NUMBERS GAME

by Gifford Savage

Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg and Ivanka Trump among bevy of stars at Indian billionaire heir’s pre-wedding bash… —CNN, March 4, 2024

Antilia Tower stands 27 stories high,

a $1b phallic tower of Babel.
3 helipads, 168-car garage, and 9 elevators
lifting bling to all-time-low levels of excess.
Cool air soothes in the snow room,
countless artificial snowflakes give sweet relief 
while the heat ripples visible on the streets below.
Rihanna sings, “We Found Love,”
the $100m, 3-day long pre-wedding party swings,
21 chefs conjure up 75 types of dishes for breakfast
225 types for lunch, 85 for a midnight feast.
Money can’t buy you love,
but it means 1,200 guests
don’t have to suffer the same meal twice.
Ivanka, Tendulkar and Bill toast the happy couple,
Priscilla Chan fawns over the groom’s $1m watch
while Zuckerberg agrees, Watches are cool.
In the shadow of the tower
2 million children die every year in India’s slums,
one every 15 seconds,
400,000 before the sun sets on their first day.
Faces turn away,
nursing their bacchanal hangovers,
looking forward to the wedding proper in July.
Rihanna did not sing: “Take Care.”


Gifford Savage’s poems have been published in various journals, including The Storms, The Bangor Literary Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Agape Review, and previously in The New Verse News.

LOOKING FOR GOOD NEWS

by Joan Mazza

Three days of steady rain, power flickers
off and on, pond overflowing. Flooded roads
and mud slides where trees are taken down
for another pipeline. Another school shooting

with ten dead. In Cuba a plane crashes. Over
one hundred dead. Lava ignites houses, cars
in a Hawaii subdivision. The acrid air is ash
and smells like rotten eggs. Bad news

headlines can flip you into a downward spiral.
I’m not prone to depression, not inclined
to expect the worst. The universe seems
eager to test optimists with an overdose

of cruel reality, reminds us we’re getting
old and no one is exempt from diminishment.
For now, I can read the news. Forgive me
for this day of shallowness, for enjoying excess,

the waste of resources on flowers, fancy hats,
buglers and British troops marching in full regalia.
I don’t care how much it costs. We need
a lift, a smile. We need to believe in love

stories, that one woman can defy predictions
of her limits, can become a princess, if not
queen. No one has to give her away. She’s
a grownup, can walk herself down the aisle.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has twice been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation.