A BRIDGE TOO FAR

by Karen Warinsky

A protestor entered his fourth day atop the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. Guido Reichstadter remained on top of the bridge as of 4:35 p.m. Monday and told WUSA9 that he would spend another night there. He also indicated that he ran out of food on Saturday and water on Monday morning.

If you shout your sorrow

from a mountain top 

will the wind take your voice

throw it into empty caves

through the standing trees?

 

If you climb a high bridge

cast a symbol of that sorrow

from the crown

a black cloth 

flying in protest

saying, “not in my name”

to war

to inhumanity

to school girls obliterated at their desks

to a president’s threat to 

annihilate an ancient civilization,

to the locomotive of AI 

tearing across the land,

will anyone hear?

 

May Day.  May Day.

 

The protester speaks of conscience, soul and duty

but the MAGA reporter in her blood red dress

counters with the evils of Iran;

how they murder their own citizens

have killed Americans.

He agrees, “It’s awful,”

but she is incredulous

at his desire for peaceful change

barks questions through crimson lips

as night surrounds him

a thousand feet in the air

his answers delayed by the wind

buffeted back by her commitment 

to make him wrong

make him look crazy

her commitment to more war.

Karen Warinsky, Best of the Net Nominee and Coordinator of Poets at Large, is the author of four collections including Dining with War and Beauty & Ashes.

THREE YEARS SINCE JANUARY 6TH

by David Feela

Traitor Trump is a drawing by Mike Scott which was uploaded to Fine Art America on December 8th, 2022.

the rhetoric simmers
the threats rise like steam
the traitor still leading the charge
the office in florida a command post
the golf course his bunker
the tower branded by his babel 
the lies
the three years burning like acid reflux in democracy’s gut
the smell of pepper spray in everything he says
the mass deportation of his conscience  
the rumor he doesn’t have one
the constitutional disdain he swears to protect
the lies
the charisma he carries like a infected boil
the rule of law that doesn’t apply to him
the courtroom where he sits and glares
the indictments and mug shot 
the lies
the money he grifts 
the pussy he’s entitled to grab
the election he never won
the lies
the reelection he continues to rig 
the bible raised as a prop
the lies
the comb over that covers his heart

David Feela writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his latest chapbook Little Acres.

WHITTLED LIES

by Jan D. Hodge

Faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

When
Sir
Impresario rose for the vacuous ritual discharge of pomp
      In that dismal political swamp,
Insulting and faulting those who dared to oppose him
      (Sneering and jeering at them),
Meeting their protests with humbug and shrugs
Amid the capuchin clicking and whining
Of cameras, his answers were dreary as verses on Stalin,
Then echoed in turn by a toadying chorus of dim-
Witted grim apparatchiks routinely intoning:
O leader of peoples, our nation spearheading,
Great One, our Sun, applauded by millions of hearts
      (Chanting in classical metres).
Like Vergil recited from packets of cue cards, they
Hailed and regaled him.  Not one of the thugs
Had conscience or courage enough to consider resigning
               . . . Preferring fine dining!


Author’s note: The situation, alas, is all too recognizable.  For those not familiar with the model for this verse, I refer you to Edith Sitwell’s “Sir Beelzebub.”  (My title, incidentally, is an anagram of "Edith Sitwell.")
     To explain the allusion to verses on Stalin, consider these lines by A. O. Avdienko:
           When the woman I love presents me with a child
           the first word it shall utter will be: Stalin. . . .
           O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
           Thou who broughtest man to birth . . .
           Thou who makest bloom the spring,
           Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords . . .
           Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
           Sun reflected by millions of hearts.

Jan D. Hodge's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. Two of his books, Taking Shape (a collection of carmina figurata) and The Bard & Scheherazade Keep Company (double-dactyl renderings of Shakespeare, tales from the Arabian Nights, and Reynard the Fox) have been published by Able Muse Press.

MEMO TO JEFF SESSIONS FROM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by Wilda Morris

I warned you in my famous play
what happens when you grasp the coattails
of a sociopath drunk on the possibilities of power,
one who hides evil intent behind the scriptures
he quotes, sows seeds of division,
spreads false gossip, multiplies lies
while boasting his achievements, faith
and truthfulness. Had you read Richard III
and heeded Buckingham, you would have realized
that one brief pause before fulfilling all demands,
one little bit of conscience, and you’d be doomed.
You were destined, like him, for the axe
by your recusal.


Wilda Morris lives and writes in the Chicago area. Her blog provides a contest for poets each month.

THE CANDIDATE

by Aaron Poochigian

Get up, Fernando. We must try again.
I know, I know, this is the age of shrill
abhorrence, but we are American—
the future is a family picnic still.

It’s bad we two have dozed through early summer
here on the peeling stoop of unsuccess
while truth got slaughtered, and the numb got number
to slurs, massacres, treason and the press,

so go put on a suit and running shoes.
We’ll knock like missionaries. If they spit,
whip out their Colts and sputter toxic nonsense,

we can at least yield with an easy conscience,
at least have done our best to do a bit
of good, Fernando, when we hugely lose.

Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His first book of poetry The Cosmic Purr (Able Muse Press) was published in 2012; his second book Manhattanite, winner of the 2016 Able Muse Poetry Prize,  came out in December of 2017. His thriller in verse Mr. Either/Or was released by Etruscan Press in Fall of 2017. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Poetry, and The Times Literary Supplement.

TRUMP IN TRIUMPH

by Ned Balbo

Piñata by Dalton Javier Ramirez, Piñateria Ramirez.

"He knew human folly like the back of his hand . . . "

—Auden

He said the things we didn’t know we felt—
hard truths that showed us what we really feared,
and whom. We listened as he lifted guilt
from our collective conscience. What we heard
reached to the core, though each of us heard something
different that convinced us he was right.
We heard, beyond our borders, rumbling;
within our borders, reason taking flight—
It felt like freedom. In our neighbors’ eyes
we saw a common light, or signs of doubt
that marked the enemies he’d brutalize,
the former friends we’d learn to live without…
His jokes amused us, booming from the stage—
We dreaded—and looked forward to—his rage.

Author’s note: “The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies” (Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal, 1987).

Ned Balbo's The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems received the Poets' Prize and the Donald Justice Prize. His previous books are Lives of the Sleepers (Ernest Sandeen Prize; ForeWord Book of the Year gold medal), and Galileo's Banquet (Towson University Prize). A new book, Upcycling Paumanok, is due out soon from Measure Press. He currently teaches in the MFA program in creative writing and environment at Iowa State University.

THE DOLTS' NEXT DEBATE

by Ralph La Rosa

Image source: DonkeyHotey

Don’t ask about earth science
Don’t ask about the poor
Don’t ask about one’s conscience
Such thinking is a chore.

Don’t ask about The Street
Don’t ask about the schools
Don’t ask about deceit
Such issues break our rules.

Do ask if we like kittens
Do ask about the wife
Do ask if we like mittens
Such questions about life.

Do ask if we hate taxes
Do ask if we pray daily
Do ask if we love crises
Such issues never foil us because we always behave like totally deranged assholes

—stupidly.

Ralph La Rosa lives in southern California where he daydreams and writes.

THE METHOD DOESN'T MATTER

by Kristina Cerise

One in three people say that if lethal injections are no longer viable — because of drug shortages or other problems — executions should be stopped altogether, according to the survey of 800 adults by Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies for NBC News. But many others are open to more primitive methods of putting prisoners to death: 20 percent for the gas chamber, 18 percent for the electric chair, 12 percent for firing squad and 8 percent for hanging.        --NBC News, May 14, 2014

The thirst for death
will not be sated

The clinical tidiness
of a needle
administered by a gloved hand
is not necessary
to keep the conscience clean

They are comfortable
with the mess of
murder

Gas ‘em
Fry ‘em
Shoot ‘em
Hang ‘em

Lead pipe or candlestick
it doesn't really matter

The calls for death
are louder than the calls
for decency

For every one that hesitates
two salivate


Kristina Cerise is a Seattle writer committed to searching for meaning in the madness. 

A SAD STATE

by B.Z. Niditch

A shocking image has emerged appearing to show the moment the Turkish Prime Minister's adviser kicked a protester being restrained on the ground during anti-government demonstrations following an explosion in a coal mine that left 282 dead and scores injured. Breaking news feed Report Turk told The Independent the picture was taken in Soma, the town where the mine collapsed after the explosion on Tuesday. Mr Erdogan’s adviser Yusuf Yerkel confirmed in a telephone conversation that he was the man in the image seen about to kick a protester. In a statement released later that day, he issued a brief apology but claimed his actions were the result of being provoked by protesters. "I am sorry that I was not able to keep calm despite all the provocations, insults and attacks that I was subjected to," he said.
--The Independent, May 15, 2014

As soon as you’re born work and worry,
Windmills of lies are planted in your head.
--Nazim Hikmet, “A Sad State of Freedom” (1951)

Nazim Hikmet
today your revolutionary voice
is still a poet heard
as the miners' bodies
are raised
which once loved the sun
and beautiful Bosporus
we will not forget
anyone this mid May
in a fitful restless sleep
of relatives and comrades
knowing the groans
of those below
scorched beyond words
piercing our silences
and consciences.


B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher.  His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest);  Le Guepard (France);  Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

WHO AM I TO JUDGE?

by James M. Croteau





I guess it's better,
your tone and all,
but get back to me
when you're ready
to end your claims
to nature's law,
and calls to chastity.
Rescind your stance
on who's "intrinsically disordered"
and I'm all ears.
I think your conscience
needs closer examination--
you have to know
that catechism words
like "grave depravity"
are the nails
in the coffins
of too many Catholic boys.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing.