NO KINGS

by Joan Gerstein

I painted two-foot high NO KINGS

in bold block letters on my blue fence

Months later   it remains unmolested

Months later   gas is $6.00 a gallon

Months later   Trump doesn’t know how to end wars he started

Months later   Trump rants senile threats and insults

On a busy street   my fence remains unmarred

Months later   Trump insults the Pope 

Months later   Trump posts a picture of himself as Jesus

Months later   Trump controls the Supreme Court 

In this Marine Corps city no one defaces my fence

Months later   Trump defies lower courts 

Months later   Trump strong-arms Republican lawmakers

Months later   Trump empties our treasury 

Months later   Trump demands effigies of himself on everything

and enriches his personal wealth through corruption  greed   lying

No one disfigures my fence in this conservative-leaning metropolis

because my message is meh     NO KINGS

I wish I had the guts to write     Dethrone the evil   vile   *$#)V&!

Joan Gerstein, a retired educator and therapist, teaches creative writing to incarcerated veterans. And, yes, at 78 she was up and down the ladder.

I WILL MISS THE LARGE ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA

by Michael Brockley

Woody Guthrie in March 1943.

The bison. The grizzly bears. The jaguars that can’t leap over the wall along the border river. I will miss reading irreverent books. Novels where Jesus has a friend named Biff. Comic books where Deadpool is a hero. I will miss news reporters who know that Kansas City is in Missouri and that Benjamin Franklin never resided in the White House. I will miss the White House. The Smithsonian, the Statue of Liberty, and Yellowstone. I will wonder how Old Faithful might be disappeared. I will miss pennies. And the Beatitudes, the part of the Bible Kurt Vonnegut valued the most. I will miss voting for women. I will miss movies that tell the stories of men and women who don’t look like me. I will miss being able to see Venus and Mars on clear nights. I will miss strawberries and tomatoes and watermelons and sweet potatoes and cranberries and sunflowers and cherries. I will miss guitars with This Machine Kills Fascists scrawled across their bodies. I will miss dogs that look more like wolves than weapons of war. I will miss saying  Feliz Navidad, Fröhliche Weihnachten, and Mele Kalikimaka. I will miss finger-pointing songs. I will miss licorice. Yes, I will even miss licorice.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana, His prose poems have appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Red Eft Review, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. Brockley's prose poems are also forthcoming in Ley Lines Literary Review, Seat at the Table, and Alien Buddha.

GENESIS 2025

by Michael Dorian

Source: Seattle Times

In the beginning

He pardoned all the seditionists.

Now the nation was barren and shapeless,

darkness was upon the land

and He said, “Let there be lies,”

and there were lies.

He saw the lies were good

and He separated the lies from the truth.

He called the lies “truth”

and He called the truth “lies.”

And there was evening 

and there was morning—

the first day

And He said, "Let me stop the wildfires

scorching the pretty landscaping

and those expensive houses. 

I know some people in L.A., some 

very wealthy, well-connected people."

And He released with almighty force

from his gullet a torrent of water pressure

the likes of which no man had beheld.

And the fires stopped burning.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the second day

And He said, "Let the illegal immigrants

in the land be returned whence they came."

So with a gust of His great breath

He swept them all up in a glorious gale

and blew back to homelands the vermin, 

scattered like so much feed.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the third day.

And He said, "Let me build a big beautiful wall

And He saw it was a good wall,

a great wall, better than China’s,

The Greatest Wall Of All Time

that anyone has ever seen anywhere

on Earth or any planet in our 

Solar System or even in all of Space,"

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the fourth day.

And He said, "Let me stop the war in Ukraine."

And a great swathe of his carefully—

coiffed hair sent all the soldiers

toppling like toys back into their

respective sovereign countries

(with Russia gaining great areas

of formerly Ukrainian land)

and the bloodshed ceased 

like the last lilting notes 

of cherubs’ trumpeted fanfare.

And He saw this was good

(for Putin and Himself, anyway)

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the fifth day.

And He said, "Let me drill, baby, drill!"

So with tremendous huffing and puffing

He had an angel, a female one, fluff

His manhood until it stood,

a tower of steel shining in the sun,

and He poked it in and pulled it out

with enduring virility

until he had poked 

many a holy hole 

deep into the Earth’s womb

and into 625 million acres

of preserved coastal seawaters

and the nation became richer with crude.

And the land and great numbers

of its people were crude.

And He saw this was good

and there was evening 

and there was morning—

the sixth day.

And on the 7th day

He played golf and he cheated.

Once upon a time, Michael Dorian had a collection of poems and a play in one act published by Silk City Press entitled "The Nektonic Facteur.”  He likes to think that when the going gets tough, the tough write poems. 

DONALD TRUMP BLUES (CLOWNS DON’T BUY YOU KLEENEX)

by Judy Juanita

To the tune of Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold Em”

Craiyon graphic

What have you got to lose?

Dude, the Donald Trump blues

& his one-man wrecking crew

Only wall he's built is the wall

between me and you

We been disagreeing since his first run

And that’s been half the fun

Going to bed mad

Waking up glad

But this clown's not buying Kleenex

For the tears that'll fall like rain

When he slices up Social Security

Makes the US Post Office history

Gives those gainful jobs to red state Billy Bobs

But you going behind my back

To vote in this crackerjack

Saying what we got to lose?

The Donald Trump blues

In 2016, we knew he was talking smack

Bout Mexicans taking jobs from blacks

We knew Sporting Life ain't picking cotton

Ain’t going back to the lowly bottom

We know he pits the po' against the po'

The fear of being po'er than po’

A fire-breathing dragon ready to gun

Down the country, the Constitution

He already lit the fuse

On January Sixth

What you got to lose?

This here’s your Wanted

Dead or Alive moment

Don't kill true love waiting on

A rich man to keep his promise

Clowns don't buy Kleenex

What the hell he gon do next?

That’s the for real Donald Trump blues

This clown ain't buying Kleenex

What the hell you gon do next?

We all gotta lot to lose

It’s no if-and-or-maybe

What the hell we gon do

Baby?

Judy Juanita's latest book of poetry Gawdzilla equates the filmic Godzilla to US imperialism, racism, and sexism. Her first collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021. Her short story collection The High Price of Freeways won the Tartt Fiction Award and was published by the University of West Alabama [Livingston Press, 2022]. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul [Viking, 2013] follows a naive college journalism major in the 1960s who joins the Black Panther Party and ends up editing its weekly newspaper.

THE CROSSING

by John Valentine

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block a ruling from a federal judge in Texas requiring the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era immigration program that forces asylum seekers arriving at the southwestern border to await approval in Mexico…. The court’s three more liberal members—Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—said they would have granted a stay of the trial judge’s ruling…. The challenged program, known commonly as Remain in Mexico and formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols, applies to people who left a third country and traveled through Mexico to reach the U.S. border. After the policy was put in place at the beginning of 2019, tens of thousands of people waited for immigration hearings in unsanitary tent encampments exposed to the elements. There have been widespread reports of sexual assault, kidnapping and torture. —The New York Times, August 24, 2021. Photo: Olga Galicia and her family at a makeshift camp for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, near the border with the United States. Credit: Emilio Espejel/Associated Press via The New York Times.

The trail snakes north, coils

like a rattler.

Mindlessly moving in the glare  

of the sun, they go.

Diaspora bound. Weary,

everything left behind.

Hopeless. 

And here comes the hand

that says no. 

The one that refuses

The hand like a wall.

Thunder, rain up ahead. 

Lightning.    

The trembling. The reckoning.

All that they feared. 

The night. Its stillness.

The hand.  

And now

here comes the storm.

John Valentine lives in Savannah, GA, where he teaches aesthetics at a local art college.

CLOSING THE BOOK ON GEORGE FELL

by Jimmy Pappas

Source: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. —Micah 1:8


1.

the page of a book
            can be a leaf
                        can be a butterfly wing

a book in a college dormitory
            on a Saturday night
                        with a young man studying

can be a starting line
            can be a point of departure
                        can be a loaded gun

2.

closing a book
            on a young man studying
                        can be a wormhole

to travel across
            the United States
                         to California

to Vietnam
            to Cambodia
                        to death

3.

I closed the book
on a young man
studying.

A bit of light air
grazed my cheek,
pushed me along.

The weight of air
at sea level is 14.7
pounds per square inch,

but what is
            the weight of air
                         with friendship?

4.

How does a young man studying plead?

Like this: Please, guys, I'm in trouble.
I'm gonna flunk out. I need to study.
Please let me do this.

How does a young man ignore his friend's plea?

Like this: Come on, Man. It's Saturday night.
We're going to party. You can study tomorrow.
There's always time.

5.

How do you close a book on a friend who is studying?
Do what I did: Just take the cover and flip it over.

6.

What makes a breeze?
            The warm air of friendship rises.
            The cold air of ignorance settles.

7.

The breeze moved us through an evening of drinking,
through a day of lounging around until thinking became
exhaustion, became another day of forgetting
until you left us and we forgot about what we did.

8.

pages of a book are many butterfly wings

9.

a chance encounter in a Greyhound bus station

you had the smell
            of fear and death

my friend told you not to go
but you were not one to stir a breeze

10.

On May 23rd, 1970, I saw a giant beetle
lying in a Saigon gutter on its back
struggling with its legs to turn over.

That evening I made love to my girl friend
while you were humping the boonies in Cambodia.

11.

I don't know what the breeze told me that night,
but I did know it would always be there at my back.

It whispered in my ear,

            remember
                        butterfly wings are leaves

            remember
                        leaves of a book are butterfly wings

Something happened. I didn't know what it was.

12.

When I learned about your death,
I could not understand one thing:

How could anyone
            have expected you
                        to kill another human?

13.

I wear my military jacket to get in the mood.
I find your name on the Wall.

I place my
            right knee
            on the ground
I place my
            left arm on
            my left knee

In my right hand I hold a piece of paper
with a handwritten couplet on it:

Over the distance of 10,000 miles I heard your cry
of how very very much you did not want to die.

I set the paper down at the base of the Wall.
I rested my forehead on my arms. I could not pray.
I wanted to cry, but I was unable to.
Instead, I looked up and stared at my reflection.
I placed two fingers against your name on the Wall.

Behind me, elementary school children on field trips
ran through the grass laughing. They have not yet learned
that the world they see today will not be the same world
tomorrow. A breeze will blow and carry them along.
Today they do not understand, tomorrow they will.
They will feel the breeze and understand the butterfly.

One young boy who hangs back,
            frightened
                        by all the noise,
reminds me of George Fell,
            who must have been
            the gentlest soldier
            who ever lived.

Jimmy Pappas served in South Vietnam during the war as an English instructor with South Vietnamese soldiers in helicopter training. At the same time, George Fell, his friend from college, died in the incursion into Cambodia on May 23, 1970. On that day, commanders announced the death of 190 American soldiers, 500 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 8,000 "enemy troops" in what was described as a "success." One day, several years before that, Jimmy and his friends closed a book on George while he was studying one Saturday night. George flunked out of school, and their paths went in different directions. To this day, George's college friends still love him.

POMPEY MAGNUS

by George Held



Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in this televised interview that God may have sent President Donald Trump to Earth to protect Israel.


Dressed in his black undertaker’s suit,
The Secretary of State, first in his class
at West Point, visits the Western Wall
with ally Netanyahu, then blithely tells
the press that as a Christian, first in his class,
he believes God might well have ordained
that President T***p be the angel
of Israel’s deliverance, a modern Esther
on this Purim 2019.

Pompey Magnus, Pompeo’s antecedent,
Had three Triumphs in his day; now here’s
Another one, at the Western Wall at the expense
of the wall between Church and State, descended
from Roger Williams and T. Jefferson,
whose descendant T***p desires above all
a wall along the Mexican border, the modern
version of Sicily, which Pompey the Great
conquered in the name of the Republic.

Will our Pompeo the Great, first in his class,
bring down, like Joshua at Jericho, the wall
between State and Church? Who is this god
for whom Pompeo speaks with such confidence?
Who is this Caesar T***p, who like Emperor
Sulla, sends his consul abroad to make
policy without consent of the Senate? And
will he avoid, like Pompey, the scathing
nickname, earned for causing carnage, “carnifex”*?


* “the butcher"  


George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News and other periodicals, has a new poetry book, Second Sense, forthcoming from Poets Wear Prada.

THE OTHER SIDE OF A WALL

by Mara Adamtz Scrupe

                       out beyond the blest kingdom

amongst the trackless traders & slavers & affluent technocrats 

            lands amassing & bomb shelters & clandestine

            airstrips & marble-tombed 

bathrooms & gated havens to get off on        on the other side

             

of the wall lizards dart in & out or lie in heat benumbed       

            amongst the Burdock catch-spring 

spurred ovate bolls/ reckless rule-less ghost moths skim

&lek/ scroll & whitecap        billow& spray exploding 

in quiver-pleasured olfactory raves & gullies            out beyond

                        the blest kingdom

insect/ amphibian/ mammalian females choose their mates

whilst the males of the species           

entice them uncontested/ none abstain in a homeland       

convinced of its quiddities

            I mark & mind an ancient détente as the eighty richest 

chock-full ride it out from a distance            

it’s a bad bad 

business the way the wall says                       

            inhale/ exhale            expect              nothing

as the dam diggers stem the flood over the faceless fence 

            & the wounded unwing-ed collapse & orange peacock-

eyed butterflies remind me 

            of rope & strand of knot & sign & climb 

& hold on tight           for dear    dear             

at the bottom of this breach 

holed & don’t they know it        up here  though

             on top between squab & hassock 

common six-line racerunner skinks queue a line 

            from my chaise across the porch floor not stiffs

            buried under a dune on the other side of a wall      

but languid/ marking a border

                        they simply                 slip over

Mara Adamitz Scrupe is the author of five poetry collections: BEAST (NFSPS Press, 2014), Sky Pilot (Chapbook, Finishing Line Press, 2012), Magnalia (Chapbook, Eyewear Publications, 2018) and a daughter’s aubade/ sailing out from Sognefjord (winner, Fledge Poetry Competition, Middle Creek Press, 2019). She is the winner of the 2018 Grindstone Literary International Poetry Competition, and the Brighthorse Press Poetry Book Prize for her manuscript in the bare bones house of was which will be published in 2019. Her poems have appeared in international literary journals and magazines and she has won or been shortlisted for the Kay Murphy Poetry Prize, Ron Pretty Poetry Prize, BigCi Environmental Fellowship, Erbacce Prize, Fish Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, Bristol Prize, and the National Poetry Society Competition, among others. She divides her time between her farm in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains piedmont and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she is Professor of Fine Arts and Creative Writing at The University of the Arts.

WEST OF LUKEVILLE

by David Chorlton

While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh. This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness.  In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called “Prevention Through Deterrence.” Over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it. Photo: Backpacks left by migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. (State of Exception/Estado de Excepción, Parsons School of Design at The New School. Created by photographer Richard Barnes and curator Amanda Krugliak with Jason De León. Photo: Marc Tatti via Radiolab.) 

The ravens don’t much care
about the border, bouncing
as they do
between one country’s light
and another’s. And a hawk can cast
its shadow on both
sides at once
with a wingspan as wide
as a bobcat’s leap
and an eye as focused as a border guard’s.
It’s mostly quiet
here, except for the trucks
that move in their sleep
while the desert shifts beneath them
faster in Spanish
than this gravel road allows
as it dips and crackles
underfoot. The vegetation
greens into sunlight
and dries back to desperation
depending on terrain
while mountain after mountain
cuts into a sky that burns
at its edges come June.
Right now, a hammer taps
in a mechanic’s tinny workshop
where his radio is tuned
to salt and teardrops.
There’s a heaven
for the poor who look across
at where they’ve heard
a land of plenty
is at hand, but all they see from here
are saguaro
and the buckled ground
where a mule is a man with no face
and coyotes
dispense promises
of work in one language,
pay in another,
with a long walk through the night
and slow death in the sun
for those whose mariachi prayers
go unanswered. Supply
and demand are the laws: the land
demands rain
while the sky won’t supply it.
The doves call
out to springtime, and a breeze
responds. Who’s there; who wants
to enter? Who is it
wants to build a wall
to keep the heat away?

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His newest collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant.

THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU'RE IN CHARGE DURING A FLOOD

by Diane Elayne Dees

Eat birthday cake in the Arizona desert.
If, however, you’re not invited to the party
like the other guy was, don’t despair:
Arizona still needs you, though it’s as dry
as a page torn from the Constitution.
There is work to be done in the West,
though relentless rain assaults Houston,
and parts of Texas look like a war zone.

You could briefly fly over and have an aide
explain to you what’s going on; it took only
moments to fly clueless over Louisiana.
After that, you’re free to leave what looks
like the end of the world in the hands
of the callous and incompetent.
Heck of a job.

But you like to do things your own way,
to break the rules because you can.

You could ride out the storm at Mar-a-Lago
while Texans sleep on the floors of shelters,
avoid the bunker while they wade through
flooded highways. Or you could gather
the press to remind them that Texas
gave you its electoral votes, and the streets
were mobbed for your inauguration.
And you could assure Texans, as they search
for gas, water, food, their furniture, their pets,
their sanity—that everything will be fine
because there soon will be a wall.

Diane Elayne Dees's poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita. Diane, who lives in Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women's professional tennis throughout the world.

BREAKING: FIRST DRAFT OF T***P INAUGURAL ADDRESS "FOUNDED"

by James Penha

Inspired by "Claims about President Trump lifting lines from various films for his inaugural address are unfounded." —Snopes

America, first you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punks? Today, I consider Americans the luckiest people on the face of the earth. Cause they call me Mister President! Yippie-ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the greatest one of all? America? First, I’m ready for my close-up. Hello, Gorgeous. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I have never depended on the kindness of strangers. Being me means never having to say you’re sorry.

I'm the king of the world! Round up the usual suspects. I love the smell of fear in the world.  I keep my friends close, but my enemies disappear. A Muslim once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Mexico? Go ahead, make my day, Mexico. Hasta la vista, baby. I'll wall you pretty, and your little chihuahua, too! If I build a wall, no one will come. Refugees, you're gonna need a bigger boat. One morning I shot a refugee in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.

Who can't handle the truth? The first rule of the Truth is: You do not tell the Truth.

The White House? What a dump. I am big! It's the house that got small. Life is a banquet, and most of you poor suckers are starving to death!

Tax returns? We ain't got no tax returns! We don't need no tax returns! I don't have to show you any stinking tax returns! I rob banks. I’m as mad as hell, and I'm not going to file them anymore! Show me the money! As God is my witness, I'll never be bankrupt again.

Why so serious? I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. You ain't heard nothin' yet! After all, tomorrow is another of the first 100 days! Carpe diem. I feel the need—the need for speed! Fasten your seatbelts, America. It's going to be a bumpy night. To infinity and beyond!

My daughter thanks me. My son-in-law thanks me. My sons thank me. And you had better thank me. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow me. La-dee-da, la-dee-da.

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

WATER'S MEMO TO THE T***P ADMINISTRATION

by Meredith Stewart Kirkwood

We will have
what we want which is
to merge, to circle,
to never stay.
We will knock down
your wall
if we have to. We will
overtake your cities
if you don’t release us
to the sea.
We will pass over your farms,
we will seep through cracks
and expand them.

We do not mind your rhetoric.

We are not listening at all.

Meredith Stewart Kirkwood received an MFA in poetry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2007. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Santa Clara Review, Windfall, and others. Meredith co-hosts a poetry reading series at the Lents International Farmers’ Market in Portland, Oregon.

HOW DID WE LET IT GET SO FAR?

by Lucia Cherciu




He wants to close borders and build a wall
while refugees are waiting in pain.
We watch in disbelief and want to crawl

back into bed and hide for four years, then all
come out and vote. We brainstorm ways to strain
his plans to close borders and build a wall.

What strategies shall we use to stall
the madness derailing from his chain?
We watch in disbelief and want to crawl

as every day new stories snowball
into disasters and catastrophes that sustain
his plans to close borders and build a wall.

Those of us who lived under dictators can recall
the disappointment, hurt, and disdain.
We watch in disbelief and want to crawl

and set up stages and struggle to tell all,
gather crowds at street corners and explain
what happens when someone builds a wall.
We watch in disbelief and want to crawl.

Lucia Cherciu is a Professor of English at SUNY/Dutchess in Poughkeepsie, NY, and she writes both in English and in Romanian. Her new book Train Ride to Bucharest is forthcoming from Sheep Meadow Press. Her other books include Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2010), Lepădarea de Limbă/The Abandonment of Language (Vinea, 2009), and Altoiul Râsului/Grafted Laughter (Brumar 2010). Her poetry was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. 

ALEPPO

by Peleg Held


Source: Twitter, 5:59 AM, December 13, 2016

There is a city.
It is not our city.
Its broken buildings are full of bodies.
They are not our bodies.
In that city syllables are run through and strung
together into long cords of rough names
that, if they were washed clean and laid
end to end, would reach right to our doorstep.
But our names are not rough names like these.

Someone, somewhere behind the wall, is banging on a pipe.
Or are they screaming for help?
We cannot say for sure.
If indeed, there are still words coming
from any body in those broken buildings
they are strange words, not our words
yet.

Source: Twitter, 7:11 AM, December 13, 2016

Peleg Held lives in Portland, Maine with his partner and his dog Emitt. There is also the semi-feral cat, Smudge. And a kid or two. pelegheld(at)gmail.com.

THE BRIDGE CLUB DISCUSSES THE ELECTION

by Susan McLean

Image source: Yahoo News Photo Illustration; Photo: AP/Getty)

“If he groped her, she’s a liar."
            "If he didn’t, she’s a frump.”
“If she blabs, he’ll call his lawyer.”
            “What a bozo!  One no trump.”

“Thinks he’s smart to pay no taxes:
            ‘If you pay them, you’re a chump.’”
“He’ll give safety nets the ax.” “As
            well as poor folks!”  “Three no trump.”

“He’ll wall off the southern border.”
            “And haul Muslims to the dump!”
“He’ll show blacks what law and order
            really stands for.”  “Four no trump.”

“He’ll throw Clinton in the slammer.”
            “Then he’ll lift us from our slump,
helped by Putin’s blade and hammer!”
            “What’s your bid now?”  “Six no trump.”

Susan McLean is an English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her books of poetry are The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife. She has also translated over 500 satirical poems of the Latin poet Martial, published as Selected Epigrams by the University of Wisconsin Press. Her light verse has often appeared in Light and Lighten Up Online.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN ROOSTERS CROW AND DANCE

by Marsha Owens

Image source: Democratic Underground

the slimy egg, salted and peppered,
slurs sideways on the plate as if to plead
hold on to sanity. Then I see the sign,
whoever killed my hen may you rot in hell,
which is on everyone’s mind these days,
hell
that is, and I had met Shakespeare before
all ruffled red and cock-sure, watched him
prance and dance around the yard, circle
the girls, cluck how he loves them like they love
him,
just like the Donald proclaims insidious love
for his chattel, then adds oh-by-the-way
they must be punished
should their eggs get sucked into some
venomous void, and I watched him mount
the stage with bullets in his skull where eyes
should be, where the soul of Putin, we’re told,
resides, and I sip from my coffee cup the rancid
taste of deceit, I drive by rough-hewn boards
splintered around the yard make-shift
marking the territory where the wall wasn’t built
to keep the hen in whose tiny brain
and chicken feet walked right on down
to Mexico into the hot oil, stewed
into oblivion, a delicacy of chicken
bones just a few miles up the road
from hell.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA, celebrates her roots in the Chesapeake Bay area, and looks forward to tomorrow.

THE WILD UNGULATES OF TUSCANY,or ELECTION 2016

by Sherry Stuart-Berman

                                        

Wild boar going into the forest at dusk to forage for food in Chianti, Italy. Credit Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times, March 7, 2016.

                                                                     
The Baron says: We need a wall.
Hordes of voracious wild boars
and roe deer suck
our sugary grapes, they forage
our oak and chestnut woods;
there are car accidents, huge holes
in the ground, we can’t harvest
our wine, we’re at war.

For years the hunters
preferred to unleash the dogs,
lure the swine with loaves
of bread and corn, then shoot em’.

But as you can see, folks, that’s not working.
We need steel posts, gas-fueled cannons,
electric wires, and machines to emit
high-pitched frequencies
only animals can hear.
Let’s make Chianti great again!


Sherry Stuart-Berman is a social worker and therapist working in community mental health.  Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Earth’s Daughters, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Fifth Review, Atticus Review, Knot Magazine, and the anthologies, Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai, 2 Horatio, and Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books. She lives in New York with her husband and son.

HOW WE ARGUE NOW

by  Michael Mark

When my wife does something I don’t like
I tell her I'm building a wall
from the dining room through the kitchen,
splitting our bed—
that it’s going to be the best wall ever
and she's going to pay for it.
She tells me she's going to throw me out in the cold
without a coat.
When she asks how was my day at work,
I say I told my boss I want to punch her right in the face,
and you?
She says her boss was mean to her
and he looked like he was bleeding from his eyes,
bleeding from everywhere.
When we compare paychecks she calls me a total loser.
I say I have more friends than her on Facebook
and that’s like a poll proving I am a better person.
She tells me I’m sloppy and by picking up after me
she is making our disgusting awful home great again.
When I see our credit card bill—how much
she spends on heat and water, I say she is stupid
and makes terrible, stupid, horrible, the worst deals.
When the grass needs mowing, she says
I’m the lawn establishment and I get nothing done.
I say I haven’t seen our marriage certificate -
I don’t believe we are married and I’m sending her
back to her parents.
She says that my hands are small.
I say for saying I have small hands I will shoot her
with bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
She says she could shoot me dead in our driveway
and our friends and family would still love her
and vote her world’s greatest, friend, mom,
daughter, even daughter-in-law.
I sulk about the small hands comment.
She slides over to my side of the bed.
We broker a deal because we are flexible.


Michael Mark’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Gargoyle Magazine, The New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Prelude Magazine, Poet Lore, Rattle, Spillway, Sugar House Review, Tar River Poetry and other nice places. His poetry has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and the Best of the Net.