THE CICADA

 

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River. His first collection, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary, was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

THE MOCK TURTLE: SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL

by Ed Shacklee

Famed for toxic prattle and gelatinous physique,
combining theft with battle, it assails the poor and weak
while herding mulish cattle with its games of hide and seek.

Exhibiting surprise if folk decry its sly venality,
it mocks with blatant lies. Its crooked, looking glass morality
enables wolves’ disguise of greed with sheepskins of frugality.

Partly turtle, partly snake, a spineless omnivore,
the terror of Kentucky, this dystopian dinosaur
has lined its nest with feathers but is always plucking more,

and creeps through halls of power like a sleepy Southern breeze.
Its purse-lipped, goggled glower bringing cowards to their knees,
it stalks a fatal hour or a moment it can seize.

But piles of cash are paper thin and make for flimsy armor,
and miles of rural roads can never daunt the brave reformer,
and while the trail has gotten cold, I’m told it’s getting warmer;

for babies vilely kissed in past campaigns will not forget
the rabies it has spread, or tears we’ve shed—which are still wet—
and maybe time will tell us why the Russians play roulette.

Resist, my heart! and choose, so there may be a morning when you
wake to light a fuse and then demand a change of venue—
that longed for, lucid day when turtle soup is on the menu.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River. His first collection, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary, was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

CHIP IN TO SUPPORT AMY McGrath

NO BOTTOM

by Ed Shacklee

There is no bottom here, I’ve found:
the water’s swirling round and round.
We’re going down the drain, I fear,
for there’s no bottom here.

We have a circus but no bread.
There is no heart, there is no head,
the end, however, can’t be near:
there is no bottom here.

Our leader leads us from behind.
He tells us that we shouldn’t mind
attempts to make us disappear,
for there’s no bottom here—

there’s only down, and down we sink,
too dumb to care, afraid to think.
What’s brinkmanship without a brink?
Don’t worry, for it’s very clear
there is no bottom here.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River.  His first collection The Blind Loon: A Bestiary was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

CIRCUS ELEPHANTS

by Ed Shacklee

Dave Granlund Cartoons

In Cleveland, pachyderms regroup

as hired clowns arrive in troop

to fan the flames and jump the hoop,

rousing rubes they hope to dupe.

With talk so cheap our shoulders droop,

reporters keep us in the loop,

but pomp cannot conceal the poop—

so little news, so much to scoop.

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. He is working on a bestiary.

THE GOLDEN CALF

by Ed Shacklee

Photoshopped image by Freelancer at DemocraticUnderground.com.

Times were hard -- the fearful crowd, unruly,

felt they'd become a television serial

whose laughter track embarrassed them unduly;

they longed for prose both purple and imperial.

The promises the idol strung together

were catchy nonsense jingles if they'd listened.

Its hide, so thin, was stitched from shopworn leather.

A fool could tell it wasn't gold, but glistened;

but they were sold, for God was dead or missing -- 

the brazen moos would answer every prayer.

What did it matter what the snake was hissing?

The Trojan Horse was none of their affair.

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. He is working on a bestiary.

JAIL BIRDS

by Ed Shacklee

Artist: Marcus A. Bedford, Jr. (K-00220, Y-Wing 204L, P.O. Box 689 Central Fac., Soledad, CA 93960)
Image source: “Comix from Inside” at The Real Cost of Prisons

A captive flock, a clip-winged throng
Whose fledglings start to lose their song
So cheery in the nest, its tone
So much like children of our own,

Their rookeries are known for squalor.
Jurists never see their color
Is all too often blacks and browns,
Though cartoons show them striped like clowns;

Now caged in millions, hard to tame,
Just strings of numbers for a name
Who must make do without another,
But answered once to sister, brother.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. His poems have appeared in Angle, Contra, The Flea, Light and Lucid Rhythms, among other places.

LIES THAT BIND

by Susan de Sola and Ed Shacklee

"They brought us whole binders full of women."

All lies aside, this tart reminder:
It wasn’t Mitt who built the binder.
Massachusetts women – tired
of being courted, but not hired –

approached both camps. The deal was done
long before Mitt Romney won;
and though the old boys called them girlies,
they had Mitt by the short and curlies.

The governor listened, nodded, flattered,
and gave them posts – but none that mattered:
despite that firm, self-serving pledge,
he side-stepped and began to hedge,

to keep his comfy male preserve
where those who reign pretend to serve,
till gifted women started guessing
that they were only window dressing,

and each year watched their numbers drop.
But hey – perhaps they loved to shop,
gossip, have some babies, nurse –
employment only made things worse;

or so the governor suspected.
Oh, well – by then he'd been elected.
Déjà vu: like them we’re finding
how little Mitt considers binding.

Again he wants the votes he lacks:
again he says he’s got their backs,
laminated, perforated,
reproduced and regulated,

for they’ll be hired when times are flush,
otherwise there is no rush.
He condescendingly reminds them
how their domestic duty binds them.

Moral:

Those fillers and binders are relevant
since Willard's amok on an elephant.
Ironic, isn't it? They found
that Mitt prefers his women bound.


Susan de Sola is an American poet living in the Netherlands. A winner of the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize, she has work published or forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, American Arts Quarterly, Measure, Light, Ambit and River Styx, among other venues.

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. His poems have appeared in Angle, Contra, The Flea, Light and Lucid Rhythms, among other places.

THE WALLFLOWERS

by Ed Shacklee

A Picasso and a Gauguin Are Among 7 Works Stolen From a Dutch Museum--NY Times, November 17, 2012

The Monet, Picasso, Gauguin and Matisse
were worth tens of millions of dollars apiece,
thus sturm und drang followed when they went AWOL
from Rotterdam’s lovely museum, Kunsthal,
and every TV blared the news without cease:
“Monet, Picasso, Gauguin and Matisse!”

But the burglars burgled two other fine paintings
which barely got mentioned and didn’t cause faintings.
The Meyer de Haan was an afterthought,
for what kind of bidding would he have brought?
And “Woman with Eyes Closed” by Lucian Freud
was a little too modern and not even nude,

so these were ignored as the burglars ran
off with Picasso, Monet and Gauguin,
plus the "Reading Girl in White and Yellow”
by Henry Matisse, an ingenious fellow;
but spare a few moments regret for de Haan
and Freud, who were stuffed in the back of a van --

less famous, but worthy to hang on the wall
of Rotterdam’s lovely museum, Kunsthal.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia.  His poems have appeared in The Flea, Light Quarterly, Shot Glass Journal and Tilt-a-Whirl, among other places.