LAST FAIR DEAL GONE DOWN

by Paul Smith

In the latest chapter in the on-going saga following Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the US president has asked the Islamic Republic to call him in order to “make a fair deal”. Speaking at a news conference at the White House yesterday, Donald Trump told reporters that he “would like to see them [Iran] call me”. What they should be doing is calling me up, sitting down. We can make a deal, a fair deal, we just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons – not too much to ask. And we would help put them back to great shape,” Trump said. Trump’s conciliatory tone comes three days his administration dispatched American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the region in a move that was widely seen as an attempt to escalate tensions with Iran. —MEMO, May 10, 2019. Photo: Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit: Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom via The American Conservative, May 9, 2019

Wait a minute
so we supported the Shah
so we overthrew Libya and
got Khadafi killed
so we ousted Saddam
and he wound up getting done in
but not by us directly
and so we pulled out of the phony
nuclear weapons pact instigated
by a former stooge president of ours
we asked you to call us
‘for a fair deal’
our phone hasn’t rung
WTF!
Don’t you trust us?


Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction and poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

THE BOOK OF NEMESIS, CHAPTER 2016

by Gilbert Allen

Image source: DonkeyHotey

                   
And He said, I am The Great Candidate.
All the others?
Low energy.
Stop and think for a minute, people.
You really want a GOTUS who looks like that?
This is gonna be huge.
I’ll build a ginormous wall in the desert, and Saddam is gonna pay for it.
He’s history, and I know where his money is.
I’ve got some experience with walls.
And money.
You’ll be the father of many nations, after I smite them into The Stone Age.
You’ll mark all their members with red ties, before you let them out of the rubble.
Have I said you’ll be the mother of many nations, too?
I cherish mothers.
Mothers love me.
Especially Mexican mothers.
Listen, I know how to make deals.
I’ve been making deals for a pretty long time now.
You’re gonna have so many victories you’re gonna get sick of them.
Did anyone ever tell you you look just like Abraham?        
Abraham Lincoln?
Now fall on your face already.


Gilbert Allen's most recent collection of poems is Catma, from Measure Press. A book of short stories, The Final Days of Great American Shopping, is forthcoming from USC Press in April. He lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

ODE TO THE AK-47

by Judith Terzi

                    after the obituary for Mikhail Kalashnikov, Los Angeles Times, 12-24-13


He was born hearty without
a heart in 1947, weighed eight
pounds but had few moving parts.
He screamed six hundred bursts
of fire blood that ricocheted
from his banana-shaped clip-crib
through jungles and steppes and
tunnels and flesh and now. He is
the Lego for child soldiers who
crave him, caress him with agile,
wide-eyed fingers. He is their
playmate; they deconstruct him,
then rebuild him for pleasure.
They drag him into sandboxes,
into the silt of rivers and creeks,
through grasses of marshes,
the grime of exile, crime of
hunger. Drug lords fondle him
during drive-bys and executions.
The chouchou of the Hutu,
Saddam, Bin Laden, the Afghan
mujahideen, he became a Russian
icon for creative genius. He is
the most lethal firearm in human
combat. Yet, with so few moving
parts, without a heart, he can be
bought for the cost of a live chicken.


Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies including Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer's (Barefoot Muse Press), Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo Press), The Raintown Review, and Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes Press). Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, was just published by Finishing Line.