TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND BRAIN ROT

by Bonnie Proudfoot

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Don’t tell me you spent all your allowance 

on comic books, or you used to stay up until 

daybreak, your knees shaping a tent under 

the covers, a weak flashlight, Superman, 

Supergirl, Batman, Spidey and the mutants, 

the whole gang rotting your brain, your eyes too. 

Did you stash your valor between the mattress 

and box spring, your rotting brain leaping tall buildings 

at a single bound, ready to keep evil at bay, fighting 

for, oh, truth, justice, and the American way.

 

Did you heft yourself out of bed on time 

for first period, or did your rotten brain let you 

snooze, then snooze some more? Did it make you 

listen to rock ‘n roll, sing "Sympathy for the Devil" 

as you walked to school? Did it know what 

"Satisfaction" really meant? And so what if 

your brain did rot? Blotchy, dark, and spongy, 

a not-so-fresh potato, or cottage cheese 

in the back of the fridge with curds of green mold 

lacing through? Would it rot all at once? Or 

one day no rot, one day riddled, one day a lot? 

 

So here you are, it’s minutes before midnight, 

kryptonite closing in, fascists tunnelling 

into Fort Knox, your knees a tent under 

the saggy covers, nothing left to lose. You’re 

scrolling through headlines at a single bound, 

seeking truth and seeking justice, index finger 

on your phone tapping with the dexterity 

of the Incredible Hulk threading a needle, 

the fate of the free world to defend,

secretly shouting Shazam, pushing send.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road (OU Swallow Press) was the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Household Gods a poetry chapbook, was published in 2022 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). A full-length poetry collection, Incomer, is forthcoming on Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

PUT DOWN THE FISHERMAN

A LITTLE RICHARD CENTO
by Chad Frame





"I’ve been gay all my life and I know God is a God of love, not of hate. How can I (put) down the fisherman when I’ve been fishing all my life?” 
     —Little Richard (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020)


If it don’t fit, don’t force it. Can’t help it. Son,
you better watch your step. Papa put me out
of the house, curtains and makeup, cherry-

red, long hair hanging everywhere. All
around the world, the magnolia smells
sweet, and white cotton warm. You said

you loved me, went to the window, peeped
through the blind—a whole lotta shakin’, good
goddamn. How can I put down the fisherman

when I been fishing all my life? Bad luck
baby put a jinx on me—ooh! my soul!—
this land of a thousand dances. You keep on

knockin’, but you can’t hear this jukebox jumpin’.
Keep on knockin’, gonna ring your door
till I break your bell. Go, cat, go. Rip it up,

good golly, heeby jeebies. Uptempo,
directly from my heart, you call it rock & roll.
At regular tempo, you keep on knockin’,

rhythm & blues. You keep on knockin’, baby,
say you only want to dance. Well, alright.
Come on over, baby—but you can’t come in.

Chad Frame’s work appears in Rattle, Mom Egg Review, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and other journals and anthologies, as well as on iTunes from the Library of Congress. He is the Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo: New Italian-American Writing, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry improv performance troupe, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat.