JASON AND THE ARC OF KNOTS

by Richard Hacken

Image source: DonkeyHotey via Daily Kos

I, the Grand Chair of the House Committee on Oversight,
Enduring my own governmental and dental overbite,
I, Representative Jason Chaffetz,
Never go into raving fits
About being partisan.
No, I am just the leading artisan
Of ignoring with quiet ease
All conflicts of interest and improprieties
That might impinge on any fringe of my own party.
Using gymnastics of justification, quite smartly
I look the other way.

But ask about Hillary’s Benghazi: I’ve got plenty to say.

Still, I’ve decided not to take it anymore.
“Soon" I’m going to pack my beret,
My toothbrush, my blinders and cot,
And make good my getaway.
Why? Well, with T***p and his lot—
All of whom I secretly deplore,
But whose follies I feel I must simply ignore
(As a blandly mocked, land-locked ichthyosaur)—
This task of looking the other way
(Oh-Massive-Distressing-Flames-of-Heck)
Causes a passive-aggressive pain in my neck.


Richard Hacken regrets to inform you that Brazen Jason is technically “his” representative while somehow not representing him.

CONSPIRACY THEORETICAL WITCH HUNTS

by Richard Hacken 

Image source: Unload and Unwind

            Hillary, it has been shown, created ISIS.
            Everything we know shows how that terror crisis
            Came from Clinton’s wicked wish to sacrifice us.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            In Libya she only made things worse, because she
            Purposefully waited to send in the posse
            At the embassy when needed in Benghazi.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Email servers were her tools of choice for treason
            As she lured and let the spies of the Chinese in,
            Laughing as she lied about her sordid reason.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!
         
            Shocking to our sensibilities as humans,
            Hillary dropped bombs less ethical than Truman’s,
            Pimping out her husband to young female students.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Hillary remains untouched by House committees
            Searching hard to bring her down by her Achilles,
            While bribes she paid stack up in banks in offshore cities.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

Richard Hacken enjoys trochaic political satire.  While slightly amused by conspiracy theories and witch hunts, he hates to see them linked to each other. 

THE ANCHORMAN'S TIES

by Judith Terzi

Image source: The Nashua Telegraph

No matter what the news,
my neck is tied. The market
flies, the market plunges,
two thousand said I dead.
I wear white polka dots
on navy blue. Every night
a suit and tie. Citizens
coagulate fate, tie clothing
tourniquets. Amputees nod
goodbye to candy stripers.
Smoky gray geometric
shapes in a cool sea green
hang from my neck. I read:
brouhaha at the IRS, no
terrorism in Benghazi,
terrorism in Benghazi.
Every night a suit and tie.
Car bombs in Sadr City,
seventy dead in Tahrir
Square. Wisteria petals
float on an archipelago of
made-in-India silk. Our
government is tied down.
Arctic tundra will turn
to forest. The President
is fit. The President is fit
to be... I want to sever
ties with purple stripes,
yellow cloverleafs. I read:
human rubble in a garment
factory. Yellow and pink
palm trees and storks
and swans. Jewelry heist
at the Festival de Cannes.
I tie my thoughts way back
tight into my head. White
blossoms in an olive green
lake. I tie up my mind.
Exhumation of the Chilean
poet. The fires still roar.
Tie score for arson, climate
change, metaphor. Golden
bark, silver branches, ruby
berries. No matter what
the news. Bashar al-Assad.
Ferragamo. Collar and tie.


Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies and has been nominated for Best of the Web and Net. For many years a high school French teacher, she also taught English and ESL at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. She is the author of Sharing Tabouli (2011) and Ghazal for a Chambermaid, forthcoming from Finishing Line.

TEN SPEED NEWS CYCLE

by Frederick L. Shiels

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Obama’s second term is doomed they say
Six months in, Press coroners pronounce it dead
The IRS chastised for chasing Tea
drinkers, Hillary’s inattention slaughters our
ambassador in Benghazi then
her crew make up stories,

Associated Press, Boston left unprotected so it goes
The best offense Defense, GOP says
This Right-serves the ‘libral’ pack for Watergate
And oh harassment of those do-good folk,
J Edgar’s files on King Seegar Baez, other threats,

The endless gottcha nothing new we say
Why knaves betraying knaves is how it works
Honored tradition, remember Lancaster and York?
The Romanovs and Bolsheviks parade
Their antics and Rasputin laughs

And so they think Obama cries
All tied in knots, he sighs
Thoreau said read the papers once a month
You’ll ‘not a thing miss’, he implied
It’s May, such flowers! adopt an earthworm better still
Turn off newschatter, go embrace the Countryside.


Frederick L. Shiels professored at Mercy College in history and politics starting in the Jimmy Carter years, 1977 and after. He has published poems in The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology (Vassar) and Wicker’s Creek (Mercy College), the latter two no longer publishing, and elsewhere. He has written on the bombing of civilians and, now, the future of progressivism in America.

OF CARPENTER BEES AND BENGHAZI

by Earl J. Wilcox

Cartoon by Steve Sack

Frankly, I am intimidated by the size,
   the sounds of big black bees.
though experts say these loud, raucous
    insects are not dangerous,
seldom sting, even if cornered in a hole
   or near my seat on the pergola
where these Genus Xylocopa systematically
   burrow deeper and deeper
into the cross pilings of my shady nook.
   Yet when I glance up
from my book, see the pilfering pistons
   drilling a shaft to lay
their dark and sinister eggs, I am dazzled,
   and damned at the same time.
No Yin and Yang moral for me this May, 
   or in any month when
these bees egg on my impulse to swat
   them down as though
they are a swarm of clever- tongued
   bellicose Republicans bedazzling
the universe about Benghazi.



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 TheNew Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.