THEY GROW AN AWFUL LOT OF AWFUL IN BRAZIL

by Steven Kent

"'We will not surrender': Bolsonaro militants demand coup as Lula prepares to take power.” —The Guardian, December 22, 2022

Law and order, we demand.

   A military coup

Will go (we hope!) the way we planned,

   Since Bolsonaro's through.

Ironic? Sure, but that's our way;

   The Left will not enjoy it

When Right makes might makes right. We say,

   To save Brazil, destroy it!

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and Oxford comma enthusiast Kent Burnside. His work appears in Light, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and OEDILF, among others.

THERE'S A WORD FOR IT

by Leonore Hildebrandt

All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people. APPLAUSE. (January 6, 2021 at a rally on the Ellipse near the White House.)

The royal we

is willing to usurp us,

but there’s more—

this we promising 

a glory-to-be-shared

is needy. It’s endemic—

the we who owns land 

is vying for water and sky,

it wants more time supreme, 

the we who pulls strings

absolutely needs 

more applause 

from us—which is 

the happiest you,

the you that we now needs 

to storm our building

and more—to holler 

and ram it all through.

And then it’s us 

who’s put to shame.

Pleonexia—more

than greed. 

Leonore Hildebrandt is the author of Where You Happen to Be, The Next Unknown, and The Work at Hand. Her poems and translations have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cafe Review, Cerise Press, Harpur Palate, Rhino, and the Sugar House Review among other journals. Leonore lives “off the grid” in Harrington, Maine. 

JANUARY COUP

by Mark Danowsky

J.D. Crowe | jdcrowe@al.com

Vulgar 45, self-chosen wunder-king Insists he can take a life with a 45 Fifth Ave, broad daylight No one stops him Ha, as if he would stop himself Hang any henchmen Who defy a single wicked whim He begs you call him a joker A clown, a magician He calls himself master Of misdirection, of monopoly A game, he jests That one about life Behemoth of rage & spite Batter truth with lies Until truth cowers in a corner Smirk of feckless beast Mirror, mirror, what of this hair Send a few minions Storm the Capitol Torch the word of fair Suit of Big Mac & Diet Coke Asks only the McPoem be gilded 45 laughs & laughs Knowing a loss will be refused As only a loser can lose False god of the not unforsaken majority False demon elite who preys on the powerless He who claims to love what he loathes He who cannot sanitize what he is He who lets disease run rampant To disenfranchise those already wronged He who barks orders at the grotesque To carry out the obscene He who breaks the back of a thousand innocents To grease his palms in 18 holes Let us hope, yes, let us hope Some few brainwashed undrink the Kool-Aid There is no time like the present to accept Our past is full of atrocity And yes we can choose a new path Back towards democracy

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Senior Editor for Schuylkill Valley Journal, Poetry Craft Essays Editor for Cleaver Magazine, and a Regular Contributor for Versification. He is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press) and JAWN forthcoming from Moonstone Press.

MYANMAR MILITARY IN PURSUIT OF POETS

by Phyllis Klein

including two excerpts of incriminating lines

Poetry remains alive in Myanmar, where unconventional weapons are being used to fight a military that has killed more than 800 people since it staged a coup on Feb. 1 and ousted an elected government. For some democracy activists, their politics cannot be separated from their poetry. Sensing the power of carefully chosen words, the generals have imprisoned more than 30 poets since the putsch, according to the National Poets’ Union. At least four have been killed, all from the township of Monywa, which is nestled in the hot plains of central Myanmar and has emerged as a center of fierce resistance to the coup. Photo: Ko Chan Thar Swe, who had left the Buddhist monkhood to write poetry, was killed in March. —The New York Times, May 28, 2021

They shoot down hands filled with artilleries

of verse, beat up feet filing into lines

of protest. They shoot at heads

but they do not know that revolution 

lives in the heart. In darkness, in daylight,

minds and hearts bulleted, to make them 

stop. But no silence. Poetry sharpens its quills, 

aims arrows into its targets. They began to burn 

the poets when the smoke of burned books could

no longer choke the lungs heavy with dissent. 

Now their smoke is everywhere as poets are doused

and matched. And still they write. Scratch words 

into cell walls with rocks, or with metal on plastic— 

bitter-cold vinyl ballads. Or memorized signposts

of the mind, indelible. Troubadours of protest 

in waves of heat. In monsoons on horizons. 

On every street in the world. Pursued by silver-ribboned 

militias climbing up a tyrannical ladder. Nibs filled 

with poison-to-the-wicked-ink. Fingerprints cupping my

face, your face, walls of alarms clanging 

against silence, revolutions of clocks’ hands.

Phyllis Klein’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is a finalist in the Sweet Poetry Contest, 2017, the Carolyn Forche Humanitarian Poetry Contest, 2019, and the Fischer Prize, 2019. She was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2018 and again in 2020. She has a new book, The Full Moon Herald, from Grayson Books that just won honorable mention for poetry from the Eric Hoffer Book Award, 2021. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, she sees writing as artistic dialogue between author and readers—an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels.

IN-SUH-REK-SHUHN

by Rémy Dambron

they said this man was just like them we said he doesn’t feel the same

they said he said that’s just fake news we said this is a dangerous game

they said he’s making us great again while we witnessed his power abuses

they diminished and deflected delivering his excuses

we called this pattern treacherous nefarious hateful nasty

they called him biblical 

patriotic bold and crafty

we said he’s promoting violence 

they said he doesn’t mean it

we showed them clips of footage 

they said we just don’t see it

we said hands up don’t shoot 

black lives matter me too

they said shut up and dribble 

all lives matter back the blue

we plead for justice 

but just us took a knee

so they beat us up with shields batons and false decrees

we said we have our rights 

they said well not today

we said these were our streets 

so they gassed us all away

we protested peacefully 

get your knees off our neck

they called us anarchists

then wrote themselves some checks

we turned out in record 

to win the election

they claimed there was fraud 

pledged their objections

we agreed to a recount 

they cried stop the steal

maskless they rallied 

refusing to heal

they threatened more violence despite our constitution

we said he’s propagating 

they called it lib delusion

then hundreds and hundreds 

with his flags and motifs

assailed the steps

of our nation’s top chiefs

we cried this is madness 

the building’s not secured

they said our take-back has begun and we will not be deterred

we said look at the police 

they’re like ushers in disguise

allowing them to enter 

with insurgency supplies

we saw gates open wide 

with a skirmish or two

then a lonely black cop

with just a stick and film crew

never drawing his firearm 

just clutching his baton

yelling and retreating

his leverage too far gone

they paraded their faces 

took selfies and stole files

besieged and disgraced

our nations state house defiled

they were released without consequence 

set free without question

acquitted of their felonies 

at forty fives direction

we watched in horror for hours

what we had known would come true

his fascist america 

executing their coup

Rémy Dambron is an English teacher, proud husband, and activist whose poetry focuses primarily on advocating for social justice and denouncing political corruption. His work has been featured on What Rough Beast, Writer’s Resist, Poets Reading the News, and The New Verse News.

THE LAST ELECTION

by George Held

“The worst case,” [Barton] Gellman writes [in The Atlantic], “is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him.” Merely by refusing to concede, Trump could keep the electoral result in doubt through the 79-day period between Election Day and the day the next president is to be inaugurated. Gellman's reporting shows that Republicans are already discussing plans to bypass the popular vote and directly appoint electors to the Electoral College. This could lead the country to a precipice: Two men could show up to be sworn in on Inauguration Day. “One of them,” Gellman writes, “would arrive with all the tools and power of the presidency already in hand.” —Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor, The Atlantic in today’s email to subscribers releasing the magazine’s November cover story.

 ...the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote... 

—Twelfth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

 

The sound of horse-drawn tumbrils

Echoes in DuPont Circle 

Punctuated by the chop of the guillotine 

As the heads of the opposition fall—

the chairs of the most strategic committees,

ranking members of others,

obstreperous heads of key organizations... 

 

The death of the most influential liberal

Justice and her replacement

By another grim rightist ideologue 

Have opened the sluice gates

Of reprisal and crimson revenge. 

 

The Orange Duce is often smiling

As good fortune shines upon him,

Death having opened a decisive seat

On the Supreme Court—never more supreme

Than when handing down death—and then

As prescribed by the Twelfth Amendment,

He receives another term in what will be

The last election, election for life.

 

So, set in motion by his hippo

Of a compliant attorney general,

Who gets the Orange Man’s code— 

No translator needed—his bizarre fantasy

Of a return to the terror of the sans culottes

Haunts official Washington and the entire country,

 

Like a corporeal rendition of the Four

Horsemen of the Apocalypse,

Every night at 5 on Fox TV, kicked off

By a pep rally and boastful remarks

By the Orange Man in Chief,

The tumbrils roll and the glistening blade falls

While, in the continuing pandemic,

The maskless base howls in visceral support.

 

 

A longtime contributor to The New Verse News, George Held plans to vote in 2020.

DEAR SENATOR. BOLIVIA.

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

“Evo Morales’s Chaotic Departure Won’t Define His Legacy: History won’t remember him for the ongoing unrest, but for the enfranchisement of Bolivia’s indigenous population.” –Foreign Policy, November 22, 2019. Photo: A supporter of former Bolivian President Evo Morales stands in front of graffiti that reads "Long live Evo" during a protest in La Paz, Bolivia, on Nov. 14. GASTON BRITO MISEROCCH/GETTY IMAGES via Foreign Policy.

Dear Senator,

Did you ever hear of the valley where they found Che Guevara—
you were either in college or unborn when they corralled his band
in the valleys of tin in a country most boardroom men

Called Potosi

Bolivia

1967/2019

A land of riches governed by highland royalty who might have found
common cause with a Coca farmer from Cochabamba named Morales.

You have heard of him haven’t you, Senator? He’s in Mexico now.
Isn’t it a shame. What say you? Cocalero.
She and he and they see their compañeros y compañeras under the gun
of Uncle Sam’s war against an indigenous plant and the way of life its people
led because in the halls of Washington lucre flows in subsidy form to Big Pharma
and Law and Order.

What say you, Senator? Latin America. Has open veins and the president
at home is a tyrant but where are you when the indigenous working class see
their comrade presidente flee because the Americas are open for a certain kind
of business that will not obey the rights of Mother Nature who is a storyteller.

She’s a slam poet, Senator.

The rights of the forest. The breast of Mother Earth. The golden goose.
I’m sure there’s a hashtag for it. John Wayne fleeing the Indians riding
switchback across all of our constituencies.

Jeremy Nathan Marks is an American based in London, Ontario. Recent poetry, prose, and photography can and will be found in Literary Orphans, Writers Resist, Poets Reading The News, Unlikely Stories, Ottawa Arts Review, Bewildering Stories, 365 Tomorrows, The Courtship of Winds, Poetry Pacific, Eunoia Review, The Blue Nib, Stories of the Nature of Cities, and Lethe Magazine among others.

YELP REVIEW: NORTH CAROLINA STATEHOUSE

by Jesse Bradley

Here, the sorest losers are a swarm
of wasps; they treat democracy
like a neck trickling with sweat.

With enough stings, your throat swells
until the protest dies
before it can leave your tongue.


J. Bradley is the winner of Five [Quarterly]'s 2015 e-chapbook contest for fiction.

SEPTEMBER 11

by Peleg Held

On September 11, 1973—Chile's socialist president, Salvador Allende, was overthrown in a coup. He committed suicide under mysterious circumstances as troops surrounded his palace, ushering in more than 15 years of military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. Since that time, the CIA has acknowledged knowledge of—but not involvement in—the plot. The agency "was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it," the CIA writes in a history of its operations in the South American country. (Declassified documents reveal how the Nixon administration instructed the agency to undermine Allende's government and "make the economy scream.") —Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, September 11, 2014

The infamous rarely die
in caves. Instead they nobly precede
grey-scaled acknowledgements
by a few years, passing quietly
in rich linen and laurel.

In an office filled with smoke,
escorted by explosion and a crackling
fire spreading like arsenic
in an old poet's blood,

his final words were sent ahead
onto the airwaves:


Superarán otros hombres este momento
gris y amargo en el que la traición 

pretende imponerse.

In Chile, they speak of the foreign
pilots, of the murder of thousands,
of September 11, 1973, in Spanish.


Peleg Held lives in Portland, Maine with his partner and his dog Emitt. There is also the semi-feral cat, Smudge. And a kid or two. He writes poetry, does woodworking and lately, dreams of the summer. pelegheld(at)gmail.com.