IS IT ABOUT THE SURVIVORS OR ABOUT THE TAO?

by Raymond Nat Turner

“Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law”

 — Oliver Goldsmith

“What does the Tao have to do with anything? Are you kidding?”

Epstein-class—pedophile protectors—RICCO racketeers agree 

to pee on survivors. Deploy entire capitalist state apparatus coming 

at us: D. C., Cali, Chicago, Pacific, Caribbean, Canada, Greenland!

Depends on nothing, does not change 

operates everywhere, free from danger

Mother- of the universe—We didn’t have

a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

Keeps to the Mother-  fed by the Mother-

source of all being; life and death are the

same—We didn’t have

a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

Multiple meanings include ‘way,’ ‘path,’ ‘road,’

‘doctrine,’ ‘principle.’ Undifferentiated, yet complete.

soundless, formless, existing before heaven and earth—

We didn’t have a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

Kamikaze pilot crashing into committee hearing—burn

book in hand. Firing triggering rounds at survivors’ scars;

bootlicking, brown-nosing, on behalf of apex predators—

We didn’t have a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

 

Talentless student of Theatre of the Absurd, contesting every word—

stonewalling, gaslighting, sowing wild quotes, burn book notes at 

child scapegoats, like secondhand smoke—

We didn’t have a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

Ball-less Roy Cohn. Consigliere believing JD’s Junkyard Dog,

rather than Juris Doctor. Degree granted by corrupt, defunct

university of sole client?—We didn’t have a name for it— 

but she called it the Tao.

What does it take to get a disbarment date in the Sunshine State?

Empire State disbarred J6-inciter, election worker-harasser, Count

Ghouliani. Golden State disbarred loony theorist, J6-agitator and

former Thom-ass Clarence law clerk, Eastman …  And some say 

MAGA means Make Attorneys Go Away—

We didn’t have a name for it—but she called it the Tao.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

THE SCRUBLAND

by Sezin Devi Koehler

for Rob Reiner

the humid air streams off the slash pine barks

     the breath of a ghost lover against my neck

the tinnitus buzzing of insects, some vampires some not

     the goth butterfly that lands on my sweaty shoulder

     for a drink—I become nectar

gopher turtles scurry into their burrows at my footsteps

     grumpy Harry before Sally

sugar sand yields under my pink sandals

     when it rains, hungry quicksand 

     isn’t just a threat to Westley and Princess Buttercup

this oak tree is 265 years old, the banyan dripping limbs at least 300

these willows extend a fairy circle in the air

rodents of usual size rut below sawgrass thrones

the path into the forest has been worn by hundreds of feet

the train runs parallel, its mournsome whalesong

     I’m the fifth friend in Stand By Me

     looking for my own dead body in the moist brush

     a phoenix in progress

I didn’t forget my comb here by the tracks

     but I did forget myself in the junkyard of a marriage

     that did not bring us together today

I walk through the woods of your memory

as I wish

     come back to us soon

     come back soon

     come back

Sezin Devi Koehler is a multiracial Sri Lankan/Lithuanian American and author of Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory (April 2025, Chicago Review Press), a sociocultural deep dive into what makes Keanu Reeves so extraordinary as a performer and artist. Pop-culture writer, entertainment journalist, and Rotten Tomatoes-certified film and TV critic for Black Girl Nerds, Sezin's bylines also include Entertainment Weekly, The Daily Beast, Scalawag Magazine, Tasteful Rude, Teen Vogue, and many more. Her poetry has appeared in Tension Literary. Sezin is a board member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto and wordsmiths from an East Oakland historic landmark that looks uncannily like the house from Practical Magic, where she can see the San Francisco Bay from her own window.  

A BANNER DAY IN FLORIDA

by Michelle DeRose

Alan Gratz’s “Ban This Book” tells the tale of a fourth-grader’s quest to bring her favorite book back to the school library after officials had it removed. Late last month, a Florida school district banned “Ban This Book.” A parent involved in Moms for Liberty, a right-wing parents-rights group, submitted a complaint about the book in February, alleging that it depicted sexual conduct and was “teaching children to be social justice warriors.” Though a school district committee recommended that “Ban This Book” be kept on shelves, the Indian River County school board voted to ban it last month. —The Washington Post, June 13, 2024

So thin bands of women who love 
liberty (because their heads-of-households 
told them to) banned the book 
Ban This Book. If words don’t build it, 
it never happened. Scrub climate change
from state websites and Florida’s coast 
rises like Lazarus. Certain words, like loaves
and fishes, work double miracles. 
With no gender queers, some gun 
violence disappears in a pulse. 
Requiring proof of rape for abortions 
erases abortion and rape with a stranger’s
magic wand that, waved in a yard,
transforms twelve year-olds to the most noble
profession. They might wed NFL stars,
be the next to erase abuse in their world,
just a giant pink rubber in their clutch.

Michelle DeRose is Professor Emerita of English from Aquinas College. She lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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.

LET PEACOCKS BE PEACOCKS

by George Salamon

"The birds are breeding and running amok in Pinecrest, Fla. The village will test a novel solution to rein them in: peacock vasectomies." —The New York Times, August 9, 2023

It's not just novel; it's

cruel and unusual.

but who will take the

case for the birds all

the way to SCOTUS?

The procedure will be

done without peacock

consent and snip the

honesty of their promise

to beget by displaying

beautiful plumage freely

and proudly. Now falsely.

The male peacock is a 

a born polygamist "bona

fide" as the vet who'll do

the snipping admits, so I  

say: 

No consent, no vasectomy,

Let Peacocks be Peacocks!

George Salamon expects Yankee ingenuity, even way down South, could find a better solution for the problem in Pinecrest, Fla.

AN OPEN LETTER EXPLAINING ELEMENTS OF OUR NEW, IMPROVED, AND DECIDEDLY UNWOKE CURRICULUM

by Dick Westheimer

Dear Parent,

 

We believe in children. We believe 

in padded playgrounds and unscuffed knees 

and helmets and a bubble wrapped curriculum 

lined with velvet and free from troubled ideas.

 

We believe our teachers should teach

that enslaved Africans got vocational skills

like painting and planting for their personal benefit,

that residents of Auschwitz knew the trick of how 

to lose weight and look so fit, that members 

of the Five Tribes, removed for their own good, 

got to “pursue happiness in their own way.”

 

We believe those seeking refuge (whose boats 

overturn) might learn to swim, that those 

with black-lung get to sit in front of their TVs

in their BarcaLoungers with their very own 

government issued oxygen tanks, that Catholic 

boys get personal tutoring in anatomy from 

respected men in their white collared shirts, 

that trafficked girls get to travel the world 

and meet new friends.

 

We believe children should learn nothing

about those pre-teens head-bent in sweatshops

sewing their shoes, or two-year-olds toddling 

in electronics junk yards recycling their PCs

or tweens armed and taught to harm their kin. 

 

We do this for you, dear parent 

because, we are committed to protect 

you from Judgement Day when 

Johnny or Susie asks what 

you could have done and why, 

dear parent, you didn’t. 

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have recently appeared in Whale Road Review, Innisfree Journal, Gyroscope Review, Banyan Review, Rattle, Ritual Well, One Art, and Cutthroat. His chapbook A Sword in Both Hands: Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine is published by SheilaNaGig.

I IMAGINE THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING OVER MICHELANGELO'S DAVID

by Cecil Morris

A Florida charter school principal said she was forced to resign this week after some parents complained about their sixth-grade students being shown images of Michelangelo’s “David” statue in class, with one parent believing the art lesson on the Renaissance masterpiece amounted to pornographic material. —The Washington Post, March 24, 2023

A mob of sixth grade students complained

that David defied the school dress code

and came completely naked to school

where he stood, hugely white and naked,

aloof and silent and all judge-y,

with his extra-large, not-even-erect thing

and his hanging sack on display. 

The boys said: he made us feel uncomfortable

and maybe even a little guilty

because, because, and we don’t want to say this,

but we will because we have to stand up

to bullies like him. We have to speak up,

that’s what our parents and teachers tell us,

so here goes, David made us feel bad

because we are white

but not nearly as white as him

and our things are not as big.

It’s like he’s judging our heritage

and putting us down. And those sculpted abs

and pecs and biceps and muscled thighs

and his tremendous height, it's just not right.

And some girls added their complaints

about double standards and sexist favoritism.

They said: you know David was naked

and we can’t even wear spaghetti straps

or off-the-shoulder tops or crop tops

that show a strip of skin and belly buttons.

How is that right or fair?

The boys and girls together said: we want him

removed and the teacher who invited him

and the principal and maybe you, too.

State law says you can’t teach stuff

that makes us feel bad. We saw that on the news

so we want David gone, and no more Cs

or Ds or Fs cause they make us feel bad, too.

Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English and now has turned to writing what he used to teach students to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in The Cimarron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, English Journal, Hole in the Head Review, The Midwest Quarterly, The New Verse News, Talking River Review, and other literary magazines.

SMALL THINGS

a factual account

by Shira Dentz

Brazilian geologists have found rocks comprised of plastic on an uninhabited island in the mid-Atlantic. —Plastic Soup Foundation, March 22, 2023

microplastics melt and cohabit 
stones on remote islands, 
melding new geology,
fashionably hybrid.
in short time the moon
will have its own time zone,
a part on our watch, as
seaweed blooms mid-ocean
wider than a continent
and lists towards shores,
still-hungry 

Shira Dentz is the author of five books including Sisyphusina (PANK Books); winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Prize 2021), and two chapbooks including Flounders (Essay Press). Her writing appears in many venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Pleiades, New American Writing, Brooklyn Rail, Poets.org, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Poetrysociety.org, and NPR, and she’s a recipient of awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize and Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Awards. 

ABER-CLAM LINCOLN

by Martin Elster

Aber-clam Lincoln, a quahog clam believed to be 214 years old found at Alligator Point, was released into the Gulf of Mexico Friday by his caretakers at the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea. Americorps member Blaine Parker dug up the two-century old mollusk while collecting shellfish to make chowder. Parker said it is hefty enough to make two servings and has shells large enough to use as bowls to serve it in. “We were just going to eat it, but we thought about it a while and figured it was probably pretty special. So, we didn’t want to kill it,” said Parker. Instead, he took it to the aquarium at the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab where he works as a specimen collector. Photo by Alicia Devine: Marine Blaine Parker releases a quahog clam believed to be 214 years old into the Gulf of Mexico. Parker found the clam he calls "Aber-Clam Lincoln" at Alligator Point. —Tallahassee Democrat, February 26, 2023

Finding a clam weighing more than a quart of milk,

his mind said, “Turn her into tasty chowder!”

but another voice inside him—which was louder—

was telling him this clam was of an ilk

quite special. So he didn’t kill the critter

but, thinking a little, had the bright idea 

to take her to a lab in Panacea.

(A picture of her can be seen on Twitter.)

Counting the layers in her rounded shell,

scientists recognized she took her first

breath of water before Lincoln was nursed,

and so he tossed her back into the swell.

We wonder: How many times will the world loop

around the Sun before she is clam soup?

The winner of the 2022 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, Martin Elster comes from Hartford, CT, where he studied percussion and composition at the Hartt School of Music and performed with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Martin, whose poetry has been strongly influenced by his musical sensibilities, has written two books, the latest of which is Celestial Euphony (Plum White Press, 2019).

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.