ELECTION DAY

by Mervyn Taylor

The park outside my window
hasn't changed,  except for
the trees losing their leaves

so now I can see clear down
to the lake, the number on
a green jersey running by.

It's election day, early lines
headed to the polls. No one
knows as yet that the villain 

will win, that in spite of all
the ugliness, the terrible 
promises they intend to keep,

he and his cronies will sweep
their way back to Pennsylvania 
Avenue, will make good their

threats. But it hasn't happened
yet. It's still morning, and men
in the park are busy keeping

the leaves from spreading,
the trees having shed so 
fast, I can see someone 

curled up and crying 
alone on a bench
all the way from here.

Mervyn Taylor is the author of nine full-length collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Getting Through: New & Selected (2024) from Beltway Editions. Trinidadian by birth, and a longtime Brooklyn resident, his poems link both places, like a steel band in Prospect Park, the location of this poem. Retired from teaching, Taylor also works in assemblage, and Carnival arts. 

COUNTRY SONG FOR MY BASEBALL TEAM

by Earl J. Wilcox

Photo by Jeff Curry/USA Today via Sports Illustrated.

I know I can divorce you,

being unfaithful and untrue.

 

This late June—barely real 

summer yet—you tease me

with a rare afternoon win,

heat up the Division for a day

or so, cause me to sweat &

and swear I will never leave you.

Lately, tho, you break my heart.

I feel deceived when you bring up

players from the farm team, send

down better hitters you’ve been

flirting with. Last week, I

almost went to seek a lawyer

 

when you simply rolled over

for a bush-league, slutty team.

What happened to our spring trainin’

plans, hopes, and dreams, that you’d be

 

faithful this season, give me your

best, not waste scarce money on

 

players like that stud from out west--

You know the one I mean—look what

 

it got us. Hank Williams was right

about cheatin’ hearts, they do tell

 

on you, make us feel so lonesome

we could die. I’m getting’ in my truck,

 

pick up some brewskis no matter what

some say, there’s a lot of crying in baseball.

 

Growing up country in the American South, Earl Wilcox thrives on Cardinals baseball, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and some Elvis.

TO DENNIS RODMAN

by Rick Gray





Dennis, I hate to interrupt your cry
but the prisoners are ringing in my ears
and demanding I offer you another trip, or at least a smack.
They don't care if your piercing ruins my anonymous hand,

They are worked to death, and have been waiting for years for this.
There's no courts in the camps, though I hear the nets are everywhere.
Only the guards get to shoot. Dennis, I can't let them down.
Just like you cried, "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help."

What's it like being so cool and eccentric?
Even when you say "I'm sorry" it sounds so ironic,
like your pink wedding dress. Marriage and divorce must be jokes
when you get to hang court side like Nicholson with the Dope.

Here's their suggestion, Dennis.
Instead of me hitting you, which you won't even feel,
The prisoners want you to play for real next time.
No more games. You go to a prison camp and just sit in solitary

and keep your metal smirk shut.
We'll do it it like the Aztecs.
If you eventually crack and start blubbering tears to the press, you lose,
and the prisoners cut off your famous head and have a ball.


Rick Gray has work currently appearing in Salamander and has an essay forthcoming in the book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. He served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and teaches in Kabul, Afghanistan.

SHUTDOWN

by Sara Berkeley

Image source: nationalparks.org

The day the government shut down
the ocean showed up for work.
They put some barricades up
but waves kept coming in, unfazed.
The toilets were locked
and the barricades went up
to stop the people coming in to the park
but we went early, before they closed
the National Seashore, and I can attest
that the seals and the pelicans
and the small fish and the birds that eat them
kept coming back for more.

The waves were giving it their all,
rending the heart of the beach in two,
throwing their violent weight around
while Congress ran aground;
the rush of foam and fuming toil
of the wind blowing spume back
from the crests as loud as the silence
along the corridors of power,
the sand hot beneath our feet,
the water silvery gold, the gulls
laughing and crying as we were
laughing and crying too.

Pelicans flew as low as they dared
we reckoned they hadn't heard
that the government was hung -
hoist by its own petard -
that they'd put some wooden barriers up
to stop the tourist cars
from visiting the National Seashore
while well beneath the roar of the breakers
tearing up the shale
and the keening wail of the gulls
the day was a good day, ungoverned,
lovely, full of miracles.


Sara Berkeley was born and raised in Ireland. She has had five collections of poetry published, one of short stories, and a novel. She has been widely anthologized, including in the Harvard University Press An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, daughter, dog, cat, guinea pig, and varying numbers of fish. When she is not writing poetry, she is a nurse for traumatic brain injured patients. She is well ready for the shutdown to end.