A DAY IS NOT A DAY

by Erin Murphy

AI-generated image by imbox sanothai via Dreamstime

“House Republican leaders on [March 11, 2025] quietly moved to shield their members from having to vote on whether to end President Trump’s tariffs… essentially [declaring] the rest of the year one long day.” —The New York Times

A day is not a day.

A night is not a night.

A star is not a star.

Sunrise is not sunrise.

Rain is not rain.

A robin is not a robin.

A song is not a song.

Darkness is not dark.

 

Reality is not real

and neither is steam

from a whistling teakettle

or the smell of fresh basil

on your fingers

hours after you make pesto

or the calligraphy

of hoof prints in virgin snow

or the neon cotton candy

of northern lights

in Zion National Park.

 

Hunger is not hunger.

A lie is not a lie.

A gun is not a gun.

Fear is not fear.

A deported neighbor

was never here at all,

never taught your son

to dribble a fútbol

in the alley between

your homes.

 

Silence is not silence.

 

A day is not a day.

A year is not a year.

A lifetime is not a life.

 

A kiss is just a kiss,

Dooley Wilson sang

in Casablanca.

But a kiss is not a kiss.

It didn’t lead to love

or lust, not even for

your parents which means,

of course, you don’t exist.

You could tell your analyst

but your analyst is not

an analyst. And no matter

what he says, a cigar

is not a cigar.

 

A poem is not a poem.

Ce n'est pas un poème.

A rose is not a rose is not

a rose is not a rose. We are

not who we think we are.

Erin Murphy’s latest book of poetry is Fluent in Blue (Grayson Books, 2024). She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review.

THE PLEASURE I’D TAKE IN THE ANY-AGE DEATH OF ONE WHO REMAINS UNNAMED

a truncated trenta-sei

by Jacquelyn Shah

Spoofing that poetic form of John Ciardi 

used for his “A Trenta-Sei of the Pleasure We Take in 

the Early Death of Keats”

“Still Life With Skull, Leeks, and Pitcher, March 14, 1945” by Pablo Picasso

I will not pretend to be sad
thinking about his death. A treat
it would be—(the species-truth? We are glad
to have a death to munch on.)
to wake some morning soon to a Tweet
reporting his demise. Why, oh why
am I so moved to pray he will die?

Thinking about his death is a treat

I allow myself. To be spared the bother of hearing,

day after day, his merely bitter, never sweet,

falsehoods, fabrications; watch his sneering

and his huff and puff, huff and puff

would constitute, for me, a quite-enough.

Re: Ciardi’s “species-truth”—yes, we are glad

to have a death to munch on. But truth to tell,

I’d forgo the munching; is snarfing up too-too very bad?

When it comes to lying, this unnamed guy does it well,

and his performances, so brash, his smear and jeer

deserve no curtain calls, despite the fools who stand and cheer.

To wake some morning soon to a Tweet 

reporting death, underscoring had he lived, my own remaining time

could be not merely dull but dreadful… how Sweet!

O beautiful, the death of one whose power-grubbing lifetime’s

gone. And gone would be, ungenerosity, extravagance, and full-

blown pretense, double-crossing, treachery, cock-and-bull!

Jacquelyn “Jacsun” Shah, nonbinary iconoclast holds A.B. & M.A. English and M.F.A. & Ph.D. English/creative writing–poetry. Her publications: chapbook, small fry; full-length book, What to Do with Red; individual poems in various journals. Literal Latté’s 2018 Food Verse Contest winner, she has now won a non-fiction book award contest and her memoir-essay collection will be published this summer. 

DEMO

by Michel Steven Krug

Jeff Koterba / Cagle Cartoons

In the House

there’s treachery afoot.

 

A leader sandwiched by volleys

of red sensation

and

what formerly was known

as consensus.

 

And the price to be paid:

parliamentary

demo-

li-tion. 

 

I move that the Country

Avert economic infanticide

By installing cold showers

That spray the margins where

Passion plays like theatre 

To astound the outer rings.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag and Brooklyn Review. His collection Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is scheduled for publication by Broadstone Books, in the spring, 2024.