THE INDICTMENT OF THE MAD KING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one."

—Thomas Paine, "The Crisis," December 23, 1776

Our Petition as it stands now:

He has refused the rule of law,
which is most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden governance
of pressing importance,
and when so suspended,
has utterly neglected to attend to it.

He has refused to move forward
for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of the states,
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to encourage migrations here.

He has made judges dependent on his will
alone,
slandering and calling out publicly
or selecting them by loyalty.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,
and sent away swarms of officers
to far locations, away from governance.

He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
rabble-rousers and tweeters
firing on the masses
without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution
and unacknowledged by our laws,
giving his assent to their acts
of interference in our elections.

He is known for
cutting off trade
with other parts of the world,
destroying alliances
cozying with despots.

He has abducted real governance
by declaring the media
enemies of the people and
out of his protection,
waging war on journalists.

His rollbacks have plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
flooded our cities,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us.

In every stage of these oppressions
we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions
have been answered
by repeated injury.

A mad king, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant
is unfit
to be the leader
of a free people.

Our Petition is clear:

The words like bombs
exploding in our faces,
we must all
reread our Constitution.
uphold the laws therein.

Author's Note: Adapted from "The Declaration of Independence" in which King George is indicted for his "injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States."

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

GOVERNANCE

by Michael Cantor

You start by just ignoring there’s a brake,
or anything that might intrude to take
your mind off never thinking how to make
a final, saving, unexpected snake-
like motion; but instead remain opaque
within your fierce intensity and stake
that rubber to the center line, forsake
eye contact, floor the monster – see them quake –
and watch it all become a piece of cake,
the coward’s headlights sure to bow and shake
because they realize it’s not a fake –
you’re in your zone, your mind is set, you ache
to see them crawl and beg to compromise.
And if they don’t? Well that’s the risk we take.


Michael Cantor’s full-length collection, Life in the Second Circle (Able Muse Press, 2012), was a finalist for the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry.  A chapbook, The Performer, was published in 2007; his work has appeared in The Dark Horse, Measure, Raintown Review, SCR, Chimaera, The Flea, and he has won the New England Poetry Club Gretchen Warren and Erika Mumford prizes.  A native New Yorker, he has lived and worked in Japan, Latin America and Europe, and presently divides his time between hurricane-threatened Plum Island, MA, and drought-threatened Santa Fe, NM.

SINGING TRUTH TO POWER ON THE CAPITOL TOUR, MADISON, WISCONSIN, 8-7-13

by Wendy Vardaman





 for the Solidarity Sing Along & Overpass Light Brigade, Living Art Since 2011 & the Raging Grannies, est. 2003


Liberty’s decked
in a dozen shades of green, wears a laurel-leafed
red cap,
shelters a ballot box in her lap,
inside it a white ball—that means yes.
Old as Moses, Legislation has
a notebook, a pen, could be a writer. Or just a forgetful old man.
Justice, maybe Liberty’s mom,
holds a pan in each palm. And Governance?
He’s up to something. Has his eye on Liberty’s
egg-like vote. He’s Roman.
Carries the Emperor’s wand
in one hand and a sword in the other. Flashes his shining, glass-light teeth
like he means it. The red breastplate means he hangs with Mars, even if he hides the helmet

under his seat. The four
sit larger than life, myth-like, on benches flat to the wall, don’t register
the noon-hour sing-along, from their Olympus high. One hundred, more or less, 
not an organization, but a collection
of citizens, some regulars, some once-in-a-whiles, some one
timers, gather to gather citations beneath Resources of Wisconsin,
then lay them at her feet, along with their breath, the light
that bounces off some 100,000 Beaux-Art mosaic tiles
that make up Liberty, Legislation, Justice, Governance,
and raise a collective voice, assembled from fragments,
beneath the Rotunda, city center to which all have claim. Today some audience,
also part of this unlawful gathering, wears etched orange vests:
Tourists. Do Not Arrest. They ask, We’re from New York.
Is it true we’re not allowed to look?

The Raging Grannies sing in calico aprons and dahlia-trimmed, wide-brimmed hats.
Veterans for Peace, visiting this week, comes to sing and fly a flag.
Have you been to jail for justice? The Capitol Police tell
people who only stand and watch leave: Tell
a teenaged boy leave. Tell the orange-vested grandparents leave.
Tell a mom and her three children leave.
They say we all must clear the viewing area, an unlawful
assembly. But what if we’re quiet as stone, still as marble,
see-through as glass? They gather their offering to Liberty, Legislation,
Justice and Governance, arrest 20-some singers again
today: old people, clergy, veterans, teenagers,
students, mothers with children, photographers.
Just doing their job. An older woman wearing a tie-died  shirt lies down
on the granite floor to do hers. When

the singing ends, so do the arrests, though people still stay to talk in the Capitol
full-up with art: murals and sculptures, marble and glass. Including “The Trial
of Chief Oshkosh.” Including “The Opening of the Panama Canal.” Including
“Wisconsin,” the hollow, gold-leafed woman in a long,
Empire-style dress at the very top of the dome, who wears a hat
with a badger, another state symbol, perched
on top of it: commission given to, then stolen
from, an actual Wisconsin woman,
Helen Farnsworth Mears.
The Capitol tour covers rocks and fossils: Nautiloid, Gastropod, Burrows,
Coral, Ammonoid, Bryozoans, Brachiopods, sedentary animals
of the ancient sea floor. Covers 19th century New York. Covers artistic time capsules.
Governance, also sedentary, likes it that way. Bullies Justice, who
keeps her mouth shut. Ignores an old journalist taking notes. Leers at Liberty.


Wendy Vardaman is the author of Obstructed View (Fireweed Press), co-editor/webmaster of Verse Wisconsin, and co-founder/co-editor of Cowfeather Press. She is one of Madison, Wisconsin's two Poets Laureate (2012-2015).