ALTERNATIVE FACTS

by Nancy Iannucci 

Bridget Bishop’s tavern
was a bump on a buggy ride
from Salem Village to Salem Town

where the menfolk congregated
like hogs over mugs of grog
they watched her closely
as she weaved in and out
of each Goodman,
bobbing like a blood-red
cherry in a cocktail.
they licked their lips
when she spoke outhouse-speak
& tried into the sunrise to intercept
her pass, grope her smicket
underneath a thicket
of red calico but she was
brassy, nimble like a cricket.
her familiar tormented their flesh
as they slept wet from dreams
of her dancing above their beds:
It was Bridget Bishop! they pointed.
She pinned me down in the night;
I could not sleep nor breathe!
the townsfolk sat & swayed
to a melody of alternative facts
& with their eyes closed
chanted in their Sunday best,
Guilty! Lock her up!
Hathorne's gavel pounded
sending her swinging
to the whine
of frictional
wood and twine
& it was there at
Proctor’s Ledge where
the menfolk licked
their lips for the
last time
trusting their
satanic satyriasis
had been cast out
with the witch.

Nancy Iannucci is a historian who teaches history and lives poetry in Troy, NY. Her work is published/forthcoming in numerous publications including Bop Dead City, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Star 82 Review (*82), Gargoyle, Amaryllis, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Nixes Mate Review,  Poetry Breakfast, Rose Red Review, Three Drops from a Cauldron, and her poem “Howling” won one of Yellow Chair Review’s Rock the Chair Challenges.

Details at ExtraNewsFeed

AMERICA 2017

by Edward Zuk

An old, crass, sad, vindictive president;
Congress a swamp its citizens abhor;
A cabinet of the incompetent;
The coasts and heartland in a shouting war;

Cracked pipes and bridges no one tries to fix;
Firms profiteering from the people's health;
Churches that preach on cash and politics;
Bankers and brokers hoarding all the wealth;

Companies persons; prisons privatized;
Courtesy dead; the crazies resolute;
News faked; land fracked; science politicized;
Judges abused; the Truth in disrepute;

And the poor hurt and lashing out in pain
Are what will make the country great again?


Edward Zuk is an essayist and poet from British Columbia, Canada.  His work has appeared in Haiku 21, Queen's Quarterly, Raintown Review, and other publications.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

by Kristina England

Cover created by Tim O’Brien, Professor at Pratt Institute and President at Society Of Illustrators

1.

Hate crimes are increasing in schools.
That's a lie, Mother stammers over the phone.
No, it's a fact.
Well they deserve it,  
putting "Black Lives Matter" stickers
on the back of their cars.
Of course they matter . . . 

2.

The drought outside is not a drought.
The planet is not warming.
It's just a dry spell.
Let it go. We'll be fine.

3.

Pink hats.
More than one million?
Pwah.
There were no pink hats.
Even if there was an "alleged" march,
it's obvious they didn't vote
anyway.

4.

Mother puts shackles on my hands,
says it's the latest fashion,
says to be happy where I am.
Silent, stay, good girl.

I am in a room with no mirrors
no windows, no way of reflecting.
I shed tears into my hand,
look for hope in a cupped pond,
but the water has seeped,
through, skin cracks in
white-walled room.

I start chanting, release me, release me.
Mother fixes her crown and says,
There's no prison here.
We live in a castle made of ice cream.

I chant louder and louder
until I can hear a frenzy of pink hats
chant in unison.

Mother frowns, asks a servant
to bring her another reporter's head on a platter.
And cut off these daughters' ears.
All of them, the servant asks.
All of them, she says,
then goes back to tweeting about her day.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She is a writer and photographer.