EVEN GROUND

by tom bauer

I was born with my teeth bared hunter-like
and I chased the good life like it was a stag
in God’s forest, chopping workdays like trees,
dragging them back to build a family home
and nourish new children with veggie stews,
candles lit, our smiles in golden shadows
around a table, but there was nowhere
to hide, we couldn’t escape genocide.

And never thinking, not once, it would be
this neural energy, fluids heating
the nervous systems of society
like some mid-century reptilian brain,
terror pouring out of mansions on hills,
muddy rivers flowing, crashing great stones
to earth around us, unable to hide
because we hadn’t escaped genocide.

I had the job, the car, the family home,
I had built a life on plans, blueprints of hope,
big dreams of a career being a star,
but nothing I could do could stop a war,
though I’d hoped there wouldn’t be anymore,
no more bombs and the shrieks of dying kids,
but I think we see there’s nowhere to hide,
we cannot, will not, escape genocide.

tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.

HUNTING SEASON

by Jay Sizemore

Pearly whites. Teeth. Not teeth.
Privilege.
$50,000 to kill a black man.
In the safari grassland of Zimbabwe,
a man with white skin, white teeth, white erectile dysfunction,
draws back his bow. He knows the dark has no soul.
It’s only an animal.
The grass ripples in waves, flashing between shades
of brown and yellow and green.
His arrow strikes true, bowstring vibrato hum,
the familiar inhuman cry.
The rifle to finish the job. A bullet through the heart,
the animal heart.
Careful to get no blood on his khakis.
Poses for photographs with his trophy,
his prized fetish, fresh frothy crimson, foaming
from its mouth. He’ll cut off its head, mount it on his wall,
maybe make its black skin into a rug.
Just another dead thing to stand on.

Blue lights. Blue shirts. Blue eyes.
Privilege.
The lion doesn’t have a license plate.
The lion doesn’t have a license.
Lions shouldn’t be driving, their primal instinct
is to kill, to gnaw marrow from healthy bones.
Question the lion. These things don’t speak English.
The lion will grunt and growl, avoid eye contact,
that dead yellow stare,
that scent of bloody breath.
This is why he carries a handgun.
This is why he’s trained his trigger hand.
The lion has no pride, it’s been drinking gin,
dribbled it down its beautiful black mane.
Old car animal sweat, fight or flight.
It’ll reach for its keys.
Tell the lion to stop.
It’ll reach under the seat.
Don’t think twice.
Shoot the lion in the head.
No one will riot.


Jay Sizemore doesn’t win awards. Founder of Crow Hollow Books, he writes poems and stories and scribbles his name a lot onto electronic pads for material possessions. He listens to Ryan Adams and drinks Four Roses. You can find his work online in places if you go looking, including his chapbook Confessions of a Porn Addict, available on Amazon. His wife puts up with his shit in Nashville, TN.

GAME OF DRONES

by George Salamon (with a bow to Tom Lehrer)

GNAT

The USA has the most,
And that is good
Because we're for freedom and motherhood.

Our allies have them too,
And that's all right
Because they'll join us in a fight.

They're called UAVs, unmanned
Aerial vehicles, and you
Must get to know them:

Hunter and Reaper,
Predator and Gnat,
For our security they'll go to bat.

Eleven countries have them today,
But that's not the way
It's going to stay.

"Every country will have armed drones
Within ten years," oh my.
But that's no cause to worry.

They'll only be used for "targeted
Killings, terrorism and government
Suppression of civil unrest."

So good night, baby,
Sleep tight and don't fret,
Drones will be watching over you.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO and contributes to Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News.