PREPPING FOR DOOMSDAY

by Tom Karlson

Michigan closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The gathering, meant to advocate opening the state for business despite the coronavirus pandemic, followed one April 30 that resulted in pictures of protesters clad in military-style gear and carrying long guns crowding the statehouse. They confronted police and taunted lawmakers. —Bloomberg, May 14, 2020

they are not wearing brown shirts
they can’t sing Deutschland Uber Alles
these protesters are tattooed white nationalists
cameo clad, heavily armed,
red hatted, tattooed, with confederate flag and swastika
they are dyed in the wool homegrown
Nazi  Motherfuckers

crazed defenders of the second amendment
president t***p tweets open up America,
protect the constitution
these are good people
these are his people

protected by Barr’s boys
the thugs are on the move
ordered and paid to liberate
Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky
they come to boogaloo (armed insurrection)
not native or black or brown
these pale thugs have carte blanche
from the loyal men in blue

BC (before covid)
45 and his boys knew
high stock market and
low employment equal
certain reelection

AC (after covid)
the equation is changed
and the impeached one
the quinine loving
fact fucker
does nothing for 8 weeks
for thousands a early death

and now we have
the orange domed leader
press briefing rallies
urging his doomsday prepping,
white privileged militia goons
to open up
and make america great again


Tom Karlson’s information: My poetry is political / my poetry is about stuff I can see / smell feel hear / read about / stuff from history, / natural history / my history / an outcry, protest / justice, injustice / of contradictions / and musings / sounds and goddesses / moving around objective / reality toward life / a better world is coming

REBIRTH

by Howard Winn

Image: “Rudy Giuliani’s Scar Power Grabs” by Keith Seidel for Washington Monthly Magazine

Floundering in the sea of anonymity
with head barely above the surface
weighted with the concrete blocks
of three wives some past but always
present he was desperate to be important
again in a world that had left him
behind if not the eight-ball at least
the news of the day and that coveted
spot in the political power structure
where he could be someone rather
than no one so he embraced the Satan
of the moment masquerading as the
savior who would recreate the past
that was now irrelevant in the present
complexity of society and truth from
science as well as standards from
faith had to be denied in order to be-
come important once more so again
he could be America’s heroic mayor.


Howard Winn's work has been published in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Descant. Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. His latest work is Acropolis, a novel published by Propertius Press. He is Professor of English at SUNY-Dutchess.

NOSTALGIA

by Gil Hoy

Caricature of Steve Bannon for The New Statesman

Their homes, cone-shaped wooden
poles covered with buffalo hides.

Set up to break down quickly
in order to move to a safer place.

A reddish brown squaw sits inside of
one of them, adorning her dresses

her family's shirts with beads and quills.
She watches over her children, skins

cuts and cooks the buffalo meat, pounds
clothes clean with smooth wet river rocks.

But then she sees the blue cavalry
coming, she starts to run again.

Is that what made America great,
back then?

Negro families working hard on hot cotton
farms, sunrise to sunset, six days a week.

Monotony broken only by their daily beatings
by their singing of sad soulful songs.

Like factories in fields, dependent upon
the demands of cotton and cloth.

You could buy a man for a song,
back then.

Is that what made America great,
once again?

They say the full moon today is bigger
and brighter than it’s been in 69 years--

since Jackie Robinson played his first
big league baseball game.

But there are swastikas in our schools
today, gay pride flags being burned.

Whitelash. While those in government spew
anti-Muslim venom and rant of white power.

Just as the old new man at the top
gets set to solemnly swear, he'll
make America great again.

Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer currently studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program where he had received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as Brookline MA Selectman for 4 terms. Hoy's poetry appears or is upcoming in Right Hand Pointing-One Sentence Poems, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News and The Penmen Review.

MORNING IN MT. HOPE CEMETERY

Melissa Balmain lives, writes, teaches, and grieves in Rochester, NY.

THE ELECTION IS RIGGED

by Llyn Clague





THE ELECTION IS RIGGED
blares the hand-painted sign beside the road
for every passing 4X4, SUV, BMW.

THE ELECTION IS
RIGGED—a neighbor, living on my street,
screams scam!  Every time I pass,
scam! . . . scam! . . . scam! . . .

Man—I want to say—
you don’t even know me
and you insist we cannot play fair.

THE ELECTION, you cry, IS RIGGED
even before the first whistle
in the raucous, unruly, Saturday-celebrating stadium.

2

Remember the games we played as kids?
Throw an elbow, give a furtive kick, scratch—
sure, we wanted to win.
But, say it aloud or not,
we knew, victory “earned” by cheating
was a sham.

THE ELECTION IS RIGGED
Have the adults, in their games, lost
what we had as kids?
Are the rewards so rich,
they’re willing to “win” at any cost?

And you, neighbor, before you roar . . . RIGGED
to every passing semi, RV, antique classic,
don’t you realize, if you are right,
our entire American “democracy”
is a sham?

Of course you do.
Out of the many, there is no shazam,
no will of the governed,
no “voice of the people.”

No voice of you and me.

3

THE ELECTION IS RIGGED
And maybe, my neighbor down the street,
whom I don’t know, you are right—THE ELECTION
IS RIGGED, though maybe not
how you think.

Nobody is bribing the refs,
nor paying off rogue players in the stadium.

Long before the soft whistle
in the teeth of the first volunteer
opening the precinct door,
all across this wide continent
federal, state, and local elections
ARE being rigged—

by precise gerrymandering,
by particular ID cards,
by cascades of designated cash.

RIGGED, at the very least,
to the very best of their manipulative ability,
by our election-selecteds
and their precise, particular, dedicated minions.

You grieve me, neighbor, living on our street,
screaming at every passerby
THE ELECTION IS RIGGED,
not because you are wrong,
but because you may be right.

And if you are, in the stampede
after the shout of Fire! in our national theater,
we will be crushed, you and I together.

Llyn Clague is a poet based in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.  His poems have been published widely, including in Ibbetson Street, Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly.  His seventh book Hard-Edged and Childlike was published by Main Street Rag in September, 2014.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER

by Brigitte Goetze

" . . . the lethal intensity and degree of witch-hunting

. . . was unmatched anywhere else in the New World."

—“The Witch Trials That America Forgot” by Ray Cavanaugh,

Time, October 31, 2016

The last time they pilloried the old
woman for her ugly face, her nasty nature,
they were titillated by her secret
communications—you know about
the scandalous allegations, the fear, the hysteria.
Did you ever think that it was just
twelve generations ago?

We have come a long way, baby. Haven't we,
through the suffering of our handcuffed
great-great-grandmothers, earned universal suffrage?
But, once again, crones who dare to crow about
are being tarred with that ancient brush.
Who can name the terror
that a wrinkled face holds?


Brigitte Goetze,  retired biologist and goat farmer, now spends her time spinning all kinds of yarns.

DIZZY

by Melissa Balmain

I once knew all there was to know
about the ways of vertigo:
my ear canals would cease to flow,
the ground zoomed up, the sky, below,
my guts got tossed like pizza dough,
then, after half a day or so
of rest and drinks from PepsiCo,
the ride would slow.

Today I'm well—no inner woe
has thrown me off my status quo—
and yet for weeks it's seemed as though
the world keeps flipping, top to toe,
as polls and tallies do-si-do
and voters swing from foe to foe.
Oh how I miss the vertigo
I used to know.

Melissa Balmain is the Editor of Light, a journal of comic verse. Her poems have appeared in such places as American Arts Quarterly, American Life in Poetry, Lighten Up Online, and Poetry Daily; her prose in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and McSweeney’s.  Her poetry collection Walking In on People (Winner of the Able Muse Book Award), is often assumed by online shoppers to be some kind of porn.

IMAGINE

by Janet E. Aalfs

Throw pillow cover by society6.

She, as you.
She, as I.
Even the one

who stands behind
cheering him on.
Will not, does not, cannot.

All the leaves, every color
and shape, every size,
old ones, young ones, sun-washed,

rain-lashed, turn in the wind.
We see them.
As she as you as I

fluttering, lifting, fall.
Light hidden on the undersides
silver-soft, then gone.

Even the one
who swears he'll fight for her.
Even she.

Would not, did not, could not.
Hear them, so close.
Though the wind in every wave

remembered it, told it, wept.
Tides calm to raging
turned and turned and yet.

The one who smooths his brow
and kisses him to sleep.
Even she.

Janet E. Aalfs, poet laureate emeritus of Northampton, MA, 7th degree black belt, Jian Mei Internal Arts branch chief instructor, and founder/ director of Lotus Peace Arts at Valley Women's Martial Arts, has been teaching and performing weavings of poetry and movement arts locally, nationally, and internationally for 40 years. Her writing has been widely published, and her most recent book of poems is Bird of a Thousand Eyes, Levellers Press.

SOME YEARS ASK

by Carol Dorf

Some years ask, "Which side are you on?"
You might answer, "I'm on the side of the bees,
and the waters rising against the coastal shores."
You listen to a debate, and wonder, "Have I been
clear. Or I'm ok about reading dystopias, but
don't think I live in one, and don't want to find
myself there." I'm on the side of the kindergarten
children who tumble together on the rug, eager
for a story, after eating school lunches portioned
onto small trays. I'm on the side of the whales
who need quiet to hear each other calling across
the sea. And I'm on the side of the fat women,
and the crips, and every contractor who wanted
to be paid. "Which side are you on?" is
the refrain, while the future echoes on the screen.


Carol Dorf's chapbook Theory Headed Dragon is available through Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has been published in Glint, Slipstream, Spillway, Sin Fronteras, Antiphon, Composite, About Place, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, Maintenant, OVS Best of Indie Lit New England, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing and teaches mathematics.

HAVING BEEN CATTLE-HANDLED BY THE MEDIA AND MY OWN PARTY

by S. Siegel

DonkeyHotey

 I'll cast my vote as though I am
 electing an Interim President. She will have four years to
 articulate and hopefully deliver a progressive agenda.
 In the process, congressional seats on both sides
 of the aisle will turn over, removing the last of the Tea
 Party dregs and moving the Democratic Party (or a new
 party) in this direction. Some public officials, including
 local D precinct leaders, will be indicted on election fraud
 and the primary system will shift toward something more
 coherent and democratic, something that resembles an
 ethical vision of America.



S. Siegel lives in Oregon. His most recent book is The Constellation of Extinct Stars and Other Poems (Salmon Poetry, 2016)

IDEALISM AND AUTHENTICITY

by Gil Hoy

In buildings along the park, New York University students and workers pressed against windows to watch Senator Bernie Sanders and the vast crowd below on the chilly night. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times, April 13, 2016.

Idealism and authenticity
speak to river crowds.

Huddled hopeful men,
women, children,
Some old, mostly young,
mostly middle class;

They've come to gaze
into his eyes, to look through
Lens bridge and frame—
wanting to believe again;

To drink the speak
of a political revolution
Where everyone is worthy;

Listen to unfeigned songs from
the white-stranded consistent

Wrinkled doors of a skinny,
slight, only-man who dares to
Challenge the status quo;

The speaker's crescendo
voice rises, then falls, cracks from
Human fatigue, then rises again,
just before he exits the stage.

Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer and is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy's poetry has appeared (or is scheduled for publication) most recently in Right Hand Pointing-One Sentence Poems, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News and The Penmen Review.

LOADED QUESTIONS

by Richard Schnap

Presidential Poster by Edward Steed, The New Yorker, March 3, 2016

When did America
Grow so full of hate
It embraced a cold
Bloodthirsty man?

And when did the purchase
Of guns grow as common
As buying a card
For a sweetheart?

And when did it start
To despise anyone
Whose face didn’t
Mirror its own?

The answer is that
It was only sleeping
In a coffin we
Foolishly thought sealed


Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

DELICIOUSLY DECIDUOUS SKY POEM TO REPLACE ALL POLITICS FOR 26 MINUTES

by Dennis Mahagin

Believe it or not, there once
was a sky, and construing itself
as de rigeur, congressman, it cradled
us all, mostly over
indigo,
with whipped cream
shots and espresso poured
on the moon at night, at night, this sky
whispered,
keep the spirits up, alright?
Then the wind
blew as March flew into super Tuesday,
and on, through May, ions
up there laughing
like icons
at sepia's stomp and dust affair,
low-lying
fluffy white ones where they met
and vanquished a Trump
in an August
sun dance.
Hard to forget, alderman, that sky, the happy,
happy contrails in air, creamy inchworm lariats
likened to smoke rings from Dunhill
cigarettes, they stayed
up there, aka "streams" -- -- -- -
and wouldn't let
a single jet
fall. Now I pray
to all expanses, with not a little fear
at the turning away, paparazzi bandolier, whir
of gears, arrows and lances
and ever narrow
slings and hot air and bullets and
drones and hot air, broken
wings and drones, and wings and
drones, moreover, in rotation, in stark
repetition mister
honorable mayor, fly-byes, a sky
up there, leaving nothing to chances
nowadays indifferent at best
and maybe neither
does she care?
Certainly
she's up there still, and will, --
this is where I invite
you all, earnest chaplains shepherding
the campaign in the ass,
only to consider
the reach of the grasp of the stately
previously unmentioned
Tree,
an aspen, peach, willow,
say, larch or
even weeping cottonwood,
while he ( the tree) glances
up, and nods yes, yes, affirmative,
yes, quite reassured
to every branch,
to the very rings,
a sky has got
your back,
says he (the tree), and which
one has ever willfully
been mistaken? Nor had occasion
to worry, to hasten
unto centuries? They are constituents,
with roots in the community.
She’s not going to
fall, despite
cries from the
left ( right? )
oh, she might send a
squall or two, tough love running
with thunder across
the sun, until the general
is done. Unlike a politician and natural
lies aside, lonely guys
( such as I )
must surmise, in order to decide:
and so I vote to try
to simply seize my slice
of sky. Look up,
one time, there’s the blessing
on the heels
of a peppermint sneeze,
let’s make it a quorum, see?
that it lasts:
it's lemon
merengue, senator
and dissolves
pretty

fast.


Dennis Mahagin is a poet from the Pacific Northwest, currently living in Montana. His collections of verse can be found, here, and there: And well, worth it. Maybe.

THE REPUBLICANS

by Martin Rocek

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
just look straight up if
you run off a cliff,
no need to heed science or gravity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the stork only comes
to eager raped mums,
there's never unwanted gravidity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if you're sick and can't pay
try the Tea Party way:
emergency room hospitality.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if God guides your path
there's no use for math,
the deficit's paid by divinity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the poor pay the tax,
the rich just relax
and let Bain take care of their equity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
don't bother with truth
--it's a folly of youth--
the facts are a dull technicality.


Martin Rocek teaches and studies theoretical physics at Stony Brook University.