L’SHANAH TOVA WISHES FROM ‘45’

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

When I lived in the western U.S. 

people told me that as a Jew 

I should value how the GOP 

made religion the foremost

test for American citizens. 

 

They said Democrats and Liberals 

were secularists

secular meaning socialist

a.k.a. godless 

there can be no covenant

no Eretz

unless you are free market capitalist

 

of course, socialism was 

one of Zionism’s foundations

think Kibbutz for instance

 

Subtext: I should become a Jew for Jesus. 

 

There are and have long been socialists 

who are religious 

their political-spiritual imagination  

just happens to range beyond 

the Rocky Mountains 

or a golf course in DeSantis land

to touch the former ghettos of Europe 

the current Cheders of Brooklyn 

and Buenos Aires and lots of places 

lost to the amnesiac memory 

of rapturists.  

 

Recently, ‘45’ wished my people 

L’Shanah Tova before telling 70+

percent of us that we voted 

to destroy America and Israel. 

 

What I want to know is 

if I change my voter registration 

to Trumpist, will Kanye and Elon 

also send me New Year’s wishes

 

How about Nick Fuentes?

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes region of Canada. His most recent book is Flint River published by Alien Buddha Press (2023). 

TRUMP IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, AGAIN

by Susan Cossette

Photograph by Mark Wilson / Getty via The New Yorker

It is Wednesday, 

another happy hour at the Chesterbird American Legion.
 
The usual suspects of retirees, widows, 
and slumming white collar workers shuffle in
to claim a spot at the sticky bar, 
a creaky chair at a wobbly table.
We buy bingo tickets, pull tabs, and cheese curds.
 
Tonight, the MAGA hats return,
worn bent brims, sweat stains on the cap.
Bearded men in Carhart workpants take selfies,
drink cheap American beer.
 
Make America Great and Glorious Again.
Gloating, they wait for new, improved, hats.
 
In the meantime, they disparage the “fucking Jews”
and the snowflake liberals.
 
In 1943, my Aunt Theresa was deported to Auschwitz,
greeted by Josef Mengele.
His leather crop pointed right, 
she went to the barracks.
Her head and pubic hair shaved by male SS.
She was 15.
 
Everyone who went right got the Zyklon B, 
her parents included.
Tourists regard the fingernail scratches on the cement walls 
under false shower heads.
 
I pay my bill, quietly,
tap one red-hat man on the shoulder
and tell him this story
and that perhaps he needs to reconsider hate speech
in public spaces 
because you never know who might be listening.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New York Quarterly, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press) and Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press).

BLESSING OF THE NEWS CYCLE

by Rick Mullin

The liberals were shocked and grieved
about the tête-à-tête.
The pope and that Kentucky clerk?
...Well, some were less upset.

Conservatives rejoiced as did
the silent Christian Right.
A sit-down with il Papa lent
true credence to their plight.

But then the news about a hoax,
a photo from Peru.
That prayer-meet was a football match!?
Well, everybody knew

an explanation would arrive
to wipe the tablets clear.
A memo from the Vatican.
And, sure enough, it’s here:

It seems the pope was Shanghaied by
some bishops on the ground
gone gravely rogue in Washington
or somewheres there-around

who propped Kim Davis up amidst
a group at some event
contrived for papal blessings in
a big white floppy tent.

A PR stunt by Huckabee
and flunkies of the Huck.
No big surprise, we know these guys
and recognize their shuck.

So everything is back on track.
Godspeed the Holy See.
The Family Synod starts this week.
God save the family!


Rick Mullin's most recent volume of poetry is Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle, published by Dos Madres Press last year.