AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

by Paul Smith




We didn’t know what to call it
it was not exactly a deal
a deal being something you picture
with a couple guys shaking hands
and congratulating themselves
on their good luck
so that was not it
neither was it a pact
because that suggests
something like a treaty being signed
by two hostile nations
maybe grudgingly
but at least with terms and conditions
to guarantee its sanctity and compliance
there was no sanctity anywhere
nor was it an understanding
there was none of that
each side calling the other side names
we didn’t know what to
make of it all
except selling it as something
that made us bigger
and made them small
on the surface we won
but when we looked deep
we lost
or maybe it was
the other way around
and it made them look cheap
where was the word
to make it sound like
we won
and the other side
lied?
Not knowing what name this thing went by
we just called it
Kentucky Windage

Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction and poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

AMERICA

by Gil Hoy

Image from Acropolis Restoration Service

The stones
of the Acropolis

Are mighty stones,
Weighty stones

Some cracked,
Others stained

Stones of time, tribute
Majesty and merit

Set upon higher ground. 

Blue-gray stones set
Above the sea,

Above the hill
And then the world

They are like
what we imagine
Democracy might be

Majority rule,

Minority rights

Free, fair elections

Cooperation,

Compromise.

Blue-gray stones
set above the world
to remind us

That democracies

have flown, 

are fleeting.

The stones 
of the Acropolis 

Are mighty stones, 
Weighty stones

Set upon higher ground. 

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program.  Hoy received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.  He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared (or will be appearing) most recently in Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, Poetry24, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, The Penmen Review, I am not a silent poet, Clark Street Review and TheNewVerse.News.

DANCING THE COMPROMISE WALTZ

by George Salamon

Congressional Republicans: They more or less held their ground when the government shut down after Friday's midnight deadline passed, and in the end, Democrats compromised way more than Republicans to open the government back up. —Amber Phillips, The Washington Post, January 22, 2018. Photo: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) clink glasses in a toast Monday on Capitol Hill after senators reached an agreement to advance a bill ending government shutdown. (Andrew Harnik/AP via The Washington Post, January 22, 2018)

Since the Reagan revolution
Bulls have been running our lives.
Swearing to uphold the Constitution,
They dance to a Wall Street beat.
Other political animals are squealing,
They march right up to the bulls
Grunting discreetly under their breath:
Let's make a little compromise,
Just a tiny little compromise,
This time on immigration,
So that just a tiny bit of decency dies.
Whenever you seek to banish the
Better aspirations of this nation,
We'll stand up and fight you
Until we make just a tiny little compromise,
So that we can be sure
Just a tiny bit of freedom vanishes,
A tiny bit of equality is thwarted,
A tiny bit of hope is dashed
Until you kill the people's dream.
For which there may be no compromise.

George Salamon remembers helping voters to the polls in Massachusetts to cast their ballots for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. Were those the days?

GOVERNANCE

by Michael Cantor

You start by just ignoring there’s a brake,
or anything that might intrude to take
your mind off never thinking how to make
a final, saving, unexpected snake-
like motion; but instead remain opaque
within your fierce intensity and stake
that rubber to the center line, forsake
eye contact, floor the monster – see them quake –
and watch it all become a piece of cake,
the coward’s headlights sure to bow and shake
because they realize it’s not a fake –
you’re in your zone, your mind is set, you ache
to see them crawl and beg to compromise.
And if they don’t? Well that’s the risk we take.


Michael Cantor’s full-length collection, Life in the Second Circle (Able Muse Press, 2012), was a finalist for the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry.  A chapbook, The Performer, was published in 2007; his work has appeared in The Dark Horse, Measure, Raintown Review, SCR, Chimaera, The Flea, and he has won the New England Poetry Club Gretchen Warren and Erika Mumford prizes.  A native New Yorker, he has lived and worked in Japan, Latin America and Europe, and presently divides his time between hurricane-threatened Plum Island, MA, and drought-threatened Santa Fe, NM.

KERRY ON, JOHN

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Prince Valiant epic comic adventure
Positive mindset wading into troubled
Waters flotsam debris garbage patch
Pelagic plastics chemical sludge pollution

Pitch Black Sea bullyrag revenge
Hearts of Darkness octopodal depths
Derelict abandoned shipwreck cast overboard
No hope of being reclaimed

Slivered driftwood floating turd extremists
Inbred superiority complex insular chutzpah 
Thug mentality spreading putrid humanure
Compromise declared a dirty word
                                                                       
History isn’t made by cynics
But by brave-hearted visionary dreamers
Unafraid to end Zionist occupation
Wheeler-dealers spinning Vegas odds roulette

Peaceful coexistence only viable alternative
Stubbornly ignoring Uncle Sam cries
For help illegal settlements universally
Condemned drowning in leaky pool

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .