DON’T POINT FINGERS. DON’T ASK EVIL QUESTIONS.

by Raymond Nat Turner

This was a one in One Hundred Year Event!
One in Five-Hundred Year Event!
One in One Thousand Year Event—
Biggest, baddest— worst-est ever!

This was a one in One Hundred Year Event!
One in Five-Hundred Year Event!
One in One Thousand Year Event—
All we can do is prey—and Drill, baby drill!

In the Lone Star State, mass casualty events are
Football games. Games played for fossil fuels—sudden death
Over … time as droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes,
Flash floods chant dire warnings, “We will, we will, rock you!”

In the Lone Star State, mass casualty events are
Football games. And our children are 5th round draft choices— 
Cut—or carted off fields so sponsors’ and owners’ overstuffed
Pockets stay as swollen as Guadalupe River banks

But you’ll be fine. Be grate again— when your
Children get to Heaven. No tariffs in heaven! Get on
With your lives! Go out and get Crypto— And get on
With your lives! Get Bitcoin— And get on with your lives!

Don’t ask evil questions. Don’t point fingers! Your children 
Are in a better place. Price of eggs won’t be half as high in
Heaven! Go out and get some Crypto— And get on with 
Your lives! Get Bitcoin— And get on with your lives!

Don’t point fingers! Don’t ask evil questions. Of course we’re
First Responders. Responding First, Populate “Alligator Alcatraz;” 
Responding First, Big Beautiful Bill the 99%; DOGE— FEMA,
NOAA and DEI—fire anyone Black, competent, or rocking seniority.

Responding First, Meddle in Mexico; Rename The Gulf of Mexico.
Monkey with Canada as 51st state. Strong-arm Panamanians over
Their canal. Gangster Greenland; Bully Brazil over
Internal matters; And ship shackled Venezuelans to El Salvador.

Responding First, partner killing Palestinians. Bomb Yemen. 
Strike Somalia. Incite suicidal trade war with China—Ride 
Wall Street’s bull— like a tariff roll-a-coaster. Terrorize Chicago 
Children; Mess with LA’s mayor; Wreck Cali’s Economy!

Don’t point fingers! Don’t ask evil questions.
All we can do is weigh on you—
Prey on you.    All we can do is
Pray for you—We can’t pay for you!

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

RUBIALES KISS

by Paul Hostovsky

They call it football because
you can only use your feet.

Though sometimes you can also use 
your head, your chest, your legs.

But you can’t use your hands.
And you can’t use your arms. 

Those are the rules.

They call it a kiss on the mouth because
it’s a kiss on the mouth.

You can only kiss the mouth of someone 
with whom you are intimate. 

A lover. A spouse. 
Sometimes also family.

Use your head. 

That’s the rule. 
In all countries and in all languages. 

True, it is an unwritten rule,
but that’s no excuse for breaking it.

And now that you’ve broken it, Luis,
now that you’re flaunting it 

and famously showing your contempt for it, 

you can be sure the rule 
will get written down after this.

And though you probably won’t end up
in jail, you just may end up 

giving your name to this kind of unwanted kiss. 
Even without your consent. 

Because that’s the rule with eponyms.

Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.

WINNING THE WORLD CUP

by Margaret Rozga

Hooray Spain!

Hooray soft kick,

hooray edge into the goal,

hooray England so close.

Hooray women!

 

I want to believe in my health,

the health of the sport, the health

of the word, the health of the world

at play on the field for all of us.

 

See the women cross field pass,

see the women head goalward,

see the women strong legs.

 

I play the we, play into the we.

If we can win, the win is for the we.     

If we lose, the loss swept into the win.

Spain is not my country, nor England.

 

What in the world, a win—

what for the world, a win—rejoice!

Here, where, how, and why for the world,

for the game, for women, whoever,

wherever, this world moment, believe.

Margaret Rozga served as the 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate and the 2021 inaugural artist/scholar in residence at the UW Milwaukee at Waukesha Field Station. Her fifth book is Holding My Selves Together: New and Selected Poems (Cornerstone Press 2021). Cornerstone Press will also publish her 2024 forthcoming book, Restoring Prairie.

BALL OF MIRTH

by Dick Altman

As if the fate of nations

hung in the balance,

World Cup enters its final laps.

Though it would bring a smile,

if my hometown America

took home the gold,

I neither hold my breath

nor torture myself

over the outcome.

 

Because, in my eyes, soccer

is less about winning,

than the friendships

that encircle the ball,

whatever color of foot,

language or nationality.

 

I motorcycle—

between grad school

and college—

across Europe.

On my luggage rack,

tied in a net,

a soccer ball.

On every beach,

every campsite,

the ball serves as the key

to a kingdom of friendships.

 

The night I visit Greece’s Delphi,

mythical home of the Oracle,

I doubt even she could

have predicted what would

happen as I slept.

Someone likely too poor

to own a ball of their own

burns—likely with a cigarette—

a hole in the net

and steals the ball.

 

This—after five-thousand

kilometers starting in Amsterdam.

I could only smile.

What they really stole

was the fun—and I,

kid of twenty-two,

on a fantasy trip

most my age

could only dream about,

could afford to share

a ball that would,

in days, months,

even years to come,

produce,

in every dribble and kick,

unyielding rounds of mirth.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

MORE THAN A CITY OF NUMBERS / A CITY OF NAMES

by Jen Schneider

This maps the victims of gun violence: 1,445 nonfatal and 377 fatal shooting victims as of Oct 2, 2022. —Mapping Philadelphia's Gun Violence Crisis

Philadelphia—

a city of brotherly love 

/ life

more than a city of numbers

/ a city of names

from firsts—

home to the first library, hospital & botanical garden 

            to never quenched thirsts—

grills for infinite steak shops (Pat’s, Geno’s, Tony’s, Nick’s)

a city 

of names & numbers 

/ numbers & names

on the same day the mayor signed an order

for no more guns in the city’s

indoor and outdoor recreation centers 

housed at the corner of numbered

streets, broad, & main

three teams met for a football scrimmage

dozens of players took the field

the temperature a beautiful seventy degrees. 

Autumnal air. Hundreds of passes.

Countless yards gained.

Clocks ticked. Players walked.

The 6000 block of Ridge Avenue.

The 4700 block of Pechin Street.

Zip code 19128. Latitude

and longitude measures of degree.

Suddenly

a shooting spree

Hundreds flee

five gunmen

sixty-four bullets

souls in school clothes drop

to date, in 2022

more than four hundred

Philadelphia-based lives lost

a tragic milestone man-made

a city 

of names & numbers 

/ numbers & names

all of these lives have names

Nicholas.Tiffany.Jose.Steven.Michael.Byron.Tyrell.Dominque.Quianyon.Eddie.Zachariah.Robert.Gerard.Margaret.Lauren.Kasani.Tracey.Chrichnard.Francisca.Tyjon.David.Daquan.Nafee.James.Stacy.Tyheim.Justin.Ry’Keir.Jerome.Sindrell.Tony.Michael.Melvin.Byron.Calvin.Robert.Shawn.Fernand.Daren.Hope.David.Jamal.Charles.Marc.Taion.Bertha.Abdel.Ameer.Lameer.James.Achilles.Shakuur.Irving.Jahsier.Rashed.Kelvin.Stephon.Robert.Joelil.Yusairah.Mary.Gabriel.Leanne.Damon.Rahssan.more.many more. these lives have names. a city of numbers. a city of names.

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

FOOTBALL GODS ABOUND

by Gary Lark

The Supreme Court said Monday that a Washington state school district violated the First Amendment rights of a high school football coach when he lost his job after praying at the 50-yard line after games. "The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

After the thunder and dash
we have the coach
and his batch of Evangelicals
kneeling at the fifty yard line.

The Wiccan folks are on one twenty
and Muslims on the other.

Down by the east goalposts
there's an Indigenous circle
seeking guidance with peyote.

Over to the west Jains
are trying to avoid the ants.

Sikhs and Jews are having a debate
about the shape of the field.

Eleven Buddhists are chanting
on the east thirty,
Hindus claim the west.

On the track three Mothers
Against Drunk Driving
have given up and are passing a bottle.

The Eckankar crowd are setting up
near the concession stand.

The Crips and the Bloods
are sharing a joint with Spinoza
in the bleachers.

There's a street preacher
practicing his quick draw
when the lights go out.


Gary Lark’s most recent collections are Easter Creek (Main Street Rag), Daybreak on the Water (Flowstone Press), and Ordinary Gravity (Airlie Press). His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, Rattle, Sky Island, and others.

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

by George Held

A pro-Trump mob interact with police after storming the US capitol. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images via The Guardian, January 6, 2021

Sure, the Jew-boy and the black preacher

Saved the leftwing bacon in Georgia last night

But they ain’t gonna stuff us back in the dirt

Or the bottle or wherever we came from

 

To make America great again. We’re white

And proud of it. We’re armed and dangerous,

As the sheriffs’ posters say it, and we might

Have us a little Civil War to settle things,

 

Only this time we win, ‘cause we’re armed

And dangerous, you bet, and ‘cause

The North is a bunch of mongrel cowards,

So this time we win behind General T****

 

And with our militia in defense of Red MAGA.

Don’t you play shocked or angry at my words

When you know I’m right: we are gonna’

Win this time and set up our new capital

 

In Tuscaloosa, where our footballers

Are already Number 1 and we can beat

Any fake students in other uniforms

Like Ohio State or Clemson and be champs

 

Again. Because the South she is rising

To be great again. We’re red from Texas

To Canada and lots of other states

Between the coasts. So join the movement

 

While you can and make us great again

Forevermore: in football and politics

And the military we’re the best

And soon we will really rule the roost.

George Held is a longtime contributor to TheNewVerse.News.

THIS IS YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING

by Chris Reed

Sunday, November 15, 2020

My mother napped yesterday,

while I finished Swann’s Way.

Her water retention is down,

and we hear that someone

is unlocking the secrets of aging.

There are no words for the US 

reaching eleven million cases

of coronavirus this morning,

although the eucharistic minister 

wore a mask when she delivered

the host earlier.

The bird feeders were filled today

and promptly visited by a finch

and a red-bellied woodpecker.

Currently we are recording 

the Giants-Eagles game, in which

Daniel Jones and the Giants are

getting downfield, as constriction

threatens a transfer of power,

school reopenings and life itself.

I search for an artificial wreath. 

We have some breaking news—

a stag is walking past the window,

and we are making the call

that he is at least four years old. 

My mother sees him and reaches

for the word that means him,

although we still have no word

on reality out of the White House.

The Giants won this one.  Enjoy

what remains of your weekend.

Although relatively new to poetry writing, during the pandemic and sheltering in place with his post-stroke mother,  reading and writing poetry have become Chris Reed’s go-to survival activities.  Attending a zoom weekly poetry workshop has also been a gift and helped sustain sanity.

DEGENERES AND BUSH

by Alejandro Escudé

by Brian McFadden at The Nib

If we dance
Into
The haven of our riches

We dance right
Into
The arms of contradictions


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

HIT 'EM AGAIN

by Phyllis Wax





Frenzied spectators
shoulder to shoulder
in the stadium, the coliseum,                                            
Hit ‘em again,
harder, harder.
                        Blood sport—
gleaming helmets, shields,
spears, fists, muscled strong-men,
beasts—and the roar
harder, harder.

Pass flasks,
stomp, stomp
in togas
or in team jerseys.
Hit ‘em again.

Week after week
spectators demand            
extreme combat,
harder, harder,
aggression no armor
protects against.                              

Combatants exit arenas    
to cheers    or jeers,
sometimes bloodied, limping
   
to reap the whirlwind years ahead
      self-medicating
                        brawling
              stumbling
                        through     a        fog
                               crippled
                addled.

Monday nights, in front of the
flickering lights, I think about it.


Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.  Among the anthologies and journals in which her poetry has appeared are Rhino, The Widows’ Handbook,Birdsong, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Surreal Poetics, Naugatuck River Review, TheNewVerse.News, Portside, and Star 82 Review. She does not watch football or boxing. Reach her at poetwax38(at)gmail.com.

GLADIATORS REIMAGINED

by Katie Chicquette Adams

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a broken collarbone on Sunday and may miss the rest of the season. Credit Bruce Kluckhohn AP via The Charlotte Observer, October 17, 2017.

Though the Roman Empire is long
behind us, cultural remnants survive:
we still gorge on gladiators, groomed
for maybe not death, but a definite
kind of destruction
for our distraction.
We are still the Romans
paying the gross
ticket price, shaking our heads
in something like sadness
or shock when men trained to be tough
fail to be gentle enough.



We slaver with feigned concern, 

fans susceptible to the schadenfreude
of modern athletics, anxiously
awaiting the next agile, brawny feats
performed by men of a singular will
who know that in this world,
competing is what they can do well.
They push on, pawns of passion, paid
in glory and more,
hoping for less possessive,
more benevolent owners
who will mete out compassion
over control, respect over derision
for fighters choosing feet,
knees, or absenteeism as the
musical ode to past bloody battles
unnecessarily peals, and viewers believe
theirs to be the worthiest appeals--
because who are these gladiators
to dare to think, to speak, to feel?

These 21st century warriors
we parade and glorify,
degrade and deconstruct. 

We are fiercely invested
in players whose pockets we line,
personally disappointed (though
generally unaffected)
by their platform management
by their life-changing injuries,
disrupting our coveted consumption
of physical prowess
we neither possess nor deserve,
hollering, grumbling, reminding them
it is our needs, our bloodlust
these battered and battering
contenders serve.

Katie Chicquette Adams is an educator and writer in Appleton, WI.  She is a live storyteller with Storycatchers, Inc.; she has appeared or is forthcoming in River + Bay, Mothers Always Write, Heavy Feather Review, the regional radio segment “Soul of the Cities,” and on the regional blog, Storycatchers. She works as an English teacher for at-risk young adults at a public alternative high school, with hopes they will remake their own stories. She can be reached at k.chicquette.adams[at]gmail.com

THE LONG REACH OF KARMA

by Richard Hacken

Kenneth W. Starr announced Wednesday that he would resign as chancellor of Baylor University, effective immediately, saying it was a “matter of conscience.” Mr. Starr’s decision came less than a week after he was stripped of the more operationally powerful position of president of the university in the wake of a scandal in which Baylor acknowledged that it had mishandled accusations of sexual assault against several football players. . . . Mr. Starr was an independent counsel whose report to Congress led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. —NY Times, June 1, 2016. Photo: Kenneth Starr speaks to the media after arguing a case on student free-speech rights before the Supreme Court in Washington on March 19, 2007. (REUTERS/Molly Riley via RawStory)

Could some current Norman Mailer
write about the mess at Baylor,
which is so in need of journalistic prose?
Is the football program’s failure
to send rapists to the jailer
going to send it into existential throes?

Football culture says to nail her,
take a woman and impale her
when protected so that any onslaught goes.
Players hope the coach will tailor
strong defense so words will fail her,
and no prosecutor credits what she knows.

In the court: assault and flail her
and with wholesale slurs assail her,
so with craftiness your guilt you can transpose
till she seems a drunken sailor,
and you easily curtail her
own ability to witness and disclose.

With the Baptist creed at Baylor,
there’s no way truth will avail her,
since suspicion on her own sins will repose.

Now the President and Savior
of the football games at Baylor
was Ken Starr, a man to gridiron wins devoted.
Yes, Ken Starr, the Clinton slayer,
the Lewinsky-scandal hailer
(who as Special Counsel over sex tales gloated)
has mishandled accusations
of forced sexual relations,
and for this from president has been demoted.

Oh, they say that fresh raw karma
is a targeted sweet charmer
that is stronger far than energetic speech
and that irony’s sly reach
can shape attitudes and teach
with capacities designed to, well, impeach.

Richard Hacken is a poet and librarian who has published in TheNewVerse.News before. He once introduced X.J. Kennedy to the plenary session of a literary symposium via rhyming couplets, which may or may not have been gauche. 

BLESSING OF THE NEWS CYCLE

by Rick Mullin

The liberals were shocked and grieved
about the tête-à-tête.
The pope and that Kentucky clerk?
...Well, some were less upset.

Conservatives rejoiced as did
the silent Christian Right.
A sit-down with il Papa lent
true credence to their plight.

But then the news about a hoax,
a photo from Peru.
That prayer-meet was a football match!?
Well, everybody knew

an explanation would arrive
to wipe the tablets clear.
A memo from the Vatican.
And, sure enough, it’s here:

It seems the pope was Shanghaied by
some bishops on the ground
gone gravely rogue in Washington
or somewheres there-around

who propped Kim Davis up amidst
a group at some event
contrived for papal blessings in
a big white floppy tent.

A PR stunt by Huckabee
and flunkies of the Huck.
No big surprise, we know these guys
and recognize their shuck.

So everything is back on track.
Godspeed the Holy See.
The Family Synod starts this week.
God save the family!


Rick Mullin's most recent volume of poetry is Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle, published by Dos Madres Press last year.

BALLS

by Douglas G. Brown

In the home of the bean and the cod,

The footballs were some deflated;

Coach Belichick sits at the right hand of God,

And the Patriots fans are elated.

Douglas G. Brown is a former geologist and chemical worker. His light verse has been published in Light, Lightenup Online, The Spectator, and Trinacria. Brown is a lukewarm Red Sox and Bruins fan, but only has an interest in football whan a scandal erupts (or, deflates).

WORLD CUP ABECEDARIAN

by Judith Terzi

Argentina, don't cry for Messi yet, he's razzmatazz.

Belgium's a mess, Stella Artois all flat, all teary.

Clear the slate; let's send referees for a prism fix.

Dear Landon, we know what you are saying now:

"Eat your veggies, Schatzi, you screwed up, Luv."

France, oh Vive la France fancy pants, you

gorged on chagrin. Cancel the brie, the escargot,

hold the boeuf bourguignon, chocolate soufflés.

Ich möchte some Spätzle, some Braunschweiger.

Ja, pour some Reisling, Gewürztraminer pdq.

Kiss me Karim Benzema though you didn't top

leger-de-pied Zizou. So sexy with a beard. Who

melts your heart Karim? A French model queen!

Neymar, Zúñiga has your back, your samba dream,

oneiric bossa nova Jobim. You're out for a spell––

punch of knee from hell. We felt the crunch, crack,

quick as Dutchman goalie Krul, as Juan-the-raj.

Rats, Costa Rica, tou-can not drink from the Cup, I

say. We'll visit your rain forests, your three-toed sloth.

Time to say chill, Chile. Alexis couldn't sew the snag

under your cleats. But the poet pardons: Brazil off   

victorious. Pablo tips his sombrero from the grave,

waits: Will it be the Americas or the E.U? The bard

x's out a tercet about dribblers and voodoo magic

you know who is praying will work. Meanwhile, grab

zee zapper and a seat and blow that vuvuzela.

Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in journals and anthologies including The Centrifugal Eye, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque), The Raintown Review, and elsewhere. Ghazal for a Chambermaid (Finishing Line, 2013) is her third chapbook. 

MEMO: IN MEXICO'S DEFENSE

by Margaret Rozga

Mexico Finds Itself Knee-Deep in Victory -- NY Times, June 23, 2014

The ball touches his fingertips
ricochets left of the goal.

The ball against his body
for another save, and in the 69th minute
he saves again with the upper part
of his left thigh.

“There are nights” he says
“when the ball seems to hit you even
If you close your eyes.”

Mexico’s Coach Miguel Herrera
chose at the last minute to go with the calm
of goalie Guillermo Ochoa.

The ball is in his hands,
his calm and saving hands.


Margaret Rozga has published two books: Two Hundred Nights and One Day and Though I Haven’t Been to Baghdad.  Her new book  Justice   Freedom   Herbs   is scheduled for January 2015 publication.

HOLY MACARENA MAJOR WORLD RELIGION

by Saknarin Chinayote & Charles Frederickson

Only sport played in every
Country around rotating spherical globe
Defeatist loser mentality thinking squad
Shoulda coulda woulda might’ve didn’t

Team sport sense of togetherness
Combining experience balanced with youth
Requiring gritty perseverance sacrifice dedication
Practice practice more committed practice

It’s not the will to
Win but willful positive mindset
Being ever-prepared to win finding
Different insights to achieve goals

Best teams often are eliminated
Not believing they can hard
Enough regretfully upsetting compromised expectations
Deflating swelled ego nationalistic pride

Anything can happen probably will
Nothing simulated playing for real
Uniting uneven odds enthusiastic motivation
Catching fever pass it on

Passion evolves in 4-year cycles
2018 Olympics World Cup bids
The future isn’t something we
Enter it’s something we create

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

PEACE RIOT: KABUL, 9/11/13

by Rick Gray

Horns honked nonstop, and car radios blasted Afghan pop and patriotic tunes. Dancing crowds overwhelmed traffic circles as grinning police looked on. Flares and rockets arced and sparked overhead, and celebratory gunshots rang out, but no one flinched. . . . "It was not lost on the celebrants that Wednesday was the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that had branded their country a terrorist haven and plunged it into war once more. All day, national television stations here replayed film clips of New York’s twin towers falling and featured solemn interviews with experts about the event." --Washington Post, September 12, 2013. Image source: Twitter.

From a distance it sounds like
More war
But drive in closer and reach
Your open hand
Outside the cracked window
And feel it take hold.
This is nothing like what you dreamed.
It leads you recklessly into cheering mobs
beside your taxi, and won’t let go.
You are together now, and committed
Just like you said you always wanted
And with its free hand it pulls
the trigger of a rusted Kalashnikov
That shouts in English, just for you,
Straight up into thirty years of darkness
It’s over! Afghanistan two! India nothing!


Rick Gray has poems forthcoming in Salamander and Rkvry. His essay Total Darkness will appear in the forthcoming book Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. He teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife and twin daughters in Florida.

ST. AGNES EVE ARRIVES IN STEUBENVILLE, OHIO

by Diane Kendig

Protesters return to Steubenville voicing concerns about rape case --Steubenville Herald-Star, February 3, 2013

The Lessons of Steubenville --The New Yorker, January 11, 2013

Rape Case Unfolds on Web and Splits City--The New York Times, December 16, 2012

From outside Harding Field
I think of the legal brief,
and of the freshman girl
who has had no relief
though surely she has dreams.

The coaches played their teams
for pics and Tweets don’t count
at least not to any amount.

Therefore,
a motion gets filed mid-December
asking the court please remember
she may not be victim, but whore.


Diane Kendig, who has worked as a poet, writer, translator and teacher for over 40 years, is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Places We Find Ourselves (fall 2009). A recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Fellowships in Poetry and a Fulbright lectureship in translation, she has published widely in literary journals, including J Journal, Wordgathering, About Places, and qarrtsiluni.

THANKS GIVING

by Tom Karlson

Theodore Roosevelt Equestrian Statue, American Museum of Natural History. Image source: Wikipedia

“I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”  --Theodore Roosevelt, 1886
 

That original sin
Our original sin
Not a talking snake sin
No Adam or Eve sin

This original sin
This first holocaust sin
This First Nation
60 million
Double helixed
Chromosome
Long gone sin
200 languages silenced sin
This good, dead, jailed, Indian sin

as

310 million All-Americans
Sit at the table
Football and eats
Giving thanks


Tom Karlson is founder of Poets for Peace, Long Island, NY.