CHRISTMAS COMES

by Peter Neil Carroll

For most of the 19th century, the celebration of Christmas with Christmas trees and gift-giving remained a marginal phenomenon in American society. Most Americans remained skeptical about this new custom. Some felt that they had to choose between older English customs such as hanging stockings for presents on the fireplace and the Christmas tree as proper space for the placing of gifts. It was also hard to find the necessary ingredients for this German custom. Christmas tree farms had first to be created. And ornaments needed to be produced. The most significant steps toward integrating Christmas into popular American culture came in the context of the American Civil War. In January 1863 Harper’s Weekly published on its front page the image of Santa Claus visiting the Union Army in 1862. This image, which was produced by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast, represents the very first image of Santa Claus. —Thomas Adam, “How Christmas Became an American Holiday Tradition, with a Santa Claus, Gifts and a Tree,” The Conversation, December 6, 2021

Today isn’t my holiday;

neither did the Puritans celebrate Christmas—

only after huddled masses, tempest tost

slipped through Ms Liberty’s golden door

did Santa tumble down the chimney.

 

So what? says the bored look

in my child’s eye. All day we shall suffer

her shame, born to pagan parents,

she will see us through the eyes

of little friends who believe.  

 

Yes, Virginia, today we will dash to church.

Not to pray, mind you, but to see the unseen

wretched refuse lining on cold sidewalks  

and to serve those we will have

with us always, strung out

like light bulbs at St. Anthony’s.

 

At noon, we dollop beans and rice,

turkey, spuds, chopped carrots and greens.

Everyone polite, clean, stiff-backed,

without voice or tune

or jingled bell, only the scrape of chairs,

spoons tinkling in tepid cups.

 

Peter Neil Carroll’s newest collections of poems are Talking to Strangers: Poetry of Everyday Life  (Turning Point, 2022) and This Land, These People: The 50 States (Press Americana) that just won the 2022 Prize Americana. He is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org and lives in northern California.

LAWS OF THE LAND

by Linda Gelbrich

Source: Northwest Arbor Culture

In this country a young white man
goes to trial for shooting and killing
two people and wounding another at a rally.
Today he is declared—not guilty.
 
In this same country a black voter
tries to cast a ballot,
unaware she is ineligible to vote,
goes to prison for five years,
 
and a black man is in prison for decades
for a murder he says he did not commit,
is now declared innocent by prosecutors,
but authorities say his release is not a priority.
 
Perhaps this is why
some of us write about trees,
about persistently blooming geraniums
and cosmos, even about squirrels that pester,
 
about the regular appearance
of the sun and moon.      


Linda Gelbrich lives in Western Oregon among many trees.  

NEW SHEPARD

by Monica Mills

the billionaire space race

is one without a finish line.

space tourists auction star

costs, haggle down heaven,

as latitude chokes the poor.

on supersonic joyrides white

collars pray greed into hemisphere.

on Earth oceans thrash aflame.

souls without homes look for sky.

find smog. find dollar signs

disguised as constellations.

the shepherd is a wolf. steals the herd.

no scapegoats are leashed

in fields of crumbling infrastructure.

rampant thistles, dandelions,

leeches of the grain root deep

into soil and call themselves farmers. 

Monica Mills is a Jamaican-American writer and poet. She is from Maplewood, New Jersey and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Rutgers University. Monica’s work appears in journals such as The West Trade Review, The Anthologist, The Normal Review, and The Quiver Review among others. She enjoys rainy days and ginger tea. 

SELF-SATISFIED SONNET

by Joe Crocker

Graphic source: Geopolitical Intelligence Services.

The pandemic continues to widen income and wealth inequalities worldwide. The world’s richest five billionaires enjoyed a 59% increase in their combined wealth between March and September 202022 at a time of higher global levels of unemployment, poverty, and debt.16 Around 435 million women and girls will be living on less than $1.90 (£1.40; €1.60) a day in 2021, with 47 million in poverty as a result of covid-19. … These increases in private wealth have corresponded to decreases in social wage (the goods, services, and payments that the state provides to all residents as a basic right). Combined with the commodification of food, land, seeds, and essential services, austerity policies that have reduced social protection measures have had a devastating effect on vulnerable groups and, during the pandemic, increasingly on the middle class. Social protection measures introduced during the pandemic, such as tax relief, cash transfers, unemployment benefits, and food and nutrition assistance, have mostly been inadequate as they have excluded or been inaccessible to those who need them the most, such as informal workers, migrants, young people, and displaced and indigenous populations. An 82% increase in hunger levels is predicted as a result of the pandemic, and the number of people facing acute food insecurity is expected to double, especially in countries affected by conflict, climate change, and economic crisis. —The British Medical Journal, January 29, 2021

I wonder what the fuss is all about.

As far as I can see, not much has changed.

The paper comes each morning and, no doubt,

I’ll read it. But it’s groundhog day again.

 

My shares are on the up, my trousers tight

Mummy’s with us now. We sold her house.

It fetched enough to more than see her right.

The dog still gets his walk. And I get out.

 

The cleaner comes and does. We chat a while.

A sweetie. Molly? Mandy? I must ask.

Her eyes look oddly tired these days; her smile

a little less sincere behind her mask.

 

I spend the afternoons upon my arse.

I am retired and upper middle class.

Joe Crocker is retired and middle class and feeling guilty. Lockdown re-awakened his interest in poetry, and he has been published in Snakeskin. 

WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE

by George Salamon

“Installation 3, Lance-tooth Crosscut Saw” by David Ellingsen.

Daily the inhabitable world gets
Smaller by the length of a wheat field,
Soon millions will make do with
The corner of a bed, scrape by and endure,
Dream of guard dogs betraying the master.


George Salamon has endured one convention but is not sure he can do two. He lives in St. Louis, MO.

NOBODY SHOULD WANT INEQUALITY TO EXIST

by Shirley JonesLuke

Detail from “Answers to Your Protest Questions” by Chelsea Saunders at The Nib, June 12, 2020

Inequality is store security following
It’s the inconsistent punishment from
a teacher for breaking a class rule
it’s the number of times you were stopped
by the police, as you walked or drove home
It’s being fired & taking twice as long to find a job
It’s being an ex-con and no one wants to hire you
It’s having a name on a resume—Jaquita, Kamal, or Rayshawn then being placed in the circular file.  It’s listening to your grandmother tell stories about the marches in the sixties or your mom telling you about being called nigger when she was a freshman in college during the eighties or how even now you hold your child tightly as a police car rolls by, watching your every move. It’s being Black in America and bracing for battle every time you leave the house. Or it’s forgetting your roots & embracing the shucking & jiving that Society wants to see. You entertain & you live another day. You resist & they’ll kill you. It’s a living death versus death. A burden Black folk carry & they can’t carry it anymore.

Shirley JonesLuke is an activist, essayist, and poet living in Boston, Mass. She has an MFA from Emerson College. Her work focuses on culture, race, and society. Shirley has attended workshops at Breadloaf, Tin House, and VONA. She is working on a poetry manuscript.

A CHANGE OF PLAN

by R.G. Jodah

Henley Homes, a property developer, markets Baylis Old School, their 149-home London development on the site of a former school, as “an education in living well.” It’s turning out to be an education in inequality in modern-day Britain. The development, completed in 2016, has a large green play space for children belonging to well-off families in the development. But kids who live in the “affordable” section of the development aren’t allowed to come play. (UK developments typically have to allot a certain portion of their projects to affordable housing because of a massive shortage in London.) —Quartz, March 27, 2019. Photo: Salvatora Rea looks out at the communal play area and garden his children are not allowed to use. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian, March 25, 2019.

With a flourish
he produced a key.
     —“Ta-da!”—
Turned an open gate
to whips and walls:
secured their playground,
made a prison
of the whole wide world.


R.G. Jodah lives in London, enjoying metropolitan anonymity. Appeared in: The Lampeter Review, Typishly, Dream Catcher, Southlight, LightenUp Online. London Grip, Three Drops from a Cauldron (forthcoming).

ONE MAN, ONE VOTE

by Gil Hoy

Image source: NY Times, October 10, 2015

One hundred and fifty eight families, out of
One hundred and twenty million families, finance
One-half of Presidential campaigns, after
One Supreme Court ruling.  They're the

Ones who make billions in finance and energy, the
Ones who contribute from business addresses and post office boxes, the
Ones who want wide wealth inequality, the
Ones who favor fat tax cuts for the rich, the
Ones who would reduce regulations, the
Ones who are business partners, in-laws, and poker buddies.

One hundred and fifty eight families, out of
One hundred and twenty million families, finance
One-half of Presidential campaigns, after
One Supreme Court ruling.

One Man, One Vote


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer, writer and poet. He studied poetry at Boston University, while receiving a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Gil received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. His poetry has appeared most recently in The Eclectic Muse, Third Wednesday, Montucky Review, The Potomac and TheNewVerse.News.