YAWN

by Rose Mary Boehm

This week, Key West, Fla., experienced record-high temperatures, with a heat index of 115 degrees. Even the late Jimmy Buffett would have had trouble finding enough margaritas for that. Parts of South Florida were also hit by smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Mexico. This is also the week that Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that removes the words climate change from many state laws. —NPR, May 17, 2024

So they had another party. 

Too high, too drunk, too wasted, they didn't notice

when half their guests and a major piece of their huge

garden disappeared, pulled into the ink-dark waters

by an enormous, merciless hand.

They laughed when the swimming pool followed.

But suddenly they woke and looked at each other's distorted faces

in horror, then drifted off

with the competing currents.

There was no-one to look for their bloated bodies,

because there was no-one left to care.

And the sharks inherited the waters.

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit 2022), and Saudade (2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection Life Stuff published by Kelsay Books in 2023.

NO WORDS FOR ESCAMBIA COUNTY

by Richard Fireman

It has come to this: Escambia County, Florida, schools have banned the dictionary. Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not—all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools. —PEN America, January 9, 2024

If thine eye offend thee pluck it out
says the Bible, and we know 
the Florida governor is a righteous man, with principles
and not much thought. His laws
just made one county remove the dictionary
from library bookshelves. Now 
where do the children find their answers
except in the abundancy of misinformation?
Plenty of that to go around, no worry. 
You say the kids can ask their parents what the truth is
but they’re the ones who voted the fool into office 
so not much help there. It seems 
they’ll have to wait till they can vote 
if they can figure out how to do that
if there even is a vote by then
if there even is a world. 
But meantime they’ll just have to remain
in their literally meaningless limbo
and we have to wonder if it’s a coincidence
that the state’s initial is the grade its education deserves.

Richard Fireman, writing for over fifty years, has given readings at several libraries and Barnes & Noble, and has published over a hundred poems. In 2009 he contributed a chapter to the bibliotherapy book Writing Away the Demons. In September 2022 ten of his poems (five of which had previously been published) were featured in The Thursday Poets' Anthology: Dreams and Realities, along with those of eight of his fellow online writing circle members. His first poetry collection Constellations was published by Prolific Pulse Press in December 2022.

L’SHANAH TOVA WISHES FROM ‘45’

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

When I lived in the western U.S. 

people told me that as a Jew 

I should value how the GOP 

made religion the foremost

test for American citizens. 

 

They said Democrats and Liberals 

were secularists

secular meaning socialist

a.k.a. godless 

there can be no covenant

no Eretz

unless you are free market capitalist

 

of course, socialism was 

one of Zionism’s foundations

think Kibbutz for instance

 

Subtext: I should become a Jew for Jesus. 

 

There are and have long been socialists 

who are religious 

their political-spiritual imagination  

just happens to range beyond 

the Rocky Mountains 

or a golf course in DeSantis land

to touch the former ghettos of Europe 

the current Cheders of Brooklyn 

and Buenos Aires and lots of places 

lost to the amnesiac memory 

of rapturists.  

 

Recently, ‘45’ wished my people 

L’Shanah Tova before telling 70+

percent of us that we voted 

to destroy America and Israel. 

 

What I want to know is 

if I change my voter registration 

to Trumpist, will Kanye and Elon 

also send me New Year’s wishes

 

How about Nick Fuentes?

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes region of Canada. His most recent book is Flint River published by Alien Buddha Press (2023). 

TREESILIENCE

by Deb Freedman

While the Lahaina banyan tree has yet to rebound back to its pre-fire splendor, signs of life are very much there, according to landscape contractor Chris Imonti. “We did root samples last week and we had very good news as far as new life in the roots. A lot of new roots shooting off. We tested the moisture and arborist Steve Nims, who is the unofficial leader of the Banyan Tree hui has analyzed all the treatments and he is out today putting sensors on the tree to measure growth rates. With the compost tea we are seeing good results and as long as we give it enough love, I think it’s going to be fine,” Imonti commented. Additional measures have been put into place by the hui (group) who are caring for Lahaina banyan tree and working towards its restoration. The ground and soil around the tree is being regularly aerated, and it is often being treated with a “tree-loving soup,” a mix of nutrients Imonti himself formulated for the recovering banyan. Additionally, volunteers are spreading chopped up alfalfa, a legume—a soil enhancing green manure—around the base of the tree to aid in its recovery. —Hawaii Magazine, September 6, 2023

In Tallahassee,

Hurricane Idalia hurled

a 100-year-old oak tree.

The tree’s fall

fractured

Governor DeSantis’ mansion

in his absence.

Notified of its collapse,

the governor was optimistic.

He told reporters,

if the entire tree needs to be cut,

“…that’s just going to be more room

for my kids to hit baseballs in.”

In Lahaina, Maui,

a 150-year-old banyan tree,

the heart of the town,

devoured by

fast-spreading wildfires

spurred by human error

stands

scorched

living tissue at its core.

Kanaka

in grief,

some homeless,

some looking for lost loves,

nourish the banyan tree

with water

and organic compost

in a town burnt

but not of love nor hope.

Steve Nims, arborist tree tender,

says it is “kind of in a coma…

There are good signs the tree will recover…

It’s up to the tree.”

Deb Freedman is a poet living in Pennsylvania. Her poems have been published in The New Verse News and DVP/US 1’s Worksheets 67. She hopes the oak and banyan trees survive and thrive.

NOT QUITE SYNONYMS

by Paul Hostovsky

The name-sign for Ron DeSantis
in American Sign Language
is exactly the same as the sign 
for Satan, according to my deaf
informants at the Florida School
for the Deaf and the Blind
in St. Augustine. The etymology
of that name-sign may have something to do
with the visual similarity (deaf people 
are intensely visual, after all) between 
the letters in Satan and the letters in Santis, 
or it may have something to do 
with the similarity of their policies–
for example, their shared affinity
for burning, and also their preference
for darkness and the benighted 
over the light of day and the being fully 
awake. Bottom line, if you ever happen
to eavesdrop on some deaf people 
animatedly signing about Ron DeSantis,
it would be a forgivable and understandable mistake
if you thought they were talking about Satan,
because although they're not quite synonyms
they are unmistakably homonyms in ASL.

Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. His newest book of poems is Pitching for the Apostates (forthcoming, Kelsay Books).

SHAME!

 by Pepper Trail

Author’s note: This poem responds to the House passage this week of a bill barring transgender girls and women from participating in women's athletics.  The bill is only the latest Republican attack on transgender youth, an attempt to deny their identity and very existence. In the words of the NY Times, this is "part of a nationwide push by conservatives to restrict transgender rights as they make culture issues a centerpiece of their political message." This has been led by Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump and enthusiastically taken up by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican governors and state legislatures around the country.  As the parent of a transgender son, I am horrified at this rush to demonize our most powerless and vulnerable children, a cynical play on ignorance and fear that will unquestionably increase suicide rates and mental health crises.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

SUNSHINE TIMES

by Alethea Kontis

They outlawed history here
And science
Next comes gaslighting the spectrum
Color by color
Until rainbows and unicorns are seen only by us other-minded
They will deny the very stars
Ony by one
Leaving children to wish on bees and blades of grass
Wishing to be somewhere 
over there
I long since gave up on the day my prince will come
Living instead on tea made from the tears of backyard alligators
Brewed by the last star allowed
Served by ibis and egrets
In this wonderless land where most sense
Is divinest madness

New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and adventurer. She has authored over 20 books and 50 short stories. Alethea has received the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant, the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. Alethea also narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines and contributes book reviews to NPR. Born in Vermont, she currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie.

MAD FLY THEM TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD

by Cody Walker

DeSantis move to fly migrants to Mass. stokes confusion, outrage from critics —The Washington Post, September 16, 2022

He thought he saw a Schlubby Cheetah

     Resting by the Pier:

He looked again, and found it was 

     The Holocaust. “Oh dear.

It happened in my parents’ lifetime.

     Might still happen here.”

Cody Walker is the author of three poetry collections, all from the Waywiser Press. He lives and teaches in Ann Arbor.