POEM FOR THE INAUGURATION

by Amy Elizabeth Robinson

So much blood

on his lie-drenched tongue.

Too much

to explore

in a poem. This poem

chooses

to turn in a new direction. 

It hears 

the heavy gates

of justice 

closing 

on his reign of infancy 

and terror.

It applauds 

the sharp-shinned 

hawks 

of empathy

who guard the precarious 

scales. This poem

will not forget, yet

it turns

towards 

the dawn. 

You know this dawn, this

tender filigree of

sun-soaked web. 

The spiders have been spinning

all through the night.

Their webs of diligence,

and promise, and 

shimmer of delight. This poem 

insists on making

a plea deal

with the moment. Guilty

of exhaustion, 

it ends its 

fractured sentences

with care. 

Amy Elizabeth Robinson is a poet, writer, historian, mother, and many other things. She did live in the eastern mountains of Sonoma County, California, but her collectively-owned community recently burned in the Glass Fire. She is a community leader at Flower Mountain Zen, and her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Literary Mama, West Marin Review, West Trestle Review, Vine Leaves, Rattle’s Poets Respond program, and elsewhere. She blogs at www.turningplanet.org.

IN-SUH-REK-SHUHN

by Rémy Dambron

they said this man was just like them we said he doesn’t feel the same

they said he said that’s just fake news we said this is a dangerous game

they said he’s making us great again while we witnessed his power abuses

they diminished and deflected delivering his excuses

we called this pattern treacherous nefarious hateful nasty

they called him biblical 

patriotic bold and crafty

we said he’s promoting violence 

they said he doesn’t mean it

we showed them clips of footage 

they said we just don’t see it

we said hands up don’t shoot 

black lives matter me too

they said shut up and dribble 

all lives matter back the blue

we plead for justice 

but just us took a knee

so they beat us up with shields batons and false decrees

we said we have our rights 

they said well not today

we said these were our streets 

so they gassed us all away

we protested peacefully 

get your knees off our neck

they called us anarchists

then wrote themselves some checks

we turned out in record 

to win the election

they claimed there was fraud 

pledged their objections

we agreed to a recount 

they cried stop the steal

maskless they rallied 

refusing to heal

they threatened more violence despite our constitution

we said he’s propagating 

they called it lib delusion

then hundreds and hundreds 

with his flags and motifs

assailed the steps

of our nation’s top chiefs

we cried this is madness 

the building’s not secured

they said our take-back has begun and we will not be deterred

we said look at the police 

they’re like ushers in disguise

allowing them to enter 

with insurgency supplies

we saw gates open wide 

with a skirmish or two

then a lonely black cop

with just a stick and film crew

never drawing his firearm 

just clutching his baton

yelling and retreating

his leverage too far gone

they paraded their faces 

took selfies and stole files

besieged and disgraced

our nations state house defiled

they were released without consequence 

set free without question

acquitted of their felonies 

at forty fives direction

we watched in horror for hours

what we had known would come true

his fascist america 

executing their coup

Rémy Dambron is an English teacher, proud husband, and activist whose poetry focuses primarily on advocating for social justice and denouncing political corruption. His work has been featured on What Rough Beast, Writer’s Resist, Poets Reading the News, and The New Verse News.

THIS DAY WILL NOT JUST LIVE IN INFAMY

by Michael Mark

Shutterstock

For Lolo

 

Because it is your birthday, I’m going to ignore 

the four thousand people in our country who will die today. 

 

Because it is your birthday, I’m going to erase from my mind 

the insane president and treasonous riot he instigated

                                 

and the love video he put out to his thug followers as five people died 

during the siege of the Capitol, and pretend the polls are fake 

 

that say 45% of Republicans believe the breaking 

and entering was the right thing to do, and I’m going 

 

to drive to the card store – the good one, not the grocery

or the pharmacy with their picked-over puns,

 

but the fancy one that specializes in fine crafted, highly artistic 

expressions of earnest emotions, featuring 

 

only the cutest kitten and puppy pics, and charge 

at least six dollars and ninety-nine cents for ironic yet sincere stuff like: 

 

You’re not getting older—oh wait!—I just checked 

your sun dial—yes you are! Because it is your birthday 

 

I’m not going to even wonder if we should be celebrating 

considering today’s particularly disappointing jobs report

 

and the unnerving delay on stimulus checks and vaccines. 

I’m going to interrogate every rack on every aisle to pick out 

 

your perfect card, and because I can’t stop the riots 

or bring back the dead, or deliver the checks or administer the vaccine, 

 

I will, because it is your birthday, light the candle, and watch 

you close your eyes to the whole world and make your wish. 

 

Michael Mark’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Arkansas International, Copper Nickel, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Salamander, The Southern Review, The Sun, Waxwing, and The Poetry Foundation's American Life in Poetry. He’s the author of two books of stories including Toba and At the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum).

THE GREATEST TRICK

by Damian Balassone

Click for more on this quotation from The Usual Suspects.

The greatest trick 

the devil ever pulled 

was convincing the world

he didn’t exist.

The greatest trick

the politician ever pulled

was convincing the world

he wasn’t a politician.

Damian Balassone is an Australian poet whose work has appeared in over 100 publications, most notably in The New York Times.  He is the author of three volumes of poetry, including Strange Game in a Strange Land.

TIME'S UP

by Richard Meyer

Follow the online bot that tweets the elapsed amount of the T***p presidency in 0.1% increments .

Deranged, incompetent, irate,

the loser won’t admit he lost.

Refusing to accept his fate,

he’ll lie and cheat at any cost

and even wreck the ship of state

while claiming he’s been double-crossed.

But he’s defeated, shamed, undone.

The unrelenting countdown clock

keeps dropping digits one by one.

He cannot stop the tick and tock.

He’s out of time. His end has come,

a failure there’s no hiding from.

He’s squeezed inside an hourglass,                 

dissipating grain by grain.

The dwindling moments come and pass,                    

and nothing of him will remain.

His legacy and final brand

will be a little mound of sand.

Richard Meyer’s poems have appeared in various publications, including Able Muse, The Raintown Review, Think, Measure, Light, TheNewVerse.News, Alabama Literary Review, and The Evansville Review. He was awarded the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize for his poem “Fieldstone” and was the recipient of the 2014 String Poet Prize for his poem “The Autumn Way.” A book of his collected poems, Orbital Paths, was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.

T***P TAKES ON THE FOUR SEASONS

 by Anita S. Pulier

Editor's Note: @TotalSeasons is a parody account on Twitter.

The world hears him

banging on the courthouse door

filing comical briefs,

blustering nonsense 

against Fall,

against colors turning,

against leaves falling,

against gearing up for Winter.

And in liberty’s fading light 

he waves his flabby arms, 

proclaims Winter will never arrive

he simply will not allow it, 

screams plot, fraud, fake.

Eyebrows raised, we

take a deep breath,

await Winter's chill.

In this pandemic year of challenges Anita S. Pulier can share some good news: her second full-length poetry book Toast will be out from Finishing Line Press in February! In a past life, she was an attorney. Now she writes poetry (published in many journals and anthologies) and hangs with poets.

OUR COUNTRY... NOT OUR BUSINESS

by Jan Gross

2020 Hindsight by Rob Rogers at The Nib.

Buyers beware! 

We could lose our bid on the sale  

Citizens no more, but customers   

Truth no longer told, but sold

Off to the inside traitors  

   

Bought out by big business  

Walled in by Wall Street  

Gutted by greed  

Dealt out of the deal  

  

His bottom line rules mighty  

Regulations, taxes damned   

Hail to the profit margin!  

Protect the family brand!   

   

Fake the facts!   

Hype the hoax!  

Let hackers and trolls   

Surf coast to coast  

  

Masses trumpet triumph  

Chanting hate inspires  

Winners one and none  

Where QAnon conspires  

  

Monuments stage his glory  

A country’s reality show  

A bible brandished on high  

God’s Truth trampled below  

  

Heroes stripped of honor  

Fawners scale the ranks   

On all sides fine people  

Hateful words just pranks   

  

Covid breathes calamity  

Choked by one man’s vanity  

Old age best begone!  

Make way for the strong!  

  

Refuse to don your face masks  

Cures are easily taken  

His own comeback is clear proof  

Of experts long mistaken  

  

He’s fair as honest Abe was  

Not a racist bone in sight   

With insults heaped on icons   

He helps boost his loser’s plight  

  

Dissenters face dismissal   

Detractors face defeat  

The bar of justice lowers  

Tips the balance for deceit  

  

Clear the way for order!  

Twist the arm of law!  

Protests pave the future  

Marchers won’t withdraw   

  

Black and white, or red and blue  

Dividing lines he always drew  

Will this storm bring rainbows 

With hope to start anew?   

  

Battle lines are hardened  

The bitter end draws near  

  

Time to line up    

Time to fill in  

  

Ballots to mail or not   

Votes to cast once or twice  

  

Votes to buy   

To buy us time  

  

Time to keep us   

Here long enough  

  

To see   

… to see the turning of the tide   

        … for the tide has got to turn.  

Author’s Note: This poem echoes James Baldwin’s plea to settle for what a vote can get you… maybe not a job, or a loan, or a major reform, but “it may keep [us] here long enough … to see, and use, the turning of the tide—for the tide has got to turn.”  (Written prior to the 1980 presidential election in “Notes on the House of Bondage” and quoted in Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.)   

Jan Gross is waiting for the tide to turn. She is Professor emerita at Grinnell College, and is co-authoring a collaborative poetic memoir about interracial friendship, Black & White and In-Between. 

OLD MCDONALD

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Art by Zelley

destroys his own farm

blind eye on the golden hay

clumsily embarking on a sweep

of dirt under fields and rugs 

fistfuls hidden, tossed away

the swamp calm beneath blue skies

and the swell of a flood tide

bearing an economy of crime

bears down, drowns the land.

And there he stands, proud 

pitchfork in one pale hand

flash suit over excessive flesh

his minions and puppets

whiplashed and soft-focused

in the brilliance of a gilt sheen

he has shed the dark cloak

and revealed a plastic heart

that does not beat in tandem,

a harvest plan that starves,

feeding neither bodies nor souls

but the infantile emotional self-

interest of the greedy animal

chowing down fantasy food

and golden age TV dreams 

of power and wealth only

silly fictions bring to life.

From the top of the silo

fake this, false that

the poor garden at his feet

the sick and dying, lost

trampled down, laid out

in a stink pile of manure

his arrogant gaze pitiless

as the Florida sun

burning to a crusty char

all of it,

all that so many

worked so long, so hard 

to plant, tend, grow.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Grandma Moses Press will publish the poetry chapbook Florida Man later this year. 

SENDING POSTCARDS

by Julia Lisella

It’s all history now,

even my walk to the mailbox

to drop the shiny cards into the blue box

little teeth at the edge of the slot – I can hear them

grinding & scraping as I push the cards in

10 at a time. Because

Covid 19 pandemic

because Breonna and George are dead

because T***p lied his ass off

we know this is true all the time, but now?

And I think this is why

I walk to the mailbox

with 50 postcards and I worry

the people who get them won’t

understand my handwriting

when they read “Dear Friend”

they’ll know we are not friends but

Friend please vote, friend

the anxiety of thinking

you won’t vote

makes my fingers ache

the anxiety of thinking

in the quiet, the basil bloom

of evening, the petulance

of late summer, the walk now

more or less guarded

Mostly anxiety I do not think

in prose but in the murmur of fear

the stuttered life of

catch in the throat

the imbalance of what can’t be

how is it now that the shiny postcards

urging

sit at the bottom of a large blue box—

what faith I once had in the box

How I once believed anything in it

would begin its great journey

Will anyone of you 50 desperate cards

released reluctantly by my fingertips

(afraid to touch the box) the confluences

of emergencies

we have acclimated to

will any one of you reach the street

the court, the place, the road, the Tampa,

the Ft. Lauderdale, the Ft. Myers so many forts

the ranch house the apartment building the PO Box

and journey how? and when if it arrives

on your counter, thrown in your car

stuck under a welcome mat?

I press the pen into the card

to make the name and wonder

will it be you, you one soul

who will get my card and lifting it

above the garbage will see and notice

the wobble of my D or F or

the note I squeezed into the left side

of the card, the funny way I write my E’s, my V’s and M’s

you can’t tell apart

you, someone will know I walked down

the quiet Covid street

I pushed the cards through the slot

dear friend released from prison who is not

a murderer or a rapist dear friend who was

desperate and forged a check dear friend who was

naïve and dated a con artist and a drug dealer

Dear friend still alive, released they say

and living in Sunny Florida, please don’t

get sick, please find a job

please vote.

Randy Hudnell raises four fingers to represent Amendment 4, which restored the right to vote to most former felons in Florida who'd completed their sentences. Credit: ALEX PENA/CBS NEWS, October 26, 2020

Julia Lisella’s books include Always (WordTech Editions, 2014), Terrain (WordTech Editions, 2007), and the chapbook Love Song Hiroshima (Finishing Line Press, 2004). Her poems have most recently appeared in Ploughshares, Paterson Literary Review, Mom Egg Review, Nimrod, Exit 7, and Ocean State Review. She writes on modernist women writers, teaches American literature at Regis College and co-curates the Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) Reading Series in Boston. 

SIMILE

by Gil Hoy

So now he's said:

 "Maybe 

I'll have to leave 

the country 

if I lose the election." 

You mean 

like a fleeing felon 

trying to get away?

All of America's birds

gone South

Will then be seen 

flying north.

Every hibernating thing

will be waking early.

Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Boston poet who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from BU, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for 4 terms. Hoy's poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, Right Hand Pointing, Indian Periodical, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The New Verse News, Rat's Ass Review, the penmen review, and elsewhere. 

THE CAN'T-WORRY TALES (EPILOGUE)

by Richard Hacken

Whan that panne-demie with her virrus bittre

the lande with Mericanne courpses did littre,

and swathed thus visages with couvre-masque,

of which vertu for manye was too bigge an asque;

Whan Donaldus (eek!)  with his love for selfe

putte bleech and snaque's oil on ev'ry shelfe

for tendre eldres with prievyus conditiones

held oute to driy at cause of his foul perditiones;

and with electiones at halfe cours yronne,

twentie-milles of lyes he'd alreddie sponne, 

So priketh hem the truth from toe to tooth

which longeth folk to goon to voting booth,

or mail-personnes who neith in raine nor sleete do faile

to delivere ballotts by the U.S. Mail;

And specially from every stayte and districke

of Vespucci-Lande at the urn they pick

the hatefulle, hurtfulle jerke away to sende

that in an SDNY gaol he might justlie ende. 

Richard Hacken is a librarian-poet with degrees in German literature and past appointments at U.C. Davis, Oregon State, University of Kansas and BYU. He has translated Austrian short fiction and the poetry of a Tuvan poet from Mongolia who publishes in German. He claims to have found this Chaucer epilogue in the wash.

HUMPTY DUMP T

by Mickey J. Corrigan

A microscopic view of 293T cells derived from embryonic kidneys, which several companies are using to develop Covid-19 therapies. The treatment for Covid-19 received by Mr. T***p—a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies he described as a “cure” in a celebratory video posted on Twitter—was developed using human cells derived from a fetus aborted decades ago. Photo credit: Juan Mabromata/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via The New York Times, October 8, 2020

I wasn't born yesterday

I wasn't born at all

sacrificed for the future

sacrificed on the steel table

a precious budding knot

of unfolding potential

of stem cells used

to create the line

to create the path

to saving human lives

not mine I was just 

enough for the 293T

enough for the Per.C6

cells from the laboratory

cells from the dark years 

in secret dingy rooms

brave men in white coats

brave women in masks

brave enough to help

young girls weeping

salty ocean tears, all

in fear for their future

in fear for their lives

I didn't have one

so decades later—

decades of growth

decades of greed

decades of bloat—

he could be saved

he could live on

breathless and hardened

fat egg that won't break

perched on a wall of power

on a balcony above us

casting aspersions and lies

with elite impunity

with no responsibility

no respect for ideals

the common good 

I gave my life for

what he disregards—

laws made to be broken

laws like offshore trawlers

laws to be scoffed at—

lives cut short by whim

lives cut short by him

but not his

life

saved by others' sacrifices 

like mine

like yours

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Grandma Moses Press will publish the poetry chapbook Florida Man later this year. 

THEY PROPPED THE DEAD MAN UP: AN ALLEGORY

by Sandra Anfang

We were waist deep in the big muddy

and the big fool said to push on. 

—Pete Seeger, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”

A man I used to know

who knew a man I used to know

told me a story about

the old man’s funeral.

How they propped him up

in his single bed like a child’s

dressed him in his favorite

cowboy shirt, hat, & boots.

How their feet carved circles

in the small front room

of his cabin, how they passed 

around the punch, dished up

the casseroles, poured the wine.

All the while, he lay in his bed

in the corner, where it had been wheeled

watching them enjoy the feast.

He didn’t miss a beat.

He looked great—alive as you or me

said the man I used to know.

Maybe a little ashen.

“They propped the dead man up”

cycles through my brain

like a country refrain.

If they hadn’t heard the story

of how his Kawasaki overshot

the freeway bridge, a suspected 

heart attack the cause

you might have thought he was

enjoying an afternoon nap.

This scenario would not

be hard to replicate:

(an old man waving from

the window of an SUV; 

the steel-spiked wall of his dissembling).

During the parsing of the meatloaf

the news, the deviled eggs

they propped the dead man up 

and life continued

more or less

as it had before.

Sandra Anfang is an award-winning poet, poetry teacher, and editor. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, Spillway, and Rattle. Her two chapbooks, Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier, were published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Xylem Highway, a full-length collection, was published by Main Street Rag in 2019. Sandra teaches with California Poets in the Schools and hosts Rivertown Poets, a monthly reading series, in Petaluma, California. She is spending her sheltering-in-place days writing poetry and haiku, taking long walks, and texting for MoveOn.org to defeat t***p.

MASQUERADE

by Susan McLean

Muffled like bandits on a raid,

our faces wrapped from chin to eye,

we aren’t intent on ambuscade,

just hoping not to kill or die.

Yet everywhere we see displayed
the nonchalance of passersby,

signaling that they’re not afraid—

their confidence a bare-faced lie.

Susan McLean is the author of two poetry books, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of the Latin poet Martial, Selected Epigrams. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa, a hotspot for COVID-19.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?

by Joan Mazza

If you were raised by and/or married to an abuser,

I know you are suffering tonight. I see you. I feel you.

We are going to rise up and take the mf down.

      —Pam Houston, public Facebook post, Sept. 29, 2020

Didn’t watch, didn’t listen. I went to bed early,

held on to the clarity earned by a day of writing,

reading, an online poetry class. I drank a lot

of water, pondered what I’ll eat for my next meal,

folded clean sheets, made notes for poems. I wasn’t

online during the chaos and shouting, refuse to expose

myself to a bully’s tactics of distraction and lies—

dominance devices with attacks on the other’s

character that show the lack of dignity and inability

to reason. In the morning, I watch one clip before

I’m fully awake, read Facebook full of horror

at this clown of hokum who signals to racists, white

supremacists, and the Proud Boys to be ready to foment

a civil war. Sometimes it takes only one morsel of food

to know it’s poison. Sometimes one sentence makes you

back away and lock the doors of your heart and head. 

In peace and security, ten days ago I voted.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and has taught workshops nationally with a focus on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry appears in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The MacGuffin, and The Nation. She lives and isolates in rural central Virginia.

CALLING IT

by Thomas R. Smith

Just to see and hear him on a screen

hurts the soul.  Stench of abuse.

The Abyss hijacks the microphone,

no muting the rant the psychotic

can’t switch off in his head.

The assault on truth is physical:

the viewer’s knees tremble, breath comes

up short.  Lies fly out of the mouth

in black streams.  They are his children:

father of lies, lord of the flies.

Damaged horror child exposed.

The networks call it a “debate.”

Burroughs called it “naked lunch.”

Yeats called it “rough beast.”  I call it

“rape in an abandoned  house.”

Thomas R. Smith is a poet and teacher living in River Falls, Wisconsin. He teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. His most recent poetry collection is The Glory (Red Dragonfly Press).

GOODBYE, CHARON

 by David Spicer

Charon, no converted souls await you on this side 

of the river. Guided by your two ugly thugs,

Klaus the Klansman and Hector the Hell’s Angel,

you frighten the depressed night with amber hair,

its illicit brilliance shining for your devoted

minions with the dull transience of a caution light.

Charon, no new naive souls clamor for you on this

river side. Your boat collects water every time you                      

row down its waves, long ago bereft of their blue,

now shadowed by our despair. We hear your entreaties,

Charon, but your words are empty as our dead skies.

We see your eyes shine with the chaos of conflict,

but we tire of them: no more limber sycamores

bloom in the daytime. We know when the darkness

appears that you are here, your loud presence deaf

to our ears at this late date. Each of us dies, Charon,

but, if we see our end near, we want a fresh ferryman     

to steer us to our side of the stormy river that rises:

Your speeches are lies, you have cheated the taxman,

we do not need your worthless coins to hide our eyes.

Soon morning will wake and we shall demand you

depart our banks, leave with your henchmen, and veer

near the poison side of this river, where your fate awaits:

your reckoning, your trials that you have forever evaded.

David Spicer has published poems in The American Poetry Review, CircleStreet, Gargoyle, Moria, Oyster River Pages, Ploughshares, Remington Review, Santa Clara Review, The Sheepshead Review, Steam Ticket, Synaeresis, Third Wednesday, The New Verse News, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks and four full-length collections, the latest two being American Maniac (Hekate Publishing) and Confessional (Cyberwit.net). His fifth, Mad Sestina King, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press.

SUMMER WINDING DOWN, SALISBURY, 1666

by Sharon Olson

The king is always allowed to do as he wishes.
And so he chose our city, our neighborhood,
as a hiding place from the plague abound in London.
We who live here are weavers, our hands and feet
engage with our looms, the steady thwacking,
for shawls and lap rugs and the tightly woven arras
behind which the king is kept safe, wrapped in his silks.

The king never travels alone but brings his retinue,
his retainers, the men and ladies waiting on him,
jesters, hangers-on, crowds he thrives on
who gawk at the royal trappings, and yes,
the shiny bubble of pestilence has journeyed
here as well, so that each time we entered the church
we could hear the names being written in the parish book
of Salisbury, St. Edmunds, beginning in July:

Elizabeth Clark, of ye plague
Sarah dau of John Conduit, of ye plague
Martha Bartlett, widow, of ye plague
Elizabeth wife of John Conduit, of ye plague

until in September the buriall column in the ledger
overflowed, in Salisbury alone five hundred died.

The king has had his carnival, has come and gone.
Long live the king.


Editor's Note: “Many of the more affluent city members left London when the plague broke out, including King Charles II and his entourage who left the Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Lawrence, to deal with the plague while the king and court retired to Salisbury; they possibly brought the plague with them in the process, as it broke out there after they arrived.  Once this happened, the king and court retired to Oxford to wait it all out.” —Today I Found Out


Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019.

BROKEN RECORD(S)

by Edmund Conti




Most lies. Most firings.
Fewest hirings.
Most gaffes.
Most laughs.
Most insults.
Fewest results.
Most lies (latest count).
Most cronies (large amount).
Most vacations
at southern plantations.
Believe me.  Believe me. Be-
lieve me.  Believe me.  Believe
me. Believe me. Be…

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