PROJECT 2025

by Janet Blair

Call me crotchety and loud
ineffective and utopian 
unrealistic and wasteful.

Laugh as I hold postered signs 
made with markers and glitter 
waving them at street corners downtown 
chanting about democracy 
calling out to the cars honking in agreement.

Roll your eyes.
Say it will not make one iota of difference.
We are awash in red here, completely surrounded. 

As the blood seeps in,

words are banned and bodies under lock.

They machete through decades of progress
rewrite dictionaries and craft spells to spoon feed 
the dozing people around us.  

Still, I will stomp
call out to the moon and paint my face 
bottling up today's screams 
to send floating toward the future

never choosing silence or submission. 

You see, I was trained for this shit early on—
learned how to cradle a cry inside when the belt lashed
how to hold my head up the next day 
and look a tyrant straight in the eye

how to march through the 

shredded gift-wrapping paper

and blooming bluish bruises 
toward an exit sign 
at the end of a long, long hallway of years. 

I know how to crawl 
                                toward the light... 

Janet Blair lives and works in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, she is a weekend poet who dreams of writing full time. Her most recent work can be found in South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), The Florida Bards Anthology and The Eckerd Review.

ON THE ROAD WITH MY GRANDDAUGHTER BEFORE THE 2024 ELECTION

by Susan Vespoli

~Dedicated to the man who just macheted Trump signs in Yuma and then drove his car over them

Feeling cranky about mean election signs

along Phoenix streets that tell lies or say F**k 

one candidate’s prayers, (paid for by his Republican

opponent for Senate) yet finding myself laughing 

at the Hitler mustaches graffitied onto the upper lip 

of Trump and Kari Lake, I tell myself to breathe, 

ask my granddaughter about Addy, 

the 4th grade friend she calls talented. How so? I ask, 

and Molly replies, well, she can suck in her breath 

so hard her nostrils seal shut, and she can stand  on her head 

and balance her water bottle on the sole of one of her shoes. 

Did you see her do it? I ask. Yes, she nods. I exhale.

Susan Vespoli believes in the power of writing to heal. Her poems have been published in NVN, Rattle, ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, and other cool spots.

RAW STUFF

by Carolyn Gregory



Their guns become their dolls,
each with a girl's name on it
and carved tattoo
they caress and polish
like vintage cars

With summer on their hands
and nothing playing at the movies
after the slasher film goes
the way of its bloody machete,

they train on tin cans
popping off little soldiers
on a fence,
steady as she comes
before antlers and coyotes follow --
no time for sentiment

Back with their kill,
they puff up chests and strut
as they continue
making men out of raw stuff,
rifle in a backpack,
Glock in a leather pocket.


Carolyn Gregory's poems and essays on music have been published in American Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Bellowing Ark, Seattle Review, and Stylus. She was featured in For Lovers and Other Losses. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2011 and is a past recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. Her book, Open Letters, was published by Windmill Editions in 2009 and her next, Facing the Music, in 2012. She has been working on a series about the history of guns in America for several years now.