YOU MAY IGNORE THE DUPLICATE REQUEST TO FRIEND ME

by Devon Balwit

not that it was from a bot; it was not,
but from me after I unfriended you. (It’s true.)
Working the warp and weft of us left
me stressed. I thought it best to regress
to solitary, me alone already more than I
can handle. You (and other yous) weighed
in on myriad matters—I wanted my view
unskewed. So, rather rude than band-wagoned,
I un-cliqued. Now, riddled with regrets,
I suspect there might have been another way
to maintain center. But thus it ever is—
the act, the doubt, the retraction, the plow
of one’s furrowed brow into whether.


Devon Balwit has six chapbooks and three collections out in the world. Her individual poems can be found here or are forthcoming in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, apt, Posit, Cultural Weekly, Triggerfish, Fifth Wednesday, The Free State Review, Rattle, Poets Reading the News, etc.

DRONES

by Stew Jorgenson




The streets are pink with mud.
Too many people unfriended.
There's a bear shaking the tree.
The hive is pissed off.
It's hard to find peace of mind
in this culture war.
Everyone's buzzing to the sound
of other people's mad noise.  
Take a deep breath.
A little pepper spray
goes a long way,
up close and in your face.
We rage at the machine
but we are the machine.
Just one black swan away
from a social meltdown
of 2nd amendment proportions.
This is your complacency
wake-up call America.
The bees are dying.
Our democracy is stale.
It's a colony collapse disorder.
We like to wave our flags
until everyone tears up
and gets stupid.
Nothing gets done,
but it feels good
to blow off a little steam and
take credit for throwing a hissy fit,
like in the cold war comedy
The Russians Are Coming
where people panic,
the whole town is in an uproar,
mob mentality takes over,
no one listens to reason, and
Jonathan Winters is imploring people,
"We've got to get organized!"
Only this time it isn’t funny.

Stew Jorgenson is a part-time wordsmith who has more words than he knows what to do with each day.  Sometimes he uses the extras for poetry, celestial navigation, or target practice.  He has worked on farms, fishing boats, and in factories.  He is currently employed as a freelance muse wrestler.  He's skilled at mistakes, guilty by association, and suffers from occasional bouts of inspiration.