BEWARE ALIENS!

by Bill Costley


Jim Boulet, dir. of English First, fears
illegal aliens may be getting bailed out
of bad mortgages by the government:
“Now we don’t know who’s legal &
who’s illegal because they won’t tell us.”
Easy. Ask them, in Spanish, of course.

But what about those space-aliens
who offered ultra-easy credit terms?
Do we care if they’re legal or illegal?
Are we worried their money’s bogus?
Do we know what terms for default
may be in outer space? Alienation?
What’s alienation to space-aliens?
Exile to our heating Planet Earth?
Exile to our single airless Moon?


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union.
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THE RACIST'S TREE

by Steve Hellyard Swartz


November ushers in its
Deep conservative browns
The golds, reds, oranges of October
Are raked, mowed, strewn
On lawns
As gone as my daughter’s treasure trove of
Milky Ways and candy corns

One tree on our street remains bravely gay
I can see it from where I’m sitting
It’s on Bob’s lawn next door
Bob, who said to me when I told him about my immigrant father-in-law’s cancer:
Nice of him to come here and get sick

I wonder what Bob and his wife Marge are thinking today about
President-elect Barack Obama
I guess I could ask him
He’s just come out of his house with his ancient dog on its leash
Bob?
I see you standing there, a travel mug in one hand
Bob?

Wait, he’s saying something
He’s saying

Come on, please

The dog is dying, that much is plain to see
Bob is looking up and down the street
Tugging on the leash
In heaven, too, the colors are draining
The dog’s flanks are shaking
He’s trying hard to obey
Come on, please
My hands are shaking, Bob’s too
Under the glorious stubborn late awakening
Of the last November tree


Steve Hellyard Swartz's poetry has appeared in Best Poem, switched-on gutenberg, Haggard and Halloo, and The Kennesaw Review. He has won Honorable Mention in the 2007 and 2008 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, as well as the Mary C. Mohr and the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His poetry will soon appear in The Paterson Review and The Southern Indiana Review. In 1990, his film "Never Leave Nevada" opened in Dramatic Competition at the U.S. Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
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HAPPY TO SAY

After the 2008 Presidential Election

by Terry Hertzler


I’m not, I’m happy to say, moving
to Canada, won’t have to learn
to say “eh” rather than “huh” when
I miss a question, or substitute
“chesterfield” for “couch,” request

a “serviette” rather than a “napkin,”
or start inserting the letter “u” into
various words: colour, neighbour,
honour—won’t have to try to recall
those infiltration techniques I learned

many years ago in the Army if Canada
decides it has no room for an overfed,
middle-aged, third-tier poet, won’t
have to sneak through midnight woods
into beautiful British Columbia, face

streaked with camouflage paint, which
would probably cause me to break out
in a rash, although at least in Canada
I’d have access to free medical care
as I waited deportation as an undesirable.

So, I’ll stay put for now, happy that I won’t
have to start typing all my poems in both
English and French or learn the distinction
between “providence” and “province,”
whatever that is.


Terry Hertzler has worked as a writer, editor and teacher for 30 years. His poetry and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications, including The Writer, North American Review, Margie, Nimrod and Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology, as well as being produced on stage and for radio and television. His work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the owner and publisher of Caernarvon Press and coordinates the monthly Second Sunday at Open Door Books poetry series in Pacific Beach, CA. His latest book of poetry is Second Skin.
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BARACK TO THE FUTURE

PoeArtry by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote


Be the change you want
To actualize promoting cross-cultural diversity
Progressive macrocosmic ‘tudes far-sighted perspectives
Determined to make an impact

Envisioning enlightened virtual reality worldview
Discover whatever can shall must
Be done working together with
Sympatico others blazing new trails

Become change make it happen
Believing is seeing things differently
Meeting challenges head-on responding swiftly
Borderline easy solutions seldom are


The dynamic duo of always toptimistic upstARTs, Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote edit AvantGardeTimes.com, an eclectic cosmopolitan poeartry quarterly EZine. Check out Dr. Chazz’s No Holds Bard website: PoetryArtCombo.com, and Saknarin’s new Glad Thaidings exhibition: http://www.poeartrygallery.th.gs/.
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BARACKING THE VOTE

A Sonnet by James Schwartz


O Obama! On this November night.
Of pumpkin leaves and Halloween's remains.
A sober October gone with the light.
Leaving behind Robert Frost and grey rains.
Poets need a hero to believe in.
In this Global Era's new unity.
Poets' sanctuary to achieve in.
Vital to our current economy.
Dot Com confusion spinning with the room.
Please excuse my mess as the powder flies.
The bombs are raining and jets go zoom.
Pardon my urgency as the ink dries.
We stand at Eden's gates: Behold our joy.
Barack Obama: you are my homeboy.


James Schwartz is a poet and slam performer striving for the simplicity of Cavafy mixed with modern gay wordplay and elements; Schwartz's poetry / slam material dialogues of GLBTQ issues and affirmations of gay (night) life and love.
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COUNTRY FIRST

by Janice D. Soderling


The lion snuggles with the lamb
Till it is time to sup.
Then when the hunger hits them both,
He eats the dear lamb up.


Janice D. Soderling has contributed to online and print journals in several countries. Her fiction got a first prize at Glimmer Train, and poetry is recent or forthcoming at Anon, Orbis, Nthposition, Stirring, Mannequin Envy and Literary Bohemian.
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FISHING WITH McCAIN

by Scot Siegel

in the distance, the black cod fleet
is having a banner day

Here we are
chumming along, ice-free
through the Northwest Passage

Petroleum LNG Geothermal...
the possibilities are endless
it seems...

*

Then we hit a reef
called Alaska
we see Russia

and it looks
good
from here...

Fish bones impale
our hoarse throats
as the boat lists

and our campaign
engine
sputters...

*

I'd throw her back if I could
October gaffs
gave me grief

She's a looker,
but a lousy
deckhand...

*

Got media hooks
in my shoulders now
sore from reeling up

urchins
rocks
anemones...

I can't catch
a break
for the life of me

I'm snagged
on a bush
called history

Global fisheries
crashing
     like stocks

over the bow -

Bernancke, Patraeus, Somebody
          save me now

I think I'm turning Green!


Scot Siegel is an urban planner and poet from Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he serves on the Lake Oswego City Planning Commission and the Board of Trustees for the Friends of William Stafford. His first full-length poetry collection Some Weather is forthcoming from Plain View Press in 2009.
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OF TALKING HEADS

and Other Body Parts In An Election Cycle

by Earl J. Wilcox


Let’s give all praise to the ones
who coined the term,
Talking Heads.

Next, we need a word
or two for coinage of
Stuck His Foot in His Mouth.

How about a shout out
for Walk the Walk
And Talk the Talk. Four stars for those.

We really should praise the inventors
of Body Language, the expression
we have come to identify with some
candidates this season. What about
Eyes on the Prize and A Nose for News.

Now put your hands and hearts together
for the most apt body part description
as you prepare to vote for the candidate
who is All Ears.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he has contributed 42 poems to the New Verse News.
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BUBBA REDNECK

by Bill Costley


“O’bama, Hussein, Hussein O’bama” chants
a volunteer redneck cracker sheriff in black
working the stage at a Republican-party rally.

Keep your eye on him: the man of the hour
that’s gone midnite in the middle of the day.
His next move'll B2 get out the rope & ladder.

Nothing less can end the insult that Obama is,
& the degree of insult depends on how high;
just how high he can be strung up & hanged.

Now you may try tell'n me this is all jest funnin’
but who’s havin’ all this fun, Bubba Crackuh?
It’s you, Bubba Redneck, a-holdin’ that rope.


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union.
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HALLOWE'EN FEAR

by John Newmark


I fear I'm becoming old
as I react negatively
to the growing cleavage
on Hallowe'en costumes
marketed to pre-teen
males, and females.

I'm not likely to vote
Republican, or start protesting
at the local costume shop
with picket signs denouncing
our nation's declining morals.

But I will write a poem,
to lament the changing seasons
and how the world seems
to be growing colder.


John Newmark lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and works as a professional mendicant for a local 501c3. His poetry and fiction have appeared at Newspoetry, EOTU, Mother Wit, The Landing, Bewildering Stories, MillenniumShift, and Scared Naked Magazine.
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ACUPUNCTURE

or
BEING A CANDIDATE IN ‘08

by Art Goodtimes

Everyone’s focused on Obama
to win this year. His face
like moxie held to the sky.

Me I'm taped
to the campaign wallboard
waiting on pins & needles.

My poster’s the wood rooster.
Happy to work as a team
player. Not just top cock.

Still, the future’s as binary
as dandelion plucking.
They love me. They love me not.

Art Goodtimes is a candidate running for his fourth four-year term as a Green Party county commissioner in San Miguel County, Colorado. He runs Talking Gourds, an annual earth festival dedicated to the word in performance. He will soon appear in a new Ron Mann film about the Telluride Mushroom Festival (where's he's been poet-in-residence for 28 years) called "Know Your Mushrooms."
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POSTCARDS FROM THE NEWSROOM

by David Chorlton


I
With all their appearances
on late night television
we can’t tell politicians
from comedians. The situation
is serious. Nobody knows
when to laugh.

II
The numbers just in
from the Nasdaq, the Dow
and the Sierra Club
show a bear market
with futures declining
at the same rate as the house sparrows
once common in our yards,
and a decline
in the growth rate
among trees worldwide.

III
Now these messages
from the manufacturers of pills
the side effects of which
overpower their healing properties
but whose presence
is the only way corporations know
to package hope.

IV
Finally sport. Or back to politics.
Either way it’s a race,
winner take all.


David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix for 30 years and come to love the desert around it. He recently won the Ronald Wardall Award from Rain Mountain Press for The Lost River, a chapbook whose contents reflect his unease with what is happening to our planet. More of his work, including paintings, is at his Web site.
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ANTARCTICA

by Ed Webb


In the least accessible place on the surface of this infested earth
A statue of Lenin protrudes from snow,
Abandoned camp below him,
Face toward Moscow,
Endless sky.

How far does he see though that peerless clear air?
Has news yet reached him of capitalism's chaotic collapse?
I dream of his face, frozen in a grim smile.


Ed Webb teaches and studies Middle East politics. His poetry has appeared in the New Verse News and Quiet Feather magazine.
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MONEY GO BYE BYE

BANK ACCOUNT DOWN WAY DOWN--DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN--NO END IN SIGHT WISH I HAD MORE BUT I DON’T HELLO LONG LINES AT THE CAR WASH EMPLOYEE APPLICATION DESK I’M REALLY GETTING TIRED OF DRINKING KETCHUP STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE I’M SORRY ARE YOU GOING TO FINISH THAT TACO

by Dale Goodson


I
am somewhat fearful
about
the future

last night
I tried to sleep as
they repaved 12th St.

at least those guys
had something new to offer
as they ground yesterday
to a pulp


Dale Goodson is a writer from Seattle currently living in New York City.
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