GIULIANI WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA

by Jon Wesick

with apologies to Charlie Daniels

Jack Ohman: "A peach of a guy," The Sacramento Bee, August 18, 2022

Giuliani went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for votes to steal

He was in a bind ‘cause Trump was way behind

And he was willin’ to make a deal

 

When he came across the DA writing subpoenas and slinging ‘em hot

And Giuliani pled attorney-client with Trump

And said, “girl, let me tell you what”

 

“I guess you didn’t know I’m a lawyer too

At least until I was disbarred

Now you got a pretty good grand jury, girl

But why you gotta’ make it so hard

Makin’ me travel to Atlanta

By bus, or train, or car?”

 

The DA said, “My name is Fani and I’m gonna’ win

And you can bet you’re gonna’ regret

‘Cause I’m the best there’s ever been”

 

Giuliani wiped off his hair dye and said, “I’ll start this grift”

And nothing else passed his lips except, “I take the fifth”

All the hacks at Fox News made an evil hiss

While Lindsey Graham filed appeals for judges to dismiss

 

Fani said, “You’re pretty slick, old son

But sit right there in the witness chair

And I’ll show you how it’s done”

 

Classified documents out in the sun

While Trump considers a twenty-four run

New York, Georgia, and Feds closing in

Holding our breath for justice to win

 

Giuliani hung his head ‘cause he knew he’d been beat

As he climbed down off the witness seat

And Fani cracked a smile

“Come on back to Georgia

I’ll see you at your trial”

 

Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Metal Scratches, The New Verse News, Pearl, Slipstream, Space and Time, Tales of the Talisman, and Zahir. Jon is the author of the poetry collections Words of Power, Dances of Freedom and A Foreigner Wherever I Go as well as several novels and short story collections. His most recent novel is The Prague Deception.

SOME TOXIC ELEMENTS OF THE PATRIARCHY

by Emily Rock

Jack Ohman: Law & Order, Senate GOP

…were on display in the Senate as Ketanji Brown Jackson

faced down the Judiciary Committee

on the way to (please, let it be so) the Supreme Court.

 

Ghostly white Lindsey Graham, with his trademark drawl,

claimed “It’s about ‘we’re all racist’ if we ask hard questions.  

That’s not gonna fly with us.”

 

She was gracious: “I am happy to do whatever…”

she said as Chuck Grassley mumbled gruffly, interrupting her.

“No, that’s alright,” she said.  “I’m sorry.”

The Senator from Missouri said in his tweets

that Judge Jackson’s record on child pornography offenders

went “beyond soft on crime,” her record “endangers our children.”

 

She was calm: “As a judge and a mother, nothing

could be further from the truth.”

And she explained, though Josh Hawley deserved nothing

 

from her, that she told every criminal defendant

about the many victims' statements she received,

ensuring the child's perspective was heard in her court.

 

“When I look in the eyes of a defendant who is weeping,” she said,

 “I tell them about a victim who developed agoraphobia,

who thinks everyone she meets will have seen her pictures on the internet.”

 

I imagined an unflinching Jackson looking an offender in the eyes,

not softened by his tears—the sad sad tears of a man who has been caught,

which reminded me of her future colleague, Brett Kavanaugh:

 

how he cried during his own confirmation hearing,

how his emotional outbursts would be blamed on PMS

if he were a woman instead of a self-righteous white man.

 

Ketanji Brown Jackson said “I hope that you will see

how much I love our country, and our Constitution,”

and I recalled Kavanaugh repeating “I like beer.”

 

I thought of his victims, Christine Blasey Ford

and the others whose voices were not heard,

who watched their assailant weep

 

and go red in the face, defend his honor,

defend his entitlement to a seat

on the highest court—and prevail.

 

If Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed,

she will join two men who have been credibly accused

of crimes against women,

 

she will join a supermajority of aggressors

gleefully eviscerating Roe v. Wade,

stripping voting protections,

 

all while claiming the mantle

of Originalism, their philosophy

stuck in the 1700s with the slave-owning founders.

 

And yet, Republicans have tarred her 

with the absurd accusation

that she is somehow a threat to “our children.”

 

Whose children, I would ask Josh Hawley.

Whose children are threatened by a black woman 

with a gavel and a robe?

Emily Rock is an attorney and mother of two who lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

THE BALLAD OF LINDSEY GRAHAM'S PICKLE

by Janice D. Soderling

Dong, dong, it pealed from each bell tower
until full twelve was said.
Cold, coverless and quivering,
Graham flopped around in bed.

He sat up, did the Senator,
and stared into the night
for at the footboard of his bed
commenced a nebulous light.

A ghastly apparation grew
and softly did it moan.
With trembling hands, it held aloft
a moss-bedecked tombstone.

"Oh, Lindsey," wheezed the ghostly guest.
Oh, Lindsey Graham, behold."
There on the mildewed stone was writ,
Orange glitter is not gold.

"And quid pro quo is not BS.
Go read the damning transcript."
A tortured moan froze Lindsay's blood,
"Far better men than you've flipped.

"Beware the traitorous pumpkin man."
The moan rose to a shout.
"I come to save you from yourself."
The frightened man cried out,

"Who art thou, apparation grim?
Who gives my blood such chill?
The Ghost of Hearings-Yet-To-Come?
Or that socialist, Joe Hill?

The glowing ghost gave mirthless laugh.
"Joe Hill has never died.
Takes more than guns to kill a man,
No matter how they tried.

"John sent me here to wake you up.
You're backing the wrong horse.
The bus is nigh. His game is rigged.
Stay off his damned golf course."

Then Lindsey woke, relieved, and said,
"Joe Hill's a loser Commie.
But that's the last time that I eat
dill pickles with pastrami."

Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to TheNewVerse.News. Her work was recently at Light, Better Than Starbucks, and La Libélula Vaga.

BLEEDING HEARTS DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

by George Salamon

"I have always been struck, in America, by an emotional poverty so bottomless, and a fear of human life, of human touch, so deep, that virtually no American appears able to achieve any viable organic connection between his public stance and his private life." 

—James Baldwin in I Am Not Your Negro (2017)

It is not a lesson
Easily learned.
After absorbing it,
One comes to
Rely on smaller
Emotions, just to
Be on the safe side.

George Salamon, retired from college teaching, journalism and public affairs, has contributed most recently to The Asses of Parnassus, Dissident Voice, One Sentence Poems and TheNewVerse.News from St. Louis, MO.