A RAWARAWARAWAR

by Charles Frederickson


Whose country is it anyway
        We are all casualties of
                This atrocious demoralizing misbegotten war
                        Spitfire melting pot boiling over

Just like La-La-Land horror movies
        But not global village translocations
                Venice California Cairo Illinois Toledo
                        Ohio Rome Georgia Paris Tennessee

How would you feel if
        Your hometown were taken over
                By stranger than strange aliens
                        Ignoble warriors offensive worry warts

Blackhawk switchblades hovering over Pleasantville
        Un-neighborly hoods blocked debris maze
                Alleyways strewn with human garbage
                        Shell shock trying American-can patience

Hollow unkempt promises breaking wind
        Echoes beginning to echo themselves
                Not-so-smart cluster bombs targeting infrastructure
                        Zapped electricity generating power struggle

Reel-life collapse of everyday routine
        Millions forced to flee chaos
                Private property possessions left behind
                        Bleak forecast abandoning last remains

Whose side are we taking
        Straddling whitewashed sectarian picket fence
                No hemorrhoidal relief in sight
                        Save never-ending saga grim reminders


Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai pragmatic optimist, idealistic visionary and heretical believer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com/. This maverick e-gadfly is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 200+ poetry publication credits on 6 continents, such as: angelfire, Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, bc supernet, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Decanto, Eclipse, Flutter Magazine, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, International Poet, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, Planet Authority, Poetisphere, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poetry Stop, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sage of Consciousness, Stellar Showcase, Subtle Tea, Sz, The Smoking Poet, T-zero, Ya’Sou! Ygdrasil, Zafusy.

HE'S GONE ABOUT AS FAR AS HE CAN GO

A Doggerel Befitting the Subject
After Rodgers and Hammerstein

by Earl J. Wilcox


I went to DC City on a Sunday
By Monday I learned a thing or two,
But up till then I didn’t have an idea
Of what Mr. Cheney was comin to.
I counted twenty subpoenas on just Monday alone
‘Most every paper I saw said he’d got another one.
Then when I turned on the tee vee
It sounded like he was refusin’
to still be the USA’s V-P!
Good Lord! Good Lord! What next?

Everything’s up to date in DC City.
Cheney’s gone about as fer as he can go.
He went and said he’s not goin’ to toe
The line no more, not even tell anyone
What else he has in store…

He’s gone about as fer as he can go, yes sir,
He’s gone about as far as he can go.

The Demos say they’ll cut off his money
if he don’t tell all about his many deals
Then he up and says he’ll never give in, honey,
And as for the information--they’ll just have to steal.

He’s gone about as fer as he can go, yes sir,
He’s gone about as fer as he can go.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

MUDFLOW DEVOURS JAVA

by James Penha


Since May 2006, more than 15,000 people in the Sidoarjo district of Java have been displaced by the hot mud flowing from a natural gas well being drilled by Lapindo Brantas, an oil well company. While some scientists have speculated that the earthquake that struck Yogyakarta two days before the well erupted may have cracked the ground, others have suggested that the company’s drilling procedure was faulty. Some 125,00 cubic metres of hot mud continue to erupt every day. Scientists suggest that the eruption may be a mud volcano impossible to stop.


The Company smelled gas in Sidoarjo,
licked its lips,
whetted the borehole,
and forced its fist through the county’s reserve
until it came:

erupting
from the bowels of the earth a geyser of mud gushing from
and by now become Sidoarjo: no villages but
a stinking tsunami, no paddies but
steaming pools of mud, no hatcheries but
glowing mud tributaries, no one but
this immortal volcano of mud

monster released, relentless blob

the Company calls a natural
disaster: the island's
fault.


James Penha edits The New Verse News. A new collection of his expatriate poems, No Bones to Carry, is due out from New Sins Press this summer. Info at jamespenha.com.

LAKE SUDDENLY DISAPPEARS

by Rochelle Ratner


A lake suddenly disappears in southern Chile, and scientists are scratching their heads to find out why. It was a glacial lake. It covered five acres and was 100 feet deep. It was there in March, the last time rangers checked. Now there's a huge crater, bits of ice that used to float on top still visible between the rocks. There's been no earthquake. Nothing else to explain this. Experts from all over the world flock to the scene. She's in Arizona now, far from any water, safe. But she turns up the radio. She buys newspapers from other cities. She buys Spanish papers. She stays up half the night doing Google searches. She thinks of her father, and her best friend, and her best friend's brother.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES*

by HL


In Ur ne. Baghdad
Western Barbarians plunder artifacts.
History. Sold to the highest bidder.
Blackened solstice traders
Lurking under crosses of hate
Held at acute attack angles
Bend the light into dollar signs,
Defiling the provenance of George
Washington. Our symbol of hope
Turned hopeless by his namesake
Whose initials got inverted
Perverted beyond recognition.
Drained of their symbolic grace.
No option turns its back,
These feckless warriors
Abscond with the trust,
Honor and country
Granted to their custody.
By their actions, they have
Converted living symbols
To counterfeit promises
In the name of their small gods:
Money, greed and power!


*New York Times headline, June 11th, 2007.


HL is a computer-nerd bicyclist who cranks out poetry as he rides along prairie grass and gravel roads. He says, "War is not the Answer / Ride a Bicycle," and more at cornfedtrouble.

DON'T DRINK THE BOTTLED WATER, FRIEND

by Robert Anbian


Don’t drink the bottled water,
it’s stolen. It came from the mountain
and flowed through the town,
where people drank and swam,
where they pissed under the sun, where
they let their sewage collect downstream
where it quaked and stank
until the rains flooded
and swept the banks clean. Who
can deny it? Man is a beast.
He thirsts and goes mad without water.
His shit stinks, but water washes it away.
He raises his face to the warm rain
and heedlessly thanks the heavens.
Tell me, friend, who owns the clouds?
Who owns the time of day the rain falls?
Who owns the riverbed and the cracks in the earth?
Now the water is invisible.
It’s a trickle dying in the sand.
It’s a whirlwind of dust blowing
through towns and villages, where once
men had dug ditches to slake the fields
and women cleared ponds to collect the rain.
Now the water’s running away in a parallel world
of steel pipes and gleaming reservoirs.
Now it’s a Dutch-American-Sino-Arabian concern.
Now it flows via a constant percussion of pumps
until it comes tumbling from the tap smelling
of chemicals and costing locals three times as much.
Now it’s sold worldwide in plastic bottles
adorned with pristine alpine scenes
and costing as much as milk, or a day’s wage,
for most souls on this godforsaken earth.
Do you think the air you breathe today
is free when already it’s traded
on the open market of cancer futures?
Don’t drink the bottled water, friend,
as if your life depended on it.

Audio samples from the poetry and jazz CD, "Robert Anbian and the UFQ: Unidentifed Flying Quartet," are available at www.myspace/robertanbianandtheufq and a video of "Haikus for the White House" is at www.youtube.com/robertanbian. The CD is available from www.edgetonerecords.com.

ROADSIDE BOMB SONNET

by David Feela


I heard it again today, another explosion
half a world away. Two or three soldiers died,
or were they civilians? I don’t know.
Nobody knows on this side of the ocean.
I’ll wait for the news to sort it out,
put the bodies into bags,
send the reports home
with the names and cumulative numbers.

At the gas pumps I see their blood
translated into gallons, their duty
ethereal as the fumes escaping my tank.
The line forms on the right,
so many Americans waiting
to pay, whatever it costs.


David Feela is a poet, free-lance writer, writing instructor, book collector, and thrift store pirate. His work has appeared in regional and national publications, including High Country News’s Writers on the Range, Mountain Gazette, and in the newspaper as a "Colorado Voice" for The Denver Post. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest and for The Four Corners Free Press. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His web page can be viewed at www.geocities.com/feelasophy.

BLEACH AWAY THAT CANCER

by Rochelle Ratner


The first thing she thinks of is that horrid smell. She can't
even walk through her lobby when they've just been
cleaning. Then she thinks of women who kill their hair by
bleaching it. Now they're trying to tell her ordinary
bathroom bleach can boost the body's immune system.
Probably just more medical whitewash. And it's only bleach
combined with other vaccines. And it only works with
ovarian cancer. She knelt and kissed the hospital floor the
day they took out her ovaries, so thankful that the sterile
odor was momentarily tolerable. But she also has a lot of
friends, and she hugs her friends.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.

ANTIOCH COLLEGE:REQUIESCAT IN PACE

by Earl J. Wilcox


Here lies Antioch College.
Born more than 155 years ago.
Father and Mother to American Liberalism.
Begetter of compassion for all mankind.
Lover and sanctifier of all things hopeful---
African Americans, Gays, Feminists, Scholars,
Poets, Essayists, Literary Critics, Humanity.
Died in an age which forgets so quickly why
Antioch College was born: to save mankind.
Go with a whimper if you must,
Rage, rage against the night if you can.
Rest eternal in the assurance of a job well done.


Earl J. Wilcox founded The Robert Frost Review, which he edited for more than a decade. His poetry was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

THE PRO-IMMORTALITY LOBBY

by Robert M. Chute


G. W. vetoes a stem cell bill.
No license to kill, he intones,
until you reach the age of consent.
Avid supporters should propose
protection for all those embryos
consigned for destruction. All
to be maintained in storage by
the best available technologies
until — well, why not be the first
to legislate immortality?
Penalties to be determined
for any voluntary termination.
Thousands of human lives saved,
more added every year. (And
sperm deposits left unclaimed?)


Robert M. Chute’s book from JustWrite Books, Reading Nature, poetry based on scientific articles, is available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

FOR THESE REASONS

by Erika Feigenbaum


I refuse that place, the bright shelves hurting
in the yellow lights, workers lifting, loading hourly,

stacking beyond reach, beyond imagining.

The valley now home to stores and tall street lights,
an endless stream of digital things, blinking
red signs for sales and rows of shoes.
So many blue plastic cartons, miles of
microwaves, board games, useless variety.

Every aisle a dull surprise, stagnant
consumer options that tie tight my hands
with dish rags 10 for $1
to a women 20,000 miles away.
She works someplace crowded and loud
for pennies, her hands quick,
guiding brightly checked cotton fabrics
beneath the humming presser foot
all day, before my morning starts,
she sits in this factory

like the one that used to be here
in the valley fifteen years ago,
when jobs paid $18 for a sweaty hour,
enough to feed yourself, your kids
back then, plus the relief of insurance.
Now it’s this store at minimum wage,
keeping its customers employed
for a bargain too sweet to calculate.


Erika Feigenbaum lives in Cleveland, Ohio where she teaches Women’s Studies and gardens with gusto. Feigenbaum's creative work has appeared in Off Our Backs, Sinister Wisdom, The Hiram Poetry Review, Hypatia, Epitome, and other publications.

TEN

by Lylanne Musselman


The Pope hands thou down
Ten Commandments for the road.
Holy cars and trucks!


Lylanne Musselman is a poet who lives and writes in Indianapolis, IN. Her work has appeared in Alternatives, A Walk Through My Garden, and Poetry Motel, among others. Her chapbook, Prickly Beer and Purple Panties, was recently published by Bacon Tree Press.

NOTE TO PRESIDENT BUSH

by Nils Peterson


If your will is made of iron,
it's subject to rust.


Nils Peterson is Professor Emeritus at San Jose State University where he taught in the English and Humanities Departments. He has published poetry, science fiction, and articles on subjects as varying as golf and Shakespeare. His poetry has been collected in, Here Is No Ordinary Rejoicing, The Comedy of Desire, and Driving a Herd of Moose to Durango.

SIX PREDICTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE

by Howie Good


1. There will still be wars, but faraway, happening to other people.
2. Your own experiences will feel like stories someone else made up.
3. Children will disappear into silence, flames, the cellars of monsters.
4. Even the dying will believe in the advertised cures for obscure diseases.
5. Crowds will surge to see gods humiliated and animals hurt.
6. The future will be just like the present – so cold it burns.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Right Hand Pointing, Stirring, Flutter, Eclectica, Persistent Image, The Flask Review, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Prairie Poetry, Ottawa Arts Review, Misunderstandings Magazine, Juked, The Orange Room Review, and Lily. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006.