DATA AIN’T WISDOM

 by Anita S Pulier

Project 538, July 10, 2024

Even a perfect census will not put out the fire
burning in the Nationalist heart.

Nooses, confederate flags,
swastikas

stoke a malicious wind,
tease stray embers ablaze,

decency, fairness torched,
the dead mourned in time

to welcome
the next batch of flatliners,

school children hiding from bullets,
dead folk in synagogues, movies or concerts,

and caravans of the desperate who
wonder how close to an embryo

must one be to claim the right to life?
America, dear,

our once noble experiment
is choking on the foul air

in the autocratic wastebin of
greed and bigotry.

Sure, we will count heads,
tally up racial ancestry,

count votes,
count the dead, but will we learn

why, oh why, are so many
sucking the poison

from the orange beast’s burning breast
while Momma’s milk curdles and dries up?

Anita S Pulier’s chapbooks Perfect Diet, The Lovely Mundane and Sounds of Morning and her books The Butchers Diamond and Toast were published by Finishing Line Press.  Paradise Reexamined came out in 2023 (Kelsay Books). Her new book Leaving Brooklyn is due in Jan '25 from Kelsay Books  Anita’s poems have appeared in many journals and her work is included in nine print anthologies. Anita has been a featured poet on The Writer's Almanac and Cultural Daily.

ANOTHER DEAL

by Michel Steven Krug

Call back after call back.

Each reel like a test flight

Because my peers look at

 

My prior roles like an IMDB,

(Although I call it DIMB)

Because the country as a whole

 

Won’t embrace me,

Though I’ve acted out every role

To perfection. So here I am now,

 

The 14th, 15th, who knows how

Many rounds, still standing, but my smile

Muscles so fatigued. I need a drink. But

 

Craft service won’t serve on the House floor

Anymore, the way they did, I’m sure,

When Frederick H. Gillett could get

 

All the recesses and bourbon he needed

To convince the zealots that the Roaring 20s

Would only prevail under his leadership,

 

And lead to unrivaled economic prosperity.

And what about Speaker William Pennington?

He maintained his 1859 principled approach to

 

State’s rights, bringing the Country to

Brinksmanship, where it belongs again, so

Who, I ask, is the real reformer?

 

Fine, I will pledge to insurrect.

I will pledge to abandon rules.

I will pledge to renege.

 

I can’t be Hakeem

I can’t alliterate

I can’t inspire, but

 

I must be your next leader. Don’t pull the plug,

Please don’t, surely, we can strike

A deal for more donations, another deal, for G*d’s sake.

 

 

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 Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz, Portside, The 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.

INMATES IN CHARGE OF THE ASYLUM

by Howard Richard Debs

Win McNamee/Getty Images accompanying “The Big Picture: Danger ahead,” NPR, January 7, 2022

I stayed up until the wee hours

wakeful and fearful, riveted by

the proceedings of the U.S. House

of Representatives, 435 voting

members officially; as if votes matter—

which they do indeed since sold

on the auction block of avarice

and greed for power for the sake

of it, for with power comes privilege,

aggrandizement, garnering the purse

of a play plot based on chaos theory

its final act to be the end of a democracy.

Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally in numerous publications. His photography is featured in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words (Scarlet Leaf Publishing) is the recipient of a 2017 Best Book Award and 2018 Book Excellence Award. His latest work Political (Cyberwit Press) is the 2021 American Writing Awards winner in poetry. He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust forthcoming from Vallentine Mitchell of London, publisher of the first English language edition of Anne Frank's diary. He is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory.

THAT'SA MY BOY

by Edmund Conti




When your son (what a guy!) meets a Russian and spy
That’sa politics.

When he then says “So what?” since they got diddly squat
That’sa politics.

Dems will sing "What a ding-a-ling, what a ding-a-ling"
And you’ll sing “Mar-a-Lago.”
Let them sing, "Junior Junior jerk, Junior Junior jerk"
You can all keep Chicago.

When the votes make you drool even though it’s not cool
That’sa politics.
When you dance down the street tweeting tweet after tweet
You’re on top.

When you walk in a dream and you’re fooling your team and the voters
Scuzza me, but you see, just between you and me
That’sa politics

Edmund Conti is not related to Eddie "Butterass" Conti nor is he connected. Not to anyone. Especially not the Poetry Mafia.

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED LEADERSHIP

by Tendai Mwanaka

I will sleep with you if you can neglect your ailing wife for me. I will sleep with you because your wife would soon die. I will sleep with you if you show me where the money is. I will sleep with you if you show me where the power is. I will sleep with you if you allow me to sleep with other men, who will bear you kids. I will sleep with you as you rape the country, raze and plunder it. I will sleep with you as we gallivant in western capitals, in oriental cities. I will sleep with you for the clothes and jewellery. I will sleep with you and you and you... I will sleep with you for my kids’ future. I will sleep with you for my education. I will sleep with every professor of my studies. I would have slept with them had they improved my grading at that Western university, but they refused. So I slept with that Eastern University’s professors to get my honours. I will sleep with you for the doctorate degree. I will sleep with you for the chairmanship of the League. I will sleep with you for the publicity. I will sleep with you as you support my candidature for the presidency. I will sleep with you as you vote for me. I will sleep with the whole country to vote for me. I will sleep with the orphans. I will sleep with the women. I will sleep with the youths. I will sleep with every rival politician to garner their support. I will sleep with you for the future of my kids. And then, my kids will sleep with you to positions and power. Their wives and husbands will sleep with you to positions and power. My grandsons and daughters will sleep with you for positions and power. Their wives and husbands will sleep with you for positions and power. And yes, …

Tendai Mwanaka’s  work has appeared in over 300 magazines in over 27 counties, making him the most published Zimbabwean poet of his generation. Tendai's collection of poetry titled Voices from Exile was published by Lapwing Publications, Northern Ireland in 2010. His novel Keys in the River: Notes from a Modern Chimurenga is a series of interlinked stories that deals with life in modern day Zimbabwe. It was published by Savant, USA in 2012. Zimbabwe: The Blame Game, a collection of non-fiction pieces, was published by Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2013.