IT'S THE EXOTIC, THE FOREIGN...

by Phyllis Wax

who rouse fear—                                                           

the Egyptian cobra, the black mamba,                                                  

the pit vipers of Pakistan and Afghanistan—                                        

and nativists lump the unfamiliar benign 

with these toxic snakes, want to fence them all out. 

                                                         

But what about the homegrown “patriots”—the domestic

side-armed sidewinding rattler, chattering and clattering           

its venomous views, sowing discord wherever  it chooses?

What about the skin-headed southern cottonmouth

with its deceptive languid accent and aggressive

lashing out?  The klanned coral snake, venomous,         

yet anonymous?  The paranoid tea-                                

stained copperhead?  The credulous shrug them off,                        

consider them crazies,

not dangerous species

to be monitored and tracked.

They slither from under rocks and brush piles                            

in the western hills, cluster in nests in lowland swamps,

ooze out of slimy mics all over the homeland.

The willfully oblivious ignore them—              

even when they rear back and strike.                                                                                                     

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, WI, where she is now watching in horror as the homegrown snakes are all slithering out at once. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, both online and in print.

HAVING BEEN CATTLE-HANDLED BY THE MEDIA AND MY OWN PARTY

by S. Siegel

DonkeyHotey

 I'll cast my vote as though I am
 electing an Interim President. She will have four years to
 articulate and hopefully deliver a progressive agenda.
 In the process, congressional seats on both sides
 of the aisle will turn over, removing the last of the Tea
 Party dregs and moving the Democratic Party (or a new
 party) in this direction. Some public officials, including
 local D precinct leaders, will be indicted on election fraud
 and the primary system will shift toward something more
 coherent and democratic, something that resembles an
 ethical vision of America.



S. Siegel lives in Oregon. His most recent book is The Constellation of Extinct Stars and Other Poems (Salmon Poetry, 2016)

LES MISERABLES

by Edmund Conti

Image source: DonkeyHotey

Speaker of the House
Keeper of the zoo
Hoping I can please ‘em
The forty-one or two.
Obamacare, goodbye
Planned Parenthood, so long
Doing nothing here at all
How can we go wrong?
Everybody loves the Right Wing
Your good old buddy friend
We’ll do what pleases just us few
You’ll get it in the end.


Edmund Conti is an impartial observer of the idiots in Congress.

A COMPLEX (AMERICAN) STORY PROBLEM

by Lylanne Musselman

America has 2 many guns + 2 many assault rifles - respect for education + underpaid educators ÷ by students without discipline + a too “selfie” centered populace 2 pay attention - respect for President Obama [or anyone in authority] × a biased news media + more guns × Trump + (another) Bush + Huckabee ÷ by organized religion + climate change doubters × a polar-

ized climate + deep corporate greed - creativity in schools - critical thinking skills + more stress - genuine laughter × Reaganomics ÷ by class wars + financial stress - the middle class × mounting student debt × the working poor + prescription drugged zombies + unaffordable health care (for some) + even more guns (for more) × pro-life + votes against women’s issues ÷ by Planned Parenthood (pro-choice) - compassion - common sense - empathy for others + more and more guns × gay marriage ÷ by God + Kim Davis ÷ by Pope Francis’ U.S. visit × divisive social media threads × more social unrest + a targeted Hillary’s Bengasi + a torrid Tea Party × an un-

touchable NRA × multiple school shootings + daily drive-by shootings + theater shootings (not on the movie screen) + an anchor shot (dead) live on camera + children killing children (over a puppy) × 365 days of violence: giving even more Americans ammunition. How long will a divided (violent) country last when we keep multiplying these problems expecting an equal (safe) outcome for all?

                                                                                         
Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet, playwright, and artist. Her work has appeared in The New Verse News, Flying Island, The Rusty Nail, So it Goes, Issue 3, among others, and many anthologies.  One of her poems was selected for the Best of Flying Island, 2014.  In addition, Musselman has also been a Pushcart Nominee. Musselman is the author of three chapbooks and she co-authored Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013).

SIDES?

by Gil Hoy

So it’s bound to be

    Hillary (thank god)

Obama can’t and

      Warren gave her word 

and if donkey's second best’s lust

       full hubby     can please

keep his      self-destructive philandering

                  habits to himself         

   and both of you please stop         

                       taking big money for

            giving speeches because

      it’s all about public service and       

remember  to              get all money

             out of politics anyway             and it better 

be Bush                      on the elephant side 

just in case because 

                         for one reason

     who could begrudge a man for 

defending his own brother  against wmd

        and another is anyone but    those fruit cakes 

from Texas Florida or            Wisconsin  and also 

he’s better than the other wacky tea party folks and

Editor's note: Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush images from DonkeyHotey.

Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, and received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Gil started writing his own poetry in February last year. His poems have been published most recently in The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, and The Zodiac Review.

SELF-MADE MAN

by Tom Russell

I gave birth to myself.

I discovered fire so that I could eat
whatever I, alone, produced.

I didn’t read your books,
you read mine.

I coined all the phrases.

I invented the wheel
and built all the roads
that wheels carry my money on.

I did all this with no help from anyone.

I created the dial tones and cyberspace
and made all the deals.

I forged all my own tools,
and that includes you.

Now you want to abuse me
with your regulations and taxations.
Blathering about responsibility
and shared sacrifice.

Suck it up, weasels.
Next you’ll be wanting your own bootstraps.

I don’t care who among you
gets sick or dies.
It pleases me
to see the spite you have for each other.

You are blind and weak.
Even if you could see my curtain
you wouldn’t be able to move it
and know that I am there.


Tom Russell works for the Omaha Public Library in Omaha, Nebraska. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Shot Glass Journal, and Crab Fat Literary Magazine.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACK PRESIDENT

by Peter Krass

              after Wallace Stevens


1.
Among fifty serious issues
The only one moving
Was the black president’s middle name.

2.
I was of a hysterical mind
Like Fox News
In a country with a black president.

3.
The black president shot hoops in the watermelon sun.
It was a small moment in the nation’s delusion.

4.
The Tea Party and a Muslim
Are one.
The Tea Party and a Muslim and a black president
Are one.

5.
I do not know which to fear more,
Those who say
They want our country back
Or those who admit
They hate a president who is black.

6.
A handgun was brought
To the Town Hall meeting.
The silhouette of the black president
Imagined in the crosshairs.
The desire
Curving the wicked grin,
A terrifying glare.

7.
O madmen of Trump,
Why do you still seek a birth certificate?
Do you not see how, in one capacious pocket,
A black president carries
All nations?

8.
I too had heard the sermons, listened to the worthy dream
Of the doomed prophet, the dead preacher;
But I dreamed, too, that the black president
Had also heard his words.

9.
When a black president took office
It marked the end
Of several beginnings.

10.
At the sight of a black president
Speaking in the Rose Garden light,
Bloggers and other related bastards
Would cry out falsely.

11.
She floated above the tundra
In a wolf-hunting dirigible
From which she imagined refudiating a terrorist.
Later, she misunderestimated
The shadow of her pregnant daughter,
Thinking it was a black president she could see
Across the bay in Russia.

12.
The tide ebbs.
The wind sits in the shoulder
Of the black president’s sail.

13.
It was summer all winter.
It was far too warm
And it was getting warmer.
The black president sat
In the hottest spot of all.


Peter Krass teaches at the Writers Studio in New York and online, and he's also a freelance writer and editor. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, CommonLine Journal, and elsewhere, and his poem "All Dressed in Green" received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention.

ALBERT CAMUS INTERVIEWS TED CRUZ

by Judith Terzi

Camus:               Did you become a Tea Party member today
                      or yesterday?

Cruz:                  Je ne sais pas. What difference does it make?
                     Adamant or ablative?
                     Buttonhole or brandish?
       
Camus:              Can I call you Ted?
                     Is the welfare of the people the alibi of tyrants?
           
Cruz:                 Entente or egregious?
                     Filibuster or fricassee?

Camus:              Ted, think about your Caucus. Do you consider
                     suicide as the only escape from the absurdity of
                     politics?

Cruz:                 Golf would be that, Albert. Golf. No question.
                     Herring or hubbub?
                     Infuse. Refuse. Refuse. Accuse. J'accuse! Zola, right?
           
Camus:             Eh bien mon frère, vous connaissez Sisyphe?
                    You know Sisyphus, right?

Cruz:                Oui, oui Albert. I graduated Princeton cum laude.
                    Judicious jab.
                    Kebob kingdom.
           
Camus:             LOL. I don't get the metaphor, Ted.

Cruz:                Mordant mincemeat.       
                    Nefarious narcolepsy.
                    Obama!

Camus:             Mon frère, we should be a rockin' & a rollin',
                    pushin' that boulder up the slope ensemble.
                    Together. Juntos! I didn't write that damn essay
                    to waste time. You've read La Peste, right?
           
Cruz:                Plague!
                    Quite a story if I say so myself.
                    Rats, rats, rats, rats.
                    Socialist rats. Everyone helping each other. So creepy.
           
Camus:             TMI, Ted.
           
Cruz:                United we stand, Albert.
                    Vouloir, c'est pouvoir. Where there's a will,
                    there's a way. Voulez-vous . . . High school French, man.

                         So tell me, Al. Why did the Stranger want a crowd
                    at his execution? Can't remember the weirdo's name.

Camus:             Very strange question from you, mon frère. Surely
                    you get off on les cris de haine, cries of hatred, right?

Cruz:                Wrestle with the wrath like I always say.
                    Xerox the xenophobia. You get my drift.

Camus:             Yak or yodel?
                    Zion or Zen?
                    Zut alors!

Cruz:                Yesterday or today?           


Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye; Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo); The Raintown Review; and Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes). Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English and ESL at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

THE CRISIS 2013

by George Held

Safe in gerrymandered districts
House Tea Partiers vie
To end the democratic process
Through calumny and lies.

Hateful of our President
And much in love with Cruz
Tea partiers set new precedent
For filibustered schmooze.

Ask not what to do for country
But just for Red State views –
Pro-gun, pro-life, and anti-tax
And poor and migrant crews.

Safe in gerrymandered districts
Untouched by Reason
And wed to right-wing cliques
Tea Partiers foment treason

And call it Constitutional;
While liberals quake and quail
And cry, “Delusional!”
The nation lies derailed.


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

SUPER TUESDAY

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote 

$UPERCILIOU$

Oily gutter politricks sunken rainbows
Warped arc reflection scared straight
Contending with scorched soil tactics
Flying Saucer Tea Party crash-landing

$UPERPHONY

If Obama walked on water
Rancid Foxy creatures that inhabit
Polluted foggy bottomless DCeption
Would ask: “Can’t he swim?”

$UPERCHARLATAN

Barely afloat back from brink
Contrarian House craven maven power-mongers
Relentlessly diminishing disrespecting unwilling to
Act in common good-better-best faith

$UPEROPPORTUNI$T

Obstructionist Congress lobbying corporate sponsors
Casino crapshoot rolling loaded dice
Greedy unprincipled hypocrites institutionalizing avarice
Judeo-Christian-Zionist unholy crusader war
 
$UPER$CHMOOZER

Barack is who he is
Fundamentally principled reversing Bush catastrophes
Despite monumental Republican’t  naysayers bucking
Broncobama No-OK Corral rodeo champ
 
$UPERPANDERER

Left is right bipolarized chill-out
As good as it’s gonna
Get for next four years
Probably better than we deserve

 No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

THE REPUBLICANS

by Martin Rocek

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
just look straight up if
you run off a cliff,
no need to heed science or gravity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the stork only comes
to eager raped mums,
there's never unwanted gravidity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if you're sick and can't pay
try the Tea Party way:
emergency room hospitality.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
if God guides your path
there's no use for math,
the deficit's paid by divinity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
the poor pay the tax,
the rich just relax
and let Bain take care of their equity.

In Wile E. Coyote reality,
don't bother with truth
--it's a folly of youth--
the facts are a dull technicality.


Martin Rocek teaches and studies theoretical physics at Stony Brook University.