FORCED REALITY

by Lylanne Musselman 

The morning Facebook went down,

is a testament to the world we live in,

your first thoughts: someone hacked me—

your account is gone, the photos you trust

will always be there forever, deleted.

A life lived on social media, Instagram and

Threads vanished. You're not allowed to log in.

Wrong password. You know it’s correct,

but conditioned you change your password.

The platforms won’t let you. You’ve been shut out.

Meta doesn’t believe it’s you. How do you prove

you’re you to software programs that don’t

recognize passwords, or codes sent

directly to your phone to verify your identity?

Finally, you hear others are having issues

logging into Facebook and all related platforms.

Your next thought—we’re under attack.

Some nefarious group or country has taken control—

then like a miracle, we’re allowed back in.

It’s as if nothing happened at all, no real harm.

Except how pathetic we are

when we collectively have a panic attack

over social media, forcing us to face reality—

we rely too much on Meta to connect.

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her work has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Poetry Breakfast, and The Ekphrastic Review, among many others, in addition to many anthologies. Her seventh chapbook Staring Dementia in the Face (Finishing Line Press) became available in 2023.

THE RACE

by Tricia Knoll

Russian hackers are attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research, the American, British and Canadian governments said Thursday, accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the worldwide competition to contain the pandemic. —The New York Times, July 16, 2020

never stops, there is no finish line
when combatants push each other out of the way
and hide their secret weapons in pockets
filled with lint

and when one pushes another down,
he robs what is in that pocket and sniffs
at it like a dog with a dead frog
and maybe takes a nibble just to see

but what if the rules called for
holding what you know in your hands
palms out offering to share
for the common good

so everyone crosses the line
at the same time or like the basket
you put your coins in at church
knowing they’re meant to help someone

else in the human race.


Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet hunkered in the deep woods. Her recent collection How I Learned To Be White received the 2018 Indie Book Award for Motivational Poetry.

RING

by Alejandro Escudé




A Motherboard report found Ring lacking basic security measures for preventing hackers from hijacking the devices. —threatpost, December 18, 2019


In the family of moments, there are unique
and strong passwords—living, bobbing like
ripe apples on the Tree of Knowledge, no snakes
coiled, ready to speak to you, to impersonate
God. The voice that comes at us from the ether
demanding we “Wake up!” like Mayakovsky’s sun.
We know better than to repeat our usernames,
passwords strung around our lives like
the rings around Saturn—a tall pot boiling,
a crackle from the device, and it is someone
talking to our daughter from the beyond.
The Ghost of Christmas Past? A horrible clown?
But why urge the child to destroy her room?
What a pinch one feels from this new reality.
Isn’t funny the things people will bring into
their house? A discarded needle, a live mine,
a tiger, a splintered chair, a vial of cyanide.
Once someone speaks to you from a device,
you cannot wash that out of your hair. It’smore
than an experience, it’s a like an experience
turned object; one you buy for the holidays
for instance, a device on which to order
a pizza or a Nintendo Switch box filled with
condoms and soda caps. All of human life
reduced to a child’s bedroom, liquified
on a small screen, the pinks pinker than pink
and the dark voice darker than darkness.


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.

YOU MAY IGNORE THE DUPLICATE REQUEST TO FRIEND ME

by Devon Balwit

not that it was from a bot; it was not,
but from me after I unfriended you. (It’s true.)
Working the warp and weft of us left
me stressed. I thought it best to regress
to solitary, me alone already more than I
can handle. You (and other yous) weighed
in on myriad matters—I wanted my view
unskewed. So, rather rude than band-wagoned,
I un-cliqued. Now, riddled with regrets,
I suspect there might have been another way
to maintain center. But thus it ever is—
the act, the doubt, the retraction, the plow
of one’s furrowed brow into whether.


Devon Balwit has six chapbooks and three collections out in the world. Her individual poems can be found here or are forthcoming in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, apt, Posit, Cultural Weekly, Triggerfish, Fifth Wednesday, The Free State Review, Rattle, Poets Reading the News, etc.

HACKING ENTERTAINMENT

by Catherine Rauchenberger Conley

‘Game of Thrones’ cast gets no scripts after HBO hack: In recent seasons, actors got their parts through verified email. Then, a few months ago, HBO was hacked and various show files were stolen. The culprits demanded a ransom of several million dollars to prevent episodes from being leaked online. According to [Nikolaj] Coster-Waldau [who plays Jaime Lannister] security for this final “Game of Thrones” season is the tightest yet. Actors in each scene are equipped with earpieces and are fed their dialogue to deliver, line by line. “We’re not even going to get the script,” he said. —Page Six, October 13, 2017

Sometimes,
you let the cat out of the bag.
Other times,
you close the barn door after
the horses have escaped.
In neither event,
Is the past recoverable.

So too with hacking—
It is only discovered,
after the deed is done,
and Everyone knows,
and investigations are launched,
and fingers are pointed,
and security is weakened,
and homelands are sacrificed.

No matter the findings,
the consequences have
run their course,
and whatever the sanctions,
the punishment will never
bring us back to the halcyon days
of happy ignorance and anticipation.

And the hackers become both
Pariah and Hero depending on which
side of the aisle you stand
and how the latest revelations
painted your actions or those
of your idols and enemies.

Except for the latest breach, denounced
By All and which will be prosecuted to
The. Fullest. Extent. Of. The. Law.
Because who cares about what
Edward Snowden might release when
Jon Snow plot spoilers are at risk,
And even Julian Assange knew better
Than to reveal the secrets of Queen Cersei—
For the public is only truly appalled if
Anyone should have prior knowledge
Of what Tyrion, Daenerys, or Jaime,
Might have in store for you next season.

Catherine Rauchenberger Conley is a poet, writer, crafter and high school English teacher. She lives in Queens, New York with her husband and cat. The former supports her writing interests; the latter steals her pens. More of her writing can be found in Tuck Magazine or on her blog. Twitter @CatherineConl18 Instagram @alycatcreations1

THE FIELD, SOMETHING BORES INTO IT

by Alejandro Escudé

Cover of the 2007 Washington Life feature on the Russian diplomatic compound in Maryland.

The columns are grandiose on the Maryland estate.
Green, greener, and inside, a more Russian Russia,
clean as Vodka, cleaner, and by right, legal. So,
in dark suits, dense cologne, diplomats walk over
‘welcome home’ mats to leave, ousted. The intelligence
apparatus hides in a piece of cake, a delicious cake too.
Something stalks the field, something bores into it,
a veiled screw, a bullet hole in the back but no blood,
a bloodless hole, that is the internet, a leak-less leak.

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.