MEN WITH NO LIPS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve learned to be afraid of them.
Someone is going to tell a lie.
Go after the drug peddlers, ignore
drug companies pumping opiods.
Refurbish Hotel Guantanamo
with used mattresses from high-rise hotels.
Breathe deep of clean, clean coal.
Pretend the sick get health care
or that your dreams are equal
to those of people without a country.
I'm never afraid to kneel
and know its rightness.

White guys who smile by folding
their lips in, straight lines across the face
to hide  the aging of the down curves
but not to show teeth. Some public relations
gimmick to refrain from being read as wolf,
predator, out to get you. Smuggy. Smirky.
Someone is telling a lie.  I’ve known frogs
I trusted more.


Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet who once heard of an art installation by Robbie Conal called "Men With No Lips." So here we are in the news of the State of the Union. Men without lips.

"Men With No Lips" by Robbie Conal

"Can't Even" by Robbie Conal

THE KNOWN UNKNOWN

by Margaret Rozga



He squints through his narrow glasses, looking
above the shoulder and beyond the ear
of the journalist.

He takes the numerical part
of the question, ruminates,
Two, three.  Not so many.

He draws his lip in an upward
arch flat against his face.  His teeth edge
into the opening of what passes for a smile.

Death falls from the sky
Death marches on the capitol.
Truck bombs, IEDs, rocket propelled grenade launchers.
Death strikes back.

Put death in prison.  Abu Ghraib.  Guantanamo.
A black hole at Bagram.  Secret centers of interrogation.
Enhanced death.

Waterboard until the interrogated wish they were dead.
Construct your smile out of this vacuum.


Margaret Rozga has published two books, Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad.  Her most recent poems and book reviews appear in the Spring 2014 issue of Verse Wisconsin online.

DINNER AT THE HOMESICK

by James Penha

My name is Doc; you can call me Sir. I'll be your server tonight. The maitre d' tells me our regular menu holds no interest for you. But we will not let you starve. Or find another restaurant. Or review us at TripAdvisor. And so I am here with the specials. Sit back as we tuck you into this special chair. Like business class on American. A few extra belts maybe, and, no, no champagne. But we do take one page from Larousse: the foie gras page. The starter is something like a sausage casing. Even empty, it fulfills from nose to stomach. What's good for a goose is good for a gander. This bib we set just so around your neck and over your lips. No mastication necessary. And no more talk. It's dining as you have never dined before: more like breathing in a whole lobster liquified in drawn butter. Nutrition in charge! So very special.


James Penha edits The New Verse News.