THE SNAKE

by Ana Garza G'z
after the song of the same name by Oscar Brown, Jr.

Sisters Africa and Maggie Brown, daughters of Oscar Brown Jr. who wrote the song "The Snake,” criticize President Trump for using it as an anti-immigration reference during rallies.

“The Snake”: Donald T***p brings back his favorite

anti-immigrant fable at CPAC —CNN, February 23, 2018

With her remote control one evening flipping past commercial breaks,
a media-driven nation saw a narcissistic snake.
His orange colored hair had been all sprayed back with some goo.
"Oh, wow," she laughed, "I'll take you in, and I'll watch what you do."

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She watched him on her TV in her jammies and her quilt,
giving him high ratings, his land of honey and of milk.
Then hurrying home to couch one night to giggle and to gasp,
she found the orange snake she'd taken to was in command.

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She shrieked and clutched her bosom, "You were spectacle," she moaned,
"and if I hadn't brought you in, by now you would be gone."
She picked up her remote, and then she gripped it tight.
The orange head came up and out for a narcissistic strike.

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

"But I watched you," whined the nation, “and you've poisoned me and mine—
“guns, banks, oil, insurance companies, and white nationalism poised to thrive."
"I hear you, fake-news nation," said the reptile, from his notes.
"You knew damn well I was a snake before all those tremendous votes.”

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

Ana Garza G'z has an M. F. A. from California State University, Fresno, where she teaches part-time. Sixty-five of her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty. She also works as an interpreter and translator.

T***P'S MAGNIFICAT

by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

Saint Putin by aegragru at DeviantArt

in praise of Putin the Red Dragon

My heart does magnify your wind

And my head rejoices in you my savior.

For you have annotated the low esteem

of your apostle; for, it is great,

from henceforth all hysteria

will call me blasted.

For you who are haughty

have done to me naughty things;

and ghostly is your name.

And your mendacity resides in them

who hear you from her story to history.

You have sown despair

with your hands; you have

scattered hubris

in the imagery of my soul.

You have desecrated the mighty

in their seats and rescued me from prevarication.

You have brained the rich

with good things; and the hungry,

you have sent to the garbage pails.

You have exalted me, your most obedient

serf, in remembrance of your mercy;

as you preached to my father,

Judas in the chariot, and to my spawn forever.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr. is the author of The Katrina Papers (2008), The China Lectures (2014), and Fractal Song: Poems (2016) and co-editor of The Cambridge History of African American Literature (2011). He lives in New Orleans, LA.

UNDER THE GOD, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, 12 AUGUST 2017

by Kenneth E. Harrison, Jr.





           Watchin' their heads in the toilet bowl
           Don't see supremacist hate

           Right wing dicks in their boiler suits

           Picking out who to annihilate
               —David Bowie, “Under the God,” Tin Machine (1989)


 Forgive us our Confederate bedsheets & the flag above the headboard.
 Forgive us the need to be right.
 Forgive us the Civil War was never really about slavery.
 Forgive us Emmett Till we love our heritage.
 Forgive us a matter of pride carrying torches through your campus.
 Forgive us blood & soil.
 Forgive us fashionable alt-right haircuts & Duck Dynasty beards.
 Forgive us whatever will get us laid.
 Forgive us fuck the immigrants & Muslims what’s wrong with America.
 Forgive us Alex Jones says.
 Forgive us it’s Black Lives Matter who’s racist.
 Forgive us T***p’s sending a message.
 Forgive us whatever pisses off the liberal snowflakes.
 Forgive us George Lincoln Rockwell didn’t buy evolution either.
 Forgive us Michael Brown & Trayvon Martin were thugs.
 Forgive us it’s in our economic interest.
 Forgive us our First Amendment rights.
 Forgive us & leave the statue.
 Forgive us our white fathers never did anything wrong.


Kenneth E. Harrison, Jr.'s poems have appeared most recently in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cutbank, Numero Cinq, and Verse Daily.

LOOKING FOR THOREAU

by William Cullen, Jr.

“Thoreau with iPhone” by Gretchen Stephenson, The New Yorker, February 1, 2011

Here at Walden Pond
pilgrims outnumber the trees
with their cell phone tones
mimicking every woodland song
the mocking bird is heard no more.


William Cullen, Jr., is a veteran and works at a non-profit in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared in Camroc Press Review, Gulf Stream, Pirene's Fountain, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway, Willows Wept Review, Word Riot and Written River.