I WILL MISS THE LARGE ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA

by Michael Brockley

Woody Guthrie in March 1943.

The bison. The grizzly bears. The jaguars that can’t leap over the wall along the border river. I will miss reading irreverent books. Novels where Jesus has a friend named Biff. Comic books where Deadpool is a hero. I will miss news reporters who know that Kansas City is in Missouri and that Benjamin Franklin never resided in the White House. I will miss the White House. The Smithsonian, the Statue of Liberty, and Yellowstone. I will wonder how Old Faithful might be disappeared. I will miss pennies. And the Beatitudes, the part of the Bible Kurt Vonnegut valued the most. I will miss voting for women. I will miss movies that tell the stories of men and women who don’t look like me. I will miss being able to see Venus and Mars on clear nights. I will miss strawberries and tomatoes and watermelons and sweet potatoes and cranberries and sunflowers and cherries. I will miss guitars with This Machine Kills Fascists scrawled across their bodies. I will miss dogs that look more like wolves than weapons of war. I will miss saying  Feliz Navidad, Fröhliche Weihnachten, and Mele Kalikimaka. I will miss finger-pointing songs. I will miss licorice. Yes, I will even miss licorice.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana, His prose poems have appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Red Eft Review, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. Brockley's prose poems are also forthcoming in Ley Lines Literary Review, Seat at the Table, and Alien Buddha.

READING THE NEWS

by Howie Good

We are all neighbors 

and what is poetry 
but a few simple words 
that somehow express
complicated things 
the towering piles of corpses 
in the Ukraine and Gaza 
and the movies

Howie Good's latest book Frowny Face (Redhawk Publishing, 2023) is a mix of his prose poems and handmade collages. He co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

LETTER TO DONALD DUCK FROM SPIDERMAN

by Richard Garcia

Hey Donald, where have you been?
I haven't seen any Donald
Duck Part II movies. And what happened
to that uncle of yours,
Scrooge or something, used
to swim in his swimming pool full of
money? Some people say he just one day
disappeared, and now you have enough
money to sail your yachts across oceans
of money. I know, they're grown up now
and working for you, but I always
wondered about those nephews of yours,
Huey, Dewey, and Louie. How did they
just show up like that one day? And who's
their momma? Do they both have the
same Momma? Did you adopt them from
some Iron Curtain country? What
happened to Daisy? And I never could
understand about that dog of yours. I
mean, if Pluto is a dog, just who or what
is Goofy? He's got the feet of a clown,
body of some lanky oaf, face of a buck-
tooth bloodhound and talks like some
stupid alien. Is he human or some kind of
DNA experiment gone wrong? Donald,
I'm worried about you. You hiding out?
It's not enough to be a comic book hero
anymore. You have to be a franchise, a
package, several  blockbusters, T-shirts,
hoodies, action figures. You've got to
keep up, Donald. You know, I heard about
that flop of a Clark Kent. He doesn't even
know there's no newspapers any more.
He was seen running around skid row in
that same business suit. And guess what,
he was still looking for a phone booth.
Just a word to the wise Donald, get your
spidey sense going. Maybe get yourself
a mask, a costume or something.

Richard Garcia's recent books, The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press and The Chair from BOA, were both published in 2015. His recent book Porridge was published by Press 53 in 2016. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Georgia Review, Spillway, Poetry and in anthologies such as The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

LIFE NOIR

by David Feela






Old movies
permit a man
seducing a woman
to grab her,
even as the woman
fights back.
Her role
requires she be
handled by men,
aversion or
explicit refusal
written into
a script that ends
for the audience
like a fairytale.
The director
understands,
he too is a man
and he wants her
to resist, loves
seeing how
grandly she demurs,
every retake
just to prove
she wants
to get it
right.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

BREAKING: FIRST DRAFT OF T***P INAUGURAL ADDRESS "FOUNDED"

by James Penha

Inspired by "Claims about President Trump lifting lines from various films for his inaugural address are unfounded." —Snopes

America, first you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punks? Today, I consider Americans the luckiest people on the face of the earth. Cause they call me Mister President! Yippie-ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the greatest one of all? America? First, I’m ready for my close-up. Hello, Gorgeous. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I have never depended on the kindness of strangers. Being me means never having to say you’re sorry.

I'm the king of the world! Round up the usual suspects. I love the smell of fear in the world.  I keep my friends close, but my enemies disappear. A Muslim once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Mexico? Go ahead, make my day, Mexico. Hasta la vista, baby. I'll wall you pretty, and your little chihuahua, too! If I build a wall, no one will come. Refugees, you're gonna need a bigger boat. One morning I shot a refugee in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.

Who can't handle the truth? The first rule of the Truth is: You do not tell the Truth.

The White House? What a dump. I am big! It's the house that got small. Life is a banquet, and most of you poor suckers are starving to death!

Tax returns? We ain't got no tax returns! We don't need no tax returns! I don't have to show you any stinking tax returns! I rob banks. I’m as mad as hell, and I'm not going to file them anymore! Show me the money! As God is my witness, I'll never be bankrupt again.

Why so serious? I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. You ain't heard nothin' yet! After all, tomorrow is another of the first 100 days! Carpe diem. I feel the need—the need for speed! Fasten your seatbelts, America. It's going to be a bumpy night. To infinity and beyond!

My daughter thanks me. My son-in-law thanks me. My sons thank me. And you had better thank me. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow me. La-dee-da, la-dee-da.

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

TO A YOUNGER FRIEND PREFERRING BOYHOOD OVER BIRDMAN

by Rick Mullin

 

Of course you can relate.  After all,

you were a boy once too. And you might
marry and put one through the system yourself.

I hardly recommend it. But despite

having raised three girls and never having beaten
my wife, I can tell you that Linklater got it right.

He gave us life… to a point.

On technical concept, let’s call it a draw.

But as for my favorite of the two, allow me

to share my experience in movie-going:

Detesting all inside-theater baseball,

I checked out in the early scenes, allowing
confusion to hold sway over narrative.
 

I sought entertainment in light and color,

haircuts, tits and ass in wardrobe, repartee,

until I saw myself, POW!, who was once a boy

and survived all that. Who was loved but wonders now.
Who has exited the stage door, boarded planes,

attended conferences in underpants or worse,
a recurring dream of dashing to a suitcase
or a car in which my legs are iffy
and the voices in my head surmount facetious,

glib, forgotten or remembered joke.

You didn’t like the ending? Well, I would say

[no spoiler] that the bird was captured by the day.

I will honor your opinion, friend.

But when you are old, and your future is behind you,
watch these films again! Especially if your future
was comprised of bogus costume heroics and
one or two memorable spots on Letterman.

Rick Mullin's poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. His most recent book, Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle was published in December by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, Ohio.

THE FALL

by Tatyana Muradov 

Stanislavski as the Knight in The Society of Art and Literature's 1888 production of Pushkin's The Miserly Knight.

Welcome to Russia circa 1991.  

Ask but do not answer. Survive.

Positions are fickle. Open lies. 

Wolf eyes. Uniform responses.  

Family fuck ups and generations of militants.

Socialist foxes sucking on the nothings of your neighbor.

Zone out. Fade out. 

Whatever. 

You only exist in the reflection of your money. 

Don’t give input, just spend,

Survive. 

Push past the thieves and the games.

Don’t switch sides, nothing will change. 

Sleep, bitch.

I come from a battered peoples

I may look white, but I am muddied grey

From centuries of waiting for a parent

To teach my people how to live.

How to take a land so spanning and reign it right

How to use the resource full and make it use full 

How to take the money out of politicians pockets and put it into schools.

My sixteen year old cousin doesn’t go to school

She skips class to post pictures of herself on Tumblr

She skips class because no one taught her not to

Because the chances of her getting into college

Ride on the bank account of her mother

And the ride is short

And admission is partial.

I do not know how to tell her to behave in a country that teaches her daily to do what’s easy

To try less.

To play dumb.

To leave it to those in charge. 

I do not know how to love a country that gets away with murder, daily.

I do not know how to love a jungle,

A country with no name, just letters

that get shifted with each new president

who promises my people rights

and shits on them more than the last.

I do not know how to love a coward,

A country that does not fight back

A country that jails Robin Hood and cheers for the Joker

A country that gives itself a bad rep

With people that make me look bad.

I am so sick of being related to 

The mafia

The winter cold

The bad guy in every fucking movie

The mail-order bride

The Stalin

The Putin

The protests

The Pussy Riot,

The misuse of the word babushka, which means grandmother, you fuckers 

The word sneaky

The word evil

The word corrupt

The word communist

The word red

The word hate

The word fear

I have been soiled with hate and fear for years.

I had to put five thousand miles between us to feel safe,

And I’m still scared. 

But I miss her,

And every time I go there, I feel her underneath my feet, weeping.

Laughter is universal.

So is pain and pride.

But somehow here, at home, everything is more alive.  

Even the cigarette buds and pollen that pollute this city

Layer by layer.

But next to the industrial remnants stands a tree more beautiful than your own mother

And you breathe a sigh of relief

And remember about hope                                                                                       

And what could be

If only they cared more.

If only you cared more.

Apprehension lingers on your spine                                                  

Like food stuck in your teeth

And Pushkin’s “Land of Moscow” comes to mind:

“And where the luxury was thriving,

In shady parks and gardens, in the past,

Where myrtle was fragrant, limes were shining,

There now are just coals, ash, and dust.”

He’s right, the scent of dust is overbearing but what about the rose haw and the conifers?

There are still things to fight for, 

Aren’t there? 

Tatyana Muradov was born in Moscow, Russia and raised in a small town in Texas. She moved to New York two years ago and since then, has been a part of the poetry scene there in the city performing for spoken word/slam teams such as LouderArts and Urbana.