A CORPORATE ANTHEM

by George Salamon

60 Profitable Fortune 500 Companies
Avoided All Federal Income Taxes in 2018

—Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, April 11, 2019

To our fellow Americans who are the
Backbone of the country, its working
Families, the average Joe and Jane.
We say: our aim is to share the
Wealth of this great nation.
Here's how we do it:
Please close your eyes.
They're closed, Good.
Now, what you see;
That's what is yours.

George Salamon contributes verse to Dissident Voice, Poetry24, TheNewVerse.News, Proletaria (upcoming) from St. Louis, MO. He once worked for eight years for a corporation.

HOPE IS ON THE HORIZON THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

by Mark Danowsky

On a dog walk the night before Xmas

the sound of Public Radio begins to double

so I halt, unplug an earbud 

and take in my surroundings

Unseen inhabitants occupying a Subaru 

are having a fabled "Driveway Moment" 

so I pause a little longer

in this record December weather

sweating through a sweatshirt

while us strangers listen up

Two filmmakers explain the joy

of filling out their first joint federal tax return

despite living in a state that still fails

to recognize their union

Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in Alba: A Journal of Short Poetry, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Red River Review, Right Hand Pointing, Snow Monkey and The New Verse News.  His poem "5am Summer Storm" won Imitation Fruit’s “Animals and Their Humans” Contest, in 2013. He resides in Northwest Philadelphia and works for a private detective agency.