\nthe riffraff and the menials
\nshould leave it up to us nobles;
\naristocrats, we\u2019ll make the law
\nand you peasants may thank us all;
\naffairs of state are too high-toned
\nfor low-bred vassals drunk and stoned;
\nwhy bother with democracy
\nif you can\u2019t vote yourself money?;
\nthe average chuff\u2019s illiterate,
\nhe\u2019d hurt himself with a ballot;
\nthe bourgeoisie controls their thoughts,
\nI\u2019d rather a Court drawn by lots;
\nthe Fourth Estate has grown too large,
\nlet\u2019s keep the idle rich in charge;
\nit matters not who\u2019s elected,
\njust keep the taxes collected;
\nthe commoners\u2019 place is just to
\nsupport the royal revenue;
\nwhat\u2019s this? complaints from starving hordes?
\nthey\u2019re lucky they\u2019ve a House of Lords;
\nI ask you how low can they stoop
\nto call the King a nincompoop?;
\nsure, sovereigns make a few boo-boos
\nbut aren\u2019t those famines now old news?;
\nthese knaves who want equality
\ndeserve naught but the pillory;
\nmuck-rakers\u2019 heads should be on blocks,
\nutopia\u2019s a scurvy pox;
\nwho needs their tedious \u201cfair play,\u201d
\nthey\u2019d end up despots anyway;
\nit\u2019s \u201cliberty!\u201d \u2018til they prevail
\nthen they\u2019ll, too, oppress the canaille;
\nwe\u2019ll not have mobs or street dissent,
\ntheir politics are feculent;
\nwho cares what the great unwashed likes,
\nit\u2019s their or our heads up on pikes;
\ndemocracy\u2019s a damned nuisance,
\nsuffrage, an inconvenience;
\ndown with these lib\u2019ral acolytes
\nand up their arse with human rights!
\n 
\n 
\nCraig Kurtz & Anni Wilson are currently finishing a folio of reversified Restoration plays; information at antickcomedies.blogspot.com<\/a>. Their work appears together in the spring ’17 issue of Penn Review<\/i>. They both reside at Twin Oaks Intentional Community. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\nNancy Smiler Levinson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI HEAR AMERICA WEEPING
\n–After Walt Whitman 157 years later
\n 
\nI hear America weeping, the sundry laments I hear,
\nThose of fearful souls, each weeping as it should be
\nstruggling and bewildered
\nThe automaker weeping into his idle hands
\nThe farmworker ill and weakened from pesticides,
\nweeping as he writhes upon his sickbed,
\nThe Inuit weeping afloat her life\u2019s close as her village
\ndrowns in a flood of melted glacier,
\nrising ocean waters
\nThe paralyzed young man slumped in a wheelchair,
\neyes glazed over,
\na lawman\u2019s bullet in his back
\nhis mother\u2019s tears
\nhis brother\u2019s tears
\nhis neighbors\u2019 fears at sundown
\nThe children weeping, their father dragged off to a distant place
\nThe pregnant woman collapsed at graffiti-marked doors
\nthat lock out care
\nThe special needs child with no path to school
\nEach weeping what belongs to him or her and no one else
\nenduring by day
\nstreaks of yellow blinding
\nAt night the wild cries against the strongman\u2019s shout
\nAmerica first!
\n 
\n 
\nNancy Smiler Levinson is the author of MOMENTS OF DAWN: A Poetic Memoir
\nof Love & Family, Affliction & Affirmation<\/i>, as well as stories, essays, and poems that have appeared in publications, including Confrontation, Phantasmagoria, Poetica, Drunk Monkey, The Lost Country, Burningword Review, and three nonfiction anthologies. She is a one-time Pushcart nominee. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBilly Malanga<\/strong>
\n 
\nIF THEY\u2019RE HUNGRY LET THEM EAT GRASS OR THEIR OWN DUNG
\n—Attributed to Andrew J. Myrick<\/i>
\n 
\nA male zebra killed a newborn in the herd.
\nJosef Mengele anxiously tried to turn the eyes of victims blue.
\nA mountain lion killed two ranchers in the northwest.
\nPresident Lincoln authorized the hanging of 38 Dakota men at Mankato.
\n 
\nA Kodiak bear killed a fisherman in Alberta.
\nEleven Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans.
\nA bull gored a spectator in Mexico City.
\nTwo African American couples were hanged at Moore\u2019s Ford.
\n 
\nA female mosquito sucked blood from a baby\u2019s temple.
\nAndrei Chikatilo murdered 52 in Russia.
\nPorphyria\u2019s lover strangled her then sat quietly, waiting
\nfor God to say something to the reptile in his mind.
\n 
\nAnd still we dream of peace.
\n 
\n 
\nBilly Malanga (M.S. in Criminal Justice) is a first generation college graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and the grandson of Italian immigrants. He played college football and worked for many years in a state prison system. All of these influences have undeniably shaped his way of thinking about his art. His poetry reveals his small victories and also his struggles in redefining masculinity in an effort to better understand the beauty as well as the brutality of the world around him. His upcoming poetry will be published online at The Naga and in Spindrift<\/i> (Shoreline Community College’s Art and Literary Journal). He currently lives in Urbana, IL. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRandy Mazie<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSHAKESPEARE NEVER WROTE THESE WORDS: LOVE TRUMPS ALL
\n 
\nMy love is for no feathered office: high.
\nWhose shallow birds’ shrill cries perform high jinx.
\nThat voice who warbles us to follow: (sigh).
\nWhose twitters bring us to the brink of drinks.
\n 
\nSlowly, me hopes, methinks, these birds will molt.
\nSo gently as the planet’s warbling spin,
\nwe’ll treat these birds, so they won’t think to bolt.
\nAnd then we’ll clip their wings, perchance to win.
\n 
\nWe’ll dangle threads of millets, strands of love,
\nand call them all like pigeons to this crumb
\nThey’ll chatter, oh so scornfully, above.
\nBut down they’ll swoop to eat; watch each succumb!
\n 
\nAnd while this cult of self-conceit ensues,
\nWe’ll laugh while reading tweets of bogus news.
\n 
\n 
\nWriting has always been like an itch inside of Randy Mazie’s head: a sneeze exploding into words, words scribbled frantically onto a page, then crossed out and “thesaurus-ed” for the exact felt sense desiring creation. Randy scratches and sneezes most every day. Now that he’s now retired, he’s preparing to backpack the Appalachian Trail with his wife, Debbie, and is “hiked up” to journal the journey. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristopher Moylan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN PRAISE OF DUST
\n 
\nDirt swarm, spawn of sloughed
\nskin and desert winds, of dried
\ncadavers and extinct stars, even
\nChrist and the apostles spurned this,
\nkicking off the least trace on leaving
\nsome shriveled outpost of despair
\nin Galilee; take nothing, leave
\nnothing, not even the dust
\nfrom your sandals. Welcome
\nnowhere, tolerated nowhere,
\nyet how easily it drifts from place
\nto place, respecting no borders
\nor boundaries, no limits or laws,
\nnothing safe from it, nothing sacred.
\nEver the opportunist, it permeates
\nthe least give or opening; enters
\nand wanders like dreams, like lust,
\nno sooner evident than wiped away
\nin shame, in disgust, a gauze slip
\nmore naked than bare skin.
\nFor all that, who has ever held
\none mere speck for interrogation,
\nput a finger on one rogue mote
\nto make it spill its story: where
\nit\u2019s been, what or who it touched,
\nwhat it suffered to become dust\u2026
\nThere is no baptism for the dirt
\nbeneath the nail\u2014and yet, how
\nwell I remember tap water,
\nand abrasive\u2014lava soap, Boraxo\u2014
\nrinsing, scraping day\u2019s work,
\nthe stain that wouldn\u2019t wash
\nbecome the print across the page.
\n 
\nThis too will fade, and yet is not
\ndust angelic, airy, co-eternal with
\nall that is and was and will be.
\nIs it not us? Do we not carry
\nour graves within us, will the dirt
\ndropped on our caskets someday
\nnot comprise the same minerals
\nwe despise on the hands of the alien,
\nthe undocumented field laborer,
\nhouse cleaner, dish washer?
\nIf we rise at the end of time,
\npale croci pushing from the mud,
\nthe same slick grime will suckle
\neveryone alike. Meantime, the desert
\nstalks shepherd and herd across
\nthe globe. Gulf cities wake
\nto an orange sky, sand dunes
\nstranded miles from the bay, lay
\ntheir veils on shop signs and display
\nwindows. Nation after nation,
\nthe hourglass tips to an open grave
\nwhile the U.S. stockpiles weapons
\nfor the end of times rainy day.
\nThe dust is coming.
\n 
\n 
\nChristopher Moylan is an English professor at NYIT where he publishes short fiction, poetry and literary criticism. He is also an activist involved in food security issues, resistance to the Trump catastrophe, and various forms of anti-capitalist organization and experimentation. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEmma Paling<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nJANUARY 21, 2017
\n 
\nSo what? he asked.
\nI would be that scared
\nif she had won.
\n 
\nMy mouth shut. I swallowed
\nmy whole sentence,
\nmy whole body.
\n 
\nI saw the boy
\nI sat in class with
\nfor four years
\nafter he raped me.
\n 
\nThe one who took my friends
\nand took my home
\nand told the world
\nI was a liar.
\n 
\nSo what?
\nThe words rang.
\n 
\nHe would be that scared
\nif I
\nhad
\nanything.
\n 
\n 
\nEmma Paling is a writer and journalist in Toronto. Find her @emmapaling<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKarlee Patton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRUMP DEMONS<\/strong>
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKarlee Patton is an artist and poet from northeastern Pennsylvania. She received her BA in Visual Art from Keystone College. She was a two-year recipient of Keystone College’s Art Program’s Jo Ann M Donahue Memorial Fund award, was a recipient of the Edward M. Cameron IV Poetry Contest award, was a Keystone College Honors Scholar, and was a Keystone College Presidential Fellow.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeanette Quick<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNORMALIZING IN SAN FRANCISCO
\n 
\nfirst January in San Francisco: slushy,
\ngray, more than sweater weather. They say
\nit rained for days before we got here. People
\nstare down from white-bordered windows
\nand think about the drought. What about global
\nwarming, local warming, the personal is political:
\nwatering a lawn is a political act. Our car repair
\nshop has a sign that says it has suspended car
\nwashes until it rains \u201ca lot.\u201d The inverse of a rain
\ncheck: people will resume work only if it floods.
\nBusinesses opened and closed while we were
\ninside unpacking, one Pilates studio was replaced
\nby another. Locavores grew tomatoes on concrete
\nrooftops in December, and sold the stems to new
\nNew American restaurants. People brunched
\n 
\nuntil 7 PM while we were gone. Others declared
\ndinner was best at half past dawn. This was known
\nas the dinner reclamation project, as innovation
\nfrom clock to table, the cleansing of sleep microbes.
\n 
\nWhile we were away, people
\nelected a maniac to lead our country.
\n 
\nPeople wrote Facebook words against Trump, posted
\nsigns in store windows that love trumps hate. But
\nwhen hate trumped reason, people went home
\nand curled into bed. Sometimes people prepared
\nfor a storm, but mostly people just thought about drought.
\nPaper, rock, scissors works only if we all agree on rules;
\nwe\u2019ll cross the Golden Gate when we get there.
\n 
\n 
\nJeanette Quick is a writer and policy professional living in Vienna, Austria and San Francisco. Her work has been published in The Bright Line, Penumbra, The Tax Lawyer, District Lines<\/i>, and the American Banker<\/i>. She has earned residencies from OBRAS Portugal, Elsewhere Studios, Art Farm, and Sundress Academy for the Arts. She was a finalist in the ARDOR Flash Fiction Contest and the 39th and 41st New Millennium Writings contests for flash fiction. She holds a Jurisdoctorate from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor of arts from University of California, Berkeley. She regularly contributes theater reviews to DC Metro Theater Arts. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n Cindy Stewart-Rinier<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO REMAIN UNBROKEN
\n 
\nWe must turn the horses of their apocalypse
\nout to pasture, then plunge our hands
\ndeep into the earth in order to feel the way
\nunseen dendrites connect and feed
\nwhole living systems, delivering
\nwater and nourishment to the individual
\ntrees that need them at any given time.
\nWe must enact the way intertwined roots
\nserve to anchor and hold each other up,
\nand when one of us falls, we must give
\nreverence to that life by planting love
\nlike a thousand seeds in its decaying husk.
\n 
\n 
\nUNDER TRUMP, NO GOOD DEED
\n 
\ngoes unpunished, I think, approaching
\nthe rat feasting in the bird feeder
\nagain. At the sound of my foot steps,
\nits scurry and drop from the hanging
\nbowl, metaphor announcing itself
\nlike the soft plop of excrement.
\nAftermath of yellow millet, red
\ndari, and oily black sunflower seeds\u2014
\nall meant to fuel the thing with feathers\u2014
\nare strewn across the winter-dead ground.
\nHow familiar now, this plundered
\nfeeling. How familiar, the scattering
\ncaused by appetites that know no bounds.
\n 
\nThe metaphor might have been simple,
\ntidy, complete, were it not for that
\nencounter days before when, peering
\ninto the bowl, I saw what weighted
\nthe thin branch and rat nose met my nose,
\nrat eyes, my eyes, our gazes held
\nfor a long moment before fight
\nor flight jolted its plump body
\nfrom bowl to air to bench to hidey-hole,
\nthe feeder swaying like a wobbly scythe.
\nOnly now, the difference between us
\nblooms shame from my belly to my head:
\n 
\njust one of our species manifests pathological
\nappetite, would wish the other dead.
\nWe both know which.
\n 
\n 
\nCindy Stewart-Rinier holds an MFA in Creative Writing from PLU\u2019s Rainier Writing Workshop. Her manuscript, A Desire for Color, for Wings<\/i> was selected as one of two finalists in January of this year for the 2016 Philip Levine Poetry Prize First Book of Poetry contest. Her work has appeared in publications such as Calyx, The Smoking Poet, Crab Creek Review, Ascent, Naugatuck River Review, Women\u2019s Voices for Change, New American Voices<\/i>, and VoiceCatcher<\/i>, as well as the anthologies, Siblings: Our First Macrocosm<\/i>, and the VoiceCatcher\u2019s<\/i> 10th<\/sup> Anniversary Anthology, She Holds the Face of the World<\/i>. She lives in Portland, Oregon and teaches ongoing poetry workshops in Silverton, Oregon. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLarry D. Thacker<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFAKE-ASS GOLD ELEVATOR IN THE BACKDROP
\n 
\nAleppo gets their house-to-house shots,
\nbut that\u2019s all Kanye really wants, too, y\u2019all,
\n 
\nwith those arms crossed, next to that shot-op,
\nhis sometimes estranged mouth restrained
\nfor a change, not shot off, now ain\u2019t that odd?
\n 
\nHold on, hold on, imma let you speak, Mr. T,
\nsince maybe I ain\u2019t runnin in twenty-twenty,
\nsee, but all I want right now is this mystery
\nof why in the hell I\u2019m in this tower of power,
\nseen and not heard, all Ike and Eisenhower.
\n 
\nSome journalist asked, \u201cDid you discuss
\npossible cabinet positions?\u201d Some \u201cjournalist\u201d
\nactually asked that. You fucking kidding me?
\nNaw, I just want to take a picture right now.
\n 
\nGood answer, buddy. Just smile and don\u2019t talk.
\n 
\n 
\nLarry D. Thacker\u2019s poetry can be found in more than ninety publications including The Still Journal, Poetry South, Mad River Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Mojave River Review, Mannequin Haus, Ghost City Press, Jazz Cigarette<\/i>, and Appalachian Heritage<\/i>. His books include Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia<\/i> and the poetry books, Voice Hunting<\/i> and Memory Train<\/i>, as well as the forthcoming, Drifting in Awe<\/i>. He\u2019s presently working on his MFA in both poetry and fiction. Visit his website at: larrydthacker.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPamela Murray Winters<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION
\n 
\nI\u2019m not Jesus,
\nbut I\u2019m learning that part
\nwhere the stone is rolled away.
\n 
\nWaking up at nightfall.
\nRemembering my love is coming home.
\nI rise and turn
\n 
\nthe lights on.
\nOne at a time. Envisioning
\nthe light in his eyes
\n 
\nas he enters,
\nas he walks through this messy house
\nin this wrecked world.
\n 
\n 
\nINTROVERTS AGAINST TRUMP
\n 
\nI can be happy with not seeing
\nspies, anarchists, the stars\u2019 houses.
\nWe have our private places.
\nI close myself as if the shell couldn\u2019t crack.
\nMy house understands when I rot a little.
\n 
\nI have waited for the answer, the map
\nto being people. The legend is broken.
\nWhen fear knocks, we make houses of ourselves.
\n 
\nSome people are bent
\non tearing down, rebuilding.
\nLook how planned everything is.
\nDon\u2019t step out of line. Keep your roof shiny.
\nKeep out the runaways. Let in the cops.
\n 
\nA bag-end I snuggle down. When I wake,
\nI will learn not to answer fear.
\nI will admit one, I will admit many.
\nI will go down to the intersection
\n 
\nwearing a sign.
\nLove let me in.
\n 
\n 
\nBorn two blocks from the White House, Pamela Murray Winters lives in Maryland, where she works with the Green Moon Poets Society to organize poetry readings. Her poems have been published in the Gettysburg Review, Gargoyle, Opossum<\/i>, and other journals and anthologies. She is seeking a publisher for her first book-length poetry manuscript. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSally Weston Ziph<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER THE INAUGURATION
\nJanuary 2017<\/i>
\n 
\nthe 12:33 train rumbles past on the track outside the window
\nthe dark trees with solid trunks
\nand spidery branches
\nthe old man reads Twitter and Mein Kampf
\ndried grass, ice-white sky, blackened water
\nagainst a white shore
\nhe signs the executive order
\ndark silhouettes of birds burst
\nacross the empty sky
\nfamilies held in airports
\nbarred from coming home
\nthe crows are loud and getting closer
\nwhy can\u2019t we just get over it?
\n 
\n 
\nSally Weston Ziph is a University of Michigan Hopwood Award winner whose work has appeared in Third Wednesday, Open Palm Print<\/i> and others. She has two grown daughters, works as a librarian, and runs a writing group for women that just celebrated its fifth anniversary.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted March 31, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nJonel Abellanosa<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMOMUS
\n 
\nZeus expelled me from Mount Olympus after my
\nyakking improvisatory mimicry and onomatopoeic
\nexpressions of syllabic cooing mooing bang buzz and
\nwhippoorwill baby sounds made other gods suspect
\nvariations of my sadistic humor alluding. My cryptic
\nululations, blabbering with animal grunts, mirrored
\ntyrannical Zeus\u2019 140-character drivel. He would
\nsend his audiences head-spinning into confusions,
\nricocheting slurs and non sequiturs like silver bullets,
\nquick-tempered King of Heavenly Yes-Beings, parodic
\npet peeve. This lecher rants like he has all the answers,
\nordering sycophants whimsically, contemporary
\nNero, onion-skinned sign-of-the-times psychopath,
\nmouthing the unprintable, showing off ignorance. I
\nlove his colorful language \u2013 pluperfect for mockeries,
\nkeen-eyed satires. Power is comedy-prone, politics the
\njuiciest jabberwocky. I pleasure in praising with
\ninsults, throwing blames like bonuses to the corrupt, my
\nharlequin heart hula hooping. I delight in poeticizing
\ngobbledygook, aping iconoclasts, living among
\nFilipinos \u2013 the stormy planet\u2019s most resilient people,
\neasily the happiest and the most welcoming. I\u2019m
\ndelving in the written word\u2019s itch for annoying fun,
\ncaricaturing the rich, speechwriting for the popular
\nbipolar bigotry granddaddy, perfecting on page his
\nanger\u2019s arrhythmia, his full moon glossolalia
\n 
\n 
\nPENGUIN
\n 
\nAnger hanging low like a rotting jackfruit,
\nbounty of curses for befuddled audiences.
\nCraftiness is silver as my walking cane,
\ndeviltry a day-long lure and I\u2019m helpless.
\nEntertainer with lavender lipstick, I\u2019m master
\nfeigner, falconer of pretensions, jack who
\ngraduated from all tirades to all-out tyranny,
\nhippopotamus driven crazy by sounds and
\ninsects honing the control freak mentality.
\nJeopardy, if double, is a doppelganger,
\nknavery like a bowtie. I\u2019m smacked with
\nloquacity, my heart wearing dancing shoes.
\nmaking it to the not quite female shortlist
\nnectarine as night. I\u2019m not divulging the
\nOswald Cobblepot teaser, the Gotham
\npulchritude. I need no reasons to cry,
\nquarantining my desires en plein air. I
\nruminate more when gazing if the moon
\nslice hints of watermelon, my paintbrush
\ntamer than starry soliloquies. Gray shades
\nunderstate the glossolalia I alone hear,
\nvelvet the color I can\u2019t escape when
\nwishing for a new savior to be nailed.
\nXenomania crowds my canvases with
\nyellows, nothing more laughable than a
\nzoo of caricatures \u2013 painted with insults
\n 
\n 
\nSUPERMOON IN THE TIME OF DONALD TRUMP
\n 
\nVision is made
\nof bamboo sticks
\nand origami paper,
\nattached to the heart\u2019s string
\n 
\nThe sign of the times
\nat perigee glows like a dilating eye,
\nthe kite like a protest poem
\nin the sky
\n 
\n 
\nJonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including, Anglican Theological Review, Rattle, Poetry Kanto, Spirit Fire Review, Episteme Literary Journal, The McNeese Review, The Literary Hatchet, GNU Journal<\/i> and Pedestal Magazine<\/i>. He has two chapbooks, \u201cPictures of the Floating World\u201d (Kind of a Hurricane Press<\/i>) and \u201cThe Freeflowing All\u201d (Black Poppy Review<\/i>). He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nC L Baran<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPUSSYFOOTING
\n 
\nas 1984 tops the bestseller list
\nalternative facts are the new
\nfake news
\n 
\nas google searches for
\nthe definition of “fact” trend
\nsearches for facts
\ntrend
\n 
\nsearch
\nre
\nsearch
\nresearch
\n 
\nor
\n 
\ndoublespeak
\ndoublethink
\ndon’t think
\n 
\ndon’t think about
\nthe unreal or the surreal
\nthe dubious, doubtful, unverified, debunked, distorted, misquoted, misstated, fabricated
\n 
\nthis pussyfooting, side stepping, song and dance
\n 
\n 
\nC L Baran is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist\/designer and writer. Baran’s art work has exhibited in galleries and museums in eleven countries and been published in a few more. Her text based work has been published in the magazines Front, Kiss Machine, Eat Your Friends<\/i> and Homonumos<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Barnes<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
\n 
\nHand in hand in the garden my lover and I did meet;
\nmy dalliance startled the Press Corps and my darling was ready to tweet.
\nOur relationship, already special, grew deeper with each passing hour
\nand now I’m his inamorata, a fragrant and full English flower.
\nI’m the first to have sought his attention (my boldness paid off, don’t you know?)
\nso a trade deal between us is settled – but wait! There’s much more to show:
\nHer Maj has invited him over for a visit of glitter and gold
\n(who cares if nobody wants it? The voters will do as they’re told).
\nI’ll never say words that will hurt him, I’m only too eager to please:
\nso, of course, build a wall on the border and close it to poor refugees.
\nI’ll admit to a frisson of pleasure as I pity Frau Merkel (the frump)
\nfor I’ll be remembered for ever as the harlot of Donald J Trump.
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Barnes lives in London, UK and is actively involved in the voluntary sector which he finds much more rewarding than being a down-trodden member of the salariat. After leaving university he worked in banking (when it was a respectable profession) in Africa and Europe. His other interests include art and opera, neither of which he claims to understand. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Brownstein<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEREGULATING STRIP MINING, KENTUCKY
\n 
\nGather in cinder blocks! Storm roiling in!<\/i>
\n 
\nAsh speckled cotton bales,
\nstacked straw damp with fever,
\nthe end of the hollow storm:
\ncreeks into streams into rivers
\nrich with black loam, tar dust,
\ncarcasses, the stench so great
\nthe water filtration plant can\u2019t.
\nIntakes blocked. Outtakes fouled.
\nIf we make our children stupid\u2014
\nlead in the drinking water\u2014
\nare they easier for us to control?
\n 
\n 
\nMichael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Caf\u00e9 Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com<\/i> and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100 Degrees Outside and Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJudy Catterton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMARCH MADNESS
\n 
\nMarch is the month
\nof madness
\nI watch the dribble
\nbracket the wins
\nand losses
\nhear the cries of foul<\/i>
\nand wonder if my country
\nwill ever rebound
\n 
\n 
\nIRONY
\n 
\nI listen to the radio announcer say the next show
\nwill explore the problem of the transgendered
\nin public bathrooms and I think
\n 
\npeople can carry a concealed weapon into a toilet
\nbut not a concealed penis?
\n 
\nI marvel at the hubbub over a dead lion
\nwhen 9 children are slaughtered every day by gun violence.
\n 
\nI wonder why we struggle to fix unemployment
\nwhen decrepit bridges and roads need fixing.
\n 
\nI question how you can be both pro-life and pro death \u2003 penalty?
\nAnd isn\u2019t the opposite of planned parenthood<\/i> random parenthood?
\n 
\nI am mystified when 16 million American kids go hungry every day
\nwhile Congress cuts food benefits \u2003 SNAP!
\n 
\nAnd then there\u2019s clean coal<\/i>,
\nwhat the Hell is that?
\n 
\n 
\nJudy Catterton is a retired lawyer who teaches essay and memoir for the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. She is the 2015 recipient of a fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts for an emerging writer in the creative non-fiction category. Her essays and poems have been published in several literary journals. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCathy Clay<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHISS
\n 
\nI am neither winged nor hoofed; but small
\ntan, dappled, and lacking venom. Though
\nmy kind comes in manifold colors, the
\nfaintest glimpse of me conjures the huge
\nblack serpent of nightmares and lore.
\nMy motley skin I shed to become anew,
\nbut I can never eclipse the curse.
\n 
\nI tend to keep to myself. Sometimes I crawl
\ninto the vexatious pit of my kin; though I
\nprefer adding mystique to the garden.
\n 
\nI slither on my belly in search of some
\nsmall pulsating prey then a cool shadowy
\nplace to rest. Most things are grand from
\nmy vantage point since I seldom rise above
\nthe heel. Occasionally, when I inch up a
\ntree, I wonder what it must be like to roar
\nor soar from there.
\n\t 
\nProgress licensed Adam to slay me.
\nEve avoids my presence unless I am
\ncouture. Children are taught to fear me
\nyet some appreciate my beguiling charm.
\nWhile too na\u00efve to know that fertility, eternity,
\nand wisdom I symbolize, the innocent quickly
\nlearn that I am delicate, playful, and necessary.
\n 
\nCamouflaged by nature, I creep to my fate.
\nShould trouble happen my way, I will rear
\nmy tiny head, and launch my best defense.
\nI will hiss.
\n 
\n 
\nCathy Clay is a Houston, Texas native. She earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Houston (1997) and a master\u2019s in English from Texas Southern University (2008). Her scholarly reviews have been published in the Facts on File: Companion to the World Novel<\/i> published by Columbia University Press (2007). Currently her short story “Cecil “appears in Eclectically Criminal<\/i>, an Inklings Publication. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJade Gibson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWITHOUT WALLS
\n 
\nThis brink
\nof a year
\n 
\nIs the taste of pomegranates
\nabout to burst,
\n 
\nThe touch of life’s beauty,
\namidst the curved edge
\nof sharp swords.
\n 
\nThe drums
\nof victory
\nand defeat.
\n 
\nToo many walls
\nspringing up.
\n 
\nToo much to fight about,
\n 
\nRemember this –
\nhow diversity
\nmakes the world beautiful,
\n 
\nThe curve of arms
\nin their first embrace,
\n 
\nThat the first drum
\nis another’s heartbeat,
\n 
\nAnd the innocence
\nof swallows
\nand whales
\nand other creatures
\n 
\nWho cross this earth
\nwithout walls.
\n 
\nJade Gibson (PhD) is a British Half-Scottish, half-Filipino anthropologist living and working in South Africa. She is an artist and her novel ‘Glowfly Dance’ (Penguin Random House Umuzi 2015, SA, world rights avail.) was longlisted in the Barry Ronge Sunday Times 2016 Prize and shortlisted in international Dundee and Virginia Prizes. Jade is a regular guest poet at Off the Wall, Cape Town, and has read as a guest poet in Battersea, London. She was 2nd Prizewinner of Inglis House poetry ‘Bone and Tissue’ international competition, US, and is a fellow co-ordinator of the Cape Town Writer’s Network. She grew up without walls and is sad when they go up. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nByron Haskins<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUNREQUITED POLITICS
\n 
\nThere is no love in politics.
\n 
\nWant prevails
\nubiquitously,
\ninsidiously,
\ninsatiably falling out of love,
\nwe can only observe
\nthe black hole of avarice,
\nthe white lie of manipulation,
\nthe color of hatred,
\nthe chill of horror.
\n 
\nOn stage, I can pretend to love you
\nbut the wretched political platform leaves me wanting
\nto dive off, away from your waiting armies,
\nthe steps drawing down my strength.
\nthe surging mosh aborting my feet,
\nfrozen in dead space,
\nrocketed by a stupid tweet,
\nno love lost there, only
\nfinding myself adrift on a sound bite.
\n 
\n 
\nREAL PARANOIA
\n 
\nYour paranoia ain’t my paranoia
\ndon’t ever think you can ride in my car
\nwhen I’m trying to get to my low paying gig
\nand I know that my rig’s got a headlight gone blind
\nand an unpaid ticket sitting on my seat
\nwaiting for me to have enough green.
\nI’m looking for red flashers
\nand all you got is some crazy bad dream
\nabout a G-man coming to take your AR-15
\nor some jack-booted nigger bitch fuckin’ your son.
\nI’m just trying to make it to work
\nwithout your stupid-assed nephew Beau
\npulling me over and pointing a gun at my fro
\nbecause I am reacting to losing my job
\nwith your uncle Ned for being late
\none last time
\ncause I can’t drive down the street
\nwithout somebody thinking I’m there
\nfor no good
\ncause I have to get to my gig
\nby driving through your neighborhood.
\n 
\n 
\nByron Haskins was born in Detroit, Michigan, and is a retired career civil servant. Byron’s publishing credits include: “Paulo Freire’s Nightmare” originally “Lost Yesterday”, Expression Magazine<\/i> (1975), “Senseless Love”, Cedar Gallery<\/i> www.cedargallery.nl<\/a> ( 2015), “The Goodness of Winter”, Three Drops from a Cauldron<\/i>, Issue 10, (2016) www.threedropspoetry.co.uk<\/a>, “Charity Knows”, Yellow Chair Review<\/i> yellowchairreview.com<\/a>, accepted for Issue 9 (2017), and “Joyists” accepted for the Poetry Leaves Exhibition<\/i>, May 2-31, 2017 at the Waterford Public Library, waterfordmi.gov<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJemshed Khan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTWITTERSOME JITTERS
\n 
\nHillary pantsuit abortion refugees gay rights leaks foundation Trump MAKE America great Wall jobs tariffs NATO grope pussy Dare to Hope Audacity Donald The Donald White House toupee CNN Ivanka vs Hillary blues Leaks & fake leaks FBI news & fake news AND fake facts Pizza gate Deep State hard to see what destiny
\n 
\nWeiner hard drive full kiddie pron Podesta email WaPo So much mud Snowflakes melting KKK rising wall building nasty woman borders closing jobs coming hard times too The beginning or the blues CNNnNYT truth lying too. Tweeting 2 am bully pulpit smartphone China Iran Oz in a twitter.
\n 
\nBrits Brexit EU@Nexit Cali on fire or drought or flood immigrants need vetted Putin bromance lower taxes less regs cut 2 old for ea. new just business or passion populism rust belt religion gone red feel the Bern bring back factories jobs Country
\n 
\ndivided. Soro$ behind every pussy hat #black lives matter droning Yemen An orange or a lemon? Everything upended Social justice or jobs #rich get richer quicker #bring back jobs Globalism help our own the world our home when-now where-across the land protesting you billionaire talk show host boast coast-to-coast You’re Fired
\n 
\nJemshed Khan has published poems in Number One Magazine, Wittenberg Review, Unlikely Stories<\/i> (#BlackArtMatters September, 2016), Read Local<\/i> (2016), Rigorous<\/i> (Jan 2017) and the chapbook Paean for Billy Collins (Calliope Club Press, 2017). The author is slated for publication in Clockwise Cat, Issue 36<\/i> (2017), I-70 Review<\/i> (September 2017), and NanoText<\/i> (Medusa’s Laugh Press, February 2017). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPhyllis Klein<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLEONARD COHEN AND I WRITE THIS POEM TOGETHER
\nfrom Welcome to These Lines<\/i>, in Stranger Music, 1993
\n 
\nWelcome to these lines
\nThere is a war on
\nbut I\u2019ll try to make you comfortable<\/i>
\n 
\nwhile we watch the Rose Parade
\nas if everything were fine
\nTen thousand hot pink fluorescent
\n 
\nroses floating by
\nDogs on surf boards
\nI don\u2019t want to ruin the parade
\n 
\nBut what is everyone so happy about?
\nThe Arcadia band got brand new
\nuniforms in strawberry red
\n 
\nbut all I can think of is his leer
\nhis sickening groping hands grappling
\nfor power Grand Marshall of hate
\n 
\nMy village will be taken soon
\nI\u2019ll remove whatever
\nmight give comfort to the enemy<\/i>
\n 
\nwhich leaves me starving and homeless
\nbut I\u2019ll try to make you comfortable
\nsince you are not my enemy
\n 
\nI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m feeling
\nunder the dread as white button mums
\ngo by in the form of a dove
\n 
\nsurrounded by fifty thousand double rainbow
\nyellow roses to symbolize resilience
\nin the face of the horror of a mass shooting
\n 
\nSurvivors smile and wave to the camera
\nand those who have been betrayed
\ncome back like pilgrims to this moment<\/i>
\n 
\nwhen we did not yield
\nwhen we took no comfort in our victories
\nbecause there is destruction ahead
\n 
\nbut we can still laugh and smile
\nbuy gifts say Happy New Year
\nand welcome these lines as pilgrims
\n 
\nwhen we did not yield
\nwhen we steadfastly refused
\nto call the darkness poetry<\/i>
\n 
\nWelcome these lines
\nand hope they are true.
\n 
\n 
\nPhyllis Klein believes in poetry. Her work has appeared in the Pharos of Alpha Omega Medical Society Journal, Qarrtsiluni<\/i> online literary magazine, Silver Birch Press, New Verse News, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, The American Journal of Nursing<\/i> and forthcoming in Dovetails, an International Journal of the Arts<\/i>. She is very interested in the conversation between poets and readers of poetry. She sees artistic dialogue as an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area as a psychotherapist and poetry therapist. You can learn more at her website, phyllisklein.com<\/a>. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael H. Levin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCLOAKED LAMPS
\n[It\u2019s] a Republic, Madam \u2013 if you can keep it.<\/i>
\n— Benjamin Franklin, 1787
\n 
\nWhat could I tell my mother,
\nthat driven orphan who for all
\nher years refused to ride the
\nVWs that were
\nfamily business cars. She said
\nthey made her gorge rise at the
\nthought. When friends went underground
\nshe joined World Federalists.
\nI have still in a drawer
\nthe olive-wreathed gold globe
\nshe pinned to her lapels.
\n 
\nHow outline on her webbed
\nDepression scars the ways
\nwe mirror what brought Weimar down.
\nThey claimed she could not grasp
\nhow indirection may attain one\u2019s ends
\nbut something tigerish infused her space.
\nShe would not bear the easy
\nways in which submission creeps
\nand secret places are where
\nlife subsists. Do not abide,
\nshe\u2019d say, though fearful of the
\n 
\ncost. Uncloak the Lady\u2019s lamp.
\nStride forth. Persist.
\n 
\n 
\nMICHAEL H. LEVIN is a lawyer, solar-energy developer and writer based in Washington DC and Menemsha MA. He has published in Harvard Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Adirondack Review, Poet Lore<\/i> and other periodicals plus several anthologies, and has received numerous poetry and feature journalism awards. His collection Watered Colors<\/i> (Poetica Publishing) was named a Best Book for May 2014 by the Washington Independent Review of Books<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nElizabeth Martin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUNFRIENDS
\n 
\nSo you have unfriended me on Facebook
\nwhatever the hell that is supposed to mean.
\nWe certainly couldn\u2019t have been friends in any reality
\nwhere you believe white men alone
\ndecide what color brown is an acceptable shade,
\nwhat is worth anything about a woman fades
\nwhen she is less than 10
\nand love is constrained
\nby your rules that sound less about love than about slaves
\nwho will bend to men in bed and do their bidding
\nin a 1950s kitchen \u2014
\nand you will not even speak about pain
\nor fear, dismissing it as overwrought \u2014
\nsilly woman wringing her hands
\nas the acid-laced clouds form
\nand you chirp on Facebook
\nabout the weather being a light rain,
\nwhen a quick look at the sky
\nwould tell you it\u2019s Armageddon\u2019s storm.
\n 
\n 
\nGOOD NIGHT
\n 
\nWill there ever be another good night?
\nA night of steady sleep til dawn,
\nwhen my heart is quiet
\nas the snow falling on the lawn, the streets,
\nsoft as your breath beside me on the sheets \u2014
\na night without waking at three with a trumpet blast
\nof terror, wondering what new tragedy
\nis being crafted as we lie here \u2014
\nwhat new lies will be here
\nwhen we rise, when morning thunders toward us
\nlike the apocalypse
\nand we rise up to dawn
\nto gather the sunlight that\u2019s been rent asunder,
\nwield truth like a weapon
\nresist.
\n 
\n 
\nElizabeth Martin lives and works in a small city in the Rust Belt. Her poetry has appeared in The Huron River Review, The Bear River Review, American Scholar Magazine<\/i> online, the anthology of winning poems of the Chelsea Poetry Contest (Laura Kasischke, judge) and in the permanent art collection of Washtenaw College. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Meyers<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUNDER THE WORLD
\n 
\nBeneath a crumbling overpass the unwanted hide
\nin steel gray half light, dreading morning\u2019s arrival
\nshivering inside damp tents shared with rats
\nThe rising sun forcibly defines objects:
\ndirty boots on grass, cherry red lemon ice
\npieces of a shattered taillight in the gutter,
\na plastic Walmart bag tangled in the witches\u2019 fingers
\nof a half-dead tree, tugged by the wind
\nwhich just might float it away
\nto a better spot, someplace less gray
\nOverturned grocery carts bent and broken
\ncity-stained clothing heaped in piles,
\nan unending tracking shot of misery
\nattended by cars creeping at low speed,
\nfresh off the exit ramp
\nbelching toxic exhaust that flavors the air
\nenriches the grays and blacks
\nThere is movement, a hint of greasy gray hair
\nat a tent opening followed by the tip of a nose
\nsniffing rabbit-like, furtive glances left and right
\na cloud of frozen breath, the only white
\nthen back into the tent to put time on hold
\nstave off the inevitable beginning
\nanother day filled with searching
\nfor a way into the world above
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Meyers’ poems, stories, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Fiction Southeast, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun and elsewhere. John has a degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland and he once worked for Ringling Bros. Circus. More on John at hammeredinmetal.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarsha Warren Mittman<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCARNIVAL #45
\n 
\non the eve before the carnival\u2019s
\narrival i asked god
\nwhat shall i do tomorrow?
\nand god said
\nit doesn\u2019t matter
\nno one will notice you
\nno one has any interest in you
\nthe performers are only
\ninterested in themselves
\nhe thundered
\nbeware the side show \u2013
\nthe flame throwers and knife
\nthrowers enjoy missing.
\nthey deliberately hurt bystanders
\nand the juggler, well,
\nthe juggler is blind so his act
\nis completely deplorable
\nundeterred i asked
\nwhat about the games?
\ni love the games
\ngod looked sad, and sighed
\nthat\u2019s all the performers
\nare excited about;
\nthey\u2019ll kill to win. and
\ndear child, don\u2019t eat the
\ncotton candy \u2013 it looks sweet
\nbut it\u2019s been poisoned
\ni implored
\nthe animals?
\ni love the animals\u2026
\ngod shook his head
\nthe animals have left.
\nall remaining beasts
\nARE the performers
\nthen god warned
\none last thing \u2013
\nafter the side show
\nthe performers are going
\nto take you for a ride . . .
\n 
\n 
\nOriginally editor of an international company\u2019s in-house magazine, Marsha Warren Mittman has had numerous poems, essays, and short stories published in American and British journals, magazines, and anthologies \u2013 most recently Novelty (London) and her fourth Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/i> tale in Angels and Miracles<\/i>. Her chapbook, Patriarchal Chronicles \u2013 A Global Tour of Female Injustice, <\/i> was accepted by Finishing Line Press. You Know You Moved to South Dakota from New York City WHEN\u2026<\/i> is forthcoming from Scurfpea. An earlier chapbook, Message from a Goldfish, <\/i> was used in meditation\/human potential programs in twelve states. Mittman is a recipient of eight poetry awards (mid-west, Atlanta), and distinctions in three short story competitions (U.S., Ireland). An avid traveller, she\u2019s visited over 125 countries on six continents and forty-six American states. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlice Morris<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAN ACROSTIC
\n 
\nTerror, in waves
\nripped through me
\nunrelentingly that
\nmorning I learned a pussy grabber had won the election \u2013 extremely
\npainful for me, a woman.
\n 
\nI guess now we will
\nsee \u2013 what Our Mess of a democratic process has wrought
\n 
\nNot that our fast descent into
\noblivion has not already began. Now, from arts to education there is
\ntragedy. Now haters wave flags and banners of Klan & Nazi. Now
\n 
\nMuslims and migrants are defined as Other<\/i>, and
\nYes to more massive defunding, and No to sanctuary cities as
\n 
\nPeace, chip by chip, is chiseled from our land
\nreversing the tide of compassion\u2013\u2013
\neach new tweet and executive order puts me to
\nshame.
\nI would rather take
\ndirection from Mother Theresa who
\nentreats us to
\nnot forget
\nthat peace is to be found in knowing we belong to each other.
\n 
\n 
\nAlice Morris, a Minnesota native, earned her BS from Towson State University, and MS from Johns Hopkins. She comes to writing with a background in art\u2013 published in a West Virginia textbook and The New York Art Review<\/i>. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Broadkill Review, Delaware Beach Life, The Avocet, The Weekly Avocet, Silver Birch Press<\/i>, and the chapbook, The White Space\u2013 Selected Poems<\/i>. Her work can also be found or is forthcoming in themed poetry collections and anthologies, most recently, Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts <\/a> by Les Femmes Folles Books. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Okaji<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSENSING MY DISMAY AT THE ELECTION RESULTS,
\nMY WIFE’S DOG PRESSES AGAINST ME
\n 
\nAnd when I roll over, my toe finds a hole in the not
\ninexpensive 400 thread count percale sheet and rips
\n 
\ndown its length, and I wonder if I should extend this
\nmetaphor to include walls and the unbearable weight
\n 
\nof societal collapse, or hatred with small hands and
\nminds or faces like pale disks of whitewashed emptiness
\n 
\nglaring at my friends, or, well, my wife and me, across
\nthe restaurant’s laminate booths or the potholed street
\n 
\nby the bus stop. I recall the woman’s sneer and hushed
\ncommentary that afternoon, and though I wanted to
\n 
\ncorrect her mistaken assumption (hey, lady, I’m not
\nHispanic) and redirect her bigotry to the correct ethnicity,
\n 
\nI chose instead to smile and wave goodbye, to drive to
\nthe polls and cast my ballot, one drop in that dark bucket
\n 
\nof nothingness, floating alone, perhaps to coalesce with
\nothers and attain some sense of parity and belonging,
\n 
\nor to remain outcast, bewildered, wondering how this
\ncould be, what’s happened to us, my home, our country.
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Okaji lives in Texas with his wife, two dogs and some books. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Panoply, Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Posit, Into the Void, and elsewhere. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nYamini Pathak<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOWHERE, EVERYWHERE
\n 
\nTo aspire to belong is to walk a tight-rope of opinion
\nswaying in the wind.
\n 
\nNot waiting for answers, they question –
\nWhy don\u2019t you exchange
\nyour blue jeans for a saree<\/i>, submit yourself
\nto its graceful, feminine folds?
\nMake hot rotis<\/i> for family dinner every night?
\nWhat sort of Indian woman are you?
\n 
\nDidn\u2019t keep the fast for your husband to outlive you?
\nOr take your kids to temple?
\nNo shrine at home to light the lamp at sunset?
\nYou gave your sons Islamic names just because
\nthey sound like music to your ears?
\nWhat sort of Hindu are you?
\n 
\nYou dare walk out after dark, wearing skin
\nof an unfashionable color though you quake
\nat the thought of the next rage-filled man
\nwho might approach and scream
\nGo back to your country<\/i> in your face?
\nWhat sort of foolhardy citizen are you?
\n 
\nAt times, drifting in that delicate space
\nbetween tears and laughter of fellow story-tellers,
\nor when I brush by a weeping willow in spring,
\nor walk to market on a street shared
\nwith cows and crows and stray mongrel curs,
\nI ask myself, what sort of pilgrim are you?
\n 
\n 
\nYamini Pathak is a former software engineer who has recently turned to writing poetry, and short fiction. Publications of her poems are forthcoming in the spring 2017 issues of the Journal of New Jersey Poets<\/i> and the Kelsey Review<\/i>. She writes a monthly children\u2019s column on world art\/artists in a nationally circulated Indian newspaper, The Hindu. She was born in India, and lives in West Windsor, New Jersey. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarc Pietrzykowski<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRAGS TO RICHES TO RAGS IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
\n 
\nOnce he failed the physical, the Army
\ndid not want him anymore,
\nso he drank three pints of Smirnoff
\nand cut off his brother’s ear
\nwith a Ka-Bar Becker BK2 hunting knife,
\nthe one he got for Christmas.
\n 
\nThe ear sat there on the kitchen table
\nwhile his brother pressed a dish towel
\nto his grinning, leaking skull
\nand Mom tried to hold her phone steady
\nso the video would be decent.
\n 
\nShe put it up on YouTube
\nand shared it with her sister,
\nwho posted it to Facebook
\nwhere it got ten thousand likes
\nand a spot on Tosh-O.
\n 
\nWhile the resident sewed the ear back on
\nhis brother kept trying to sing
\nthe theme to Bob’s Burgers<\/i>,
\nbecause they’d fed him too many hydros
\nwhile waiting in the ER,
\n 
\nand so the ear healed crooked
\nwhich they all thought was funny,
\nand they recorded it, uploaded it,
\nand no one gave a shit
\nexcept for Grandma.
\n 
\n 
\nMarc Pietrzykowski lives and works and writes in Niagara County, NY, USA. He has published various and sundry poems, stories, and essays, as well as 8 books of poetry and 2 novels. His most recent book of poems, So Much Noise, and book of short stories, Monarchs of the Undertow, are available now. You can visit Marc virtually at
\nwww.marcpski.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKiara Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCODE 3
\n 
\nBang, bang
\ncomes the rap on the window.
\nHands
\nwhere I can see them.
\nLicense
\nand registration.
\nReach,
\nbut don\u2019t budge.
\nGive me
\none
\ngood
\nreason
\nto use this gun.
\n 
\nBang, bang
\ncomes the knock on the door.
\nIt doesn\u2019t matter
\nhow long
\nyou\u2019ve been here,
\nyou
\ndo not
\nbelong
\nhere.
\nWe\u2019ll keep
\nyour kids
\nbut you
\nwill be shipped
\nOut.
\nWe no longer need
\nyour services.
\n 
\nBang, bang
\ncomes the pounding of the gavel.
\nTears stream down
\nyour face.
\nYour eyes
\nred
\nwith fury
\nwith betrayal
\nbecause
\nIt\u2019s he said, she said<\/i>.
\nHe\u2019s a good boy<\/i>
\nin a bad situation<\/i>,
\nand you\u2019re
\njust a party girl<\/i> who
\ndrank
\ntoo
\nmuch.
\n 
\nBang, bang
\ncomes the death of liberty,
\nthe death of freedom
\nand justice
\nFor all.
\nAs the borders close in on us,
\nas we deny marital rights,
\nas women stare at glass ceilings,
\nas education is drenched in white,
\nas we argue about bathrooms,
\nas black and brown blood floods this country,
\nand we justify our actions
\nas we stand idly by.
\n 
\nThe gun is in our hands.
\n 
\nBang, bang!
\nShots fired.
\n 
\n 
\nMIXED CHILD
\n 
\nTorn
\nbetween
\nthe desire to blend
\nand the call to be pure.
\nHow pure?
\nPure like blood-
\nstained cotton fields?
\nOr the hearts
\nof the masters who
\nowned them?
\n 
\nIf I cram
\nmyself
\ninto the cookie cutter,
\nfrost myself in white,
\ndoes it matter?
\nWould you rather
\nI straighten my hair
\nand talk right
\ntalk \u201cwhite\u201d
\nas
\npreppy blonde girls
\nslide lipsticks in pockets
\nunseen
\nbecause the salesman watches me?
\n 
\nMe! Well-spoken,
\nlight-skinned girl
\nfrom the suburbs.
\nNever been in a fight in her life<\/i>.
\nBut I fight for the rights
\nthat some people swear have
\nalready
\nbeen
\ngiven.
\n 
\nWhose rights?
\nWho is<\/i> right?
\nSomeone must<\/i> be right\u2026
\nAnd yet my brother has to learn
\nhow not to spook a white person
\nbecause we
\nmust
\nfear
\nwhite man\u2019s fear.
\n 
\nBattle lines drawn,
\nthere in black
\nand white,
\nwritten into one-liners
\nnow saved on the Internet
\nand plastered on poster boards
\nin protest
\nas speeches are screeched
\nout on the streets.
\nAnd I fight
\nfor our<\/i> rights
\ndespite my privilege
\nbecause I may not be black
\nenough
\nfor all,
\nbut I\u2019ve had my struggles.
\nAnd in their<\/i> eyes we\u2019re all one color.
\n 
\nWhen sirens wail,
\nthey scream
\nfor you,
\nfor me.
\n 
\n 
\nKiara Smith started writing poetry in middle school; she won third place in the poetry segment of a Reflections competition and has never looked back. While completing her BA in English- Creative Writing and Spanish, Kiara published three poems in Pacific Union College\u2019s literary magazine, Quicksilver. Currently, Kiara is a Master\u2019s of Education student at Vanderbilt University studying learning, diversity, and urban studies with an emphasis in language, literacy, and culture. As an aspiring high school teacher and poet, she has been researching how poetry may be utilized to improve English acquisition amongst English language learners. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTayler Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOETICAL POLITICAL
\n 
\n8 years ago I came out to my parents as bisexual
\nbecause having two options
\nwas better than one,
\nbut embracing two breasts in my palms
\nwas more arousing than a prick between my thighs
\nyet I was never questioned why I wasn\u2019t picky that I\u2019ve never had a thigh gap
\nbecause my legs touch when I walk
\nlike a barrier to the pathway men think they can invade
\nNo Trespassing<\/strong> used to tangle up in the bushes outside my garden
\nbut when I decided to trim them down for her
\nto delicately water my flowers
\nthe next 4 years will feel like the coming out story I had to lie behind
\nwith a president that wants to tear down my signs
\nto build up his walls.
\n 
\n 
\nTayler (23) is an English Major from the University of Northern Colorado. Her passion derives from poetry about life\u2019s struggles. Such as: the ways in which losing Wi-Fi halfway through an online manuscript is irritating, how the world is saturated in global warming but we enjoy the hot weather as the earth is dying, and the ways in which food, coffee, and sarcastic literature can complete a human heart. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKatie Staten<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nANOTHER NEW COLOSSUS
\n 
\nNot like the harbor-dwelling whore they built,
\nWith flaming torch o\u2019er paper-tinder land,
\nHere at the crevice of this nation grand
\nA rising leader from his palace gilt
\nTo lead us from the white-washed home of jilt,
\nHis name a reckless lightning, burning brand.
\nTo huddled masses anxious with demand
\nCries he, \u201cOur nation\u2019s gutted to the hilt!
\nWith brick and mortar, Greatness we restore.
\nDeclare the homeless, tempest-tost our foes.
\nErect this wall; melt down our golden door.
\nThese so-called \u2018refugees\u2019 that seek repose\u2013
\nIndeed, such wretched refuse are the poor,
\nI rest my boot across the necks of those!\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nKatie Staten is a writer and cat lady who grew up in small town Minnesota about ten miles from the nearest traffic light and now lives in Minneapolis. She maintains “Poetry (For the Time Being),” a blog which features her original poetry as well as posts about reading, writing, and life through a literary perspective, at krstaten.wordpress.com\/blog<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFerral Willcox<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOCTURNE
\n 
\nI dreamt of a child. It was not mine.
\nIt was color bound in a cotton swaddle
\ncurled in a Sufi prayer, beads of peace
\nwoven around it in the sleeping air
\na singing darkness, warm and story
\nspangled with dancing monkeys swinging
\nby their tails, a world of colloidal gold
\nfire moths glowing in the bloom
\nof a dry season moon. And then, thunder
\ntoo soon, but welcome, though the rain
\nwas strange, and something cooking –
\nmutton for the dream of a stew, cinnamon
\ncumin, cardamom, no. It was her mother
\nburning in a nearby room.
\nI did not remember the dream
\nand missed the news – a line item
\nin a budget contained the mother’s end.
\nI was having coffee with a friend.
\n 
\n 
\nALL BIRDS WITH YELLOW FEET
\n 
\nall birds with yellow feet
\nall rare white squirrels disappearing
\nall who carry three bags on foot
\nWhat are the soft words for falling?
\n 
\nWhat are the soft words for falling?
\nall feather green trees
\nall spills of all oils
\nall tight curls of ticker tapes, spent
\n 
\nall silver green ripples of wakes
\nall loss of plankton, diatoms, and the like
\nall lakes of iridescent pleasure
\nWhat are the slow words for speeding?
\n 
\nWhat are the soft words for breaking?
\nall who wear white hats in the sun
\nall who traffic in silverfish
\nall who bring two tons of metal with them dancing
\n 
\nall fine cuts in shimmering banks
\nall stone twins standing
\nall electric peace
\nall grace, all grease, all pan-fried manners
\nTell us, what are the elegant words for slaughter
\n 
\nWhat are the reasons again, for war?
\nall helmet hair leaders
\nall duckspeak gilded
\nall who move again, when home is taken
\nall who guide tractors
\nall who sweep and rake
\nWhat are the kind words for hate?
\nWhat are the soft words for falling?
\n 
\n 
\nFerral Willcox is a U.S. born poet and musician currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand whose work can be found in Per Contra, Concis, Peacock Journal, Calamaro<\/i>, and elsewhere. Ferral collaborated with visual artist Lane Clark on a thirty-minute poetry performance piece that was featured at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in the Q-Street venue. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPamela Murray Winters<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n9 OCTOBER 2016: WANDERING AROUND THE DEBATE STAGE LIKE AN ANGRY GHOST
\n 
\nhe wonders when the sled went up in flames. The ride
\nused to be so easy, everyone knew the dance, no need
\n 
\nto press 1 for English or change the names of crayons.
\nYou just did your thing. You lived. And kings and princes
\n 
\nlived the hardest. And the hardest was the best. He looks
\nat the woman whose back is turned to him. Soon
\n 
\nthe Hollywood reporters will ask the president Who
\nare you wearing?<\/i> Soon he\u2019ll find his toys won\u2019t play.
\n 
\n(This poem was inspired by an article by Ellie Shechet published at jezebel.com<\/a>.
\n 
\n 
\nBorn two blocks from the White House, Pamela Murray Winters lives in Maryland, where she works with the Green Moon Poets Society to organize poetry readings. Her poems have been published in the Gettysburg Review, Gargoyle, Opossum<\/i>, and other journals and anthologies. She is seeking a publisher for her first book-length poetry manuscript. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKit Zak<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGENERATION ILLEGAL
\n 
\nnot just the bursting pimples in first bloom
\nthe darker skin\/ shorter stature
\nthe minimum wage past\/ present\/ future
\nnot just your ridiculed music
\n 
\nyou and those like you
\nwho stoop in the noonday heat picking beans at dizzying speeds
\nwho balance on scaffold while pounding nails
\nwho trench yard upon yard of dirt
\n 
\nfurled in the flag politicians will declare
\nyou and your kind the new enemy
\nand though you feel as ordinary as the next guy
\nand though your brothers and cousins die on Arab soil
\nyou have known
\nyou know, you know
\nthat you have no home
\nin the only place<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nKit Zak, a native West Virginian, has spent most of her life at sea level, far from her beloved hills. Kit spent her adult years teaching and raising a family with her husband. After she retired they moved to Lewes, DE and became committed to cleaning up an old a coal plant. Kit is active in a writing community and committed to issues of justice and the environment. Kit fell in love with poetry in a college class, but waited 27 years before she tried to write her first poem. She has published poems in national and regional journals. Her chap book Once Honeysuckle<\/i> will be available this summer.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted March 18, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nRose Anderson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRUMP
\n 
\nDonald Trump farted,
\nfarted long and loud:
\na blast that went resounding forth
\nto greet the expectant crowd.
\n 
\nDonald Trump farted
\nand all who were in range
\nnodded their heads and, smiling, murmured,
\n\u201cAh, the wind of change!\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nRose Anderson lives in Leeds, England, with her husband, Phil, their cat, Cal, and a rubber octopus called Dave. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Aireings<\/i> and Obsessed With Pipework<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAntigoni Dimopoulos<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAntigoni Dimopoulos is a Greek-Canadian University student living in Montreal. She has always been interested in writing, although she is currently focusing on poetry and visual poetry. American politics has become one of her \u2018guilty pleasures\u2019 and the subject of a lot of her writing. Antigoni has also been very involved in the subject of mental health, working with her university and organizations like Jack.Org to promote the importance of creativity and expression and its links to mental health. You can find most of her works on her website: Antigoni.ca<\/a> or reach her on Twitter @iantigoni<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nIrene Fick<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDON\u2019T PEE IN INDIANA
\n 
\nAh, this is no Song of the Open Road<\/i>,
\nand we are not Walt Whitman scribes. No,
\n 
\ntoday we are wretched riders motoring west
\nalong the broken roads of the Indiana Turnpike,
\n 
\ndodging cracks, pot-holes and warning signs
\ncorralling our Subaru to a single lane
\n 
\n(road work ahead!<\/i> but nary a worker in sight).
\nAnd oh! how we tire of the rest stops \u2013
\n 
\ntheir soiled and noxious bathrooms with stalls
\nthat do not lock and soap that does not flow
\n 
\nand those greasy, unkempt food courts
\nand weedy, seedy picnic plots where dog doo
\n 
\nawaits the unsuspecting shoe. Only thirty miles
\nremain of this concrete abyss, and so we resolve
\n 
\nto hold our bladders tight, endure this domain
\nof religious freedom<\/i>, where pious bigots fret more
\n 
\nabout baking wedding cakes for gays
\nthan the shameful state of their roads.
\n 
\nOur bladders about to burst, we cross the line
\ninto blissful Illinois, where the ills of Indiana
\n 
\nwill dissolve. We envision roads buffed
\nand burnished, rest stops nourished by Panera,
\n 
\nbathrooms clean, soapy and sweetly-scented.
\nSurely, we will find relief in Illinois.
\n 
\n 
\nIrene Fick\u2019s first collection of poetry, The Stories We Tell<\/i>, was published in 2014 by The Broadkill Press. The book received first place award from the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) and first place from the Delaware Press Association (DPA). In 2016, Irene\u2019s poem, Asunder<\/i>, received first place from DPA and second place from NFPW. Irene\u2019s poetry has been published in such journals as Poet Lore; Gargoyle; The Broadkill Review; Philadelphia Stories; Adanna; Mojave River Review<\/i>; and Delaware Beach Life<\/i>. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
\n 
\nIrene lives in Lewes with her husband, Ed, and is active in the Rehoboth Beach Writers\u2019 Guild and Coastal Writers. When not writing, she sings in the CAMP Rehoboth Chorus, and supports many animal welfare organizations. <\/a>
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRyan Quinn Flanagan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nABOUT AS POLITICAL AS I WILL EVER GET
\n 
\nAll those Canadian university professors
\nbeing turned away at the border
\ninto the States
\nwithout explanation.
\n 
\nFinding out later
\nthat they had been put on a communist
\ndissident watch list
\nalmost twenty years earlier
\nduring the Cold War
\nand put under police
\nsurveillance.
\n 
\nAnd their old friends began opening up.
\nAbout how CSIS officers came to their door
\ntrying to intimidate them into saying
\nsomething incriminating.
\n 
\nSomething that would stick.
\nPromised that the source would remain anonymous
\nand be buried in the report.
\n 
\nBut we\u2019re the good guys,
\nnever forget that.
\n 
\nOur shit don\u2019t stink
\nunless you smell
\nit.
\n 
\n 
\nRyan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez<\/i>, and The Oklahoma Review<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSheri Gabbert<\/strong>
\n \\  
\nBLOWIN\u2019 IN BOB DYLAN\u2019S WIND
\n 
\nResistance races legislation,
\ntries to stifle executive orders.
\nFascism runs in the background,
\nbuffoonery captures headlines
\nwhile most of We, the People,
\nof We, the Sheep,
\ncheer the end of days.
\n 
\nWar wafts through midnight days,
\nviolence swells over tattered flags
\nof surrender. Where will this battle
\nof worlds ignite? What graveyard
\nburies this collateral damage –
\nLGBT, Muslims, women of color,
\nthe brave who fight in name of god
\nand country fed on orange lies
\nand measured cups of alt-facts?
\n 
\nWhat signs stop escalation?
\nHalt inequality and silenced voices?
\nImpeach rotten apples and madmen?
\nWhat mountains crumble tomorrow
\nthat seemed flattened yesterday?
\nWhere do answers dwell
\nif not in the whirlwind of protest?
\n 
\n 
\nTHE WHORE OF THE UNITED STATES
\n 
\nUncle Sam pole dancing,
\nsells himself in broad daylight,
\nno longer hiding in inky street corners.
\nHow many johns a day?
\nEnough to sit on the faces
\nof 100 senators, 430 representatives,
\ncountless appointees, the orange cuckoo
\nat the helm, tweet, tweet, tweet!
\n 
\nLap dancing Koch brothers waggle
\nhuge breasts in Congressional faces,
\nwhile stuffing cash in Congressional
\ng-strings, not the usual order of things
\nbut the most effective if you want to destroy
\nthe EPA, all business regulations,
\nand the health care system.
\n 
\nBig Pharma Delilah strokes
\nthe bald head of America,
\nlocks of freedom, equal rights,
\nin rings around her feet.
\nThere is no strength left
\nin the dusty Constitution.
\n 
\nThe Whore brings us to our knees,
\nsuckles the collective snatch,
\nbrings all thoughts to dick
\nand leaves us begging for more.
\n 
\n 
\nMR. KGB MAN
\n 
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the Dems for me
\nI\u2019m not winning and there ain\u2019t no way I\u2019m going to
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nIn the tweety time of morning I\u2019ll come following you
\n 
\nMiss Universe in Russia. Hey, will Putin be my friend?
\nI\u2019m creamin\u2019 in my jeans,
\nI am winning in my dreams, and still I\u2019m dealing
\nMy big bright brain amazes me, I\u2019m lyin\u2019 as I speak
\nPutin I had to meet
\nYeah, the guy has a broad chest, he\u2019s fuckin\u2019 awesome
\n 
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the Dems for me
\nI\u2019m not winning and there ain\u2019t no way I\u2019m going to
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nIn the tweety time of morning I\u2019ll come following you
\n 
\nI\u2019ve done a lot of biz, my money makin\u2019 speels
\nDeal with Russia is sealed, new towers be revealed
\nPutin is the guy for me, wait only for his okay
\nTo go wandering
\nInto pres\u2019dential politics, I\u2019m ready now to win
\nLet the race begin, cast your influence my way,
\nI promise to go under it
\n 
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nI\u2019m thinkin\u2019 I might win and there\u2019s a way I\u2019m going to
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nIn the tweety time of morning I\u2019ll come following you
\n 
\nThough you might hear allegations, 12 mil for Manafort
\nWeapons for Ukraine abort, favor with the Russian court
\nPage, Gordon, Phares, Flynn, Sessions meet with the Russians
\nAnd if you hear vague traces of dirt on Mr. Trump
\nIt is all a fake news dump, no, I am not a baboon\u2019s rump
\nHilary is in a slump, it\u2019s just a presidential landslide
\nI am chasing
\n 
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nI\u2019m thinkin\u2019 I might win and there\u2019s a way I\u2019m going to
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack the DEMS for me
\nIn the tweety time of morning I\u2019ll come following you
\n 
\nI\u2019m the president, all hail the chief, Putin is my friend
\nFor him over I will bend, no sanctions will there be
\nA smile\u2019s on my orange face, my voice a gnarly screetch,
\nIt is the twisted reach of hatred spewing
\nI won the electoral vote and Hilary got the sack
\nRegulations rolled back, the CIA has been hacked
\nWith all memory of truth driven deep between my teeth
\nJust forget about today and the Constitution
\n 
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack some more for me
\nI am the president and bad things I\u2019m gonna do
\nHey, Mr. KGB Man, hack some more for me
\nIn the tweety time of morning I\u2019ll come following you
\n 
\n 
\nSheri Gabbert lives and works in the Missouri Ozarks where she is a substitute teacher. Her work has been published in Moon City Review<\/i> (2011\/2017), new graffiti, Rat’s Ass Review, 417Magazine, Street Buzz<\/i>, and The Lawrence County Record<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJ. H. Johns<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE PARTY OF LINCOLN
\n 
\nHow strange.
\nWe know, of course,
\nthis didn\u2019t happen overnight;
\n 
\nno, no-
\nthey\u2019ve been at it
\nfor a long time;
\n 
\nso,
\nwhat do we have now?
\n 
\nI suppose, actually,
\nwe thought the Civil War was over;
\n 
\nhmm-
\nwhat was that all about-
\nslavery?
\n 
\nWell, that\u2019s what we were taught-
\nbut maybe,
\nit was about
\nwhat this is about-
\n 
\nit\u2019s just nowadays we call them
\n\u201cblue states\u201d and \u201cred states;\u201d
\n 
\nand, today,
\nit\u2019s the one percent
\nthat is oppressing the rest;
\n 
\nyesteryear,
\nslavery and race;
\nnow,
\njobs and money;
\n 
\napparent nothingness
\nand
\nobvious privilege.
\nSo,
\nare the campaigns,
\nthe debates-
\nis the contest-
\n 
\nis it what it\u2019s been all about-
\n 
\nthe new
\nFort Sumter?
\n 
\nAnd if it is,
\nwhere is it;
\nwho are the parties?
\n 
\nYet,
\nlooking back,
\nwe know the first shots have been fired;
\n 
\nand, so,
\n 
\nwho was Beauregard-
\nwho was Anderson-
\n 
\nand
\nwho
\nand what-
\nwill survive what\u2019s about to happen?
\n 
\nAnd, how?
\n 
\n 
\nJ. H. Johns grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and Milledgeville, Georgia. Most recently he has appeared in Former People Journal, Torrid Literature Journal, The Five-Two, The Bitchin\u2019 Kitsch, Parody Poetry (2), Syndic Literary Journal (8), Ygdrasil (Canada), The Poetry Super Highway E-Book (Chapbook) Free-For-All, The Rain, Party & Disaster Society, Poetry Super Highway (2), Pour Vida Zine, The Potomac (2), Foam:e (Australia), Literary Juice, The Lost Coast Review, Syndic Literary Journal- Publisher\u2019s Favorites, Fishfood Magazine, ken*again, The East Coast Literary Review, Exercise Bowler, Four and Twenty, Commonline, Danse Macabre Du Jour (2), The West Wind Review, Smokebox, Word Slaw, Wizards of the Wind, Alura<\/i>, and is forthcoming in The Ibis Head Review, Fishfood Magazine, and The Five-Two<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nShelley Kahn<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT I HEARD LAST NIGHT
\n 
\nBlue notes highlight our pain.
\nRed ties amplify our rage.
\nAnd still, we barely understand
\nthe obvious point
\nin this unending race
\nof distraction
\nand implosion.
\nWhen he first said it,
\n1935 peered at us
\nbeyond the thinly barred curtain-
\nwaiting in a side room.
\nOnline polls and television
\ndid not fully capture
\nthat slowly realized fear
\nramping up and up
\nwith every new bulletin appearing
\non watch, device or phone.
\nAn ever murmuring hum resounds
\nbeneath the hello
\nfrom the still polite civil servants
\nwe pass on the street.
\nFeeling more like a wasp, than a butterfly.
\nFluttering in the gut.
\nReaching for the bedside water glass at 3:00 am,
\nwe now wonder whether we will end up:
\ninforming on our neighbor?
\nbuilding that wall?
\nSilencing our enemies?
\nJoseph Stalin would be proud.
\n 
\n 
\nShelley Kahn lives most of the time in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., but her heart is pulled in the direction of the Delaware coast. One of her many passions in life has been to write poetry about everything she has observed in nature, in people and animals. Her poems have been featured in various publications, such as Melancholy Hyperbole, Dove Tales, The Path<\/i>, and From the Depths, Haunted Water\u2019s Press<\/i>. She is currently a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMargaret Farrell Kirby<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nALL THE KING\u2019S MEN
\n 
\nAlice, what alternative world
\nhave we slipped into?
\n 
\nWhere colors take on odd tones in a dreamscape of jumbled words\u2026 threatening twittering jabberwocky\u2026distorted images that make no sense.
\n 
\nClocks paralyzed in nonsensical time, and a tea party
\nwithout tea\u2014magic tricks have infiltrated our land.
\n 
\nAn elected emperor
\nspewing lies spliced with a mean spirit and
\nsterilized as facts
\nfogging mirrors with twisted clouds and
\nominous labels. Branding outsiders:
\n 
\nCriminals\u2003 \u2003 Illegals\u2003 \u2003 Aliens
\nOff with them!
\n 
\nWith the sounds of doors slamming
\ndecrees and edicts are delivered
\na weak smile slightly askew
\ncourtiers of his Kingdom\u2014cogs
\nin the wheel of a Grimm tale.
\n 
\nWith a straight face
\nthey weave falsehoods and counterfeit threads
\n 
\nAs if they were spun of gold.
\n 
\nWho will listen, Alice?
\nAfraid, alert, the onlookers blurt
\n 
\nNo clothes! \u2003 Naked! \u2003 Lies!
\nA chorus pleads: don\u2019t you see?
\n 
\nHow long Alice, before
\nsomeone will switch on the lights, expose the nakedness
\n 
\nbanish the sycophants?
\nMaybe, like you, we will awake.
\n 
\nWe must remember:
\nPendulums swing.
\nTyrants
\nTumble.
\nEmpires
\nFall
\n 
\nand cannot be put together again, not even by
\nall the King\u2019s men
\n 
\nThen
\nwords will mean what they mean\u2026
\nfacts will be true\u2026
\nmirrors will clear\u2026
\nthe clock will tick again
\nsycophants will vanish\u2026
\nclothes will be spun of truth
\nthe torch will be re-lit\u2026
\ndoors will open
\n 
\nThe sky will turn blue again.
\n 
\n 
\nMargaret Farrell Kirby is a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writers\u2019 Guild and the Eastern Shore Writers\u2019 Association. Since retiring in 2012, She has written in different genres. She has three published pieces: \u201cCarolina Street \u201cin The Beach House<\/i> (2013); \u201cUntethered\u201d in The Boardwalk<\/i> (2014); \u201cBeach Daze\u201d in Beach Days<\/i> (2016). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Kowalczyk<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIT HAS BEGUN
\n 
\nAmerica is already great thank you, president Tru . . . sorry, I just threw up in my mouth . . .
\n 
\nWhen I hear \u201cagain\u201d I think of a time when chinks build the railroad, niggers build the White House, and the queers knew their place, a time when foreigners were wops, polocks, micks, kikes, spics, and wetbacks that were not quite human and political cartoons had illustrations to match the terms . . .
\n 
\nWhen I hear \u201cagain\u201d I think of a time when women knew their place and children knew their role- in the kitchen and seen but not heard . . . herd mentality, that\u2019s what I think of when I hear \u201cagain\u201d, a time when if you said that right thing or pointed a finger maybe, just maybe, you\u2019d be invited into the flock . . . led by Jesus, not some pack of animals led by a fucking sand-nigger . . .
\n 
\nWhen I hear \u201cagain\u201d I think of some cops doing whatever the hell they want behind closed doors . . . but then again, today they do whatever the hell they want in the streets . . .<\/p>\n

When I hear \u201cagain\u201d I think of hominid animals preying on the other, blood dripping from a castle window where heroes of horror with twisted smirks and jaundiced eyes chew on the poor . . . their mouths open with carnage pate riding on galloping tongues greased with bullshit . . .
\n 
\nwhile miss highly manipulative prances to the beat of the goose stepping alternative boys who under a dark sky spew turds of venom… but all strike out when they face Sandy Koufax, a Brooklyn Jew, known as the Left Arm of God . . . and
\n 
\nthey all run from Jimmy Cagney and Angels with Dirty Faces who scream in horror as Liberty levels her torch as a flamethrower aimed at the other . . . who, to paraphrase Shakespeare, have
\n 
\neyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions like us . . . is not the \u201cother\u201d subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as everyone else? If they are cut, do they not bleed? If they are tickled, do they not laugh?
\n 
\nat the perverse circus of drooling monkeys surfing the minds of misbegotten mental midgets, who, like wretched worms slither through the stifling stench of slime at the bottom of the political porta potty
\n 
\nwhere your kind live, inhaling the other’s death fumes like the box jellyfish-brainless and lethal, a nobody trying to convince anybody that you’re somebody, but perhaps one day light will splash on mighty whitey’s wall, transforming the strifestyles of the oppressed and ignored,
\n 
\nbut until that happens…resist
\n 
\nJames Kowalczyk was born and raised in Brooklyn and now lives in Northern California with his wife, two daughters, and four cats. He teaches English at both a high school and college level. His poetry and fiction has appeared in numerous online and print publications. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Lohrey<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCONFESSIONS OF A TRUMP SUPPORTER
\n 
\nI am a man, too.
\nListen up.
\nI\u2019ve given up.
\nI\u2019m one of those guys who never wins.
\nI have no backing.
\nI\u2019ve never been in the right place at the right time.
\nI\u2019ve never been elected.
\nI\u2019ve never been called to the microphone.
\nMy shoes are often left untied.
\nI forget to zip my fly.
\nNo one has ever said to me, \u201cI love you.\u201d
\n 
\nI missed out on disco-mania.
\nI still use too much salt.
\nI smoke.
\nI hit my children.
\nI ate canned ravioli as a kid.
\nMy life is almost over.
\nI won\u2019t let my wife serve instant rice.
\nI often forget to lift the seat.
\nI don\u2019t know how to tie a tie.
\nI never take down my Christmas lights.
\nMy mother called me stupid.
\n 
\nI bite my nails.
\nI have a pimply ass.
\nI forget to flush.
\nI voted for Richard Nixon.
\nI make my wife take out the garbage.
\nI can\u2019t catch a ball.
\nMy wife makes me sleep in the den.
\nShe says I smell like a dead mouse.
\nMy first grade teacher said I should be ashamed of myself.
\nMy high school coach said I was full of shit.
\nMy father beat my ass.
\n 
\nI have no friends.
\nI hate the snow.
\nI used to eat Lucky Charms.
\nI love baseball.
\nI\u2019ve changed a lot of flat tires.
\nI never look at porno.
\nI used to like cutting the grass.
\nI joined the boycott against Coca Cola.
\nI\u2019ve never been out of state.
\nI voted for Ronald Reagan.
\nI voted for Bush.
\n 
\nI once hated the Soviet Union.
\nI hated communists like Jane Fonda.
\nI hated the Viet Cong.
\nNow I love the Taliban.
\nI\u2019m not into hate.
\nI didn\u2019t take Watergate seriously.
\nI didn\u2019t vote for Obama.
\nI always order broccoli beef and spring rolls at the Chink\u2019s.
\nI drive a Chevy.
\nI\u2019d like to retire to Panama.
\nI laughed when my brother got hit in the head by a fly ball.
\n 
\nI\u2019m a goner.
\nI won\u2019t let my wife shave her pussy.
\nI prefer sunflowers to roses.
\nI am an alcoholic.
\nMy wife had her left tit removed.
\nI\u2019ve always wanted to see the Pyramids.
\nI think Pete Rose got shafted.
\nI voted for Trump.
\nI\u2019ve never been to a French restaurant.
\nI never go to church.
\nI think Margaret Thatcher had balls.
\n 
\nGod bless America.
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Lohrey grew up in Memphis. He graduated from U.C., Berkeley. His plays have appeared in the UK, Switzerland, India and, most recently, in Croatia. In a Newark Minute<\/i> and Sperm Counts<\/i> were translated and produced in Estonia (2016). His poetry can be found in Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Blue Mountain Review, Otoliths, Cecile\u2019s Writers<\/i> and Quarterday<\/i>. In addition, recent poems have been accepted as part of anthologies published by the University of Alabama (Dewpoint<\/i>), Illinois State University (Obsidian<\/i>) and Michigan State University (The Offbeat<\/i>). David is a member of the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective in Houston. Recent fiction can be read in Crack the Spine<\/i> and at inshadesmag.com<\/a>. The Other Is Oneself<\/i>, a study of 20th century literature, was published this year in Germany. He teaches in Tokyo. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Mayoff<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTROMPE L’OEIL
\n 
\nBelieving is not seeing
\nwhat lies before us
\nor which lies
\nreach our ears before
\nour eyes
\ncan penetrate
\nthe depth of a flat
\nsurface.
\n 
\nThe dimensions of a wall
\nstretch beyond
\nall the unseen corners
\nisolated
\nfrom those images
\nthat seem
\nto step out of
\nnowhere.
\n 
\nReality appears in
\nthe distance
\nwe put between
\nus and the bigger
\npicture
\neven as our inner
\nlives continue
\nto shrink
\nout of existence.
\n 
\nPerception is an act
\nof trust
\nthat sometimes
\nfalls between
\nthe bricks
\nwhere the straight
\nlines are
\npainted
\njust beyond
\nreach.
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Mayoff was born and raised in Montreal, later on lived in Toronto and moved to the bucolic splendor of Prince Edward Island, Canada in 2001. His fiction and poetry have appeared in literary journals across Canada and the U.S. as well as in Ireland, Algeria, France, Wales and Croatia. He published two books of fiction: the story collection Fatted Calf Blues<\/i> (Turnstone Press, 2009), which won a PEI Book Award, and the novel Our Lady Of Steerage<\/i> (Bunim & Bannigan, 2015). Upcoming is a poetry collection Swinging Between Water And Stone<\/i> to be published by Guernica Editions in 2019. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nConnie McKenna<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIMMIGRATION
\n 
\nBring us your tired, your weary . . .
\nThat was way back when, Dearie.<\/i>
\n 
\nBut with a Visa? Green card?
\nFrom a Muslim 7? You\u2019re barred!<\/i>
\n 
\nWhat? Really stop them at the gate?
\nYeah. Trump\u2019s 1938. <\/i>
\n 
\nU.S. values smashed! Kerpow!
\nYeah. Commies then, Muslims now. <\/i>
\n 
\nSaner GOP heads will prevail.
\nNot while riding Donnie\u2019s tail. <\/i>
\n 
\nAnd folks who voted for him?
\nThey applaud. Let freedom dim. <\/i>
\n 
\nYe gods! How can this be true . . .
\nHe does what he said he\u2019d do. <\/i>
\n 
\nThe world shudders. Protests abound. <\/i>
\nDT for real? Or a real clown?
\n 
\nPower, values – in collision. <\/i>
\nLet\u2019s force change through opposition,
\n 
\nDT\u2019s vindictive. Stokes fear. <\/i>
\nStanding still gets us nowhere.
\n 
\nAll one can really do is hope. <\/i>
\nNo! Push back! Do more than cope!
\n 
\n 
\nConnie McKenna’s experiences span from plebeian to professional. She
\nfeels a bit like a kaleidoscope – the people, phases, and events
\nintegral to her life create intricate patterns which shift with each
\ncircumstantial nudge and jangle. Poetry is a world apart and she likes
\nit that way. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJack Moody<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDOWNTOWN DIVE BAR AT ONE IN THE AFTERNOON
\n 
\nglobal warming my ass,
\nhe says.
\nyou see the snow outside?
\nweather man says it\u2019s the
\ncoldest winter in ten years!
\nglobal warming my ass.
\n 
\nhey speak for yourself,
\nyells the bartender.
\n 
\nfuck you,
\nhe says.
\nglobal warming\u2019s about as real
\nas the god damn
\nloch ness monster.
\n 
\nwhich is real,
\nsays the bartender.
\n 
\nfuck it,
\nhe says,
\nshit ain\u2019t real.
\nnow how about Champ?
\nI spent a summer on a boat
\ncombing through lake champlain
\nhigh on mushrooms,
\nand I didn\u2019t find a fuckin\u2019 thing!
\nnot a god damn dorsal fin.
\n 
\nthe mushrooms weren\u2019t
\ngood enough then,
\nsays the bartender.
\n 
\nchemtrails motherfucker,
\nthat\u2019s what\u2019s going on here,
\nhe says.
\nfluoride in the water.
\nglobal warming, shiiiit.
\nthat ain\u2019t real.
\nthey\u2019re just trying to
\ndumb us all down.
\nmind control!
\n 
\nwell shit, motherfucker,
\nsays the bartender,
\nyou just cracked open
\nthe whole damn case,
\ndidn\u2019t you?
\n 
\nfuck you,
\nhe says,
\nand orders
\nanother beer.
\n 
\n 
\nJack Moody is a short story writer, poet and freelance journalist from wherever he happens to be at the time. He has had work published in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Round Up, CC&D Magazine<\/i> and Southern Pacific Review<\/i>, with work forthcoming in Brick Moon Fiction<\/i>. He didn’t go to college. He likes his privacy. He doesn’t have a social media account. Don’t ask him to make one. Contact him at j.moody9116@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Morgan O’Connor<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCONTROL
\n 
\nWhat chain, what metal of justice?
\n 
\nWhat turn of key? What wrist, ankle,
\ndecision built this chained nation?
\n 
\nI cannot talk of bullet.
\nThere are too many.
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Morgan O’Connor is from a small village on Lake Huron. After many nomadic years, he is based in Albuquerque, where a short story collection progresses. He contributors monthly to: The Review Review<\/i> and New Pages<\/i>. His writing has appeared in: Barcelona Metropolitan, Collective Exiles, Across the Margin, Headland, Cecile’s Writers, The Great American Lit Mag, Bohemia, Beechwood, Fiction Magazine, After the Pause, The Great American Lit Mag (Pushcart nomination), The New Quarterly<\/i> and The Guardian<\/i>. Tweeting @dmoconnorwrites<\/a> davidmorganoconnor.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSergio Ortiz<\/strong>
\n 
\nTOILETS
\n 
\nI\u2019m in love
\nwith a homeless man.
\n 
\nNow listen,
\nwe\u2019ve got a lot in common,
\nH.U.D., lawyers,
\npoliticians.
\n 
\nWe have heated discussions
\nabout the face fucking
\nactivity in the toilets
\nat the Whitehouse
\n 
\nbut when he stares
\nat my dick
\nand licks my nipples
\n 
\nit\u2019s just me
\nand him.
\n 
\n 
\nGRAY AND DEAD
\n 
\nI\u2019ve thought about dinner parties,
\nthe theatre, things no longer
\nin my budget. Sex. Doctors.
\n 
\nAbout cohesion,
\nClairol, Herbal Essence
\nand Eyeliner.
\n 
\nAbout outreach groups,
\nraisins, peaches, and kiwis.
\nStill-life paintings in my city.
\n 
\nAbout The Voice,
\nand meals on wheels.
\nSlam competitions,
\n 
\nand another twenty years of owning
\nless and less of a line
\nthat does not disappear on its own.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve thought about mangrove crabs
\nliving in mud holes, pushed
\nback into the closet.
\n 
\n   
\nMY FIRST SIN
\n 
\nwas to ridicule a mocker,
\nand hate him
\n 
\nwith clear adoration.
\nFor in so doing,
\nI became the beggar
\n 
\nand he the overlord
\nof my will.
\n 
\nNow I know the devil,
\nI know Rome in its last hour.
\n 
\n 
\nSergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarsha Owens<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLIKE, SHARE, DELETE
\n 
\nshare if you think schools should teach children to write in cursive<\/i>
\nFacebook asks. Of course, that\u2019s the problem,
\nthe great fear of lesser than hovers
\naround the corner, waits for cursive
\nto stomp out lower case.
\n 
\ninaugurate cursive to rule
\nteach it in the schools
\n 
\nshould Facebook also ask schools to teach kindness?
\nwhat matter is kindness, without cursive?
\nif children only print, they write
\nnothing golden about towers to worship,
\n 
\nabout our glorious country controlled
\nby cursive, letters straight on each line,
\nupper case and lower case separated
\nlike our neighbors, mostly lower case.
\n 
\nsurely cursive will save us.
\nno need to worry about water or clean air, just write
\nstories everywhere about melting ice caps, charred forests,
\nchoking cities, and leaded children dead from dirty water
\nand bullets
\n 
\nhow beautiful the story shines in cursive.
\n 
\n 
\nMarsha Owens is a retired educator who is sick that our nation\u2019s children have been sold to the highest bidder. Having taught English for many years, she has returned to school as a student and to writing poetry for her own pleasure. She is available to help Betsy find \u201ceducation policy\u201d on Google. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Petska<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE NEW RED
\n 
\nIn those days waking from her long winter’s nap,
\ngod spied Columbia defaced with orange:
\norange soil, orange water and air, orange White House
\nand tenant spewing orange hate.
\n 
\n“First Midas,” god sighed to her daughter, “now Donald.
\nEnough of his orange touch! Go tell him
\ntolerance is the ticket, mercy the way.”
\nToo soon, god’s daughter returned: “No luck,
\nand talk about nerve! He tried to paw me!”
\n 
\nSaddened, god turned to her archangels:
\n“Amp up the pressure. Play for his ears
\nyour trumpets of judgment.” They went\u2014to no avail:
\nan orange ban on angels met them at the border.
\n 
\nTo Columbia then, god herself sped.
\nAcross cities and farmland, into Congressional halls
\nand the orange Oval Office she took account.
\nHope? Diminished. Love? Devalued. Shared purpose?
\nThe casualty of lies, divisiveness and mistrust.
\n 
\nAwaiting neither verdict nor judgment,
\nthe orange pretender fled. His parting tweet:
\n“Mother Russia’s amazing. My Moscow flat? Classy.
\nHuge. Shames the one that loser Snowden got.”
\n 
\nAs haze at last surrenders to brilliant sun,
\nso again shone Columbia, true and indivisible\u2014
\n 
\nGod’s in her heaven. I dreamed the one who napped
\nwhile orange banners rose could make things right.
\nAmen. So say we all. God bless us, everyone.
\n 
\n 
\nDarrell Petska’s writing has appeared in Whirlwind, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Plainsongs, The Missing Slate, HEArt Online<\/i>, frequently in TheNewVerse.News<\/i>, and elsewhere<\/a>. Communications editor for many years with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Darrell left academia to be the arbiter of his own words. He lives in Middleton, Wisconsin. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWORRIED
\n 
\nMy wife\u2019s in a nursing home.
\nWhat if he gets rid of Medicaid?
\nI\u2019ll be rolling her around in
\na shopping cart looking for
\nlost change and public restrooms.
\nBut they say he likes entitlements.
\nMaybe he does, maybe he likes
\nthe word \u201centitlement.\u201d Some say
\nhe\u2019ll get rid of insurance for pre-
\nexisting conditions. That worries me,
\ntoo. I am a pre-existing condition.
\nBut then he says, no I like that part,
\nthe pre-existing condition part. I like
\nthat one, like a child picking out a tricycle.
\nI can see him bumping down the
\nTrump Tower escalator on his
\nenormous tricked-out trike.
\n 
\n 
\nWHAT ELSE IS GONE?
\n 
\nWhat else is gone? Charm.
\nNot \u2018Dahlink\u2019 charm,
\nthe welcome mat for
\ngangbanger bling.
\nTwerking, tweeting,
\nand boorish Tarantino \u2014
\nhave filled its sacred space.
\nAmerica the tasteless,
\nReddleman at the helm.
\nGinsberg saw you were ugly
\nway back when. If he could
\nsee you now. Of course he was
\nan \u2018enabler\u2019: Incontinent Ginsberg
\nand the Gabor sisters, choking
\non chokers and other accoutrements,
\ngabby Quentin, Lil Him,
\nLil Her, assassins of charm.
\nWhat a team. Too late now
\nto round up a posse. Jimmy Stewart
\nhad charm but why did he have to
\ntake his shirt off in Rear Window<\/i>?
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita\u2019s fiction has appeared in, among other publications, The Mississippi Review, Southwest Review<\/i>, and Litbreak<\/i>. He\u2019s published poetry in Literary Orphans, MockingHeart Review, Algebra of Owls, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, MadHatLit<\/i>, and many other venues. His poetry chapbook, DO NOT FORSAKE ME, is forthcoming, to be published by Finishing Line Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAndrew Wallace<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDEAR STATESMAN,
\n 
\n\u201cAwake, Governor! Awake!
\n 
\nYour household,
\nyour daughter, your purse!
\n 
\nThieves in our midst, sir! Thieves!
\n 
\nRing stains in the parlour;
\nspoiled meat in the kitchen!
\nOh your daughter, Governor!
\nYour daughter!
\n 
\nThieves, sir! Awake!
\n 
\nYour wallet, your whiskey;
\nspills on the carpet!
\nOh your daughter, Governor!
\nYour daughter!
\n 
\nAwake, Governor! Awake!\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nAndrew Wallace holds a BA in Religious Traditions and is currently pursuing an MA in East Asian Studies. His work has most recently appeared in Generation Magazine, Thrice Fiction, IN MY BED Magazine, Pulp Poems, Mindscape<\/i>, and In Medias Res<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nREALITY\/ALTERNATE REALITY
\n\u201cReality is merely an illusion\u201d Albert Einstein<\/i>
\n 
\nPresident Tweeter wakes up before sunrise,
\nhis cerebellum twitching wildly with his latest dream.
\nPresident Tweeter grabs his cell from the pillow
\nwith his right hand, tweets Obama wiretapped
\nTrump Tower \u201cbad man (or sick).\u201d
\nHis left hand autonomously jacking off his diminutive dick.
\nWith furious frenzy, President Tweeter tweets off five
\nmore obsessive-aggressive tweets without a twit of evidence,
\n\u201cNixon Watergate,\u201d \u201cMcCarthyism\u201d (did he pass high school history?).
\nObama denounces the accusation, painstakingly explaining
\nthe separation of the three branches of government.
\nBut the president\u2019s tweeting is reality;
\nreality is the president\u2019s Twitter.
\nQED
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf was an undergraduate and a graduate student in the Vietnam war era, and a graduate student during Watergate. She was an activist during these times. She participated in many protest marches and wrote for a paper committed to ending the Vietnam war. Now with Trump, she does what she can to resist his bigotry and lies. But she is limited by ALS. Catherine has published in Front Porch Review, Verse-Virtual, Cacti Fur, Rat\u2019s Ass Review<\/i>, and Bellevue Literary Review<\/i>. She uses assistive technology to communicate, and raises her right eyebrow to type. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSherri Wright<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION
\n 
\nTurn off CNN\u2003cancel
\nthe Washington Post
\nno more polls no more platforms
\nno more campaigns no more
\ncandidates knocking on your door
\ntake down the lawn signs
\nblank out the slogans and promises
\nerase the threats
\nno more analysis no more NPR
\nnot even Diane Rehm who tries
\nto look at both sides
\n 
\n\u201cUn-friend\u201d Face-book throw
\nthe cell phone over the bridge
\ndrown the tweets the texts
\nthe breaking news
\n 
\nStay inside close the doors
\ndrape the windows in black
\nblock the spiraling
\nworld you cannot bear to see
\n 
\nSoothe your mother
\nwho waited
\nher whole life
\nto vote for a woman
\nbut can\u2019t tell Hillary Clinton
\nfrom the lady next door or
\nremember her own name
\nhug her be thankful
\nshe\u2019ll never know
\nwhat happened
\nlast night
\n 
\n 
\nSherri Wright lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after a career in education at universities and the Federal government in Washington, DC. Running, yoga, and volunteering at a center for homeless, all figure into her writing. Her work has been published in the Hill Rag, Letters from Camp Rehoboth, Inspired by the Poet, Aspiring to Inspire, Words of Fire and Ice, The White Space, Clementine, Panoply, Rat\u2019s Ass Review<\/i>, and recently in two books: Our Last Walk<\/i>, and What I Didn\u2019t Know<\/i>. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSally Zakariya<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMUSLIM WIFE
\n 
\nDon\u2019t marry a Muslim<\/i>, they told me.
\nHe\u2019ll make you cover your head
\nand walk ten paces behind<\/i>.
\n 
\nThat never happened, though
\nonce in Istanbul I felt a tug,
\nan invitation, in the call to prayer
\nfirst one mosque, then another
\na beat later, and then another
\nin a kind of devout round.
\n 
\nOutside, flowing calligraphy
\nwrote itself on my eyes
\nas we passed by fountains
\nand walked among among tall
\ntop-knotted Ottoman gravestones.
\n 
\nLapsed Episcopalian and convert
\nto Islam, we manage to maintain
\na peaceful coexistence between
\nfaith and doubt. But if they start
\nto register the Muslims here,
\nI\u2019ll add my name to the list.
\n 
\n 
\nWORDS FOR DARK TIMES
\n 
\nThe light is gone or going
\nlike water slowly seeping
\nfrom a cracked vase
\n 
\nThe dove mobile in my room
\nswirls slightly this way and that
\nits olive branch vacillating
\nlike the wavering chance of peace
\nbetween warring factions
\nin ravaged lands abroad
\n 
\nWeary travelers at the airport
\nhover between the horrors
\nof home and the hope of freedom
\nwhile protesters march
\nand officials try to work out
\nwhose orders to follow today
\n 
\nThe poet at her keyboard
\nthinks of her Muslim husband
\nand his friends downstairs scribing
\nwords of worship in flowing lines
\nthinks if the White House starts a list
\nshe\u2019ll put a scarf on her Christian
\nhead and sign her name
\n 
\nThe light is going but not gone
\nnot while anyone\u2019s left to stand up
\nand say no
\n 
\n 
\nDARK FEELINGS
\n 
\nMy husband\u2019s deaf \u2013
\nhe has creative hearing
\n 
\nI\u2019m having Darjeeling<\/i>, I say
\nas I put the tea kettle on
\n 
\nDark feelings? <\/i> he asks
\nWell, now that I think about it \u2026
\n 
\nWe turn on the morning news
\nWhat\u2019s all this about wealth care? <\/i> he asks
\naren\u2019t the one percenters rich enough?<\/i>
\n 
\nAnd this Muslim band \u2013 what
\nkind of music do they play? <\/i>
\n 
\nThe music of despair, of discrimination,
\nof being deceived
\n 
\nI\u2019m kidding<\/i>, he says with the wry smile
\nhe\u2019s adopted since his hearing\u2019s failed
\n 
\nI know<\/i>, I say, but it\u2019s enough
\nto give anyone dark feelings<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nSally Zakariya\u2019s poems have appeared in more than 60 print and online journals and won prizes from Poetry Virginia and the Virginia Writers Club. She is the author, most recently, of When You Escape<\/i> (Five Oaks Press, 2016), as well as Insectomania<\/i> (2013) and Arithmetic and other verses<\/i> (2011), and the editor of a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table<\/i> (2015). Zakariya blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted March 3, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nIsobel Cunningham<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCLOSE NEIGHBORS
\n 
\nSomeone there is who loves too well a wall.
\nWalls are for neighbors. That\u2019s a fact.
\nNo! Old Robert would have none of that.
\nHe noticed as he stacked a stone upon a stone
\nhow frost and cold
\nmight hide between rough boulders.
\nStrange how icy chips
\ncan smolder and break out in quarrels or in war.
\nWondering what the treasure or the peril is
\nthat needs a wall, he walked beside a neighbor
\nlong ago in Spring.
\n 
\nOur new neighbor stirs up quite a racket.
\nWhy, we thought we\u2019d worked it out and sat here
\nsmug, with grumbling woes of snow or big mosquitoes.
\nRobert thought elves or spells worked on our walls.
\nBut up here we were sure we\u2019d won the battle, killed the dragon
\nsome long time before.
\n 
\nNorthern correctness and outrage
\nhad won us human rights, a living wage.
\nLate in this winter afternoon must we again
\ndress, pull on our boots and venture out
\nto walk this other wall, perhaps to sabotage?
\nIncredulous, we see this old-stone savage like a dark mirage.
\nCold stars creep out, a piercing wind,
\nsomething scrabbling in the crumbling stones.
\n 
\n 
\nIsobel Cunningham writes poetry and short fiction. Her first volume of poetry \u201cNorthern Compass\u201d was published in 2015. Her poetry has been published four times in the past year in the electronic journal, Silver Birch. She is presently working on a collection of short stories. She lives in Montreal, Canada. <\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMelinda Luisa de Jes\u00fas<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAN ENGINEER\u2019S DREAM
\nFor Srinivas Kuchibhotla, murdered by a racist on February 23, 2017,
\nand my father, Jose Maria de Jes\u00fas (1930-1999)<\/i>
\n 
\n1.
\nI tried to avoid
\nthis news
\nit was
\ntoo close to home\/heart
\nThe child of brown emigrants knows
\ndanger is always around the corner
\nno matter the dreams
\ndegrees
\npolitics
\none\u2019s parents held
\nAll Amerikkka sees is
\nbrown\/black = alien\/other
\n 
\n2.
\nMy father had an American dream
\na dream of coal and steel and \u201cprogress,\u201d as he liked to say
\nan engineering dream, to be exact
\nHis own father told him, in order to be a successful engineer,
\nhe\u2019d have to leave the Philippines for the States
\nSo my father made his way, on his own terms, as usual
\nto Lehigh University, in deepest Pennsylvania
\n 
\nHis fashionable but overly thin khaki balmacaan
\nis no use against the autumn chill
\nof a Sunday evening in early October 1954
\nhis dark curly hair ever unruly
\nslide ruler in his pocket
\nleather briefcase at his side
\nstanding before the Alumni Memorial Building
\nthe canopy of yellow leaves glowing in the dimming light
\nthe clock in the chapel striking six<\/i>
\nI\u2019m finally here, he breathes, satisfied.<\/i>
\n 
\n3.
\nI imagine him walking briskly across
\nthe Hill to Hill bridge
\nmarveling at the Bethlehem Steel plant slung dark and low
\nprowling all along the Lehigh
\nthe railroad lines astride it
\nthe trains chugging into infinity
\nthe clamor of industry
\nfire and smoke
\nclanging,
\nsinging a song of
\nMan over Nature
\nMan versus Time
\nMan versus Decline
\nA song of progress
\nwhere men of every color labor together
\nin the mill
\nmaking the steel
\nthat makes
\nAmerica
\n 
\nOh, the possibilities it offered–
\n1954 and America is still filled
\nwith love for its little brown brothers: \u201cRemember Bataan!\u201d<\/i>
\nneeding highways and bridges and steel
\nand civil engineers to make it all happen
\n 
\nMy dad was supposed to leave upon graduation
\nBut Industry enabled him to stay
\nLetter after letter from his professors
\nAds in Baltimore papers attesting to his prowess
\nHe was on his way to green card and citizenship
\n 
\n4.
\nMy father saw opportunities
\nand made them his
\nThen he made us, his large family
\nalso raised in Bethlehem
\nfour of us at Lehigh, too
\nA Filipino family sown in Lenape soil
\n 
\nBut Srinivas Kuchibhotla won\u2019t have this same chance
\nHis American dream stopped by the bullet
\nof a drunk violent racist man
\nwho saw Srinivas\u2019 dark skin and concluded
\nnot
\nH1-B aerospace engineer with MSc from Texas<\/i>
\n 
\nbut
\nMiddle Eastern
\nother
\nterrorist<\/i>
\n 
\nAll of this to say
\nSrinivas could have been
\nmy father
\nHe, who built America
\nand highways and bridges you travel on daily
\nwho believed in the promise of America
\nas he was taught in English before the war
\nas it was brought to him by the GI\u2019s who liberated Manila
\nas it was sown in those engineering textbooks he memorized
\n 
\n5.
\nWe, the brown and well educated
\nimmigrants and children of emigrants
\nkeep to ourselves
\nbecause we know the tenacity
\nand the fragility of these dreams
\nwe know America\u2019s welcome is always conditional
\nwe may be successful but are always uneasy
\nwe know those bullets
\nare always
\nmeant
\nfor
\nus.
\n 
\n 
\nMelinda Luisa de Jes\u00fas is Chair and Associate Professor of Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts. She writes and teaches about Filipin@\/American cultural production, girl culture, monsters, and race\/ethnicity in the United States. She edited Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory<\/i>, the first anthology of Filipina\/American Feminisms (Routledge 2005). Her work has appeared in Completely Mixed Up: Mixed Heritage Asian North American Writing and Art; Approaches to Teaching Multicultural Comics; Ethnic Literary Traditions in Children\u2019s Literature; Challenging Homophobia; The Lion and the Unicorn; Konch Magazine; Rabbit and Rose; MELUS; Meridians<\/i> and Delinquents and Debutantes<\/i>. Her chapbook, Humpty Drumpfty and Other Poems<\/i>, was recently published by Locofo Chaps\/Moria Poetry.
\n 
\nShe is a mezzo-soprano, a mom, an Aquarian, and admits an obsession with Hello Kitty.
\n 
\nMore info available here: peminist.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJess Huckins<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER DUSK ON WINTHROP BEACH
\n 
\nI clamber over the breaking wall with bare, brutalized hands.
\nThe air\u2019s salty bite kisses my face and rifles my hair,
\npicking out a few strands with which to dance.
\n 
\nMy nose runs. I lose feeling in my fingertips.
\nI perch on the edge of America, miles of deep, cold emptiness
\nbetween me and distant lands, and I suck in a breath.
\n 
\nThe jetty is dotted with cement and seaweed. The world\u2019s
\ntwo halves, the real and the created, joined as one. This protrusion
\nspeaks to an ocean and rises above the waves\u2019 destruction.
\n 
\nBroken shells. Mica. Rocks. Seaglass \u2026 a Coke bottle.
\nCigarette butts. All rolling with the tide, the waves beating it into sand.
\nA cycle, as life becomes death becomes life, with a touch of poison.
\n 
\nThe moon\u2019s smiling face has been abandoned for the thunder
\nof airplanes. Their headlights are not the same beacons
\nthat once brought men to our shores. People come now
\n 
\nfor the wires and bulbs, the fuel and the exhaust, the metal
\nand the money that soar through the air, flying over
\nthe depths of the Atlantic for another shot at fortune.
\n 
\nOnce, men came here for freedom. They came over this same water,
\nthis same ocean, these same shores. They left this same cement in the jetties,
\ntransforming wild waters into tame, broken beasts.
\n 
\nThough my hands shake with chill, I feel the land grow tamer still.
\n 
\nJess Huckins is an editor and writer with a master’s degree in publishing. Her work has appeared in Centum Press’s “One Hundred Voices” anthology, Hello Humankindness, the Content Standard<\/i>, and Redivider<\/i>, among others. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and a small menagerie of cats, and you can find her at jesshuckins.com<\/a> or @editorjess<\/a> on Twitter. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTricia Knoll<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMATTERS OF WHERE YOU SLEEP
\n 
\nThat young boy from the Sudan, that refugee
\npointed to a special home for our car. We call it garage,
\nwhere the car rests and mice sneak in to nest in rags.
\nIn other people\u2019s bedrooms dogs have velveteen pillows
\nwith curved arms to confine a canine spine curl.
\nVizlas like blankets and burrowing. Their people know it.
\nIditarod dogs get shacks, chains and dry straw.
\n 
\nYou know this. Tired. Cold. Poor. A Swede\u2019s photos focus
\non Syrian children asleep on crumbled sidewalks. An arm
\nstretches over a toddler\u2019s head on a dirty mattress. One snuggles
\nin half a blanket in the woods, her bare foot slides to the side.
\nOne girl\u2019s head always rests on the right side, her left jawbone
\nis broken. My town? I drove by a tent of blue tarps propped
\nup against a chain-link fence. Two highway department
\nemployees lopped down the knock-out roses
\nbetween the road and the fence. I was on my way
\nto hear how the Oregon Supreme Court works.
\n 
\nPlace. Privilege. Food. Clothes. I am so sleepy I could
\nfall asleep at the wheel. My back aches. Stuff I own
\nfor sleeping is eight times my body mass. Maybe more,
\ncounting linens in drawers. Give me your tired.
\nRest. Peace. What matters.
\n 
\n 
\nTricia Knoll is an Oregon poet who is practicing resistance by sending five postcards a day to elected officials. Her collections include Ocean’s Laughter<\/i> (Aldrich Press) and Urban Wild<\/i> (Finishing Line Press). Website: triciaknoll.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoseph Lisowski<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nREMEMBERING LAST CHRISTMAS
\n 
\nFor the promised new year
\na catalog of ornaments\u2014
\nfive Santas
\nfour Snowmen
\nseven Mice, and
\none Pirate\u2014
\nhang by the neck
\nfrom a dead tree
\nas tribute
\nto a Christmas
\nTrumped.
\n 
\n 
\nJoseph Lisowski wrote his first poem at the age of 13 after an aborted gang fight. He stopped fighting but kept writing, a secret he kept for years. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Mayoff<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE NEW FAMILIARITY
\n 
\nThe New Colossus<\/i> has been replaced
\nby an old consensus:
\n\u201cWilkommen, bienvenue, welcome.\u201d
\n 
\nThree words that form a unanimous password
\nsynchronizing all confiscated devices
\nand detained carry-on.
\n 
\nMaking us safer isn\u2019t exactly
\nrocket surgery when X-rays scan
\nheadscarves, fedoras, skullcaps, berets
\n 
\nto reveal a revolutionary brain science
\nthat has less to do
\nwith ideology than idiosyncrasy.
\n 
\nEach unique circuitry pathway
\ndefaults to strategically
\ncarry on as before, every anticipated
\n 
\nnormalization of mounting distress
\ncordons off our
\nvery own 2×4 happy place.
\n 
\nThe line forms
\non the right to a perpetual floor show
\nwhere the lack of seating
\n 
\nlets us know where we stand
\nand the emcee greets us
\nwith the new familiarity:
\n 
\n\u201cFremde, \u00e8tranger, stranger.\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Mayoff was born and raised in Montreal, later on lived in Toronto and moved to the bucolic splendor of Prince Edward Island, Canada in 2001. His fiction and poetry have appeared in literary journals across Canada and the U.S. as well as in Ireland, Algeria, France, Wales and Croatia. He published two books of fiction: the story collection Fatted Calf Blues<\/i> (Turnstone Press, 2009), which won a PEI Book Award, and the novel Our Lady Of Steerage<\/i> (Bunim & Bannigan, 2015). Upcoming is a poetry collection Swinging Between Water And Stone<\/i> to be published by Guernica Editions in 2019. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristian McPherson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTANDING, SCREAMING OBSCENITIES AT THE SKY
\n 
\nThere are those moments
\nwhen it all comes crashing down
\nin heaps
\nupon you
\n 
\nthose moments
\nwhen everything is\u2003 \u2003too\u2003 \u2003much
\n 
\nbuckling knees
\nand tears
\nand all the rest
\n 
\nit\u2019s in these moments
\nyou find yourself
\nstanding
\nscreaming obscenities at the sky
\n 
\nafter you have tired yourself out
\npanting
\nbent over
\nhands on your knees
\nafter you have gotten it out of your system
\nyou realize
\nyou got one more guttural scream left in you
\nand you stand up
\nand yell an opera yell
\na holy mother of God bellowing cry
\nof FUCK-YOU-YOU-FUCKING-COCK-SUCKING-UNIVERSE!!!
\n 
\nand after you finish
\nyour whole being vibrates like a gong
\nthat was hit inside a holy temple
\non some remote mountain top
\nby the holiest of holy men
\n 
\nyour whole being
\nhas been cleansed
\nand you
\nare one
\nwith
\nthe asshole
\nuniverse
\n 
\namen.
\n 
\n 
\nChristian McPherson is a Canadian novelist and poet who resides in Ottawa. He is the author of seven books, MSaving Her, Cube Squared, My Life in Pictures, The Sun Has Forgotten Where I Live, The Cube People<\/i> (shortlisted for the 2011 ReLit Awards for Novels), Poems that swim from my brain like rats leaving a sinking ship<\/i>, and Six Ways to Sunday<\/i> (shortlisted for the 2008 ReLit Awards for short fiction). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSage Shemroske<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHILLARY CLINTON’S NUDE PHOTOS IN A MUSEUM:
\n 
\nCome see the ladies of history
\nA peep show sneak peak of history’s enduring women
\nSee Amelia Earhart strip for you while flying over the Atlantic
\nshe died getting singles shoved in her g-string
\n 
\nCome one, come all,
\nLet the sadists come for the submissive Susan B. Anthony,
\nfresh from a suffragette rally
\ndressed in something sassy and frilly
\nWhile she mumbles something about voting,
\nshe\u2019ll turn her ass to face you
\nand slip off her panties
\nShe might\u2019ve just said something racist
\nShe\u2019s not here to speak
\n 
\nThey call Clara Barton the \u201cAngel of the Battlefield\u201d
\nbut tonight you\u2019ll just call her \u201cAngel\u201d
\nWe know how you get when you see a gal in a nurse costume,
\nand every soldier will know how she waltzed into your bedroom like a star from a pay-per-view porno and looked at you with those eyes
\nShe wants to help what hurts
\nso she\u2019ll just have to suck your throbbing cock
\nAnd my god, her mouth is perfect
\nNo wonder she survived the war
\n 
\nMarie Curie has cancer
\nBut you\u2019ll call her \u201cMadame\u201d for the night
\nShe\u2019s got whips, chains, ball gags, and cuffs
\nso just sit tight
\nShe\u2019ll sweep her test tubes and algorithms off her desk and lay you down on your back
\nBetter listen up
\nbecause she\u2019s into pain
\nAnd I don\u2019t mean her own
\n 
\nWe know about your Roman Catholic fetishes
\nso here\u2019s Mother Teresa to get slutty for you
\nShe\u2019ll wash your feet, maybe suck on your toes
\njust wait until she takes off that habit
\nsuch perky tits she has underneath those robes
\nHer hands may be rough and calloused from years of servicing the poor,
\nso you\u2019ll have to excuse her sandpaper handjob
\nshe\u2019ll just get right to fucking you
\nAfter all, she works miracles
\nAnd you\u2019re a lost cause
\n 
\nSearch amateurs,
\nwe\u2019ve got the youngest American astronaut to orbit space
\nThey call her Sally RIDE
\nand that\u2019s exactly what she\u2019ll do
\nYou could say she has a gravitational pull
\nBut she\u2019s no alien to getting it up, down, and dirty
\n 
\nIf you\u2019re into age play,
\nthen get ready for Ruth Bader Ginsberg to take the bench
\n 
\nIf you\u2019re into race play,
\nthen we\u2019ve got Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks just for you
\n 
\nPolitics aren\u2019t a race for Hillary Rodham Clinton,
\nshe keeps her policies under the desk
\nand flaunts a tight blue dress
\nHistorical stains don\u2019t matter
\n 
\nCome see the ladies of history,
\nit doesn\u2019t matter what they have to say
\nWe\u2019ve embalmed their bodies and placed them inside a glass case
\nThere\u2019s now a museum of women who want you
\ntheir mouths have been gently glued shut
\nthey\u2019ll simply stare at you with doll glass eyes
\nAnd not even whisper
\n 
\n 
\nSage Shemroske is a twenty-something college dropout living at home with their parents. Despite the financial struggles that took them out of the academic world, they continue to pursue art, much to the shame and disappointment of their entire family. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAnn Thompson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMONDAY AFTER THE MARCH
\n 
\nThe fierce blood
\nof birth
\nin a narrow sky
\n 
\nheaves a gale
\nthat is shaking
\nthe sills.
\n 
\nIt has shattered
\nthe beach glass
\n 
\nI set on the sash
\nto amplify the sun.
\n 
\nThis is not
\nanother Monday.
\n 
\nI can no more
\nsteel myself
\nwith the same
\nplain brew
\n 
\nthan I can wish
\nthis struggle gone,
\nor not required.
\n 
\nI discarded
\nmy map to home
\nduring the march.
\n 
\nWe are tracing
\n 
\nold blazes
\nin alternate woods
\n 
\nby the flare
\nof a charred-bone star.
\n 
\n\u2013 written Monday, January 23, 2017 after participating in the Women\u2019s March on Washington.
\n 
\n 
\nAnn Thompson is a poet\/writer living outside Washington, DC. Her work has been published in Europe (acumen<\/i><\/a>, here\/there, The Journal, Lotus Eater, The North, Staple, Vine Leaves<\/i>) and the U.S. (Ardor, Blast Furnace, Flyover Country Review, Literary Imagination<\/i><\/a>, The Lost Country, Mezzo Cammin<\/i><\/a>, Tulane Review<\/i>). She has creative nonfiction in KYSO Flash; short fiction in Best New Writing 2014<\/i><\/a> (under her pen name, Hana Mystras); and Video remixes online<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPREPARATIONS IN A TIME OF WAR
\n 
\nIt\u2019s seven o\u2019clock and I would really like to call
\nit a day and go to bed. But it\u2019s a big
\nresponsibility to manage chaos and destruction.
\nThese two need a lot of supervision. Let
\nalone they can do some real damage.
\nIt\u2019s hard work being the only sane one in the
\ngroup, the one others depend on to keep the entire
\nscene from going completely haywire. I know the supper
\ndishes are in the sink and they can stay there for all
\nI care. And yes, the capital city is still
\nburning but what can I do about it? We mezzos aren\u2019t
\nnoted for our skills as guerilla (note spelling!) leaders and
\nstreet fighters. My theatre is different and so is my
\nmateriel. Tomorrow I need to be prepared
\nwith seating charts and my size ten armor
\nand the students need to distinguish between mine
\nand his and yours and ours and love and hate and yes, that\u2019s right,
\nit\u2019s all part of the curriculum. But if I could just crawl\u2014right now\u2014
\nbetween those burning flannel sheets I swear I\u2019ll get up
\nat four AM to polish my breastplate so the sun
\nblasts on it and blinds the Enemy as they rush to meet me
\non the field of Battle.
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton’s poetry has appeared in Paintbrush Quarterly, The Denver Review<\/i> and Rat’s Ass Review<\/i>. Her short fiction has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories 2016, Blackbird<\/i> (2016) and is forthcoming in the Flash Fiction Anthology<\/i> (2017). She lives and works in Binghamton New York. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPATRIOT
\n 
\nFlags flutter over graves
\nbut not over Jack’s.
\nEach year Grandfather
\nfinds miniature stars and stripes
\nstuck into his son\u2019s grave
\nand removes them.
\n 
\nAt the Memorial Day Parade,
\nother children sit on the curb
\nwith ice cream bars.
\nThey bounce balls
\nand laugh. They don\u2019t notice
\nwhen an honor guard carries
\na flag. My heart sinks
\nevery time they bring one near.
\nI pretend I don\u2019t see it,
\nbut Grandfather nudges me.
\nHe removes his hat,
\nplaces it on his heart,
\nstands expressionless
\nuntil the flag is behind us.
\nI do the same.
\n 
\nThe last time I visited, the old man
\nshowed me a black and white photo
\nof his Navy ship, the U.S.S. Lincoln.
\nHe acted out what happened, his hand
\non the bulkhead, how he scrambled
\nto find a lifejacket while the ship listed,
\nsinking fast off the coast of France
\nin World War I. He floated
\nin a lifeboat in the Atlantic Ocean
\nfor hours, until rescued by a destroyer.
\nHis son, not as lucky, killed-in-action
\nin Leipzig, Germany, April 1945.
\nAfter 9\/11 I think of him
\non my morning commute.
\nTattered Old Glories flap
\npast me on the highway, attached
\nto automobile hoods, faded
\nby months in the sun.
\n 
\nWhen Grandfather looked at the flag
\nhe saw faces of family and friends
\nlost forever to war. Jack\u2019s sacrifice
\nwas woven into our lives, how Mother
\nbecame an only child, why no cousins
\nlived nearby. But the world forgets
\nthe cost of war, the rubble
\nof buildings, the way Grandfather
\nfollowed the 69th<\/sup> Infantry
\nin newspaper accounts all the way
\nto the Elbe for a historic meet-up
\nwith Soviet soldiers, before he knew
\nthat Jack was already gone.
\n 
\n 
\nPeggy Turnbull is descended from nineteenth-century German immigrants who found a new home in the state of Wisconsin, U.S.A. She has a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked as an academic librarian for many years until retiring to become a poet. Her poems have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review Love & Ensuing Madness Collection, Post Heroin Chic<\/i>, and are forthcoming in Muddy River Poetry Review<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBUBBLELAND
\n 
\nTrumpeter blows a bubble and steps inside.
\nIn Bubbleland, everything he says and thinks are facts:
\nalternate facts. From Bubbleland Trumpeter, our madman-in-chief,
\ndeclares Sweden had a terrorist attack \u201clast night\u201d
\nbecause of its lax, some say compassionate, immigration policies.
\nFirst Swedes are confused, then amused, then Ikea closes
\nits US stores in retribution. Blowing bubbles is fun for little kids,
\nbut they don\u2019t inhabit Bubbleland.
\nI know the madman\u2019s bubble will burst
\nand he will suffocate in Facts: Real Facts.
\nBut his tweeting about the surge of rapes and thefts
\nin Sweden keeps me sitting by the moon, a loon,
\nbecause I\u2019m a first generation immigrant.
\nI go to the Swedish consulate, apply for refugee status.
\nI voted for Hillary in the state of New York,
\nnow I am hijacked to madman\u2019s Bubbleland.
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf was an undergraduate and a graduate student in the Vietnam war era, and a graduate student during Watergate. She was an activist during these times. She participated in many protest marches and wrote for a paper committed to ending the Vietnam war. Now with Trump, she does what she can to resist his bigotry and lies. But she is limited by ALS. Catherine has published in Front Porch Review, Verse-Virtual, Cacti Fur, Rat\u2019s Ass Review<\/i>, and Bellevue Literary Review<\/i>. She uses assistive technology to communicate, and raises her right eyebrow to type.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted February 24, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nMarcus Bales<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY POLLING-PLACES
\n 
\nHe tweets beyond the genius of the web.
\nThe cyber never formed to mind or voice,
\nLike an ocean wholly ocean, tidal in
\nIts ebb and flow; and yet its eerie echo
\nReverberates, caused reverberation,
\nWe liked his style because we recognized
\nIt, human, in its artificial network.
\n 
\nThe web is not a mask. No more is he.
\nThe tweets so often mashed-up what he meant
\nAs if his tweets and meaning had been blurred
\nAs every tweet was scattered turd by turd.
\nIt may be that in all his tweets he slurred
\nA blank misogyny with racist hate;
\nBut it was jobs and not the hate we heard.
\n 
\nAlthough he re-tweeted from the Nazi sites
\nThe troll-infested anonymizing net
\nWas merely the way by which he whistled dogs.
\nWhat whistle is this? we said, because we knew
\nIt was the whistle that we sought and knew
\nThat we would ask as often as he might tweet.
\n 
\nIf it was only the dark voice of the net
\nThat rose, that was flaming in many posts;
\nIf it was only the deepest voice of real
\nPeople, of the sunken alt-right shouting out,
\nHowever loud, it would have been outraged,
\nThe heaving speech of rage, a roaring sound
\nRepeated in a roaring without end
\nAnd sound alone. But it was more than that,
\nMore even than his rage, and ours, among
\nThe smug entitlements of women and blacks,
\nTheir posturing righteousness, our stiffened arms
\n– To white horizons, the white race’s purity
\nOf real and web.
\n 
\nIt was his voice that made
\nThe real real at its demographics.
\nHe measured to the vote its angriness.
\nHe was the power user of the world
\nOf tweets. And when he tweeted the web
\nWhatever self it had became the self
\nThat was his tweet, for he was the user. Then we,
\nAs we beheld the striding colossus,
\nKnew that there was not a world for him
\nExcept the one he tweeted and, tweeting, made.
\n 
\nKellyanne Conway, tell me, if you know,
\nWhy the tweeting hasn’t ended when he turned
\nToward DC, tell why the glossy kids,
\nThe kids on the gilded chairs in photographs,
\nAs the kliegs glared, each tilting their head,
\nMastered the pose, retweeted through the net,
\nWearing expensive clothes and sale-priced jewels,
\nAnd posing, still as the resplendent kliegs.
\n 
\nOh! Savage getting-even, blonde Kellyanne,
\nThe maker’s getting-even orders the web,
\nOrders the varied portals duly starved
\nWho of themselves and of their mockery,
\nIn physical manifestations belong in jail.
\n 
\n 
\nNot much is known about Marcus Bales except he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his work has not appeared in Poetry or The New Yorker. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Colby<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAT THE RIGHT HAND
\nBannon and Trump
\n 
\nEven the Lord had his bright angel
\nwho solicited his son in the desert.
\n 
\nCromwell and Henry, Rasputin and Nicholas.
\nThe Lady Anne. The Czarevitch.
\n 
\nAlways the justification. The whisper
\nand promises. The lies.
\n 
\nHe rants and postures
\ngoaded like the elephant. It\u2019s another
\n 
\nReality show. The War Lover
\nwith his advice.
\n 
\nDefault position.
\nJudas and the silver kiss.
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, Gargoyle, Pinyon, Little Patuxent Review, Spillway, Midwestern Gothic<\/i> and others. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 17 books including Selected Poems<\/i> from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage<\/i> from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Three of her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and another is among the winners of the 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Her newest book Carnival<\/i> was published by FutureCycle Press in 2016. She has another forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2017 titled The Seven Heavenly Virtues<\/i>. Colby is a senior editor of FutureCycle Press. Website: joancolby.com<\/a>. Facebook: Joan Colby<\/a>. Twitter: @poetjm<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Colodney<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nINAUGURATION DAY
\n 
\nI\u2019m in a hotel bar, I\u2019ve been here a week,
\na writer\u2019s conference, my bartender knows
\nme so well by now she brings me a local beer
\nas she greets me. We watch Trump take the oath
\non the big screen \u2013 reality TV at its worst
\nas we\u2019re all now part of the cast, like it or not \u2013
\nand we look at each other with the same
\nlook. The sound is down, and classic rock
\nblares. Her face, reflected by the neon and glass,
\nsuddenly looks older. I see lines I didn\u2019t see yesterday.
\n 
\nShe pours me a beer I don\u2019t remember ordering,
\nbut bartenders are like that: mother hens protecting
\ntheir nest. Her sage eyes twinkle as the Obamas
\nboard a helicopter. Mine do too.
\nI finish the beer and signal another.
\nThere\u2019s mourning in America.
\n 
\n 
\nROADHOUSE BLUES IN THE 21ST CENTURY
\n 
\nIn the 21st Century, I can Google-stalk my first love
\nlearn she married a rabbi, lives in California
\nand smokes weed with a prescription.
\nBut if I close my eyes long enough she sparkles \u2013
\nbangles dangling along her arms, pink skirt and yellow
\nleggings wrapped around my teenage spine.
\nI can look back and think Cheryl such a 70s name
\nfor a girl born in the 60s that I loved in the 80s.
\n 
\nDid we know who Donald Trump was in the 80s?
\nI hadn\u2019t heard of him. Cheryl and I instead spent summer
\nlooking for clues Jim Morrison was still alive
\nwhile my father walked endless miles in his mailman blue
\nshirt, leather satchel slung over his shoulder, dropping
\nletters in mailboxes that all looked the same, American flag
\npatched on one arm, union card stitched to the other.
\n 
\nIn the 21st Century, I woke up this morning
\nrealizing I never found Jim Morrison, wondering
\nwhat Cheryl was doing and why day destroys the night
\nwhy night divides the day. I woke up this morning
\nand I got myself a beer. I woke up with Donald Trump
\nin the White House, a future uncertain, an end always near.
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Colodney realized at an early age that he had no athletic ability whatsoever, so he decided to focus his attention on writing about sports instead, covering everything from major league baseball to high school flag football for The Miami Herald<\/i> and The Tampa Tribune<\/i>. He holds an MFA from Converse College, where he served as poetry editor of South85<\/i>, the literary journal of the Converse MFA program, and also an MA from Nova Southeastern University. His poetry has appeared or will appear in St. Petersburg Review, California Quarterly<\/i>, the New York School and Diaspora issue of Valley Voices<\/i>, and Gyroscope Review<\/i>, among others. David lives in Boynton Beach, Florida with his wife, three sons, and golden retriever. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNeil Creighton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS FOG
\n 
\nmakes us love light
\n 
\nand it descends
\nthick
\nimpenetrable
\n 
\nhiding
\nthe mountain
\nthe trees
\nand paths
\n 
\nand we huddle together
\ngroping
\ndespairing
\nlonging for light
\n 
\nremembering
\nthe clarity of the sun
\n 
\nyearning
\nfor a glimpse
\nof the distant mountain’s
\nfoothills
\n 
\n 
\nNeil Creighton is an Australian poet with a passion for social justice and an awareness of how opportunity is so unequally apportioned. His poems have recently appeared at Praxis online, Autumn Sky Daily, Poetry Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review<\/i> and Verse-Virtual<\/i>. He blogs at windofflowers.blogspot.com.au<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick Theron Erickson<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFORMER PEOPLE
\n 
\nIf someone
\nis flying by the seat
\nof his pants
\n 
\ngrab hold for a ride
\n 
\nespecially if it\u2019s
\nover a no-fly zone
\n 
\nof which there are
\nmany these days
\nto choose from
\n 
\nlike funnel cakes
\nat a carnival
\n 
\nor funnel clouds
\nover the heartland
\n 
\nThere are many here
\nflying by the seat
\nof their pants
\n 
\nbut their flying
\nis short-winded
\n 
\nlike the humming bird
\n 
\ntheir plumage
\nbrilliant
\n 
\ntheir beaks
\nall atwitter.
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal<\/i>, among other publications, and more recently in Right Hand Pointing, Tipton Poetry Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review<\/i> and Danse Macabre<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Lowther<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEVERYBODY GETS SO MUCH INFORMATION ALL DAY LONG THAT THEY LOSE THEIR COMMON SENSE
\n 
\nEverybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
\nThe history of humanity is the long succession of synonyms for the same word.
\nDoofus.
\nBullshit.
\nWrong.
\nAll of these are important interventions.
\nEducation either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the
\nyounger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about
\nconformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men
\nand women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate
\nin the transformation of their world.
\nThe empty tic tac container is where it’s at.
\n 
\n 
\nINTELLIGENCE IS NO LONGER ON THE SIDE OF POWER
\n 
\nIntelligence is no longer on the side of power.
\nIt\u2019s kinda like a double-reverse jinx blocker.
\nShout long enough and it doesn\u2019t mean anything.
\nThat picture doesn’t even look like I’m crying.
\nThe cure for depression is a fall from a chimney.
\nIt was good advice and of course I didn\u2019t take it.
\nBut here, in one tie alone, and all together, knots abound, as they are twisted and
\nwrapped around each other; looping, constricting and obstructing, into one
\nmountainous, confused mess.
\nThis is where hope comes to get fucked in the ass.
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Lowther<\/a>‘s work appears in An Atlanta Poets Group Anthology:The Lattice Inside<\/i><\/a> (UNO, 2012), Another South: Experimental Writing in the South<\/i><\/a> (U.Alabama, 2003), and Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems<\/a> (Negative Capability, 2015). Held to the Letter<\/i> (with Dana Lisa Young) is forthcoming from Lavender Ink<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Nazzaro<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUPWARD SUN RIVER GIRL
\n 
\nBorn at a standstill
\nor so they say
\nthose three long years
\nyou clung
\nto life on the tundra
\n 
\nyou learned to walk on,
\naround the low shrubs
\nand the trees occluded
\nby mountains of ice.
\n 
\nThe furs and the fire
\nwarmed your feet
\nat night
\nand you got to taste
\nthe salmon and the hare.
\n 
\nOne of a precious
\nfew million, scattered, adrift,
\ncleaving to Earth
\nin the last throes
\nof its last ice age\u2014
\nin the cold, the dark.
\n 
\nAnd when you succumbed
\nin the black of the tent
\nto that fiercest privation,
\nthey burned your bones
\n 
\nso you could live
\nin Earth
\nfor almost twelve thousand years
\nto one warm day warn
\nus with your DNA about
\n 
\none more thing
\nwe never knew,
\none more thing
\nto fight over
\nas we kill
\nwhat remains of your ice.
\n 
\n 
\nSHOPPING AT WAL-MART
\n 
\nI bought a big \u2019ol red, white and blue
\nStar-Spangled Banner made in China
\nand a lil \u2019ol red plastic Bic lighter
\nmade with pride in Milford, Connecticut,
\nUSA, and the rest is my own goddam,
\nGod-given constitutional business.
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Nazzaro teaches English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he also copyedits books for Tsehai Publishers and Harriet Tubman Press. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in ClockwiseCat, Ekphrastic Review, Donut Factory<\/i>, and Aberration Labyrinth<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMiha Pintaric<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVEGETABLES
\n 
\nMany countries disallow the importation
\nof foreign plants. The preservation
\nof botanical identity is crucial to a nation…
\n 
\nMiha Pintaric has been teaching French medieval literature at the University of Ljubljana since 1988 and writing poetry for the past ten to twelve years. Recently he has been writing short funny verse inspired by the general climate including the US situation. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTerry Severhill<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRUMP CARD
\n 
\nWhere to start where to begin? Wear a smile, a grimace, a grin.
\n 
\nSomeone\u2019s supporter got knocked on the chin.
\n 
\nSo all the opponents and all the media types point their collective fingers and say it\u2019s Him.
\n 
\nWords, they say mean things, especially when said by Him.
\n 
\nNever what They say nor the spin. Ten thousand, nay, ten million words, decrying His First Amendment speech. So when a minor criminal shouts and rants and interferes, refuses to bend an ear, they will praise him and call him a martyr. The press and the politicos seem to think that \u201cFree\u201d speech is up for barter. If you would just agree with us we\u2019ll give you a pass. Good god! that idea gives me gas. An event by Him for supporters of Him infiltrated by others who would never vote for Him. \u201cI just wanted to disrupt His event.\u201d Was the excuse given. Seems he was driven by the press, what a tangled inter-web was woven to spin such thoughts. They say he\u2019s racist, I don\u2019t know how. Mexican is a nationality not a race. And temporally stopping the importation of muslims is not a sin nor a crime. Time to stop this nonsense, If you come into my house and interrupt, You\u2019ll take one on the chin, the shin, the shoulder, the stomach, I think you get the picture. I did not vote for Him, but I\u2019m damn sure I will always defend his right to be an ass in public.
\n 
\n 
\nTerry Severhill is a Marine combat veteran, \u201969-\u201970, in a CAP unit in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. He has been published in a dozen journals and over a dozen anthologies including Proud to Be: Writings by American Warriors<\/i> from South East Missouri University Press and in a small anthology Away for the Holidays<\/i>, a first time venture by the Veterans Writing Group of San Diego County. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Ellen Talley<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTAKE A WHACK MARY MACK MACK MACK
\n 
\nGalvanize, hypothesize
\nwash the pink pussyhats
\nand they come out
\nblood red resistance
\nPersistence insistence
\nRight hands over our hearts
\nKnit stitches release endorphins
\nSuch a stud muffin
\ndump him into melted paraffin
\nprep him for the wax museum
\nHe\u2019s gonna make so many mistakes
\nbefore nailing his coffin
\nwith error after error
\nDamn holy terror
\nLittle orange hands to hold a pen
\ndelight in signing aligning pieces of paper
\nto vaporize medical insurance and grease
\npockets of CEOs wearing silk ties
\nthey know how to bilk us
\nfill up their coffers with lucrative offers
\nwe skeptical scoffers abhor
\nSuch a lack lack lack
\nHe won\u2019t have our back back back
\nScrew the indigenous immigrant ill
\nOil them Soil them Roil against them
\nStay calm place our palms
\nover hearts during the pledge
\npray to conceive a reprieve
\nas he conspires to profit the rich rich rich
\nCall strong women bitch bitch bitch
\ncode word the not so ghastly nasty
\nhigh impact with talk so trashy
\nMaybe the masses are doomed to consume
\nwhatever the chef of distractions serves up
\nIt\u2019ll take years to dismantle
\nWill the last liberal please blow out the candle
\nWe can\u2019t grab his attention
\nbecause he\u2019s in another dimension
\nEach lie with its aura of alternate absurdity
\nThe infidel grabs genitals
\nwhines his divine opine
\ndiscounting miscounting our knitting needles
\nBrink of a stink over pink
\nMust thank him for his inspiration
\nwhile he\u2019s reaping wreaking havoc on our nation
\nThe con man not welcome in his mother\u2019s native Scotland
\nEmbarrassment for the kilt and tartan
\nWe hold ideals he cannot rein in
\nWe\u2019ll point fingers if he lingers
\nlong enough to snuff the democratic process
\nNo, we are not his apprentice citizens
\ntired but he can\u2019t fire us
\nHe surely won\u2019t welcome any of us
\nto Mar-a-Lago unless we suck up bigtime
\nIs the President gonna be a welcome resident?
\nWant him as your neighbor?
\nLet him do the deplorables that favor
\nSkip the wall
\nHow \u2018bout a fence to protect us
\nfrom the surcharge on our taxes
\nBroad daylight
\nthe undocumented devil up his sleeve
\nDownfall Curtain call Neanderthal
\nThe man collects his fool\u2019s gold
\nSurmise it\u2019s no surprise
\nthe inaugural speech begins his demise
\nOne day sale on merchandize
\nas we strategize
\nlest he monopolize and terrorize
\nuntil we can tweet his defeat
\n 
\n 
\nMary Ellen Talley\u2019s poems have most recently been published in Typoetic.us<\/i> and Kaleidoscope<\/i> as well as in recent anthologies, The Doll Collection, All We Can Hold poems of motherhood<\/i> and Raising Lilly Ledbetter Women Poets Occupy the Workspace<\/i>. Her poetry has received a Pushcart Nomination. She has worked for many years with words and children as a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) in Washington public schools. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHannah Warren<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFEBRUARY 2017
\n 
\nIn D.C., I pocket my husband
\nalongside my pictures,
\nopen-mouthed and filled with teeth.
\nHe says he doesn\u2019t remember
\nthe city in the same way I do.
\nEverything\u2019s different.
\nI\u2019ve noticed there\u2019s more water
\nin Kansas than D.C. It seems
\nlike a lot of things
\nshould be fountains here,
\nbut they aren\u2019t.
\nSomeone told me those words
\nwould look nice in a poem. I agreed,
\ntook a note. But I wasn\u2019t lying\u2014
\nall the fountains are puddles at most,
\ntheir speckled granite or blue linings
\ndry and solemn as
\nthe extra chain-link fence
\nthat surrounded the White House
\na short, empty time ago.
\n 
\n 
\nHannah Warren is an MFA candidate at the University of Kansas, and her works have appeared recently or will soon appear in Soundings East<\/i> and Jet Fuel Review<\/i>. She often writes about death but hopes never to experience it.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted February 11, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nSandra Anfang<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLOVE TRUMPS HATE: AN ABORTED LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT
\n 
\nI can’t make my hand write \u201cDear\u201d before your name,
\nposter boy for racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and hate.
\n 
\nWe, the women of this country, hereby inform you
\nthat we will not be quashed by your toddler fist or
\n 
\nyour need to manipulate us like marionettes,
\ntweak our strings, or dress us up in gold lame.
\n 
\nWe are not going back to beauty contests,
\nboob jobs, back alley abortions.
\n 
\nWe are not going back to Yes, Sir! <\/i> and sleeping with the boss
\n(though few of us actually did)
\n 
\nso we could climb the golden ladder
\nwhose rungs lacerate our shins and pierce our hearts.
\n 
\nWe are never going back to being shushed,
\nhushed, and blindfolded
\n 
\nor shouted down by viral old-boy cronies
\nwith monstrous manipulating mouths.
\n 
\nWe are not going back to low-paying jobs, cat calls,
\nor sex-typed division of labor on the domestic front.
\n 
\nWe will never again be little women with marshmallow tongues
\nwho carry handkerchiefs to blot the slime of your condescension.
\n 
\nWe are not going back to spike heels and facelifts
\nlip plumping, body sculpting, boob jobs.
\n 
\nWe are not going back to the Barbiefication
\nof our bodies, hearts, and minds
\n 
\nor to being putty in your tiny hands.
\nAnd did I mention, we are never going back to boob jobs?
\n 
\n 
\nSandra Anfang is a Northern California teacher, poet, and visual artist. She is the author of four self-published poetry collections and several chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetalk, San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, two Healdsburg Literary Guild<\/i> anthologies, The Tower Journal, Unbroken Literary Journal, Corvus Review<\/i>, and Spillway. <\/i> Her chapbook, \u201cLooking Glass Heart,\u201d was published by Finishing Line Press in February, 2016. Sandra is a California Poet-Teacher in the Schools and the founder and host of the monthly poetry series, Rivertown Poets, in Petaluma, California. To write, for her, is to breathe. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarcus Bales<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRUMPYMANDIAS
\nfor Pino Coluccio<\/i>
\n 
\nI met a traveler from an antic land
\nWho said: “Within his oddly orange-tanned
\nVisage puckered lips in childish need
\nSeek all attention all the time, his greed
\nDemanding more the more demands are met.
\n‘Look at my crowds, you Democrats, and despair!’
\nHe boasts, but photos show his Inaugural
\nAttendance thin and ersatz as his hair,
\nAnd when next day the women marched, the sprawl
\nOf half a million people filled the Mall.
\nThe nations of the world observe his threat
\nOf id ascendant, super-ego lost,
\nAnd wonder what in blood, toil, tears, and sweat
\nUnquenched and quenchless avarice will cost.”
\n 
\n 
\nGOLDEN SHOWERS \/ BOY \/ IN THE END
\n 
\nOnce you got away with talking bullshit
\nOnce you got away with talking bull
\nBleat, little Trumpy, bleat and lie
\nAnd I will mock you as you cry.
\n 
\nGolden showers make you thrill,
\nSmile when you have seen it spill
\nBleat, little Trumpy, bleat and lie
\nAnd I will mock you as you cry.
\n 
\nOnce you got away with talking bullshit
\nOnce you got away with talking bull
\nBleat, little Trumpy, bleat and lie
\nAnd I will mock you as you cry.
\n 
\nBoy we’re gonna talk about pee
\nTalk about pee for a long time.
\nBoy we’re gonna talk about pee
\nTalk about pee for a long time.
\n 
\nAnd when I give you my urine
\nI want to send you my defecations
\nSo in the middle of the celebrations
\nI squat down
\n 
\nBoy we’re gonna talk about pee
\nTalk about pee for a long time.
\nBoy we’re gonna talk about pee
\nTalk about pee for a long time.
\n 
\nOh yeah, all right,
\nare you gonna be in my dreams tonight?
\n 
\nPutin, Putin Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin,
\nPutin, Putin Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin,
\nPutin, Putin Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin,
\nPutin, Putin Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin,
\nPutin, Putin Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin,
\n 
\nAnd in the end this kompmat thing
\nIs equal to a blackmail ring.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE BATTLE HYMN OF THE BOWLING GREEN MASSACRE
\n 
\nNo eyes have seen a massacre occur at Bowling Green
\nAs non-existent soldiers met with students never seen
\nWhere Kellyanne’s imagination lit her silver screen
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nDilatory allegory
\nPredatory oratory
\nDon’t believe her lying story
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nHer fictional protesters faced her fancied fascist troops
\nHer tragic death-toll changed into a legendary ‘Oops’
\nAs all they did was wave their well-spelled signs in peaceful groups
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nDilatory allegory
\nPredatory oratory
\nDon’t believe her lying story
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nShe said it went uncovered by reporters of the news
\nThat stations pulled their on-air talent with their camera-crews
\nBut worse, she’s acting pouty that there’s no deaths she can use.
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nDilatory allegory
\nPredatory oratory
\nDon’t believe her lying story
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nShe has offered up her bullshit as if lying were a sport;
\nEach time she moves her lips she tells a tale that lacks support.
\nIs there no fact she won’t traduce, no truth she won’t distort?
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nDilatory allegory
\nPredatory oratory
\nDon’t believe her lying story
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nIn the mists of ghostly silence such a massacre occurred
\nThat its trumped-up date is celebrated by no deed nor word —
\nAnd to find that she\u2019s not fired for this kind of shit’s absurd.
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\nDilatory allegory
\nPredatory oratory
\nDon’t believe her lying story
\nHer lies go marching on.
\n 
\n 
\nALT-RIGHT CHRISTMAS
\n 
\nTrump’s dreaming of a white Christmas
\nThat’s not a metaphor for snow
\nHe’ll have White Committees in all the cities
\nTo make the non-white people go.
\n 
\nTrump’s dreaming of a white Christmas —
\nA white-supremacist alt.right.
\nThey will burn their crosses through the night
\nSo that all their Christmases are white.
\n 
\n 
\nNot much is known about Marcus Bales except he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his work has not appeared in Poetry or The New Yorker. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDevon Balwit<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN THE EVENT OF
\n 
\nA friend leaves today for Istanbul.
\nAren\u2019t you afraid?<\/i> I ask.
\n 
\nYou are American,<\/i> she said, gently chiding.
\nThis is how today\u2019s world is.<\/i>
\n 
\nThis, I think, isn\u2019t like the weather\u2014
\nIt may rain, so carry an umbrella.<\/i>
\n 
\nHow does one prepare for Wherever you
\nare standing may explode? <\/i>
\n 
\nHow does one make fear light
\nenough to carry in one\u2019s pocket?
\n 
\n 
\nLONG-RANGE
\n 
\nIn his photograph, the dictator looks pleased
\nthat his missile is finally long enough
\nto reach my town,
\n 
\nto take these dogwoods, lilacs, and azaleas,
\nmy dog digging in the yard, my son at his computer,
\nand smash them.
\n 
\nToday\u2019s sky shimmers like poured cream.
\nA jay chirrups and bobs on a neighbor\u2019s chimney
\nenthralling a mate.
\n 
\nI do laundry, bleach the tub, answer emails.
\nOne more threat of death
\ndoesn\u2019t stop Monday.
\n 
\n 
\nDevon Balwit is a teacher and writer working in Portland, OR. She has two chapbooks forthcoming in 2017: ‘how the blessed travel,’ from Maverick Duck Press, and ‘Forms Most Marvelous,’ from dancing girl press. Her recent work has found many homes, among them: The Cincinnati Review, Red Earth Review, Noble\/Gas Quarterly, Peacock Review, Sweet, The Stillwater Review, Oyez, Timberline Review, Poets Reading the News, The NewVerse News<\/i>, and Kindred<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEFFICIENT
\n 
\nWhen they executed the four in Kigali
\nthey shot from left to right\u2014
\nleaving the woman till last. The hooded prisoners
\nlooked like target squares on a firing range.
\nIt seemed like a long time until
\nall four bodies slumped. \u201cIt is over\u201d
\nmoaned the crowd and it was.
\n 
\n 
\nTATTERS
\n 
\nFall tatters the body of summer
\nwith endless flaking, leaves drifting
\nlike dandruff, eyelash, fingernail,
\nthe replicable cells, dura, cambium,
\npetals on the stem in August and
\nin the culvert beside the freeway
\nby November. Fall picks us clean,
\nsends us naked into winter.
\n 
\n 
\nAFTER THE ELECTION
\n 
\nThese are the things I didn\u2019t know I knew\u2014<\/p>\n

that some hands can\u2019t be turned away
\nbut clutch, sharp as bird-feet, with clammy
\nruined fingers, restless and atap,
\n 
\nthat there is skin that doesn\u2019t sweat or bleed,
\nthat I would take my soreness to the stump,
\ntake revelation to my breast and know
\n 
\nwhat happened next as if I always knew
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle lives and writes in the Ozarks. While embarrassed by Arkansas politics as well as our national debacle, she has managed to publish two books, Reading Berryman to the Dog<\/strong> and Discount Fireworks<\/strong> and four chapbooks, most recently Chap Book<\/i> from Platypus Press, UK. For more information, check her website at wendytaylorcarlisle.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSheri Gabbert<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSPECIAL MESSENGER
\n 
\nGod sent me to warn thick-headed right-winged self-righteous conservatives
\ngod is a black woman, lives in a worn out shack, hates church and republicans
\nand likes a well-hung man in her bed as long as he’s gone by morning –
\nbefore her lover gets home from her job at the strip bar downtown.
\nShe preaches King Donald is the anti-Christ not Obama so brace for damage.
\nThe world will come to an end but not until fat buddha sings a dirge.
\n 
\nSheri Gabbert lives and works in the Missouri Ozarks where she is a substitute teacher. Her work has been published in Moon City Review<\/i> (2011\/2017), new graffiti, Rat’s Ass Review, 417Magazine, Street Buzz<\/i>, and The Lawrence County Record<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEdward Harkness<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAMERICA, GREAT ONCE AGAIN
\n 
\nCops have slammed the woman with green streaks
\nin her dark hair onto the airport\u2019s marble floor.
\nI count eight from the posted video, whose eye peaks
\nblinking between protesters near a glass door.
\nShe sobs, cries out, \u201cStop! You\u2019re hurting me!\u201d
\nThe eye moves to show a girl\u2019s head. She\u2019s ten,
\nI\u2019d guess. Dreadlocks, hands on ears\u2014that\u2019s all I see,
\nall I need to see, must always see\u2014men
\nin riot gear, one boot on the woman\u2019s back,
\none on her neck, while others tie her wrists,
\ntwisting them till she shrieks, her body slack
\nfrom writhing against what it resists.
\nThe recorder, as her video blurs and ends,
\nwhispers in her phone, We\u2019re so fucked, my friends.
\n 
\n 
\nPoet Edward Harkness is the author of Saying the Necessary and Beautiful Passing Lives<\/i>, both from Pleasure Boat Studio press. His most recent collection, Ice Children<\/i>, was published by Split Lip Press in 2014. He lives in Shoreline, Washington. To hear Ed read his poem, \u201cUnion Creek in Winter,\u201d go to www.terrain.org\/2017\/poetry\/letter-to-america-harkness\/<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nShirley Jones-Luke<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nUNCOLOR ME
\n 
\nDrain from my flesh the hue of
\nmy ancestors, the tint of the
\nAfrican sun, the shade of an
\nold gum tree in the middle of
\nthe savanna, the shadows from
\nthe tall grass as they bend in
\nthe mid-summer breeze over
\nthe river Nile, past the pyramids
\ndesecrated by robbers then by
\nthose seeking their secrets,
\nhidden for thousands of years
\nwhen the tone of my skin did
\nnot matter and I was a queen
\non the throne of a Nubian empire,
\nand not a slave mistress, a maid
\nor the atypical angry, black woman
\nas portrayed by a biased media and
\na color-obsessed society.
\n 
\n 
\nGET HERE
\n 
\nIt doesn’t matter if you have to go underground,
\nscurry around in the night under border guards
\nsearch lights, scaling fences or pulling apart
\nwires to squeeze through frightened bodies, tired
\nbodies, yearning to be free bodies, while the
\nStatue of Liberty weeps for those bodies who wish to
\ninhabit our land, carrying documents on flights,
\ngreen cards and work visas by train,
\ntheir legality no longer seems to matter,
\nbut yet – still the bodies come,
\nin the back of a van, the trunk of a car or the
\nbowels of a ship, all with the same purpose –
\nthese refugees, these immigrants, these aliens –
\nwhose bodies matter & don’t matter & still matter.
\n 
\n 
\nNO BARRIERS TO ENTRY
\n 
\nNation or no nation,
\nimmigrants barred,
\nunfriendly shores,
\nthis land has folded
\nunto itself, no longer
\nbrave, no longer free
\n 
\nNeither free nor brave,
\ncowards and knaves
\nbow to a flag that has become
\nforeign, we are no longer
\nproud to wave
\n 
\nStars upside down
\na shroud over the land,
\npockets of light upon our
\ncountry, the stripes have become
\nprison bars, restricting
\nour hearts, the plights
\nof others go ignored &
\nthe laws of humanity broken.
\n 
\n 
\nShirley Jones-Luke is a poet and writer. Ms. Luke lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has an MFA from Emerson College. Her work has been published by Fire Poetry, Mass Poetry<\/i> and Poetry Breakfast<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJuanita Kirton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE BACKS ON WHICH I STAND
\n 
\nI salute and pray for sons and fathers
\nknocked out, blocked out
\nFlorsheim shoes and air-Jordans
\nA hoodie in the hood at the hoops
\nmilk crates prop the unsupported
\ndried up tears
\ndisguised
\n 
\nScattered semen in mad black bowels
\ncan\u2019t fill the pain of a thousand years
\nflesh of my flesh bears the mark
\n 
\nI wanna hear my grand mamma’s song
\nmusic running down the salty walls
\nmarching through cane fields
\nthe sun beat skin into ash
\nthe sway of black buttocks
\npushing out babies and black pudding
\nfill me up, spit you out
\nmy language
\ngenerations of brown sugar blood
\nplanted inside the feet of men
\nshe embraces their unshed sorrow
\n 
\nPeace collides with appeals and dissent
\nunheard, ignored, push back
\ndid my anger keep you speechless?
\nmatriarchal power between my legs
\nemancipates and balances paternal death
\n 
\nPatience and forbearance did not metastasize
\nstagnation became my middle name
\nalong the jagged riverbed of grief
\ncombined rage hums
\n 
\nI still pray for Black sons and fathers
\nin places made raw, petition for righteousness
\nrobed defiantly in red, white and blue
\n 
\n 
\nDr. Juanita Kirton earned an MFA from Goddard College in 2015 and is the recipient of the Spirit of Goddard Scholarship. She is a member of Women Who Write, Inc. and Women Reading Aloud workshop series. She facilitates Blairstown Writers Group in NJ, directs QuillEssence<\/i> Writing Collective and she is on the editorial staff for Clock House Literary Magazine. Juanita is published in several anthologies including Chester H. Jones Literary Journal, Caribbean Writer, Goldfinch Literary Magazine, A Journal of Hope and Healing, Clevergirl, Exit 13 Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, Narrative<\/i> and Stone Canoe<\/i>. She won Honorable Mention in the 75 th<\/sup> Anniversary Writers Digest Poetry competition and a \u201cSisters in Script\u201d self-publishing grant. Her Peace Haiku was published for Peace Mural in Philadelphia.
\n 
\nDr. Kirton works for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Education and is a US Army Veteran. She resides with her spouse in Northeast PA. Besides writing, Juanita enjoys touring on her motorcycle. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMatthew Mutiva<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAMERICA IS GREAT AGAIN, SO
\n 
\nYou won\u2019t have to replace \u201cdawn\u2019s early light\u201d
\nwith screw-in halogens that screw up in congress
\nwe will repeal and replace the colorblindness mode
\nwith whitening agents that will attack underlying problems
\nthat cause irritation and bring decay into this country
\njust like the olden days when we rode in on horseback,
\nperforming roundups on the western frontier
\nThe American Dream is no longer a dream deferred
\nit is a dream come true
\nStop soul searching for a third party and looking into crystal balls
\nwe have other fortune telling objects
\nother media outlets contain meaningful information
\nAmerica is now dripping in gold
\nsurrounded by pictures of itself
\ndoing successful things
\nthat have been hugely successful
\nIt will be the hugest vastly
\njumbo mega ultra bulky
\ncolossal whale of a super husky
\nlargest lumping multistory business tycoon
\nthat will grab today by the pussy
\ngiving it a firm handshake
\nthis translation of carpe diem
\nwill be championed
\nIt now represents our values
\nlike speaking English if you are Muslim,
\ntransgender, or disabled you will be unfriended
\nfor saying your life matters on social media
\nyou won\u2019t have to post statuses saying
\n\u201cMy vote is in a better place\u201d
\nI\u2019m sorry it\u2019s not,
\nbut it will be truly missed
\nIt was worth your everlasting love
\nfor democracy
\nYou\u2019ll have to find some other way
\n 
\nof reassuring yourself
\n 
\n 
\nMatthew Mutiva is that feeling you get when your favorite song comes on the radio, but when you listen to it, you realize you just caught the end of it, and now you\u2019re pissed. In his senior year of college, he is a Professional Writing major with a Creative Writing minor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He is a former Assistant Editor for the literary journal The Driftless Review<\/i>. His poem Hood Superheroes<\/i> won first place in the 2015 Thomas Hickey Creative Writing Awards Contest. His poem What\u2019s your favorite color? <\/i> won first place for the poetry portion of the 2013 Thomas Hickey Creative Writing Contest, and his other poem, Offended<\/i>, was awarded second place for the poetry portion of the 2014 Thomas Hickey Creative Writing Contest. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoey Nicoletti<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMEMO TO DONALD TRUMP
\n 
\nRE: \u201cFrederick Douglass is an example of somebody who\u2019s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.\u201d
\n 
\nAs of February 20th, 1895,
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nFrederick Douglass is dead.
\nSo is your hair: the animal on your head.
\n 
\n 
\nJoey Nicoletti\u2019s most recent books are Reverse Graffiti<\/i> (Bordighera, 2015) and Thundersnow<\/i> (Grandma Moses Press, forthcoming 2017). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. A graduate of the Sarah Lawrence College MFA program, he teaches at SUNY Buffalo State College. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStephen Regan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nJAZZ STYLE
\nFrederik\u2019s bar, Hope Street, Liverpool<\/i>
\n 
\nHey man it\u2019s serious now
\nin the world.
\nLet\u2019s improvise ourselves
\nout of this mess,
\njazz style.
\n 
\nDo what we gotta do,
\nrhapsodise in blue,
\nme, you, the rest of the crew
\nin this bar on the Boulevard of Hope.
\n 
\nWe\u2019re a bit broken but not lost;
\nwe trumpet hope,
\ndreaming on, playing through,
\nchanging the rhythm,
\nkeeping humanity living
\nas the Trump of despair
\nsounds across the pond
\nin the home of jazz.
\n 
\nWe the people in New Orleans,
\nChicago, New York, Liverpool,
\nwe play on, play up, make music
\nas humans, it\u2019s what we do
\nhere inside this jazz bar.
\n 
\nWhile out on the pavement
\nyoung hipsters talk, smoke, flirt
\nwith their own kind, as from inside
\nthe music wafts out and over them,
\njazzing up the mix.
\n 
\nThese people smile sadly,
\ngive alms to passing mendicants,
\nmoonlit, Hogarthian, and why, why, why
\ndoes it have to be
\nlike this?
\n 
\nImprovise that holy rhythm.
\nCome on, man! Let\u2019s cool the world
\nin laidback liberty,
\nin hope of full-lipped, brass-necked justice.
\nJazz style.
\n 
\nFor all that\u2019s wrong with the world
\nthis band plays on, it plays on, braving elements,
\nraising heartbeats, anthemising
\nthe plights of these times.
\n 
\nHep cats with a conscience.
\nThey\u2019ve got rhythm.
\nThey\u2019ve got love for sale.
\n 
\nLife will go on, get better.
\nAs we\u2019ve been told,
\nIt\u2019s a wonderful world.
\n 
\n 
\nNOW WE\u2019RE RICH
\n 
\nNow we\u2019re rich we\u2019ve time to see
\nthe squalor all around.
\nSights and sounds we once rushed by
\ndirtily demand our attention; make us
\nwonder about justice in this broken world.
\n 
\nSo, as we leave the Bistro Belle \u00c9poque
\nwe each toss a quid to the beggar.
\nJustice is important, we decide,
\nand we\u2019ll pay sterling service to it \u2013
\nnow that the street mendicants
\nhave reached Knutsford (*).
\nThis much we know
\nin Cheshire
\nnow we\u2019re rich.
\n 
\nNote: Knutsford and Cheshire people are regarded as \u2018up themselves\u2019, pretentious. They wear \u2018fur coats, no knickers\u2019, it is commonly said of them.<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nStephen Regan\u2019s poems have been published in: Envoi; Best of Manchester Poets<\/i> Vol 2 anthology; Reach Poetry; Killing the Angel; The Provo Canyon Review<\/i> and DoveTales<\/i>. His poem \u2018Red-bricked\u2019 is part of a permanent art display at Wallgate rail station in his home town of Wigan, Lancashire. He lives in Liverpool and is the founder of city poetry group, The Liver Bards.<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSage Shemroske<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI WON’T SAY “GREAT”
\n 
\nI live in this county,
\neven though this country doesn’t love me
\n 
\nI wake up everyday believing that my life is going to change,
\neven though my own experiences in this system have taught me otherwise
\n 
\nWhatever happens in the next four years
\nI am used to things not going my way
\n 
\nAnd I’m sorry that now is when we begin our revolution
\n 
\nBecause for the first time white men feel the fear I have felt my whole life,
\nexcuse me if I am not impressed by your outrage
\n 
\nI have been branded angry since birth
\nSince I was brought into a culture where I am an unequal,
\nwhere my love is unrequited,
\nwhere my voice is quieted
\n 
\nWe have wiped away the messes after men decide to go to war and bring disease into our homes
\nwe have been maids never martyrs,
\nbeen traded never barterers,
\nnurses never soldiers,
\nEven though we sit at the front lines
\nand when we say “no”
\nwe face gunshots
\nAnd then such heavy silence
\n 
\nThe man who sexually assaulted me will go unreported,
\nnow a rapist is running my country
\nYes
\nI say \u201cmy country\u201d
\nBecause for every man who broke the glass ceiling, there was a woman sweeping away the glass
\nAnd for every straight woman who broke the glass ceiling, there was a gay woman sweeping away the glass
\nAnd for every white woman who broke the glass ceiling, there was a black woman sweeping away the glass
\n 
\nSince women were hanged for being witches
\nsince women jumped out of the windows of burning factories,
\nI have bent and broken my neck trying to succeed when suppressed
\nfought for my sisters even when congressmen say “woman” like a dirty word
\ninstead of a song
\nWhen men discuss abortion as if we want access to healthcare like we want access to a limo
\ninstead of like how animals stuck in traps want access to hacksaws
\n 
\nWhen they say female instead of woman do they mean
\nfemale pigs
\nfemale dogs
\nfemale cows?
\nBecause animals can be female but \u201cwoman\u201d implies humanity
\n 
\nYet I am expected to call a country great
\nto pledge my allegiance to an institution founded on exploitation
\nto sing the star spangled banner when I have signed without reading the fine print
\nThere is an asterisk after “with liberty and justice for all”
\n 
\nAmerica hasn’t been great since men were the only ones to sign their names on the dotted line
\nSince property owners were the only people
\nSince the constitution decided black people were only 3\/5ths human
\n 
\nMy revolution didn’t end when Britain ceded
\nIt began
\n 
\n 
\nSage Shemroske is a twenty-something college dropout living at home with their parents. Despite the financial struggles that took them out of the academic world, they continue to pursue art, much to the shame and disappointment of their entire family. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Dwayne Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYES
\n 
\nif by Yes you mean
\nthe nude gentleman high diving
\n 
\noff a Trump Tower 52nd story ledge
\nin Midtown Manhattan
\nin order
\n 
\naccording to the note left behind
\n 
\nto illustrate the absurdity
\nof believing in an
\nAmerican Dream
\n 
\nthen Yes by all means Yes
\n 
\n 
\nINDICTMENT
\nAfter Eileen Myles<\/i>
\n 
\nThe beautiful universe
\nof refrigerator noise. The looming
\nimportance of Iceland.
\nHow many ears in the silence.
\nHow many eyes underground.
\nPassion was never enough.
\n 
\nTo love a machine forsake
\na manatee. To fuck a glacier
\nplug in the TV. This many wagging
\ntongues in a trap. This many wire
\nhangers in the womb. Compassion\u2019s
\nambition never keeps up
\n 
\nwith jackboots and engines.
\n 
\n 
\nUP LOOKING FEELING
\n 
\nIt\u2019s a Parisian night
\nup in Hollywood, California,
\n 
\nwhere a wedded pair
\nof Caucasian lesbians in a
\nnew, cherry-red SUV
\n 
\ncruise ass up Mulholland
\nand nobody notices
\nin their reality TV world.
\n 
\nHow everything\u2019s worked out!
\nHuman cruelty, frailty,
\n 
\nand stupidity adding up
\nto the smell of
\nDonald in the morning,
\n 
\nthe smell of victory,
\nof toast and coffee, kids
\nup and safely off to school,
\n 
\nyou left gazing
\ninto the vast industrial park
\n 
\nfrom a Trump ghetto window
\nwishing the moon were up
\non the sallow-blue sky
\n 
\nand humming,
\nas if morning were a song.
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Dwayne Smith lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued animals. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recipient of both the Hinderaker Award for poetry and Polonsky Prize for fiction, his work haunts 150+ literary houses, including Skidrow Penthouse, Cortland Review, Gravel, burntdistrict, Chiron Review, Word Riot, New World Writing, Heavy Feather Review, decomP, WhiskeyPaper, FriGG<\/i>, and Monkeybicycle<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Smith<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNO MATTER HOW STEEP
\n 
\nI like how you hold up your head
\nyou don\u2019t cringe
\nyou keep your chin
\nin the air instead
\nnot in arrogance
\nmore in resistance
\ninsistence
\nthat what you believe
\nwill come to pass
\nin spite of all that\u2019s said
\nwhat are words?
\na poet\u2019s tools
\nand a crook\u2019s
\njust things twisted
\nto fit the ears and minds
\nof those nearby
\nI\u2019ll make it brief
\nit is better to live by words
\nwe hold true
\nthan to shout them
\nthrough a bullhorn
\nthis day is not ours
\nlet us put our fingers and tongues to sleep
\nwork quietly as one
\nwe\u2019ll climb that hill no matter how steep
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Spicer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHAT\u2019S THE WAY IT IS
\n 
\nWalter Cronkite ended his newscasts
\nwith the snappy quip, That\u2019s the way it is<\/i>
\nand a matter-of-fact tone that spoke to truth
\nthe way a satchel of money marches into a bank
\nor a pitcher delivers a knuckle ball for the strike
\nto finish a game that enthralls and enriches humans.
\n 
\nAnd now we\u2019ve arrived at the brink: a madman
\nthe President and hence on every evening newscast
\nwe stare in disbelief as he launches a preemptive strike
\nagainst somebody and all we can say is That\u2019s the way it is<\/i>
\nas he squats like a catcher and kisses the cheeks of bankers
\nwho love him less than their money, more than truth.
\n 
\nBy now we\u2019re asking each other, What\u2019s the truth?
\nDon\u2019t red wolves deserve to survive more than madmen?<\/i>
\nBut something we never thought possible or banked
\non: a narcissist in the White House with a brand new cast
\nof sycophants who snicker and sing, That\u2019s the way it is<\/i>
\nbefore deciding with their boss where they want to strike
\n 
\nnext and how: against North Korea with a nuclear strike
\nor with another set of alternative facts replacing the truth
\nthat tries to convince us, That\u2019s the way it is?<\/i>
\nBut let\u2019s remember: we outnumber this crazy man
\nwho believes he\u2019s our god and his own newscaster,
\none who, as he stands gazing from the beautiful banks
\n 
\nof the Potomac, asserts he\u2019s anything but a mountebank.
\nLet\u2019s remember the countless number of historical strikes
\nthat battled tyrants who killed people to make news,
\nwho forced the masses to accept their words as the truth,
\nlet\u2019s display to this mere man with small hands our humanity
\nby shouting at him in the millions That\u2019s not the way it is!<\/i>
\n 
\nDavid Spicer has had poems in The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gargoyle, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The New Verse News, The Laughing Dog, Chiron Review, Easy Street, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Dead Snakes, <\/i> among others, and in the anthologies Silent Voices: Recent American Poems on Nature<\/i> (Ally Press, 1978), Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing From Homer to Ali<\/i> (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003), and A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism<\/i> (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Best of the Net twice and a Pushcart, and is the author of one full-length collection of poems, Everybody Has a Story<\/i> (St. Luke’s Press, 1987), and four chapbooks. He is also the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw<\/i>, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGabriel Thomas<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSCREAMS
\n 
\nNorthside,
\ndowntown,
\noutside my window,
\nacross the street,
\n 
\na woman screams at the night,
\n 
\nand there she is,
\nand here I am,
\nup in my
\nlittle
\ncell
\nroom,
\n 
\nand I turn and listen,
\nand I turn and watch her,
\nand I stick my head out.
\nI feel San Diego hit<\/i> me.
\nShe\u2019s insane<\/i>,
\nI think.
\nThis woman\u2026
\n 
\nShe\u2019s BATSHIT<\/i><\/strong>,
\n 
\nand I watch her
\ndive<\/i> through trashcans,
\nseizing<\/i> the neighborhood\u2019s aluminum,
\npushing a cart of garbage,
\ntowing a backpack of rags,
\n 
\nas she screams at shadows,
\nas she screams at light posts,
\nas she looks up at a no star sky
\nand screams at it.
\n 
\nscreams LOUD at it,
\n 
\nscreaming inside this concrete kingdom,
\non these asphalt trails,
\nwhere the rules are made by those
\nwho\u2019ve never missed a meal,
\nnever been scarred,
\nnever had to fight,
\nwho keep the game rigged,
\n 
\nand this woman screams
\nat the night,
\nand I think,
\n 
\nmaybe she\u2019s not crazy<\/i>.
\n 
\n 
\nGabriel Thomas was born and raised in the Midwest and he currently lives in San Diego. He maintains and provides all content for www.astheworldbolts.wordpress.com<\/a>, a blog of fiction and poetry. His prose have appeared in Degenerate Literature, Nugget Tales<\/i> and Sisyphus Quarterly<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted February 3, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nLayne Calabro<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEW REALITY TV
\n 
\nWith nervous laughter we watched a contentious, pink-tied TV daddy
\nskilled at demeaning many an apprentice’s dream,
\npromote privilege and famed life.
\nThe ratings increased as sensibility ceased and powered
\nby the economy of greed, a new reality started to steep.
\n 
\nFrom inside the boob tube there is an obstructed view, creating an
\neasy breeding ground for the bacteria of segregation.
\nClaiming to feel our pain while maintaining minimum wage,
\nhe touts his brand and building walls will pull us
\ntogether to make us great again.
\n 
\nCocooned in an easy chair of fake news,
\nan interruption in service jolted American perceptions and now
\ntweeting from the presidential post, a
\npatriarchal persona with billowing comb, is starring
\nin a new-age sitcom set to fire this free land.
\n 
\nSince this head of household reveal,
\nalliances formed and strategies weaved.
\nStriking quickly to place blame,
\nthe construct of limited freedoms began.
\nBecause Big Brother knows,
\nsuppression remains, when fear reigns.
\n 
\nCoast to coast housewives, supportive prime-time glam,
\nfit in nicely with his women’s plan.
\nStay toned and tucked; giggle while groped;
\nand there will be a place in his world-wide locker room,
\nwhere he can roam without reprimand.
\n 
\nI can’t watch anymore.
\nSurvival is all I see –
\nsearching for secret immunity granting idols,
\nlike minds move in small agile packs, creating
\nhavens with no conditional entrance fee.
\nWe provide water to revive, flint for sparking dreams,
\nwind to cleanse the stuck, and protection for love’s roots
\nto take hold, amongst this new reality TV.
\n 
\n 
\nLayne Calabro has been writing for over 30 years and her voice continues to grow. Recently she participated in Dress Codes<\/i>, a project focusing on all stages of a woman’s life that combines wearable art and poetry. Her work focuses on relationships and the impact of our choices. She resides in north Texas, is a steadfast yogi and activist, and strives to spread compassion and foster understanding through all her actions. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nNeil Creighton<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAT THE HUSTINGS
\n 
\nCitizens, I say to you:
\n 
\nShed no tears for children caught in war.
\nThere is no money in that.
\n 
\nThink not upon your children’s future.
\nTake your profit here and now.
\n 
\nIgnore questions about neighbours.
\nYour responsibility is to yourself alone.
\n 
\nPoverty and inequality are always with us.
\nYour wealth is only yours.
\n 
\nFools worry about the state of the earth.
\nI say you cannot bank beauty.
\n 
\nYou cannot live on bread alone,
\nThe only real wealth is money.
\n 
\nCome.
\nI set you free.
\nAccept liberty.
\nInsularity
\nis security,
\nhonesty
\na mere commodity.
\nGather to yourself
\nbeautiful wealth.
\n 
\nGo forth.
\nExploit, exploit, exploit.
\n 
\n 
\nNeil Creighton is an Australian poet with a passion for social justice and a love of the natural world. His work as a teacher of Drama and English made him intensely aware of how opportunity is so unequally proportioned. Recent publications include Silver Birch Press, “Prosopisia”, “Poetry Quarterly”, “Praxis Online Mag”, “Social Justice Poetry”, “Whispers in the Wind” and “Verse-Virtual”, where he is a contributing editor. He blogs at windofflowers.blogspot.com.au <\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Fowler<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nELECTORAL SONNET
\n 
\nThe results of the 2016 election
\ndrag behind me like a trailer full of trash.
\nLast night a nightmare gate screeched open
\nand he appeared in a billow of orange smog.
\n 
\nI need to escape into the woods for a hike,
\nto embrace the solitude, find cleansing calm,
\nbut rain swaddles the earth, attempts to quench
\nthe blaze before the world rises up as ash.
\n 
\nStill in the doorway, I stare at the blanket of clouds.
\nLightning makes me blink and the transformer
\non the pole across the street explodes.
\nThe neighborhood falls into darkness.
\n 
\nI slam the door, tear off my soaked clothes,
\ngo back to bed, seek the warmth beneath the covers.
\n 
\n 
\nJames Fowler lives in Charlestown, NH, and has over two-hundred fifty poems published in various journals and anthologies. He edited the poetry anthology Heartbeat of New England<\/i> (Tiger Moon Publication, 2000). Finishing Line Press published a chapbook of his Japanese forms, Connections to This World<\/i>, in March, 2012. A book of his Japanese forms, Falling Ashes<\/i>, was volume VII in Hobblebush Press\u2019s Granite State Poets series. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nVicki Iorio<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nINAUGURATION
\n 
\nTrump day and I
\nam 30,000 miles high
\nThe pilot says there is turbulence over DC
\n 
\nas if we need him to tell us
\npassengers have a good laugh
\nturbulence- more like a fist bump
\nmore like a rock a bye
\n 
\nAfter landing, while unpacking I watch
\nMelania; gorgeous in powder blue,
\nto die for matching gloves
\n 
\nI could almost love this Slovenian deer
\nin the headlights
\nbrunette among all that blonde
\n 
\nHe will weed me out for my mousy brownness
\nso much for America
\nhe will come for me
\n 
\n 
\nVicki Iorio is the author of the poetry collection, Poems from the Dirty Couch<\/i>, Local Gems Press, 2013 and the chapbook, Send me a Letter<\/i>, dancinggirlpress. You can read Iorio’s work in Hell strung and Crooked, I Let Go of the Stars<\/i>, (Great Weather for Media), The Brownstone Poets Anthology, The San Pedro Review, The Mom Egg, Crack the Spine, The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Fem Lit Magazine, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine, Concise, Cactus Heart<\/i> and Rattle on line<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n Jacqueline Jules <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY ONE RELIEF, SUMMER 2016
\n 
\n1933 Berlin. My Jewish father is a teenager,
\ncurious, sneaking into a rally.
\n 
\n\u201cHitler\u2019s voice, his gestures. He whipped
\nthe crowd to a froth like cream.\u201d
\n 
\nDad said it was contagious. His arm rose, too.
\nLike a reflex from a rubber hammer.
\n 
\nMobs chanting, cheering, waving wildly.
\nNot wary of the words, the promises, the blame.
\n 
\n\u201cKnow what to watch for,\u201d my father gripped my wrist,
\nhis German accent rising. \u201cAlways be ready.\u201d
\n 
\nBut I wasn\u2019t when the hospital called to say
\nDad had been moved to intensive care.
\n 
\nI had to pack in a hurry, plot the fastest
\nway out of the city, resembling a refugee.
\n 
\nThough far from Dad\u2019s repeated stories.
\nNot in my lifetime, not in my country.
\n 
\nOr so I believed until I saw a large man in a red cap
\nscreaming slurs on the screen in my living room.
\n 
\nNow I feel Dad\u2019s heart quicken, his brown eyes
\nwidening, wincing, as I click on headlines.
\n 
\nCrowds flocking to stadiums, chanting for a wall,
\nto keep certain people out, send others away.
\n 
\nMy one relief. Knowing Dad sleeps beneath a stone,
\nunable to witness what he often warned
\ncould happen here, happen anywhere.
\n 
\n 
\nJacqueline Jules is the author of the poetry chapbooks, Field Trip to the Museum<\/i> (Finishing Line Press) and Stronger Than Cleopatra<\/i> (ELJ Publications). Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including Inkwell, Killing the Angel, Soundings Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, Potomac Review, Imitation Fruit, Calyx, The Broadkill Review<\/i>, and Pirene’s Fountain<\/i>. Visit her online at jacquelinejules.com<\/a> where you will see that she is also the author of 40 books for young readers including the Zapato Power<\/i> series and Never Say a Mean Word Again<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRainbow Wohali Medicine-Walker<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOUR ADDICTION TO NICE
\n 
\nSometimes it takes rude and crude to break through the ice of nice.
\nI have frustrated sailor mouth and I so wanna let \u2018er rip!
\n 
\nA spectacularly stupid asshole now inhabits the white house,
\nyet I am still expected, as an esteemed human being, (not my words) and
\nespecially, especially as a woman, to continue to toe the line.
\n 
\nFuck That Shit!
\n 
\nSmile and nod, placate and de-escalate,
\ngive out lots of reassuring pats on the back and
\ndon\u2019t forget to practice random acts of kindness
\nin your increasingly spare, spare time. REALLY??????
\n 
\nWe got tricked into believing
\nMiss Manners could soothe the savage beast,
\nsomehow rescuing us from the Machiavellian machinations
\nof the sociopathic moguls who hold our collective fate
\nin their greedy little hands.
\n 
\nWake Up Folks! We are in a war for the survival of this planet.
\nThere is no time to be pulling our punches.
\nWhen they go low, going high may or may not be effective.
\nOur attachment to ideal images of cooperative goodness
\nleaves us vulnerable to exploitation by the cunningly unscrupulous.
\n 
\nIn other words, we get sucker punched.
\nWe need access to a full toolbox of responses if
\nwe are to win the game which none of us, at this point, can afford to lose.
\n 
\nI hugely admire those who hold the world together
\nthrough dedication, generosity and self-sacrifice.
\nBut sincerity and compassion become like buzzing flies,
\neasily swatted away, to those
\nwho are heavily armored in their own agendas.
\n 
\nGranted, gather enough flies and attention must be paid,
\nbut the most deadly and intransigent will just keep on
\npushing us over the edge of the cliff out of sheer cussed meanness!
\n 
\nAs the warrior explained to the healer,
\nyou have to first prevent the enemy from killing you
\nbefore you can reach out a helping hand.
\n 
\n 
\nRainbow Wohali Medicine-Walker is an enrolled member of the Western Cherokee Nation. She is an Earth Warrior Ceremonial Teacher and Leader. Rainbow is the granddaughter of Cherokee Admiral JJ Clark and in 1977 she was selected to be admitted to the US Naval Academy with the second class of women ever allowed in. Rainbow has been writing poetry to tell the truth to herself for over thirty years, but is new to submitting her work. Her first submission to a poetry contest won the popular vote and was chosen to be read at The Women’s March On Bellingham Washington in front of a crowd of 6,000 plus. This was a wondrous and terrifying debut which she is still recovering from!<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDion O\u2019Reilly<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHELLO POETS: HERE’S TODAY\u2019S LESSON
\n 
\nEnd Rhyme: <\/strong>
\nWhat to make of shitty Trump?
\nThe heartland taking a mighty dump.
\n 
\nInternal Rhyme (also a slant rhyme): <\/strong>
\nThe election was a giant shit that emerged from the body politic.
\n 
\nSlant Rhyme (sometimes called imperfect, partial, near, oblique, off etc.): <\/strong>
\nThis can’t be real, this can’t happen
\na giant shit in a Cheetos wrapping.
\n 
\nRich Rhyme<\/strong>
\nHe’s like a steaming dump
\nfound at the dump
\nwho in four years we WILL dump
\n(Please god, please god, please Joseph Smith)
\n 
\nIdentical Rhyme<\/strong>
\nThe problem with the electoral college
\nIs that a few without any college
\nbent over the liberal coastal states
\nand dropped a steaming dump.
\n 
\nPerfect Double Rhyme<\/strong>
\nNot to say college graduation
\nstops one shitting on the nation,
\nand there are some who have diplomas
\nwho still exude that strong aroma.
\n 
\nEye Rhyme<\/strong>
\nCleaning up a stinking steaming dump is rough.
\nWe can do it though.
\n 
\n 
\nDion O\u2019Reilly has spent much of her life on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She studies with poets Ellen Bass and Danusha Lem\u00e9ris and attends an MFA program in Creative Writing at Pacific University. A retired high school English teacher, she workshops poetry with her ex-students. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Porter Gulch Review, Bellingham Review, Caesura, The Sun, Redwood Coast Review, Existere Journal, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Cerise Press<\/i>, and a variety of other journals. Her essay on the death of Michael Jackson was anthologized in the text Goodbye Billie Jean<\/i>. She is the creator and publisher of the PMS Coloring Book<\/i> and is currently working on the sequel. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFred Pollack<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWITH THANKS
\n 
\nMost of those who did the work
\nwere on meds of some sort; those
\nwho didn\u2019t, on downers and\/or hung over.
\nProportions varied. Neither group
\nliked her. She announced
\ntests, got them through tests,
\nensured that no one (or only the fraction
\nthe principal and administration
\nhad decided was safe) failed.
\nWhen the cheery bong
\nthat had replaced the industrial buzzer
\nsounded, she enjoyed the brief
\nstillness that followed
\nthe out-rush, the occasional
\nforgotten pink or skulled and camo\u2019d
\nbackpack. Still, once or twice
\neach year, she tried
\nto tell them something, but had learned
\nnever to reminisce. And each year
\nmenarche and puberty
\nor something like them sifted lower and
\nthe girls, even those who professed
\nto despise them, blew boys
\nwho broke things and brought knives. Later,
\nfew thought of her or voted for Hillary.
\n 
\n 
\nCHRISTMAS 2016
\n 
\nWe do what Jews do: movie, Chinese food.
\nThe film is one that all the reviews
\ncalled good or great, and my wife\u2019s friends
\nhave seen, and I owe her a chickflick.
\nBut after ten minutes I\u2019m carefully still,
\nnot looking at my watch. Someone\u2019s unfaithful,
\nsomeone cries; a dog runs into woods
\nat the edge of an impossibly nice park.
\nA grandma advertises all her progressive
\nattitudes, a kid acts out.
\nThere\u2019s a black friend, and an Inner City
\nlike a fever dream. I think
\nof how the rending metal and explosions
\nof orbital battle in Rogue One<\/i> could
\nbe justified, though there\u2019s no sound in space,
\nas being heard inside<\/i> the doomed warships.
\nI think about feelings, and how many senses
\ncan be ignored. I wait.
\nOur usual place is closed; perhaps
\nthey took to heart the big point
\nthe President-Elect is making
\nat his rallies of wishing his supporters
\n\u201cMerry Christmas,\u201d not \u201cHappy Holidays.\u201d
\nThey\u2019re great survivors, the Chinese.
\nWe\u2019re not such great survivors.
\nWe find another place. My wife
\ndiscusses the film, though she admits
\nit wasn\u2019t good. Outside
\nit\u2019s cold and everything, of course, is closed,
\nbut surprising crowds enjoy
\nthe lights. They\u2019re not all Jews or Moslems.
\nSome have that look I\u2019ve noticed all my life:
\na pro forma softening, a performance
\nof good will that would not withstand
\nthe least bump. But this is
\na liberal town: there\u2019s a menorah
\nin front of the bookstore, one of the last
\nof the last chain; one could feel,
\nif one tried, at one with the land,
\nfresh air, complimentary sentiment,
\nand sixty million fools.
\n 
\n 
\nFred Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure<\/i> and Happiness<\/i> (Story Line Press), and a collection, A Poverty of Words<\/i> (Prolific Press). Another collection, Landscape With Mutant<\/i>, is scheduled to be published in 2018 by Smokestack Books (UK). He has many other poems in print and online journals. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAdrian S. Potter<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFREEDOM ISN\u2019T FREE AND NEITHER ARE WE
\n 
\nWe are lifelong investors in the dying business
\nof survival. We know where all the landmines are
\nand how long before they\u2019ll detonate. Racism
\nisn\u2019t hypothetical to us. We\u2019re expected to ignore
\ninsults, systematic struggles, the slow smolder
\nof anger under our skin. We swallow society\u2019s
\nhatred like sour medicine. Side effects include
\nunwarranted bullets, nightstick contusions, loss
\nof breath due to chokeholds, ligature marks from
\nhandcuffs. Social media erects a virtual platform
\nwhere people lob threats at a man who sits quietly
\nduring an anthem that was penned by a slave owner.
\nNew tragedies weekly, innocents shot and falling
\nso fast even gravity has to be surprised. Hope is left
\nbehind to drown in the pool of grief puddling
\nunderneath the bodies on the pavement. Each news
\nstory teaches us liberty is a variable in an intricate set
\nof equations. Hoodie equals suspect. Minority equals
\nguilty. Fits the description equals black. Protesters
\nequal rioters. Nothing in the streets or on the Internet
\nis safe. Everything is hazardous, even this poem.
\nWe covet independence without danger. We want
\nto reclaim our destinies without cost. We get distracted
\nfor no good reason. Overlooked and underpaid,
\ntoo wrapped up in our salaried gigs and side hustles
\nto recognize the static movement of change.
\nThere is a source code for survival based on race,
\nreligion, class, gender, and sexual preference.
\nTolerance is an idealistic tangle of knots casually
\ntossed in the garbage. Like a bitter neighbor,
\nsociety knocks and asks me to turn down the volume
\nof my outrage. But instead, I scream. Louder.
\n 
\n 
\nAdrian S. Potter writes poetry and short fiction. He is the author of the fiction chapbook Survival Notes<\/i> (\u010cerven\u00e1 Barva Press, 2008) and winner of the 2010 Southern Illinois Writers Guild Poetry Contest. Some publication credits include North American Review, Jet Fuel Review, Obsidian<\/i> and Kansas City Voices<\/i>. He blogs, sometimes, at adrianspotter.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSherry Rind<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE RECORDING ANGEL BLOTS HER COPYBOOK
\n 
\nGoddamn fountain pens, they\u2019re either impacted
\nlike a kid who ate nothing but Matzoh for eight days
\nor they gush like the Red Sea
\nover the Egyptians seeking to re-enslave the Hebrews.
\nAnd now somebody thinks I\u2019m going to record the name
\nof every Muslim in America? They\u2019ve got another
\nthink coming. That\u2019s my advice:
\nuse your brain, not an eggplant.
\n 
\nThis blot looks like an eggplant,
\nthe purple ink still glossy with damp,
\na curved shape that pleases the hand with its smoothness
\nand heft, like a young woman\u2019s breast.
\nSo much for appearances.
\nInside an eggplant, it\u2019s tasteless and bitter
\nunless you fry it in enough oil to drown a slaver.
\n 
\nI am at sixes and sevens today.
\nHow am I supposed to track the messages
\nfrom people tangling each other
\namid the bulldozed Dakotas?
\nDead shoots, scattered bones, the network of roots
\nbroken. I need lamp oil as much as the next angel
\nbut I don\u2019t trade oil for water.
\nI\u2019ll drop another blot on the lines people draw
\nand call it accident.
\n 
\n 
\nSherry Rind is the author of four collections of poetry and editor of two books about Airedale terriers. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Anhinga Press, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission, and King County Arts Commission. She teaches at Lake Washington Institute of Technology. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBarbara Foster Schutz<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY TO DONALD TRUMP
\n 
\nTeaching American History to Donald Trump – I
\n 
\nOne of ten children
\nwhose father was blind,
\nwhose mother rose before the sun
\nto chop the wood,
\nto build the fire
\nin the big black, iron stove,
\nto fry the eggs
\ncollected from the chicken coop
\nat dawn,
\nhe often said that Christmas
\nbrought a special treat,
\nan orange in his stocking.
\n 
\nTeaching American History to Donald Trump \u2013 II
\n 
\nShe sold the farm and moved to town
\nto educate the lot, and so she did
\nfor each of nine,
\nbefore the youngest, Chester,
\nfailed and died before his time.
\nA teacher of chemistry, one became,
\nanother, a Principal, who set about
\nthe task of blending race
\nwith race beneath one roof,
\none more a Professor,
\nhis task to enlighten
\nand remind.
\n 
\nTeaching American History to Donald Trump \u2013 III
\n 
\nIn calamitous 1942,
\nstudents brought quarters on Mondays
\nto purchase savings bonds,
\nsang From the Halls of Montezuma
\nwithout knowing exactly
\nwhere it was, along with Bataan
\nand Iwo Jima. On Saturdays,
\nthey watched Movietone News,
\ntwo feature films, a cartoon
\nand a weekly serial, all for
\nthe price of admission:
\na coupon for a treat: coffee or meat.
\n 
\nTeaching American History to Donald Trump \u2013 IV
\n 
\nAnd they were proud
\nto be Americans, saluted the flag
\nand recited the Pledge of Allegiance
\nevery single day \u2013 it was enough.
\nNo need for gold to adorn success;
\nno need for credit or applause.
\nNo doubt about the goal: to be free,
\nto free the world from the Swastika,
\nthe symbol of hatred –
\nto help the victims find liberty,
\nto put an orange
\nin each stocking.
\n 
\n 
\nBarbara Foster Schutz is in her 85th year and could teach DJT a thing or two about almost everything, but especially about America and the enduring values that shaped our country. Her grandmother recited poetry, as was the custom. Her mother wrote poetry, as does she, her daughter, her granddaughter and her grandson. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDevon Shapland<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHICAGO
\nAfter Carl Sandburg<\/i>
\n 
\nMudslinger of the free world
\nBillionaire, Businessman
\nCandidate with a Brand, and The Apprentice of Chaos
\nRepublican, Misogynist, Comedian
\nMan with the Big Ego:
\n 
\nThey tell you he is wicked, and you do not believe them, for he will Make America Great Again.
\nAnd they tell you he is crooked, and he answers: \u201cI could stand in the middle of 5th<\/sup>Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn\u2019t lose any voters.\u201d
\n 
\nSupporters of Trump\u2019s Chicago
\nOur City
\nYou stand behind your candidate bragging and laughing against
\nad hominem attacks, and humanity is on its knees, swollen-jaw and cadmium spit.
\nYou say not to judge the ideology of the many by the actions of the few,
\nso that is what our delegates do for us.
\n 
\nProtestors of Chicago \u2013our Republicans, our Democrats\u2013 with violence in your voices and brass-knuckle fists, who shut down rallies with stubborn shoving bodies \u2013
\nAll of you assure me that we have a power:
\nthe power to lead and to follow, to listen and to speak.
\nAnd I have considered for the first time that maybe Freedom of Speech should be a privilege.
\nBut because that would be un-American, and because there is laughing and sneering at hate crimes like cackling at battered dogs,
\nChicago \u2013laugh back. Grin with Capitalism. Sue him for slander.
\nRoar, for our city has turned against itself.
\n 
\nCome and show me this candidate who will make a great but flawed, but humanly flawed,<\/i> but persistently great<\/i> country by
\nBuilding walls, breaking, bombing.
\nCome and show me and witness this country
\nWhere Deception is synonymous with Speaking His Mind
\nWhere Degradation is synonymous with Empowerment
\nWhere Love for the Uneducated is synonymous with Love for Ignorance
\nWhere my Whiteness is synonymous with Intolerance, Apathy, and Violence
\nWhere Patriotism is synonymous with Loving to Hate.
\n 
\nPeople of Chicago \u2013Our Chicago
\nFear this fear.
\n 
\n 
\nDevon Shapland is an undergraduate student originally from Chicago who is pursuing a degree in English Education. Shapland wrote this poem in March of 2016 in response to the protests held in Chicago which shut down a Trump rally. Shapland modeled “Chicago” after the poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg to contrast the rhetoric of pride in one’s city and country with the current overpowering nationalism that borders on fascism. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHOW TO UNITE PEOPLE
\nFor Roderick Bates<\/i>
\n 
\nSecure a position as editor of a journal
\nSolicit submissions from poets the world over
\nSift through poems from Sergio and Mare.
\nNeha, and Baisali. Karlo and John.
\nIngrid and Jim. Vernon and Wendy.
\nPeggy and Cathy. Crystal, Rebecca.
\nAlicia and LJ. MD and Ashley.
\nChris and Raji. Sheri and Sherry.
\n 
\nPublish their work for all to see
\nStart a critique group, organic and free
\nInvite poets who grace the journal\u2019s pages
\nKick back on the couch with scotch and soda
\nCheck the group; note their advice
\nWatch friendships form and poems grow
\n 
\nCall Trump; let him know
\n 
\n 
\nAMERICAN CENSUS
\n 
\nInstructions: Answer appropriately and return.
\n 
\nWhat is your annual income?
\nOver $100,000
\n$50,000 to $100,000
\n$25,000 to $50,000
\nUnder $25,000
\n 
\nAnswer: Yes<\/u>
\n 
\nWhat is your ethnicity?
\nAmerican
\nHispanic
\nJapanese
\nOther
\n 
\nAnswer: Yes<\/u>
\n 
\nWhat is your race?
\nBlack
\nWhite
\nAsian
\nOther
\n 
\nAnswer: Yes<\/u>
\n 
\nWhat is your religious affiliation?
\nCatholicism
\nJudaism
\nIslam
\nOther
\n 
\nAnswer: Yes<\/u>
\n 
\nWhat is your sexual orientation?
\nHeterosexual
\nHomosexual
\nBisexual
\nOther
\n 
\nAnswer: Yes<\/u>
\n 
\nFold census, insert in envelope, mail.
\nWho will America be in four years?
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright\u2019s work has appeared in various literary journals, including Lost River Literary Magazine, See Spot Run, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Quatrain.Fish, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine<\/i>, and Amarillo Bay<\/i>. Two of her poems were published in the University of Southern Indiana\u2019s 50th anniversary anthology, Time Present, Time Past<\/i>. She has also co-written two novels with Maryanne Burkhard under the name B. W. Wrighthard, Ghost Orchid<\/i> and A Needle and a Haystack<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSherri Wright<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTODAY I CRY
\n 
\nToday I cry
\nfor Muslims labeled terrorist
\nfor their clothes and their prayers \u2003 I cry
\nfor Mexicans clawing on a fence
\nfor their children on the other side \u2003 I cry
\nfor women who dare to complain
\nwhen grabbed by their privates and told to
\nshut their mouths \u2003 I cry for the woman to marry
\nthe woman she loves the trans who asks only
\nto be who he is \u2003 and I cry for the Supreme Court \u2003 I cry
\nfor the poor kid in the city who needs
\na school where its safe to learn \u2003 I cry
\nfor the mother working for minimum wage
\nchoosing medicine or food for her kids I cry for
\nhealth care hanging by a thread the women at Planned
\nParenthood closing its doors \u2003 I cry for our earth
\ncrust fracked \u2003 skies fowled \u2003 glaciers melting into the sea
\nnuclear energy in the hands of a man who is
\nsurprised<\/i> \u2003 education in those of a woman who\u2019s ok
\nwith guns in schools an AG who leans alt right
\nI cry for our country in charge of a man who
\ncares first for himself and his towers of wealth
\nand came on a promise of jobs for
\nthe middle class whose unions he long ago
\nthrew under the bus and whose benefits
\nhe slashes with the stroke of a pen
\nI cry for the respect nurtured and handed
\nto him by a statesman with dignity due the highest
\noffice in the land \u2003 today I cry \u2003 tomorrow I march
\nwith others who thought that we would never<\/strong>
\nsee a man who praises Putin dismisses NATO
\nignores security briefings \u2003 refuses to reveal his taxes
\ndivest his businesses speaks trash of \u2003 women \u2003 Muslims
\nAfrican Americans and gays
\ninaugurated<\/strong>
\npresident of the country we thought
\nwas great before the election of 2016
\n 
\n 
\nSherri Wright lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after a career in education at universities and the Federal government in Washington, DC. Running, yoga, and volunteering at a center for homeless, all figure into her writing. Her work has been published in the Hill Rag, Letters from Camp Rehoboth, Inspired by the Poet, Aspiring to Inspire, Words of Fire and Ice, The White Space, Clementine, Panoply, Rat\u2019s Ass Review,<\/i>, and recently in two books: Our Last Walk<\/i> and What I Didn\u2019t Know. <\/i> <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSarah Yasin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFOR BU AZIZI
\n 
\nIn the winter of 2011 Tunisian officials vandalized the wares of an impoverished street vendor named Bu Azizi for operating without a license. He set fire to himself at the governor\u2019s gate, and by his immolation began the Arab Spring.<\/i>
\n 
\nyou are
\na hero
\nfor the ages:
\n 
\nsuccessor to
\nsaints
\nand soldiers,
\n 
\na model
\nfor nations
\nand nations.
\n 
\njeanne d\u2019arc
\nherself
\nmust have
\n 
\nguided the flame
\nthat set fire
\nto your paschal body.
\n 
\n 
\nTANKA FOR TRUMP
\n 
\nYasin is the 36th part of the Qur\u2019an. It\u2019s said to give good fortune for a full day to anyone who reads it out loud.<\/i>
\n 
\nA female with an
\nArabic name, I marked my
\nX for Trump to stop
\nthe hateful extremists who
\nsmear my beneficent name.
\n 
\n 
\nOriginally from the idyllic coast of Maine, Sarah Yasin presently lives inland where she studies world literature in translation using the public library. Year-round she works at the checkout counter of a convenience store, and seasonally she facilitates writing retreats. Her stories and poems can be found in Truancy, J Journal, The Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase,<\/i> and Lovecraft Me<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBrenda Yates<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNIGHTMARES
\n 
\nNo lullaby’s sweet good night
\nand gone is the innocent sleep
\n 
\nin the rocking skulls of children
\nstill dreaming of the fairy tale
\n 
\nwoes or the even somewhat grim,
\nthough exceedingly just,
\n 
\nfabled comeuppance
\naccorded each and every
\n 
\nman, woman or child,
\nall the naughty fools, the unkind
\n 
\nor selfish, the haughty ones
\ntoo, no matter how rich,
\n 
\nnor even if a prince or princess,
\n\u2014until now’s ill-fated, sour orange
\n 
\nhella days, extending oh, no, no
\ninto long nights that go on and on
\n 
\nafter unbelieving eyes try to close.
\n 
\n 
\nBrenda Yates is the Pushcart-nominated author of Bodily Knowledge<\/i> (Tebot Bach 2015). She received Beyond Baroque’s Literary Arts Prize, a Patricia Bibby Fellowship and was a finalist in the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Contest, Her poems appear in The American Journal of Poetry; Askew; Blueline; Brain of Forgetting; Chaparral; Cider Press Review; Coe Review; DASH; Eclipse; great weather for MEDIA; Ilanot Review; Illuminations; In Posse Review; Kattywompus; Mason’s Road; Mississippi Review; Mixitini Matrix; Naugatuck River Review; Princemere; Sliver of Stone; Spillway; StepAway Magazine; Surreal Poetics<\/i>; as well as anthologies including Beyond the Lyric Moment<\/i> (Tebot Bach), Angle of Reflection<\/i> (Arctos Press); City of the Big Shoulders: Chicago<\/i> (University of Iowa Press), Manifest West<\/i> (Western Press Books) and Southern, Volume VI: Tennessee<\/i> (Texas Review Press).<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted January 27, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nRachel Caruso-Bryant<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOSTRICH DEMOCRACY
\n 
\nThe needs of the masses
\ncarry no weight.
\nOur debate calendars
\nare filled with
\nApril Fools,
\nwho confuse rants
\nfor rhetoric
\nand money
\nfor votes,
\nsquirreling away
\ncampaign donations
\nbecause the winner
\nis the one who
\nhas the most nuts,
\nand an appetite for war
\nmongering.
\nWe greet
\nour neighbors
\nwith bricks
\nand mortars
\nand shrug our
\nshoulders
\nwhen women
\nlose their faces
\nto those who
\nmistake acid
\nfor religion.
\nIf the news
\nof another forest
\nturned to dust
\nand another
\nspecies laid
\nto rest makes you
\nsad \u2013
\ntake a Prozac
\nand chill
\ntake an Ambien
\nand close your eyes
\ntake a Vicodin
\nto stop the suffering;
\nthen join the
\nWar on Drugs.
\nVote because it\u2019s
\nyour right \u2013
\nwho do you think
\nyou are,
\na delegate?<\/i> or
\njust a mass,
\nan annoying tumor
\nsmothering society
\nwith your needs,
\nyour wants, your rights.
\nDream the American.
\nDream of all jobs
\ngetting sent to China,
\nso we can get obese
\noff the state
\nof our corn-fed, fast-food
\nagriculture
\ninfrastructure.
\nChow down
\non sightless, flightless
\nbreast-enhanced chickens;
\nand with your bellies full
\nand your lips full
\nand your jeans full
\nand your pockets empty,
\nfight over the
\nexistential crisis
\nof when life begins,
\nwhile the drones
\ndecide when lives end;
\nthen persecute those
\nwho would make
\ngovernment transparent
\nbecause
\nwe don\u2019t want to see
\nthat shit on TV
\nwhile we\u2019re trying to eat
\nour KFC.
\n 
\n 
\nRachel Caruso-Bryant is from Florida and is now an English language lecturer at a university in Saudi Arabia. She lives with her husband and cats and travels the world whenever she gets the chance. When she is not busy thinking about writing, she enjoys writing about cultural identities and displacement, her experiences abroad, and what it means to be a woman of the world. She misses the smell and sound of rain storms terribly. Her poems have appeared in the Red Eft Review, The Stark Poetry Journal, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, A Lonely Riot,<\/i> and more. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Catlin<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIT CAN\u2019T HAPPEN HERE
\n 
\nThe novel written by Nobel Prize winner
\nSinclair Lewis, the novel thoughtful, worried
\npeople are reading now because: it has happened here.
\n 
\nThe novel that was written in response
\nto Huey Long Populism during the Depression
\nthat voiced the fears that fascism was taking control
\nof the country in the guise of anti-communist rants.
\n 
\nThat it could happen here, as in the novel,
\nrules of law suspended, military \/ police
\nstate established, \u201cif you see something,
\nreport it,\u201d neighborhood watching; the fear
\nyou had yesterday, is today\u2019s reality.
\n 
\nSo when people start talking about re-establishing
\nthe HUAC, and there has been talk of this,
\nremember: the people who were called on to
\nname names: screenwriters, directors, and actors,
\npeople pointed fingers and careers were ruined,
\nlives ended, prison sentences handed down.
\nRemember, among the instigators, the finger pointers,
\nwas future president of the United States Ronald Reagan,
\nPresident Trump\u2019s hero.
\n 
\nRemember this is 2017 and what can\u2019t happen here,
\nis happening now. That Trump learned from the best,
\nMcCarthy\u2019s right hand man, Roy Cohn,
\nwho believed: if they hit you, hit them back,
\ntwice as hard. Even if you are wrong.
\nEspecially if you are wrong.
\n 
\nIt doesn\u2019t matter that McCarthy was voted out
\noffice, his committee shut down and he died
\nshortly thereafter of alcoholism.
\n 
\nOr that Cohn was later disbarred and disgraced,
\nhis legacy lives on.
\n 
\n 
\nAlan Catlin has been publishing since the seventies. He is convinced we are determined to relive the sixties and have learned absolutely nothing since then; welcome to deja vu all over again. His last full length book of poetry is American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarion Deutsche Cohen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nELECTION NIGHT, 2016
\n 
\n5:00 AM I awaken relieved.
\nThat nightmare isn\u2019t real.
\nBut that other nightmare, the one on the TV
\nthat one is.
\nAnd no, they aren\u2019t the same nightmare.
\nNot yet.
\n 
\nAt the polls the previous day my friends behind the desk had waved \u201cHi Marion\u201d
\nand one of them had told me \u201cyour son was here earlier\u201d
\nand in a voice not much softer, \u201cI think he voted Republican\u201d.
\nAs I had walked through the curtain I called out \u201cDon\u2019t judge parents by their children.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019re all parents,\u201d I added. \u201cWe know<\/i>\u201d
\nand the women behind the desk all called back \u201cyes\u201d.
\n 
\nWell, of the four that my womb contributed to the world two voted correct
\none doesn\u2019t believe in voting, and the other\u2026.
\nwell, all told, the math says my womb contributed one correct vote. At least that.
\nAnd the one who died, I don\u2019t know how she would have voted.
\n 
\nYeah, sure, my vote counted.
\nLike the probability of winning the lottery.
\nNot very much.
\n 
\nBack in 1969 an old white man smiled at Marielle in the backpack.
\n\u201cShe could be president,\u201d he said.
\nI don\u2019t even believe in presidents
\nbut I still remember that.
\nI\u2019ll keep on remembering that.
\n 
\nNever in my life have I thought, I don\u2019t have a country.
\nNever in my life have I wanted a country.
\nBut now I have even less of a country than before.
\n 
\n 
\nMarion Deutsche Cohen\u2019s latest poetry collection is Truth and Beauty<\/i> (WordTech Editions), about the interaction among students and teacher in her course, Mathematics in Literature, which she developed at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA. Her books total 27, poetry and prose, including two controversial memoirs of spousal chronic illness, and including a forthcoming collection, We Who Merely Know<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Colby<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBETSY DEVOS’ CONFIRMATION HEARING
\n 
\nGrizzly bears are apt to unspool
\ntheir massive claws at the doors of a school,
\nthus education must be blessed
\nwith religious cant, so she stressed,
\nand guns are also sorely needed
\nto defend against wild beasts and unheeded
\ncautions against the threat of thinking
\nfor oneself when the state is sinking.
\n 
\nSo hang that shotgun in the halls of learning
\nloaded to repel anybody yearning
\nto read Tom Paine, Whitman or Voltaire.
\nStand ready to part the hair
\nof dissidents with a bullet for the Bible
\nwhere students shall memorize the new tribal
\nlexicon of the guiding light
\nto the land of Trump and the Alt-Right.
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, Gargoyle, Pinyon, Little Patuxent Review, Spillway, Midwestern Gothic<\/i> and others. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 17 books including Selected Poems<\/i> from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage<\/i> from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Three of her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and another is among the winners of the 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Her newest book Carnival<\/i> was published by FutureCycle Press in 2016. She has another forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2017 titled The Seven Heavenly Virtues<\/i>. Colby is a senior editor of FutureCycle Press. Website: joancolby.com<\/a>.
\nFacebook: Joan Colby<\/a>. Twitter: @poetjm<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGlenna Cook<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nELECTION
\n 
\nWhile Justice dithers on the mountain top,
\na crowd below has forged a golden calf
\nand circles around it in trusting allegiance.
\n 
\nSeeds of rancor, forced to wait
\ndormant in sullen ground,
\nseize this moment to burst
\nthrough rough husks and push
\ninto the light. With newfound vigor, they
\nproclaim fake news to quell our hope,
\ninflate our fear. Their unchecked lies
\ninsinuate through social media, echo
\nin marble halls of once-hallowed institutions.
\n 
\nCocky Phaethon<\/i> now takes over the reins
\nof the mighty, winged steeds that draw
\nthe golden chariot of the sun across the sky.
\nWill his lighter weight be ballast enough
\nto prevent the car from rocking?
\nWill his proud bravado be able to steer
\nthose powerful hooves in a safe middle course?
\nOr, will they veer up into high treachery,
\nor plunge to grim disaster?
\n 
\n 
\nGlenna Cook is a resident alumna of Hedgebrook. Her work has appeared in Raven Chronicles, Spindrift, crosscurrents review, Avalon Review<\/i>, and others. She began writing poetry in her fifties, while attending University of Puget Sound for a degree in English Literature. She is in her eighties, has been married 62 years, and is matriarch of a robust family. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Coolen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGANDER
\n 
\nthe orange gander
\nsteps like a goose
\nhis gaggle of crap-filled
\nfascists skein together
\nplump Trump\u2019s Plump
\nsmothers the nation
\nwith its lily white shit
\n 
\nMichael Coolen has been published in Oregon Humanities, The Gold Man Review, Clementine Poetry Journal, Synesthesia Magazine, Broken, The Poetry Quarterly, Oregon Poetry Association, the Rats Ass Review<\/i>, et al.
\n 
\nHe is also a published composer, with works performed around the world, including at Carnegie Hall, MoMA, and the Christie Gallery in New York. For more of Michael\u2019s work go to the Love & Ensuing Madness page. <\/a>
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSara Dailey<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHINGS YOU SAID TO ME ON ELECTION NIGHT
\n 
\nI was 19 when I learned
\nthat my body was not a mountain
\none had to put in work to summit,
\nthat I was instead avalanche, ruin caused by force.
\nhow, sufficiently scared,
\nyou can exhaust yourself enough to sleep
\nin the halo of your own blood
\nas if it were birth
\ninstead of brokenness.
\n 
\n19, when I learned my tongue
\nno longer fit my mouth, everything edged,
\nas if I were swallowing shards,
\nmy body a stopper-less jar of glass,
\ncracked.
\n 
\nI am 37 on election night when you speak to me
\nwith that man’s voice,
\nand I can feel again the heaviness,
\nthe stark, starless sky,
\nand his hands,
\nholding me down.
\n 
\n 
\nSara Dailey is the author of Earlier Lives<\/i>, finalist for the Backwaters Prize in Poetry in 2012 and The Science of Want<\/i>, winner of the 2009 Shadow Poetry chapbook competition and a finalist for the Flume Press prize. She has been nominated twice for Pushcart Prizes, for her poem \u201cThat Summer\u201d and for her essay \u201cThe Memory Train,\u201d and two of her poems have been turned into music by award winning composer Paul John Rudoi. Sara’s poems and essays have also appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Asheville Poetry Review, New South, Cimarron Review<\/i>, and Calyx<\/i>, among others. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJuliet Delgado<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nELECTION NIGHT: 2016
\n 
\nThe hands of the clock pressed onward,
\neven when we didn’t want to.
\nMy brother said his next day of
\nschool was the quietest he had ever seen.
\nMy German friend said even her professor was
\ntoo upset for class.
\nAnd the faces of hopefuls fell heavy
\nwith the dust glass ceilings collect
\nwhen they are not broken.
\nA flag waves on the moon,
\none that used to wave for us,
\nwill keep waving for the world.
\nThe stars shone bright
\non the night I sat on my porch and ate dinner,
\nlooking to the sky.
\nWe may see differently, at times,
\nbut the gasses and light disturbances of the star Vega
\nalways make it shine
\nred
\nthen white
\nthen blue.
\nAnd we can all see that.
\n 
\n 
\nJuliet Delgado lives in Simi Valley, California and is currently an English and psychology student at Moorpark College. Her writing and art have been used as example pieces in the Moorpark College Library, and her work has also been exhibited in Ventura County’s Literary Treasures event. She has been writing poetry since her childhood, but she also enjoys comedy writing, crafting of all sorts, and partaking in anything involving theatre. Juliet is currently a part of the Troubadour Classical Theatre Company and often pairs her love of poetry with her love of plays in Shakespeare shows each year. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChelsey Everest<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWOMEN\u2019S MARCH
\n 
\ntiny orange fists
\npunch at the sky
\npoint at reporters
\nmake the \u201cokay\u201d sign
\nopen-palm
\ninterrogation,
\nrefuse to comply
\nthreaten life as we know it,
\nstraighten a red tie.
\n 
\nduck bill lips
\npursed like a leech
\nevery day swear
\nto eliminate free speech
\nimplore us
\nto Google
\n\u201chow to impeach\u201d
\nremind every girl, woman, and mom
\nthe history of men
\nwho lingered
\nand
\nfingered them wrong
\n 
\nthat boss at that firm
\nwalls covered in heads
\nof African beasts, hunted
\nmounted
\nand dead
\nhis old man trousers
\nage-spotted knuckles
\nthose frat boys in college
\nwho grabbed us and chuckled
\nthose lust-induced strangers
\nwho cat-called and suckled
\nmen in the shadows
\ntimes our knees buckled
\n 
\nit\u2019s locker room talk
\nnothing bad happens there
\nunless you\u2019re Sandusky
\nand ass is left bare
\nthere\u2019s space for reason
\nif you\u2019re a guy
\nbut no room for women
\nwho demand to know why
\n 
\nwhy saying no makes us all cunts
\nwhy consensual sex makes us all sluts
\nwhy owning our bodies goes against God
\nwhy old rich white men live above law
\n 
\nhow do we distinguish
\none from the other?
\nthe first, our new president,
\nthe other, his brother
\njoined in their effort
\nto maintain their stock,
\ntheir power, their influence
\nthe weight of their cock.
\n 
\nthey mine our wombs,
\ncolonize the dregs
\nof sacrificial blood
\nthat runs down our legs
\nextracted like oil
\ndrilled from the land
\nof places they\u2019ve bombed
\nand covered in sand
\n 
\nso we keep circling
\nseeking out north
\non a compass of morals that
\ntilts back and forth
\nepisodic memories
\nhis breath, hot like steam
\nwhistling convictions
\nof unattainable dreams
\n 
\nand yet.
\n 
\nMothers\u2019 hands
\ncup rosy cheeks
\neye to eye
\nquivering voice speaks
\ntime to march,
\ncome, take my hand
\ncan we survive it?
\nyes,
\nyes we can.
\n 
\n 
\nChelsey Everest has her MFA in nonfiction from the Stonecoast low-residency program at the University of Southern Maine, and recently founded The Writing Sangha, a writing workshop for college women to address issues of sexual assault through meditative memoir. The workshop is backed by the CultureTrust of Philadelphia and The Pollination Project, and was presented at the 2015 Winter Wheat Festival of Writing conference. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMonica Flegg<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON THE EVE OF THE 45TH PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION
\n 
\nOf course my dog had a UTI
\nthe night before the inauguration.
\n 
\nConstantly he paced, swiping at the slider
\ncrazed for the freedom of terra firma
\n 
\nso he could shamelessly eliminate
\ndrop after drop, time after time.
\n 
\nI didn’t demean him
\nor call him a pussy.
\n 
\nI slept on the sofa and opened
\nthe door a dozen times.
\n 
\nI opened the door a dozen times.
\n 
\n 
\nMonica Flegg lives on Nantucket Island where she has taught creative writing and poetry. She walks dogs of various breeds, reads poetry of all creeds and generally has a lot of fun. Her writing has been published in numerous journals including: the Aurorean, Mothers Always Write, Postscripts<\/i> and Unbroken<\/i>. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Lagier<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES
\n 
\nPutin\u2019s puppet demands adulation,
\nmilitary hardware as accessories,
\nredecorates the White House
\nto include golden curtains.
\n 
\nIn his post-factual,
\nfake news embracing reign,
\nblack becomes white,
\ndeception the norm,
\nscience and statistics supplanted
\nby self-serving fictions.
\n 
\nHe insists we embrace fear,
\naccept repression,
\nnormalize dismantlement of democracy,
\napprove attacks on political scapegoats.
\n 
\nMillions of women around the world
\ndemonstrate, refuse to recognize
\nan illegitimately installed groper-in-chief,
\nhis exaggerations and falsehoods.
\n 
\nResistance breaks the spell,
\nreveals naked truth:
\nthe emperor has no clothes
\nthere is power in numbers.
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Lagier has published thirteen books, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review<\/i>, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime<\/i> (Evening Street Press), Harbingers<\/i> (Blue Light Press), Camille Abroad<\/i> (FutureCycle Press). Forthcoming: Like a B Movie<\/i> (FutureCycle Press, 2018). Website: jlagier.net<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobbi Nester<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEW YEAR
\n 
\nLife as usual continues under the frozen
\nsurface of the pond. The water bear
\ndives into a cloud of minnows,
\nsnags one in its pincers,
\nthen rises on a pearl of air.
\nOn land, other strategies apply:
\ncicadas split up the center,
\nunzipping their overcoat
\nof eyes, antennae, jointed legs,
\na whole new being
\na fraction larger than the old
\nemerging from the husk.
\nTarantulas, the lowly crab,
\nking snakes in their shiny skin
\nall grow a new self,
\na matter of the calendar.
\nLet us do the same, quell the echo
\nof an ugly year, rise renewed.
\n 
\n 
\nRobbi Nester is the author of a chapbook and a collection of poetry and the editor of two poetry anthologies. She has published many individual poems, reviews, articles, and essays in journals and anthologies and on web blogs and websites. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSharon Scholl<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE MUTE
\n 
\nShe never spoke again
\nafter the rape,
\nthe trial,
\nthe exoneration.
\n 
\nNot because of fear,
\nfor what worse might she suffer?
\n 
\nNot for lack of sympathy
\nfor those whose tears and pleading
\nturned silence to despair.
\n 
\nShe simply had nothing to say
\nto a world in which
\nsuch things can happen.
\n 
\n 
\nGATHERING PETITION SIGNATURES
\n 
\nThe elderly I can\u2019t forgive:
\nhow they shuffle up, drooping
\nlike gray cranes poisoned on pollution.
\nHow they peruse the proposal
\nand declare it futile.
\n 
\nToo many defeats, too many
\npassionate ideals gone to seed.
\nThey care too much about being
\nfooled to care about being foolish.
\nWhatever the cause, it will cost too much.
\n 
\nI want to yell at them, SIGN
\nbecause you have lost so much,
\nbecause you enable the robbery,
\nbecause you need to be angry.
\nSign because you aren\u2019t dead yet.<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nSharon Scholl is the usual retired professor who finally has time to write. She has the usual publications (Clementine, Cahaba River Literary Journal, Heron Tree<\/i>) with several collections: Message on a Branch<\/i> (yellow jacket Press) All Points Bulletin<\/i> (Closet Books). A practicing musician, she maintains an extensive website that gives away music free to small, financially struggling groups. Otherwise, she serves on too many committees and boards and has a growing allergy to meetings. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Spicer<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE: PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP ON POINT IMPERIAL, SUNRISE, DECEMBER 2016
\n 
\nGoddammit, I did it. Beat the hell out of sixteen
\nlosers and Crooked Hillary. I\u2019ve proven
\nI\u2019m greater than the Greatest, my dear friend
\nMuhammad Ali. Believe me, he was magnificent.
\nNow, my own retinue will follow me to the most
\nbeautiful cities on this fantastic planet. Thank God
\nthe jackal lackeys aren\u2019t with me now. You know,
\nI\u2019m the loneliest man in the world, but I showed
\nthem and everybody: I skipped out on my Tower
\nparty, lost my detail and hired my favorite pilot,
\nBambi, to fly me out here in one of my jets.
\nThen I strapped my chute around my shoulders
\nand landed perfectly on this overlook.
\nI love it here, my secret hideaway, the only place
\non Earth that can contain my ego, my baby blues,
\nmy marvelous self. I can cry and nobody\u2019ll see me,
\nI can scream in terror and nobody\u2019ll hear me.
\nBest of all, I can laugh at everybody and not a soul\u2014
\nif there\u2019s such a thing\u2014can fathom the despair I carry
\nat the thought of being the most powerful motherfucker
\nin the universe. I love it. I hate it. I love that everybody fears
\nme now, how\u2014deep down\u2014everybody despises me more than
\nthe thought of Hitler. The thought of surpassing his evil
\nis a burden I\u2019ll carry, the only feat I may not want to accomplish.
\nYes, I\u2019ll build the mighty wall and call it Trump Wall<\/i>.
\nThe second day of my reign I\u2019m going to rename
\nObama\u2019s last home Trump House<\/i> and paint it gold.
\nWho the hell can stop me now? If I could eradicate his
\nname from history, I\u2019d do that, just for my satisfaction\u2014
\nnot for the minions who lapped up my malarkey like spilled
\nDom Perignon, not for those racist hoodwinkers in Louisiana.
\nDuke might be a duke, or a wizard, or whatever the hell he
\nis, but I\u2019m the President. And I\u2019ll show Putin who God is,
\nI\u2019ll shove Isis up his bare-chested, barebacked, horse\u2019s ass.
\nOr maybe I\u2019ll give him all those broads that had the balls
\nto lie about me. Who knows what the hell I\u2019m gonna do
\nnext year? I sure don\u2019t. Rudy and his polished head doesn\u2019t.
\nHe\u2019s just chompin\u2019 at the bit to persecute that blonde, nasty
\nwoman and throw her into the deepest hole his Feds can find.
\nI don\u2019t know, though, I may not even make him AG.
\nAnd Jabba the Hutt, I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019ll do with him.
\nMaybe I\u2019ll send him to the best French restaurant
\nin Paris and he can eat his heart out. And if he
\nlives, maybe I\u2019ll force him to lose a hundred pounds
\nbefore he returns. He\u2019d make a good Secretary
\nof Transport, I think. Ah, why think about that stuff?
\nI just wanna look at these buttes, the cirrocumuli,
\nand sop up this beautiful panorama that\u2019s mine. Right now,
\nI\u2019m gonna uncork this Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945:
\nlook at it, Donnie Boy, taste it! Take a big swig!
\nSonofabitch, that\u2019s good! My old man gave me this bottle
\non my twenty-first birthday. I promised myself I\u2019d drink
\nit alone or with one of my bimbos when I became President
\nof these great United States of America. I know, I\u2019m a little
\nearly, but who cares? I can do any damn thing I want.
\nHere I can take off my wispy rug and not feel less of a man.
\nHere I can brag to myself like a little boy. Nobody can touch
\nme on this high ground. Not the media, not a man, not a woman
\nalive can know what I know now: I truly love women, I do,
\nuntil they become cows, that is. Then on to a new model.
\nI don\u2019t care what anybody says. Well, that\u2019s a lie, isn\u2019t it?
\nBut I knew I could do this because I\u2019m a winner.
\nI think I\u2019ll buy a dog\u2014maybe a pit bull\u2014like they all do
\nwhen they hit the West Wing and name it Machiavelli,
\nor Donald the Third. Yeah, that\u2019s it. Fuck, this stuff\u2019s good.
\nI think I\u2019m drunk. I\u2019m glad my copter\u2019s coming. Fuck you,
\nHillary! Fuck you, Ivana and Marla! Fuck you, Pocahontas!
\nFuck you, World! Fuck you, God, because I\u2019m God now!
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Spicer has had poems in The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gargoyle, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The New Verse News, The Laughing Dog, Chiron Review, Easy Street, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Dead Snakes<\/i>, among others, and in the anthologies Silent Voices: Recent American Poems on Nature<\/i> (Ally Press, 1978), Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing From Homer to Ali<\/i> (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003), and A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism<\/i> (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Best of the Net twice and a Pushcart, and is the author of one full-length collection of poems, Everybody Has a Story<\/i> (St. Luke’s Press, 1987), and four chapbooks. He is also the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw<\/i>, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn L. Stanizzi<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRANSITION
\n 
\nWinter enters gently
\nthe wrecked and furious world,
\nthe dissonance of lewd laughter and gunfire,
\nbooks blank and soft as skin.
\n 
\nWhen it\u2019s time to run the streets aflame with anger
\nlet us not say it was reckless,
\nthe stars flaring with the silence of futility.
\nLet us say it was necessary,
\nthe stars hissing
\nwith the intoxication of breathing and bearing,
\nand maybe even that fugitive, hope.
\n 
\n 
\nJohn L. Stanizzi is the author of the collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell<\/i>, and Hallalujah Time! <\/i> His next volume, High Tide \u2013 Ebb Tide<\/i>, will be out in 2017. John\u2019s poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Rust+Moth, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Passages North, The Spoon River Quarterly, Poet Lore, Hawk & Handsaw<\/i>, and many others. A former New England Poet of the Year, John has read at many venues throughout the northeast, including the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. He teaches literature in an adjunct capacity at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHeather Steadham<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA GREAT, GREAT WALL ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER
\n 
\nBroken links of Mexican ingenuity
\nrust like a motherfucker
\n 
\nPoliticians plaster posters
\nimmigrants inscribe information
\nmuralists layer images
\nand artists nail coffins
\n 
\nThree years and
\nTwo point four billion spent
\nSix hundred seventy miles and
\nNumberless apprehended
\nmissing
\nor dead
\n 
\nYou can stage poetry readings
\nand dance performances
\nand yoga classes
\nand volleyball games
\nand ecumenical communions
\n 
\nYou can hang art on it
\nor make pi\u00f1ata border patrol agents
\nor craft pretty ladders from cane
\nor drape inner tubes from it
\nor paint it azul cielo to blend in with the sky
\n 
\nBut it will always be there
\n 
\ndoing what it does.
\n 
\nReducing illegal entries to the United States
\nby fivehundredfiftythousand
\nover five years.
\n 
\nEllis Island welcomed in an average
\nof ninehundredsixtyseventhousandsevenhundredfortytwo
\nover five years
\n 
\nbefore
\n 
\nrusty
\n 
\nfences
\n 
\nswayed
\n 
\nvotes
\n 
\n 
\nCurrently in her third and final year as a creative writing MFA candidate at the Arkansas Writers Workshop in Conway, Arkansas, Heather Breed Steadham’s nonfiction has been published by Narratively, The Toast, and Pembroke Magazine<\/i>, and her fiction has been featured on Lockjaw Magazine<\/i>. The writer of Arkansas Life Magazine’s Hometown<\/i> column, which earned her a 2016 Diamond Journalism Award and a 2016 Great Plains Journalism Award, Steadham is working on the final drafts of both a middle grade and an adult novel. You can see her work on hsteadham.moonfruit.com<\/a> and follow her on twitter @hbsteadham<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlarie Tennille<\/strong>
\n 
\nTHE DEATH OF REASON
\n 
\nSlip into the library. Your old friends
\nline up to greet you in their bright
\njackets. Breathe the comforting
\nscent of ink on paper, as soothing
\nas the earthy smell of petrichor
\nafter rain.
\n 
\nWalk past stacks and hear a quiet rustling.
\nThink, White noise from the heating vents<\/i>,
\nuntil the sound becomes a moan. Books
\nquiver, then leap from shelves.
\n 
\nAn earthquake? No, clocks still cling
\nto the walls. Windows display the day\u2019s quiet.
\nPick up one book, then another. Open
\nthem. The ink has bled out.
\n 
\n 
\nAlarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. Alarie serves on the Emeritus Board of The Writers Place in Kansas City, Missouri. She\u2019s the author of Running Counterclockwise<\/i> and Spiraling into Control<\/i>, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals including I-70 Review, Poetry East, Midwest Quarterly Review<\/i>, and Southern Women\u2019s Review<\/i>. She hopes you\u2019ll visit her at alariepoet.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichelle M. Tokarczyk<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAMERICAN PREDATOR
\n 
\nI.
\nTake and feel, this
\nis my body, the body you
\nwill sized up squeeze in the name
\nof the rusted-out factories of Ohio.
\nIn the name of the unemployed miners
\nof West Virginia. Men
\ninhaling promises like tar and nicotine.
\nWhile the mountaintops shudder
\nin a pock-mocked landscape
\n 
\nTake and swipe this pussy
\nas a credit payment for the wall
\nblocking the Mexicans, the people
\nyou say take our jobs as you take
\nOur healthcare our immigrants
\nour water \u2003 our air \u2003 as you take
\nas you take \u2003 as you take
\n 
\nII
\nHow many land grabs?
\nThe golden prairies? the Manhattan
\nskyline? How many begin
\nwith cleavage overflowing:
\nirresistible.
\n 
\nHow many massacres?
\nHow many women ripped open?
\nMen bludgeoned down.
\nPopulations almost erased away.
\nBegin with pressing hands
\ninto women?
\n 
\nIII
\nThis is my body. This is our body.
\nThis is my blood. This is our blood.
\nWhich will be shed for a mirror image.
\nThis is not a sacrament.
\nThis is the beginning. This is the end.
\n 
\n 
\nMichelle M. Tokarczyk is the author of the recently-published Bronx Migrations<\/i> Cherry Castle Publishing. Her previous book was The House I\u2019m Running From<\/i> (West End Press). Her poems have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies; including the minnesota review, Third Wednesday, The Literary Review<\/i>, and For a Living: the Poetry of Work<\/i>. She was born in a working-class family in New York City and earned a doctorate in English at SUNY Stony Brook. In addition to writing poetry, she has published in working-class studies and literary criticism. She is a professor of English at Goucher College in Baltimore. An avowed urbanite, she divides her time between Baltimore and New York.
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPoems posted January 20, 2017<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nKelli Allen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRESOLUTIONS ARE HORSES CORRALLED TOO LONG
\n 
\nHow many stories
\ndoes a culture audition
\nbefore coal weds the wall?
\n 
\nSalmon eggs last only
\nfour days in warming water.
\nBears have sovereignty in times
\nwhen ancestors are sent quietly
\ninto exile. This is courtship
\n 
\nunder and above lily pads, greater
\nthan any condition. In the presence
\nof a maiden\u2019s rice smile, no lizard
\nleaps directly into blue flames. Grief
\n 
\nbetween an aging king and his queen
\nmeans covetousness quakes and screams
\nslacked-jawed from nest to burrow.
\nDusk-time is never the same for ravens
\n 
\nand hares. Gentleness will not come.
\nEventually, anything loved is going to drown.
\n 
\n 
\nKelli Allen\u2019s latest book is Imagine Not Drowning<\/i> (C&R Press, 2017). Allen\u2019s work has appeared in numerous journals in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge<\/i>, is the Poetry Editor for The Lindenwood Review<\/i>, and directs River Styx<\/i>\u2019s Hungry Young Poets Series. She is a Professor of Humanities\/Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Her chapbook, Some Animals<\/i>, won the 2016 Etchings Press Prize. Her chapbook, We Disappear<\/i>, won the 2016 Damfino Press chapbook award. Her poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash<\/i>, arrived from John Gosslee Books in 2012 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. www.crpress.org\/shop\/imagine-not-drowning\/<\/a>
\n 
\nLook for other work by Kelli elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick W. Andersen<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE TWENTY SEVENTEEN
\n 
\nOne twenty seventeen
\nThe cloudy sky can only mean
\nUnprophesied and unseen
\nThe fateful time has come
\n 
\nYes, here is that dreaded hour
\nPeacefully handing reins of power
\nFrom White House to Trump Tower
\nBeats a lonely drum
\n 
\nThrongs cower in their fear
\nAn elder statesman sheds a tear
\nSorrows drown in lukewarm beer
\nThe guitar cannot strum
\n 
\nBut in the shadows underground
\nA spring of hope does abound
\nA straining ear picks a sound
\nA steadily growing hum
\n 
\nA hint of hope\u2014if just a ray
\nAnd resistance grows by the day
\nAmerica will yet find a way
\nJoin the song\u2014don\u2019t stay mum
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick W. Andersen is a writer and editor in San Francisco.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\nNicholas Christian<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBELL-RINGER
\n 
\nWe sit beneath Montfaucon, gathering mothballs
\nfor angels. Sometimes this means lying
\n 
\nin sheaves on the American threshing floor. We think:
\ntoday is outside of us, is the naked, wart-blind story
\n 
\nthat could be true, a bastard of circumstance
\nexchanged in the foundlings’ bed. Intention is like that.
\n 
\nWe\u2019re deaf from its crack\u2019d, overturned crystal vase ringing
\nabove the steps of Our Lady only screaming Sanctuary! <\/i>
\n 
\nSo the withered flowers grow in the common pot\u2014we turn inside out,
\ncarrying the mangled bird of burden growing out of being as we are,
\n 
\nalways craning necks to a sky bruised with the ligature marks
\nof our own hands praying to be hurled
\n 
\ninto some time different. We forget how to dance nothing spins at the still point
\nthe garden does not catch fire the entangled skeletons both crumble in the grasping
\n 
\nbut in the gibbet we\u2019ve been given a flail to play with anyway.
\nStafford was right, when home and identity walk away with the chaff
\n 
\nin the wind saying you were empty but that changed nothing<\/i>
\nmaybe then we will not miss the whisper.
\n 
\n 
\nNicholas Christian\u2019s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Lindenwood Review, Cobalt Review, Off the Coast, Poetry Quarterly, Gravel, D\u0103mf\u012bno,<\/i> and Panoply<\/i>. He lives in St. Louis with his stuffed sea lion Gerald, and his coyote Loki that thinks it’s a cat. He studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSantino DallaVecchia<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBad Stars
\n 
\nIt was the year the shepherds lost their minds.
\nIt was a bad year to be Arabic or Persian
\nor Hispanic or queer or a woman or black
\nor brown or merely someone like me,
\nsomeone who writes poems as a series
\nof endless love letters to the world.
\nIt was the year the rich started looking
\nat their money like maybe it\u2019d start biting back.
\nIt was the year the shepherds lost their minds
\nand let the slick erect wolf right on in
\nfor some goddamn pot pie. It was the year
\nI knew I couldn\u2019t believe in god and the year
\ngod overshadowed the forest behind the library
\nand said Shhhh, I am with you.<\/i> Strange ecstasies.
\nIf you\u2019re wondering how it came to this,
\nlook no further than the bad stars. If that doesn\u2019t
\nsatisfy, fair, can\u2019t fault you\u2013 look at human history.
\nThe shepherds have always been losing their minds.
\n 
\n 
\nSantino DallaVecchia is a poet from Michigan. His work has appeared in The Timberline Review, Heron Tree, Transcendence<\/i>, and Peculiar Mormyrid<\/i>, among others. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCaroline DeLuca<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY BEST EERIE SHRIEK
\n 
\nGod, damn me to hainthood, banshee freedom, spook work
\nghost life, poxing houses, vengeful trajectory of evil spirit
\nat last. Awakened, time and time again aflame, lamp rubbed
\nand spitting my wraith wrath. Smell the smoke, oh, rub the hot metal,
\nGod. I\u2019m emerging, like it or not. When I die don\u2019t You dare
\nlet me rest in peace. Peaceful pales to even scales: I want justice.
\n 
\nWith perfect permission of death, I have scores to settle. Justified
\ngrudges, coals clutched and smoldering close. Yes, I\u2019m a piece of work
\nbut take a hard look at history\u2019s scaffolding, inscribed against women. I dare
\nYou to differ once You pick apart the garden gates that locked out Spirit
\nFatale Lilith, she who got painted warty, wicked, all for the mettle
\nit took to tell the First Man and You, Don\u2019t tell me what to do<\/i>. Rubbed
\n 
\nYou and men the wrong way, right? That she thought<\/i>. Rubbed
\nher own clit and burst star-like by herself. That she wouldn\u2019t adjust,
\nrefused to be body parts first, person second. To polish metal,
\ncook, take blame, submit. That she could say no! Women\u2019s work
\nis never done until we die. So, Lilith got cast as feral spirit
\nkilling infants; guard against her, forget your prayers if you dare.
\n 
\nClassic crazy ex. Mama Maleficarum. I\u2019d be pissed too. If You dare
\ndismiss that, You\u2019re not paying attention. Oh, but there\u2019s the rub!
\nNo one believes us. What better speaker on the grit and truth spirit
\nof female experience than your average man? It\u2019s unjust
\nthe jury we face in courts. Needing uncles and fathers to testify. Work
\nforty years in a field and we\u2019re still ing\u00e9nues, no? The metal
\n 
\nof men\u2019s word is iron. Somehow our truths are seen as softer metal
\nmalleable, murky, what can we even build? Curves. If we dare
\nstrut outside, we deserve what we get. Slut. Head down all the way to work<\/i>.
\nWear sunglasses, headphones. Not that skirt. Smile. Have the powers that be rubbed
\nthe mud in our faces hard enough yet that this world is not for us? So just
\ntake me to the next one. Absolve me of woman-body. Free my spirit
\n 
\nand let me take out my best eerie shriek for a whirl. Fear me. In the spirit
\nof Big Bangs, solder me chains of Your heaviest metal
\nto rattle! It\u2019s my time to make some noise in the meeting where I was just
\ninterrupted fifty-five times. I\u2019ll hiss corrections to the men who dare
\ndoubt the blisters from these miles. Poison the restaurant customers who rubbed
\nme down to smithereens, asked if I was on the menu while I tried to work. (Tip for tit! <\/i>)
\n 
\nWondered how someone\u2019 else\u2019s medicine might taste? Give my spirit wide berth. Dare
\ntouch me or hush me and You\u2019ll taste burnt metal blood. Let he who\u2019s rubbed
\nhis hard-on on an unaware dancing girl just wait to see what my fury wreaks.
\n 
\n 
\n900 HATE CRIMES IN HIS NAME
\n 
\nHe wants heads on platters.
\nFists pried open and forced to clutch bars.
\nMy therapist says anger is not an emotion,
\nrather an echo, a yowl in reply
\n 
\nto fists. Pried open and forced. To clutch bars,
\nto spill beer foam as we shook and shouted and cried\u2014I\u2019d
\nrather an echo, an opponent to fight. A yowl in reply
\nwould give the whistle, prey to my claws, finally.
\n 
\nOur mouths would spill foam as we shook and shouted and cried. I\u2019d
\nheard he drowns newspapers until they bleed.
\nGave the dog whistle, prey to claws finally
\nagain sanctioned. Swastikas. Black students invited to luncheon dates,
\n 
\nto herd token cheers. (He drowns newspapers until they bleed.)
\nMy therapist says anger is not an emotion.
\nThe man sanctioned swastikas\u2014black students invited to lynching dates.
\nHe wants heads on platters.
\n 
\nBUT WHERE TO DUMP THE TURKEY GUTS?
\n 
\nWhat are girls made of? Sugar and spice,
\nmercury rising, irk disguising, flushed faces, white-knuckle graces,
\nand what is the price?
\n 
\nYoung, my one hand learned to dismantle and dice
\nup anger like an onion, while the other hand took up too much space.
\nWhat are girls made of? Sugar and spice.
\n 
\nWasn\u2019t the Thanksgiving I made you so nice?
\nBut where to dump the turkey guts I wrangled? Out of burial places.
\nAnd what is the price
\n 
\nof false smiles for men who leer, lecture, yell? Of endless advice
\non how to stay so scared, if I carried, it wouldn\u2019t occur<\/i> to me to use mace?
\nWhat are girls? Made of sugar and spice,
\n 
\nsupposed to burn to caramel or cool to ice,
\nto comfort anyone else. Clenching my jaw changed the shape of my face.
\nAnd what is the price!
\n 
\nRage conflated, cloaked and blurred beyond recognition, my raised voice an alien device.
\nAre there places with enough air and airspace, where we don\u2019t have to self-erase?
\nWhat are girls made of?
\nSugar and spice? And?
\nWhat is the price. What is the price.
\n 
\n 
\nCaroline DeLuca lives in Brooklyn, working as a freelance editor and educator. She has taught creative writing at Stony Brook University, the NY Memory Center, the UVa Young Writers Workshop, and My Sister\u2019s Place. Her writing has appeared in Local Nomad, The Bridge, Seven Deadly Sins, Greek Fire, Verbaleyze, Zeniada<\/i>, and on carolinedeluca.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlice O. Duggan<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nABOUT THE ELECTION
\n 
\nIt had to happen, say 19 percent of men,
\nwhile 30 percent of women couldn\u2019t
\nget out of bed. Just in time for Christmas,
\near plugs in the stores, and I bought mine.
\n 
\nJesus, what do you expect from me?
\nSeventy three and can\u2019t remember which way
\nis up. The dentist says for two crowns twenty eight
\nhundred, pearly new molars no insurance and I
\n 
\nmust stir my stumps and show I care because
\nyou know, four new Justices, they\u2019re for life, but
\nI would rather read a novel set in Botswana.
\nI bought blinders, too. I heard that it\u2019s bad
\n 
\nto lose, bad to be a loser, John McCain
\na captured soldier \u2014 total loser. I heard it\u2019s bad
\nto gain weight, doesn\u2019t make him look good,
\nif you\u2019re a female attached to him.
\n 
\nO Little town of Bethlehem, can we make a deal?
\nI\u2019ll stop eating chocolate, if he will be still. What
\nwas I doing? Reading statistics. Seven percent
\nof voters believe he was sprinkled with fairy dust,
\n 
\neight percent say they\u2019re going to wait and see.
\nThree percent say none of this ever happened.
\n 
\n 
\nAlice O. Duggan has published in Sleetmagazine, Waterstone Review, SAND, Tar River Poetry, Sugar House<\/i> and other journals; also in a chapbook, A Brittle Thing<\/i>, from Green Fuse Press and an anthology, Home<\/i>, from Holy Cow! Press. She\u2019s interested in dailiness, now and in previous generations, in conversations and colloquial language, in the idiosyncratic corners of life.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHowie Good<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEXPLOSION IN THE PUZZLE FACTORY
\n 
\nWhat I\u2019d like to do if I could is grab a policeman and walk him on a leash down the avenue. Instead, a guy leaps out at me. \u201cWhat\u2019d you say?\u201d he demands. The more I stare at his face, the more it resembles a carnival mask, green, violet, and pink. Clocks can be heard to howl. I guess we have to learn to love the dark. We\u2019re all up to our necks in it. E. Dickinson, in a ultra-black pinafore, approaches on a sleepwalk with the alphabet prowling around her. It just happens. No one planned it. And then? And then the deer are fat and ready for eating.
\n 
\nHowie Good is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements<\/i>, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. His other books include A Ghost Sings, a Door Opens<\/i> from Another New Calligraphy and Robots vs. Kung Fu<\/i> from AngelHouse Press. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Jurkovic<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNEPHRITE JADE
\n 
\nI may not be the brightest bulb
\nbut I know it’s a shell game
\nwhich, by high definition, is a con we should
\nall be used to and on the orange alert for
\ngiven the nature of politics. Given our propensity
\nfor swindle. Our eagerness to take
\neach other to the cleaners and turn
\nthe same trick over n over
\nin the name of democracy. Freedom,
\nThe intentional perversity of truth.
\nA circumnavigation of fact. Fiction.
\nAnd the pursuit of happiness.
\nI mean what’s more sleight of hand than voting?
\nLike Ancient Greece. Like old New York.
\nSharps play the urban decay. Stoke the diaspora.
\nStalk the unwashed and un-imagined.
\nVoting. Fey! It’s a gesture at most.
\nNothing conclusive. A tally the big boys ignore
\ncos they know better or at least they say they do
\nand we believe. Bereft of higher ground,
\nthey meet our standards. Exceed expectations.
\nGive birth to new devils. Say our voice matters
\nthen punch mute.
\nWhat’s it gonna take, huh? How much of how little
\ndo you want them to divide? Despoil? Maraud and plunder?
\nThere’s gotta be a breaking point. Everyone has one and
\nthus too, each mob. Must we resign to camps and
\nshit in dark holes? Our children and elders
\ntheir soldiers and whores,
\npushing their product down the old Silk Road.
\nOver the grand peaks we once called our own
\nuntil they blew them up for coal and passage.
\nAnd we marched in line. Our burden, their trade.
\n 
\n 
\nMike Jurkovic is a 2016 Pushcart nominee. His poems and music criticism have appeared globally but have yet to generate any reportable income. Full length collections, smitten by harpies & shiny banjo catfish<\/i> (Lion Autumn Press, 2016) Chapbooks, Eve\u2019s Venom<\/i> (Post Traumatic Press, 2014) Purgatory Road<\/i> (Pudding House Press, 2010) Anthologies include: WaterWrites & Riverine<\/i> (Codhill Press, 2009, 2007) Will Work For Peace<\/i> (Zeropanik, 1999). President, Calling All Poets, New Paltz, NY. Producer of CAPSCASTS, archival recordings from Calling All Poets, available at callingallpoets.net<\/a>. Music features, interviews, & CD reviews appear in Elmore Magazine<\/i> & the Van Wyck Gazette<\/i>. mikejurkovic.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Lagier<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE NEW DARK AGE
\n 
\nOn inaugural day, skies rebel.
\nNature vomits
\ndeluge and debris flow.
\nStorm swollen king tides
\nrip shoreline away.
\n 
\nOur illegitimate usurper in chief
\npromises a crack-down
\non women, Muslims, minorities,
\nvows to defund the arts,
\ndismantle Wall Street oversight,
\nerase scientific evidence of climate change.
\n 
\nA new dark age spreads its shadow
\nover a divided, increasingly violent land.
\nWinter withers American democracy.
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Lagier has published thirteen books, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review<\/i>, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime<\/i> (Evening Street Press), (Blue Light Press), Camille Abroad<\/i> (FutureCycle Press). Forthcoming: Like a B Movie<\/i> (FutureCycle Press, 2018). Website: jlagier.net<\/a> <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Leonard<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE SITUATION
\n 
\nIt’s gonna be tough because this one,
\nstarved for adulation, lives in a golden castle
\nsafe from the world where he tweets
\nat 2:00AM, while munching on burgers.
\n 
\nHe lusts for a human leg, arm or the hand
\nthat reports the truth. He has a plan:
\nthe media will be cooked into silence
\nin a Crockpot of alphabet soup:
\nCNNMSNBC they’ll have to sputter false news.
\n 
\nEven Hollywood’s Meryl Streep
\nhas been reduced to a fallen souffle.
\n“She’s overrated” he tweets–
\nit’s easy to dismiss in 140 characters,
\nso satisfying to consume the elite.
\n 
\nMary Leonard has published chapbooks at 2River, Pudding House, Antrim House Press<\/i> and RedOchreLit<\/i>. Her poetry has appeared in The Naugatuck Review, Hubbub, Cloudbank, The Chronogram<\/i> and most recently in Red River<\/i> and Ilya\u2019s Honey<\/i>, and she just recently published “Love Letters” in the fall issue of Compose<\/i>. She lives in an old school house overlooking the Rondout Creek in Kingston, NY. Away from her own personal blackboard, she teaches writing workshops for all ages through Bard College.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeslie Linder<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTEN WAYS TO PLAY THE \u201cWOMAN CARD\u201d
\n 
\n1) Ask to be called by your name rather than Baby, Honey, Doll, Sweetheart, Sweetie, Dear, Hot Stuff, or Sugar.
\n2) Refuse to let fathering be known as \u201cbabysitting.\u201d
\n3) Raise your hand in co-ed classes (not just Women\u2019s Studies).
\n4) Take Women\u2019s Studies!
\n5) Object to being asked if it is \u201cthat time of the month\u201d whenever you stand up for yourself.
\n6) Call it a vagina rather than a bang-hole, fur burger, axe wound, prison purse, meat wallet, or a Penis Fly Trap.
\n7) Talk about your vagina! And not just as a punchline.
\n8) Demand equal pay for equal labors. Ask for affordable childcare, while you\u2019re at it.
\n9) Buy a timeshare instead of a cemetery plot when you learn you have entered menopause.
\n10) Go about your life and don\u2019t give a shit about being told you play the \u201cWoman Card.\u201d
\n 
\n 
\nLeslie Linder, M.Div., lives and works in Downeast Maine. She contributes a regular column entitled, “Child of Artemis” to SageWoman Magazine<\/i>. Her poetry has appeared in the Project Intersect Zine, Wicked Banshee<\/i>, and Forage Poetry<\/i>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n  
\n 
\nLi\u00f9saidh<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA RESPONSE AND A POEM THAT EXPRESSES
\nWITH ELOQUENCE AND DIGNITY HOW I FEEL
\nABOUT THE AMERICAN SITUATION
\n 
\nFuckity fuckity fuckity fuck
\nFuckity fuckity fuck.
\nFucking fucker fuckity fuck
\nFuckity fuckity fuck.
\n 
\nFUCKity fuckity FUCKity fuck
\nFuckity fuckity fuck\u2014
\nFuckity fuckity fuckity fuckity
\nFUCKity FUCKity FUCKITY FUCKity
\nFuckity
\nFuckity
\nFuck.
\n 
\n 
\nLi\u00f9saidh is a poet, author and literary critic from the impoverished west of Scotland. She writes from a crack-ridden council estate and her words are always strange. Her formal poetry and short fiction has been published or is forthcoming online and in print, most recently in Poets & War, Unlost Journal<\/i>, and Thank You For Swallowing<\/i>. As LJ McDowall she writes speculative fiction and is poetry editor at The Quarterday Review<\/i> and Trigger Warnings<\/i>. Find out more about her work at her Facebook page<\/a> and ljmcdowall.com<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Martelli<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSEVEN DAYS AFTER THE ELECTION, WATCHING HILLARY CLINTON
\n 
\nI\u2019ve had to let go of much: had to submit
\n 
\nand admit to this obsessive flow in me. I get it. My life
\nwas saved. Yeah, yeah, sure. My friends,
\n 
\nI can\u2019t see the whites of your eyes
\nunder the color. I can\u2019t see
\n 
\nfor the life of me
\nhow to love you. I saw
\n 
\nher last night, shaken, ashy
\nashen, all words
\n 
\nthat say shhhhhh<\/i>
\n 
\nshhhhhh. For the life
\nof me I can\u2019t see
\n 
\nmy friends\u2019 eyes, my kins\u2019
\neyes. I can\u2019t see.
\n 
\n 
\nPSYCHOPOMPADOUR
\n 
\n1. The psychopompadour is gold as the sand in Death Valley. He lands on the cross wires and perches, thirsty, his lips pursed ready to kiss or spit.
\n2. Around his neck over his heart hangs the golden head of Christ cushioned on the psychopompadour\u2019s chest hair. He had the eyes fitted with emeralds, then onyx, then rubies.
\n3. These are the first four songs that play when you press shuffle on his iPod: \u201cHey Joe,\u201d \u201cRun, Joey, Run,\u201d \u201cRun For Your Life,\u201d and the theme song from Baretta, \u201cKeep Your Eye on the Sparrow.\u201d
\n4. The psychopompadour loves women but not his own inner female, the anima, the x chromosome. He ejaculates four-armed death stars.
\n5. He is daughtered: a gorgeous girl, beautiful. He would date her. Date her, and then fuck her. Unlike Oedipus, reversed, he would not pluck out his own eyes. Unlike Electra or Antigone, no one will die or be buried alive.
\n6. Your head will spin<\/i>, says the psychopompadour. Don\u2019t confuse him with Elvis\u2019s pompadour. Elvis, who covered his blonde bouffant with black shoe polish.
\n7. The psychopompadour is ancient. Let\u2019s look at the Bible: he is not the snake in the garden, not Adam, not Even, not the apple, he\u2019s not Cain–he\u2019s the angel guarding Eden. He\u2019s not Judas; he might be Peter who hated women and couldn\u2019t deliver at the end. Probably not, as Peter was crucified, too.
\n8. Queen Elizabeth I painted herself with white lead and this made her bald. She wore a red wig. She became a virgin again for England. Behold<\/i>. If you look at the old portraits, behind her, in the shadows of the palace, holding a lute in one hand and a sparrow in the other, is the psychopompadour.
\n9. Psychopompadour has all the channels. And he can stream.
\n10. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when most of us are very still, sparrows fly out of the psychopompadour\u2019s head.
\n11. Some say the ego has to die. But it never dies.
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Martelli\u2019s debut poetry collection, The Uncanny Valley<\/i>, was published in 2016 by Big Table Publishing Company. She is also the author of the chapbook, Apostrophe<\/i>. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thrush, [Pank], The Baltimore Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal<\/i>, and The Pittsburgh Poetry Review<\/i>. Jennifer Martelli has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes and is the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry. She is a book reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly<\/i>, as well as a co-curator for The Mom Egg<\/i> VOX Blog Folio. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoan Mazza<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPREP
\n 
\nUnder the dark clouds of January, amid
\nthe news of hacking and blackmail, into
\nthe world of revolution, crowds assemble.
\nBeyond tired, past angry, outside in the cold,
\nthey stamp their feet and won\u2019t be trumped
\nregardless of a ceremony. Away from
\nthat view they turn their faces, above
\nthe lies and ignorance, beneath a banner
\nof democracy: One person, one vote.
\nEqual justice under the law for all<\/i>.
\n 
\nNear frantic, between worries, from dawn
\nto dawn, I ponder possibilities of food
\nshortages, power outages, homeless
\nhordes knocking down doors. They will
\nclimb over each other, under anything
\nfor shelter, into barns and sheds, beneath
\nporches, inside abandoned houses.
\n 
\nThe preppers will say, I told you so<\/i>,
\nand those off the grid will hide supplies
\namong trees and bushes if they can.
\nThe world lives within its prepositions\u2014
\namong all kinds, against extremes,
\nholds hope within, remembers before.
\n 
\nJoan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self<\/i>, and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin<\/i>, and The Nation<\/i>. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art. www.JoanMazza.com<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarsha Warren Mittman<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nD\u00c9J\u00c0 VU, USSR 1989
\n 
\nthe shrivelled grey old man said
\nin heavily German accented English
\n 
\nno worry, I watch over you<\/i>
\nas I, traveling alone, obsessed
\n 
\nover my two young children asleep
\nin the sealed Soviet train car
\n 
\nwhile doberman attack dogs and
\nmilitary guards with machine-guns
\n 
\npatrolled the station\u2019s platform
\nwhere\u2019d you learn English? <\/i> I asked
\n 
\nbritish POW camp, he answered
\nthen sadly added few bad people<\/i>
\n 
\nanywhere in world, just bad
\ngovernments everywhere in world
\n 
\nMAN-CHILD NURSERY RHYMES
\n 
\nI.
\nRing around a rosy\u2026<\/i>
\nTRUMP\u2003 \u2003PENCE\u2003 \u2003BANNON
\nA pocket full of posies\u2026<\/i>
\nGINGRICH\u2003 \u2003SESSIONS\u2003 \u2003CARSON
\nAshes, ashes<\/i>
\nSUPREME COURT CHOICES
\nWomen all <\/i>
\nf
\na
\nl
\nl
\n 
\nd
\no
\nw
\nn
\n 
\nII.
\nhumpty trumpty
\nbuilt a great wall<\/strong><\/i>
\n 
\nhumpty trumpty
\npaid for it all
\n 
\nall putin\u2019s hackers
\nand all of his men
\n 
\ncouldn\u2019t put trumpty
\natop it again
\n 
\nIII.
\nTrump and Jill
\nclimbed Capitol Hill
\nTo fetch
\na pail of favors
\nKing Trump fell down
\nand lost his Crown
\nHis empire
\nCame tumbling after
\n 
\nIV.
\nHickory dick<\/i>ory dock
\nTrump is quite the jock
\nThe jock stroked one
\nDown they flung
\nHickory dick<\/i>ory dock
\n 
\nV.
\nlondon bridge is falling down
\nbrexit gone
\nu.s. gone
\nlondon bridge is falling down
\nmy fair lady
\ntake the key and lock her up<\/strong><\/i>
\nlock clinton up, call putin up
\ntake the key and lock her up<\/strong><\/i>
\nMY FAIR LADY
\n 
\n 
\nOriginally editor of an international company\u2019s in-house magazine, Marsha Warren Mittman has had numerous poems, essays, and short stories published in American and British journals, magazines, and anthologies \u2013 most recently Novelty (London) and her fourth Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/i> tale in Angels and Miracles<\/i>. Her chapbook, Patriarchal Chronicles \u2013 A Global Tour of Female Injustice, <\/i> was accepted by Finishing Line Press. You Know You Moved to South Dakota from New York City WHEN\u2026<\/i> is forthcoming from Scurfpea. An earlier chapbook, Message from a Goldfish, <\/i> was used in meditation\/human potential programs in twelve states. Mittman is a recipient of eight poetry awards (mid-west, Atlanta), and distinctions in three short story competitions (U.S., Ireland). An avid traveller, she\u2019s visited over 125 countries on six continents and forty-six American states. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJocelyn Moore<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIn Celebration of N.A.S.T.Y. Women
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women paint concentric rings on their breasts when they speak up,
\na target for every nitwit with an EQ smaller than his shoe size,
\nwho views a verbal query as an assault; on him.
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women know he parrots \u201cnasty\u201d because Mom,
\nsaid it when he fondled his tiny parts in front of family,
\nand he\u2019s still mad; at Mom.
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women raise boys to view girls as more than tits and slits.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t let your little head tell your big head what to do,\u201d she warns,
\nthough sons roll their eyes and pretend not to hear.
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women teach their children that cheating,
\nto win means you\u2019re a loser and that smug,
\nwinners are double dog losers.
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women salute their soulmate sisters who,
\nalso brave belittlement by being born female, then,
\nmourn those who flee the fight and forsake the feminine Self.
\n 
\nN.A.S.T.Y. women brawl for identity as subservience doesn\u2019t serve a:
\nN<\/strong>ewsworthy – A<\/strong>uthentic – S<\/strong>elf-assured – T<\/strong>enacious – Y<\/strong>oung-at-heart,
\n 
\nW<\/strong>inning – O<\/strong>riginal – M<\/strong>agical – A<\/strong>droit – N<\/strong>asty woman.
\n 
\n 
\nJocelyn Moore is an outdoor enthusiast and Trout fishing aficionado who cherishes the open spaces, clean waters and mountain-like deposits of snowfall at her home west of Wyoming\u2019s Wind River Range. Her poems and writings have been published by Rats Ass Review, Round Robin, WyoPoets, The Avocet, Kaleidoscope, Wyoming Writers Inc., Fifty Word Stories, Writing Women of Zurich, Hydroquest, American Planning Association<\/i> and an upcoming eco-poem to be published in the Open Earth II edition of Pudding Magazine<\/i>. Her favorite haunt is a 1953 log cabin in the Bridger-Teton wilderness with a Catahoula-mix, blue-eyed pup by her side.
\n 
\nLook for other work by Jocelyn elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLeah Mueller<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOLITICAL APNEA
\n 
\nThere is nothing
\nsexy about politics.
\nIt drags on forever, while
\nI stare at the ceiling.
\n 
\nJust when I think politics
\ncan’t continue much longer,
\nit finishes abruptly,
\nrolls over on the mattress,
\n 
\nand goes to sleep, then grunts
\nand snores with tortured gasps.
\nI try desperately to rest,
\n 
\nwhile I lie with my ass
\nin the puddle.
\n 
\nOne day I will leave
\npolitics for good,
\n 
\nbut for now I am beholden
\nand need the security.
\nI roll on the sagging mattress,
\ntwist my pillow against my ears,
\nclench my jaw
\nuntil the noise subsides.
\n 
\nI have no other place to go:
\njust this uncomfortable bed
\nwith no promise of improvement,
\n 
\nand the morning is years away.
\n 
\n 
\nLeah Mueller is an independent writer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of one chapbook, \u201cQueen of Dorksville\u201d, and two full-length books, \u201cAllergic to Everything\u201d and \u201cThe Underside of the Snake.\u201d Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blunderbuss, Memoryhouse, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Sadie Girl Press, Origins Journal, Silver Birch Press, Cultured Vultures, Quail Bell<\/i>, and many others. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest.
\n 
\nLook for other work by Leah elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSergio Ortiz<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNO TIME TO LOSE
\n 
\nIt’s cold here.
\nIts color, a ninja turtle orange,
\nand only 5 days left
\nfor el Presidente Electo
\nto inaugurate his burned hair,
\nhis head de mal par\u00edo,
\nhis enano politician tweets.
\nPeople say it’s worth the trip
\nto his Swearing In,
\nthat this kind of shit makes you grow.
\nThe thing is my body
\ncannot stand another Jetblue seat,
\nanother Greyhound cafe.
\nBesides, winter hurts.
\nIts whiteness rusts the snow.
\nIts racism confuses me,
\nmakes me feel small,
\nlike a very distant echo.
\nFuck it, if I go back to D.C.
\nIt\u2019ll be because I want to visit
\nthe Smithsonian’s
\nAfrican American Collection.
\nWhere merchant ships loaded
\nwith slaves are still shipwrecked
\nin my memory.
\n 
\n 
\nSergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard<\/i>.
\n 
\nLook for other work by Sergio elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site.
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPab Roberts<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOW LEROY HE A GAMBLER
\n 
\nA man,
\ncould be a woman,
\ncase in point, it is not,
\ndefined by grossness,
\nhyperbole it is not.
\nThis man,
\ncould be a mis-count,
\ncase in point, it is not,
\nawakens the underground,
\nbestirs the sleeping
\nRevolution.
\n 
\nA man,
\ncould be a puppet,
\ncase in point, it matters little.
\nOutcomes are the point,
\nthoughts are not crimes.
\nThis man, this polezni durak,
\ncould be all bluster,
\ncase in point, let us hope it was.
\nSlashes the moorings,
\ndestroys the safety lines.
\nA blimp, a disastrous event unfurling.
\n 
\n 
\nPab Roberts grew up on a Scottish Island and much of his writing concerns the natural world, humanity’s place in it and isolation. He performed two of his prose pieces at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015 as a guest of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature’s StoryShop programme. His writing has been published in Freak Circus<\/a>, The Pygmy Giant<\/a>, The Leither<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a>, and accompanied the exhibition All Washed Up<\/i> by Moira Buchanan<\/a>. Pab has also performed over 80 hours of self-penned stand-up comedy and performance poetry in London and Scotland. Twitter @pab_roberts<\/a>.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKarlo Sevilla<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE ANSWER
\n 
\nI climbed
\nand climbed
\nand climbed.
\n\t 
\nUpon reaching
\nthe wise man
\natop the cliff,
\n 
\nhe preached,<\/p>\n

“The Answer is,
\nthere is none.”
\n 
\nThen he jumped.
\n 
\n 
\nKarlo Sevilla is a freelance writer who lives in Quezon City, Philippines. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Philippines Graphic, Sub-saharan Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Radius Lit, Yellow Chair Review, Antarctica Journal, Communicators League, Peacock Journal, Spillwords, Kitaab<\/i>, and elsewhere. In his spare time, he coaches wrestling, trains in Brazilian Luta Livre, and does volunteer work for the labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers).
\n 
\nLook for other work by Karlo elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to List of Poets<\/a> or Back to Top of Page<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTEMPERATURES RISING
\n 
\n\u201cBad man!\u201d two year old grandson Sam said
\npointing at the TV during the second presidential debate.
\n\u201cDonald Trump is too angry to be president,\u201d
\nfive year old granddaughter Maya earnestly told me.
\n\u201cHillary Clinton killed one hundred people!\u201d
\nKevin shrieked on the playground.
\n\u201cFake news!\u201d seven year old granddaughter Rose responded.
\nKevin kicked Rose in her stomach, pushed her down.
\n 
\nNow we have Trumpeter, President Tweeter.
\nHis cabinet so soiled with fossil fuel Clorox can\u2019t clean it.
\nScott Pruitt, nominee to head the EPA,
\nclimate change denier like his boss who tweeted, \u201cChinese hoax.\u201d
\nRex Tillerson, choice for Secretary of State, CEO of Exxon Mobil,
\nwho has a 500 billion deal with Russian oil.
\nRick Perry, nominee for Department of Energy,
\nTexas politician, wants to destroy the department.
\n 
\nOnce the monster of climate change is unleashed,
\nit will eat up the planet.
\nI am freaked out with fear for my dear grandchildren.
\n 
\n 
\nCatherine G. Wolf was an undergraduate and a graduate student in the Vietnam war era. And a graduate student during Watergate. She was an activist during these times. She participated in many protest marches and wrote for a paper committed to ending the Vietnam war. Now with Trump, she does what she can to resist his bigotry and lies. But she is limited by ALS. Catherine has published in Front Porch Review, Verse-Virtual, Cacti Fur, Rat’s Ass Review<\/i>, and Bellevue Literary Review<\/i>. She uses assistive technology to communicate, and raises her right eyebrow to type.
\n 
\nLook for other work by Catherine elsewhere on the Rat’s Ass Review site.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nList of Poets<\/strong>
\n 
\nJonel Abellanosa<\/a>
\nKelli Allen<\/a>
\nPatrick W. Andersen<\/a>
\nRose Anderson<\/a>
\nSandra Anfang<\/a>
\nJane Attanucci<\/a>
\nAnon><\/a>
\nMarcus Bales<\/a>
\nMarcus Bales<\/a> (again)
\nDevon Balwit<\/a>
\nC L Baran<\/a>
\nDarrell Barnes<\/a>
\nTiffany Lee Brown<\/a>
\nMichael Brownstein<\/a>
\nLayne Calabro<\/a>
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a>
\nRachel Caruso-Bryant<\/a>
\nAlan Catlin<\/a>
\nJudy Catterton<\/a>
\nYuan Changming<\/a>
\nNicholas Christian<\/a>
\nCathy Clay<\/a>
\nMarion Deutsche Cohen<\/a>
\nJoan Colby<\/a>
\nJoan Colby<\/a> (again)
\nDavid Colodney<\/a>
\nGlenna Cook<\/a>
\nMichael Coolen<\/a>
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a>
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a> (again)
\nNeil Creighton<\/a>
\nNeil Creighton<\/a> (again)
\nIsobel Cunningham<\/a>
\nSara Dailey<\/a>
\nSantino DallaVecchia<\/a>
\nAmy Marie D’Apice<\/a>
\nMelinda Luisa de Jesus<\/a>
\nJuliet Delgado<\/a>
\nCaroline DeLuca<\/a>
\nLisa DeSiro<\/a>
\nAntigoni Dimopoulos<\/a>
\nJohn Dorroh<\/a>
\nAlice Duggan<\/a>
\nMarcia Eppich-Harris<\/a>
\nPatrick Theron Erickson<\/a>
\nChelsey Everest<\/a>
\nJim Feeney<\/a>
\nIrene Fick<\/a>
\nRyan Quinn Flanagan<\/a>
\nMonica Flegg<\/a>
\nRyan Forsythe<\/a>
\nJames Fowler<\/a>
\nSheri Gabbert<\/a>
\nSheri Gabbert<\/a> (again)
\nJade Gibson<\/a>
\nMarissa Glover<\/a>
\nHowie Good<\/a>
\nBeth Gordon<\/a>
\nCarole Hall<\/a>
\nPeter Halpin<\/a>
\nEdward Harkness<\/a>
\nByron Haskins<\/a>
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a>
\nErica Hoffmeister<\/a>
\nJess Huckins<\/a>
\nVicki Iorio<\/a>
\nJ. H. Johns<\/a>
\nSummer Jones<\/a>
\nShirley Jones-Luke<\/a>
\nJacqueline Jules<\/a>
\nMike Jurkovic<\/a>
\nShelley Kahn<\/a>
\nBabo Kamel<\/a>
\nRichard Kenney<\/a>
\nJemshed Khan<\/a>
\nJemshed Khan<\/a> (again)
\nJim King<\/a>
\nMargaret Farrell Kirby<\/a>
\nJuanita Kirton<\/a>
\nPhyllis Klein<\/a>
\nTricia Knoll<\/a>
\nJames Kowalczyk<\/a>
\nRobert T. Krantz<\/a>
\nCraig Kurtz<\/a>
\nDiane M. Laboda<\/a>
\nJennifer Lagier<\/a>
\nJennifer Lagier<\/a> (again)
\nJohn Laue<\/a>
\nMary Leonard<\/a>
\nSherry Leonard<\/a>
\nMichael H. Levin<\/a>
\nMichael H. Levin<\/a> (again)
\nNancy Smiler Levinson<\/a>
\nKyle Liang<\/a>
\nLeslie Linder<\/a>
\nJoseph Lisowski<\/a>
\nLi\u00f9saidh<\/a>
\nDavid Lohrey<\/a>
\nJohn Lowther<\/a>
\nBilly Malanga<\/a>
\nBruce Marsland<\/a>
\nJennifer Martelli<\/a>
\nElizabeth Martin<\/a>
\nElizabeth Martin<\/a> (again)
\nSteven Mayoff<\/a>
\nSteven Mayoff<\/a> (again)
\nRandy Mazie<\/a>
\nJoan Mazza<\/a>
\nConnie McKenna<\/a>
\nChristian McPherson<\/a>
\nRainbow Wohali Medicine-Walker<\/a>
\nJohn Meyers<\/a>
\nMarsha Warren Mittman<\/a>
\nMarsha Warren Mittman<\/a> (again)
\nJack Moody<\/a>
\nJocelyn Moore<\/a>
\nAlice Morris<\/a>
\nChristopher Moylan<\/a>
\nLeah Mueller<\/a>
\nMatthew Mutiva<\/a>
\nJeff Nazzaro<\/a>
\nRobbi Nester<\/a>
\nJoey Nicoletti<\/a>
\nDavid Morgan O’Connor<\/a>
\nRobert Okaji<\/a>
\nDion O\u2019Reilly<\/a>
\nSergio Ortiz<\/a>
\nSergio Ortiz<\/a> (again)
\nMarsha Owens<\/a>
\nEmma Paling<\/a>
\nMargaret Parker<\/a>
\nYamini Pathak<\/a>
\nKarlee Patton<\/a>
\nKathryn Paulsen<\/a>
\nDarrell Petska<\/a>
\nPenny Peyser<\/a>
\nKatie Mazza Phillips<\/a>
\nMarc Pietrzykowski<\/a>
\nMiha Pintaric<\/a>
\nFred Pollack<\/a>
\nAdrian S. Potter<\/a>
\nJeanette Quick<\/a>
\nTala Ra<\/a>
\nHeenal Rajani<\/a>
\nStephen Regan<\/a>
\nSherry Rind<\/a>
\nPab Roberts<\/a>
\nSharon Scholl<\/a>
\nBarbara Foster Schutz<\/a>
\nTerry Severhill<\/a>
\nKarlo Sevilla<\/a>
\nDevon Shapland<\/a>
\nSage Shemroske<\/a>
\nSage Shemroske<\/a> (again)
\nKiara Smith<\/a>
\nMichael Dwayne Smith<\/a>
\nPaul Smith<\/a>
\nTayler Smith<\/a>
\nCrystal Snoddon<\/a>
\nAlec Solomita<\/a>
\nDavid Spicer<\/a>
\nDavid Spicer<\/a> (again)
\nDavid Spicer<\/a> (and again)
\nMark Spitzer<\/a> (Cover Art)
\nJohn Stanizzi<\/a>
\nKatie Staten<\/a>
\nHeather Steadham<\/a>
\nCindy Stewart-Rinier<\/a>
\nMary Ellen Talley<\/a>
\nAlarie Tennille<\/a>
\nLarry D. Thacker<\/a>
\nGabriel Thomas<\/a>
\nAnn Thompson<\/a>
\nMelinda Thomsen<\/a>
\nSusan Thornton<\/a>
\nMichelle M. Tokarczyk<\/a>
\nJane Travis<\/a>
\nPeggy Turnbull<\/a>
\nAndrew Wallace<\/a>
\nAlan Walowitz<\/a>
\nHannah Warren<\/a>
\nFerral Willcox<\/a>
\nAnni Wilson<\/a>
\nPamela Murray Winters<\/a>
\nPamela Murray Winters<\/a> (again)
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/a>
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/a> (again)
\nCatherine G. Wolf<\/a> (and again)
\nRobin Wright<\/a>
\nSherri Wright<\/a>
\nSherri Wright<\/a> (again)
\nSarah Yasin<\/a>
\nBrenda Yates<\/a>
\nKit Zak<\/a>
\nSally Zakariya<\/a>
\nSally Weston Ziph<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGo to Top of Page<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

Edited by Roderick Bates<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RAT’S ASS REVIEW Such an Ugly Time 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/p>\n

 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  “. . . you must protest you must protest it is your diamond duty ah but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty” So wrote Phil Ochs in the liner notes on his 1967 album Pleasures of the Harbor. 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