WOMAN, WAKING

by Sara Sarna

But Alito’s Italian stand-up routine came at the expense of millions of people’s lived realities in this country right now—many of whom will die because of his unpopular opinion. I personally don’t find it funny at all. —Laura Bassett, Jezebel, July 28, 2022

It was never a matter of balance. 

It was a poorly weighted pendulum  

that sent us scurrying 

between who we needed to be  

and who others needed. 

Sometimes we forgot 

how to choose ourselves, 

put off becoming, 

fell asleep to our value. 

Now you beat your drum 

in celebration of what you claim 

as victory, and it wakes us 

to your arrogance. 

This is one battle. 

We do not fear the war. 

Sara Sarna is a poet, actor and hiker in southeastern Wisconsin. Her work has been published in print and online, and been heard on stage and on the radio. Her chapbook Whispers from a Bench was published in 2019.

OLD MCDONALD

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Art by Zelley

destroys his own farm

blind eye on the golden hay

clumsily embarking on a sweep

of dirt under fields and rugs 

fistfuls hidden, tossed away

the swamp calm beneath blue skies

and the swell of a flood tide

bearing an economy of crime

bears down, drowns the land.

And there he stands, proud 

pitchfork in one pale hand

flash suit over excessive flesh

his minions and puppets

whiplashed and soft-focused

in the brilliance of a gilt sheen

he has shed the dark cloak

and revealed a plastic heart

that does not beat in tandem,

a harvest plan that starves,

feeding neither bodies nor souls

but the infantile emotional self-

interest of the greedy animal

chowing down fantasy food

and golden age TV dreams 

of power and wealth only

silly fictions bring to life.

From the top of the silo

fake this, false that

the poor garden at his feet

the sick and dying, lost

trampled down, laid out

in a stink pile of manure

his arrogant gaze pitiless

as the Florida sun

burning to a crusty char

all of it,

all that so many

worked so long, so hard 

to plant, tend, grow.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Grandma Moses Press will publish the poetry chapbook Florida Man later this year. 

THE DONALD SONNETS

by Llyn Clague

IMAGE OF OUTFIT VIA DEAGOSTINI / GETTY; PHOTOGRAPH OF TRUMP BY JOHN TAGGART / BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY. Detail of photgraphic result published in The New Yorker, Daily Shouts, October 28, 2015.

Sonnet LXXI

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than flitting across your screen you see my obit
Announcing I am gone.  No smarmy op-ed
Will weep that I have left this hypocrite
World.  No, if you peruse these lines, do not think
Of me who wrote them: so great is your love
Of self I would not give them cause to wink
At you for my shortcomings, and so shove
You off the cliff of their so precious hauteur.
If, I say, you look back upon this verse,
My smallness must not reduce your superior
Vision of greatness, of better, not worse.
Let not the wise world mock your glory
By tying you to my too ordinary story.

Sonnet XCI

Some glory in their birth, some in their wealth,
Some in their cleverness, or in a pretty face,
Some in bodily strength or personal health,
Or cars and yachts boosted in this rat race.
Every type has its particular niche
Where it finds its special gratification.
But these trifles – even, Donald, your riches,
to me but means to ever greater action –
Are nothing: with your love of self you trump
Smooth cleverness,  a beauty-pageant chest,
The bulge of biceps, and arrogant assump-
Tions of birth certificates. I boast I’ve the best:      
Wretched in this alone, that, losing, you take
Self-love away, and wretched my heart will break.

Sonnet XXIX

When, disgraced by boss, society, and fate,
Along with others filled with helpless rage,
I cry to heaven with my unbounded hate
And look upon myself as a rat in a cage,
Haply, Donald, I think on thee, and my heart,
Like hope in a gambler in your casino,
Leaps up into a sweet realm apart,
Made magic by almighty, endless ego.
When I revel in the inebriation
Of your inspired take-downs, smears and sneers
And abandon myself to the elation
Spreading far and wide with all your cheers,
Then, bathed in the glow of your Caesarian
Narcissism, I scorn compassion from any man.

Llyn Clague is a poet based in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.  His poems have been published widely, including in Ibbetson Street, Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly.  His seventh book, Hard-Edged and Childlike, was published by Main Street Rag in September, 2014.