OBIT OVERKILL

by Chris O’Carroll

News Site Mistakenly Publishes About 100 V.I.P. Obituaries —New York Times headline, November 17, 2020

Our Queen has died, sad British church bells toll,

Bardot, Loren, and Eastwood quit the stage,

Pelé has aimed a shot at one last goal,

And Jimmy Carter calmly acts his age.

Despite those stories, none of them were dead,

Although it’s clear now how much they’ll be missed.

For A-listers’ fake deaths, real tears got shed.

I’m Nobody. I wasn’t on the list.

Chris O’Carroll, author of The Joke’s on Me, is a Light magazine featured poet whose work has also appeared in The Asses of Parnassus, Better Than Starbucks, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and The Spectator, among other journals, and in Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle, New York City Haiku, and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology.

EVEN CHARLIE ROSE

by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky

Go ahead—watch and weep,
for it’s too late to shut our eyes.
No more falling back asleep!
Just go ahead—watch and weep—
every channel crawls with creeps.
Unmask the truth! Unveil their lies
then go ahead—watch and weep.
It’s far too late to shut our eyes.

Felicia Sanzari Chernesky is the longtime managing and poetry editor of the quarterly Academic Questions and the newish author of picture books. Her latest is The Boy Who Said Nonsense (Albert Whitman Company & 2016). She runs a poetry writing seminar for seniors, which has been one of the most invigorating and illuminating experiences of her life.

THE PERSONA POEM HOLDS AN EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE REGARDING ITS LEAKED NUDES

by J. Bradley

Male Nude by Roz McQuillan

You’re jealous of the way I make
an empty bottle of merlot a bearskin rug,
how the crook of my tongue incites stampedes.

You’re designed for, fueled by pollution.
You require the excuse of a god to shed sin,
then wag your fingers like thrown stones.

Please, pick up your jaws.
You’ll catch open jean flies that way.


J. Bradley is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominated writer whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals including decomP, Hobart, and Prairie Schooner. He was the Interviews Editor of PANK, the Flash Fiction Editor of NAP, and the Web Editor of Monkeybicycle. He is the author of the poetry collection Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books, 2009), the novella Bodies Made of Smoke (HOUSEFIRE, 2012), and the graphic poetry collection The Bones of Us (YesYes Books, 2014), illustrated by Adam Scott Mazer. He is the curator of the Central Florida reading series There Will Be Words.