KYOTO PROTOCOL

by Katherine Williams

Even in August there is now wildfire.
In spring, rains will take what remains.
Kyoto calls us from bygone times.
Hearing Kyoto, everyone stops and turns.
The fires are a small state now.
Cuckoo’s eggs roast in foreign nests.
Cry for help, cry for mercy.
I scan the river, a trickle on pavement.
Long ago we were warned.
For one hundred years we flew into the sun—
Kyoto, we did not stop and turn in time.


Author's Note: The poem is a haiku acrostic, with the words of Basho forming the first word of each line of the poem.

Katherine Williams has published four chapbooks and read at venues from the L.A. Poetry Festival to the College of Charleston. A Pushcart nominee, her poems appear in Spillway, Projector, Diagram, Measure, and elsewhere. She is a retired biomedical research technician living on James Island, SC, with her husband, poet Richard Garcia, and their dog, Max.

HILLARY'S SONG

by Sue Fagalde Lick

Margot Gerster poses for a photo with Hillary Clinton on a hiking trail in Chappaqua, New York on Nov 10 2016. Photographer: Bill Clinton. Credit: MARGOT GERSTER, The Huffington Post, November 10, 2016

On Day Two, she wakes up late.
No alarm, no phone, no car waiting,
just rain streaking down the window
beyond the white lace curtains.

She hears her husband’s scratchy voice
talking downstairs to the dog,
a clatter of cups, the microwave.
She stretches and sighs, it feels good.

She reaches to turn the radio on,
then stops. What for? No.
It’s over and she didn’t win.
Still no Madame President.

She pictures her opponent’s day,
at dawn already in his suit,
the media, the press of aides
calling him president-elect.

Her followers are all in tears.
They’re holding protests in the streets
while the gun-toting, woman-hating
winners have stolen their country back.

She snuggles in her flannel sheets
and sighs again. We cracked
that old glass ceiling more
but didn’t quite break through.

They called her “Crooked Hillary,”
his voters chanted, “Lock her up,”
they displayed her husband’s mistresses,
hit her hard and yet she stood.

She stood tall, a chubby woman
in designer pantsuits and heels,
with styled hair and painted face,
looking up at all those men.

All the girls and women thought
now our voices will be heard,
but did she really want the weight
of an entire country on her back?

She could do it, and do it well,
better, in fact, than any man,
but the spotlight burned, her feet were sore.
She’d seen the job turn young men old.

Today while Trump is getting briefed—
the wars, the codes, the protocol—
she can take a bubble bath
or sit and watch the world go by.

She puts her slippers on and stands,
looks into the mirror and smiles.
It’s someone else’s problem now.
And I don’t have to style my hair.

Sue Fagalde Lick returned to poetry after a long detour in the newspaper business and a better-late-than-never MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in New Letters, Tenemos, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Windfall and other publications. Her books include Stories Grandma Never Told and Shoes Full of Sand. 

ON WATCHING THE LOCAL EVENING NEWS IN A BAR WITH A WHITE, FORMER COMMUNITY POLICE OFFICER, COMMENTING ON A YOUNG COP’S RESTRAINT DURING AN ARMED CONFRONTATION WITH A BLACK SUSPECT

by Alan Catlin






Red-faced, standing as close
to TV as possible, shaking his
clenched fist at the screen,
former police sergeant screams
at images of young black suspect
in handcuffs, arresting officer
nearby, escorting him to squad
car, “What’s wrong with him?
Is he sick or something?
They should take his gun away
from him now. Suspend his ass
but good.  No, they should have
his badge!  Protocol, my ass.
The only protocol there is, is:
the only good nigger, is a dead
nigger. If I were still on the force,
me and my boys would know what
to do. Hell, there are probably
enough of us left still in the ranks
they’ll take care of business but
good. We should be talking about:
Man killed in armed confrontation,
not some 'exercised remarkable
restraint' bullshit. That asshole
will be out in a couple of years and
he’ll get another gun and someone
else will get killed. Happens all the time.
That’s why we shoot them when we can.
That cop better get his ass to the range
and remember what his weapon is for.”


Author’s note: I wrote this poem in response to recent incidents across the country involving white police officers and black “suspects”.  The actual incident in my poem occurred a few years ago, and I had let it slide thinking, who would want to hear about just another racist cop? The monologue is not an exact transcription of  the former police sergeant’s speech but it comes as close as I can recall. Believe me, though, the substance is the same. In the city of the poem, the police force operated for decades as the private army of the mayor, almost totally without restraint. Of note: There has been one party in charge of the city since the 19th century, and it was only after the death of the longest serving mayor in the history of the state that some restraints were applied to the police force. That was in the middle seventies. This particular officer began his career under the auspices of ”the mayor” so his attitude dies hard. I don’t believe all officers are like that. Maybe not even a lot of them are like that.  I remain grateful to all the cops who saved my butt when I worked in more than one rough tavern, when I really needed help. Some of them are still counted as friends of mine. Still the fact remains: they Do exist, have always existed, and need to be stopped from existing now, and in the future.


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.