THE BALLAD OF JD VANCE

by Peter Nohrnberg 

Cartoon by Clay Bennett for the Chattanooga Times Free Press

How might a lowly hillbilly 

Rise up to fame and glory? 

Well gather round and listen close 

And ye shall hear his story. 

 

His will was such, that early on 

This lad would not be thwarted.

True grit the little zygote had—

Thank God he weren’t aborted!  

 

He hunkered down in cozy womb 

To think on matters deep:

For birth was child’s play compared 

to being born-again as Veep!  

 

A miracle it seemed to some 

To others simply weird,

But when JD came into the world  

He sported a full beard!  

 

Wiser than his years he was, 

This savant wearing diapers.

Alas, his homelife he did ken 

A pit of hissing vipers! 

 

“My Ma’s a mess, Stepdad’s a jerk,

I’m really up the junction…

I’ll put this in a book one day,

A dirge to white dysfunction!” 

 

Against this lot he dreamed to have 

A stable life, serene: 

Come graduation off he shipped 

to Iraq as a Marine. 

 

Hard as nails, or cask strength scotch,  

He readied for the battle.  

But instead of a gun they gave him a pen:

Like a baby with a rattle!  

 

Reporting on the enlistees   

He learned to be a man.  

But a career in the armed forces was

Not part of the plan.  

 

Who says a little learning is 

such a dangerous thing?   

For learning little our feisty bro 

To Ivy League did bring! 

 

In New Haven he studied law—

the spirit and the letter.  

He made queer friends he’d later shun

‘Cause he liked power better.  

 

He changed his name, Hamel to Vance—

You could call it a transition—

And then he up and left the law 

To fulfill his sacred mission. 

 

He set out West upon his steed 

(a 747),

And made his way to Menlo Park: 

Venture capital heaven.  

 

A Wizard strange young Vance did seek;

Weird Wizard he did find.

In awe did he marvel at 

Liber-Crypto-Christian Mind.  

 

JD did query subtle Sage,

Asked would he be his mentor,

Instruct him in dark Startup arts
And Partnerships to enter?    

 

From Silicon throne the Wizard rose,

And shook his staff in vigor.

Fittingly he quoth Saint George: 

“I’ll be your father figure!”  

 

“Hot Damn!” Spake Vance, “Well don’t you know

I been lookin’ for a daddy!

The last two Pappies that I had 

drove off in their Caddy.” 

 

Like learned Alchemists of old

Who now in peace are resting,

Vance commixed averse elements:

Charity and Investing.

 

As Noah rescued all God’s creatures 

He’d save the folks back home;

Raise funds to start a future farm 

Built under a great glass dome. 

 

A lifeline to those left behind—

With profits too to capture!—

Jobs for Evangelicals while 

They waited for the Rapture.  

 

Alas, the locals they all quit

That Hot House of Disorder; 

The only folks who’d do the work 

Came from south of the border! 

 

Like Babel Tower did Vertical Farm 

Collapse under piles of debt;

But if you suppose that brought Vance low

You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!  

 

For who should appear but Wizard Wise 

With a spell to quell defeat:

“It’s time you answered the nation’s call  

And ran for a Senate seat!”

 

Now far and wide his fame had spread 

For he’d become an author. 

But words can’t buy a Congressional race;

He’d need the Wizard’s coffer… 

 

Spake Wizard, “What cash you can raise

From hicks in Appalachia,

Lookie here at my bank account 

Boy, I can surely match ya!”

 

In tears replied the Wizard’s ward

“I just wanna give something back!” 

(What that was he did not say

But he gladly took the check.)

 

Now around this time an Orangeman 

Had risen up to power.

He was full of piss and vinegar 

And things even more sour.  

 

At first our hero he demurred:

“T---p’s cultural heroin.”

But when the call went out for Veep

No problem lied therein.  

 

Like Saul of Tarsus transformed to Paul 

Changed was his demeaner;

His beard grew thick, beady his eyes, 

Just like Donald Junior.  

 

Social collapse he prophesied, 

This born-again MAGApostle. 

He owned the libs with clever memes;

His homilies weren’t docile.

 

“Why is it that some old maids love 

Their cats more than us men?

And here’s another pet peeve of mine—

The immigrants who eat ‘em!”  

 

The hateful nonsense that he spewed 

Ensured that he’d advance.  

Quoth T---p, “He’s got to be my Veep,

My mini-me is Vance!”  

 

An Ohioan who was like his kids...

T---p knew it was a sign! 

Proposed he to Apprentice Vance, 

“Put your tiny hand in mine.” 

 

All hail this Proud Boy of the Folk,

More famous than Hannibal Lecter!

Born to be Veep, and if not, well…

There’s always the private sector.  

 

For whether T---p should win or lose—

Or rather, is robbed once more!—

Of the two running mates, Vance 

May end up free, less poor.   

 

Destined to one day top the ticket,

So bigly JD’s gift.  

Who could stop his rapid rise...

Apart from Taylor Swift?

Peter Nohrnberg is a poet, cultural critic, and literary scholar, whose poems and articles have appeared in Southwest Review, Notre Dame Review, Public Seminar, and James Joyce Annual, among other publications.

SENATE UNCERTAINTY

by Chris O’Carroll

by Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In an appearance back in his home state of Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) downplayed the odds of Republicans reclaiming the Senate—and, by extension, him reclaiming the title of majority leader. In doing so, he suggested that “candidate quality” was a key factor.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different—they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” —The Washington Post, August 18, 2022

Mitchity-kvetchity,

Candidate quality

Doesn’t look great for the

GOP’s brand.

Voters seem cool to those

QAnonologists

Mouthing the lies MAGA

Wingnuts demand.

Chris O’Carroll is the author of The Joke’s on Me and Abracadabratude.  His poems have also appeared in the Potcake Chapbook series, New York City Haiku, Extreme Sonnets, Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle, and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology, among other collections.

I JUST SAW IT IN THE NEWSPAPER

by Penelope Scambly Schott

The Senate is back in town for the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—with no clear legislative path to respond. Unlike House Democrats, their Senate counterparts don't plan to move any abortion-related bills over the next four weeks they're in session, mostly because they lack the support of 10 Republicans needed to overcome a filibuster. The Washington Post, July 12, 2022

The white-faced ibis, the black-necked stilt,

and the great-tailed grackle

have all returned to the Steigerwald Refuge

but the prune-face McConnell, the no-neck Cruz,

and the turn-tail Manchin

are still in the U.S. Senate—

I wish they’d go dunk themselves

in Steigerwald Lake

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.

PILGRIMS PROGRESS

by Deborah Gorlin

Phineas Pratt's Grave in Charlestown MA

The inscriptions a kid could cartoon

on a gravestone, crude and simplistic,

the skull-soul effigy a kind of gothic lithic

Jack-o-lantern, wide hollows for eyes,

triangle for nose, slotted mouth,

snaggle-toothed, Medusa-like heads

winging hair. A second childhood

for the Puritan church as some feature

breasts, amen, as God-besotted poet

Edward Taylor wrote unblushingly,

his syntax, don’t ask, “to put these

nibbles, then my mouth into and suckle

me therewith humbly pray.” Gravestones

that put one in mind of crumbly English

biscuits, taken at teatime. Their headboards

face east towards the sunrise, when the dead

will wake one fine Sunday morning to the smell

of pancakes the Lord makes at a sleepover.

 

But the news today tells me they won’t

wait—rebranded their black white outfits,

buckled shoes, top hats, dressed this time

as the half-naked shaman in bear skins,

horn helmet, face paint, just like their old

enemies the Indians, why not, it’s on their land,

the Senate floor, to save us from those devils

in Pederast Forest. Fake 'em out. Boys. 

An impatient breed these new pilgrims, grown

young, who, in their first iteration, claimed

that specters in dreams and visions, those

with a third nipple, an ugly birthmark, a black

cat familiar, were evidence in a court of law

for burning witches and warlocks. Emboldened,

always exceptional, they invent new ways to rise

from their shallow graves of history, their scraggly

tombstones askew, who refuse, even their God, to die.

 

Deborah Gorlin is the author of two books of poems, Bodily Course (White Pine Poetry Press Prize) and Life of the Garment (Bauhan Publishing, winner of the 2014 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize). She has published in a wide range of journals including Poetry, Antioch Review, American Poetry Review, Seneca Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Harvard Review, Green Mountains Review, Bomb, Connecticut Review, Women’s Review of Books, New England Review, and Best Spiritual Writing 2000. Recent poems appear in Plume, On the Seawall, Chicago Quarterly, Trampoline, and the Ekphrastic Review. Emeritus associate faculty of the Writing Program at Hampshire College, she serves as a poetry editor at The Massachusetts Review. 

CHANCELLORSVILLE

by Rick Mullin

The civil war that everybody fears

will one day bring our guns into the street

has been a virtual reality for years.

We are many battles in, replete

with bloodless disestablishment of norms

equating to the end-stop of a dream,

the downfall of democracy and state.

On Facebook, nobody can hear you scream.

It’s harmless when a friend posts, “Feel the hate”.

We laugh and like it and the hatred storms.

But this year the Epiphany may yield 

at last that dreaded outcome, civil war

with something like real armies in the field

and abject treason on the Senate floor.

With carnage in its more familiar forms.

Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Lullaby and Wheel.

A NIGHT AT THE RNC

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

Oh, say can you see, by dusk’s dimming light, fake news spewing from the worst on the right, from the Senate’s blind mice, ignoring all vice, the children in cages, the jobless... no wages, federal troops, crushing protest groups, voters’ hopes flailing, domestic terror prevailing.  Oh say, can you see, by dawn’s angry red glare, pollution and hatred on the air, in praise of T***p’s props and photo ops, truth denying, the sick and dying, our worst fears rearing, Kent State reappearing.

Aging rapidly, alternately sad, and depressed, Lucille Gang Shulklapper is at other times the fortunate author of numerous poems (a dozen or so published in TheNewVerse.News since 2008)and stories, as well as five poetry chapbooks and a picture book. She recently started a program in her residential community titled Edgewater Poets, giving seniors a voice on a community channel as well as the staff employed there. 

THE SENATE IS DEAD

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

When you wake up tomorrow morning,
the Senate will still be dead.

It will not attend your daughter’s graduation.
It will not say “Next year in Jerusalem!”
at your Seder.

It will not offer advice on which lawn service to use
or what types of shingles last longest.

The Senate will not tell you bedtime stories
or remember the year the Washington Redskins last
won a Super Bowl (or even won at all).

When you wake tomorrow
next month
next year
the Senate of the United States
will still be dead.

So, it is best for you to come to terms
and do whatever you must to mourn
appropriately
cathartically
before going on with your life
living your loss

Because it is a loss and let no one say otherwise.

But bear in mind,
the Senate has been dying for a long time
and you were aware that you could not count on it
to come over for Thanksgiving
or Christmas
or not get you into debt
or send your daughter off to war
after all, how many times did the Senate
forget who you were

You kept showing it photographs
reminders of better days
of people it knew who have also passed
you tried to remind it of its forgotten ideas
and values
and how it looked when it was in fighting trim.

So, remember the Senate
maybe even say Kaddish for it
but don’t expect it to fast with you
during Ramadan
or hunt Easter eggs with your son
or bring roasted corn to your tailgate
at the next football game

Because the Senate is dead.

Maybe there is still time to appreciate the last days
of that other ailing giant
the Republic.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in London, Ontario. Recent poetry, prose, and photography appear in Apricity, On the Seawall, Red Fez, Barren Magazine, Unlikely Stories, Bewildering Stories, 365 Tomorrows, and Literary Orphans.

PURELL DISPENSER

by Judith Terzi

The camera zooms in on Healthy Hands
in a Senate hallway. As they pile into
the chamber, do Senators sanitize? Not all.
Some don't wish to purify, break away
from the prize of dirty manos. The Chief
Justice walks briskly down this ornate
road. We don't know if his hands are
sterilized. We don't see him sanitize––
no Purell odor as he enters the chamber.
All we know is that he wants his hands
tied as he listens blankly to two sides,
perhaps counting backwards counter
clockwise. Try reading his face, his eyes.
Does he recognize the twists & turns
of truth, the spoof of lawyers? The Justice
never shows surprise when they
dramatize, aggrandize their battle cries.

Try & visualize justice biting into a burger
& freedom fries & à la mode apple pies,
as long black robes are shed for good
along with red, white & blue striped ties.

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books, 2018) as well as of five chapbooks, Judith Terzi's poetry appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, has received nominations for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and Web, and has been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. A former educator, she taught high school French for many years as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. 

SENATE ROAST

by Tricia Knoll

We roasted the anger peppers,
so hot, so very very hot
spit flew off our tongues.

We fed the anger flames
yelling with open throat
to wildfires for justice.

We felt the electricity
of lightning and static charge
surround the fear of outages.

We nibbled at that pepper,
slow bites of what became so burning—
when the tears began to fall.

Tricia Knoll shares the anger progressives have felt over the T administration for months on end. After the Senate vote, some tears began to fall.

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE IDIOCRACY

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Sign at Women's March, January 21, 2017 via diggit

"God grant that men of principle be our principal men."

—Thomas Jefferson

Idiocracy is claiming you are the king
of reality, seeking only ratings
while the rest of us
let the show go on.

Idiocracy is becoming your own smoke-
filled room, your attraction
to wrong-doing unabated
as supporters compromise
integrity on demand.

Idiocracy is having thousands of points of entry
to you
through your businesses
and no one sticks a finger
in that holey dike.

Idiocracy is allowing a transactional businessman
to run the country like a mafia state
while the rest of us watch reruns
of The Sopranos.

Idiocracy is riding the rollercoaster
of presidential whims
ignoring the vast scope
of your childish unruliness.

Idiocracy is standing by
while you self-ignite
self-inflicted crises
daily, glorified
babysitters for the biggest
crybaby in the history
of our crumbling world.

We live in an idiocracy
our government run by loyalists
where narcissism and hegemony,
hateful groupthink,
one-size-fits-all cowardice,
dangerous stupidity
and the end of democracy
being neither
indictable crime nor
impeachable offense
are okay with us.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Her books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.  Project XX, a satirical crime novel, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. What I Did for Love was released by Bloodhound Books in October. Kelsay Books is publishing the poetry chapbook the disappearing self in 2020. 

UNCLOGGING A DRAIN DURING THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

by Charles Goodrich

Protesters hold signs near the Capitol during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Jan. 29, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP - Getty Images via NBC News, January 29, 2020

Toilet’s plugged
and the bathroom sink drain’s sluggish.
I was in the dumps already
over national politics.

Abuse of power.
Obstruction of justice.
I’m guessing the septic tank
is overdue for pumping. And meanwhile
we still haven’t seen his taxes.

But even glum and angry
I can still do some minor plumbing.
I run the drain-snake, work the plunger,
get the commode running.

Next, with an arm’s-length of wire,
a little hook bent into the end,
I fish a wet, gray gob of hair-gunk
from the sink’s P-trap
then pour baking soda,
salt, and vinegar down the drain
and wait for the chemical reaction to begin.

Even if the Senate trial
turns out to be a sham,
I love the sound when the blockage dissolves
and the sink drain hisses and foams.

Following a long career as a professional gardener and a decade working with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, Charles Goodrich now grows poems and composes fruits and vegetables from his Knot House abode near Corvallis. He’s the author of three books of poetry, A Scripture of Crows; Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden; and Insects of South Corvallis, and a collection of essays, The Practice of Home, and has co-edited two anthologies, Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest and In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens. His poems and essays have appeared in Orion, High Country News, The Sun and many other journals and anthologies.

INSIGNIFICANT RAMBLINGS AT MIDNIGHT

by Peter Witt

My rhetoric went a pettifogging
in the wee hours
talking ad nauseam
to tired eyes
drinking milk
to sooth their ulcers
I crafted pettifoggery
which proved inconsequential
some might say piddling
adding nothing to the dialogue
laying unabsorbed
by already made up minds

I baked a trifling roast
of picayune sour grapes
with no-account measures
of over-stuffed plums
oozing with petty wisdom

I poured an elixir
of concocted alternative truths
into two-bit beakers
considered by all
to be fine Italian whine

Until it was finally over
and I could sleep

more hairsplitting
quibbling
nitpicking
pushed off
until tomorrow

Peter Witt lives in Bryan, Texas, a former university professor, writes poetry and research family history in his retirement.

RESISTING

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Yahrzeit of Inauguration Day
we don’t have a year any more
maybe not even six months
winter in SoCal         they say
rained for 41 days and nights
but it’s dry as dry rot
dry as dry gel
dry as dry cleaning striped button-downs
they say         He forgot
I say    we’ve run out of doves

and olives

a political snow job
not as important as a blow job
they say they didn’t             but they did
they say we did                    but no way we did
impartial? like my brother
cutting the cake and choosing
I am too fair
you always complain
you never stop complaining
what’s wrong with you
let’s compromise, they say
meet over the cliff
we’ll freeze halfway down
or        I’ll fire the gun 
so the bullet stops 
when the smoke comes out
What’s the problem?           they say
I said, that’s what happened

Karen Greenbaum-Maya’s third and weirdest chapbook Kafka's Cat is available at Kattywompus Press.

JIVE TURKEY NUMERO UNO

by Scott C. Kaestner

Ukrainian truth squads unveil those are indeed the President’s testicles in Mitch McConnell’s mouth marbling his gobble talk as Jive Turkey Numero Uno in the US Senate.

A fair trial?

Since when does that have anything to with American justice?

“Gobble-gobble-gobble, squawk-squawk, gobble-gobble hoax!”

I’m hungry and like my turkey on rye, minus the President’s testicles.


Scott C. Kaestner is a Los Angeles poet, writer, dad, husband, and someone who seeks spiritual guidance from his dog. Google ‘scott kaestner poetry’ to peruse his musings and doings.

DARK WOOD

by Mark Williams

So there I am in the jury box. Voir dire,
the judge calls it, which means speak the truth,
as in don’t and you’re in big trouble. “Have you had
any past acquaintance with either the prosecutor,
the defense attorney, or the defendant?” His Honor asks me.
I no sooner say, “No,” than the prosecutor says,
“May I approach the bench, your Honor?”
and His Honor wiggles his finger as in yes, and make it snappy,
so the prosecutor stands and approaches His Honor.
With their eyes on me, they exchange a few words
before the prosecutor steps to the box and asks,
“Do you have a beagle named Keeper?” Since I do
have a beagle named Keeper, and I speak the truth,
I say, “Yes.” Then he says, “Do you remember
the time you were walking on the levee,
and Keeper and another beagle picked up a deer scent,
and you and the beagle’s owner spent three hours
searching the woods for your dogs?” And now I realize
the other beagle’s owner is asking me these questions,
and my chances of being squeezed from the box are high.
Sure enough, “You’re excused,” says His Honor.

But in the upcoming case of

                       The Truth
                              v.
       The President of the United States

the majority of Senatorial jurors have demonstrated
they are no more capable of speaking the truth
than Keeper is capable of ignoring a deer scent. Not only that,
the majority of jurors are acquainted with the defendant
in the sense that Barnacle Boy, The Dirty Bubble,
and Man Ray were acquainted with each other
as members of EVIL (Every Villain is Lemons)
in Season 3 of SpongeBob SquarePants.
But with no provisions in place
to squeeze our Lemons from the box,
it is we who are lost within a dark wood,
with no hope, until November,
to get out.

Mark Williams lives Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, and The American Journal of Poetry. His fiction has appeared in Drunk Monkeys and the anthologies American Fiction and The Boom Project. In response to the current administration, his poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, and Writers Resist.

MUSEUM OF IMPEACHMENT

by Anna M. Evans

After W.H. Auden

About the Republic, they were never wrong,
the Founding Fathers: how well they understood
Its vulnerability: how it could be taken down
While the people are ordering off Amazon or streaming Netflix dully along;
How, when the activists are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous vote, there always must be
Young people who did not specially want it to happen, eating
Avocado toast in a trendy new brunch place:
They never forgot
That probably the dreadful presidency must run its course
Anyhow on Fox News, the unlikely spot
Where the talk show hosts deny all facts (which is torture)
And then cut to a story about a horse.

In this Impeachment, for instance: how everyone turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the Republicans may
Have read the "transcript," considered forsaken Ukraine,
But for them it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the House Articles disappearing into the biased
Senate, and the expensive, delicate congressmen that must have seen
Something amazing, a president abusing his powers,
Had an election to get to and sailed calmly on.


Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

FUCK YOUR GUN!

by Scott C. Kaestner






Fuck your gun, your right to carry it does not supersede a 6 year old child’s right to enjoy a festival with the family.

Fuck your gun, your right to carry it does not supersede a family’s right to go grocery shopping on a Saturday morning.

Fuck your gun, your right to carry it does not supersede an adult’s right to enjoy a night out with friends.

Fuck your gun, your right to carry it does not supersede a student’s right to get an education without having to attend classmates' funerals.

Fuck your gun, your right to carry it does not supersede a believer’s right to worship the God they choose.

Fuck your gun, fuck the NRA, fuck your thoughts and prayers, fuck the cowardly thieves who represent us.

Fuck your gun!

Scott C. Kaestner is a Los Angeles poet, dad, husband, and guy who never gets tired of sunshine or tacos. Google ‘scott kaestner poetry’ to peruse his musings and doings.

THE STAIRS, THE BED, THE LAUGHTER

by Jennifer Davis Michael

Drawing by Ann Telnaes, The Washington Post, December 5, 2017 

The stairs, the bed, the laughter,
the hand over her mouth.
The silence that came after
the stairs, the bed, the laughter;
the faces that looked past her.
The mockery, the doubt.
The stairs, the bed, the laughter.
Fifty hands over her mouth.

Jennifer Davis Michael is Professor and Chair of English at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Mezzo Cammin, Southern Poetry Review, Turtle Island Quarterly, Leaping Clear, and previously in TheNewVerse.News.

ADVICE FROM THE PATRIARCHY

by Howard Winn

Original cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon

Be a good girl and leave things as they are
since that arrangement has worked well
for us over the ages as we found
power and satisfaction with the way
issues have operated to our advantage
and questioning only gets in our way
you may cry a little when the time
seems appropriate but not kicking or
screaming that would be disturbing
and shift the attention to any ill treatment
you may see and feel for the way
we run the society has worked for us
and you ladies or girls should step aside
or submit when we desire it and your
feelings or even intellect is secondary
to our feelings of seniority and grandeur
even our misplaced anger is part of the
way we have built our sense of superiority
and supremacy which must not be
questioned in this patriarchy we have
fashioned over time and generations
to our benefit and personal profit

Howard Winn's novel Acropolis is published by Propertius Press. He has poems in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal and in Evening Street Magazine.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE ENJOYMENT

by Diane Elayne Dees

Click here to see original tweet.

So many things we could be doing—
watching movies, walking dogs,
playing with kids, lying on the beach,
having coffee with friends, playing tennis
on Saturday, relaxing at a jazz club.
But none of these can compare
with remembering, reliving, retelling:
the hug turned sinister, the doctored
drink, the sound of fabric being ripped,
the feel of bruising hands on shoulders,
the sound of laughter, the vomit-inducing
kiss, the heavy breathing, noxious sweat,
the brutal violation so powerful—
our neurology may never be the same.
The pleasure center of the female brain
lights up with every opportunity to beg
a powerful man to listen, to understand,
to maybe—one day—actually give a damn.

Diane Elayne Dees’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.