UNCLOGGING A DRAIN DURING THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

by Charles Goodrich

Protesters hold signs near the Capitol during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Jan. 29, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP - Getty Images via NBC News, January 29, 2020

Toilet’s plugged
and the bathroom sink drain’s sluggish.
I was in the dumps already
over national politics.

Abuse of power.
Obstruction of justice.
I’m guessing the septic tank
is overdue for pumping. And meanwhile
we still haven’t seen his taxes.

But even glum and angry
I can still do some minor plumbing.
I run the drain-snake, work the plunger,
get the commode running.

Next, with an arm’s-length of wire,
a little hook bent into the end,
I fish a wet, gray gob of hair-gunk
from the sink’s P-trap
then pour baking soda,
salt, and vinegar down the drain
and wait for the chemical reaction to begin.

Even if the Senate trial
turns out to be a sham,
I love the sound when the blockage dissolves
and the sink drain hisses and foams.

Following a long career as a professional gardener and a decade working with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, Charles Goodrich now grows poems and composes fruits and vegetables from his Knot House abode near Corvallis. He’s the author of three books of poetry, A Scripture of Crows; Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden; and Insects of South Corvallis, and a collection of essays, The Practice of Home, and has co-edited two anthologies, Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest and In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens. His poems and essays have appeared in Orion, High Country News, The Sun and many other journals and anthologies.

JUST THE FACTS

by g emil reutter

The shade is always drawn
bland as a meadow hiding from the sun
robin pecks at cracks in dirt
worms deep in hardened soil.

This poem could be about window shades
a meadow, a robin or worms but it isn’t.

Coffee maker gasps and chugs, good to the
last drop, I pour my morning fix. Sun is shy
today, humidity at 83%.

But this poem isn’t about a good cup of coffee
or the weather today.

On Wednesday I watched as the old man spoke
baggy eyes, drawn face. A serious man encircled
by the circus of sound bite panelists. He spoke
the truth, did not perform.

Not a hoax he said, integrity he said, obstruction
true he said, no conspiracy with the enemy he
said, contacts he said. Although there was a
sputter here and there, his just the facts response
reflected courage, the search for the truth.

The Russians are coming again in 2020 he said.

In this time of chicken-hawks, cowardly pols
self-important talking heads, this old man
pushed up the blind, let the sun in.

Down Pennsylvania Avenue, President Bone Spur
squints from the light, speaks of performance
distorts facts, criticizes the heroic old man whose
shoes he could never wear.

And so it is, moisture from the air seeps into the
ground, unrelenting robin hops and listens, plucks
a fat worm through the softened surface. Much as
the old man did on a Wednesday in July of 2019.


g emil reutter can be found at here.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE MUELLER REPORT

by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose

Cartoon by Steve Sack Star Tribune Jul 23, 2019

“We chose these words carefully, and the words speak for itself. The report is my testimony.” 

—Robert Mueller announcing his resignation at the DOJ, May 29, 2019

“I’m just going to leave it as it appears in the report.”

—Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary Committee, July 24, 2019

I

Among so many rapid-fired questions
The only obvious thing
is Mueller would prefer to refer us to the Mueller Report.


II

We are of three branches, broken
Like a felled tree
In which there caws the Mueller Report.


III

The Mueller Report spun in the extreme heat and tornados.
(no small part of climate change—but who cares?)


IV

A president and an attorney general
are one.
A Robert Mueller Testimony and a Robert Mueller Report
are one.


V

No one knew which parts to read first
The parts on collusion
Or the parts on obstruction
The Mueller Report in its entirety
Or just the CliffsNoted testimony.


VI

Pundits twittered
after the barbaric wait.
Whole sections of The Mueller Report
Crossed out.
The omissions
deduced in skittled sentence fragments
   An impeachable case?


VII

O dim subjects of T***pworld,
Why do you dream of singing canaries?
Do you not see how the Mueller Report
Hops all over you?


VIII

I know the difference
between careful words and testimony;
But I know, too,
That the Mueller Report is involved
In what I know.


IX

When Mueller flew the coop
It marked the end
Of many chattering hopes.


X

At the thought of The Mueller Report
steaming on a platter,
the frenzied mobs readied their forks.
Would they eat crow?


XI

The president rode over Washington
In a military parade.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his leaked Access Hollywood tape
For the Mueller Report.


XII

The President and his cronies are celebrating.
The Mueller Report must be flying south.


XIII

We’ve been waiting all year.
They are snowing us.
And we are going to be snowed.
The Mueller Report flapped
For 400 pages. Then nose-dived

            A cooked goose
            A mockingbird
            A raven cawing Never More.


Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose's work appears in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, TheNewVerse.News, The Weekly Humorist, The Satirist, The Belladonna, and many others.  She lives in Rochester, NY and is a founding member of Straw Mat Writers.  Twitter: @libbyjohnston74

THE QUESTION GULLS

by Alejandro Escudé

“Boy, some days I sure wish I was an ensign on the bridge of that destroyer again.” —Admiral Mike Rogers

It makes sense the Admiral would rather
be where the brackish sea-wind
sweeps away the confusion, where
the gulls are questions rising up into the air,
always answered. The 5-inch gun points
in one direction, whatever direction
it’s trained to point, no traitor likely
to sidle up to the Admiral on that deck,
no wickedness, because the enemy
of a destroyer isn’t wicked after it’s dubbed
“enemy.” Evil isn’t within the purview
of soldiers. Ask the Romans who had
to watch Christ drag his own cross.
They believe the only commandment
is the order. But the Admiral speaks
into his microphone and knows how
to translate I won’t tell on the president,
I’ve said enough, and you should know that.
There will be a closed-door meeting
in a room that they call a SCIF as if
the senators were anglers out on the sea,
nothing to do but discuss sensitive issues.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.