THE DEMOCRATS' POST-MORTEM 2024

by William Aarnes

Graphic credit: Eniola Odetunde  Axios

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

What tactic worked? Beyoncé’s walk-on song?

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

Resentful people rule. So why inflame

them more with hopeful talk they hear as wrong?    

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

You’d think by now we’d play a better game.    

Why hint at climate? Why not go along—

back fossil fuels? We have ourselves to blame.

The ads we ran were far too nice. So tame.

Why not something like Haitians don’t belong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

Our nuanced stances came across as lame.    

Why didn’t we present ourselves as strong  

enough to bring—in days!—world peace? We’re to blame.

Next time let’s make attracting men our aim.

Why didn’t we bring up that golfer’s schlong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

AFTER THE ELECTION

by Joan Mazza

“The Truth Dawns,” a painting at Fruitful Dark.

                I’ll never tell a lie. —Jimmy Carter, 1976.

And now the long trek back to sanity, without

a daily outrage or ten, without the avalanche of lies,

earthquakes of violations of the Hatch Act,

projecting corruption onto others. We’ll climb

back to believe in science based on evidence,

dismantle claims of conspiracies without basis.

We’ll embark on a clear plan to tackle a virus

that has tackled us, one that will kill another million

in the world before its spread slows. Let us return

to curiosity and real conversation without name-

calling, without mocking names and appearance,

without shaming skin shade and hairstyles. Let’s

educate ourselves about nuance and subtlety,

the fluidity of gender and identity, how temperament

and preferences change across our lives. Let us teach

our children how to manage complex emotions

and validate their experience of confusion. Let’s preach

honesty as a practical living strategy, more than a virtue.

Finally decent, we end the gaslighting and distortion,

the refusal to be transparent after the promise.

Let’s accept truth as not always pretty, but embrace

it as a guide toward what is real and tangible

as apples, tactile and heartening as someone

looking into your eyes and squeezing your hand,

comforting as a poem at a president’s inauguration.

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia where she writes a poem every day and has been baking bread since before Covid19.