MAGA SAGA... OR PROJECT 2025 CONTRIVED

by Gilbert Allen

Cartoon by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

Fear queers.

Ban trans.

Hire liars.

Bring on Elon!

Pardon felons.

ICE raids

housemaids

nurse aides.

Prez sez

"I buy

Gaza Plaza!

Bombshell hotel!

Max tax

Canuck crooks!

Vex Mex!

They pay

duty booty!

Hate great!

True Blue?
Screw you.

Gilbert Allen has tried to live True Blue in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, since 1977. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview here.

THE GOD BLESS THE USA BIBLE

by Gilbert Allen

by J.D. Crowe

What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?

And they bargained with him for thirty pieces of silver.

                                                              —Matthew 26:15

Verily, verily

Donald Iscariot

hawking the Holy Word

with MAGA zeal

offering Jesus Christ

pseudoreligiously

for sixty bucks. Just twice
thirty! A steal!

Gilbert Allen, a member of the Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, already has a Bible. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview at https://slantbooks.org/close-reading/interviews/belladonna-beautiful-but-deadly-qa-with-gilbert-allen/ .

TRAVELERS REST LIBRARY GETS THREATENING CALLS…

AFTER REFUSING TO REMOVE PRIDE MONTH DISPLAYS 

—Greenville (SC) News, June 22, 2023

by Gilbert Allen

It's not a threat. “This is just what I've heard.”

The “good old boys” don't like this month's display.

One phones the staff—there are “whispers of war.”

He's not a threat. “This is just what I've heard.”

Just rainbow ribbons in the entryway

and a multicolored READ WITH PRIDE.

It's not a threat. “This is just what I've heard.”

The “good old boys” don't like this month's display.

Gilbert Allen has lived in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, since 1977. His most recent books are Believing in Two Bodies and The Beasts of Belladonna. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview here.

THIRTEEN DAYS ON “THE NRA CIVIL RIGHTS CALENDAR”

by Gilbert Allen

Blood On Their Hands _ Anti-NRA T-Shirt by Sarana Mehra

January 1

If the world seems cold

to you, perhaps

you’ve already fired.

January 6

Stop

the Magnetometers!

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Guns don’t make the world

go round. Guns make

the rounds worthwhile.

Ash Wednesday

Praise the One before whom

thou needest no silencer.

April 1

We inherit our relatives, but

we can choose

our AR-15s.

Good Friday

It is more blessed to grieve

than to reprieve.

Memorial Day

Talk not of wasted

ammunition. Talk instead of those

you’ve wasted

July 4

Believe the worst

about everybody. That way

you don’t have to aim.

Labor Day

My bullets are Teflon.

My burden is light.

Halloween

Every boy

needs a blackbird

to shoot at.

Thanksgiving

Guns don’t kill turkeys.

Turkeys kill turkeys.

December 24

I am the ghost

of Kevlar passed.

New Year’s Eve

Some of us are like cannons: we don’t

like to be pushed, and we’re only happy

when loaded.

Gilbert Allen lives and writes in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent collection of poems is Believing in Two Bodies.

MENDING NEWS

by Gilbert Allen

                          with apologies to Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a war—

European or wherever—on the tube

that, for a decade, hasn’t had a tube.

We need less breaking and more mending news.

Picture old Movietones run in reverse

where buildings reassemble magically,

crushed bodies levitating from debris,

the bullet a blunt needle stitching flesh,

a mushroom cloud intact Hiroshima

at dawn. And no, I’m not an advocate

for Happy News—feel-good finales that

follow the last commercial with a Fido

wagging his tail from Kharkiv to Lviv

after his westbound owners couldn’t find him

or the insouciant Persian seraphim

purring beneath Mariupol's rubble.

No, what I want is just a world made whole

after each so-called surgical attack. 

That would be good both going and coming back

for all us sorry old stone savages.

Gilbert Allen lives and writes in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent collection of poems is Believing in Two Bodies.

LESSONS FROM THE DEAD

by Gilbert Allen

The Arizona Republican Party on Saturday approved resolutions to censure Cindy McCain, widow of the late Senator John McCain, and former Senator Jeff Flake for endorsing President Joe Biden, and Governor Doug Ducey for enforcing the state's coronavirus restrictions. —Newsweek, January 23, 2021. Cartoon by Nick Anderson, January 26, 2021.

They Zoom from their refrigerated trucks: 

You are the slowest students on God’s earth. 

We’re sick of lecturing, you stupid fucks. 

They Zoom from their refrigerated trucks 

that, for the record, Purgatory sucks. 

And now their message buffers. For what it’s worth 

they won’t stop Zooming from their hopeless trucks. 

But we’re the slowest students on God’s earth. 

Gilbert Allen lives in upstate South Carolina, where he still encounters unmasked persons in indoor spaces. His most recent books are Believing in Two Bodies and The Beasts of Belladonna.

WORST CASE

by Gilbert Allen




"Corpses piled / tenderly along the curbs"
—Dorianne Laux (“Lord of the Flies,” 2020)

"I do not pity the dead, I pity the dying."
—James Wright (“At the Executed Murderer's Grave,” 1958)


Nobody dares give a damn about the dead,                                    
not now. Because if you did, you’d be
a demiurge of shadows—your own ghost,
unholy, praying for a miracle.                                                                      
A miracle to parse the mystery
of presences, of all the universe—
its molecules and light, its stars, coronas,                
infections, choices, triage, viruses.

Patient or provider, in this bed                                
you have a life to tend and medicate                      
as best you can. Till the determined day
you’ll move beyond the pity of James Wright—
above or in the ordinary earth
we creatures are condemned to walk upon.            


Gilbert Allen shelters in place in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

SILENCER NIGHT: AN AMERICAN XMAS

by Gilbert Allen

A multi-state lawsuit was filed Monday afternoon that seeks to block a government settlement that would give the public access to downloadable plans for 3D-printed weapons. —CNET, July 30, 2018

Timothy was sound asleep

beside his snoring pup

when at 11:55

his cellphone woke him up.

The toddler got out of bed

exactly as he’d planned

and tiptoed quickly down the stairs                     

to claim his contraband.                                                    

Suspended from the fireplace

(thoughtfully unlit)

a pair of portly pantaloons                                     

seemed just about to split.

And nearly touching the gas logs

a pair of blackened boots

hung with heavy dignity

in artificial soot.

He waited on the bottom step

for Santa to emerge.

Although the toddler longed to speak,

Timothy fought the urge.

Saint Nicholas beheld the tree

besieged by piles of stuff.

He rubbed his beard. He checked his list.

“I think Tim has enough.”

He opened his Emergency Sack

to cram some presents in.

A little face froze into pure

cherubic porcelain.

Tiny Tim beheld the man                                       

and grabbed a plastic gun.

(His father often lectured him

upon The Castle Doctrine.)

In Santa’s sack lay Heavenly Piece.

(He fumbled to confirm it.

Like any self-respecting Claus

he had a carry permit.)

So both invoked Amendment rights

they separately reckoned.

Toddler and Saint both stood their ground.

The First shot; then, the Second.

The plastic gun was not a toy                               

but crafted by Tim’s mother,                                               

who thoughtfully had fired up                              

her 3D copier.                                                                       

So now two lie beside the tree

each in his Xmas red.

Saint Nicholas punches 9-1-1

before his phone goes dead.

Two sleeping parents hold their peace               

behind their bedroom door.

A pit bull plays with a RoboMouse                      

stirring upon the floor.

Gilbert Allen lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT BACK THEN

by Gilbert Allen

Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco. —History.com


Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.
Bless colonists with your enlightened views.
Four hundred years ago, we needed you
to end this chain migration’s witches’ brew
before it started. Be our go-between!
Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.

Gilbert Allen lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

ROADSIDE CALVARY, FLAGPOLE PRESIDING

                          due west of Washington, DC

by Gilbert Allen

Supersized, it seemed a little strange
at first, Old Glory. Then I realized
trussed up here hung America. Our two
states of the spirit, left and right—thieves crossed,
clutching the splinters of our government.

One penitent, the other not so much—
wraiths framing a high ideal inclined to die
above our heads. It stimulates our faith,
clear as an HOV lane to a shining
city on a hill—concrete, and never there.

Gilbert Allen's newest books are Catma (a collection of poems) and The Final Days of Great American Shopping (a collection of linked stories). He lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, and recently drove to our nation's capital.

FIVE EXPLANATIONS

by Gilbert Allen

Kudzu kills or damages other plants by smothering them under a solid blanket of leaves, encircling woody stems and tree trunks, and breaking branches or uprooting entire trees and shrubs. Once established, kudzu grows at a rate of one foot per day; mature vines can be 100 feet long. Kudzu was introduced into the U.S. at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. From 1935 to the mid-1950s, farmers in the South were encouraged to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion. Kudzu is spread by vines that root at the nodes to form new plants. To successfully control kudzu, its extensive root system must be completely eradicated by cutting vines just above the ground and mowing every month for two growing seasons—all cut material must be destroyed. The U.S. Forest Service is searching for biological control agents for kudzu. —The Nature Conservancy

1. Next to that red American clay, bare
and beckoning as a billionaire’s
baseball cap, it seemed
like a giant green blessing.

2. What else to eat in Nagasaki
in September, 1945,
but its white
indestructible roots?

3. Without kudzu, April in South Carolina
would be too full of blue
skies, flowering dogwoods, azaleas
and itself.

4. Men planted it.
Pigs love it.
Why can’t men be pigs?

5. After the first cold Tuesday in November
it still gives death
a good name.


Gilbert Allen has lived in South Carolina for forty years. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

THE BOOK OF NEMESIS, CHAPTER 2016

by Gilbert Allen

Image source: DonkeyHotey

                   
And He said, I am The Great Candidate.
All the others?
Low energy.
Stop and think for a minute, people.
You really want a GOTUS who looks like that?
This is gonna be huge.
I’ll build a ginormous wall in the desert, and Saddam is gonna pay for it.
He’s history, and I know where his money is.
I’ve got some experience with walls.
And money.
You’ll be the father of many nations, after I smite them into The Stone Age.
You’ll mark all their members with red ties, before you let them out of the rubble.
Have I said you’ll be the mother of many nations, too?
I cherish mothers.
Mothers love me.
Especially Mexican mothers.
Listen, I know how to make deals.
I’ve been making deals for a pretty long time now.
You’re gonna have so many victories you’re gonna get sick of them.
Did anyone ever tell you you look just like Abraham?        
Abraham Lincoln?
Now fall on your face already.


Gilbert Allen's most recent collection of poems is Catma, from Measure Press. A book of short stories, The Final Days of Great American Shopping, is forthcoming from USC Press in April. He lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.