A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ANTI-MASK MOVEMENT

by Andrew Frisardi

Abbott Collection 27-KITSCH-WB-155 Sm Trump Bust Water Globe-3" H, Small, Multicolor

When pixel storms had snowed their mind
And crystal balls had gone opaque,
A kitschy star so brightly shined
Its fascination made them blind.

Reality itself was fake,
And every breath they took would bind
And spread a virulent mistake,
When getting duped had left its ache.

Andrew Frisardi’s new books, published or about to be published this year, are a poetry collection The Harvest and the Lamp (Franciscan University Press) and a prose book Love’s Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation (Angelico Press). Originally from Boston, he lives in central Italy.

COMMONIST PUSSIES

by Mark Williams

Hateboards photo via Campaign

“Hello, Mrs. Baumgart. Is Kyle at home?
It’s me Austin Baggerly on the phone.     No, Mrs. Baumgart.
Dad is still living at his house and Mom and me and Bradley
are living at ours.     Bradley is my turtle.     Yes, Mrs. Baumgart.
I wash my hands after playing with Bradley. Mom says
I’m more likely to get the 19 virus before Bradley makes me sick,
specially since Dad doesn’t believe in masks. He says
masks are for commonist pussies.     Excuse me, Mrs. Baumgart.
But that’s what Dad says. And when he picks me up
he makes me take mine off in the car.     I know, Mrs. Baumgart.
But he’s my dad. He makes me go with him. He says
if the President comes to town he’ll take me.
I would like to go with Dad that day, cause if I see the President
I’ll ask him why he doesn’t care if Grandma Baggerly dies.
I’ll tell him he’s old too, and since alls he cares abouts is him—
Mom says so—he should wear a mask. Then Dad will wear a mask
and I can wear a mask and save Grandma.     Mrs. Baumgart,
do you think Kyle and I will go to school this fall? Do you think
the virus will ever go away? Will there be more viruses after?
Do you think our planet will still be here when I’m old?
Mom says the rest of my life depends on the next election?
Do you think so? Dad says Joe Biden would be like taking a bus
across America instead of an airplane. Mom says if that’s true,
our President is a skateboard.     Mrs. Baumgart,
was it ever like this when you were growing—
Oh, hi Kyle. What’s up?”

Mark Williams wears a mask in Evansville, Indiana. His poems and stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Drunk Monkeys, The American Journal of Poetry, and in the anthologies The Boom Project and American Fiction. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Writers Resist, Poets Reading the News, and Tuck Magazine.

PREPPING FOR DOOMSDAY

by Tom Karlson

Michigan closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The gathering, meant to advocate opening the state for business despite the coronavirus pandemic, followed one April 30 that resulted in pictures of protesters clad in military-style gear and carrying long guns crowding the statehouse. They confronted police and taunted lawmakers. —Bloomberg, May 14, 2020

they are not wearing brown shirts
they can’t sing Deutschland Uber Alles
these protesters are tattooed white nationalists
cameo clad, heavily armed,
red hatted, tattooed, with confederate flag and swastika
they are dyed in the wool homegrown
Nazi  Motherfuckers

crazed defenders of the second amendment
president t***p tweets open up America,
protect the constitution
these are good people
these are his people

protected by Barr’s boys
the thugs are on the move
ordered and paid to liberate
Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky
they come to boogaloo (armed insurrection)
not native or black or brown
these pale thugs have carte blanche
from the loyal men in blue

BC (before covid)
45 and his boys knew
high stock market and
low employment equal
certain reelection

AC (after covid)
the equation is changed
and the impeached one
the quinine loving
fact fucker
does nothing for 8 weeks
for thousands a early death

and now we have
the orange domed leader
press briefing rallies
urging his doomsday prepping,
white privileged militia goons
to open up
and make america great again


Tom Karlson’s information: My poetry is political / my poetry is about stuff I can see / smell feel hear / read about / stuff from history, / natural history / my history / an outcry, protest / justice, injustice / of contradictions / and musings / sounds and goddesses / moving around objective / reality toward life / a better world is coming

CONTAGION

by Mary K O’Melveny

When dispersed, dandelion seed heads, also known as “blowballs,” can travel vast distances due to a unique morphology of the pappus, a fine hair-like material which holds the spherical seed heads and enables their wind-aided dispersal.  The pappus adapts, based on wind or air moisture, closing its plume of seeds until optimal conditions for maximum dispersal and germination occur.  

the metaphor seems right

too obvious of course

as arenas fill up with 

chanting shrieking clapping

sounds of sickness  backbeats

to our long agony

everyone in MAGA

hats or face masks   Look

to your right or your left

infection will arrive

like a dandelion’s

pappus as it sails off

carried by wind to new

meadows,  gliding down like

wartime propaganda 

hoping for fallow fields

and willing minds   there is 

no ripcord    just free fall

furtive looks  yield nothing

no obvious symptoms

everyone could carry

these germs    no one will tell

truths   everyone will shift

blame   new tears will be shed 

you cannot lock us all

up   cannot invent a

failsafe test   find a cure

hiding inside some lab 

mouse   even if we steal

back money from builders

of walls a plague still looms

dress up in your white coats

smile at your neighbors who

are about to lock their 

doors so you can’t enter

wash your hands one more time

then beg them for mercy

show them how your face mask

can repel each viral 

blast better than theirs  

tell them you have never 

seen a hot zone or helped 

a victim    promise you will

never argue about

anything important

won’t blow any whistles

tell them you are grateful 

you will not doubt again


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

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.