THE AMERICAN GOSPEL (2020 EDITION)

by Avalon Felice Lee

In the beginning…

January judgment 

Red hat, white lies

"The flu is worse!" he scorns

as his gavel cudgels China, the blue-faced, the blue-lunged

The pen of law

holds the ink for healthcare blueprints. 

The dough in his fist

for swab tests; for the people. 

              

February denial

Nailed wrists, or tied hands?

Our savior, or an excuse?

Americans,

             repent!

                          Beware of

                                       fake news

                                                    sham gold

                                                                 idols— 

Nothing to worry about! Nothing at all!

Come to the altar, worship whoever’s crowned

The winged choir guard the American garden

from Wuhan fiends

And so, nib unscathed

Pockets heavy

The Gospel

Good thing he cares for his shares 

The yeast for His bread

unrisen, decayed

So, He Marches forward

And trumpets that “the numbers are good” as is

apparently

contrarily

But April showers make faith dour.

Just in case, behind Jericho bricks

He breaks bread

for swab tests; for His people

crumbs

Oh, you sinner

Cast doubt from your mind!

May you rejoice!

The Savior saves His people!

Good thing he cares for his shares.

Revelation

Though idols dine in violet silk, one day

the synthetic dye will blanch

Dress in your Sunday best, filter masks

Earth will soon steal the recipe for

manna

Sacrifice pedestrian beer

for communion wine, Purell

June bugs, heathens, see the sunup

The world ends not with a virus!

(But by the folly of man.)

Avalon Felice Lee is an Asian-American Californian. She has been writing poetry and prose since the age of eleven. Her works have been published in The Heritage Review, Kalopsia Literary Journal, and elsewhere.

A PESSIMIST TAKES STOCK

by George Salamon

Darkness & Light Art Print by Zeke Tucker

"Pessimism is a conscious filter which disarms ideologues and frees us to act in a practical manner.” —John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion

The air all around our leader echoes with shouts,

His Tweets can not put the tiles that fell off the

Roof of his political temple back up, the storm of

Coronavirus has come and its furious waves grow

Denser, it bursts through masks and measurements

As it rages and more than 142,000 lives have gone down.

Our leader is concerned only with the quadrennial

Cockfight staged for us as Democracy while too many

Among us have lost touch with first things,as bands of

Rebels, marginalized and mocked, try to restore it,

In their own fashion, forcing us to see the state of our

Union from the short view, pitch in, waiting for the

Long view to stumble and stagger close enough to

Lead us to the light out of the darkness we chose.

George Salamon took to pessimism when he was a refugee kid in Switzerland during World War Two and the Holocaust, but he has not let it sour into cynicism. He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, and most recently has contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems and TheNewVerse.News.

A PRESIDENT SO VILE

by James Penha

The New Yorker, July 20, 2020

"The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday." —The Washington Post, July 19, 2020

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” —Sherlock Holmes

If America were ever
to have a President so
vile and blasphemous

to his oath—to preserve

and protect—he’d seek

at every turn of a poll

by means unfair and foul 

to dwindle rival voters

especially those of color…

should a pandemic come

to rage, like him, against

minorities and raze the poor

particularly, might he not ignore

or even encourage a plague

he deems allied to his future?

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

JUST STAY CALM

a cento-haibun
by Ed Gold

It’s going to be just fine. We are doing an incredible job. Everything is under control. It’s just one guy coming in from China. We do have a plan, and we think it will be handled very well. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done! I said it would go away, and it will go away. Everything is totally under control. Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. Stock market starting to look very good to me! The flu is worse! Just stay calm, it will go away. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear. We have handled it very well. I’m choosing not to wear a mask. It’s only a recommendation; it’s voluntary. So when we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that, as in some respects, a good thing because it means our testing is much better. Really, it’s a badge of honor. Some areas we thought may be gone, but they flared up, and we’re putting out the flames or the fires. This is the democrats’ new hoax! 99 out of 100 cases are totally harmless. It’s going to be just fine. We are doing an incredible job.

Just stay calm. One day,
It’ll be a miracle:
he will disappear.

Ed Gold has a chapbook, Owl, and poems in the Ekphrastic Review, TheNewVerse.News, Passager, Think, New York Quarterly, Kakalak, Window Cat Press, Kansas Quarterly, Cyclamens and Swords, Poet Lore, Rat’s Ass Review, Homonym Journal, and many others. For 15 years, he taught at the University of Maryland and now is a writer, editor, and writing trainer for various government agencies and large corporations. For the Poetry Society of South Carolina, he runs the Skylark contest for high school poets. Ed lives in Charleston with his wife, Amy Robinson, and their terrier, Edie.

DEAR GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA

a Double Dactyl
by Susan Vespoli






Clusterfuck, muster pluck.
Wake up, Doug Ducey,
COVID is killing us,
viralling doom.

Listen to doctors; don't
unjustifiably
sacrifice kids and staff
back in classrooms.

Susan Vespoli writes from Arizona, the COVID hotspot where our governor shrugs. She's had work published in spots such as TheNewVerse.News, Rattle, Nasty Women Poets, and Nailed Magazine.