THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT

by Steve Straight

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

It took a while for people to catch on.

 

One day the president’s press secretary

told a series of lies to reporters and the public

and went home that night to a punishing migraine.

It subsided in the morning,

but as soon as she spoke to the gaggle again

it returned in force 

until she could hardly think at all.

 

The Secretary of Defense,

punching the air as he rattled off

bomb totals and strike capabilities

and how much damage the warfighters could do,

suddenly dislocated his shoulder so badly

they couldn’t get it back in the socket

and he wailed in pain as if hit by an RPG.

 

And then the president,

rambling between lies and attacks,

projecting his fears and failures,

his usual spew,

felt the right side of his jaw go slack,

his words slurring in his mouth,

his arm and leg so weak

he could not grip the podium,

and his eyes rolled back into his head.

 

It turned out this was bigger

than people with great power,

as if some outside force

had come to earth, or was already here.

 

What seemed at first like accidents

started happening everywhere:

The playground bully tripped 

while chasing his prey

and broke his nose on the jungle gym.

Farmers who mistreated animals

were bitten by Lone Star ticks

and could no longer eat meat or cheeses

or even tend their animals.

For the person who stole the handicapped space,

three weeks on crutches. 

Cut off that mom and kids on the highway?

You’ll be limping home dragging a muffler.

And rapists? Well, you can imagine

what happened to them.

 

Making the connection was the tricky part

for humans, not used to such obvious signs, 

and they tried to swallow it

as mere coincidence.

 

Then one day, for various reasons,

two million people lost their voices,

five hundred thousand broke their hands

trying to strike someone, another million

came down with ailments and injuries

tied directly to their actions,

and soon it was all too much not to notice.

 

The outside power,

or whatever it was,

wasn’t kidding around.

 

Before you knew it, the crime rate went down,

landlords starting fixing their properties,

billionaires offered to pay their taxes,

and humans everywhere began inspecting

their actions for cruelty and meanness.

 

The so-called problem of evil

turned out to be one side

of an equation we could solve.

We just needed to be reminded.

Steve Straight’s books include Affirmation (Grayson Books, 2022), which won the 2023 William Meredith Award for Poetry, The Almanac (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2012) and The Water Carrier (Curbstone, 2002). He was professor of English and director of the poetry program at Manchester Community College, in Connecticut. 

THAT DICK . . . CHENEY

by Martin H. Levinson

"Vice suggests that Cheney’s legacy is a soulless quest for power, rather than the advancement of fallacious beliefs that seriously damaged our nation." —James Mann, The Washington Post, December 28, 2018

Those who cannot remember the

past are condemned to repeat it

            —George Santayana

During the nineteen-sixties
he supported the Vietnam War.
And to show his support and backing,
five draft deferments he applied for.

When asked about those deferments
in nineteen eighty-nine.
He said he would have liked to serve
but was busy at the time.

During the nineteen-eighties, as a
Wyoming Congressional fella, he voted
no to Head Start, a holiday for Doctor King,
and a decree to free Nelson Mandela.

Though he spoke like a hawk when he
served Papa Bush as Secretary of Defense,
he cut military budgets and downsized our forces,
which when Clinton did it got him incensed.

After leaving Defense he opted for wealth
becoming Halliburton’s CEO.
And with his Pentagon old-boy connections
he set the firm’s stock all aglow.

But making money was not enough
for a man who relished power.
He was elected to be vice president
and our nation would rue the hour.

Following 9/11 he swore
Al-Qaeda was linked to Iraq.
He affirmed that conviction with vigor
though intelligence said unsure fact.

He was a fast and firm supporter
of fighting in Mesopotamia.
And a staunch defender of torture
that became somewhat of a mania.

While hunting quail in Texas
he shot a friend of his in the face.
He reported the incident the next day
so his alcohol levels couldn’t be traced.

In 2012 he published a memoir
with the catchy title My Time.
It was panned by numerous critics
who said it didn’t contain Cheney’s crimes.

In screwing the public and screwing the state
the man has been clever and quick.
In his memoir he screwed with his legacy,
which is what you’d expect from a dick.

Martin H. Levinson is a member of the Authors Guild, National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, and the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has published ten books and numerous articles and poems. He holds a PhD from NYU and lives in Forest Hills, New York.