TWILIGHT ZONE CHILD’S PLAY

by Andrés Castro

Otherworldly, Rod Serling was
                                                 ahead
of his time,
     foreshadowing
an old fleshy Trump
                                with a skinny blonde boy
who tortured family and neighbors,
                                                        turning
     on a sadistic whim,
          anyone
                     into a grotesque
                                               creature,                       like a sprung jack-in-the-box
                                                                                    with a dunce-capped head,
before planting them
     in his homestead cornfield.
     No one dared to look at this boy
the wrong way.

This 60s episode,
     It’s a Good Life
in black and white,
                                                     flashes forward now
                                                                                      to 2025,
                                                                                           in bleeding colors,
                                                                                      where Trump rules
just like that boy,
     with unpredictable tantrums.

     Except,                                                                           our boy
                                                                                       would love to rule the world
if he could;
     Except,                                                                            now he has a cast of commercial
                                                                                        to mercenary flying monkeys circling
                                                                                        around him.

                                                                                                            His Hail Caesar!
                                                                                                                 Heil Hitler! moments
                                                                                                            have begun

on our way past cornfields                                                             to crucifixions
                                                                                                                 to revolutions.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory. He keeps a personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

A GOLDEN SHOVEL FOR THE RESISTANCE

by Lynne Knight

Image source: Greenpeace

The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

All that weekend, checking our phones while

we waited, some of us praying, all of us thinking this

might be it, this might be the day the report

says what we want it to say, telling us what he does

is what he’s always done, he lied, he lies, sometimes not

even big lies, from which it’s easy to conclude

many things about his psyche, most of all that

he’s deeply insecure, so insecure it’s hard to see the—

the what?—extent of his neuroses? but a president,

carrying on like a child—maybe he should be committed,

we say, his rants are so wild, maybe he’s just totally a-

moral, and while that’s nothing approaching crime,

it does show how asleep we are, how numb, moreover it

shows how power corrupts, no one’s exempt, even us, and also

it exposes the deep fault in the national psyche, it does,

it does, we are split, fractured, broken, divided, there is not

much time for healing, and since nothing will ever exonerate

us for our silence, let us say what is, let us dig in against him.

Lynne Knight has published six full-length poetry collections and six chapbooks, along with I Know (Je sais), a translation, with the author Ito Naga, of his Je sais. Her awards include publication in Best American Poetry, a Poetry Society of America award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a RATTLE Poetry Prize.

LITTLE THINKING

by Kathleen A. Lawrence

Source: Boedaq Lieur



Little boy man
with hair of straw
and bubble gum cheeks
hollers at the crack of dawn
for not coming when he called,
orders the morning plans changed
so he can ride his Flintstone car
for 9 holes of golf instead of work,
but pouts if the clouds don't shade
his eyes from happy, babbling brooks.
(he hates the sound of laughing water,
“stop laughing at me” he bellows)

Little big shot
with sticky hands
in ill-fitted Brooks Brothers suit
snaps at the afternoon sun
for not shining bright enough
to polish his dull and tarnished lies,
screeching at the nap time hour
refusing to quiet down
to let the world sleep.
(“shut up” he squawks like a magpie
awake and wanting attention
through the autumn air)

Little baby boss
with sleep in eyes
red helicopter cap
wails at the Man-in-the-moon
calling him names, mocking his craters
blaming him for not casting
a longer shadow
on his tiny little form,
turning his back on the North Star
for stealing his limelight.
(“Damn, stupid moon”
who said it could orbit his earth?)

Little brat-in-chief
with mouth full of teeth
to chew his candy lips
stomps around the penthouse
screeching to the shimmering stars
for sparkling too much,
cursing out the rotating planets
for moving too quickly
and without his permission,
“I get to sign the documents.”
(Swatting at the constellations
like he was bringing down
pesky spider webs that had startled him)

Little monster boy
with orange mask
concealing scary supervillan
who rages at the grass
for growing too soft and green,
and screams against the mountains
for looming tall, purple, and majestic
and breaking the view
from his expensive toy plane.
(in a tantrum he insists that
“everybody sit down, sit down,
so I’m the tallest!”)

Little baby man
with giant demands
snaps his tiny, itty-bitty fingers
demanding the help clean up
his messes while fixing more food,
gobbling treats and tonguing
disapproval he claims his greatness
“I’m big— really, really big”
and the rest of us are just losers.
(he folds his arms and turns away
saying "you're fired" and “dumb,
really really dumb”)

Kathleen A. Lawrence likes the idea of writing poetry under a Cortland apple tree on a crisp afternoon, lifted by a scented autumnal breeze. She longs to write of love and beauty inspired by the loveliness of the world. However, she typically is compelled to write while watching the news explode reality across her flat screen, in her small suburban bungalow, painted an optimistic shade of periwinkle blue.