THE OSCAR

by Margaret D. Stetz

…for the “Best Adapted
Life”
goes to the women of
my generation
we make up most
of the Academy
and won
though no one else would
vote for us
but learned at last
to write our own names
on the ballot
then turn up with a speech
for the acceptance
that we’ve never felt
of course the host
has withering jokes 
at our expense
but we don’t
slap him
we’ve always swallowed more
at work at home in bed
than pride
when all our names 
are called
we will not miss 
this moment
although our bladders fill like
Thanksgiving Day Parade
balloons
the trailing hems of gowns
catch heels and trip us
on the way to reach
the stage
where music has already 
played us off before
we even speak
the microphones the cameras
shutting down
we shout our thanks
for one another’s 
help and strength
into the emptying auditorium.
Our afterparty invitations
are for a future day
we don’t know when
but meanwhile
stand 
just stand
and keep our grip on something
golden.

Margaret D. Stetz, a lifelong feminist and a poet, is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware.

TIME'S UP

by Judy Juanita

“Burn this city,” a photograph by Anthony Citro.

Just because Woolworth's lunch counters were integrated

And black people could buy their lunch there

Didn't mean that Woolworth's as an institution wasn't fading

Its time was up.

Just because blacks integrated the Academy Awards

Showed up and showed out in 2022 

Doesn't mean that Hollywood as an institution isn't fading. 

I said it once and I'll say it again:

We should all be so disgusted by this perversity

That we boycott the Academy Awards and Golden Globes

As the pimps and hos conventions they are. 

Of course, who am I but a black woman

Old as coffee grounds, talking still 

About the mistreatment of women? 

Besides it being a display by the rich in front of the rich 

Because they're effing rich and can floorshow v. streetfight

The "slap" is good for biz. And there still is no biz like show biz.

Meanwhile the exploitation of "the nubile bodies they peed and shat upon" 

Continues practically unabated. If you think women aren't still peed and shat upon

Please tell me why female broadcasters and weathercasters show much 

Flesh/leg/cannot age while their male counterparts can look like Elmer Fudd

And stay employed until they're way past 65. 

Please tell me why Kevin Costner can walk out and preach to the minions 

With gravitas and brag about being 68 during the awards

While the "sell by" date for females in H'wood is 38 or so 

(unless they're a supertalented Brit).

Please, this slap wasn't shit. 

The real problem is that H'wood is as out-of-date 

An institution as slavery. 

But because it's so profitable for the slave-owners

It hasn't faded out completely. 

But its time is up.

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways will be published by Livingston Press  [UWA] in July, 2022. 

OSCAR POSTS ON FACEBOOK

by Earl J Wilcox

What a night! I was hugged, fondled,
stroked, laughed at, cried upon, nestled
in the arms of a dude who encouraged
every weird person to stay weird,
molded into chocolate and stuck under
Oprah’s seat, then found myself staring
at this chick who had no panties on,
plus getting too close to a very mature
Doogie Howser who paraded his package
in tighty-whities. But the highlight
of the evening for this Oscar came
when old J. K. finally grasped me,
waved and yelled to everyone
about calling their parents. Dang
if that Oscar After-Party didn’t go
on all night while I sat on tables,
on leather limo seats, on toilet seats,
and on one cute little table during a one-
night stand between you’ll never guess
who, but I am not telling, though I will
say this: not everything is a theory anymore.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.

MY GUNS ARE NAMED JESUS

by S

Image source: Kind of Creepy

                        for Wayne and Ted

Before I slide between the sheets each night
I kneel and pray to my guns
All 352 dozing in the safes
I call them Jesus

I pray to them they'll never leave
I pray to them for loyalty and inspiration
To commit the be all to end all gun crime
And then I realize there'll never be
What anti-gunners call the tipping point
The tipping point will never occur
Too many people like me are out there

Jesus, why are you so beautiful
In blue and black steel
Home to majestic barrels of death
Why do you seduce me
With holy matrimony
Of terror and helpless innocence

My aunt told me angels of the Bible
Were men with girls' faces
That means they're devious monsters
That means you can call me the angel of mayhem

There is no tipping point
Never will be a tipping point
But I pray I change that
I pray to my companions of love
My instruments of evil
That I'll be the tipping point
The be all to end all

Allen Ginsberg called everything holy
Only the gun is holy
Its supplicants for war and murder are holy
The bountiful bullet is holy
The magazine is holy
The trigger is holy
I'm holy in my embrace of the tipping point

America go fuck yourself with your assault rifles

When I'm alone with Glocks and Colts
And Sig Sauers and Berettas and M-16s
I dream of the last day that'll bless me
With colors of flame and blood
I'd rather be with them
Than a woman who's kind
I'd rather stroke, clean, and wash them
In the oily rags they lie in
Stacked in the safes dreaming

I have too many heroes to mention
Granddaddy of us all
Charles Whitman in the Texas Tower
The two Columbine creeps
The Batman bozo from Colorado
The Newtown nerd baby blaster
Too many to recall
Way too many

When I was small my mother and father
Bought me play guns but never real ones
They gave me a Davy Crockett rifle
And a Roy Rogers revolver
A squirt gun I loaded with piss
A plastic machine gun from Company A
I had more guns as a kid than I do now
But they were fart jokes

I started amassing real ones
All dull steel and forged from sins
Of kind ancestors who earned this land
By killing anybody in the way
Of their manifest destiny
The more I shopped the more I wanted to buy
The more I stockpiled the lovelier they grew
I began to name each one a different name
But then decided they were the Son of God
So I called them Jesus

Jesus protect me in weak moments
Protect me against criminals and miscreants
Who aren't the same color as I am
Protect me against anybody that breaks into this mansion
Protect me against the asshole who pisses me off
Allow me to succumb to no one but you
Bless me with kind and gentle holiness
Caress me like dark women I'll never love

One day decades ago a slick punk pulled
A revolver on me and two sisters
They screamed and before he knew it
I slugged him in the mouth
Grabbed the gun from his skinny hands
And stuck it in his crotch
Pulling the trigger as he begged
When I smelled the smoke I smiled
That was my first gun and first kill
My first hallelujah of sweet horror

My guns are my savior
My guns are my life
I love and protect my guns
As they love and protect me
That's why I call them Jesus
The be all to end all

Two of my favorite gun scenes in movies
Are the Russian Roulette suicide in The Deer Hunter
When Walken wears a bandanna of blood
And when Stallone blasts away
In Rambo with an M60
Now those are righteous kills

I have a room full of gun videos
The Sniper movies, How to Clean Guns Blindfolded
The Jackal with Willis remote controlling
His First Lady carnage
All of them better than titties and ass
And fuck video games because
They're not real enough to get my rocks off

I'm gonna be the be all to end all
The tipping point to tip the balance

I'll sneak into the Academy Awards a week early
Wait for days in a cubby hole
With bags of chips and cases of beer
Hide where no one sees me until it's too late
And pull out Jesus in their black beauty
And imminent destruction
Mowing down glamor icons of America
Hundreds of them in gowns and tuxes
Like the glory hogs they are
Their brains and limbs decorate the hall
Closing credits to end their stupid lives
And I'll own the fame I crave and deserve
More fame than they could ever have
Because I love Jesus with my heart and soul

I'll be the be all to end all
The final tipping point
Of all tipping points

The ultimate glory hog.