EPSTEIN WAR

by KP Liles 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

It was always about the crude.

Extracting the dark

archives out 

from under us.

A few wealthy men 

plotting to own

everything, down

to the last

liquified remains 

they groom 

to burn. Virgin 

trillions naked

for the taking.

O Power! the Power!

Unrivaled deployment—

Military, ICE, beyond oversight…

Taste Venezuela: 

lest we forget

it’s a jungle out there. 

War

drugs, law, lust

regime change

Mexico, Cuba

Minneapolis

Iran

Portland, Greenland

Behold! A politics of scandal 

heaped on scandal heaped

on scandal heaped on

morals. On truth.

Still, the trafficked girls

will not be

silenced. Drill! 

If you have the stomach for it.

It was always 

about the crude.

KP Liles desires a better, safer world for his daughter. For his son, his family, his students, his community, his fellow decent human beings. So, while he would have preferred to have spent time indulging in his newfound enthusiasm for birding, he felt obligated to put on the poet uniform for this piece.

I CAN’T HEAR YOU

by Chad Parenteau

the chief 

of sticks

proclaimed.

Too busy

turning on

faucets

 

hoping to

sluice away

immigrants

 

back down

to Mexico. 

Water. 

 

It goes 

right down

the hole.

 

Know that

from pre-k

diarrhea.

 

Excuse me.

Listening

for cracks

 

and all of

the people

falling through.

 

Once screams

finally stop

close hole.

 

Not right now.

Reapplying 

ear stigmata.

 

Need to have

gold card to

reach in here.

 

Have these 

documents 

to soak out

 

in deep south

salted by tears

of crocodiles 

 

that are now

jealous of 

our alligators.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and anthologies such as French Connections and Reimagine America. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

MAGA SAGA... OR PROJECT 2025 CONTRIVED

by Gilbert Allen

Cartoon by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

Fear queers.

Ban trans.

Hire liars.

Bring on Elon!

Pardon felons.

ICE raids

housemaids

nurse aides.

Prez sez

"I buy

Gaza Plaza!

Bombshell hotel!

Max tax

Canuck crooks!

Vex Mex!

They pay

duty booty!

Hate great!

True Blue?
Screw you.

Gilbert Allen has tried to live True Blue in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, since 1977. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview here.

THE GULF OF AMERICA, NÉE MEXICO

by Susan Ayres

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Friday that they will implement President Trump’s name change for the Gulf Coast.(wjhg)

 

                        I laugh at what you call dissolution,

                        And I know the amplitude of time.

                                                            —Walt Whitman

 

And yet she too is dissolved in a sea

of fears and worries. Will the rocks smash

her if the saltwater lets her go? In the muted

submersion there’s an isolation. The air

 

bubbles rise in a tickle. Small fish nibble

her toes. It’s not like she’s fallen to pieces.

She’s just lost her reason, her name.

She’s the brain mush and muscle mash

 

of dark swirls in the clear green water,

the murky way men possess women. Her particles

bond to the tickles. The waves push her

forward with the incoming tide. She laughs

 

at what they call dissolution. Floating

face down she knows the amplitude of time.

Susan Ayres is the author of Walk Like the Bird Flies (Finishing Line, 2023) and Red Cardinal, White Snow (Main Street Rag, 2024). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poems and translations have appeared in numerous journals. She studied Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico, practiced karate for nine years with her son, and now spends time in Texas writing, collaging, teaching, and learning tai chi.

GENESIS 2025

by Michael Dorian

Source: Seattle Times

In the beginning

He pardoned all the seditionists.

Now the nation was barren and shapeless,

darkness was upon the land

and He said, “Let there be lies,”

and there were lies.

He saw the lies were good

and He separated the lies from the truth.

He called the lies “truth”

and He called the truth “lies.”

And there was evening 

and there was morning—

the first day

And He said, "Let me stop the wildfires

scorching the pretty landscaping

and those expensive houses. 

I know some people in L.A., some 

very wealthy, well-connected people."

And He released with almighty force

from his gullet a torrent of water pressure

the likes of which no man had beheld.

And the fires stopped burning.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the second day

And He said, "Let the illegal immigrants

in the land be returned whence they came."

So with a gust of His great breath

He swept them all up in a glorious gale

and blew back to homelands the vermin, 

scattered like so much feed.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the third day.

And He said, "Let me build a big beautiful wall

And He saw it was a good wall,

a great wall, better than China’s,

The Greatest Wall Of All Time

that anyone has ever seen anywhere

on Earth or any planet in our 

Solar System or even in all of Space,"

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the fourth day.

And He said, "Let me stop the war in Ukraine."

And a great swathe of his carefully—

coiffed hair sent all the soldiers

toppling like toys back into their

respective sovereign countries

(with Russia gaining great areas

of formerly Ukrainian land)

and the bloodshed ceased 

like the last lilting notes 

of cherubs’ trumpeted fanfare.

And He saw this was good

(for Putin and Himself, anyway)

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the fifth day.

And He said, "Let me drill, baby, drill!"

So with tremendous huffing and puffing

He had an angel, a female one, fluff

His manhood until it stood,

a tower of steel shining in the sun,

and He poked it in and pulled it out

with enduring virility

until he had poked 

many a holy hole 

deep into the Earth’s womb

and into 625 million acres

of preserved coastal seawaters

and the nation became richer with crude.

And the land and great numbers

of its people were crude.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the sixth day.

And on the 7th day

He played golf and he cheated.

Once upon a time, Michael Dorian had a collection of poems and a play in one act published by Silk City Press entitled "The Nektonic Facteur.”  He likes to think that when the going gets tough, the tough write poems. 

ON THE HOWLER MONKEY DEATHS IN MEXICO

by Pepper Trail

Their howls were pure vowel, shapes
in the mouth of existence: Here, here, we are here,
bringing the forest to monkey-life,
vibrating the leaves of caoba and pochote,
the fruits of zapote, guarumo and nanche,
howls that named the family, organized the world.
 
Yes, there was always heat—but now
different, a heat that makes silence 
through the night, through the day,
loosens the baby’s grip, then the mother’s.
They fall from the trees like rotten fruit,
their open hands holding nothing but questions.

Author's note:  As a field biologist, I have shared tropical forests with these monkeys, have been awakened in the night by their prodigious howls, have marveled as they leap from tree to tree with their infants on their backs. The news that we have made the planet too hot for these fellow primates, superbly adapted to the heat and humidity of the tropics, is tragic and terrifying. How can we not understand that we are next?

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

PATH OF TOTALITY

by Pepper Trail

Eclipse Explorer from NASA

The shadow of the moon is coming to America. Prepare yourselves.

It will invade from Mexico—with no passport, no legal right—

Cross the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass and cut across Texas

Darken nineteen children’s graves in Uvalde

Fall upon Austin’s swarm of lobbyists and free-tailed bats

Pass over all the pregnant women – the happy ones and the desperate—

And cross Arkansas, over Little Rock, its history of black and white

Then Illinois, where a proud Chamber of Commerce claims

The capital of darkness: “Carbondale: Eclipse Crossroads of America”

And on to Indiana, named to commemorate the Indians (all removed by 1846)

And then—to lighten its dark mood—over carefree Cleveland

Where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will celebrate the moment

With “Back in Black” and “Dancing in the Dark,” until the shadow

Spreads its veil over Niagara Falls, where newlyweds will look up

At the ring of fire and share an eternal moment of totality (duration: 4 minutes)

Before it slices off the tops of Vermont and New Hampshire

Lingers over the bewildered moose and citizens of Maine

And then, finally, leaves our country behind

To make the best of our return to the light of day

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

OUR ENEMIES SUTRA

by Laurence Musgrove

AI generated graphic from Shutterstock

This evening, the Buddha and I 

sat and scrolled through our phones

before retiring for the night.

I read to him about the latest

retaliation strikes in Syria and Iraq,

and he read to me about our deportation

flights of refugees deep into Mexico

designed to discourage their return

and the hopes of those now streaming

to our razor-wired border.

“It was Thich Nhat Hanh,” he said,

“who wrote our enemies are not people,

but our ideologies, fears, and attachments

to views that justify our ignorance

of cause and effect with absolutely

no guarantee of freedom or peace.

The fires we spread always burn us, too.”

Laurence Musgrove is the author of three poetry collections Local Bird, The Bluebonnet Sutras, and A Stranger's Heart. He teaches creative writing and literature from a Buddhist perspective at Angelo State University in West Texas.

THE SILENCED MAJORITY

by Katherine West

Graphic by Katherine West.

The silenced majority

that some day

will decide

which small piece of the sky

belongs to them

—Rigoberta Menchú quoted in Poetry Like Bread.

70% of Americans don’t trust politicians to make abortion policy. —19thNews

                                                                        

Today it is cloudy

I can’t see the sky at all

I have to imagine it

the way it was

when I was young

when life was a blue door

opening

on an even bluer

even bigger sky

Some days

the sky was so blue

it was almost purple

and I could see

all the way

to Mexico

The birds seemed to fly higher

farther

taking me with them

to new lands

where all the women

grew wings

wrote books

started businesses

ran for office

got married, or not

bore children, or not 

became stronger as they aged 

It was a blueberry sky

with something infinite about it, 

an exuberant potential

I gobbled this up

when I was young—

it became my marrow

and a good thing too

since the clouds

seem to be here to stay

I carry infinity

inside me

a multitude of blue doors

that I open

one by one

day by day

And there are others

doing the same

all over the world

The sky is falling

and we

we are patching it

putting it back up

wiping it clean

of clouds

We are passing out binoculars

to those

with faulty vision

We are leaving

blue footprints behind

everywhere we go

We know

there are those who erase

our footprints

who tell everyone

they meet

that we were never here

But we are here

We aren’t going anywhere—

and there are a lot of us

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.

TERRITORY

by David Chorlton

“El Jefe,” a jaguar last seen in Arizona nearly seven years ago, was spotted in the Mexican state of Sonora last year, researchers confirmed recently, reviving hopes that the species can thwart the border wall that bisects its natural habitat. Above: El Jefe in the Santa Rita Mountains in Arizona on April 30, 2015(AP). Below: El Jefe is seen in the central area of Sonora, Mexico in November 2021(AP). —The Washington Post, August 10, 2022

Land remembered

from the distance of a century

turns into rock and light afloat

on a thread of water

that runs down from a mountain and sings

to the stones in its path.

Here comes night with the moon in its teeth.

Here comes a prayer

with blood on its lip and a heart

that beats time with a past

it’s come to reclaim. When belief

has soaked back into sky

the sky wears a pelt

cut for survival as all the land beneath it

turns mysterious blue

and a jaguar at a water hole

licks away the stars. He’s invisible

all the way inside himself

and quiet as a holy man who went

into the desert for its solitude.

He’s shed one country’s language. Its grammar

ran as liquid through his limbs

and he spat out punctuation every time

he moved in for a kill. Here’s a pool

of thirst.

             A red cloud of breath.

Some bones.

                   A heartbeat running

underground.

                      Homeland.

 

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix. While jaguar sightings are ever elusive, he is content to know that the big cats have allies in their quest for survival, such as the Northern Jaguar Project.

A STRENGTH & BEAUTY RARE

by Dick Altman

Flying jewels I thought they were

as a child.  To entice one onto

a finger, to bring it up to the nose,

as the black-bordered tangerine

wings slowly opened and closed—

could a little boy be any more

smitten?

                        *

Thirty-five years later, on a lake

in upstate New York, I rediscover

Monarchs—beguiling not of fragile

sweetness, but ferocity almost beyond

the syntax of belief.  I’m transfixed

at how they tilt against late summer’s

gusting head winds.  As if they had

no choice.  As if wings were oars—

as if boats launched from shore

into raging tidal seas—as they press

forward, only to be repulsed—again

and again.  As they fight, tirelessly,

to stay aloft above the aqueous grave

awaiting any that falter.  Fight as if

drowning in air, frantic to surface

in northern Mexico’s Mil Cumbres hills. 

Frantic to give birth, after voyaging

twenty-five hundred hectoring miles,

until they all but drop.

                        *

The vision of embattled, desperate

fleets returns, when I drive into

the Cumbres, dumbstruck by forests

black and orange, pulsing, folding,

unfolding, eager after winter to create

a new generation. One destined

to traverse, like their forbears, lake’s

grueling flyways north to Canada.

                          *

I pee as a kid on a log bordering

our cabin’s path to the water.  What

of my essences lures Monarchs

to the spot in droves, I’ll never know. 

Part of me evolves into part of them.

An entwining of winged and bipedal,

one bound to earth, the other to air—

a lifetime ago, and I behold it yet

with a child’s wonder un-frayed.

                            *      

Days of Monarchs’ madness pass.

The lake’s autumnal transit

a fragment of memory.  Gales black

and orange out-fought, out-flew

the winds.  When Milkweed,

their caterpillars’ favorite food,

their only food, succumbs to man’s

punishment of earth, winged courage

proves no match.  But when

imagination wanders back to those

bejeweled days on the water, I conjure

soaring, gliding gems of fortitude. 

Pray for the day skies confetti again

with their dancing fury. Odysseus

takes twenty years to sail home.

Monarchs, but a few months.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

A MONARCH BUTTERFLY POSES SOME QUESTIONS

by Mary K O'Melveny

Do you remember the noise of my wings?

A lace veil as it flirts with a summer breeze.

A blade of grass as it shakes off morning dew.

 

In Mexico, a million of us sound like waterfalls.

At rest, we cling to tree limbs like gold, onyx,

ivory jewelry that has been hidden from thieves.

 

We fly high above sleeping migrants everywhere,

whose hopes pirouette in zephyrs and exospheres

as they dream of flight patterns to safety.

 

Do you recall the first time you saw one of us?

How you were awed by our delicate wings, how

we landed like a first kiss on a purple cone flower? 

 

How you imagined what it would be like to float,

unfettered, without apology? Without accountability?

How it takes so little to ignite imagination’s fiery call.

 

Our journeys from your garden to jungle sanctuaries

span generations. Some days the ground is littered

with bodies that resemble coins from Spanish galleons.

 

I have been airborne for 2,500 miles. I have traversed

obstacles my ancestors never knew: poisoned fields,

droughts, drones and planes, wildfires, clearcut forests.

 

Still, think of that moment of lift, when air currents

lick your skin as a lover might. Always optimists,

we remain your ardent guides to Elysian Fields.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

IN DREAMS, DEATH

by Dick Altman

The death toll of migrants who died after they were abandoned in the back of a tractor-trailer that was discovered Monday in San Antonio rose to 53 on Wednesday… —CBS News, June 29, 2022

 

The land of the free...

 

I write this today – in America –

thanks to grandparents who heard

in heart and spirit that phrase echo

in Russian – Yiddish – perhaps

even German – Echo as they escaped

the poverty and oppression of Eastern

Europe in the 1900s – crossed mostly

by foot the continent – to land

at the magic portal of Ellis Island –

opening a door to life that until

this moment existed alone in letter

and rumor and what the mind

conjured as America

 

The land of the free... 

 

From lowlands – highlands – jungles

and shores they came two days ago –

walking – struggling – like my forebears –

this time from Mexico and South America –

leaving mothers and fathers – leaving birth’s

land and language – leaving with visions

that America would somehow – as it had

in the past – open its arms – offer – as it

had in the past – another chance at life –

Except the door – which had for

decades swung so freely – creaked on

its hinges –budging barely an inch

 

The land of the free... 

 

How many times did the refrain echo

in the minds of the sojourners – who –

no longer on foot – stood packed

in an airless – overheated subway

car of a semi-trailer – sworn to open

America’s locked heart – How many times

before the refrain turned from dream into

breathless prayer – How many times –

as one by one – the precious cargo lost

consciousness – calling – screaming

to the heavens – crying out to America’s

indifferent soul

 

The land of the free... 

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry forthcoming from the New Mexico Museum Press.

THE LEAK, THE CHILL, AND FOAMCORE

by Tricia Knoll

5am. This fleece robe does not ward off April chill

that goes to my bones knowing what leaked. 

Someone could not stay silent. Someone was right. 

Fifty years and my hand knows a rage. I grab a marker

to make my sign. Simple words, I insist, simple words:

I remember

 

                        that girl who hired a man to drive her

to Mexico. They did not drink Margaritas. She returned

with a raging infection. She lost one possible future

as a mother. She was eighteen. Jobless. Alone. 

She rocked herself holding a teddy bear

and smoked menthol cigarettes. She did not tell

her Catholic family.  I could hear her rocking

 in the room next door. Her teddy bear wore

 a scarlet ribbon. 

 

Rachel Maddow said all her life women had this one right. 

How strange to have become this old: I remember.

The Janes remember. The jobless remember. Those raped

remember. Those with hard decisions remember. 

And now it’s possible to get legal abortions in Mexico. 

Yes, I remember. My sign smells of broad-stroke marker. 

Tricia Knoll does remember the days before Roe v. Wade. This draft court opinion terrifies her. As people in Ukraine have expressed, it is no gift to experience deja vu. Her poetry appears widely in anthologies, journals, and five collections of poetry. She is a contributing editor to Verse Virtual. 

ELECTRIC DREAMS

by James Schwartz 

ElectReon, a wireless and in-road wireless electric vehicle charging technology company, will deploy its first public wireless EV charging road system in Michigan… ElectrRon's charging infrastructure can wireless charge EVs while they are in motion and stationary. The company said it is the first in the world to be successfully demonstrated on public roads. —WXYZ Detroit, February 2, 2022

I dreamt of all the roads I have walked upon,

Beginning with the long gravel swath,

Cutting through the Midwestern countryside,

Running parrellel to the Amish farm,

Housing my earliest memories,

Of March mud puddles,

Mom buckling my boots,

A nearby creek that roared,

Today is a drainage ditch,

Tamed into a narrow ribbon,

Trickling through a culver,

The dream shifts sequence,

I-75 southbound to Sarasota,

Above the quiet fog,

Palms line the boulevards,

I walked twenty years ago,

Another shift through Spanish moss,

To a red clay road,

Outside Tallahassee,

Another shift,

Through South Pacific sunlight,

Another red road,

This one of cinder,

Curving through,

The Kapoho rainforest,

Up and down Noni Farms Road,

I walked so many times,

I no longer needed the moonlight,

To navigate the now desolate,

Steaming onyx field,

Closer to Kilauea,

Lies Chain of Craters road,

For this walk,

I am accompanied by,

A happy dog,

A shift: 

The City of Refuge,

A shift: 

Across the ocean,

The Olympic National Park,

Houses green, wet,

Shimmering, sacred memories,

Roads in Mexico,

Are bloodstained with history,

The streets of Rosarita bustle,

Dreams never conclude,

Logically,

But here I am,

Waiting on the bus,

On M1,

The first mile,

Of paved highway,

In the US,

Not far from,

The old Ford factory,

As I awaken,

To historical headlines,

Heralding the news 

Of an electric charging road,

Coming to the D,

I cling to,

The last dream fragments,

Where I am walking,

Tomorrow.

James Schwartz is a poet, writer, slam performer and author of 5 poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America. Twitter: @queeraspoetry

SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

It is good to know

That in these troubled and confusing times

When old values are under attack,

When what we hold dear 

Is mocked and undermined

By those who have no respect

For the venerable ideals, 

The policies and practices,

Of American democracy

That have stood this nation in good stead

Through trial and tribulation,

Through unrest and upheaval,

Through multiple wars

And challenges to our hegemony,

It is good to know 

That those finely-crafted

Highly developed techniques

Of civil and social discipline

As American as, oh, 

Genocide, slavery, lynching,

Suppression of dissent,

That those undeniably effective,

Satisfying,

And invaluable means

Of exercising our rightful authority

Are still in use at our southern border

Where inconsiderate people 

Eager to avail themselves of the advantages

Of this God-favored land

Are being whipped and beaten

To teach them a lesson

About the distribution of privilege

In our world,

About who are the deserving 

And who the undeserving,

About how we deal with those

Seeking to take advantage

Of our famous kindness

And get a free pass to enter

Our sweet land of liberty.

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals.  His most recent book is At the Driveway Guitar Sale: Poems on Aging, Memory, Mortality, from Main Street Rag Publishers.  He podcasts poems on aging at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California.