DON, JR.

by Mark Williams

“I don’t think they like me much anymore.”

           —Donald Trump, Jr., commenting on the co-hosts of The View

Just to let you know, Don, Jr.,

we have several things in common. 

Both of our fathers were in real estate,

and they took us with them on their showings.

Stepping from his car, a man once told my dad, 

“I like this house already.”

“You might like it on the outside,” young me said, 

“but wait until you see it on the inside.”

Like you, Don, Jr., the inside needed work.

And then there was the antique Steepleton slate-bed 

pool table my father was given as a bonus. 

(He’d sold a house within a week.) I spent 

many hours shooting pool on that table.

And I was good! But who wouldn’t be? Someone 

had rounded off the slate at every leather pocket.

If a ball was within two inches, it dropped in. 

Up until the day you talked to Joy, Whoopi, 

Abby, Meghan and Sunny,

it was as if you’d played your life 

on an antique Steepleton slate-bed

with generous, deep pockets. 

You were on a run. You could not miss. Please know

that when I shot pool on tables at Arc Lanes, the Y 

or the Brunswick at Brett Hart’s house, 

I embarrassed myself badly every time.

Mark Williams lives in Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, and Tuck Magazine. This is his third appearance in TheNewVerse.News.

THE TWO DONS

by David Spicer

Two vultures lurk on top of the tree,
both always wanting more, more,
slaves to their animal-egos’ greed,
each desiring money like a whore.
Don and Don, Jr. scowl, dark knights,
as if they despise the world they ravage,
father and son living to pick fights,
doing their best to act the savage.
Women? Just prized possessions
they might grab, fondle, and keep,
depending on their current obsessions
and whether they pounce after they leap.
Will Daddy devour Jr. under the bus?
More than likely, before he eats us.

David Spicer has had poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Zombie Logic Review, Poppy Road Review, The Reed Magazine, Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. The author of Everybody Has a Story and four chapbooks, he’s the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books.

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

by Alejandro Escudé

“Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said,” —The New York Times, July 11, 2017

There is no way to confirm what we know.
A parade of Windsor knots. The meetings.
The taking and taking of meetings. In the East,
they say the West is “out here” when they’re
here. I travel the freeway under fiery skies
listening to the bare news sans the clothing
of images—unnecessary—as the haves take
more, history theirs, the colleges are theirs,
the homes, the beaches, the pearly oceans.
How do we unearth the hoard under the blip
on the metal detector? And how many cast
members! The lawyer, the singer, the orphans.
In the age of T***p, aren’t we all orphans?
Our ageless souls stripped from our organs.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.