DEMO

by Michel Steven Krug

Jeff Koterba / Cagle Cartoons

In the House

there’s treachery afoot.

 

A leader sandwiched by volleys

of red sensation

and

what formerly was known

as consensus.

 

And the price to be paid:

parliamentary

demo-

li-tion. 

 

I move that the Country

Avert economic infanticide

By installing cold showers

That spray the margins where

Passion plays like theatre 

To astound the outer rings.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag and Brooklyn Review. His collection Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is scheduled for publication by Broadstone Books, in the spring, 2024.

ANOTHER DEAL

by Michel Steven Krug

Call back after call back.

Each reel like a test flight

Because my peers look at

 

My prior roles like an IMDB,

(Although I call it DIMB)

Because the country as a whole

 

Won’t embrace me,

Though I’ve acted out every role

To perfection. So here I am now,

 

The 14th, 15th, who knows how

Many rounds, still standing, but my smile

Muscles so fatigued. I need a drink. But

 

Craft service won’t serve on the House floor

Anymore, the way they did, I’m sure,

When Frederick H. Gillett could get

 

All the recesses and bourbon he needed

To convince the zealots that the Roaring 20s

Would only prevail under his leadership,

 

And lead to unrivaled economic prosperity.

And what about Speaker William Pennington?

He maintained his 1859 principled approach to

 

State’s rights, bringing the Country to

Brinksmanship, where it belongs again, so

Who, I ask, is the real reformer?

 

Fine, I will pledge to insurrect.

I will pledge to abandon rules.

I will pledge to renege.

 

I can’t be Hakeem

I can’t alliterate

I can’t inspire, but

 

I must be your next leader. Don’t pull the plug,

Please don’t, surely, we can strike

A deal for more donations, another deal, for G*d’s sake.

 

 

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz, Portside, The New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag, and Brooklyn Review.

AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF SEARCH WARRANT

by Michel Steven Krug 

Seizing the day requires the magistrate of the self to review sworn internal testimony, some of which is redacted by your affiant, as justified, to preserve dignity, when in fact the heavy black asphalt that covers those undisclosed confidential sources, is to preserve self-deception, that bleeds, when heated like molten lava, over all that which is tacit and evident. It is not unreasonable to search the house of the self, reviewing the papers and effects written on internal walls, like semi-ancient hieroglyphs and experiences that don’t belong to you. Therefore, access and seizure, are requested as follows:

1. In the chamber of the xxxxxxxxxxxx will be found ************************************************************************ recordings.
 
2. Between the webbing of the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX from the Davos Conference.
 
3.In the serpentine lining +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++is currently indecipherable. 
 
4. Amid the left-side quadrant of the papillae ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. toxins.
 
5. Your affiant has personally spoken with ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^, who confirms that $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ has been identified in 141 different locations of the ==============================================, including the bathroom.
 
Your affiant acknowledges that it undoubtedly feels violative, but only by seizure, inspection and reflection, elucidating each and every probable cause, can the path from Top Secret to transparency be realized. Ironically, without the seizure, the soul is defacto arrested, shackled, seized, like a sci fi attack, spilling all over others. Some admire audacity. Others condemn it. But no other remedy short of this relief will suffice.

Further your affiant saith not.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Portside, The New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, Poets Reading The News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag and Brooklyn Review.

IN MEMORIAM DAY

by Michel Steven Krug

How do they know the real population of Minnesota, asked my daughter, as her older sister was within hours of an and-one moment. There are vital statistics kept, each birth and death are tracked to offset the changes. Deaths by IED, in schools, grocery stores, dance clubs, by gangster/zealot/misguides with ARs, by combat, depression, vengeance-disease or age. Thinking of my Aunt, with her new pacemaker, describing her day to her what’s-his-name son, because after dinner, the mind’s velocity wanes, as if a human comet falling back to earth. I visited my dad’s grave, saluting his WWII Airforce time, sure, but his greatest service as mentor to all. If he could see what the insurrectionists assert today in the name of patriotism, he’d re-enlist and ask for a D.C. assignment, thinking he could detox the paranormal hatred engendered against progressive democracy. If unsuccessful, he’d enter his “come on now” mode, demanding nothing less than reason, flinging treason into the infested sewer. It’s said we are coded.  His sense of equanimity/persuasion/reason/forceful compassion = soother of spirits. We each inherit a collection of such souls, all of the elements swirling within, like an alphabet of inclinations. With it do we promote peace, or reflexively look for sales, fitfully running from the best within? Memorial Day is indeed solemn, honoring passed down lives that survive as we ride the bear, the bull and the barrel.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. He’s Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News (PRTN) literary magazine and litigates. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Portside, The New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag, and Brooklyn Review. 

UNDER SUBPOENA

by Michel Steven Krug

Cartoon by JOEL ORFF, SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL CARTOONIST, October 11, 2021

I.

 

Exiting the house select

Committee revolving doors

 

The Sergeant at Arms has eyes

For each witness under subpoena

 

Not ready to defy the privileges of

A defeated Executive whose policies foreign

 

And domestic are personal, useful,

Promoted to deceive,

 

American idolatry

Useful sabotage propagated

 

By the nouveau KGB

Useful USA, for re-re-election

 

US Useful idiots

To serve a majesty.

 

II.

 

Servile to posted democracy,

Offering truths of the click bait asserted.

 

Espionage at law when

In defiance of domestic channels

 

And congressional oversight

His majesty’s attorney general

 

Exacted deals to debase his rival

By erasure with stabbed glass

 

That avenges

Opaque defeat.

 

III.

 

We are informed by heavy flag poles.

We are all under subpoena,

 

Freedom of disinformation

Overwhelms veracity,

 

Its volume too temperate

Its tone too coherent

 

Its fidelity too rigid, too conventional

For an era that discounts reason.

 

IV.

 

2021:

Democracy has not been so degraded

That its franchise is mere debris.

 

The corrosion has been a cruel aberration

An arc necessary to sober

Cynicism and incredulity.

 

Exquisitely appalling, helium packaged,

Like ice melts in the spring,

Exposing all of its menacing emptiness.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. He’s Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News (PRTN) literary magazine and he litigates. His poems have appeared in JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, The New Verse News, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag, the Brooklyn Review with poems forthcoming in other journals. 

PARDON ME

by Michel Steven Krug

Mike Luckovich / Atlanta Journal-Constitution

We cross a bridge of shadows

when perjury is presumed forgiven

by a nation fighting for its lives,

this faintly boastful oligarch

who asked us to spritz Lysol like Binaca

to kill unwary opponents on contact.

 

He urges his confederates:

scatter the statistics, turn the numerals

Roman, so the national news reports the

toll like snowflakes in Viet Nam.

Say: the fraud is in the mail, in the

machines, then the rule of loyalty prevails.

 

The oval office birthed an infection

the careless insistence like shells on furlough

Flynn no longer in jeopardy.

He’s given a mask to take wherever it’s needed

the plague of Turkey behind him,

a reserved suite in Fort Mar-A Lago awaits.

 

Coerced truth is just a ploy,

Another plea for alchemy answered,

sent at the highest twitch:

the pardon has come, Papadopoulos,

the pardon is coming, Manafort,

resonance for an imperfect union.

 

We live in an era of broken pleas and oaths.

We cross a bridge of shadows tonight

While others debate a return to openness.

Who waits on the other side,

Reveals the bobbing

of a constitution on the margin.

 

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist and Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars graduate. He’s Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News (PRTN) literary magazine. He also litigates. His poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Poetry24, Main Street Rag, the Brooklyn Review, and others.