DANCING WITH MR. BUNNY

by Alan Walowitz

 

 

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook  Exactly Like Love  comes from Osedax Press.   The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems  is available from Truth Serum Press.  From Arroyo Seco Press,  In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars.  The chapbook The Poems of the Air is from Red Wolf Editions and is free for downloading. 

THE CON MAN AND THE DEVIL

by Scott Talbot Evans

Graphic via Red Bubble

There once was a con man of ill-gotten wealth.

Many counterfeit trophies cluttered his shelf.

He prided himself on his great mental health,

And made known to the world he’d done well for himself.

 

He built monuments, palaces, and towers so high,

That they threatened to poke God Himself in the eye.

The man was so crooked, unscrupulous, and sly,

That Satan decided to give him a try.

 

“Nice to meet you. I’m the Prince of Perdition.

I can see you’re a man of blinding ambition.

If it’s not too much of an imposition,

I offer a once in a life proposition.”

 

“What are you bothering a busy man for?

Can’t you see I have houses and women galore?

What could you possibly add to my score?”

The devil grinned widely and simply said, “More.”

 

“You will boast and brag. Your horn will be tooted.

The masses will fall for you as if struck by Cupid.

They won’t even notice their pockets you looted.

They will believe every word you say, no matter how stupid.”

 

“You will split the world in chaotic division.

Your critics will charge you with crimes and derision,

But my lawyers will twist every fact and decision,

So you won’t spend a single minute in prison.”

 

“I need more. I want banners to herald my name,

In bold proclamation of my unequaled fame.

The public must shower me with so much acclaim,

That it puts Alexander and Caesar to shame.”

 

“You drive a hard bargain. I find you quite droll.

In return for all that, you must pay a small toll,

A possession you won’t even miss on the whole,

A little thing commonly known as your soul.”

 

“Is that all?” The cheater started to squeal.

His eager excitement he tried to conceal.

“Looks like I found myself quite a steal.

Okay, buddy, you’ve got yourself a deal!”

 

They smiled and squinted. Their slimy hands shook.

Lucifer wrote the fool’s name in his book.

And that little scribble was all that it took,

For somewhere in hell an ember started to cook.

 

The man’s fame suddenly started to rise.

Half the world believed all his terrible lies.

His power and ego increased to king-size.

He was hailed as a savior in his followers’ eyes.

 

He invented false dangers to control people’s fears

And inflamed their angers to arouse their cheers.

His empire grew on prejudice and smears,

And contempt from his critics was music to his ears.

 

He hobnobbed with hoodlums, gangsters, and whores.

Tyrants and despots were his secret mentors.

He suppressed opposition with threatening roars,

And brought discord and riots to once peaceful shores.

 

He had unholy power to swindle and cheat.

Honesty and integrity took a back seat.

In no time he rose to the world’s highest seat.

But he could not rest ‘til his gluttony was complete.

 

Every ruler and judge was under his heel.

At his feet, the world’s nations were obligated to kneel.

All the lands and possessions were marked with his seal.

And then he sighed, because there was nothing left to steal.

 

He heard a crack, and there was a puff of smoke.

The demon stood before him in a long flowing cloak.

From the heart of darkness a raspy voice spoke.

“The dream is over. Time for you to get woke.”

 

Beelzebub grinned like a fiend and he said,

“The clock has run out, now. Guess what. You are dead.

Forget all the dreams in your silly head.

Fall to your knees and fill yourself with dread.”

  

“I have kept my bargain to the final dot.

The whole world and everything in it is what you got.

You had your fill, and that is saying a lot.

And now I shall take what is mine on this very spot.”

 

The snake’s eyes glowed and he sounded a gong.

A choir of demons sang a tormented song,

But the whole thing went on for a little too long.

“What is happening here? Something is wrong.”

 

The serpent looked for the man’s pain to begin.

But there wasn’t any, to his great chagrin.

From the corpse’s eyes arose a sparkle from within,

And his wrinkled lips curled into a wicked grin.

 

“I told you I was the best dealmaker bar none.

You shoulda read the fine print when you first begun.

I agreed to give you my soul when all was done,

But the joke’s on you, Satan, because I never had one.”

 

The cheat convulsed with laughter to the point of tears.

The joyful sound burned like acid on the devil’s ears.

“This is the first time I’ve been swindled in all my years.

He bowed. “From one con artist to another, cheers!”

Scott Talbot Evans' poems are published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Samjoko Magazine, and Straight On Till Morning. He was twice a finalist in The New Yorker caption contest and won the GEVA Theater 2 Pages/2 Voices competition and the Script Studio Scriptitude Competition. His work appears in Amazing Stories, Weekly Humorist, Shoreline of Infinity, Creepypod, and Crimeucopia. His novel The Love Police was released last year. He is working on his sixth book.

HOW TO ERASE

by Ron Riekki

Sacheen Littlefeather

“Indigenous identity is complicated. 

What I do know is that the impact that Sacheen had on myself was very real” 

—Devery Jacobs 

  

—“The Sacheen Littlefeather controversy highlights a 

debate over what it means to be Native American,” CNN, November 5, 2022

 

“I like you the way you are” 

—Avril Lavigne, 

“Complicated” 

Sacheen Littlefeather’s sister says that Sacheen 

talked about being native in order to get fame. Yet 

her sister is having no trouble denying being native 

in order to get fame. Why wait until someone is dead 

to have the conversation about their identity?… I know 

someone who’s native. Her brother denies being 

native. & in his denial, it furthers his belief that 

 

he’s not native. Whereas, his sister—who is native— 

goes to native events, is deep friends with native 

people, & so she learns more & more about her

native heritage, but when she tries to explain 

those connections to her brother, he has no 

interest… If Sacheen Littlefeather’s sister 

wanted to understand her sister, then she 

 

would have needed to talk to her sister 

to find out what her sister knew, knows, 

will know. Native is narrative. It is 

the stories we unearth, how we grow 

by unravelling what is unknown. 

A CBS News article I read on 

Sacheen Littlefeather said it 

 

reveals the reality of her her- 

itage, but it misspelled her 

name twice in the article, 

listing her as: Sacheen 

Littlefather & Sacheen 

Littlefield (since 

corrected), but it 

 

made me think 

how the cloud 

outside my 

window 

right 

now 

is a 

 

dog, 

no, 

it’s 

a 

c 

a 

t 

. 

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

DANGEROUS WOMEN

by Elizabeth S. Wolf

It was her first concert
out with friends. The gang of girls.
Besties since babies, they said.
They picked outfits and did their hair,
one high ponytail,  smoky eyes. They listened
to their parents lecture and promised
to follow the signs and obey the rules and
not take drinks from strangers and
oh my god mom, relax. It’s a concert.
Not a bar. Not a North-West Derby
brawl. Just a bunch of girls
dancing and screaming to their
favorite songs. It was Ariana Grande
live on stage: Manchester Arena
Manchester England
22 May 2017.

Three girls, who decided
at the last minute not to wear
kitten ears- three bold teens
walked into the concert as if
they owned the world.

One girl died on the floor,
shattered; the last thing she saw
bouquets of pink balloons
rising towards the ceiling.

The second girl bled from wounds
scattered about her body. She is
in hospital now, hooked up to tubes,
waiting on tests. For several hours
she asked so many questions, over
and over, but now she does not.
She answers the doctors queries,
shifts for the nurses hands: yes, her
ears are still ringing; yes, she still
smells burnt tubing. She sips water
and stares. Shell shock, they whisper.
Her ma and da take turns at her
bedside or tending the others
back home.

The third girl went home
uninjured. She spent a little
longer in the loo and got
separated from her friends.
She lost her voice
screaming for hours.
Now she won’t talk, doesn’t
eat, doesn’t drink. She lies
curled on her bed, clutching
the string from a pink
balloon. When she goes
to the bathroom, her mum
stands by the doorway, crooning
a lullaby. They call her
uninjured, because
she didn’t bleed
at the scene.

She lay in her bed while
day broke up night, again
and again. And on the third
day she called her mum.
Mum, she whispered, wide eyed,
after the bomb there was blood
on the walls, I got so scared.
I was alone! she said,
alone alone. But then
I saw a lady, almost like you,
and she stopped running to lift
up a little girl who had fell.
And the girl, she just hung
on, and I remembered to
look for the helpers.

That’s right, said her mum,
stroking her hair. Look for
the helpers.

And then I was running and screaming
and in the big room, in the hotel,
there was a lady, black as pitch, she
smelled like soap, said the girl. And
I was shaking and looking all around
and she came and held me. I
don’t even know who she is.

That was Amina, said her mum.
She works for the hotel, she
cleans the rooms. She left her own
country to flee the bombs and
find food.  Now she lives here.
And found you.

Mum, said the girl. I know what I want
to do now. I know.

What’s that? asked her mum.

I want to be a helper, said the
girl. And she got out of bed.


Author’s note: Characters and some incidents in this narrative are fictional although descriptions are based on news reports from Manchester.

Elizabeth S. Wolf writes because telling stories is how we make sense of our world, how we heal, and how we celebrate. She seeks that sliver of truth amidst the chattering monkey mind. Also, she sings loudly while driving. Elizabeth’s chapbook What I Learned: Poems is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in fall 2017.

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.