CALLING IT

by Thomas R. Smith

Just to see and hear him on a screen

hurts the soul.  Stench of abuse.

The Abyss hijacks the microphone,

no muting the rant the psychotic

can’t switch off in his head.

The assault on truth is physical:

the viewer’s knees tremble, breath comes

up short.  Lies fly out of the mouth

in black streams.  They are his children:

father of lies, lord of the flies.

Damaged horror child exposed.

The networks call it a “debate.”

Burroughs called it “naked lunch.”

Yeats called it “rough beast.”  I call it

“rape in an abandoned  house.”

Thomas R. Smith is a poet and teacher living in River Falls, Wisconsin. He teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. His most recent poetry collection is The Glory (Red Dragonfly Press).

ANYMORE

by Frederick Wilbur

We don’t tolerate ripples in window glass anymore,
the waving landscape smoothed out.
Switchbacks of moral choice are GPS’ed
as Robert Frost never conceived. Now we drive
for miles with turn signal blinking right,
then U-turn back to well-traveled interstates.

Scarecrows don’t hide in corn fields anymore,
each tassel-top chemicaled to a plastic crown—
nature is an industry, a corporation,
littered with hashtags, threat assessments,
sentimental cemeteries for passed pets.

Silence isn’t noticed much anymore,
too many ringtones, beeps, and bling,
seepage from ear buds, drones overhead—
distraction, distraction, distractions, distractions.

Wisdom isn’t countenanced anymore,
everything digitalized, Googled, auto-corrected, auto-filled.
Compassion is granted by proxy, by on-line donation.

No sincere grief anymore,
as opinions bully and greed and hate rule,
even Free Speech shows up with a gun.

But if we rant out of fear, we are not free anymore.


Frederick Wilbur has authored three books on architectural and decorative woodcarving, and a poetry collection, As Pus Floats the Splinter Out. His work has appeared in many print and on-line reviews including Shenandoah, Main Street Rag, Comstock Review, The Dalhousie Review, Rise Up Review, and Mojave River Review. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Award by Midwest Quarterly (2017). He is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.

PRIMARY RANT

by Harold Oberman

Graphic via Nikki McWatters

At this exact moment
It is time to put your sonnets
      On hold.
No lyric musings
Until the Republic is secure,
Until the Senate gains sanity,
Until Justice does justice,
Until November.

“There is a criminal in the White House
Who bullies foreign powers to frame his political rivals”
Does not fucking rhyme with anything
So don’t even try,
At least for now.
“There is a criminal in the White House
Who pardons his cronies who fixed the last election”
Is not a simile, not even a metaphor,
So don’t get clever with it
At least for now.
“There is a criminal in the White House
Who foments hate for political gain”
Is not in iambic, nor even trochaic, so just say it,
At least for now.

Pick up your pen
And jab it in the back of someone’s hand
Goddammit
If they say, “I’m not going to vote on that day,
November Third.”
Pick up your pen
And jab it in the back of someone’s hand
Goddammit
If they say “It just doesn’t matter.”

Scream before you write the lyric.
Howl before you write the sonnet.
And whisper truth to your neighbor.

Harold Oberman is a lawyer and writer living in the midst of the South Carolina Primary. His work has appeared in the TheNewVerse.News  and in the Free State Review.

LAST DAYS: A RANT

by George Held

Between November 9–11, 2013, a large iceberg finally separated from the calving front of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. Scientists first detected a rift in the glacier in October 2011 during flights for NASA’s Operation IceBridge. By July 2013, infrared and radar images indicated that the crack had cut completely across the ice shelf to the southwestern edge. New images now show that Iceberg B-31 is finally moving away from the coast, with open water between the iceberg and the edge of Pine Island Glacier. --NASA

                          The watchword to my remarks [on halting global warming] is urgency.
                                                      –Bill McKibben, Brown Alumni Monthly


How few dare face the fatality we face:
Our electrified, motorized civilization
Pollutes the planet; mammoth enterprises
Fight for scarce resources, including water,
“The new oil.”

Will your grandchildren have a pure drop
To drink unless your children
Can afford to pay hundreds of dollars
Per gallon? Will the poor, driven mad
By thirst, revolt with Kalashnikovs,

IED’s, machetes to seize water supplies
for their families? All that storm water flooding
and drowning Kansas and the Philippines,
Bangladesh and the Jersey Shore
And not a drop to drink.

Scientists report time is short, even Al Gore’s
100 years sound far too optimistic,
Yet what are you doing right now to stem
Our reliance on fossil fuels and advance
Our shift to renewable, sun and wind, power?

Right now what are you doing to save Mother
Earth from the ravages of global warming,
to keep air breathable, water drinkable,
Life livable? Do it, right now, for the last days
Are near. Tomorrow is too late.


An occasional contributor to The New Verse News, George Held occasionally blogs at www.georgeheld.blogspot.com