HOW TO BE THE BEST REPUBLICAN EVER

by Bill Livingston

Image source: Forward Progressives

Set your clocks back to 1950

Remove all foresight, no need to look forward

Be white

By any means necessary

Be a man

Only your wife or mother can control your body

Be the loudest one in the room

Let the meek inherit the rest of the earth

Listen to country music exclusively

Except Keith Urban – being married to Nicole Kidman ain’t country, Hoss

Actually live in the country

Don’t be that stubborn ball of flour in the melting pot

If you’re rich, live next to a country club

Toast the minorities who tend the greens, yet could never be members

Stay far away from cultural institutions

Such as libraries, museums, theatres, art house cinemas and bars featuring poetry nights Everything you need is on FOX, FOX NASCAR and the internet

Buy a gun, then another, then another, then another

Buy more bullets than you can possibly use in any kind of apocalypse

Protest abortion and Planned Parenthood with the same fervor you protest gun regulations

Let others appreciate the irony

Show your Southern pride and fly the Confederate flag

Show your Northern ignorance and fly it in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, etc

Love thy neighbor

As long as they’re straight, white, Christian, Republican and actually your neighbor

Go to bed early

Late night talk show hosts mock your heroes incessantly

Make love only in the Missionary position

You can get creative when the NEA is obliterated

Fill your nightstand with exciting works of fiction

Start with Rand, Clancy, Le Carre and, of course, the Bible

Instill envy in your peers

Take a selfie with Donald Trump, Sarah Palin or a dead lion

Support lawmakers who defund public education

While you teach your children to hate, hate, hate

Adopt a firm grasp of right and wrong

Remember, cops are always right and Black Lives Matter is always wrong

Ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”

Then do the opposite

Always offer Thoughts & Prayers

Without actually thinking or praying

Numb yourself to war, but choose your enemies wisely

Start with Muslims, Mexicans, filthy liberals and the irksome truth

Read this poem, hate this poem

It doesn’t even rhyme

Burn a cross on my lawn, ignite it with these words

Because I’m very different from you

Originally from Altoona, PA, Bill Livingston is a poet, humorist, screenwriter and advertising copywriter who has been published in Danse Macabre, Saturday Afternoon Journal, Treehouse, Flipside, Mobius, and forthcoming in Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge. He is a supporting member of The Poetry Project and an original member of Brooklyn Poets and Bowery Arts + Science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and twin daughters.

I CANNOT SAVE

by Howard Winn

“January 2015- BC’s War on Wolves continues: As you read this, wolves in British Columbia, Canada are being shot at by hunters in helicopters. This is an ill-conceived plan to save endangered caribou in B.C.. The wolves are not responsible for the dwindling caribou numbers; habitat loss and human encroachment are. But wolves are taking the blame and paying the price. B.C. Wolves Need Your Help: Consider donating to our Indiegogo Campaign. Sign the Save B.C. Wolves petition.” --PACIFICWILD.org

I cannot save
them all
the wolves and walruses
the manatee and elephants
the white rhino and
the mountain gorilla
not to mention the cod
and the tarpon
of course we have
already lost the
passenger pigeon
so nothing to do there
but perhaps we
can save the redwoods
although they are
unlikely to personally care
as with the need to save
the Colorado River
and the Amazon rain
forest which is being
clear cut for agriculture
so we have to save
the indigenous people
who live in the woods
and the song birds that
are the tiny relics
of the extinct dinosaurs
so much to save and
I cannot finish the list
if only I were a heartless
sociopath without empathy
or a care in the universe
beyond my selfish self
like the Ayn Rand disciples
one could be oblivious
and blissful in the face
of obvious total extermination
as the earth we know
turns into Mars, Pluto, or Ceres.


Howard Winn’s poetry and fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals such as The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Dalhousie Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Journal, Blueline, and Sediments Literary Arts Journal. He is a State of New York University Professor of English.

THE CANDIDATE TAKES A DAY OFF AFTER WRESTLING THE ARCHANGEL OF TRUTH

by Michael Brockley

The candidate is plucking the creases of his stone-washed jeans after his wife has crossed the hall to iron a pair of Neiman-Marcus socks when the archangel of truth trumpets his battle cry behind him. He turns to this challenge against his honesty to find feathers fluttering above the floor around a vanity table. The grim creature is naked as a G. I. Joe doll. Fragrant as brown sugar. It crouches in a sumo stance while the nominee rolls the sleeves of his white oxford and snugs an Ayn Rand cravat against his Adam’s apple. He circles the archangel, calculating angles until the vanity is behind him and he can grope for the bayonet in the miscellany drawer. A fusion of fog and fury attacks the candidate who stabs at the bald dimple of its crotch. The beautiful mouth. The monstrous, hallelujah eyes. A chandelier crashes around them as the politician flails at wisps of feathers. A whirlwind ransacks the room, shattering windows and mirrors. The daemon materializes behind the standard bearer to slam him to the floor in a half-Nelson. Vipers breed in the contender’s brain. In triumph, the archangel seeds a halt in the candidate’s hip, vanishing at the click of the wife opening the door to investigate the commotion. She helps her husband with his socks. Asks how he stubbed his toe. When she knots the laces of his Italian shoes, he retrieves a paper from his pocket with the day’s lies erased.

Michael Brockley is a 63-year old school psychologist who has worked in special education in rural northeast Indiana for 25 years. He has poetry publications in Wind, The Windless Orchard, Spitball, The Indiana Review, The Indiannual, The Spoon River Quarterly, The River City Review and The Ball State Literary Forum. Tom Koontz’ Barnwood Press published his chapbook Second Chance in 1990, and Brockley has lately placed work in Indiana publications such as Maize, Country Feedback, Flying Island, The Tipton Poetry Journal and Facing Poverty. A video of Brockley reading his “Hollywood’s Poem” which was published in Facing Poverty can be found on YouTube. His poem “When the Woman in the White Sweater Asked at the Cancelled Charles Simic Reading Asked If I Was David Shumate” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Barry Harris of the Tipton Poetry Journal.