SCARED S#!TLESS IN MAINE

by Paul Dickey

They say you may get Ebola

if in public you sip a Coca Cola,

or just being in Maine,

or in Dallas deplane.

They don’t know s#!t from Shinola.

She just went for a ride on her bike,
but was followed by folks with a mike.
They wanted to know
she’d stay home with her beau,
but her answer the Guv did not like.

The reporters were terribly scared,
but it was for our safety they cared.
They got near her so close
with their questions so gross
to warn it’s our air she has shared.

But soon, 21 days will pass
though the Guv won’t admit he’s an ass:
“I just did what’s right
though it caused quite a fright,
but next time, I won’t mess with this lass.”


Paul Dickey’s most recent volume of poetry is Wires Over the Homeplace from Pinyon Publishing.  He published They Say This is How Death Came Into the World with Mayapple Press in 2011. Dickey’s poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Potomac Review, Prairie Schooner, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Mid-American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Pleaides, Bellevue Literary Review and many other journals, both print and online.  Additionally, Dickey daily posts humorous political limericks such as these at his Facebook site, The Liberal Limerick and has published an e-book of his witty verse Liberal Limericks of 2012 (available free at Amazon.)

THE EARTH’S FEAR

by Paul Dickey

Syrian refugee children in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Photograph: Sam Tarling (The Guardian, May 9, 2014)

I would not say
the earth was afraid,
although it shook terribly
at each of my steps
in the moonlight.
It was only protecting
the children, it seemed,
who had poured
themselves out,
like soft drops of rain
over the hills and valleys.
But I carried on.
I had a business of fire
in the city and in the night
that the earth knew
nothing of, work
that could not be ceased
even had I wanted.
In my own way,
I too worry for the children.
How will they become
as hard now as diamonds?


Paul Dickey’s first full-length poetry book They Say This is How Death Came Into the World was published by Mayapple Press in January 2011 and was nominated by the press for the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry.  His second book Wires Over the Homeplace was published in the Fall of 2013 by Pinyon Publishing.  Dickey’s poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Mid-American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Pleaides, Bellevue Literary Review,  Crab Orchard Review and online at www.linebreak.org.

LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

by Paul Dickey




Speaker John Boehner is planning to file a lawsuit against President Obama on behalf of the House of Representatives. Though he's been extremely vague on what exactly he plans to sue for, Boehner wrote on Sunday that Obama has "circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action," and that the House "has an obligation" to try and stop him. What, exactly, would this lawsuit entail, and how would it proceed? --VOX, July 9, 2014


I hear Boehner wants to sue
the President who will not do
just as Johnny likes.
He’s got nowhere with strikes,
but his cud maybe judges might chew.

But the Speaker has no issue.
He sobs into his tissue:
“What charge can I raise?
It’s no good just to curse the Gays.
Should I call Barack a Hindu?”

So he got a lawyer from Texas
experienced with a couple of ex-es
who wrote up a charge
and biggie-sized it to go large
and eat fries all the way to D.C. in his Lexus.

The charge, of course, was serious
but much too confused and mysterious
that Bachmann’s hot air
had barely a prayer
of even getting Fox News delirious.

And thus John comes to grips with his fate.
His put-down of Obama must wait,
so he asks him to golf
while Congress takes July off,
since nothing so big’s on their plate.


Paul Dickey’s first full length poetry manuscript They Say This is How Death Came Into the World was published by Mayapple Press in January,2011 and was nominated by the press for the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry.  His second book Wires Over the Homeplace was published in the Fall of 2013 by Pinyon Publishing.  His poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Mid-American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Pleaides, Bellevue Literary Review,  Crab Orchard Review and online at www.linebreak.org.