AFTER THE ELECTION

by Joan Mazza

“The Truth Dawns,” a painting at Fruitful Dark.

                I’ll never tell a lie. —Jimmy Carter, 1976.

And now the long trek back to sanity, without

a daily outrage or ten, without the avalanche of lies,

earthquakes of violations of the Hatch Act,

projecting corruption onto others. We’ll climb

back to believe in science based on evidence,

dismantle claims of conspiracies without basis.

We’ll embark on a clear plan to tackle a virus

that has tackled us, one that will kill another million

in the world before its spread slows. Let us return

to curiosity and real conversation without name-

calling, without mocking names and appearance,

without shaming skin shade and hairstyles. Let’s

educate ourselves about nuance and subtlety,

the fluidity of gender and identity, how temperament

and preferences change across our lives. Let us teach

our children how to manage complex emotions

and validate their experience of confusion. Let’s preach

honesty as a practical living strategy, more than a virtue.

Finally decent, we end the gaslighting and distortion,

the refusal to be transparent after the promise.

Let’s accept truth as not always pretty, but embrace

it as a guide toward what is real and tangible

as apples, tactile and heartening as someone

looking into your eyes and squeezing your hand,

comforting as a poem at a president’s inauguration.

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia where she writes a poem every day and has been baking bread since before Covid19.

[muh-nip-yuh-ley-shuh n]

by Rémy Dambron



  oil pastel drawing manipulated in photoshop by u/monealiza


the art of manipulation
is not about making people
do what you want them to do
but rather getting them to
want to do what you want
them to do so if you tell a lie
that is big enough and tell it
often enough people will
believe it is true first identify
what it is those people like
then work backwards and
direct their desires toward the
goal you want to achieve then
empower yourself and people
who will help you stay in power
empathize with other abusers
and people whose actions
mirror or rival the severity of
yours embrace an opportunity
to profit from others welcome
an opportunity to disparage
anyone cherish an opportunity
to create chaos employ
psychological manipulation (a
form of social influence that
aims at advancing the goals of
the manipulator through the use
of underhanded indirect and
deceptive tactics) showcase
expert knowledge (you are an
expert if you insist that you are)
harness association bias (the
tendency to associate truth with
people you like rather than with
facts) engage in name calling
(anything goes) mockery (a must)
insults (the more outrageous the
better) imitation (of people who are
a threat to you) intimidation (of
people who are a threat to you)
threats (against people who might
expose you) bullying (people who
stand up to you) and gaslighting
(manipulative tactic used to gain
power and assert dominance over
a victim by forcing them to
question and challenge their own
sanity)

Rémy Dambron is an environmentalist and advocate for social justice. His works have appeared in Naturewriting.com, What Rough Beast, and Poets Reading the News. In a time when freedom of speech is being attacked by the very people sworn to protect it, he chooses to write poetry because he believes it is among the most democratic forms of literature, as it can be accessed by everyone and created by anyone.