WHAT I NEED TO HEAR

by Stacie Somerset

Two weeks before the election, I visited my hometown—

a conservative Texas suburb of little appeal.

I went to see two queer YouTubers I’d grown up watching.

The YouTubers came out five years ago, shortly after I came out.

Their fanbase is queer and liberal, even in Texas.

At the show they dressed in the queerest outfits they’d ever worn

and announced proudly, “Yes, we are dressed like this. IN TEXAS!”

The audience went wild.

The queer joy was unparalleled. 

I looked at the cheering fans around me and thought,

These are my people.

My people.

I belong here.

After every election, everyone jokes about eliminating the red states.

“Imagine if all the people in Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida just died”

“The country would be so much better without them”

“Those places are hellholes anyway”

And fuck, part of me agrees—Texas is a hellhole,

but it’s a hellhole full of my people.

Good people, queer people, liberal people who can’t leave

or choose to stay and fight.

Part of me is proud of them,

and ashamed I didn’t stay to fight with them.

Over four million Texans voted blue.

Over six million Texans voted red, true,

but four million people is SO MANY PEOPLE.

Too many people to dismiss or ignore.

I will always remember that I can go to Texas

and be surrounded by liberal love and queer joy.

Hate won, but we still exist.

We exist everywhere

—even in the darkest hellholes—

and they cannot erase us.

Stacie Somerset lives in Athens, Ohio with their wife, dog, and two tortoises. They recently received a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Ohio University. Their work has appeared in Arts Against Extremism and elsewhere.

JUSTICE IN TRIPLICATE

by Lavinia Kumar

Know the constitution is not just a ye-olde parchment scroll, it
Amplifies restraint of judicial roles, not an attempt to cover them in
Gown, black or white. Know congress not court make law. We
Angrily, we must, protect all American people knowing that in this
Number are color, gender, poverty, and most of all, reality.
 
Sickening is constitutional subversion rolling back racial equality
On the backs of spoiled children and mommies
Touting “unfairness” to a receptive group of
Outed outward rightists with no interest in settled law, nor
Maintaining a semblance of right. Where is Equal Protection against
Anchors around Black necks not just for
Years, but for decades, for centuries – such
Ongoing abuse, such dehumanizing lack of recognition of
Rights, yes, equal rights.  Right…
 
Just as ostriches in sand, some justices in a white marble palace wish
Away race, inequality, lack of opportunity in a
Collective blindness that racism isn’t racism as though not
Knowing oft-scribed history, so whitewash it to
Satisfy their simpering sycophancy as though legislated law too
Onerous.  They use diamond blinders given to them unethically by
New and old millionaire pals divorced from reality.

 
Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is Spirited American Women: Early Writers, Artists, & Activists—very short prose of near 90 amazing women writers, poets, publishers, painters, artists, abolitionists, early suffragettes, and activists.

THE MAKING OF A DEMOCRAT

by Gil Hoy

A young boy 

was still growing. 

Still learning 

whether he’d be happy

or he’d be sad. 

 

Early one morning,

his mother was slowly 

backing the family car 

out of the driveway. 

 

She began chanting:

“I love life, 

I love people,

I love the earth.”

 

While tapping her foot

and gently honking 

the car horn.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet, nominated for a Best of the Net award in 2020, who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy's poetry has previously appeared in The New Verse News, Best Poetry Online, Muddy River Poetry Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review, Misfit Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Chiron Review, and elsewhere. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, 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 four terms and is a semi-retired personal injury lawyer.

TONIGHT IN PORTLAND

by Penelope Scambly Schott






Winds gust.
Rain slashes.
Douglas firs bend.
Pine cones pound my metal roof.
Have I mentioned how much I love my roof?

Have I described cardboard under sleeping bags?
Shopping carts heaped with wet collections?
The meager windscreen of a dumpster?
A wet dog under the only blanket?
Did I say how cold this rain?

In our whole liberal city
there is not enough
hot soup.


Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books are House of the Cardamon Seed and November Quilt.

ODE TO MY CITY

by Elizabeth Stansberry

When I ask my friend in California about Portland,
She says that it is a
Liberal Bubble,
A land where you can sleep until noon,
And still have a career,
A place where the shooting star tattoo on your face,
Will not
Get you fired.
I breathe in church music,
And I never tell her.
I curve my body into a crooked question mark,
Never wanting
To tell her.
She should know
I think.
Haven't you watched the news ?
There is possibly a new planet,
Again,
And a new Portland,
On the rise.
While gliding down Broadway street,
My liberal blinders tightly fastened,
My liberal blinders highly fashioned,
I anticipated the glamour of an art show.
Roche chocolates, white wine,
white walls,
A tingling white noise in the night.
Portraits of suburbanite ghosts and
Goblins.
Snippets of Halloween intentions.
I would sip the white wine, tasting of olives
Dipped in sugar.
This is Art?
I would whisper to my friend.
I look up to see,
I have walked through a red light,
Admist my dreaming.
I am suddenly sharply aware
Of everything.
Like a bat looking for
Prey.
I see the Patriot Prayer March.
They are not
Praying.
They are not
Marching.
They are waving American flags,
They are waving Signs that say ,
"Proud to be White."
Proud boys.
Proud to be racist.
Proud to be angry.
Proud about beating a liberal with
the American flag on Saturday night,
And going to church in white dress shirts,
Sunday morning.
I am standing in my fake diamond necklace,
And the dress that looks expensive,
And I am suddenly angry
Too.
I am waving my middle finger at the patriots,
Like it is the last thing I will ever do.
I am waving my cane at rabid bystanders,
Unhinging,
Unhinging the armor of
White Privilege.
I want to tell my friend in California,
That there is a new Portland
On the rise.
I know she wouldn't believe
Me.

Elizabeth Stansberry has been writing poetry since she was 8 years old. She has been published in Oregon Art's Watch, Eclectic Muse, Soul Fountain, Skyline Review, Eskimo Pie Journal, Mused Magazine, Red Fez Journal, and others. She is a secretary and security guard at Prosper Portland. She has many other day jobs. Her most recent poem is published in the book Not My President from Thoughtcrime Press. Stansberry currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

WHERE ARE YOU NOW, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, THAT YOUR PARTY NEEDS YOU?

by George Salamon

#BankLobbyistAct

“And Eleanor always took a stand

For the hungry and the homeless all across the land.”

—Jonathan Sprout, “Eleanor”

The new liberal elite,
Ungenerous of heart,
Narrow of mind,
Intolerant of the other,
In denial of complexity,
Souls as dead as those
You pretend to hate
But see fit to serve.
Technocrats of delusion,
Your masters orchestrate
Your intrusion into
Their empire of cronyism and collusion.
Amused by your shouts of resistance,
As their paychecks assure your compliance.


George Salamon agrees with the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818 to 1897) who wrote: "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity."

BIPARTISAN TO BIPENNATE

by John Beaton

Eagle with One Wing by Christopher Hall.

I saw a bird with just one wing.
The poor thing could not fly;
it fluttered in a clockwise ring.
Another squawked nearby,

similarly handicapped,
but anticlockwise in
the one-winged way it feebly flapped.
They filled me with chagrin

and then a bright idea brewed—
what if I was to tie
the two together? Then they could
Siamesely fly.

And so they did, the left wing and
the right, united, flew.
It happened in cloud cuckoo land—
one wing was red, one blue.



John Beaton, a retired actuary who was born in Scotland, is a widely published poet and spoken word performer from Vancouver Island, Canada.

GUZZLING DOWN THE BLUES

a post-election ghazal
by Joe Pacheco

I wake up each morning but can’t turn on the news,
My coffee’s cold and bitter with the Sore Loser Blues.

Start to write a poem, but I can’t find my muse,
She’s run away and left me with just Sore Loser Blues.

Called up Liberty Travel for a one-way Canada cruise,
They told me they’re booked solid with the Sore Loser Blues.

I’m keeping my Clinton sign, in case we didn’t lose,
But don’t know where to hide it with these Sore Loser Blues.

Maybe I’ll jump into the mainstream and drown my liberal views,
It’ll be easier to swim the narrows with the Sore Loser Blues.

The President-elect is desperate, no Dems left to abuse,
He’s willing to twitter anyone with the Sore Loser Blues.

Our nation’s divided, Pacheco, pick a side to choose,
It’s either freeloading Red states or the Sore Loser Blues.

Joseph Pacheco is a retired New York City superintendent  living on Sanibel Island. His  poetry has been featured several times on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Latino USA and WGCU. He has performed his poetry with David Amram’s jazz quartet at the Bowery Poets Café and Cornelia Street Café in New York City. He writes a poetry column for the Sanibel Islander and his poetry has appeared in English and Spanish in the News-Press. In 2008 he received the Literary Artist of the  Year award from Alliance for the Arts. He has published three books of poetry, The First of the Nuyoricans/Sailing to  Sanibel, Alligator in the Sky and, Sanibel Joe’s Songbook.