BONES OF THE REPUBLIC

by Earl David Freeland

I weep.

The king didn’t take the throne.
The elephant knelt—
tuskless,
trumpeting fear,
its weight crushing the roots
of a nation it once carried.

Palms open,
backs bent,
offering the crown
wrapped in fear,
cheap flags for bows.
Will there be midterms?
Will it matter?
When power hums the same note,
ballots dusted under a golden sneaker,
lines redrawn to cut out the noise—
cut out us.

Maps don’t divide now.
They silence.
States, neat and obedient,
stacked under a crown.

What world waits for my son?
A place where truth
gets dragged—
hair tangled in fists,
paraded like a lesson.

Freedom?
Traded for chain-slick comfort.
Easy.
Cheap.

The anthem plays.
Hands rise—
not for hearts.

I see it—
the Mouth of Putin,
slick, wide, laughing.
Spitting out slogans,
black seeds rooting into
boots,
barbed wire,
burned books.

Long live the king,
they say.
And mean it.

I weep.

But I’m watching.
And if democracy dies here—
I’ll bury it with teeth.
Bared.
Fists raw.
Tear the ground open
and dig through the bones
the elephant left behind

Earl David Freeland is a mathematician, former cartographer, and teacher whose poetry balances precision with raw vulnerability. His work explores societal critique, existential themes, and human complexity with unflinching honesty. His poems have appeared in Poets Reading the News and reflect a deliberate rejection of polish in favor of visceral authenticity.

AFGHANISTAN

by Robert Halleck

I didn't like "These Boots Are Made For Walking."

I loved "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"

It needed to end.

I'm going into the garage

to find my old shirt

that says

Robert Halleck is a member of San Diego's Not Dead Yet Poets, a Vietnam War veteran, and a man who continues to write poetry to help him understand life.

POST-ELECTION STRESS DISORDER

by Howie Good

 

Thousands of President Trump’s supporters converged on Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14 to falsely claim he won the election. (Video: Jorge Ribas, Joyce Koh/Photo: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

The emperor’s model army marches on,

bringing with them the suffocating smell of smoke,

a darkness like mud, while tens of millions

of just plain folks artlessly demonstrate their devotion

by cheering threats of kidnapping and murder

and parading bright new flags that with each wave

in the lie-filled air grow duller and more tattered,  

and when the light dwindles to a final few hours,

there will be tweet storms and wild speeches

and the military music of boots stamping on faces.

Howie Good is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

RUMORS OF WAR

by Marsha Owens

Gun rights advocates and militia members gather in Virginia's capitol to protest potential gun control bills. Credit: JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY, January 21, 2020.

The inspiration for Rumors of War is war—
is an engagement with violence.

—Kehinde Wiley

marched around my town like Grant went through Richmond my daddy would’ve said if he were still alive, and he would’ve harrumphed at the overkill in the news again, then he would’ve lit another cigarette and gone to bed, and everybody else in town would do the same time because it was ten o’clock and it wasn’t 2020 yet, like yesterday, Martin Luther King day, when a band of 22,000 strangers from God knows where gathered at the Virginia State Capitol, once the proud capital of the confederacy (big C) all tightly strapped and wrapped in artillery and more goddam ammunition than I ever care to see, and I was a prisoner in my own house, waiting all day for the sound of gunshots in my own yard. Do not go near the Capitol! we were warned. Some people called in sick, some gathered with friends, some went to churches to pray, some, like me, tried not-so-successfully to stay calm, to not get anxious or drunk, to not curl into the fetal position, and today we’re told it was a fine protest, no shots fired, no injuries, no deaths.

But I am traumatized, so do not try to tell me that what happened last week in my city was non-violent and peaceful. Terror wore heavy boots, stomped loudly, and we were sore afraid.

As the day waned into a purple sky, I looked again at the statue—not Grant’s, but of a young black man atop a magnificent steed, just recently come to Richmond to remind us of our dark past, its terror glorified in our streets and I remember how art can sometimes teach us by drawing our eyes to the light, even when danger lingers in shadow.

The “Rumors of War” statue by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled in Richmond on [December 9, 2019]. The sculpture depicts an African American man with a crown of dreadlocks, wearing urban clothes and sneakers and sitting astride a horse (Steve Helber/AP via The Washington Post, December 11, 2019.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her writing has appeared in both print publications, including The Huffington Post, Wild Word Anthology, The Sun, and online at TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rat’s Ass Review, and Rise Up Review. She is a co-editor of the recently published poetry anthology Lingering in the Margins and a proud recipient of the Leslie Shiel Scholarship Award for Writers Who Read, awarded through the Visual Arts Center in Richmond.

CHEZ YESTERDAY

by Linda Lowe





If you’re hungry for the past,
there are choices galore inside,
and a coat check girl for starters.
Think fifties, think Marilyn.
The doorman is smiling
like he has for decades,
clinging to yesterday
like those who secretly wish
they could wear fur
and oh, for a Lucky Strike!

But there, across the street,
young men gathering like storm clouds.
We can only hope
they don’t light their torches,
will do nothing to incite rage.
Rage is everywhere these days,
wearing boots that stomp
driving cars that bully down sidewalks

like this one,
so narrow, so yielding.
Oh, the hurley-burley of it all.
Here comes the chanting
crossing the street.
There goes the doorman, shouting,
“We’re closed!”

Linda Lowe's poems and stories have appeared in Outlook Springs, The Pacific Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Gone Lawn, Dogzplot, Right Hand Pointing, and others.

NO RACIST BONE IN MY BODY

by Tricia Knoll

Image source: PoliticalForum

My, my, you old fool.
Of course, bones aren’t racist.
We’ve seen the pictures.
Kennewick man, skull sort of yellow,
sort of green, sort of gray.
All the bones at the end
come to some sort of pale.
You know, Alas, poor Yorick.

It’s the brain, you fool.
The synapse connections
met out of bounds, sparks
you must have learned
as a child. Who is good,
who is not so good, who
should vote, not vote,
breathe, not breathe,
share the earth, molder
in cages. The concept
of division rest in a brain.

I’d give you credit
for not having a racist
big toe. Although... I fear
the boots you might put on.

No racist bone
in your body. Get real.
Look at your heart.


Tricia Knoll is a poet as tired as so many Americans of lies, cruelty, and idiocy.

CALIFORNIA THE MORNING AFTER

Simon Hunt’s first collection of poems Lesser Magi will be published by Hummingbird Press in 2018. He was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and raised in England and the United States.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Homestead Review, Light Quarterly, Measure, Poetry Quarterly, The Raintown Review, The Seventh Quarry, The Sewanee Review, and other journals—as well as in the online publications 14 X 14, Garo, and The Chimaera.  He teaches in Monterey, California, where he lives with his wife and two children.  He is a member of the Board of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, where he has served as a volunteer docent for more than a decade.