Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

DICK TO LARRY

by George Spencer

". . . if you closed Guantanamo, you'd have to find
someplace else to put these folks."
--Dick Cheney to Larry King

As the presidential straw sucked the remaining petroleum deposits dry
to fill the national cup to overflowing,
marshmallows roasted alongside Sunnis and Shiites on a spit
turned by congressmen and basted by lords of the law disguised as John Wayne.
Waiters tuniced in the best money could buy
and beach sandals by guess who arrived in Hummers.

On this day of the annual constitutional joke
at the dinner table were two raped Sudanese twins, cute in their look-alike tears,
some recently rendered Afganis sad because they had no fingernails to paint,
two dead Iraqis representing Abu Ghraib's bleeding hearts society
and the usual suspects protesting their treatment at Guantanamo.

This annual expiation took place during the World Series
when attention was elsewhere.


George Spencer lives in Ecuador half the year where he started its first poetry slam. Recently, he had poems in CLWN WR, Stained Sheets, Rain Tiger, 63 Channels and Poetry MidWest. PWP is publishing his chapbook Obscene Richness of Our Times in '09.
__________________________________________________