DOGE ORDER—LAST ONE OUT

by John Stickney

Will the last immigrant out
please sweep their cage
and turn out the lights
(another 1 Billion in savings!)
on their way to 
their rendition flight

Please think 
of the children 
expecting 
a clean 
and
empty cage

John Stickney is a poet and writer, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, who currently resides in Denver, NC.

THAT THING SHE SAID

by Lisa Shulman

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News

when our hand clap games

were shuffled off sidewalks by boys on bikes

 

when classrooms became cages

we stammered behind

 

when our ideas were ignored

when our dreams were stolen

 

when the male gaze followed us unbidden

down dark streets, into sunny parks

 

when we said no

when we said stop

 

when we no longer said

anything

 

she said it for us

put voice back in our mouths

 

in the face of all the world

has tried to silence—

 

We are speaking now.

Lisa Shulman is a writer, children’s book author, and teacher. Her work has appeared in ONE ART, Poetry Breakfast, Catamaran, Minnow Literary Magazine, California Quarterly, The Best Small Fictions, and a number of other magazines and anthologies. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Lisa’s poetry has been performed by Off the Page Readers Theater. Her chapbook Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Lisa lives in Northern California where she teaches poetry with California Poets in the Schools. 

THE HOUNDS OF DOGMA

The Story of an Uncaged Mind

by Katherine West

At first I didn't even know there was a cage.  I knew only the wind and cold of my cliff.  At night the wind slept, so I could fly.  Where did I not travel?  No land not open to my wings.  No black mountain, no turquoise sea, no rumpled forest, no littered beach.  No red-roofed pueblo, no city of glass and steel.  No ruin of stone. 

I flew through time as well as space.  I saw apes descend from trees.  I watched the glaciers retreat.  I watched pyramids attempt to touch the stars. I watched the first book being printed. I watched trains try to circumnavigate the world.  

My wings reached the future too.  I saw the sky turn from blue to brown.  Saw the oceans flood.  Saw the deserts grow with their own white tides.  Saw the libraries close. 

I saw the Hounds of Dogma waiting every time I tried to land.  The Guardians of Thought standing at attention on either side of the cage I now saw for the first time.  Oh!  How it glowed in the sun's first light.  Like a little sun itself, offering my heavy wings a rest. 

 

One by one I watched the birds of the world enter the cage, burn, die and never rise again.  With each friend, I burned and died as well, feeling every feather that shriveled in the flames.

I died.  But my wings did not.  They beat and beat above the molten ash that was the grieving rest of me. 

Once.  My wings hovered before the golden door.  Once.  They soared back and forth as the Guardians of Thought shoveled me up and tossed me into the cage. 

Once.  They swooped so low the Hounds of Dogma snapped and feathers drifted to the ground.  Once more, my wings rose, circled, then faded into sky, releasing one blue plume that rocked gently as it floated through the bars of my cage and touched down on my bed of ash like a windblown seed. 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. She is also an artist. 

JEREMIAH 2020AD

by Julie Kramer

Immigrant families wait in May 2019 in Los Ebanos, Tex., to be searched and taken to a U.S. Border Patrol station after they were caught illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico. Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post, October 23, 2020

“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” —Matthew 19:14

 

You put them in cages

    and arm their enemies with AK47s

You take away their food

   and say that it is for their own good

You dirty their air and water

   and point to it as progress

You make their world uninhabitable

   and call their cries a hoax

You let your police

   murder them in their beds

   and say they deserved it

You punish their governors

   for standing up for them

You take away their families’ health insurance

   and say it’s in service of freedom

You beat them in the streets

   because they challenge your authority

You promise them relief

   and present it to the rich

You insult their allies

   and sell out their friends

You sit by as they die of a dread disease

  saying it will just... go away

You defile and debase

   the halls of their government

   with petty criminals and yes men

You make their lives less sane, less safe, and less free

 

You think that their God is sleeping

   do not be deceived

God will bring about his justice

   through the least of things

Including teenage TikTokers

               small dollar donations

                                absentee ballots

                                               and subpoenas.

 

Julie Kramer is a molecular biologist, lay minister, marketer, and mom of three teenagers living in Madison, Wisconsin.  In 2012, she made the unforeseen and disconcerting discovery that she is also a poet. Her themes include family, religion, #me too, and current events. She has had previous work published in the Journal of Women and Religion, and the Wisconsin UCC Conference newsletter.

NARRATIVE

by Colm Ó Ciarnáin

Artwork: Indie

Gibberish       weponised    nonsensity

Obnoxification of society
ratification of cagedness
realization of stupidity
recognition of affirmation bias
nausea at repugnance
aversion to its abhorrence
revulsion at the antagonism
animositic reluctance to truth

                          and traveling abroad we find exciting
                          and It can be life changing enjoying that freedom

and traveling abroad we find exciting
                          and It can be life changing enjoying that freedom

speak fluent moran
crisp without even a sludder
then lean into the suck
as there is a virtue in
broadcasting your amorality at
the highest known volumes of stupidity
trust busting reality of lies

                          and we enjoy new languages
                          and they give us hope
                                                 
                          and we enjoy new languages
                          and they give us hope

untethered to truth
thoughts prayers and cynical gestures in
pioneering of nauseating evention, testifony, fasadism
mythic past warped by
liberal             feminist          or                      immigrant
conjured truths against faith and adjacent reality
decorum trumped constantly by derision
bannonesque divisions

                          and my friends are with me
                          and it's going to be a good day

 and my friends are with me
                          and it's going to be a good day

fetischouce twitter fingers
trust busting realities of lies
I believe him Truth isn't truth but When I can, I tell the truth—
He means it
making hate again
with truths that burned witches
make fake again by self-proclamations testifications
down the slinker hole
otherings untethered to truth

                          and we shall have fun
                          and the future is bright
                                                                           
                          and we shall have fun
                          and the future is bright

Colm Ó Ciarnáin is a cultural worker originally from Ireland but now living in Sweden. He likes to use his emotions to paint pictures with words. He realised early in life that no matter how much he talked around a subject, words didn’t have the power to convey his feelings, being hampered by logical structures. He finds though that words when used in poetry for him paint between the lines. Flowing beyond the confines of realism and logic to bare self. A nudity of the soul inconceivable except in the hope of a poem. His poetry defines his inner self.

THE MATAMOROS-BROWNSVILLE BRIDGE

by Janice MacKenzie

Asylum seekers have been waiting for hearings in Matamoros, Mexico, across the Matamoros-Brownsville Bridge from Brownsville, Texas. John Moore/Getty Images via Vox. Organizers say the camp is one of the last remaining along the U.S./Mexico border. Migrants returned to Mexico have faced months-long postponements in immigration hearings held underneath tents and in trailers across the river in Brownsville. Many of those returned to Mexico live in tents along the river for the duration of proceedings. Some have been living homeless for over a year, surviving with the assistance of Brownsville and Matamoros-based aid groups. Hearings are currently postponed until Texas reaches Stage 3 of its reopening plan. Due to a surge in cases, it will likely be months until proceedings begin again. Prior to COVID-19, the camp’s population was estimated to be over 2,500 with more asylum seekers living further into Matamoros. A recent census conducted by Angry Tias and Abuelas of the Rio Grande Valley documented 960 residents, suggesting that people have been abandoning their cases. —The Brownsville Herald, July 29, 2020

On this side, the tent city—
mud, flies, the stink of
unwashed bodies and latrines
families crowded together—
no hope, no future

On that side, steel & concrete—
cages for the children
uniformed men, with guns and
cold eyes
fences and barriers—
but hope for
something better

Between them, the river
wide and muddy, snaking through
the tall grasses and scrub brush
a barrier—but also a friend
giving water, a bath,
clean clothes

And spanning that divide,
the bridge—
symbol of connection,
of joining together
of safe passage

Now, a different kind of barrier
unfriendly concrete and steel girders
barbed wire and chain-link fencing
forming a narrow corridor
like a cattle chute
to check points,
to rejection

On this side, the sign reads
“Feliz Viaje”—
“Happy Journey”
though my journey was
anything but happy

On that side, an American flag flies
over a sign:  “Welcome to the United States
of America”—
but there is no welcome there
for me
and never will be

Janice MacKenzie is an acupuncturist, an activist, a poet and a photographer.  She came back to poetry after a long hiatus during which she built her acupuncture practice and became active in acupuncture politics.  The current political situation in the U.S. calls for poetry and activism. Janice has organized a weekly vigil since June, 2018, for the children of the migrants/asylum-seekers stuck at the Mexican border.  She lives in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.

HOW WE MADE OURSELVES GREAT AGAIN: THE SHORT LIST

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Cartoon by Chris Britt, Mercury News, June 24, 2019

1.  We sent them back
the ones not in cages
without toothbrushes or soap.

2. We sent them all back
like spoiled groceries
browned lettuce, rank meat
even the ones we knew
were born here.

3. We sent them messages
to insult and threaten
taunt and troll
ruin and lie.
Oh, how we lied.

4. We sent them all back
in time to when white
was right and might
and everyone else
could go to hell
or just go home.

5. We sent them all back
and the cities were quiet
roads empty, food scarce
shops closed, homes dirty
our babies cried
nothing worked right
we were so alone
we told ourselves
we were the greatest
the only ones
who mattered.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan lives in South Florida and writes noir with a dark humor. Books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Project XX, a satirical crime novel, was published in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. What I Did for Love will be released by Bloodhound Books in October.

SALVADORIAN SAW

by David Radavich

Image source: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

How best to
sacrifice a child?

Hand him over
to gang-leaders’ guns?
Pay for blood
in coinage?

Or give him to
government forces
in a simple box
I nailed myself?

Open her body
before the cathedral
with a scythe?

Or go to the U.S.
and shiver in a cage
without food
or shower or a bed?

Solomon, tell me
how to divide
this child

so her soul
can sing tomorrow.

David Radavich's latest book is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).  Other recent poetry collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014).  He has served as president of the Thomas Wolfe Society, Charlotte Writers' Club, and North Carolina Poetry Society and currently administers the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series.

SHAME

by Pepper Trail

Twitter @rodriguezmonos

A deadening     a twist

            in the mouth     the heart

When personal –

            for an act     a thought

            shame is an ember

                                        a burning a thing to attend to

            extinguish or

                                     fan to flame     the better to see

           our darkness

But this—political— 

                                for my country

            for children in cages

            for father and child

      embracing in the river     dead

            for a monster whose reason not to rape is            

    “not my type”        

               for men     hands on Bibles

                                                     claiming dominion over women’s bodies

            for the highest court endorsing the lowest deceits

            for the cultivation of fear

                                                  the exaltation of hate

            for the endless

                               endless

                                endless

                                                lies    until we are bludgeoned

                                    unconscious

In this     I find no     

                           ember no gleam of light

In this darkness        

                        I howl

                                    but hear no echo

Only silence


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

ASYLUM SONG

by M.H. Spicknall

Hundreds of migrants are being held under an El Paso, Texas bridge without clean water or proper shelter. —NowThis News, March 29, 2019

When all the dogs run into the wood
  When all the forests stiffen to stone
    When all the rocks dissolve into dust
When all the debris buries the thrones

When all good gods have fall’n to their knees
  When all the faithful have done what they could
    When all the deeds done do not hold the hounds
When all of us have forgotten the good

When all the pleas are lost silent screams
  When all the quiet has set loose a fate
    When all coming time reflects only us
When all our mirrors reflect only hate

When all our fears have walled off the world
  When all of this land is for just us alone
    When all of them crawl back to the wood
When all that’s left is to gnaw on their bones

Author’s Note: The poem can be sung to Dylan’s “Masters Of War,” and includes a sad nod to Woody Guthrie.

Mark Spicknall is a manufacturing and business consultant, who writes simply to help distill things to their essence for his own understanding.

THE LANGUAGE CAGE

by Alejandro Escudé

Available from Nielsen Magic

     “Sir, we don’t use cages for children,” the DHS secretary said. “Yes. I’m being as clear as I can, sir. Respectfully, I’m trying to answer your question.”
     “Just yes or no. Are we still putting children in cages?” [House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie] Thompson asked again.
     “To my knowledge, [Customs and Border Patrol] never purposely put a child in a cage,” [Kirstjen] Nielsen stated.

—Salon, March 6, 2019

When the child first enters the cage,
The spaces in the chain-link are made of words.
The words are in Spanish, they read, jaula, carcel,
A series of synonyms meaning the same thing.
A child is also the child entering; one could
Make a cage out of anything. Even sunbeams.
The doorway, a  gleaming nexus of rays,
the benches made of aurora borealis green,
and the child would be a child sitting on it, waiting
for the wound in her to heal with a parent’s touch.
There are many words, and also, there aren’t any others.
The immigrant is an outsider, an illegal, an alien.
Words on their own never show compassion.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

SHEETS

by Donna Katzin

Inside an immigration detention center in the desert outside Los Angeles, guards threw detainees into solitary confinement without hearings, routinely forced them into shackles, and cut off visits with family. Doctors signed off on medical assessments that never happened. Detainees were allowed to hang knotted sheets inside their cells, despite the facility’s extensive history of suicide attempts. And an extraction-happy dentist refused to fill cavities while suggesting detainees floss with threads pulled from their socks. These were just some of the conditions inside the Adelanto Detention Facility when federal inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security arrived for a surprise visit in May, according to a searing report released today by the DHS Office of the Inspector General. Investigators concluded that conditions at the privately run facility amounted to “serious” violations of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s own detention standards, representing “significant threats to the safety, rights, and health of detainees.” —Mother Jones, October 2, 2018

In the high desert,
caged creatures languish, six to a cell,
for arriving without papers, seeking
refuge from drug lords and gangs,
or jobs as tomato-pickers,
baby-sitters, meat-packers.

Wrong words to faceless uniforms
bring handcuffs, shackles,
days, weeks of isolation . . .
walls closing in . . . No one knows
what will happen to the newcomers
or their children taken at the border.

When guards pretend not to see,
the enterprising hang
sheets twisted into nooses—
Ariadne’s threads that offer
the only way out.

Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa.  A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing.  Published in journals and sites including TheNewVerse.News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself. 

PRIORITIES

by Mary K O'Melveny

“Nabisco announced this week that it had redesigned  its Animal Crackers box. Responding to demands by PETA and other activists, the company’s new design features an uncaged, unbarred zebra, elephant, lion, giraffe and gorilla. PETA’s 2016 letter to the company stated, in part, ‘Circuses tear baby animals away from their mothers, lock animals in cages and chains and cart them from city to city.’ Nabisco’s CEO announced the design change as part of the company’s effort ‘to make the brand relevant for years to come.’”  The New York Times, August 22, 2018.

More than 2,000 children were separated from their parents at the border. After a judge ordered the U.S. government to promptly reunite the families, the government claimed it would be nearly impossible to do so. —“The Chaos of Reunification,” a podcast from “The Daily” at The New York Times, August 24, 2018. A month after a court-mandated deadline, 528 families are still separated. —Boston Mail, August 24, 2018.

At last, the bars are gone.
We can step out, the world
waiting to greet us.  Long
frowns turned to smiles, tears hurled
back to where they belong –
some other’s countenance swirled
with sadness.  We go headlong,
no longer imperiled,

toward open spaces,
no longer on display,
shoved into cramped spaces
waiting for someone to say
we have rights too!  Our faces
fill with joy, no longer prey
for bigots who disgrace us,
who would keep us away

from happier lives, freed
of anguish, hatreds, pain
of separations, filled with need
for kindness.  A campaign
of outraged voices agreed,
pursuit of justice was plain
(though not all would concede).
We are no more detained!

So, congratulations all
who fought for us so long.
Victories can come, large or small,
to those who remain strong,
fists raised, knees down.  Recall
each one who fought along
with us for enlightened protocols.
At last, the bars are gone!

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals.  Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age will be published by Finishing Line Press in September, 2018.

CAGED

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Empty holding cells are seen in the East Block for condemned prisoners during a tour of California's Death Row at San Quentin State Prison. Credit: Stephen Lam/Reuters via The Boston Globe.

When we visit San Quentin's death row
We sit with a prisoner
On plastic chairs
Inside a small cage,
Conversing and eating greasy snacks
For a couple of hours.
It's a tight space for three adults
And it doesn't take long
For claustrophobia to creep in.
But that same area
Would be ample
For a single small child.
You could put a nice ball in there,
Maybe a stuffed animal.
The children who aren't walking yet
Could crawl around on the floor
And pull themselves up
On the bars.
The walkers would be safe
From running too far
And into harm's way.
The climate inside is controlled
So the children would be warm in winter
Cool in summer.
The guards would come by regularly
And slide food through the slot
In the door
So the kids wouldn't go hungry.
And when they crave social interactions
They could call to each other
In their cute little voices
Through the bars up and down the line.
Initially, some might miss their parents
And cry themselves to sleep,
But children, as we know,
Are supremely adaptable
And after a while would surely become used
To their new surroundings,
Might begin to think of their cages
As a kind of home,
Might before long
Forget their law-breaking, border-crashing parents,
Might even bond with the uniformed upholders
Of American values
Who rescued them
From lives of international crime.

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has been published in many print and online journals including Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Concho River Review, Crannog, december, Hawai'i Review, Pinyon, Rockhurst Review, Solstice, Third Wednesday, Watershed Review. He has written several books of poems, including When Compasses Grow Old, To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World, and Cancer Cantata. He was the producer of the Courage to Resist Audio Project and editor of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War based on his Audio Project interviews. In addition, he co-produced two documentary films, Outside In and Por Que Venimos. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.

INTOLERANCE DEGREE ZERO: A LETTER FROM HOMELAND SECURITY, THE US ATTORNEY GENERAL, AND THE POTUS

by Roxanne Lynn Doty

As the White House faces court orders to reunite families separated at the border, immigrant children as young as three years old are being ordered into court for their own deportation proceedings, according to attorneys in Texas, California and Washington, D.C. —The Texas Tribune, June 27, 2018

Dear Migrants and Asylum Seekers,

     We are implementing policies to keep our homeland
safe from your scattered bones and disobedient
dreams that traverse la linea between our air and yours.
We have executive orders, vacant Walmarts
and Bible verses on our side.  In the name of sovereignty,
we will send vultures to swoop heavy over the hearts
of your children, seal loopholes in arid scratches of earth
with blood from blisters on your feet. We will erase
your name and bury your destiny in an open grave
on the migrant trail as we watch the sky rain dust
from skeletons of all the crossers we have funneled
into the killing fields of the Sonoran, Mohave
and Chihuahuan Deserts. And if you emerge
from these wastelands, we will warehouse your sons
and daughters behind the stripes of our flag,
as sludge spills from the sewers of our mouths.
God bless America, we are not a sanctuary,
we do not do body counts, and we do not keep track
of where we send your babies.

Roxanne Lynn Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, TheNewVerse.News, Ocotillo Review, and are forthcoming in Saranac Review, Gateway Review, and Reunion—The Dallas Review. Two of her short stories were finalists in the 2012 and 2014 New Letters Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction, and the editor of Lascaux Review nominated one of her stories for the 2015 Million Writers Award.

IMMIGRATION HAIKU

by Patricia Carragon


@JanzforCongress

sunshine
becomes rain
tears flood borders

shame
works overtime
kids in cages

chain-links
can’t restrain
cries from within

Patricia Carragon’s latest books are The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada, 2017) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Patricia hosts the Brooklyn-based Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology. She is an executive editor for Home Planet News Online.

ELEGY FOR MY AMERICA

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

In this day of callous indifference,
in this day of sudden summer storms,
a little girl desires heart-showers,
seeks pillowed teardrops and yearns for

her beloved mother, in
this America we once valued,
now resting on balconies
built from stone,
once built from trees
with sheltered awnings.

She seeks the endurance of thought,
now ripped and torn
from their moorings.

What America wants and wanted,
sleeps the fitful sleep of near death.
Newborn birds call in her night.
Full-blown flowers die in her sun,
and America’s child is nobody’s child
when another’s child is buried
in hardened soil,
in cages and mylar
blankets of the unnamed.

Cry my beloved America,
as you struggle to shovel the dirt
to cover yourself. Silence falls
sharply. The greed of your shovel
buries you. Rest in peace.
Thoughts and prayers
are with you.

Lucille Gang Shulklapper's poetry and fiction have been anthologized and appear in numerous literary journals as well as in five collections of poetry and a picture book Stuck in Bed Fred.  Having written since she was six, but never published until she turned sixty, more than two decades ago, she urges her six grandchildren and many of her students to read and remember Langston Hughes' poem “Dreams”.

ABECEDARIO

by German Dario

“Foster Care or Whatever” by Pia Guerra at The Nib

todos los nombres

child a
came from central american country x
wearing dust
from three countries
and the sweat of his ancestors

child b
came from central American country z

           we think

she was too young to speak
but the twig
she had in place
of the left arm
on her doll
is from a tree
that grows in country z

child c
was just a foot and chancla
wrapped in a serape

child d
was raped
          repeatedly
wants to die
but crossed a line
and got picked up

child e
is running
from
a new family
a gang that tattooed
their brand
on virgin skin
and killed the mom

child f
had a good
hardworking clan
but they were taken
in a van
and closed doors
don't explain
   anything

child g's clothes were on child h

I
           do nothing

child m and n
might be related
by blood
if not by blood
by abuse
from a coyote
with candy
gun
and putrid
acid tongue

o
p
q
r
s

todos los nombres
now
all are safe
behind
fence link
dreamcatchers


German Dario, recently published at The Friday Influence and The Blue Collar Review, resides in Arizona.

EATING BREAKFAST AT COLONIAL AND READING HARPER'S ON THE EGG WARS

by Joan Colby

Meme source: Twitter

Reading how the hens suffer
Crammed by the thousands in metal cages,
Stacked stories high,
The air thick with dust and feathers,
Beaks clipped, thin necks bloody,
The dying decaying beneath calloused claws,
Adhering like bathmats to the wire floors.
Forced to lay seven times the norm,
Until spent, to be seized
By the handsful, gassed and ground
For pet food. Never seeing sunlight
Or spreading wings or nesting in trees
Or taking dustbaths or establishing
The pecking order. Reading that to guarantee
A normal chicken life would mean
Paying triple or more for this
Scrambled plate, I tell you
I’d pay whatever it costs to let them be
Chickens scratching in the dirt, how maybe we
Should set up the nesting boxes
In our old coop and get some
Leghorns, though I know we won’t
Bother really, and much as I abhor
What I am reading, there’s the long distance
Between slick paper and the
Long, long barns and my fork.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

GOVT DISARRAY

by David Radavich

Barnum & Bailey Circus Congress of Freaks c. 1924

Holiday Finds Congress Well Short of Goals  — The landmark Senate vote this week to end the minority party’s ability to filibuster most presidential nominees is just one symptom of the deep level of dysfunction coursing through the 113th Congress . . . The list of unfinished tasks . . .  is daunting — and time is just about out. The House will be back the week after Thanksgiving, but the Senate is taking a two-week break. - NT Times, November 23, 2013



The circus animals
have all run loose.

They can’t be seen
in the night,

but their smell
permeates the fetid air.

Some of them
must be preying

now that the
keepers have gone home.

I can’t report
any more
than what you’ve heard.

The feeding pails
are empty

and water
has been scattered
in every direction.
                                              
Don’t expect cages
to be open

in the morning.


David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. His new collection is The Countries We Live In.