PREMONITION

by Susan Vespoli

      “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

 —Christopher

On Tuesday, all set for a victory

party, I stopped at the grocery store

and bought sushi, California rolls, seaweed 

salad, a clear bottle of pink Cosmopolitans,

Haagen-Dazs ice cream, and I tried to buy a cake 

topped with KAMALA WINS IN A LANDSLIDE, 

but the guy at the bakery counter just eyeballed me,

said no one there knew how to write on a cake.

Susan Vespoli believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, Anti-Heroin Chic, ONE ART, Rattle, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots.

OVERTLY POLITICAL

by David Dumouriez

in response to the announcement of the UK general election.

Link here to Xwitter.

Election sickness
is on us once more,
with a worse set of symptoms
than ever before.

There’s the hoard of campaigners
who will burst through the gate
intending to give us
the bullshit we hate;

there are more of them still
who will tramp till they bleed
to deliver those leaflets
we don’t want to read.

There’s our constituency member
whose job-losing fears
make him visit these parts
for the first time in years.

There are those who oppose him,
who want what he’s had;
they claim to be better

but they’ll be just as bad.

There are three party leaders
who each boast they’ll win
(though two of them know

that they’ll never get in).

There’s the phony sincerity,
the well-rehearsed lies;
there’s the promise of everything

under the skies.

There’s debating and speeches,
many words are received;
but it’s air and not action,

so there’s nothing achieved.

There are infantile adverts
meant to mask what’s unsound
about the party elites

and the guff they propound.

There’s the media coverage
where, with serious breath,
overpaid people
try to talk us to death.

There’s the collection of ‘experts’
from colleges wide,
who make duff predictions
then run off and hide.

There’s the feeling in voters,
drawn from years in the past,
that the parties betray them
when the votes have been cast.

So discuss all the options—
that won’t tax your jaws—
half think about stirring,
and then stay indoors.

David Dumouriez wouldn't be tempted to blow his own trumpet even if a) he had a trumpet or b) he knew how to play one.

YAWN

by Rose Mary Boehm

This week, Key West, Fla., experienced record-high temperatures, with a heat index of 115 degrees. Even the late Jimmy Buffett would have had trouble finding enough margaritas for that. Parts of South Florida were also hit by smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Mexico. This is also the week that Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that removes the words climate change from many state laws. —NPR, May 17, 2024

So they had another party. 

Too high, too drunk, too wasted, they didn't notice

when half their guests and a major piece of their huge

garden disappeared, pulled into the ink-dark waters

by an enormous, merciless hand.

They laughed when the swimming pool followed.

But suddenly they woke and looked at each other's distorted faces

in horror, then drifted off

with the competing currents.

There was no-one to look for their bloated bodies,

because there was no-one left to care.

And the sharks inherited the waters.

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit 2022), and Saudade (2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection Life Stuff published by Kelsay Books in 2023.

BALLOONS

by William Aarnes

                after Ingar Christensen 

blown-up balloons exist 

and celebrations exists 

with their popping party balloons, 

adults as caught up 

in the popping 

as their kids 

 

and helium-filled balloons exist 

and the joyful, worried disappointment 

of their so quickly drifting away 

from outstretched hands 

to land somewhere they shouldn’t 

after they burst 

 

and hot-air balloons exist, 

colorful hot-air balloons 

for the risky thrill  

of being above it all, 

of looking down at the countryside, 

the treetops, the houses, the cars, 

the people puny as can be, 

hot-air balloon rides exist 

for that glorious, if fleeting feeling  

that everything’s yours 

as far as the eye can see 

  

weather balloons exist, 

meteorologists all around the world 

working together, 

twice a day releasing balloons,  

balloons that rise twenty miles high 

before they burst, their radiosondes  

parachuting back to earth  

with all their measurements 

of how cold and windy it is 

up above 

 

and spy balloons exist, 

because people don’t get along 

spy balloons exist, 

keeping track 

of whatever nefarious planning 

and digging and building 

and moving around 

must be going on 

 

and nation-states exist, 

nation-states puffed-up 

and thin-skinned as balloons 

William Aarnes lives in New York. He admires—and thinks everyone should read and reread—Susanna Nied's translation of Ingar Christensen's alphabet.

MAGICIANS

by Katherine West

At first they just let us out for Christmas 

like Eleanor of Aquitaine 

in Lion in Winter

We were a bit cranky 

(like Eleanor of Aquitaine)

and it didn’t go well

Nevertheless, they kept trying 

and many called for our presence 

at Easter 

We sat between chicks 

and bunnies 

and tried to look fluffy

Better this time

as long as we didn’t speak 

or bare our teeth while eating chocolate rabbits 

Soon birthdays were demanded

like clowns or magicians 

no party was complete without us 

until someone pulled a baby 

out of a hat 

(instead of a scarf or a white rabbit) 

pink and plump 

and lisping mama

so that everyone could hear 

They had forgotten 

that we 

could do that 

They tried to lock us up  

citing the Constitution 

and the Bible 

but we had learned a thing or two 

from our time 

in the limelight 

When they came to take us away (again) 

we put our hands over our heads and clapped

like Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter 

We vanished 

(like Dumbledore)

but no one said we had “class”

Hidden in plain sight now 

we walk the streets barefoot 

leaving bloodprints behind us 

impossible not to follow 

We magnetize the races 

like Joan of Arc in Joan of Arc

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash! and Eucalypt, Writers Resist, and Feminine Collective. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City New Mexico, the Tambaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado.

THE VIEW FROM WHERE I SIT

by Brooke Herter James

 

The cloud of fog

hovering

over the mountain

has shaped itself

into a jaunty cap—

the kind one might wear

to a party 

or a parade.

Brooke Herter James is a poet living in Vermont.

PITY THE NATION

by Kent Reichert

after Kahlil Gibran

after Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Pity the nation whose people look and speak and act alike,
embracing white as the color without hue.
Whose citizens chant in auditoriums,
as if the act of uttering the words
will make it so.
Whose minds, in the light of day,
shutter themselves from its rays,
preferring darkness as their dwelling.
Whose sacred books,
transformed into photographs,
are impotent.
Who fabricate fanciful explanations
atop a single grain of sand,
and cloak their ignorance in veneers of “rights” and “freedoms.”
Pity the nation whose lawmakers
bury their discerning eyes in graves of party
genuflecting to the loudest, vulgar voice
in fawning adoration at the words,
“…for I alone can save you!”
Pity the nation whose leader paints only forgeries
and whose citizens cry, “Masterpiece!”
Who fondle each new lie in bed at night,
seduced by its base allure.
Pity the nation to whom the glory of the myth
is the only truth.


Kent Reichert is retired from schools but not from words. His poems have appeared in The Dead Mule.  He is the author of two chapbooks, Soon Ah will be done… and Chronology of Spirits.

POLITICIAN

by Howard Winn

The doorbell rang once politely
and he was already smiling
when I opened the front door
while his hand reached out
in welcome as he said my name
and we agreed that I was
in fact that person enrolled
in his political party and ready
to vote when the time came
for we must throw the rascals
out not having voted to put them
in at the last election day when
we with the best intentions lost
out and in fact we were right
for fraud and personal gain has
been revealed although we
wonder if the voters read or
care as we stand in the doorway
agreeing how right we were
the last time even if the majority
did not know or pay attention
so having concurred we shook hands
once again and he turned into
the rain to try the next registered
door and I went back to lunch
wondering if our conversation
had mattered since the opposition
was not there to hear our wisdom
exchanged since they were our
beliefs and not their convictions
as it seems always the case
and once again we talk to ourselves

Howard Winn's work, both short fiction and poetry has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline.  His B. A. is from Vassar College. His M.A. is from the Stanford University Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at N.Y.U. He is Professor of English at SUNY.

UNCONVENTIONAL SONNET FROM A PARTY GIRL

by Heather Newman

In a frenzied state we grab house seats
at our monthly caucus disguised as lunch,
you, my friend, choose presidential three-course
espousing on your glutton free
while I count empty calories lucky.
Pretense is our nation under God
divisible by the sum of those unfortunates
multiplied by calculated ladies who agree
to disagree as they divvy up the check,
birthdays come and conventions go
to super delegated party chatter
primarily leading to swift completion
if snow or rain glooms decision day,
I vote we stay home and watch TV.

Heather Newman is a member of the South Mountain Poets (NJ) and studies with The Writer’s Studio (NYC.) Her work has been published in Two Hawks Quarterly, Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop and EChook, and will be featured in the upcoming anthology, Voice From Here, Vol. II.

HALLOWEEN PARTY

by Laura Rodley

Cut from reams of white satin sprang Lawrence

of Arabia, my son Joseph fenc-

ing with a sword made of rough-sawn maple,

a yellow band round headpiece, a staple

from the house to hold it all in one place,

curtain cording his belt, the saving grace,

his sandals of brown leather geared for sand

even as hot as desert, Lawrence’s land.

“Awrence,” he yodeled through the house, so tall

I had to stand on a stool, fashion all

on top his head, long flowing headdress, sheik’s

gear changing a gentle boy, now not meek,

then out the door with friends with worthy cars,

too old for trick-or-treating, too young for bars.

Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

HENNY-PENNY AND HER SEQUESTER WALK

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

Steve Sack, Cagle Cartoons, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Silver-brittle sky-house snaps
handcuffs on its prisoners

the urgency of fear
startles some lizards

who walk on water  bodies  upright
escaping locomotion  no tracks

the fuchsia  impatiens
spills her blossoms onto brick

the sky is falling cries Henny-penny
I must warn the people

a duck rides a decoy like a horse
veering nowhere on its back

a boy fastens a target to a tree
alien green parrots scream

the needle sinks into the flesh
the arrow flies into the black

hungry pythons swallow deer
a dog named Forrest drowns

a child draws her lost cat
pointed ears small paws rounded eyes

she tapes it to a tree until its face
fades from it penciled tail

in a coat of oil a bird grows cold
its blackened wing remains

Henny-penny trips and falls
foxes make a meal of her

leave her carcass
on their party's trail

Lucille Gang Shulklapper has published short stories as well as four chapbooks of poetry, most recently, In the Tunnel, (March Street Press, 2008).  She has won awards and competitions from National League of Pen Women: Nob Hill Branch, Palm Beach Repertory Theater, the R. Rofihe Poetry Trophy, and others.  Her work has been anthologized and appears in many publications, including: Jerry Jazz Musician;  Poetic Voices Without Borders, Gulfstream and The Prose Poem Project. She has led workshops for The Florida Center for the Book, and workshops facilitated through The Palm Beach Poetry Festival.  Her first picture book, Stuck in Bed, Fred, has been accepted for publication in 2013.