DISRESPECTED

by Alan Catlin

For Renee Nicole Good

We came with whistles
and they came with guns.
If you see something,
say something,
blow your whistles
take pictures of malefactors.

Men with masks and guns
used to be called outlaws,
the bad guys.
Apparently, they still are.

“You should see the people
they are hiring now.
Background checks are
a thing of the past.”

We don’t need to see
the new hires, we’ve seen
what they old ones will do.

“I’m not mad at you, dude.”
are famous last words now.

The president says it’s her
own fault she was killed,
“She disrespected a federal
officer.”

Seriously.

There will be no investigation.

Alan Catlin is the poetry and reviews editor of Misfitmagazine.net. His next full-length book of poetry is Still Life with Apocalypse from Shelia Na Gig Editions.

THE HORA FOR THE FIRST PASSOVER UNDER PRESIDENT T***P

by Zev Shanken

It's a chilly afternoon for Tel Aviv,
but we swim like we used to
and shiver and laugh,

because we’re not that old,
though I’m fat and bald,
but as soon as I visit you, you—

No!  You don’t turn me young and thin and hairy again.

Instead, you teach me the Hebrew
for loving a land
even when bad guys win,

for you've shown me the movements
for dancing on sand
with partners whom you pray to change.

Zev Shanken lived in Israel in the mid-1960s before, during and after the 1967 Six Day War.  His poems “Twilight of the Greatest Generation” and “High Noon” appeared in earlier issues of TheNewVerse.News.  Last year, Full Court Press released his selected poems Memory Tricks.