THREE YEARS SINCE JANUARY 6TH

by David Feela

Traitor Trump is a drawing by Mike Scott which was uploaded to Fine Art America on December 8th, 2022.

the rhetoric simmers
the threats rise like steam
the traitor still leading the charge
the office in florida a command post
the golf course his bunker
the tower branded by his babel 
the lies
the three years burning like acid reflux in democracy’s gut
the smell of pepper spray in everything he says
the mass deportation of his conscience  
the rumor he doesn’t have one
the constitutional disdain he swears to protect
the lies
the charisma he carries like a infected boil
the rule of law that doesn’t apply to him
the courtroom where he sits and glares
the indictments and mug shot 
the lies
the money he grifts 
the pussy he’s entitled to grab
the election he never won
the lies
the reelection he continues to rig 
the bible raised as a prop
the lies
the comb over that covers his heart

David Feela writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. Unsolicited Press released his latest chapbook Little Acres.

HAWLEY

by Robert West

One sworn to shield you soon would die,

but you, your cynic’s fist held high,

proclaimed your solidarity

with those for whom the thought they’re free

now trumps all law and love and reason.

You spurred them on, then cheered their treason.

Robert West is the author of three chapbooks of poems including Convalescent (Finishing Line Press, 2011); the co-editor of Succinct: The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems (Broadstone Books, 2013); and the editor of both volumes of The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons (W. W. Norton, 2017).

FREAK

by Terese Coe

In each pathological deal

Freak is petulant, false, and unreal.

His extortion and murk

are what passes for work

while he tweets about copping a feel.

The bigot’s a twist and a troll

whose psychosis has taken a toll

on folks who can’t cope

with a chief misanthrope

traitor who's deep in a hole.

It's past time he gave up the ghost.

Every tweet still drives home that he’s toast:

a demon enraged,

it's time he was caged

and dropped 90 miles off the coast.

Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in 32 Poems, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Poetry, Threepenny Review, Agenda, The Moth, New Walk Magazine, New Writing Scotland, Poetry Review, the TLS, The Stinging Fly, and many other publications and anthologies. Her collection Shot Silk was nominated for The Poets Prize of 2017.

CHELSEA MANNING, NOT JUST HERSELF

by Devon Balwit

Chelsea Manning tried to commit suicide last month as she was starting a week of solitary confinement at the prison barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., her punishment for a previous attempt to end her life in July. —The New York Times, November 4, 2016. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters/Newscom via The Intercept.

The constraints are multiple:
Chelsea jailed inside Bradley,
Bradley penned inside the military,
a deployed soldier inside a perimeter

The voices are multiple:
of wrongness, of rage, of never
belonging, of DADT, her security
clearance no security.

The postures are multiple:
curled over a desk, curled fetal,
clenching fists, crying, screaming,
flipping tables, flipping the bird.

The labels are multiple:
MOS, 35F, PFC, Specialist,
gay, trans, gender dysphoric
traitor, victim, hero, woman.

The reactions are multiple:
bullying, scorn, vilification,
compassion, incomprehension,
indifference, pity, respect.

The wishes are multiple:
to move on from being traitor
or whistleblower, to die, to live,
to be heard, to define herself.

Devon Balwit is a poet and educator in Portland, OR.  Her work has appeared before in TheNewVerse.News and elsewhere, in places such as Unlikely Stories Mark V, Five 2 One, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Rattle.

A SHADOW IS BORN

by Alejandro Escudé


Sep 30, 2015 · by Rob Stein and Eyder Peralta

From 

Couple Spends $100,000 To Clone Deceased Dog, Gets Two Puppies 

—HuffPost Science, Dec. 28, 2015

A chance to wipe
The death-slate
Clean,

And raise a clone.
We might dictate
Morals of old
But none do hold,

The messiah
Willing to pry a life
From the mouth
Of god.

I gaze at
My bloody feet,
The dust, having wandered
The desert,

A rueful act.
One traitor equals
One billion

With minds set
To explode or be
Appeased.

Holding a shadow
Should be
A harrowing thing,

To feel the body
There, only to witness
The darkness.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.