ON BEING STUCK AND STACKED DECKS

by Jen Schneider

Dave Granlund cartoon via Milford Daily News.

1. Something bitter. Noun. Plural.

2. Something sour. Noun. Plural.

3. Something sweet. Noun. Plural.

4. Something vulnerable. Noun. Plural.

5. Someone who is vulnerable. Noun. Plural.

6. Something that is increasing in number. Noun. Plural.

7. Something else that increases in number. Noun. Plural.

8. A Whole number. Greater than six and less than eleven.

9. A whole number. Less than six

10. An antonym for permanent.

11. A synonym for the adjective just 

12. Another word for exonerated

Breaking news alerts proliferate. 

Prosper, too. Prime time menus 

of mixed reviews mingle and morph 

amongst clam covered 

palms and sweat stained pits.

Stomachs ache 

of __1__ and __2__. 

 

Memories of __3__ fade into

forever setting suns as storm 

clouds crystallize. Frowns

form. Red and blue ink

blur. Times New Roman

font crosses paths with Lato.

Wet signatures dry. Personals 

pay final respects. Records

are released. 

 

Wild prey wait on nearby wires. Dollars

wait in nearby banks. Electric

energy both watching and waiting. 

Lighting strikes in predictable patterns

and on predictable prey.

 

The vulnerable press. Charge, too.

No matter. Mathematics makes

for logical work and two consonants 

(F / R)

and two vowels 

(E / E) 

yield a limited

number of combinations. 

Permutations, too.

 

Reef(s) hover at or near

the surface of stormy seas. 

Barriers built to protect those

in need - __4__

and __5__ weaken

until those in need become

no more than numbers. 

 

Data most revealing. 

Most numbers grow - 

__6__ and __7__

while others diminish. 

Brute force always finds a way

to unlock combinations long

proffered as secure. Sentences

often flip, then flop. __8__ turns

to __9__with a subtle twist.

Zippers release and seams snap.

Nylon curtains drop and faux

satin sheets fall. Silver

linings dissipate.

Accounts empty then fill.

 

Golden standards have always been tarnished.

Gambling has always been a predetermined 

proposition. Printing presses turn out F.R.E.E.

passes as pressed charges turn off the lights.

Light, too. Games systems everywhere.

 

Not all Aces are pure. 

Not all Spades are sacred. 

To win is not always ___10___.

To be free, not always __11__.

 

Hands reveal hidden tricks

and luck turns. Locks turn left 

and engines run. Game on 

and now over. Energy depleted.

 

To be free 

is not to be __12__.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

OCTOBER 17, SWEETEST DAY

by Ron Riekki

or, this year, Sweatiest Day, how hot 

 

the goddamn gowns and gloves are in- 

side the war of the COVID wards, how 

STUPID are the anti-maskers, the 27— 

at my current count—White Housers 

positive, and here I’m a pessimist, 

seeing the ramifications, seeing the 

ventilators, seeing the conventions, 

 

packed with people; or maybe it’s 

 

the SWATest Day, the ICEist day, 

these days of mass pollution/mass 

arrests for immigrants just trying 

to go to mass, or to work; or may- 

be it’s the Sleepiest Day, the mass 

hypnosis of this world, being told 

that this virus will just "go away," 

 

told by someone who, by the way, 

 

could get re-infected, someone who 

just had a runny nose, but now who’s 

running for President when he has 

never yet actually been President, 

or been presidential, just swinging 

pendulums in front of our eyes, 

telling us we’re feeling sleepy, so 

 

sleepy; or maybe it is, as I said, 

 

the Heat-est Day, the Hottest Day, 

the hottest October 17 that’s ever 

been recorded, because, sadly, 

that’s the theme of this year, how 

there haven’t really been any holi- 

days this year, just evil-days, sad- 

days, maydays, doomsdays, play- 

 

days where kids can’t touch, birth- 

 

days where we can’t hug, because 

we’re on an expressway to hell if 

we don’t stop the way we treat 

the world and the way we treat 

each other, if we fall for the tricks 

that led us to this collapse, the tricks 

of 2016 where the U.S. was covered 

 

in red.  Honestly, aren’t you, too, tired? 

Ron Riekki's latest books in 2020 are Niiji (Cyberwit, co-written with Sally Brunk), i have been warned not to write about this (Main Street Rag), and The Many Lives of It (McFarland).

THE VICTRESS

by James Reiss   

Hillary Clinton by DonkeyHotey

    From Ronald
    to Donald
    politics
    sticks
    to people
    who sweep all                              
away with their tricks.

     The voters
     gun toters
     scope out Reeps
     not Bo-Peeps
     while the Dems
     with ahems                      
eye Al Gore–like veeps.

     But the winner
     a grinner
     more clever
     than ever
     won’t say Trump
     on the stump                                                        
is a dirtbag—never.

     As our prez
     she says  
     she’ll drink in                              
     Abe Lincoln
     standing straight
     while we state                  
Here’s to Hillary Clinton!

Spuyten Duyvil will release James Reiss’s debut novel, When Yellow Leaves, in September, and it will publish his second novel, Façade for a Penny Arcade, in 2017. He is the author of six full-length poetry books, including The Breathers, Ten Thousand Good Mornings, and Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems. His work has appeared in such places as The Atlantic, Esquire, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, Slate, and Virginia Quarterly Review. As Professor Emeritus of English at Miami University, he is Founding Editor of Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio. His surname rhymes with “peace.”