THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

by Steven Kent

So listen, sheep: The earth is flat
(There's video to prove just that).
Each contrail you can see today
Was put there by the CIA,
While climate change is just a ruse,
A trick the Bilderbergers use
To dupe us now and gain control.

What's more, they mean to steal your soul
Through wicked work like plant-based meat,
Electric ovens for your heat,
Those 15-minute city plans,
And semi-auto rifle bans.
In fact, the Feds will take all guns,
Emasculate our manly sons,
Then bind us up with UN clamps
And ship us off to FEMA camps.

Bill Gates, we know, has killed a lot
Of people with his Covid shot,
Elections rigged--so neatly planned—
With checks George Soros wrote by hand.
We're red-pilled now, nobody's fools:
We watch and watch 2000 Mules,
Convinced that Biden cheated when
He won before, and will again!

A Swiftly conjured magic spell
May now control the NFL
Since Taylor is a psy-op drone
The Deep State here controls alone,
Her latest romance clearly meant
To reelect the president.
I'd still be in the dark, I'll bet
Had I not found the internet.
With Qanon right by my side,
My eyes at last are open wide:
Each truth another truth begat
Since I put on this tinfoil hat.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and Oxford comma enthusiast Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Journal of Formal Poetry, Light, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, and Snakeskin. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

NUMBERS GAME

by Gifford Savage

Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg and Ivanka Trump among bevy of stars at Indian billionaire heir’s pre-wedding bash… —CNN, March 4, 2024

Antilia Tower stands 27 stories high,

a $1b phallic tower of Babel.
3 helipads, 168-car garage, and 9 elevators
lifting bling to all-time-low levels of excess.
Cool air soothes in the snow room,
countless artificial snowflakes give sweet relief 
while the heat ripples visible on the streets below.
Rihanna sings, “We Found Love,”
the $100m, 3-day long pre-wedding party swings,
21 chefs conjure up 75 types of dishes for breakfast
225 types for lunch, 85 for a midnight feast.
Money can’t buy you love,
but it means 1,200 guests
don’t have to suffer the same meal twice.
Ivanka, Tendulkar and Bill toast the happy couple,
Priscilla Chan fawns over the groom’s $1m watch
while Zuckerberg agrees, Watches are cool.
In the shadow of the tower
2 million children die every year in India’s slums,
one every 15 seconds,
400,000 before the sun sets on their first day.
Faces turn away,
nursing their bacchanal hangovers,
looking forward to the wedding proper in July.
Rihanna did not sing: “Take Care.”


Gifford Savage’s poems have been published in various journals, including The Storms, The Bangor Literary Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Agape Review, and previously in The New Verse News.

BILL GATES AND THE POET

by Earl J. Wilcox

For Richard Wilbur
Born March 1, 1921
Image source: Bluedragonfly10

In his Frost-country cottage, the poet
and his trusty L. C. Smith typewriter
labor in clear harmony this morning.
The machine does its clacking act
when the writer pounds the keys.

Only one whose finger muscles
are still strong enough to clutch
an axe handle or milk a cow, if need be,
can muster strength to strike with
force worn-down letters like y or z,
and others when pressed into action.

Here there is no angst or desire
for the ease which a chichi computer
keyboard could offer to curtail
the constant pain in the right hand
or the left one, too, for that matter.
Poet and typewriter conspire, create
a new song amid the view from the
open cottage window, where Bill Gates
seems irrelevant, does not intrude.


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.

GIVE US OUR DAILY KALASH

by Martha Landman 

 
                  ". . . the world has moved a little." --Phil Kafcaloudes

Peace-time peasants are born ignorant of
the Pill, the Apple Mac and breast implants

Looking like ordinary men they coin money
from vodka, umbrellas and pocket knives. In

honesty, they work for the good of the people.
Iconic, as Gatling and Colt, their Siberian son

receives the Order of Saint Andrew, wrapped in
a Mozambique flag, a hero of socialist labour.

There are no regrets in his photograph or
in poetic dreams buried in shallow graves

where the counterfeit child soldiers of Africa
pray that their crayon boxes be filled with

enough bullets and Big Macs to crack all the
cocaine plants of the world during short break.

If Russia had a Bill Gates they would patent
him Kalashnikov and be proud as a mother

They would let him battle Bryansk and Brody
and decorate him with more than a lawnmower.


Martha Landman lives and writes in tropical North Queensland, Australia. Her most recent work appeared in Poetry 24, Every Day Poets.