ITEMS NOT SEIZED FROM RUDY GIULIANI'S HOME

by Chad Parenteau

Art from 1999 by Robert Lederman.

Photo of Hillary Clinton

in white pantsuit, black stripes

drawn on in marker.

 

Five laptops with “Hunter”

scratched onto each bottom.

 

FDNY firefighter axe

with ninety-eight notches.

 

Two copies of

Time Magazine’s 2001

“Person of the Year” issue.

 

One copy signed to

“Abner Lube-Me-Up,”

 

the other to “Amadou Diablo –

Now you can count to forty-one!”

 

Atlas Shrugged book, pages

blacked out, “Truth isn’t truth”

written on back cover.

 

“Adolph Giuliani”

protest poster, signed.

 

One envelope returned

to sender. Contents include:

 

additional copy of

Time Magazine’s 2001

“Person of the Year” issue,

 

“For Trump” written on cover

in gold marker.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, Ibbetson Street, and Wilderness House Literary Review. He is a contributor to Headline Poetry & Press and serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His latest collection The Collapsed Bookshelf was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award.

THE GUARDIANS

by Tricia Knoll


I remember when it was Man
of the Year until a new century

when the clocks did not stop,
the world did not end,

and women raised our fists again
and again to carry on carrying on.

Protecting truth by saying it
as free journalists may know it,

yelling it when there is little
popularity in announcing that beings

on earth as we know it and people
may end in the changes coming.

Flocks respond to familiar shepherds
to stand together, change directions

with the nips of dogs or the
rewards of greener pastures.

Who guides us, guards us,
helps us make the wide turns

needed to save the planet?
So great is our need

for guardians.

Tricia Knoll applauds all guardians of the planet, including journalists, who speak the truth on climate change and tie the new normal of vortexes, extinction, flooding, storms, wildfires, starvation, disease, tornadoes and more to the creep of climate crisis around the globe.

THE WEEKLY NUISANCE

by Edmund Conti

"Trump Time" by John Mavroudis, The New Yorker

You want to be a cover boy
And that is good and well.
But let me tell you, Lover Boy,
Time will tell.


Edmund Conti has never been on the cover of any magazine, real or fake. Sad.