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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.
Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 04, 2020

RED DOMINION, THE TRANSITION: RATED R

by Alejandro Escudé


Illustrated | Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy Stock Photo via The Week


T***p stands at the top of the White House steps
holding an assault rifle: “Say hello to my little friend!”
he screams as the army rushes to arrest him, explosions
everywhere; in the Oval Office desk, dozens of encrypted
Russian messages, a diagram of an experimental aircraft
inside his seven iron, and the button, beneath the bust
of Taft, he pushed to open a passage to a bullet tram
leading directly to Moscow, on the way blasting by
Satan himself, his wild angel wings, demons wearing
MAGA caps raise their claws as he speeds through,
the tram, shaped like the cockpit of a 747, painted black
with T***P in red on its side; the final station is made
of gold, supporters and strippers greet him in Moscow;
police whisk him up a marble staircase to a glass elevator
and into a luxury hotel room near Red Square where
he’s met by a few KGB officials awaiting his last report
which T***p recites in precise Russian as he removes
the prosthetic face he has worn for decades, unveiling
a remarkable resemblance to Lenin; he runs a hand
over his bald head, the window open, sound of traffic
outside. Trump holds up a rumpled wig and smiles.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

Friday, December 27, 2019

WWE

by Mickey J. Corrigan


Source: iStock; Composite: Angelo Jesus Canta via America Magazine.


One man's hero:
another man's tyrant.

China wanted a wrestler
to unite the barbarians
build global power:
Qin Shi Huang
killed scholars
burned books
while slaves
built his wall,
the immigrants
castrated.

The self-declared living god:
Caligula
loved his sisters
shared them
with his men
his horse
he made a priest.

Attila the Hun:
the scourge of God
raped and pillaged.
Genghis Khan:
killed the rich
using the poor
as human shields.

Tamerlane's tower:
built from living men
cemented and bricked,
their heads
made into minarets.

Ivan the Terrible
Grand Prince of Moscow;
Robespierre beheaded,
Lenin desecrated,
Stalin had gulags.

Il Duce and the Blackshirts
Hitler and the Nazis
slave labor and torture
concentration camps for all
not in the master race.

Chairman Mao and State control:
40 million dead.
Pol Pot: professionals
sent away
to reeducation farms,
special centers for people
who wore glasses, read books.

Idi Amin. Pinochet.
Assad. Kim Jong-un.
Mugabe of Zimbabwe,
Gaddafi, al-Bashir.
Vladmir Putin and
you-know-who.
The list goes on
the reigns of corruption
gripped tight
to this day

strongmen
still

just weak men
destroying to destroy
the enemy within
creating false worlds
building bone walls
burning the truth
in public bonfires
wrenching our history
away from us
in a soul crushing
illegal, amoral
stranglehold.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Her books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.  Project XX, a satirical crime novel, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. What I Did for Love was released by Bloodhound Books in October.

Friday, February 03, 2017

WHAT I TELL YOU THREE TIMES IS TRUE

by Sheila Wellehan



A lie told often enough becomes the truth. –Vladimir Lenin 

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:  What I tell you three times is true. –Lewis Carroll


When you tell a story three times
it becomes the truth.

Assert it four times
you slam shut open windows and doors.

Spinning the false tale five times
kills every bee in its hive.

With the weight of six repetitions
tall buildings collapse and the sky rains bricks.

Singing the same song seven times
poisons every ocean, every lake.

If you mislead eight times
you blind everyone who’s survived.

When you deceive nine times
they believe it even in heaven.

Repeat a lie ten times
that’s it, it’s the end.


Sheila Wellehan's poetry is featured in Chiron Review, The Fourth River, Off the Coast, Poetry East, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.