DIME ON THE SIDEWALK

by William Aarnes

Paying with cards 

            or phones, people  

now carry fewer  

 

and fewer coins  

yet here someone’s  

dropped a dime 

 

on the sidewalk. 

FDR’s profile  

recalls the time 

 

“THE UNITED STATES 

OF AMERICA” 

had dime stores 

 

(not dollar stores),              [ 

            a time when one 

of the luckless 

 

might beg, “Buddy,      

can you spare 

                        a dime.”            

 

Though the coin 

            contains no silver, 

                        it’s shiny enough 

 

to catch the eye 

            and still worth 

“One Dime.”  

 

And it’s embossed 

with the mottos 

“LIBERTY,”  

 

“IN GOD WE TRUST,”  

“E PLURIBUS  

             

UNUM.”          

 

Your choice: 

pick the dime up 

            or just let it lie. 

William Aarnes lives in South Carolina.

DIKTAT

by Rick Mullin 

Now that the Novus Ordo’s nouveau riche,
we might knock out a memo to the mint:
No more Latin double-talk—Capiche?

Recast the pyramid-and-eye pastiche
with something more like winking or a squint.
Now that the Novus Ordo’s nouveau riche,

the barn door open, Fido off the leash,
and Andrew Jackson nearly out-of-print,
let’s drop the Latin double-talk. Capiche?

Annuit Co-eptis? I mean, sheesh!
Pronunciation’s a perdickamint
now that the Novus Ordo’s nouveau riche.

Pardon my French, but Real Men Don't Eat Quiche,
a motto writ in stone, though not on flint,
would trump the Latin double-talk. Capiche?

In English. Send it out today, Rajneesh
(In God We Trust can stay. They’ll get the hint):
Now that the Novus Ordo’s nouveau riche
there’s no more Latin double-talk. Capiche?


Rick Mullin is the author of four volumes of poetry, including Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle, and Soutine, both published by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, OH. His work has appeared in various journals, including The New Criterion, Measure, Ep;phany, and American Arts Quarterly, and in anthologies, including Irresistible Sonnets (Headmistress Press) and the forthcoming Rabbit Ears: The First Anthology of Poetry About TV (New York Quarterly Books).