SUPER BOWL LVII: A MEDITATION

by Greg Friedmann

“The NFL Operates Like. Monopoly Which Fortifies Systemic Racism”—Choice, February 9, 2023 

Roman numerals: so perfect to enumerate 
our annual festival of gladiators. Modern pads 
and helmets make a man’s body a lethal spear; 
and yes, Roman coliseums also had luxury boxes.  
As ever, spectators make book on the combatants
under their aegis, just as owners once wagered
on dark-skinned men compelled to box each other,
hate each other, on hot Sunday afternoons. 
Imagine, afterwards: the plantation owner,
rotund, pink-flushed from heat, bourbon, and 
bloodlust, making his happy stumbling way 
to the barn, where Missy waits, as she must. 
He says he won’t sell her if she behaves; 
she waits, prays to be good. God must be in
His heaven, he thinks, to have made the process
of creating property so damned pleasurable.

Greg Friedmann's poetry has appeared in Sky Island Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, The Poetry Society of Virginia, Cagibi, Panoplyzine, Beyond Words, and other journals.

WHY YOU CAN'T REVOKE THE DISCOURTEOUS

by Alejandro Escudé

CNN dropped its lawsuit against the White House on Monday after officials told the network that they would restore reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials as long as he abides by a series of new rules at presidential news conferences, including asking just one question at a time. —The Washington Post, November 19, 2018

Perhaps the solid person—
Perhaps the church on a Thursday night,
Green lights, the bougainvillea,
Or the freeway shrubs, stirred by warm wind,
Cigarette butts moored to the curb like boats.
You can’t predict the evil question
That’ll derail the process. You protect your sanity
However, and from whomever you can.
It’s a dog-day job. A workaday solution.
You breathe in the Venus air. Suspended by hope,
As if hope were the real bootstrap.
You hear the others’ minds; and they clap.
They move closer to one another, penguins
On a beach of stacked memos.
It’s not always clever. You stumble, you weep.
Within the breast, the soul-juice seeps.
Think of gladiators. The clanking of iron suits.
You answer the best way you can.
Because they’re trained, like baseball pitchers,
To throw the curveball, the slider.
You wish it were thrown higher. But it drops.
This is reality for the working class.
You can’t just throw out the ass. You deal.
The pigs take your legs out. The women invite you
To a dozen delectable poisons. You write.
You simplify your life. You hate your wife.
If you try to avoid it, you die.


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.

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