NOT NICE EUPHEMISMS AND DYSPHEMISMS

by Anne Gruner

Anne Gruner is a two-time Pushcart nominee whose poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including Amsterdam Quarterly Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Wayfarer Magazine, The New Verse News, Humans of the World, Spillwords, and Written Tales. A former career CIA analyst and lawyer, Anne lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and two golden retrievers.

MASS SHOOTING #15

 W Hillsdale St and Chestnut St, Lansing, MI, April 23, 2026
 
“A gunman walked up to an intersection near downtown Lansing on the night of Thursday, April 23 and fired into a crowd, sending six people to the hospital with gunshot wounds, police said." —Lansing State Journal, April 24, 2026

 
 
by Ron Riekki

 

“Stay in your lane.” —Common, “The Game”

“the world
is dying/
right now in front of you”
—Dennis Hinrichsen,
“I Had a River Once.  Two Friends.  This is the City of Dementia.”

 
 
Sky lacks stars, I drive up, midnight, wanting to see what it’s like
in these mute soot-colored neighborhoods’ packed scars of late-night
shootings that seem to be so common.  I’m in a black car.
I exit, rushing, pull a quick right into a black tar empty lot, sit tight,
headlights hit bright like flame on an unnamed unkempt apartment
complex lit like a mild Wes Anderson noir attempt, almost too exact,
 
windshield like film frame, the poor building a rich pitch-/kiln-black, except that
one sole light’s on, yellow as all hell, giving this gushing xanthic-like light like
gigantic Atlantic with yellow gushing out of this most bright bright lit room almost dead
center.  From limbo, I see a head; a body rises—a living ghost—comes to the window,
stands there, looks at me, unforgiving, I suppose, yes, in his best Wild West anger gunslinger
quick-draw pose, hands close to his sides (never rides sidesaddle).  I’d appear, I guess, maybe
 
like a narc, or a mark, parked in dark shadows, this look on his face like Hell no.  I’m alone.
I realize this is his home.  I’m coming to these shootings as a poet-reporter, as a quote-recorder,
as I’ve wrote over and over on how guns torture, a sorta post-traumatic press disorder.  But this
is simply his home.  This poem is an intrusion, my body too, my skin yellow in the streetlight
and I think of yellow journalism, of dirty laundry, of firm boundaries.  I feel apologetic.
Diegetic sound of some distant car, distinct, far in the distance, De Palma’s Blow Out-ish.
 
But this isn’t mishmash of film.  He’s not a character.  These are people.  These mass shootings
are mass killings.  They’re real.  I feel, for the first time, that I shouldn’t be here.  For real.  My
wheels peel out, go out the way I came.  No quotes captured; no names named; no new insights.  Six people were shot here.  Daughter, shot here.  A 14-year-old girl shot here, in the ear.  Five
females shot here.  A 5-year-old girl shot in the leg.  I imagine that 5-year-old standing in that
window in the night, bleeding, watching me, needing me to do something other than just write.
 

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

DISTRACTIONS

by Mary Saracino

 

 

They want us to look away,
forget about the pedophiles
the wars,
the ICE raids,
the killing of nonviolent protesters,
the abduction and incarceration of children,
the deportation of immigrants
who are not criminals,
the grifting and the lies,
the evil that spews forth every day,
trying to silence us,
eviscerate the truth
that we see with our eyes,
bully us into abdicating our rights,
turn us against one another
so they can continue their unholy alliances
retain unwarranted power,
feed their insatiable greed,
make money off of countless atrocities.
But we are not distracted.
We are focused, lightning bright,
brave and unstoppable.
We will not look away.
We will not pretend that
war crimes are not being committed.
We see that cruelty is the law of the land.
We believe the women and children
who have been raped, silenced, forgotten.
We stand with the men with integrity who fight for justice.
We the people march to demand an end to the horrors,
to honor truth and decry genocide,
racism, misogyny, xenophobia
and all the many uncivil actions
and policies that seek to undo us
deny us our sacred humanity.
Together we shout: “No kings. No autocrats. No Oligarchs.
Never, ever again!”

 

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry Motherlines was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.

THE HANDOVER

by Lonnie Buerge

After a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Minnesota to hand over its voter roll to “bring an end to the chaos.” —Mother Jones, January 27, 2026

Hand over the lists

they say.

Hand over the lists

of the people 

who vote.

Hand them over.

We just want to help.

We just want to be of service

to democracy.

Hand over the lists

and we will leave you alone,

get off your necks,

quit murdering your people,

you can stay safe.

Just hand over the lists.

Just hand them over.

Give them up.

Give them.

Give.

Give them to us.

Keep yourself safe,

Hand them over.

The trains are waiting.

Lonnie Buerge is old in chronology but young in poetry. He has spent the bulk of his career and accounting in the petroleum industry but has enjoyed reading and writing poetry intensely for the past 14 years. He is involved in coordinating the Ginny Soldner Poetry Collaborative in Aspen, CO. He is, unfortunately, not much published.

STREETS OF BOUGAINVILLEA

by Elizabeth Rose

Since we started collecting data in 2012, 1,335 defenders across Latin America have lost their lives…. Yet very few families have seen justice for these killings. —Global Witness, September 2023

You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
           —Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness”

 

I have my own Indian story.

Fausto, my friend, was also dead

 

by the roadside, macheted

in a waterless gully.

 

Stripped naked,

hanged, and cut through,

 

on a Sabbath.

His daughters asleep in cribs.

 

Fausto could have been

my child had I been born

 

on another continent

with another skin color.

 

We were both bent

toward social justice,

 

for me a conceptual brick

tossed through a window,

 

for him a sink

with running water.

 

His mother’s cavity eyes

his father’s taut mouth

stretched toward inevitability.

 

A cold case upon death.

A national miscarriage of laws.

 

Is this the sadness that kindles kindness?

Allows us to go out each day

 

into the streets of bougainvillea,

and ride the Tuk Tuk,

 

bodies next to baskets

overflowing with avocados

and mangoes.

Photo courtesy of the Otzin family.

Author’s note: This is the story of my friend Fausto Otzin. He was a lawyer in Guatemala. He worked on land rights cases representing indigenous people. He was an indigenous Katchakel himself. He worked in Guatemala City during the week and traveled back to Comalapa on the weekends where his wife and two baby girls lived with his parents, his younger sister and her son, and another brother, sister-in-law, and their three children. I was involved in building a school from rubbish in Comalapa for eighteen years and I became friends with the Otzin family during that time. In October 2009 he went out on a Friday night and didn't return. He was found in a gully hanged and stabbed thirteen times on the following Sunday. There was no investigation and now 14 years later there have been no arrests or even people of interest brought forward.

Elizabeth Rose is a poet and psychotherapist living in Massachusetts. She has previously published poetry in BarBar and Verdad. Her personal essays have appeared in the New Mexico Review, The Boston Globe, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She published a chapter in Escape, a memoir collection published in 2023 by the Pathfinders Collective. She received an MFA from Lesley University in 2019. 

THE BANALITY OF MASS SHOOTINGS

by Julie A. Dickson

Photo from “Terror on Repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings” in The Washington Post, November 16, 2023. WaPo Editor’s note: The photos, videos and personal accounts [in the report] are extremely disturbing and may be too upsetting for some people.

Repetition in media, another shooting
should sound as old news, except that
tragic loss of life keeps occurring, 
 
more automatic weapons in the hands
of unstable, unhappy humans;
we should have realized, they say
 
each time,  the signs were all there,
an uprising follows: gun rights for some,
while others weep redundantly each time
 
more are shot. The banality of killings,
mass slaughter should lead to change,
not complacency and resignation.

Julie A. Dickson regularly submits to online and printed journals. Her poetry is seen in over 70 journals, including Blue Heron Review, Hotel of Broken Hearts, Ekphrastic Review, and The New Verse News. She writes from art prompts, current events, nature and environment. Her elephant poems help to advocate for captive zoo and circus elephants to be sent to sanctuaries. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science and shares her home with two rescued feral cats.

FOR EVERY LOST SOUL, A CANDLE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Glowing Christmas candle in frosted home window, photograph by Thomas Baker —Fine Art America

For every lost soul, a candle

in the window spills its light

into dusky night. Darkening air

softens with hope’s holiday

aromas—sage, balsam, fir, spruce.

Its flame offers a mirror into a forest’s

beating heart, warming deep woods

where easy pathways have slipped

past sight, obscured by doubt, loss.

Its flickered patterns soothe us

as we glance inside into a world

beyond our reach. We want to see

our own reflections there, as if we

had struck the match, poured a glass

of claret, turned on seasonal carols,

smiled at loved ones gathered fireside.

Not the other side where time fells us.

Where its passage startles us anew

as memories sparkle, seduce us

for an instant before they waiver,

then devolve to our collective umbra.

Author's Note: As of November 27, 2022, there have been over 617 mass shootings in the United States and more than 40,000 people have died of gun-related deaths. www.gunviolencearchive.org 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

A POEM IN FAVOR OF REMAINING PURPOSEFUL IN DARK TIMES

by Alan Walowitz

It’s late here, afternoon, and for all I know

the solstice might have come and gone.

Another of these sodden days

keeps me in my sleep-clothes—Gatkes,

my mother might say, a little Yiddish

meant to make things light

and shame me into the fray we’ve made

of forced boredom and too much sleep.

 

Not much happening before Christmas,

the true-believers at the mall, avoiding one another

as if they want to remain alive.

Still, here they are in droves

to address our national debt

and resuscitate mankind’s collective desire;

the National Guard poised to calm the streets

so I won’t have to worry the neighbor’s rage:

my leaves blown carelessly on his lawn again;

the cops have promised not to kill anymore.

Why not walk aimlessly around

masked and dazed by the beauty of the Christmas lights?

Underutilized, my own daughter says of me,

though it’s not how I was raised.

 

The moon was part of us once

before it was hoisted and fastened above

and later assigned to werewolves and love--

though we know we’re done with that.

But now the moon, risen low in the sky,

and twice as bright comes into its own --

holding out against any wobble,

any sudden tilt of the earth.

The Sun, that old Palooka,

means to cook us alive and swallow us whole.

Still, the moon remains, attached to the tides,  

and even in times like these,

determined to do its little job, 

whether or not it’s to any avail.

 

Meanwhile, let's not forget to attend to ours.  

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The full-length The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night written with poet Betsy Mars. 

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.

MEMORY'S GARDEN

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She was an all level teacher and a librarian. Presently she is a freelance writer and a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been widely published in numerous magazines. One of her poems was published in the anthology After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. Her first book of poetry she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released in the fall.

NOT READY TO BE SILENT

for James Baldwin

by Carolyn Gregory

“The week started with scenes from a cellphone video of an African-American man lying on the ground being fatally shot by a Louisiana police officer, and an astonishing Facebook Live feed of a woman in Minnesota narrating after her African-American boyfriend was killed by an officer during a traffic stop. It ended with horrific live television coverage of police officers’ being gunned down by at least one sniper at what had been a peaceful march protesting the police shootings.” —The New York Times, July 8, 2016 Photo: A spray-painted mural on a building on Foster Drive in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday, where Alton Sterling was shot to death by a police officer two days earlier. Credit William Widmer for The New York Times.

No, I do not want to be integrated
into a burning house
where the roof collapses
and firemen die in the rubble,

forced to stay silent when
the sirens fly by in the dark
and guns shoot the innocent.

I do not want to live
in a field of burning red poppies,
shocking in their color
against fallen gray homes
bombed down to bedrock.

My life means more than this.
I am not ready to walk silent
into a cemetery to lie down
with all the unnamed dead.

Carolyn Gregory has published poems and music reviews in American Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Seattle Review. Her first and second books were published by Windmill Editions in Florida.

THE THIRTEENTH STATION — CHARLESTON 2015

by Janice Lynch Schuster

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

If only the women had carried
Guns in their Bibles and prayed
With rage, not love

If only the children had carried
Guns in their backpacks
Their teachers might
Have been spared

If only the boy playing
In the yard had something
Real to fire

If only the suffocating
Man had had gunpowder,,
Not tobacco

If only we armed us all
Who worship at the glamorous
Fortresses of our fears

Brought to us
By the NRA and Congress afraid
Itself to say no

If only we let the bloodbath
Baptize us daily in horror
While our blue hearts
Beat on and we tweet

Hashtags of despair
As if to absolve ourselves
Of the killings we did not stop
And the ballots  we failed
To cast


Janice Lynch Schuster is the author of a collection, Saturday at the Gym, and has been published in various print and online venues, including Poet Lore, Your Daily Poem, and The Broadkill Review. She writes about health care and public policy, lives in Annapolis, MD, and works in Washington, DC.

AT THE LOCAL LOCKSMITH SHACK,I ORDER AN EXTRA HOUSE KEY

by Alejandro Escudé

The locksmith grinds it, sparks flying, but he stops to point
to the TV screen, the news on, cop killings in New York,

and sternly the locksmith warns the killing signals the end of days.
I tell him cops have been shot before. He looks at me, his eyes 

peering over his glasses, “Do you read the Bible?” I answer, no.
He says, “You should, for you, for your family.” 

When he hands me the new key, I look down
at the the locksmith’s fingers, stained black, phosphorescent. 

In the reenactment on the news the shooter is fire engine red
and the cops are blue. One falls, then the other falls too. 

They do not animate the red man shooting himself.
I wonder the life that brought the locksmith to the Apocalypse. 

A myriad keys hanging above his head, lying around; silver
and gold keys, keys to free anything from its locked place.

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. 

SCENES FROM THE HOEDOWN

by Joseph Reich

More than 25,000 people marched through Manhattan on Saturday, police officials said. --NY Times, December 13, 2014. Photo Credit: Kena Betancur/Getty Images

united states of amerika!
ready or not here i come!
united states of amerika!
don’t know who i am
          anymore!
united states of amerika!
ready or not here i cum!
united states of amerika!
don’t know who i am
          no more!
united states of amerika!
what the fuck! jeeze-louise!
& sweet-fancy moses!
united states of amerika!
make way for the joker
& riddler & fiddler
on the roof! they took
everything from you
(your all-inclusive
now reclusive
heart & soul
hardened soul
gone numb & cold!)
& the bat signal is lost!
united states of amerika!
kkk! kentucky fried chicken!
& a chicken in every pot!
united states of amerika!
make love not war! huh?
make love not war! huh?
make love not war! huh?
make love not war! huh?
united states of amerika!
with your 3 recent
killings of 3 unarmed
black men with heads
down heads up hands up!
claiming can’t breathe man
man to man (to the man!)
5! 6! 7! 8! 9! times
might tell you to count
backwards 9! 8! 7! 6! 5!
to get rid of your anger!
to get rid of the trigger!
to get rid of the stranger!
to get rid of your crime!
united states of amerika!
where might will always
win out over right
(especially in
the middle
of the night!)
& when you find
are under their control
got absolutely no rights!
united states of amerika!
a wink & a nod
this one is 4 you!
o brave men in blue!
serving & protecting!
serving & protecting!
serving & protecting!
serving & protecting!
united states of amerika!
been given a warning!
been given a warning!
united states of amerika!
what would you call this?
a hit & run? road kill?
the hunting season?
pleading self-defense?
insanity? taking the
5th? mistaken identity?
united states of amerika!
how come cry uncle
doesn’t work anymore!
united states of amerika!
have you heard the one?
united states of amerika!
come on down!
come on down!
come on down!
calm on down!
united states
of amerika!
ringo-leevio!
123! 123! 123!
united states of amerika!
321! 321! 321! & then
zero! zap! they’re all gone!
united states of amerika!
how would your chalk
artist now draw chalk
around the broken
bones of those 3
recent innocent
dead bodies
on the run
& would they
look anything
like the crucified jesus?
like the boogie man?
like black man hanging?
united states of amerika!
i can’t get my arms
around? can’t get my
head? can’t get arms up!
united states of amerika!
with your torture report
your bible of what really
goes on behind closed doors!
(what they like to refer to
as “advanced interrogation”
& just curious? do they have
a remedial session? think
john lennon still asked
the operational question–
“how do you sleep at night?
jim morrison–‘5 in 1, 1 in 5
no one here gets out alive!’
gil-scott heron! the revolution
did get televised! & they’re
still in denial! still dying!)
united states of amerika!
i’ve got some developing news!
i’ve got some breaking news!
i’ve got rules & regulations!
i’ve got the blues!
united states of amerika!
i’ve got a rhetorical question?
ahhh! forget about it!
you already answered it!
united states of amerika!
i’ve got an onset & upset
case of tourette’s  & promise
you ain’t making it up
or doing it to attract
attention! matter of
fact quite the opposite!
united states of amerika!
my p.t.s.d. is kicking in
& don’t know what to do
to stop it, as your triggers
are so goddamn persistent!
so united states of amerika
what should i do? become
obsessive-compulsive
to try and get control?
to make sense of it all?
united states of amerika!
red rover! red rover!
let my loss & madness
come over! caught between
the fight & the flee & the flee
& fight syndrome & left with
just the raw flesh & bones
of symptoms & no place
to call my own literally
kicked out of bars
defending every
lost soul!
half-crazed!
holy! hysterical!
waddling, wandering
happily ever after
down the avenue
all by my lonesome!
like chaplin on-the-run
running into old runaway
pals & partners just as
abandoned & done wrong!
old black men now homeless
in the park turned out
by white girls they had
mistakenly fallen for
& used to give
exhibitions at
the guggenheim
& the whitney!
hoodlums!
enterprising
drug dealers!
old timer
madmen
geniuses!
multi-millionaire
hoteliers now
penniless!
vacant!
supported by
angelic daughters!
united states of amerika!
what’s up! what’s up!
united states of amerika!
is this your bloody & gory
version of world federated
smackdown? only not fake
& choreographed & the real
deal & brutishly acted-out
with guns & chokeholds
& the ones going down
the results always fatal!
united states of amerika!
with not enough evidence
to bring them into court!
united states of amerika!
to not even file a report!
united states of amerika!
with not enough
cold! hard! facts!
united states of amerika!
with not enough evidence
for dignity & respect!
united states of amerika!
to not bring them home
to their moms & dads!
united states of amerika!
innocent till proven guilty?
guilty till proven innocent?
sorry got that all mixed-up!
united states of amerika!
always a punch line
to your eternal joke!
united states of amerika!
hiccup! hiccup! he cough!
united states of amerika!
from st louis, missouri!
to the state of florida!
to new york, new york!
to phoenix, arizona!
united states of amerika!
where they still operate
& function by a poll
tax & ride the back
& coat tails of 40
acres & a mule!
united states
of amerika!
watch your back!
watch your back!
watch your back!
watch your back!
not by coincidence
all walk with heads
over their shoulders!
united states of amerika!
where the murderers roam!
united states of amerika!
where the romans murder!
united states of amerika!
worse than any roman empire!
united states of amerika!
worse than any rise & fall
(where hopefully one day
the fallen may rise once more!)
'cause you’re conveniently
turning you’re head
the other direction
& disrespecting
not even deserving
of bringing them in
in front of a judge & jury!
united states of amerika!
bring on the brainwash!
brutality! rationalization!
justification! manipulation!
united states of amerika!
still not showing an ounce
of remorse or contrition!
united states of amerika!
where they can stop you
based on suspicion or guilt
by association (‘cause they run
the show & they got the power!)
but never tell you what you’re
suspicious of & who you’re
associating with, like some
real-life fucked-up kafkaesque
word problem with no solution
as there are no possible
factors to the equation!
united states of amerika!
better to be seen & not heard!
or do i have that backwards?
or vice-versa? or does
any of that really matter?
united states of amerika!
with your infamous
anger management!
think about the state
of that statement
& deconstruct it!
anger management!
anger management!
anger management!
anger management!
like some cold-hearted
& callous corporation!
& will patronize
& parentify
& tell you to work
through your issues
& you got enough
to make a living!
united states of amerika!
what happened to your
jeffersonian democracy!
jeffersons moving on up!
archie bunker hand on
your heart hand on
your gun pledge
of allegiance
myth debunked!
united states
of amerika!
here once again
is your rerun!
your rerun!
your rerun!
your rerun!
your home movie
mu/dead played
in slow-motion
over & over
& over again!
united states
of amerika!
your real-life
son of a gun!
son of a gun!
united states
of amerika!
here’s your toast!
here’s your roast!
here’s your heart
& soul on a platter!
for all you white
devils & white
trash! for all you
lily-white tourists
& your instant
guide to success!
how to win friends
& influence the masses
& to forgive & forget!
united states of amerika!
you’re a cheap rip off!
you’re a chip
off the old block!
& the apple doesn’t fall
too far from the jock!
from the schmuck!
from the murderer!
from the manslaughterer!
from the police benevolent
association & supporters!
from the parent teacher’s
association & those don’t
let into the neighborhood!
(really no joke! & the real
estate agents back them up!)
from the kangaroo court!
from the puppet/tears!
from the dummies
& ventriloquists!
from the false witnesses!
from the hung jury!
from the judge
& the misses!
from the pimp
& politician
& people
who voted
them in!
united states of amerika!
off to the sacrifice & slaughter!
your breakfast of champions!
& madonna/whore daughters!
united states of amerika!
do not pass go!
do not collect 200!
united states of amerika!
in god we trust! & ashes
to ashes! dust to dust!
united states of amerika!
ready or not here i come!
united states of amerika!
don’t know who i am anymore!
united states of amerika!
yes sir! yes ‘um! uuum...
united states of amerika!
god a cross between a howl
& crying-out and nothing’s
coming out no more!
united states of amerika!
been there! done that!
united states of amerika!
beer here! beer here!
united states of amerika!
stand your ground
& give them
a beat down!
u knighted states
uuh...mur
eek! cold
united stay
of amerika!
united stain
on amerika!

Joseph Reich has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals both here and abroad, been nominated five times for The Pushcart Prize, and his most recent books include, A Different  Sort Of Distance (Skive Magazine Press), If I Told You To Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge (Flutter Press), Pain Diary: Working Methadone & The Life & Times Of The Man Sawed In Half (Brick Road Poetry Press), Drugstore Sushi (Thunderclap Press), The Derivation Of Cowboys & Indians (Fomite Press) The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end of the world (Fomite Press) The Hole That Runs Through Utopia (Fomite Press), Taking The Fifth And Running With It: a psychological guide for the hard of hearing and blind (Broadstone Books) , and The Defense Mechanisms: your guide to the fragile mind (Pski Porch Press).

HIMALAYA RHAPSODY

by Stefanie Bennett

Tsering Tsomo, speaking on behalf of the Society for Threatened Peoples, highlighted the recent shooting in Kardze, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Sichuan Province) as a recent example of the People’s Republic of China being caught in a downward spiral of violence in Tibet. . . . Exercising its right to reply, the PRC accused NGOs of turning a “blind eye” and trying to politicize human rights. --Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, September 18, 2014

Your tears have a way of working.
The miracles they perform
Are dispatched to the authorities.

You say you mean peace. I say war
Is of more value. You do not intend
To harm me... it's said over and again.

Convince me!

String up those genocides for
All to see. Spit out
The eyes... take mine...

I don't need your need.


Stefanie Bennett has published eighteen books of poetry and 1 novel. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia, in 1945. Stefanie's latest poetry title 'The Vanishing' is due at year's end from Walleah Press.

ANUBIS SPEAKS

by Anne Harding Woodworth




I will embalm the gun,
dip it in antimony salts and mercury
to preserve the image
of a life that is no more.
I will detach the grip and the trigger.
Both have fingerprints,
which cannot be erased
thoroughly, but I will try
before I reattach the parts to the body.
History must be able
to interpret the design
and the intention
centuries from now.
I will hook the bullet, pull it
through the barrel nose,
steep it in formaldehyde
and return it to its chamber.
History must be able
to decipher the bullet’s use
as the empowering heart
of a cherished anatomy.
I will wrap the gun in linen strips,
brush them with sweet resin
to conceal the stench of death.
And I will place tokens
within the wrappings,
a sword, a toy, a raven,
a rose, a razorblade.
This is my duty:
to prepare a thing for the journey
across the river,
where it will be judged
for its deeds on earth.


Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of four books of poetry and two chapbooks. Her work is widely published in literary journals and on line in the U.S. and abroad. She divides her time between the mountains of Western North Carolina and Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the poetry board at the Folger Shakespeare Library.