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.

INSIDE DISNEY'S HALL OF PRESIDENTS

by Darrell Petska





Transported like a side of beef,
the 45th arrived on a cart,
a small hand jutting from the wraps.

"Dog hater!" growled LBJ.
"Wall builder!" shouted Reagan.
Obama stirred. "Uh . . ."

Onto the stage, positioned off-center,
went the 45th, animatronically correct,
a dead ringer for Jon Voight.

"Jesus Christ!" prayed Jimmy Carter.
"He'll mock my braces," bemoaned FDR.
"Travesty," said Washington. "I cannot lie."

Switched on, the 45th did its test run:
hands moved, head nodded, voice sounded
rather like Putin's—

"I smell a crook," muttered Nixon.
"The only natural area he knows is beneath the belt,"
Teddy complained, and Obama gestured, "Uh . . ."

The techs fixed the Putin glitch,
except for faint tweeting in the background,
and the America First dummy stood ready to wow.

"Uh . . ." spoke Obama, "anyone whose meal preference
is two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a malt
will never complete a full term!"—

which perked up Bill Clinton: "Yum!"
Abe sighed. "Shall we never stop this bleeding?"
"Lightweights! I'm huge!" crowed their silicone successor.

Darrell Petska's writing has appeared in Whirlwind, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Rat's Ass Review, Verse-Virtual, previously in TheNewVerse.News and elsewhere. Darrell worked for many years as communications editor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.