AROUND THE WORLD IN 90 DAYS

by David Feela

Launch of the Montgolfier hot air balloon, Versailles, September 19,  1783

By the time the postponed IRS deadline arrives
the coronavirus may have circled the globe
a few more times. Still, at least a year
before you declare that smaller income,
due to a lay off, or a business closing down
when the traditional cash flow failed to levitate
like little green carpets on a magic profit ride.

Who would have predicted it requires a lifetime
to recover from the death of a loved one
so suddenly seized by the thumbs, no time to pack,
as if lifted by a balloon—a Montgolfier feat—
beyond belief, these abiding incalculable losses.


David Feela writes columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his newest chapbook Little Acres.

THE ANCHORMAN'S TIES

by Judith Terzi

Image source: The Nashua Telegraph

No matter what the news,
my neck is tied. The market
flies, the market plunges,
two thousand said I dead.
I wear white polka dots
on navy blue. Every night
a suit and tie. Citizens
coagulate fate, tie clothing
tourniquets. Amputees nod
goodbye to candy stripers.
Smoky gray geometric
shapes in a cool sea green
hang from my neck. I read:
brouhaha at the IRS, no
terrorism in Benghazi,
terrorism in Benghazi.
Every night a suit and tie.
Car bombs in Sadr City,
seventy dead in Tahrir
Square. Wisteria petals
float on an archipelago of
made-in-India silk. Our
government is tied down.
Arctic tundra will turn
to forest. The President
is fit. The President is fit
to be... I want to sever
ties with purple stripes,
yellow cloverleafs. I read:
human rubble in a garment
factory. Yellow and pink
palm trees and storks
and swans. Jewelry heist
at the Festival de Cannes.
I tie my thoughts way back
tight into my head. White
blossoms in an olive green
lake. I tie up my mind.
Exhumation of the Chilean
poet. The fires still roar.
Tie score for arson, climate
change, metaphor. Golden
bark, silver branches, ruby
berries. No matter what
the news. Bashar al-Assad.
Ferragamo. Collar and tie.


Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies and has been nominated for Best of the Web and Net. For many years a high school French teacher, she also taught English and ESL at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. She is the author of Sharing Tabouli (2011) and Ghazal for a Chambermaid, forthcoming from Finishing Line.

TEN SPEED NEWS CYCLE

by Frederick L. Shiels

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Obama’s second term is doomed they say
Six months in, Press coroners pronounce it dead
The IRS chastised for chasing Tea
drinkers, Hillary’s inattention slaughters our
ambassador in Benghazi then
her crew make up stories,

Associated Press, Boston left unprotected so it goes
The best offense Defense, GOP says
This Right-serves the ‘libral’ pack for Watergate
And oh harassment of those do-good folk,
J Edgar’s files on King Seegar Baez, other threats,

The endless gottcha nothing new we say
Why knaves betraying knaves is how it works
Honored tradition, remember Lancaster and York?
The Romanovs and Bolsheviks parade
Their antics and Rasputin laughs

And so they think Obama cries
All tied in knots, he sighs
Thoreau said read the papers once a month
You’ll ‘not a thing miss’, he implied
It’s May, such flowers! adopt an earthworm better still
Turn off newschatter, go embrace the Countryside.


Frederick L. Shiels professored at Mercy College in history and politics starting in the Jimmy Carter years, 1977 and after. He has published poems in The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology (Vassar) and Wicker’s Creek (Mercy College), the latter two no longer publishing, and elsewhere. He has written on the bombing of civilians and, now, the future of progressivism in America.