ENEMY WITHIN

by Raymond Nat Turner

“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable"   — George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

They are the bloodthirsty! Parasitic. Anti-freedom, fascist,

Pedophile, compromised ones. The grifting, gaslighting, big-

Lying ones. Way Back Machine, return to the ‘50s —1850s — ones.

The Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, billionaire “enemy within” ones.

They are the thirty pieces of silver ones, camouflaged in stars and

Stripes! Red, white, and blue-wrapped ones — wholly-owned —

Bought and bossed. The remote-controlled ones — rolling red carpet

On bent knee — servicing strongmen. They are: “The Enemy Within.”

They are the enemy within warring on the working-class! Reich-cult.

Sadist bullies dispatching platoons of masked goons! The worst of the

Worse! J6-confederate-felons, flooding factories, fields and streets —

Redacting 1st amendment — Erasing 4th, 13th, 14th, 15th freedoms …

They are chainsaw-brandishing bandits. Looting, uprooting, destroying things

That work! Thieves turning fruits of our labor into personal ATMs.  Waste,

Fraud and Abuse disguised as Department Of Grifter Enrichment — DOGE.

Rejecting 99 Cents Store solutions — like mirrors — for detecting themselves.

They are an ethno nationalist food truck serving poisonous menu of misery: 

School Shooting Du Jour! War Of The Week! Jobless, Homeless, Hungry 

Government Shutdown Gumbo. Medical Neglect Noodles. Post-Constitutional,

Police State Pork Fried ICE. Doom and gloom, dark, death and destruction desserts.

They are warfare state “Drill, baby, drill!” dinosaurs shaking down with teargas, 

Pepper-spray, rubber-bullet reign, places we live and love. Fox-box foot soldiers

Prancing like peacocks. Transforming our cities into ‘training grounds’ 

Instead of solar-paneled, windmill wonderlands running armadas of electric busses.

WE are the ones we’ve been waiting for! Robust resisters riding in on white horses 

Named Mutual Aid. United Front, Mass Movement Mamas and Papas. Department

Of Solidarity. Door-knocking neighbors, meeting more than four corners. WE are the 

Ones we’ve been waiting for! Street Heat Senators/Shoe Leather Legislators muscling 

Up movements! Robust resisters refusing to slip on elephant excrement-donkey dung — Bipartisan — billionaire bullshit!

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.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

by Kay White Drew

In this time of mad kings and sycophants
run amok, when suffering a(n orange) fool
feels like an everyday sucker punch,
it almost seems natural that men dripping
with petroleum wealth should g(r)ift
said fool with a solid gold airplane,
even as air traffic safety itself wears as thin
as a garment over-worn and over-washed—
its overworked, under-slept guardians picking up slack
for colleagues capriciously fired by clueless
boys and their billionaire boss—unsung heroes  
who must summon reserves of strength
and calm they no longer possess
and may never know again. 

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Spending time in nature helps her stay sane in these difficult days.

KING DONALD VERSION

by Rick Mullin

by Dave Whamond

I’m very friendly with the Pope of Rome.
In fact he likes the Bible I put out.
I have many, many copies in my home.

Bound in leather and embossed with chrome,
Trump Bibles make the stories sing and shout.
I’m very friendly with the Pope of Rome

who’s traded in his New Revised, that tome
of lies, for something we can talk about.
Trump Bibles. Home just isn’t home

without my Book of Acts. Amen. Shalom.
My TV pals agree the Book has clout—
Joel Osteen and the Pope of Rome.

And I mean all of them. The Astrodome 
has never seen the crowds that we turn out.
There are many mansions in my home

and proverbs in the many fields I roam.
I spread the Word and rid the world of doubt.
A holy boatload’s on its way to Rome.
I have many, many copies in my home.

Rick Mullin is a painter and poet living in northern New Jersey. His latest books are Huncke, Exot Books, and The Basilisk, Dos Madres Press.

THE GOD BLESS THE USA BIBLE

by Gilbert Allen

by J.D. Crowe

What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?

And they bargained with him for thirty pieces of silver.

                                                              —Matthew 26:15

Verily, verily

Donald Iscariot

hawking the Holy Word

with MAGA zeal

offering Jesus Christ

pseudoreligiously

for sixty bucks. Just twice
thirty! A steal!

Gilbert Allen, a member of the Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, already has a Bible. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview at https://slantbooks.org/close-reading/interviews/belladonna-beautiful-but-deadly-qa-with-gilbert-allen/ .

THREE YEARS SINCE JANUARY 6TH

by David Feela

Traitor Trump is a drawing by Mike Scott which was uploaded to Fine Art America on December 8th, 2022.

the rhetoric simmers
the threats rise like steam
the traitor still leading the charge
the office in florida a command post
the golf course his bunker
the tower branded by his babel 
the lies
the three years burning like acid reflux in democracy’s gut
the smell of pepper spray in everything he says
the mass deportation of his conscience  
the rumor he doesn’t have one
the constitutional disdain he swears to protect
the lies
the charisma he carries like a infected boil
the rule of law that doesn’t apply to him
the courtroom where he sits and glares
the indictments and mug shot 
the lies
the money he grifts 
the pussy he’s entitled to grab
the election he never won
the lies
the reelection he continues to rig 
the bible raised as a prop
the lies
the comb over that covers his heart

David Feela writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his latest chapbook Little Acres.

THE AWNING OF AMERICA: THE MUG SHOT

by Corey Weinstein

Sculpted on the dreams of a silver spooned boy

Forged in the hallways of opulence and ease

He put the pomp in pompadour

Traded pomade for hair spray

Built a coiffure to cover his skin head

                                shade his shifty eyes,

Homage to the hoody boys of the ‘50s,

But back rooms and board rooms

Be his back streets and card rooms

A greaser of palms, not petty grift, not of need

Money making money making money making money.

 

Millions love our boisterous belligerent ex-bully in chief,

From the streets of Virginia to ranches out west

Thousands gear up to carry the guns he points,

White men taste the blood lust of

Oklahoma City, Charlottesville, Pittsburg,

                              boom, crash, rat-a-tat-tat,

Bullets to hold off the onslaught of history,

Afraid to be like me, the only white guy

on the Fifty Four bus to Balboa BART,

While the gold tressed awning keeps 

the sun off a raccoon goggled tan,

His vision goes no further than the end 

of his marvelous marquee, sprayed stiff canopy

sharp, slicing through reason, challenging democracy. 

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Forum (City College of San Francisco), California State Poetry Society, Abandoned Mineand Jewish Currents, and he wrote and performed a singspiel called Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me. He is an advocate for prisoner rights and founded California Prison Focus, and he led the American Public Health Association’s Prison Committee for many years. In his free time, he plays the clarinet in a local jazz band, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.