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. 

EVIDENCE

by Bruce Bennett

Glowingly, knowingly 

Cassidy Hutchinson 

Answers the questions 

Revealing it all: 

 

Rudy and Proud Boys 

And weapons and pardons 

And dishes in pieces, 

A smear on the wall. 

Bruce Bennett is the author of ten books of poetry and more than thirty poetry chapbooks. His most recent full-length book is Just Another Day in Just Our Town: Poems New and Selected, 2000-2016 (Orchises Press, 2017). From 1973 until his retirement in 2014, he taught Literature and Creative Writing at Wells College, and is now Emeritus Professor of English. In 2012 he was awarded a Pushcart Prize. He predicted what we were in for in his November 2016 YouTube video, The Donald Trump of the Republic.

OH BEAUTIFUL

 by Shyla Shehan

The last we saw our king his head was deep 

in the crotch of some alabaster city gleam 

tweeting love notes to his adoring fans

twisting our once beloved patriot dream. 

While our halcyon skies are shrinking

spilling grief across our amber plains

he gathers up his Proud Boys

and hides his capital gains.

Our borders littered with families separated

huddled masses he has reviled

and presses portentous his own agendas

his unwrought thoughts run wild.

America. America! You are still beautiful 

and mine. There is space inside my heart—

a hope for you, again, to shine.

As our thoroughfares of freedom are stretched 

thin across from all cities to the sea.

America, I beg of you now!

Please show your grace his leave. 

Shyla Shehan is an analytical Virgo who has spent the majority of her life in the midwest. She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of Nebraska and lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband, children, and four wily cats. Shyla spends most days tending to a healthy household and is pleased with her role as Managing Editor for The Good Life Review.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?

by Joan Mazza

If you were raised by and/or married to an abuser,

I know you are suffering tonight. I see you. I feel you.

We are going to rise up and take the mf down.

      —Pam Houston, public Facebook post, Sept. 29, 2020

Didn’t watch, didn’t listen. I went to bed early,

held on to the clarity earned by a day of writing,

reading, an online poetry class. I drank a lot

of water, pondered what I’ll eat for my next meal,

folded clean sheets, made notes for poems. I wasn’t

online during the chaos and shouting, refuse to expose

myself to a bully’s tactics of distraction and lies—

dominance devices with attacks on the other’s

character that show the lack of dignity and inability

to reason. In the morning, I watch one clip before

I’m fully awake, read Facebook full of horror

at this clown of hokum who signals to racists, white

supremacists, and the Proud Boys to be ready to foment

a civil war. Sometimes it takes only one morsel of food

to know it’s poison. Sometimes one sentence makes you

back away and lock the doors of your heart and head. 

In peace and security, ten days ago I voted.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and has taught workshops nationally with a focus on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry appears in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The MacGuffin, and The Nation. She lives and isolates in rural central Virginia.

ODE TO MY CITY

by Elizabeth Stansberry

When I ask my friend in California about Portland,
She says that it is a
Liberal Bubble,
A land where you can sleep until noon,
And still have a career,
A place where the shooting star tattoo on your face,
Will not
Get you fired.
I breathe in church music,
And I never tell her.
I curve my body into a crooked question mark,
Never wanting
To tell her.
She should know
I think.
Haven't you watched the news ?
There is possibly a new planet,
Again,
And a new Portland,
On the rise.
While gliding down Broadway street,
My liberal blinders tightly fastened,
My liberal blinders highly fashioned,
I anticipated the glamour of an art show.
Roche chocolates, white wine,
white walls,
A tingling white noise in the night.
Portraits of suburbanite ghosts and
Goblins.
Snippets of Halloween intentions.
I would sip the white wine, tasting of olives
Dipped in sugar.
This is Art?
I would whisper to my friend.
I look up to see,
I have walked through a red light,
Admist my dreaming.
I am suddenly sharply aware
Of everything.
Like a bat looking for
Prey.
I see the Patriot Prayer March.
They are not
Praying.
They are not
Marching.
They are waving American flags,
They are waving Signs that say ,
"Proud to be White."
Proud boys.
Proud to be racist.
Proud to be angry.
Proud about beating a liberal with
the American flag on Saturday night,
And going to church in white dress shirts,
Sunday morning.
I am standing in my fake diamond necklace,
And the dress that looks expensive,
And I am suddenly angry
Too.
I am waving my middle finger at the patriots,
Like it is the last thing I will ever do.
I am waving my cane at rabid bystanders,
Unhinging,
Unhinging the armor of
White Privilege.
I want to tell my friend in California,
That there is a new Portland
On the rise.
I know she wouldn't believe
Me.

Elizabeth Stansberry has been writing poetry since she was 8 years old. She has been published in Oregon Art's Watch, Eclectic Muse, Soul Fountain, Skyline Review, Eskimo Pie Journal, Mused Magazine, Red Fez Journal, and others. She is a secretary and security guard at Prosper Portland. She has many other day jobs. Her most recent poem is published in the book Not My President from Thoughtcrime Press. Stansberry currently resides in Portland, Oregon.