TO EMBODY THE BREEZE

by Kent Reichert

Samuel Alito; drawing by David Levine

At what point do men sit in judgement on the wind

or declare the light of the sun to be illegitimate?

Who threatens the height of waves upon the sea

or punishes the lightning for its brilliance?

What sovereign governs the mind and body,

imposing only its transitory will upon human essence

until the final physical manifestation

presents itself

to be

ignored and forgotten.

Do we cloak perjury in everlasting robes

and acquit the deception

as a harmless falsehood

enabling the taste of judges we savor,

garbing ourselves in the trappings and vestments of,

"God's will!"

That is, our God's will.

Who sings the elegy

for truth,

now floating helplessly aloft

untethered to reality?

The leader cleans his glasses and smiles

while the useful idiot struts and preens

telling the fawning, faithful masses,

certain in their creeds and dogma,

"I did this!"

Quietly, away from the light of day,

the leader softly phrases his words with hollow lips

intoning with a smirk, "No, I did this!"

"I did it all 

for the sake of power and dominion."

And, in the assembly of self-righteous,

monochromatic males,

Whatever he says is the way

becomes the truth,

and for women,

their lives.

Kent Reichert is a retired educator who believes in the power of words. His work has appeared in The Dead Mule and The Dispatch.

PARDON ME

by Michel Steven Krug

Mike Luckovich / Atlanta Journal-Constitution

We cross a bridge of shadows

when perjury is presumed forgiven

by a nation fighting for its lives,

this faintly boastful oligarch

who asked us to spritz Lysol like Binaca

to kill unwary opponents on contact.

 

He urges his confederates:

scatter the statistics, turn the numerals

Roman, so the national news reports the

toll like snowflakes in Viet Nam.

Say: the fraud is in the mail, in the

machines, then the rule of loyalty prevails.

 

The oval office birthed an infection

the careless insistence like shells on furlough

Flynn no longer in jeopardy.

He’s given a mask to take wherever it’s needed

the plague of Turkey behind him,

a reserved suite in Fort Mar-A Lago awaits.

 

Coerced truth is just a ploy,

Another plea for alchemy answered,

sent at the highest twitch:

the pardon has come, Papadopoulos,

the pardon is coming, Manafort,

resonance for an imperfect union.

 

We live in an era of broken pleas and oaths.

We cross a bridge of shadows tonight

While others debate a return to openness.

Who waits on the other side,

Reveals the bobbing

of a constitution on the margin.

 

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist and Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars graduate. He’s Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News (PRTN) literary magazine. He also litigates. His poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Poetry24, Main Street Rag, the Brooklyn Review, and others.