TWILIGHT ZONE CHILD’S PLAY

by Andrés Castro

Otherworldly, Rod Serling was
                                                 ahead
of his time,
     foreshadowing
an old fleshy Trump
                                with a skinny blonde boy
who tortured family and neighbors,
                                                        turning
     on a sadistic whim,
          anyone
                     into a grotesque
                                               creature,                       like a sprung jack-in-the-box
                                                                                    with a dunce-capped head,
before planting them
     in his homestead cornfield.
     No one dared to look at this boy
the wrong way.

This 60s episode,
     It’s a Good Life
in black and white,
                                                     flashes forward now
                                                                                      to 2025,
                                                                                           in bleeding colors,
                                                                                      where Trump rules
just like that boy,
     with unpredictable tantrums.

     Except,                                                                           our boy
                                                                                       would love to rule the world
if he could;
     Except,                                                                            now he has a cast of commercial
                                                                                        to mercenary flying monkeys circling
                                                                                        around him.

                                                                                                            His Hail Caesar!
                                                                                                                 Heil Hitler! moments
                                                                                                            have begun

on our way past cornfields                                                             to crucifixions
                                                                                                                 to revolutions.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory. He keeps a personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

BLESS

an abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

Photo source: DeMilked

Holiday depression feels a lot like regular depression, but it’s triggered by the onset of holidays, holiday get-togethers, large family gatherings, and attending or hosting social events. Holiday depression is similar to “winter blues,” but it may come and go in quick bursts as one event ends and another begins, or it can linger for the days or weeks leading up to and beyond the holiday season. —Cleveland Clinic, December 13, 2023

all the shiny

baubles and brouhaha of

Christmas. Seasonal

depression. Air-filled

enormous plastic Santas bobbing 

front yards. Fairy lights

glittering rooftops. Guy in tight 

holiday pants, knit like a sweater,

in Safeway.

Jubilant crimson poinsettias. My daughter

Kate hospitalized again. Oh,

let it work this time, I hear

myself beseech the sky.

“No,” the

omnipotent ozone replies,

“power.” Oh yeah. Powerlessness. 

Quiet morning sun

rises, turns navy gray into orange

sherbet. I

tilt my head back and there

undulates a 

vibration of grackles 

waving and wafting like winged

eXclamation points, black dots

yodeling squawks, pepper grinder of

zest that, in unison, settle on an electrical wire like musical notes.

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

AMERICAN RUSH HOUR

by Peg Quinn

AI-generated at Night Café

Traffic so heavy I sit, idle, on a freeway overpass 

watching four lanes stalled below me.

I listen to the radio.

Then notice someone, bent over, 

head pressed against a fence.

Maybe a hood, or corner of a blanket

covering their face, draping down their back

leg’s sunbaked, bare feet.

I wait for them to shift their weight

rise up, blink into the day.

They stay locked in place.

I worry. 

No one bends, frozen, immobile 

at a freeway exit unless in serious trouble

—or lost in prayer—

I shouldn’t make assumptions,

so grab my phone as my lane rolls forward.

The Sheriffs Department will send someone over,

though I’m haunted by this random gathering,

thoughts intent on work, 

appointments, deadlines, lovers,

merely glancing as we pass one of us,

a fellow traveler, struggling in silence. 

Bent.

Head pressed against a fence.

Peg Quinn’s poetry and non-fiction have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and four times nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection Mother Lode was published by Gunpowder Press in 2021.