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.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COLORS GONE?

by Susan P. Blevins

Image source: 7 Themes.com

Now we’re in the centrifuge
spinning faster and faster
away from one another,
when we separate we disintegrate,
when we fall off the wall
who will put us together again?

Carefully, a knife pares
away the colors from our midst,
cutting to the bone of who we are to
make us a monochromatic society.
Does no one understand that poly is
more interesting than mono?
That the Roundup approach to crowd control
will ultimately kill us all?

That We The People do not want
to become a tighty-whitey dogma
driven herd of sheeple?
Without the dark we would not
know the light.  Without black
there would be no white.

Nature thrives when diversity flourishes,
so does society, like ingredients in
delicious healthy smorgasbord.
But no, with shortened vision and
primitive instinct, in fear
they scalpel us apart
bleeding us of life until all that’s left,
a hollowed husk of memories.

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, lived in Italy for 26 years, and is now living in the USA. She became a proud and happy US citizen 20 years ago. Now she is agonizing over the disintegration of US society, and the way fear is being used to manipulate people. She made a conscious decision many years ago never to live her life from a place of fear.