JANUARY 6 SLUSH FUND LIMERICKS

by Paul A. Freeman

 

 

Cartoon by Clay Jones

DOJ official told GOP ally that big payouts were coming for Jan. 6 defendants: Months before the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was announced, Ed Martin predicted Capitol rioters would get millions, even if it took until 2028, two people told NBC News. May 20, 2026

 

 

They climbed up to Capitol Hill,

Mike Pence they were going to kill;

and now, for their crime,

’gainst reason or rhyme,

their pockets they’re hoping to fill.

 

The criminals of January six,

are getting a monetary fix.

Yet women abused

and sorely misused

by Epstein and friends still get nix.

 

Paul A. Freeman is the author of The Movement, a dystopia-Americana novel set in a future United States of America. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook download and as a paperback. His first book, Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel taught at ‘O’ level in Zimbabwean high schools, was also translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul Freeman is the author of numerous published short stories, poems, plays and articles.

REPARATIONS APPROVED: YESSSSSSSS

by Judy Juanita

California is moving forward with its effort to compensate and apologize to Black residents for harm caused by discriminatory policies over generations after the state’s reparations task force voted to approve recommendations Saturday. —USA Today, May 10, 2023

“I can tell you from a psychological perspective that if you take $350,000 or $840,000, and you write a check to any group of people, Black, white, poor, homeless, whatever, you give any group of people that much money and say,” There you go, best of luck,’ you come back in six months, they’re going to be broke,” he said. “Whatever reparations are done, that would be an absolute disaster, as opposed to guidance and help in creating generational wealth, as opposed to income.”

—Dr. Phil

Screw Dr. Phil. I will blow mine wisely
(because the cancer of oppression goes deep)
And furthermore, f**k Dr. Phil
who pimped out Oprah
made $20 mill off her 
and off pimping out people's raw emotional trauma
and has the nerve to say Blacks would go crazy
if we got reparations
NEWSFLASH: We already crazy
The idea of getting our just due 
for the ancestors  
is mind-boggling 
for us and everyone else 
(because the cancer of oppression goes so deep)
And further, further, furthermore, 
if we spend every single penny of it
let's say 400 billion (1619-2019=400 years)
on Land Rovers, Lamborghinis, Louboutin
diamonds and pearls, lavish weddings
gambling in Vegas, Macau, Monte Carlo
yachts, gold-carriage funerals, mansions
lavish baby showers, the luxury life
Gucci, Rolex, trips around the world
why should any single nonblack be upset?
It would snake its way back to their pockets. 
(because the cancer of oppression goes that deep) 

Judy Juanita's latest book of poetry Gawdzilla looks at racism and capitalism side-by-side with the beauty and freedom of California. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland  won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways was published by Livingston Press in 2022. [UWA] in July, 2022.

UNMASKING

by Pat Snyder Hurley

Illustration by The New York Times to accompany “America, Unmasked” by Pamela Paul, May 8, 2022. Photograph by George Marks/Getty Images.

is the new undressing performed

only with those we trust no matter

how illogically

and never with strangers no matter

how perfect unless

there is indoor dining involved

and the promise of conversation

and everyone is doing it.

 

Grocery-shopping isn’t intimacy

worthy of risk, but dinner

parties are, even with friends

who went maskless at Costco

and carpooled with teens

who went maskless at school

because who would have the chutzpah

to ask.

 

And so pockets are handy

and zipper purses and

consoles in cars—

all good for mask-stashing

in case someone you know

or don’t

is wearing one

or not.

Pat Snyder Hurley is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in Columbus, Ohio, where she also writes a local humor column, “Balancing Act.”  She co-authored the chapbook Hard to Swallow with her late husband Bill Hurley (NightBallet Press 2017), and her poems have appeared in literary journals including Pudding Magazine, Poydras Review, and the Passager Journal. 

BALTIMORE CARGO

by Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg

Image source:  A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland (The Maryland State Archives, Annapolis MD and the University of Maryland College Park, MD)

Why did we not see cargo arriving
with the first slave ship whose
rotten timber roiled the harbor
leaving tobacco in our pockets…

cargo of manumission’s
low skilled “quasi-freedmen”
filling local factories for
twenty percent cheaper wages
and a city of transient pockets…

cargo of professional
“blood tub” rioters and
Know Nothing fraud
dividing a city until
free Blacks were pocketed
into segregated education…

cargo from World War II
steel Liberty Ships promising
jobs for thousands of poor
white southerners while
expanding corporate pockets…

cargo from decades
of racial blockbusting
depreciating neighborhoods
building heroin ghettos
bulging pockets of crime…

We should keep in mind
what we put in our pockets.


Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg teaches literature at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland where she is also affiliated with The Little Patuxent Review. Her most recent chapbook is titled Watching for Birds.