LOGIC DOWN THE DRAIN

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Burcu Yesilyurt said enforcement officers told her it was illegal to dispose of the remnants of her coffee in a road gully. —BBC, October 22, 2025

The morning joe

That you don't drink,

At home, will flow

Down through your sink

To later meet

The coffee poured

Straight down a street-

Drain when you board

Your bus. Their slime

Pollutes the same,

But one's a crime,

One gets no blame...

The law's designs

Are out of bounds—

For coffee fines,

There are no grounds!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly, and other journals.

PEEING IN ODESSA, TEXAS

by AV Rasmussen

Truthout

People look twice sometimes,
call me “sir, I mean ma’am”
sometimes turn away quickly
sometimes snicker
sometimes look at the sign
on the bathroom door

Their eyes
are now weapons
that drill through
stall doors
and strip me for parts

They rip off my clothes
desperate, I suppose,
to know the original
plumbing

my body
is their bounty

but my body proves only
the human need
to pee

AV Rasmussen is an avid teacher, writer, backpacker and photographer who teaches English at Dallas College in Texas. Their poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including North Dakota Quarterly; Veils, Halos, and Shackles; and Impossible Archetype.

OPERATION SARAH

by Matt Witt

LONDON — Facebook was hit with the maximum possible fine in Britain for allowing the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest the information of millions of people without their consent, in what amounts to the social network’s first financial penalty since the data leak was revealed. The fine of 500,000 pounds, or about $660,000, represents a tiny sum for Facebook, which brings in billions of dollars in revenue every year. But it is the largest fine that can be levied by the British Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent government agency that enforces the country’s data-protection laws. —The New York Times, July 10, 2018. Photo via MadhouseNews.

I asked Facebook
for the key words
they have been selling
to anyone who wanted to
target me
for any purpose.

There were 139 words or phrases.

This data about a person’s interests
is valuable
to help someone to
sell you a product,
decide whether to hire you,
rent to you,
accept you as a student,
or disrupt your community group
or social movement.

Many were accurate about me,
or I’d like them to be.

“Fine-art photography.”
“Hiking.”
“Lakes.”
“Community organizing.”
“Working families.”
“Racial equality.”
“Feminism.”
“Climate change.”

But bots are only human.
So Facebook was also selling
fake news
about me
with irrelevant words
out of the blue.

“Lotus Cars.”
“Salerno.”
“Beetroot.”
“Pro-Ject.”
“Bible.”

And “Sarah.”

Maybe because I have 16 Facebook friends named Sarah.
A community organizer now on the city council.
A muckraking journalist.
A longtime neighbor.
A local painter.
And a dozen more.

Or maybe the same bot
that mistakenly included “Bible”
thought I might be a student of
Sarah, biblical wife of Abraham,
who at the age of 90
gave birth to Isaac,
and lived to be 127.

Last night I dreamed that
all two billion Facebook users
started occasionally “liking” things we don’t like,
commenting about topics of no interest,
inserting random words into posts,
forming strange sounding groups.

Since we were all doing it from time to time
our “friends” were not confused,
but, together,
we made Facebook’s data worthless
so no one would buy it.

In my dream, we called it “Operation Sarah.”

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer who lives in Talent, Oregon. He was recently selected a Writer in Residence at Mesa Refuge in California and has been selected an Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon. His writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the literary journal Cirque, and many other publications.

POUND OF FLESH, PINT OF BLOOD

by Catherine McGuire

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge [Marvin] Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.” —NY Times, October 19, 2015. Photo of Judge Marvin Wiggins from Diverse Issue in Higher Education. It accompanied a August 5, 2014 story on Wiggins’ ouster by Gov. Robert Bentley from the Board of Trustees of Alabama State University.

So you’re broke, and cannot pay –
we’re gonna get you anyway.

The Bloodmobile awaits outside
so bare your arm and stuff your pride.

The other option’s prison for
indigence: three months or more,

where debts increase, as jail’s remittance
is layered on that once small pittance,

which balloons into a lifetime’s debt.
So pay your pound of flesh – no, wait!

I mean pint of blood, a “free will donation”
I’m not Shylock – no relation.


Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep interest in philosophy. Using nature as a mirror, she explores the way humans perceive themselves and their world. She has poems published in the US and abroad and has four chapbooks: Palimpsests, (Uttered Chaos, 2011) Glimpses of a Garden, Poetry and Chickens, and Joy Holding Stillness.