IF I HAD A HAMMER

by Akua Lezli Hope

AI image… assisted by Akua Lezli Hope

all over this land oh over this Land all over this land/ we are dissolute and

unwise we are fractured and fracturing we are falling failing falling/ into an

exegesis of convenience/ of a grasping not at straws but at unreason/ creeping

decrepitude in our body politic/ a petulant dementia/that sanctions Breaking

and entering Breaking and entering    harm/ waging one million tiny Wars

inflaming warped hearts/ causing this conflagration that burns votes and

batters husbands in their homes/ endangering everything in this too late

hour/where we teeter totter slip on blood  blood pooling  bleeding

everywhere/ the deaths of our defenders responders resisters/ our climate

screaming at us slaying us/ flooding the water-full drying the drought stricken

shaking the fractured earth burning tinder-full  forests/ all at once  all fiercely

now/ and somehow I weep for that old man alone at home/struck in the head

and falling                down

  

Author's Note: On October 28, Paul Pelosi, 82. was attacked by a man undertaking “a suicide mission” to kill his wife, speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi.  The nightly news has been assaultive, as 33 million Pakistanis face despair UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale.”  1.3 million in Nigeria are displaced by floods. Somalia, like much of the Horn of Africa, is facing its worst drought in 40 years. Following the failure of four successive rainy seasons more than 7 million of the country’s 15 million people are experiencing severe hunger. Experts warn that the next rainy season between October and December will also likely fail, pushing several parts of the country into famine before the end of the year, unless aid efforts are urgently ramped up.

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, NYSCA, SFPA, Elgin, & Best of the Net, Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations.

DANGEROUS

by Dana Yost

The Globe and Mail

Excuse me

but this is dangerous

work,

writing in a time like

this, a time when words

get twisted and torn,

not believed, turned

into political device.

U don’t mind being

a political device,

but with my own words

my way,

not picked up

by a politician

and run through

a damned 

microphone

in front of 4,000

flag-waving

believers

of non-belief.

There is a man

outside on the street

wearing a stocking hat

and long-sleeved shirt

blowing hard in the afternoon

wind. Is he spying 

on someone or just sitting

on the bench

waiting for his children

to come outside?

It is sights like

this that stoke 

paranoia, of course,

in the left and the right.

But damaging a man’s

skull is something 

no one should

accept or mock

or use to rally

the charges.

It’s sad

and sickening

and a crime

and that’s what

it is and, there,

I’ve said it—a crime

fueled by rhetoric,

and the grocery clerks

and taxi drivers

in this town will

either agree

or hate me.

This is dangerous

to be a writer

today, to say

what is ugly,

to say it

plain,

to walk

on downtown

sidewalks

books lunging

out of my coat

pockets

because there

are men with guns

who don’t know

how to use them

but think they do.

Dana Yost was an award-winning daily newspaper editor and writer for twenty-nine years. Since 2008, he has published eight books and been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes in poetry. His poetry has appeared in several reviews, magazines and other publications, including previously in The New Verse News.

THE NEW NOVEMBER

by Jan Steckel

for Garrett Murphy

 

Late October is the New November,

the nova ember, when all slates

are made new. Ladybug, ladybug,

fly away home, your statehouse is on fire.

If you can’t vote the bastards out, 

drag along your electoral hammers,

spousal skull-crushers. Surveil those 

ballot boxes through the sights 

of your AR13s, only wear masks 

when you’re Ku Klux Klanning.

Proud Boys will be bashers.

It’s the ballot-harvesting festival,

so let’s go smashing pumpkins.

MAGA MAGA make it rain, it’s

lefty-hunting season again.

Kristallnacht’s in fashie-fashion.

Jack-o-Lannister, slide down

the Capitol bannister.

Olly olly oxen free!

Open season/no more reason:

civil discourse is passé,

democracy’s so yesterday.

Grab your billyclubs, shillaleghs, 

flagpoles, sheriff’s star,

little red baseball cap.

It’s mass grave o’clock, wake up, 

smell the decomposing bodies.

Get up off your brass knuckles—

Let the midterms begin!

Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. She lives in Oakland, California.