NO. NO.

by Nan Meneely

 

 

This protest was regional, the work of dedicated leadership in several small Connecticut towns. A group of somewhere between 20 and 30 or 40 people of all stripes, races and ages (and signs) gathered outside a café where three local roads collide, every single Saturday morning from the one directly following Trump's first election for more than four years. Nan's sign read "Honk Against Hatred;" the vigil was supposed to be silent, but she was unable to restrain her shouted thanks for every honk. This is a picture of one of the first meetings, with the central sign that was reproduced after the first and larger one was defaced.

2016
We hold a protest silently with signs 
that welcome all who worship other gods.
A pickup ploughs the shoulder 
where we stand, kicks gravel as it stops.
We back up quiet, listening. A man in camo, 
raging, crying, leans across his passenger 
to scream his epithets: ignorant fuckers,  
we don't know shit of the animals we invite.
Who of us has watched a friend
disintegrate, arms and legs no more
than shrapnel in a blazing Afghan sky?
His mind is full of massacre.
He loved. He hates.

I want to climb in next to him,
hold him in my Nana arms until he stills.
I've heard his wounds before.
My husband keened in nightmare
when he found again among the vines
of Vietnam his comrade's boots
with nothing of his comrade but his feet.
 
I know my luck that I don’t know.
Even as the soldier curses me
in his convulsive bitterness,
I want to love him back 
from where he lives. 

2026
Ignorant fuckers, haven't you learned 
you kill the ones who survive ?

 
Nan Meneely’s first book Letter from Italy, 1944 (Antrim House) was noted by the Hartford Courant as one of thirteen important books by Connecticut writers in 2013. It provided the libretto for an oratorio of the same name, composed by Sarah Meneely-Kyder and performed twice by Connecticut choruses and symphony orchestras. Her second book Simple Absence (Antrim House) was nominated for The National Book Award and placed as a grand prize finalist in The Next Generation Indie Awards and the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award. She has been published and rejected by The New Verse News.

TRAFFIC JAM TRYING TO REACH THE “FIGHT OLIGARCHY TOUR”

by Susan Vespoli

Photo by Kanishka Chinnaraj, The Daily Wildcat,  March 24, 2025

“Don’t become a monster fighting monsters.”  —paraphrased Nietzsche quote

Stuck on the Mill Avenue Bridge in Tempe

a mile (Siri says an hour) from the stadium 

Bernie and AOC fill to capacity with voters

in tee-shirts that say “Resist,” “Tax the Rich,” 

“Hope Persists,” and 1000s more line up outside,

circle the arena, live stream speeches on their phones;

us trapped in the car, the woman behind us melting 

down, honking, gesturing through her windshield

for us to MOVE and my date is the kind of driver

who smiles, waves other motorists into the flow,

but she is blasting her horn, mouthing epithets,

as his jaw clenches, middle finger twitching to flip,

and I get it, but we’re gridlocked here.

My granddaughter once said, if we had a flying car, 

this wouldn’t happen, but we don’t,

so I unbuckle my seatbelt, turn around and rise

so she can see me and I give her the peace sign 

and the namaste hands, and then shrug, what can we do?

And her face looks like it might explode off her neck—

until eventually the logjam loosens and she zooms 

into the next lane, passes us, her back bumper 

stickered with peace signs.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots. She is the author of four poetry books.