PERVERSE URGES

by Richard Schiffman

Last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate
the Right Reverend Senator Bugger Mugger
called me and my green-bellied ilk
               “tree huggers”
Has that cracker ever got my number!
He said, “Buddy, keep those muddy
mitts of yours on your own kind.”
“Amen sir,” I replied, “only I’m wondering what kind
of kind that is.” Granted I’m a bit confused
               (asexually speaking)
something to do with being raised by a missing planet,
abandoned by an ecosystem at a tender age.
Seems I’ve conceived a perverse urge to mate
with a star, or if that’s too cosmic, with a right whale,
a snail darter, a spotted owl—
any species that’s as endangered
as I’m feeling right now.
But I can’t seem to find an other
that’s other enough to satisfy
               my kinky appetites.
My eco-therapist is trying to suss it out.
Right Reverend says it’s unbiblical,
calls my fondness for nature unnatural,
says marriage is between opposite genders,
not genus, has drafted legislation
to make tree-hugging in public a federal crime.
The measure has broad support from speciests
on both sides of the evolutionary aisle.
Hell, if it passes, I’ll diddle with a river.
Hear that’s still legal in California.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist, poet and author of two biographies. His poems have been published in Southern Poetry Review, Alaska Quarterly, New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, and many other publications. His poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published by Salmon Poetry in February.

ANOTHER USELESS HEADLINE POEM

by Ed Werstein

"US Senate Response to Orlando: Nothing"

                     The Guardian, June 21, 2016

I’ve been thinking about flesh

and blood

and guts

and guns

and bullets

and assaults

on our sanity.

And I’ve been thinking about guts

and guns

and gold

and gilt

and guilt

and gullibility

and gushing blood

and the gumption

it might take

to change things.

And I’ve been thinking about how

we must not be

disgruntled enough

disgusted enough

about how we must not be

dis-gutted enough

to stop watching the news reports

to stop posting on Facebook

to stop writing ineffective

and useless poems

about it,

to finally rise up

and do something real

to change it. 

Ed Werstein spent years in manufacturing before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. In addition to NVN, his poems appear at Re/Verse and Your Daily Poem. He is East Region VP for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published by Partisan Press. His contact information can be found at the WFOP.

THE UNITED STATES SENATE TORTURE REPORT

by Christina Pacosz




The griddle of truth is heating up now
The whine of a high speed drill
Blindfolded eyes
Opening
Shackled arms folded in a coffin      Alive or dead

Black  Latina  Arab  Yemeni  Somali Afghani Palestinian Iraqi Pakistani
Lives matter   Lives matter
Poland my motherland just one of dozens of countries Guilty
of hosting and performing torture
An Awful Ballet
written by two US psychologists who were paid $81 million
for their Ballet of Pain      Boasting about making $1000 a day
On the world stage    Now

We demand the Rule of Law
for All
US War criminals
Americans  high on medieval torture
CI A  diplomats   military elite  cabinet appointees   POTUS
Death to the Euphemism
enhanced interrogation techniques   rectal  feeding   black sites
Strawberry Fields
The names    We have the names
George Bush  Dick Cheney  John Ashcroft    Alberto Gonzales

Christina Pacosz’  poetry/writing has appeared in literary magazines and online journals for almost  half a century. A poet-in-the-schools and a North Carolina Visiting Artist, she has published several books of poetry, including Greatest Hits, 1975-2001, Pudding House, 2002, a by-invitation-only series.  Her chapbook, Notes from the Red Zone, originally published by Seal Press in 1983, was selected as the inaugural winner of the ReBound Series by Seven Kitchens Press in 2009.