GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE

by Devon Balwit

There are so many ghosts in our machines—their locations so hidden, their methods so ingenious, their motives so inscrutable—that not to feel haunted is not to be awake.  —Walter Kirn, The Atlantic, November 2015

                                                                                                         
We dish dirt over drinks—husbands, work,
yearnings—the room so crowded I yell

to be heard, but still wish our phones
elsewhere, mics disabled, wish everyone’s

locked away, apps always asking
for locations, each talking to the other

in a digital chorus, strands in an unseen web,
vibrating. When the photos in my feed

echo, the upflung arms of child mirrored
in an abstract painting, or when memes

ripple outwards, themes kaleidoscoped
myriad, this is no accident,

the fancy of my poetic nature. Like a
kook in a backwoods cabin, I mutter

about the eye in the sky, but know
my needle port already inserted,

perhaps now running saline, but
at any time opiates or annihilation.

Each keystroke resonates elsewhere,
saved in cold storage by the NSA

in Utah or somewhere in Russia, fodder
for the clever, data points in the on-going

experiment. We’ve been turned inside out,
pockets filched of coin. A single finger

can undo us, and, like any with a knife
pressed so intimately, we obey.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.

FIVE OLD WHITE MEN

by F.I. Goldhaber

Image source: Donkey Hotey at Flickr

Five old white men in their black robes sit
in Washington eviscerating
the bill of rights: an Uncle Tom and
oreo, a corporate stooge and
his clone, a lech, and racist members
of the forced pregnancy proponents.
Religious pretenders ignorant
of science, adrift in a world of
technology they still can't seem to
comprehend. Wined and dined by special
interests, embracing infectious
scourges of partisan politics
that erode the little prestige left
to the court and American faith
in the law. They surround themselves with
like-minded law clerks, consume only
media reports that reinforce
their opinions, speak exclusively
to audiences predisposed to
be sympathetic to their viewpoints.
From October through July they hand
down decisions gutting laws that once
protected rights of women, voters,
workers, and minorities. For a
monetary gain, they handed the
country to a man who did not have
the votes, sending U.S. spiraling
into recession. They made Orwell's
vision come to life by allowing
the NSA free reign, turning our
government into Big Brother. Time
after time, these millionaires decide
business privilege trump people's
freedoms allowing corporations
to buy elections, deprive us of
health care, deny us the right to sue.
Now police invent more egregious
pretexts to arrest you because those
men give them carte blanche to search
every inch of  your body inside and out.


After more than three decades, poet and storyteller  F.I. Goldhaber continues writing professionally. Her poems, short stories, novelettes, news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews appear in magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies. Read more of her political poetry in her forthcoming volume Subversive Verse.

AMERICAN KGB

by Phyllis Wax

We who are under surveillance
in more ways than we know
tonight notice the stealthy moon      
as it slips behind the trees.

Hiding is useless.  That moon
could be an eye.  In these woods our whispers
might be seized by murmurous leaves.
Only handwritten notes are safe
if burned or swallowed after they are read.

One is not paranoid
if one is really being followed.


Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  She's been widely published, recently in The Widows' Handbook:  Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press.  When she's not writing you might find her escorting at a local women's clinic.

TO THE SPIDER

by Jonel Abellanosa






              For Edward Snowden


In our culture of constantly buying
evolving fear greed for control sells,
you’ve been demonized.
Who doesn’t imagine
the searing bite, the poison?
Whose skin doesn’t bristle
at your absent tiptoes?
I’m in time to watch
you weave your mandala’s
inner circles counterclockwise.
You’ve more to share:
not to overreach,
to take only what strays
in your space,
to listen only to your surroundings.
As you still,
the peace-laureled dictator’s
lies echo:
More innocent men, women, children dying
as unmanned aerial warfare
perfecting technology
and doctrine won’t drone
as pesky mosquitoes into your web.

 
Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry is forthcoming in Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature, Anglican Theological Review, the PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Dirtcakes journal, and has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Qarrtsiluni, Red River Review, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Philippines Free Press and Philippine Graphic magazine.

NSA

by Katherine Shirley

Image source: ThePeoplesCube.com

Unsanitary, all this brainwashing
Scrubbing of hands, airing of dirty
Laundry on the backs of those
Still wearing the shirt they lost
To a back-room poker game
Stakes insane with the big name
Cloud-filled, court-chilled shame
At subpoenas, clean-killed blame
Class action, press with no reaction
Pointing silent to the constitution’s
Legal traction while the whole world
Waits to see what deals are done
Smart enough to know nobody knew
What spin was spun by Emcee (squared)
Nobody cared when laws were
Lined up to be broken, just a token
For the public face of politics
A man so softly spoken we forget
That there’s a right and wrong
Enshrined in ink to call anon
Protecting those so spied upon
From those who know what’s going on


Katherine Shirley's poems have appeared in Snakeskin; Poems Underwater; the Gold Dust calendar 2012; Soul Vomit;  and her work The Water Way was lock no. 87 on the Rochdale Canal Festival Poetry Trail 2012.  More of Katherine’s poetry may be found on her blog: A world in her own words.

BRIEF SONNET FOR SNOOPS

by Jen Karetnick

Image credit: mjak / 123RF Stock Photo

The government is reading my emails,
they say. I wish they’d read my poems instead.
I would submit them for review as shells
of free-verse, villanelle grenades, bomb threats
whose line breaks they can’t unworm from their ears.
I would send them to the front lines to serve,
volunteer them as SEALs, special forces,
if that’s what it takes, poems leading the charge
in the fight to be the best in the world,
submissive soldiers of allegory
and slant rhyme. But poems are dismissed as girls.
Metaphors don’t receive the attention they
deserve. My emails are scanned, deleted,
the poems in them no gun to anyone’s head.


Jen Karetnick is a Miami poet with three published chapbooks, the latest called Landscaping for Wildlife (BigWonderful Press, 2012). Her next two books, an anthology of South Florida poetry and prose, Sun-Struck Matches (Tigertail Productions), and a cookbook, Mango (University of Florida Press), are forthcoming in fall 2013 and fall 2014. Jen works as the Creative Writing Director for Miami Arts Charter School and a freelance food-travel critic and writer. These poems are from a manuscript-in-progress, My Buddha Wears a Pout.

COMING-OF-AGE POEM USING 50 WORDS THAT MIGHT CAUSE THE NSA TO FLAG YOU AS A TERRORIST

by Martin Ott

Image source: popdecay.

Source for the 50 words in the poem: Business Insider: Australia.

His impatient mother would place her mace in an indigo
purse, and badger him, “Slow-poke the artichoke,”
for preferring Reno to the college snuffle, beef market
of lacrosse tossers, Jello shots, and credit card fraud.

His sometimes flame Jasmine got him in the zone,
loin to loin, on the basement couch, their chosen niche,
utopia of quiche and salsa, his red-headed Capricorn
quick to unzip for sex, and call his thrashing fish a minnow.

His friend Jack told him to run, Austin nerd, full of cocaine
and malaise, afraid of Texas, and dropping dead from blowfish
darts from gorilla boyfriends transformed into clandestine snipers
with Ninja stealth from keyhole eavesdropping on his sister’s friends.

Today he suited up, Roswell cowboy, not afraid to strap on his big
asset, his Macintosh, to face the fangs of starving career advisors
peering at him like a veggie burger without French fries or a bun,
the enigma of missing something almost as hard as missing none.


A former U.S Army interrogator, Martin Ott currently lives in Los Angeles, where he writes poetry and fiction, often about his misunderstood city. He is the author of 3 books of poetry: Underdays, Notre Dame University Press (to be published in 2015); Captive, De Novo Prize winner, C&R Press; and Poets’ Guide to America, co-written with John F. Buckley In 2013, he published his debut novel The Interrogator’s Notebook, Story Merchant Books. His blog - writeliving.wordpress.com - has thousands of readers in more than 75 countries.

TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Surveillance Shoe | Legoland by Jill Magid

In order to save the National Security Agency
The trouble and expense
I am planning to spy on myself –
After all who is in a better position
To do so?
I will record and report
My every move
But even more than that
I will reveal my inner life
To the authorities
The shapes and colors and contents
Of my thoughts musings longings moods
Memories dreams reflections
In this way providing crucial data
For psychological profiling
That could lead to my arrest
And indefinite detention
Lest single-handedly
On some Tuesday afternoon
I overthrow the government.
I would proudly and humbly
Accept a medal from Congress
And the thanks of a grateful nation
For helping to avert anarchy in the streets
But whether or not I receive a hero’s acclaim
For my innovative and brilliant spooking
I will pass my days
In maximum security solitary confinement
Comforted by the knowledge
That I have rendered invaluable service in the struggle
To keep America free


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.  He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective).  He lives in northern California.