BOMB MAKERS

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

This is how the demagogues rose
with orange hair and Pinocchio nose
with wobbly chin and a plow that froze
one white woman and ten white men
who bent and bowed and said amen
to the free press, and the FBI,
to ethics and our flag flown high
to only abort
the supreme court.

Let the history books name
those leeches who brought shame
to facts in fake news voice
with dictators of their choice
who buried hopes with shoveled fears
who lost allies with unfit smears

who sent pipe bombs bombs from rhetoric born
from twisted minds to those they scorn
who leached democracy to death
who sucked its blood, its guts, its breath.

Lucille Gang Shulklapper's poetry and fiction  has appeared in numerous journals  including Slant, TheNewVerse.News, Lummox, and Poetic Voices without Borders.  Recent publications also include Gloss,  a fifth chapbook of poetry, and a picture book Stuck in Bed Fred. Presently, she is a volunteer with Caregiver Youth of America, and The Pap Corps. She has started a poetry column in her community newspaper and worries about deadlines or is it dead lines?

POST-KAVANAUGH MUSINGS

by George Salamon






Let us read the Kavanaugh debacle not as
Map of the future but as a map of our history
In which most men aspired to power,
To command an empire, a city, a family,
Employing their talent to be obeyed,
Fulfilling their need to excel, and
Succeed in dividing humans into
Executioners and victims, exempting
Only madmen and wise men,
Saints and beggars from engaging
In this jostling game, played in every
Nation and tribe and their institutions.
This political instinct that dominated
The hearings for Justice Kavanaugh
Disguised the cannibalism that rules
Where humanity is taught and raised to see
Itself as leaders and their followers,
Tyrants and slaves, where human beings
Enter a pact, sacrificing their dreams
For either committing or enduring crimes,
And pretending that the tune of this
Dance is the music to the march of progress.


George Salamon watched the Kavanaugh hearings but, so far, has noticed no side effects, He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO.

CIRCUS

by Nicole Caruso Garcia

Simpler times by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT 

For Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 27 September 2018


“We can't allow more time for new smears to damage Judge Kavanaugh, his family, his reputation, the reputation of the court, and of course, the reputation of the country…. it's time to end the circus.” —Senator Orrin Hatch (R) Utah


That’s what they heckle when a woman dares
To place her head inside the lion’s chops.           
(Drumroll…there are so few volunteers.)
You gird yourself and leap through flaming hoops

Of memory. As did Anita Hill,
You helmet-up and light the cannon’s fuse.
You swan dive, pray there’s water in the pail,
Become a Tattooed Lady inked in news.       

The men who pound the tent-stakes shake the high wire.
One-piece swimsuit, terrified, you list
Details: two guys, locked door, tunes loud, cries dire,
His hand upon your mouth. You don’t resist

But willingly subject yourself to groping
Questions. This appointment is for life.
Fifteen, you palmed no key but luck, escaping
His drunken weight as water filled the safe.

You’re poised, hang by your hair and strength of jaw.
The big cats roar. One sniffs he’ll never quit.
Your risk respects the gravity of law,
And cold hard truth is not so soft a net.

The crowd goes home. The clowns and beasts will slumber.
You still can hear two crude young men, their laughter.

Nicole Caruso Garcia is Assistant Poetry Editor of Able Muse and a Board member of Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Measure, PANK, Mezzo Cammin, Crab Orchard Review, Light, Modern Haiku, The Orchards, The Raintown Review, Antiphon, and elsewhere. She resides in Connecticut.

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF RACHEL MITCHELL FROM THE KAVANAUGH HEARING, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

by Patty Mosco Holloway

Is she still missing?
Another woman tossed away today,
only this time, not in a bedroom behind a locked door
with music blaring to drown out her cries.
This time it happened on national tv.
She just disappeared. Or was disappeared.
Never came back to question his honor,
this "lady assistant," expert prosecuting attorney,
hired by Republican Senators
to do their dirty work,
to make them look good
or at least, not so bad.
Behind her skirts they lurked
as she questioned the woman in question.
The  'Merican Publik never got to see
how they'd look, how they'd sound
grilling a "female" victim of sexual assault.

When they didn't like how the law-lady acted,
they threw her away,
took away her voice
muscled for the mic
outshouting each other,
sneering, jeering, puffing out chests,
doing the man-dance:
Who could be fiercest defending their boy?

They were no better than Kavanaugh's frat boys
"Finding," "Fucking," "Forgetting"
the girls they forced down onto beds
or stood in line to train rape
at their good ole "boys-will-be-boys-I-like-beer-
              I-liked-it-then-I-like-it-now" parties.

No, the Republican Senators never threw Ms. Mitchell down
under them onto a bed—they just used her awhile
then judged her useless,
took away her voice, tossed her away.
They might as well have tied her up in that chair
at the Hearing and stuck Kavanaugh's calendar into her mouth.
They made her invisible, shoved past her chair,
jockeying, ranting to rescue their boy.
Has anyone seen her?

Editor’s Note: “The outside prosecutor Senate Republicans [Rachel Mitchell] hired to lead the questioning in last week’s hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Brett M. Kavanaugh is arguing in a new memo why she would not bring criminal charges against the Supreme Court nominee. . . . Mitchell, whom GOP senators selected to handle the questioning in last week’s hearing with Ford and Kavanaugh, is a registered Republican who is chief of the special victims division of the Maricopa County attorney’s office in Phoenix. Although she asked Ford all of the questions posed by Republican senators, she asked Kavanaugh only two rounds of questions until GOP senators began speaking again." —The Washington Post, September 30, 2018

Patty Mosco Holloway is a writing teacher in Denver, Colorado. Her poems have appeared before in TheNewVerse.News and in Ekphrastic Review.

DINNER MUSIC

by David Chorlton




The hearings started early western time.
The quail had hardly stirred
from the bougainvillea next door
and the rabbits made
their nervous way through the fence.
Watching seemed an obligation
despite the steamy details
and having no advertisements to interrupt
the way that questioning unfolded
aided concentration
although the cats demanded their usual share
of attention. The Costa’s hummingbird
came and went, came
and went, and the House finches
clung to the feeders
as the sun rose to its zenith
around the time the official lunch break
ended. We still had enchiladas
to eat, and a Bartlett’s pear
each. It was difficult to reconcile
the calm mood here
with the anger onscreen, but there was
laundry to fold away
and dishes to wash, so a lot of it didn’t
register. For once
a commentary was superfluous. The picture
showed a very public private moment
while outside the window
a Say’s phoebe appeared. He flew
to the water shining with sky.
The proceedings took an operatic turn: cry
a little, rage a little, talk
about God. There was chili
for dinner, and a vinyl disc with Monteverdi.
Such music was a fitting end
to the day: passion
rolling its eyes and clutching at the heart
without inhibition, secure
in the knowledge that music would restore
the dignity that evil took away.

David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and lived in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird is from Hoot ‘n Waddle in Phoenix.

THE ERROR

by David Mason

Aeon-Uranus, Gaea, Carpi, Horae and Prometheus, Greco-Roman mosaic, Damascus Museum via Theoi Greek Mythology

So much descends from the sky
and rises to it, Ouranos to the Greeks
in a mistaken myth. So much descends
and rises, rain and prayers, errors
and Eros with his wings and arrows.
Man-god, mistake, the sky
is woman, womb of all weathers,
and what descends from that first mistake
is the line of all-white men in ties
of righteousness, stupidity and lack
of any understanding of the world.
They fall in line, sit in judgment.
They reject. They cut and dig
for dollars made of dead things
pressed for a billion years.
They who believe the myth
of Ouranos can’t see the clouds
as bellies giving birth to rain,
can’t feel the tears
of anyone but themselves.


David Mason is an American poet living in Tasmania.

SCARLET LETTER

a scrambled abecedarian (b-a)
by Kathleen A. Lawrence

Treating the Witness As Hostile by Nomi Kane at The Nib

Bow-tied braggarts, bastions
of booze-blaming bullies cry
bull, boys and badgers, confused
or calculating drunken details
dump, erode egos, discredit,
evoke faulty faith to devalue,
dirtying facts gag and gouge
as guy-gangs hustle indulgence,
high school hijinks inflict insults,
insinuate, juggle judiciary kings,
keystones knocking lasciviousness
liberties mauled lady must be
mixed-up, Mrs. mistaken, nameless,
mucking up, needling to negate
nuance, taking oath obfuscates,
old preppies paddling Potomac,
peddling principles, poach questions,
quizzing professor by quoting
quibbling red republic run scorched
scarlet supreme, titillated teens
torch truth, touch, unravel, unnerve,
undermining her vixen vows,
vilified woman wrecked, vestige
of wisdom waning with wicked
exploding exploits of extended youth
exposed yielding to yens, yellowing,
yapping zealots assume, zookeepers
attack, zombies assault, aggressors
assign her letter A, the Accuser.

Kathleen A. Lawrence spent most of her youth in a plaid navy and spruce green plaid jumper and knee socks. Since then she has not worn knee socks but still spends her days at school. She teaches Communication, Pop Culture, and Gender and likes to write poetry. She has published in several magazines with poems about such things as the blue-shelled beetles, the sophisticated lily, mean 'tweens tweeting, Tr**p's tips for getting women, the lovely Puerto Rico, and growing up schooled by nuns wielding the ruler in the black and white days of pre-Vatican II.