WE WATCHED WHITE LOTUS HAPPILY DURING THE FALL OF AMERICA

by Hilary King
 
      After Ilya Kaminsky and Mike White

And when they deported immigrants, we 

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
 
enough. I was
watching Season 3, around my couch America
 
was falling: amendment by amendment by amendment.
 
I took a spritz outside and watched the next episode.
 
In the endless month
of a monstrous reign in the house of distraction
 
in the channel of distraction in the podcast of distraction in the For You page of distraction,
our great country of distraction, we (save us)
 
needed to know who died.

Hilary King is a poet now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her book Stitched on Me was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2024. She loves hiking, travel, and White Lotus.

BUDDHA HAD IT EASY

by Michael Mark

The Bergin University of Canine Studies Puppy Cam

It was so much easier
to become enlightened then.

They didn’t have the
Puppy Cam to deal with.

Buddha could spend all day under
the Bodhi tree with no thought
of puppies wiggling and
tumbling.

So cute.

Puppies sleeping in piles.
Puppies waking up.
Puppies blindly crawling
over each other to get food.

Each move updated in
real time,
to your phone, iPad, laptop
right to your HDTV!

Puppies peeing.
Puppies’ eyes opening.
Puppies barking and
scaring themselves.
So cute.
Puppies being licked
clean by mom.

That’s how he was
able to concentrate with
such precision, for so long.

Cobras encircled Buddha.
Elephants charged him.
Mara sent his sexy daughters
to be his concubines.
He didn’t blink.

But Buddha didn’t have
the Puppy Cam.


Michael Mark is a hospice volunteer and long distance walker – his latest journey was the Camino De Santiago. His poetry has appeared or is set to appear in Angle Journal, Awakening Consciousness Magazine, Empty Mirror, Everyday Poets, Forge Journal, OutsideIn Magazine, Petrichor Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Ray’s Road Review, Scapegoat Journal, Spillway, Red Booth Review, Red Paint Hill, Sleet Magazine, The Thing Itself, The New York Times, UPAYA, Word Soup End Hunger, Wayfarer and other nice places.