IMPEACHMENT DIARY

by David Chorlton

'Maybe the White House Meant “Take Her Out” and “Your Head Will Be on a Pike” in an Innocent Way?' —Slate, January 24, 2020

The usually sharp
contour of the mountain is swathed
in cloud today. When the telephone rings
it sounds as though a lonely voice
is trapped inside, but is still
best ignored
considering the robocalls from Florida
intent on coaxing
information from the innocent
among us. History, meanwhile,
is cobbled together
from statements and rebuttals
while a Costa’s hummingbird
rests on a stem
in slow falling rain and truth
slips back into the underworld with a nervous
twitch in its tail.

The chaplain’s blessing scatters
as each word spreads its wings to fly
to God and back. Such chastening
language doesn’t stand
a chance at noon beneath the western
sky when it’s strength
in numbers for the pigeon flock
startled into
the pieces of a broken prayer.

Before daylight: the streetlamps still on duty
and the trash bins lined obediently
waiting to be emptied. A first
muffled walker passes the house
with her opinions bound tight around her.
An unspoken fact hangs
in the air, and darkness parts
for the truck to pass through
that will carry away
all blind spots.

From the garden swing seat, everything
appears relaxed: there is no
rancor in the mountain,
no arguments pull to have the palm trees
lean unnaturally, and the evergreens
soak up the winter sun
whose warmth comes democratically
to Earth. But there’s a chill
between the sunbeams as the threads
that bind deception to
high office come untied, and the Red-tailed
hawk claims executive privilege
when he comes down to the rooftops.

After dawn, the sky becomes divided
along party lines. The early birds dissect
yesterday’s words on the grass. Peck, peck, they
take the vowels and leave
consonants in their shells among the remnants
of opening arguments. Here are echoes
from a vicious time: Let’s see
what he can do he’s not
a politician he’s a businessman he says what
he thinks and so on and
so on. Listen till it hurts.

David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and lived in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird is from Hoot ‘n Waddle, in Phoenix, and a long poem Speech Scroll comes from Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library.

SMALL TALK

by Gil Hoy





What breed of turmoil
and woe are we seeing, when

casual conversation
about favorite movies
can seem uncaring,

tacit silence
in the face of
so many lies.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet, semi-retired trial lawyer, and progressive, political activist who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, The Potomac, The Penmen Review and elsewhere.

SEASONS IMPEACHING

by Robert Knox

On the third day alone
I begin talking aloud to myself

Or, perhaps, I will eat myself to death
I wake at night
with the word necrosis
in my thoughts

What is it, oh what,
country of my soul
who will you eat yourself out of
given such rot?
Will you smell yourself
dying with putrefaction?

how can anyone be left alone
with their thoughts,
such thoughts,
when the rats nibble
at our toes

and bandits make
for our heart?

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.

MUSEUM OF IMPEACHMENT

by Anna M. Evans

After W.H. Auden

About the Republic, they were never wrong,
the Founding Fathers: how well they understood
Its vulnerability: how it could be taken down
While the people are ordering off Amazon or streaming Netflix dully along;
How, when the activists are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous vote, there always must be
Young people who did not specially want it to happen, eating
Avocado toast in a trendy new brunch place:
They never forgot
That probably the dreadful presidency must run its course
Anyhow on Fox News, the unlikely spot
Where the talk show hosts deny all facts (which is torture)
And then cut to a story about a horse.

In this Impeachment, for instance: how everyone turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the Republicans may
Have read the "transcript," considered forsaken Ukraine,
But for them it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the House Articles disappearing into the biased
Senate, and the expensive, delicate congressmen that must have seen
Something amazing, a president abusing his powers,
Had an election to get to and sailed calmly on.


Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

HE'S THEIR MAN

by Orel Protopopescu

To the tune of "I'm Your Man" with apologies to Leonard Cohen

If he needs a liar
They’ll say anything he wants them to
And when his pants catch fire as they do
They’ll push his point of view
When he tries to sell his corporate brand and
When he needs to keep an aide or witness
Off the stand
He’s their man

If they ask for players
He won’t run onto the field for them
But when he needs naysayers
There is nobody they won’t condemn
If he’s got remittances to hide
Or when he wants to take us for a ride
He knows he can
He’s their man

Ah, the truth’s too bright
And the noose too tight
The world can’t go to sleep
While he’s making good on his vows to the hood
In Moscow where his debts run deep.

Ah, but no one ever got a country back
By abandoning the race
While he smirks for the cameras with a blade in his sheath
Or howls at his rallies like a dog in heat
Or he claws through our laws while we’re gnashing our teeth
And tells his base (so base!)
I’m your man

And if we lose our way along this road
They’ll let him steer for us
And as he adds more carbon to our load
They’ll let him crash the bus

If you want a future for your child
Or only want to walk in peace a while across this land . . .
He’s not your man

Orel Protopopescu won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and a commendation in the Second Light Live competition, 2016. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, and paper-based reviews and anthologies. Her book of translations (with Siyu Liu) A Thousand Peaks, Poems from China was honored by the NYPL. Other publications: a book for teachers of poetry, prize-winning picture books, a bilingual poetry app for children and a chapbook What Remains. She is currently completing work on a biography of the legendary ballerina, Tanaquil Le Clercq.

NOTHING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

“Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment,” Trump said in a 2007 deposition. “We will be in Moscow at some point,” he promised. 

—The Washington Post, June 17, 2016

The sky reddens, bleeding
on neon frosted sidewalks
my tuxedo shirt front
splattered. In the hole
I dig for myself
I lie
deep in the dirt.
So much good Russian dirt.

We don't rely on American banks. 
We have all the funding we need 
out of Russia.

I am emblazoned
in brass, glass, steel
towers that shower light
like diamonds in the darkness
above it all, I am
reflected
in the filthy snow.

Russians make up a pretty 
disproportionate cross-section 
of a lot of our assets.

Under long black shadows
of monuments erected
not by me but for men
like me, men
like fake gold, gilted
we lie
entombed
in castoff fame, no longer
arms for sale
to the highest despot
arms too short
to hang on to it all.
So much good Russian dirt.

We see a lot of money 
pouring in 
from Russia.

The nights ice over
awaiting the yellow dawn
to melt what's left, redden
flowers that burst above
the frozen mud
and my name, glittering
like a dirty coin in the sun.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Her books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.  Project XX, a satirical crime novel, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. What I Did for Love was released by Bloodhound Books in October.

RIFF SESTINA

by Judith Terzi

Reps take their seats; Zelensky's praying for a shift.
The gavel resounds. Marie Yovanovitch is the witness.
Volodymyr knows how she got kicked out of Ukraine,
how Rudy, Igor & Lev tried to make T greater again,
how he's gotta win in 2020 by whichever M.O.
"Get over it, folks! Of course we did a quid pro quo,"

he heard Mulvaney say. "Everyone quid pro quos."
He admires the chair: the calm, collected Schiff.
He thinks he's a mensch, that he has a rabbi-esque M.O.
Respectful, reflective, meticulous as he bears witness.
His voice like a limpid stream one can listen to again.
His cheeks like a boy's on a snowy day in Ukraine.

Zelensky watches Nunes mock the frenzy over Ukraine––
a country at war. Devin calls the hearings a quid pro quo
of hearsay, a Watergate fantasy, a hoax, ad nauseam again.
The Dems got caught, they got caught, got caught. Schiff
is stoic during Devin's anaphora routine; he bears witness.
Z hears about nude photos of T. Who wants them? Oh!

The wrestler has the mic, no one fights his ringside M.O.
Jordan talks as fast as the speed of light, indicts Ukraine:
a shirtsleeves rant that leaves no time for the witness,
no time for Z to unpack every word, every quid pro quo.
Jim doesn't care what T said on 7/25. Motivations shift––
aid's unfrozen, T & Z rendezvoued. Ibid. ad nauseam again.

Jordan grins, pouts, gesticulates, rustles notes again.
Zelensky's watching him, studying this histrionic M.O.
(Z was an actor & a writer before becoming Pres.) Schiff
could replace T, muses Z. Cooler vibes for Ukraine.
Adam could be his bro: no Burisma, no quid pro quo,
no server, no Putin behind his back, no Joe. No witnesses

like Yovanovitch who got dumped, who bore witness
to Z's anti-corruption stump. She could vouch for him again.
He hears Volker et al., & Sondland saying ni ni quid pro quo,
then tak, tak quid pro quo. Z gets Gordon's schtick, his M.O.––
a zillion bucks to get on a plane to the E.U. then Ukraine.
Volodymyr's watching, praying for change, praying for Schiff.

He hears Schiff's finale––he's eloquent again. Witness
Hill cements the quid pro quo. Ukraine can't wait for Z's
new series: "Magnum, M.O.: Do Us A Favor, Though.”

Judith Terzi is the author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books) as well as of five chapbooks including If You Spot Your Brother Floating By and Casbah (Kattywompus). Her poetry appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, has been nominated for Best of the Net and Web and a Pushcart, and read on the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MAD KING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one."

—Thomas Paine, "The Crisis," December 23, 1776

Our Petition as it stands now:

He has refused the rule of law,
which is most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden governance
of pressing importance,
and when so suspended,
has utterly neglected to attend to it.

He has refused to move forward
for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of the states,
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to encourage migrations here.

He has made judges dependent on his will
alone,
slandering and calling out publicly
or selecting them by loyalty.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,
and sent away swarms of officers
to far locations, away from governance.

He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
rabble-rousers and tweeters
firing on the masses
without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution
and unacknowledged by our laws,
giving his assent to their acts
of interference in our elections.

He is known for
cutting off trade
with other parts of the world,
destroying alliances
cozying with despots.

He has abducted real governance
by declaring the media
enemies of the people and
out of his protection,
waging war on journalists.

His rollbacks have plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
flooded our cities,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us.

In every stage of these oppressions
we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions
have been answered
by repeated injury.

A mad king, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant
is unfit
to be the leader
of a free people.

Our Petition is clear:

The words like bombs
exploding in our faces,
we must all
reread our Constitution.
uphold the laws therein.

Author's Note: Adapted from "The Declaration of Independence" in which King George is indicted for his "injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States."

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

THE BALLAD OF LINDSEY GRAHAM'S PICKLE

by Janice D. Soderling

Dong, dong, it pealed from each bell tower
until full twelve was said.
Cold, coverless and quivering,
Graham flopped around in bed.

He sat up, did the Senator,
and stared into the night
for at the footboard of his bed
commenced a nebulous light.

A ghastly apparation grew
and softly did it moan.
With trembling hands, it held aloft
a moss-bedecked tombstone.

"Oh, Lindsey," wheezed the ghostly guest.
Oh, Lindsey Graham, behold."
There on the mildewed stone was writ,
Orange glitter is not gold.

"And quid pro quo is not BS.
Go read the damning transcript."
A tortured moan froze Lindsay's blood,
"Far better men than you've flipped.

"Beware the traitorous pumpkin man."
The moan rose to a shout.
"I come to save you from yourself."
The frightened man cried out,

"Who art thou, apparation grim?
Who gives my blood such chill?
The Ghost of Hearings-Yet-To-Come?
Or that socialist, Joe Hill?

The glowing ghost gave mirthless laugh.
"Joe Hill has never died.
Takes more than guns to kill a man,
No matter how they tried.

"John sent me here to wake you up.
You're backing the wrong horse.
The bus is nigh. His game is rigged.
Stay off his damned golf course."

Then Lindsey woke, relieved, and said,
"Joe Hill's a loser Commie.
But that's the last time that I eat
dill pickles with pastrami."

Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to TheNewVerse.News. Her work was recently at Light, Better Than Starbucks, and La Libélula Vaga.

BIDEN OUR TIME

by Edmund Conti

Cartoon by Rob Rogers

When you want to die in state
And you need a pyramid,
Don’t offer up a camel, mate.
That’s not the proper quid.

Let me help you with your Latin, kid.                                                                                                                                  
It’s not that all profound.
You need the quo to get the quid
And not the other way around.

Say, you do not like your ego
And  prefer another id.
As they’ll tell you in Oswego.
You must let them see your quid.

Or say you’d like a Javelin.
Just respect the White House bid.
Stop your country from unravelin’
For a small (wink, wink) (hint, hint) quid.


Edmund Conti will accept any offer for his poetry. Lucky for you, it's free verse.

BLUE-PLATE SPECIAL

by Melissa Balmain

Image source: White Center Blog

It sounds so delicious—mmm, peach-mint—
a dish of fruit, sugar and flour
that arrives piping hot, topped with cognac (a lot),
and takes minutes to make and devour.

But instead the thing's bitter and tricky
(the recipe's centuries old),
an impossible meal—a soufflé stuffed with eel—
that of course we'll be serving ice cold.

Will the one that it's for duly eat it?
Will he vomit it up on our shirts?
Who among us can say? All that's left is to pray
that in time there will be just desserts.

Melissa Balmain edits Light, a journal of comic verse. The author of Walking In on People (winner of the Able Muse Book Award), she has new and upcoming work in The American Bystander, The Hopkins Review, and Literary Matters.

WET PROPHECY

by Gil Hoy

Image source: Politics PA

The sea is calling for you, like the Devil.
Like the father you could never best.
Like the Heavenly Father, you could
never see. Davy Jones’s locker is not
just a kid’s game. You deservith its depths.


Author’s note: My friend Devon made me do it.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who has studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared (or will be appearing) most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, TheNewVerse.News, Poetry24, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, I am not a silent poet, and The Potomac. 

OUR AHAB

by Devon Balwit

Photo from William Thomas Online.

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee … a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.


Daily, my stump percusses loss.
I punish the deck-timbers to-ing and fro-ing.
I hammer divots into pine. My underlings suspect
me mad but are too weak to topple me.
Somewhere a blanched and crenellated fin
froths the waters and flags my nemesis.
Bubble the very stench of hell
from my machinations, I will have him.
Not even my young wife slakes
this thirst. My gold doubloon
gaudies the mast. Whoever sings my foe
can pry it loose. I cannot sleep
for visions of ropes playing out
like spider silk, lance-men dangling
from his bulk. O to drain him and render him,
to spring a rib from his vaulted chest
and craft myself a new limb, an ivory needle
to tattoo the Earth with my passing over.
I count not the cost, so sweet my stupor.

Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.

WHEN THE GAVEL SOUNDS, MADAM SPEAKER . . .

by Marsha Owens

. . . impeach or not impeach may be the question.
The answer is Yes! Impeach his sorry ass
not because it will rid us of him
but because it will ridicule him
and become our only retributive act.

Begin slowly, pick off the scab
one layer at a time—
for every caged child
and homeless veteran
for the dark-skinned boy
and the Muslim parents
for Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford
and for each uncounted voter
for the Puerto Ricans
and for our pitiful planet

for all of us who feel trapped in the fetal position
anti-depressants scattered on bedside tables
fear streaming down our cheeks
desperation roped tight in the darkest places
tossed like shrouds around our collective shoulders.

Marsha Owens is a retired educator who lives and writes in Richmond VA. Her poems and essays have appeared at TheNewVerse.News, Huffington Post, TheWildWord, Rat’s Ass Review, and Streetlight Magazine. She is a co-editor of the anthology Lingering in the Margins to be released in the Spring.

LOVE SONG FOR A WORD

by Linda Ferguson 

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times (October 2, 2018) has found.


Impeach—

my favorite word today,
makes me think of fruit, ripe and juicy,
Herbert’s farm, cart of pumpkins,
and pears, shaped like a womb,
(change the w for a c and get comb—
as in comb your hair in front of the mirror, the place where your eyes meet your eyes),

impeach—

makes me think of hands cupping a plentitude of other words:

each, chime, epic, Pam (my big-hearted friend),
ahem (a bid for attention),
ha! (what Truth exclaims when she
slips into the room, disguised
in cape and cap (with a feather in it—how dashing!),
hip the place where women carry the weight of their children,
champ the one who won the contest fair and square,
and ice
and mice, as in blind,
and pie, as in a slice served warm, loaded with apples
picked from a tree not sprayed with pesticides (cide as in cancer as in cell as in prison
     as in lock and key),

we like to say easy as pie or pie in the sky (the slenderest of hopes),

impeach:

rhymes with speech (as in free)—or within reach, in assonance with possibility,
with just one more e we could have peace—

sweet nectar of a word—

impeach.



Linda Ferguson is an award-winning writer of poetry, fiction and essays. Her poetry chapbook was published by Dancing Girl Press. She has a passion for teaching creative writing classes that inspire and support students of all ages.

T***P ADDRESSES THE SURVIVORS

by Earl J Wilcox

Thank you all for coming.
It’s so good to see such a great crowd,
especially those of you in pajamas,
without food, but carrying your pets,
and those who came wading or boating
in hip-deep waters, such a sacrifice, and
I am so pleased to see you old folks carrying
your meds, particularly one old grandma,
what a trooper you are granny,
to come all this way to see me here.
This morning, Melania and I are so thrilled
with this great turnout, your happy, smiling
faces, cheering us on. Truly we all—men and
women and children and dogs and cats, the
lame, the sick and frightened, such beautiful
faces—all are making America great again!
Thank you all for coming to see me.


Earl J. Wilcox, once a graduate student in Texas, lives now in SC, sends his best thoughts to his Texas friends enduring the heavy Harvey rains.