CASINO CAPITALISM FARM

by Mickey J. Corrigan




The fields full of grazers
heavy hooved, fat with milk
stomp through the dirt
cudding the last of the green
green grass, bovine calm.

The world barnyard shakes
with squawking, honks
cacophony,
four-footed agents of history
remnants of a civil society.

Clucky hens scatter wildly
combed heads still intact
no wiser
than small goats in pasture
black horns rubbed smooth.

The last members
of the club
of nonclubs,
survivors
in the dark heart
of a mafia state.

Beyond the waste of farmland
the future
foreshortened,
the darkness
a tunnel
that ends
suddenly
at brass-knuckled  doors
bolted

from the other side.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan lives in South Florida and writes noir with a dark humor. Books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Poetry chapbooks include The Art of Bars (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Days' End (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2017). Project XX, a novel about a school shooting, was published in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. 

EATING BREAKFAST AT COLONIAL AND READING HARPER'S ON THE EGG WARS

by Joan Colby

Meme source: Twitter

Reading how the hens suffer
Crammed by the thousands in metal cages,
Stacked stories high,
The air thick with dust and feathers,
Beaks clipped, thin necks bloody,
The dying decaying beneath calloused claws,
Adhering like bathmats to the wire floors.
Forced to lay seven times the norm,
Until spent, to be seized
By the handsful, gassed and ground
For pet food. Never seeing sunlight
Or spreading wings or nesting in trees
Or taking dustbaths or establishing
The pecking order. Reading that to guarantee
A normal chicken life would mean
Paying triple or more for this
Scrambled plate, I tell you
I’d pay whatever it costs to let them be
Chickens scratching in the dirt, how maybe we
Should set up the nesting boxes
In our old coop and get some
Leghorns, though I know we won’t
Bother really, and much as I abhor
What I am reading, there’s the long distance
Between slick paper and the
Long, long barns and my fork.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

THE PARABLE OF THE BUTCHERS: TAIJI COVE VS. FACTORY FARMING

by Adrienne S. Wallner

Image source: Adventure Journal

Image source: Inhabit

Two butchers
both alike
in their savagery,
killed to eat and killed to sell.
They were both successful
and prosperous
and fat.
One butcher
slaughtered his hogs.
Stun
Stick
Scald
Split
The other butcher
slaughtered his cows.
Stun
Stick
Head
Shank
The hog butcher
used a saw
when he cut bones
and a knife to stick.
The cow butcher
used a saw
when he cut bones
and a knife to stick.
“The way you use that
rusty saw to
split your hog
is terrible,”
said the cow butcher.
“The way you use that
dull knife to
shank your cows
is horrible,”
said the hog butcher.
The butchers
wiped their cleavers
on smeared aprons.
“Something should be done
about a butcher like you,”
said the butchers.
The butchers
wiped their cleavers
on smeared aprons
and shook their heads.
Each went back home to skin.
“I’m glad I’m not a butcher like he is”
said the hog butcher.
Stun
Stick
Scald
Split
“I’m glad I’m not a butcher like he is”
said the cow butcher.
Stun
Stick
Head
Shank 


Poet, photographer, and traveler, Adrienne S. Wallner teaches composition in Wisconsin.  She is currently working on a book about her and her husband's road trip to America's National Parks.  To join the journey visit www.inkinthebranches.com.