PLACEBO PANACEA

by Emily Jo Scalzo

"The Swamp" by John Cuneo.

the scar tissue of America’s soul
at its core the betrayal and genocide
upon which we were founded
surrounded by others through history
a throbbing fibrous mess
pockets of infection
waiting to surface

kids in cages
parents packed in cells
seeking to escape the scars
America’s created elsewhere
children returning from school
to homes raided and empty
ghosts of innocence

alternative facts and distrust
journalists labelled enemies of the people
scientists defunded and censored
the second a man enamored of theocracy

neo-Nazis galvanized in the streets
attack protesters with impunity
veterans’ efforts in Europe negated

children strike for climate awareness
specters of their futures dimmed
churches celebrate Armageddon
expecting rapture for failed stewardship

one party mired in racist xenophobia
the other craven in identity crisis

same shit
different president
and we still swirl the drain

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, TheNewVerse.News, and others. Her first chapbook The Politics of Division was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.

SWAMP POEM

a sonnet by Cindy Hochman

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Throw your old comb & hairbrush into the swamp.
Throw your hamper full of dirty laundry into the swamp.
Throw that bad poem you wrote this morning into the swamp.
Throw your shattered-after-the-breakup heart into the swamp.
Throw your mother-in-law into the swamp.
Throw your cataracts, your ulcers, your tumors into the swamp.
Throw war and all its symbols into the swamp.
Throw all Rebel statues, from Virginia to Alabama, into the swamp.
Throw the lawyers, the bailiffs, the judges, and the guilty defendants into the swamp.
Throw the press secretary and her podium of mendacity into the swamp.
Throw the rolled heads of recently departed staffers into the swamp.
Throw the hurricanes’ fallen branches, and the West Wing’s executive branch,
  and the Great Lawn with its Easter Egg Roll and pardoned turkeys into the swamp.
And the president, that no-goodnik, into the fetid, putrid, malodorous, stinking swamp.


Cindy Hochman is the president of "100 Proof" Copyediting Services and the editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East. She is on the book review staffs of Pedestal magazine and Clockwise Cat. Her latest chapbook is Habeas Corpus (Glass Lyre Press).