IN THE PICK 'N SAVE PARKING LOT

by Lisa Vihos

Looking over
the top of my mask
my glasses already steamed,
I meet your eyes, stranger,
and we smile.

We cannot see these smiles
but we know we are smiling.
The twinkle in the eye tells all.
We raise our hands in silent salute.

Nothing could have prepared us
for this moment, or maybe
everything did.
If only our hands could meet,
right here, we’d become a prayer.

We know we are members
of the same tribe,
fighting an insidious evil
that flourishes on the breath,
on the wind, and has run
unchecked in all the lies of now,
and in all the lies past.
Let it be unchecked no more.

In the journey towards justice,
there is just us, essential prophets
seeing beyond the mask.

Lisa Vihos has four chapbooks and her poems have appeared in numerous journals, both print and online. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal. Just this past week, Vihos was named the poet laureate of Sheboygan, WI—the city's first—where she also serves as an organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change.  

WHY THEY DID WHAT THEY DID

by Lisa Vihos

It was a little over week ago today,
that legislators in Wisconsin gaveled in,
gaveled out. 17 seconds in which
they would not consider
the governor’s request.

During a deadly pandemic,
under a stay-at-home order,
how can we ask the citizens
of our fair state, to risk
their lives to vote?

Not only can we ask,
the legislators said,
we will demand, and gain
the support of our brethren
on the highest court in the land.

April 7, 2020, mark the record,
SCOTUS kicked Wisconsin
in the balls, under the bus,
out the window along with
12,000 absentee ballots

that could not be returned in time,
because they had not been received
in time, even though so many
had been requested by good
law-abiding folks way back in March.

No matter, we are closing down
this right, they said, knowing that
with only five of one hundred eighty
polling places open in Milwaukee,
they could effectively

suppress the vote. Because,
as the chief thief and narcissist
among them had pointed out—if ever
we should expand early voting
or voting by mail—“you’d never have
a Republican elected in this country
again.”  


Editor's note: screenshot of an April 14 tweet—

Lisa Vihos is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals both print and online. Author of four chapbooks and editor of two anthologies, she is poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and an organizer for the world-wide movement, 100 Thousand Poets for Change. She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

SPEAK

by Lisa Vihos

In the land of fake plenty
there’s a road paved with money.
If you’re something enough,
you can get on this road
but mostly you cannot.
Unless you can pull yourself up
on the straps of those boots
they stole from you.

Listen when the robot drones speak
from two sides of their mouth.
Do what you can to learn that language.

          Try our six-week, no money back
          guaranteed language
          immersion experience
          Time is running out. Send
          your first-born child.
          Or give us your planet.
          We can work with you on this.
          Payment plans are available,
          but you must act now.

Each day is an equivocation
of that which they said
they did not say the day before.
Who can imagine?
Look here, look there, look away, they say,
And do not do what I would not do.
          Or do it, at your own risk.

Advice is cheap. Money
is expensive. Walls are being built
as we speak.

The poems of Lisa Vihos have appeared in numerous journals, both print and online. Her fourth chapbook Fan Mail from Some Flounder was published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2018. She is the poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and the Sheboygan organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

WHERE IS THE SERVER?

by Lisa Vihos

Image source: @axios

                             after the question from Trump to the media

at his surrender to Putin, 7/16/18

                                       

In this, the Second Enlightenment
(a.k.a. the Demise of Science)
someone is looking for a server.
Is it a room
a box
a chip
a person?
Where are they keeping it?
What is the server saying?
Who has the goods and when
will we receive them?
When will we get supersized?
When will we get our Happy Meals
and all the refills we’ve been promised?

Let’s make a deal:
Bring the 33,000 emails
by midnight tonight,
and you will receive
a lifetime supply of bump stocks
and two free coupons
to the opioid epidemic.
Bring $800 for a DNA test
and your child will be returned.

Come forth, O Server
and tell us all the Deep State secrets
you have stored for so long.
Bring the candles
and the vintage wine.
Reveal us to ourselves
in this never-ending nightmare
that we once upon a time called home.


Editor's Note: “Face it. @realDonaldTrump does have a good point: if the 33,000 emails once on Hillary's server had been found and made public, she wouldn't be president.” —Elizabeth Drew

The poetry of Lisa Vihos has appeared in many journals both print and online including Big Bridge, Big Muddy, Bramble, Forge, Red Fez, Seems, Verse Wisconsin, and Wisconsin People and Ideas. Her fourth chapbook Fan Mail from Some Flounder is just out in 2018 from Main Street Rag Publishing. She is the poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and the Sheboygan organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change. 

OUTSIDE THE DREAM

by Lisa Vihos

“If you hear the song I sing, you will understand.”

—Chet Powers (aka Dino Valente), composer, “Let’s Get Together”

I woke up today
so far outside the dream
I was not sure about up,
down, or which way
would take me forward.

There are days like this
when everything is changing,
and I find myself a bundle
of concerns, a bundle
of desires, waiting.

I hear songs in my head,
voices of long, long ago
of a dream that others had
and a world that could be,
should be, might be.

If only I would do the right thing
say the right thing, write the right
poem. It's not up to me.
I am not it, but,
I am part of it.

My job: to remind you,
you are part of it, too.

Lisa Vihos writes poetry in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her fourth chapbook Fan Mail from Some Flounder is forthcoming from Main Street Rag in 2018. She is an organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change and an occasional guest blogger for The Best American Poetry.