PROTEST CONTEST

by The Bangkok Bards
Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

 

Dizzy dysfunctional globe rotating counterclockwise

Unnatural disasters undermining climate change

Iffy topsy-turvy meteor illogical forecast

Gyroscopic spin out of control

 

Gay marriage scared straight mirage

Supreme Court deliberations wrongly rightist

Bribe & groom inequitable morals corruption

Legitimate answers out ovda question

 

Anti-social network disconnected jobless youth

Uncivil war wages out-profiting peace

Uncommon cause mass insanity slaughter

Mindfully hidden out of sight

 

Fracking has changed game-plan favoring

Wind generation solar sun power

Unnatural NRG policies oily motives

Running-on-running out of gas

 

Incorporated stealthy wealthy unlimited greed

Wall Street versus Main Street

Marching to different drummer percussion

Dissonant voices out of tune

 

Outlandish aliens second class non-citizens

Wheeler-dealer Americano roulette losing gambit

Lesser humanimals lowly snake eyes

Tarot misfortune out of luck

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .  

NOTES ON AN APRIL DAY

by David Chorlton

We returned a pigeon to the sky
where he belongs this morning.
Otherwise, it’s a quiet day

if we ignore the news
of the nuclear mouthed supreme
leader watching oriental snow
fall through his binoculars.
There’s fresh snow too

in the country we left behind
where spring comes in disguise.
Is it caused by climate change

or was the past like this
and we simply forgot?
It’s ninety degrees today
in Arizona, where the legislature
wants to take away civil unions
and give schoolteachers guns.

The mailman delivered only
the usual requests for money
while the same message keeps landing
in the electronic inbox
from a friend whose mind

we hear is becoming like snow
and melting away. What use
is information to her, from radio
or the press? Why bother
telling her the world she tried to improve
is refusing assistance? It’s better to reply

with a few words to say
how gently the afternoon has passed
and hold on to whatever peace
is ours to share.

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection, "The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.

THE SUPPORT OF SPORTS

by Tricia Knoll

The raffle of an AR-15 assault rifle to raise money for the Saint Helens Girls Softball League will get a public airing at a community meeting Thursday. --Stuart Tomlinson, The Oregonian,  March 20, 2013

I pulled a red Radio Flyer wagon
full of Girl Scout cookies from door to door --
when doors opened with smiles
we assumed were safe.

Despite my wicked field hockey stick,
in high school my only role I could play in sports
was timing the breast stroke in boy’s swimming meets.
Then I bought bras with a label saying Title IX --

and yes, I bought a Barbie Doll or two
for my daughter -- and watched without dismay
when the cattle dog chewed off an arm and then a leg.
I’ve sold dozens of dozens of tulips to raise

money for a high school trip to Paraguay
and delivered those bouquets in a mail cart
to workers’ desks in an office tower
for a month. Flimsy wrapping paper --

we sold that too. Silk-screened t-shirts
for soccer. Chocolate bars for track.
Magazine subscriptions for volleyball. Florida
oranges by the crate, delivered to front doors.

Joannie Benoit won gold in the first
women’s Olympic marathon -- a big moment
for this plowhorse-style distance runner.
Young girls, find your road to fitness,
sweat, movement, teamwork,
combat if you want it.

But please don’t raffle rifles.


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet with a long, long love of sport and movement.

WITH GENTLY STREAMING EYES

by Jerome Betts





FARMING leaders have warned that up to an estimated 10,000 ewes and lambs have died in the recent snowstorms, costing the industry hundreds of thousands of pounds and leaving farms struggling to stay afloat. --The Herald (Scotland), 10 April 2013
 

Poor lambs! No chance to play your parts
On legs that learn to leap and run
And touch so many human hearts
With games and gambols in the sun?

Your jumping joints won’t now assert
That spring’s a time to cast off cares −
Though youth and charm would not avert
Your fate as bloody butchers’ wares.


Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and has contributed verse to LightenUp OnLine, New Verse News, Per Contra, Snakeskin and Tilt-A-Whirl, as well as numerous print publications.

ABOUT APPLES

by Rick Gray





Yes, I heard about your bombing today.
Another improvised scrap of death
Planted inside a truckload of apples.

This isn’t about your success.
It’s about apples, driven by ordinary men
into this raped and hungry city every day.

Round, delicious things glowing yellow, green, red,
A traveling circus nourishing even beggars
Quick enough to lift the fallen.         

I have spied blue angels
Slip these wounded below burqas
And carry home your civilian dead 

And all along the muddy roadsides
People you cannot control pile them in little pyramids
Like temples to the God you hate

Who needs no prophet
or book
Only her sweet juice

And a mouth with a few real teeth
Willing to bite down hard
and chew.


Rick Gray was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie. He served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.

EPITAPH FOR MARGARET THATCHER

by J.R. Solonche



The Iron Lady is deceas'd.
So may her soul now rust in peace.


J.R. Solonche is co-author (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.

THE CORPORATOCRACY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley





The beast has many bellies
The beast has many eyes
But does not have a single ear
To hear the children’s cries

The beast has certain methods
For entering our heads
For trampling on our spirits
And leaving them for dead

It sells us worthless trinkets
And artificial dreams
It hijacks our tomorrows
With twisted scams and schemes

It threatens and intimidates
To silence all our voices
While chillingly intoning that
There are no other choices!

The beast is always famished
Lucre’s what it eats
It finds the pennies of the poor
Particularly sweet

And when old people die of cold
And infants starve to death
The gorging beast feels not a twinge
Of sorrow or regret

The beast has many bellies
The beast has many eyes
But does not have a beating heart
To heed the children’s cries


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.  He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective).  He lives in northern California.

LOOKING FOR THOREAU

by William Cullen, Jr.

“Thoreau with iPhone” by Gretchen Stephenson, The New Yorker, February 1, 2011

Here at Walden Pond
pilgrims outnumber the trees
with their cell phone tones
mimicking every woodland song
the mocking bird is heard no more.


William Cullen, Jr., is a veteran and works at a non-profit in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared in Camroc Press Review, Gulf Stream, Pirene's Fountain, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway, Willows Wept Review, Word Riot and Written River.

A ROUTINE BOMB

by Michael Ratcliffe



“Hardly a week goes by in Germany without an unexploded bomb from World War II being found at a construction site or in another location.  [This past Wednesday, 3 April 2013, one such bomb was found in Berlin.] Authorities detonated a bomb in Munich on Tuesday night, August 28, 2012, after efforts to defuse it were unsuccessful. It wasn’t the only bomb scare in Europe that week.” --Der Spiegel On-line, August 28 and 29, 2012


A bomb, five hundred-fifty pounds
of rusted steel, corroded wires, decayed explosives,
found beneath Munich’s center
where it lay hidden since World War Two,
buried in the rubble left by other bombs,
covered as the city rebuilt and tried to forget war;
uncovered by workers sixty-seven years later.

In beer halls and cafés, homes and offices,
curiosity and questions:
When was the last bomb found?
How will it be disposed?
Should we be worried?
This relic of the past,
this failed deliverer of death,
becomes part of the city’s chatter,
along with the economy,
the Greek debt crisis,
and the unseasonably hot weather.

The experts, unable to defuse the bomb,
decide to detonate,
and make plans for a controlled explosion.

At the dinner table, a family talks
about other bombs, routinely disposed—
one defused just the week before in Nuremburg.
They pass the meat and then the bread
and talk about the planned explosion.
The children ask if they will see the blast,
but they are in the evacuation zone
and must leave in the morning—
father suggests a day in the Alps.

A mother leaves her downtown office
and makes her way home, her usual route closed.
It was her country that dropped the bomb.
This is all so strange and foreign—
just part of the European experience, she tells herself.
She assures her children there is no need to worry,
old bombs are found all the time.
Her young daughter listens, but has heard that bombs kill.
She tugs on her mother, and asks if they will be okay.

An old woman remembers bombs falling,
and all the friends and relatives lost to those that did not fail.
She knows bombs kill.
She draws the curtains across the windows,
goes to the basement and huddles in a corner,
where she thinks about her mother
and how they would hold each other tight
whenever the bombs fell,
and pray they would be alive the next day.

August 28, 2012:
A Sufi cleric killed in Dagestan;
four dead in a truck in Kandahar;
one dead, seven wounded in Fallujah;
twenty-seven killed in Damascus;
bank windows shattered in Athens;
a memorial service for Israelis killed in Sofia.
In Aleppo, men, women, and children huddle in fear
as their government continues to bomb the city,
sometimes striking as they stand in line for bread.
In Munich, experts covered the bomb with sand and straw.
The controlled explosion shattered windows,
sparked a few fires, which were quickly doused.
The next day, the city returns to its routine.
In the beer halls and cafés, homes and offices,
talk turns to the economy,
the end of August holidays,
and the much-needed rain
that turns the bomb’s crater
into just another muddy hole.


Michael Ratcliffe lives and writes in the suburbs of Baltimore and Washington area.  His poems have appeared in Symmetry Pebbles, Loch Raven Review, Do Not Look at the Sun, Poetry Quarterly, The Copperfield Review, The Little Patuxent Review, and You Are Here: the Journal of Creative Geography.

THE RED LINE

by Roger Sedarat 
 




                “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear
                weapon.” -- Leon Panetta (former US Defense Secretary)

“Where’s all this terror they find in Iran?”
She asked, over the New York Times. “They act
Like it’s the Nazis or the Soviets.”
Long married, they’d had this same talk before.
He wanted to take notes on what they said,
Banal reporter instead of poet.
“They mean the military threat.” He poured
More coffee, pleased to stir the pot again.
“Okay,” she said, the iPad in her hand:
“A single missile on a transport truck.
I saw one of these last time in Shiraz;
They brought it out in some stupid parade
To show their military might (such men).
It’s really all they fucking had besides
Teen soldiers, bearded boys who looked hungry,
As if they missed their moms.” It was his turn
To launch a counterstrike, antagonize
The enemy like Ahmadinejad.
“How do we know what they might be hiding?”
She dropped her breakfast bar and rolled her eyes.
“Oh sure, a nuke! Just like Bush with Iraq;
I think the threat’s completely overblown,
A bluff in poker.” “But Muslims don’t bet,”
He interjected. Using his smug tone
She knew belonged in academia.
“Oh Roger! You’re just looking for a fight!”
“I know,” he said, ‘performing’ my Iran.”
“I know,” she said with heavy sarcasm.
“It all comes down to art for you, who cares
About reality as long as it
Becomes a poem.” “Life is just a dream,”
He said in Persian. “Just a dream?” she asked.
“Suppose we drop real bombs and people die.”
“But you yourself keep saying it’s a game.”
He knew this last comeback had gone too far.
“You’re being difficult!” She slammed her fist.
“I know, and so are you,” he said in kind.
“It’s like we’re taking turns at acting like
The U.S. and Iran, always at war.”
She sighed, frustratingly, and he sighed back,
Aware how much she hated being mocked.
In silence they went back to the paper,
Avoiding talk of new conflicts they read.


Roger Sedarat is the author of two poetry collections: Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic, which won Ohio UP's 2007 Hollis Summers' Prize, and Ghazal Games (Ohio UP, 2011). He teaches poetry and literary translation in the MFA Program at Queens College, City University of New York.

OUR SAD NEW WORLD

by Eric Greene

http://www.davegranlund.com/cartoons/

Helicopters circle 'round
the little red brick school.

Policemen guard the schoolhouse door,
enforcing strict new rules.

Teacher keeps a loaded gun
inside her pencil drawer.

Mary doesn't bring her lamb
to visit anymore.

 
Eric Greene is a singer-songwriter and poet, who lives in SE Michigan. His first poem accepted for publication will appear in Troubadour 21: Writers and Artists in the 21st Century.

ICARUS IN INDIANAPOLIS

by Earl J. Wilcox

He flies through the feverish air, effortlessly,

raises muscled arms to stop the three-point shot.

His whole body is fueled by forces favoring

the young—the roaring crowd, fame,

the Final Four, a life-changing game.

Soaring and soaring and soaring, he falls,

then falls again, fast---a leg awkwardly bends,

a broken bone pierces his skin. With him,

the world cries in agony.

Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.

TIME FOR THE INDIGENOUS

by B.Z. Niditch

Former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt goes on trial
Image source: ianbunn

 

The big people,
even prime ministers
face the cry of justice
all over the world,
think of it
through international law
we may now retrace
any dictator's steps
with his cruel hostility
when in a past century
of genocide and penury
he could decide our fate
as a head of state,
now the ordinary people
can take the stand
among theft and murder
and speak up
as witnesses of atrocity
and have the back
against those who plot
the misery of others,
after all,
nothing is more true
that we are
all sisters and brothers.
 

B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

TAKING THE MOUND

by Mick Murphy

​

Thomas Eakins

Baseball Players Practicing, 1875

Watercolor on paper

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

​                For Robbie

​

​You tidy up,

​as in a boys room,

​moving the earth around.

​Dirt and small bits of stone

​the rakes passed over.

​Sins of omission if

​left untended can cost you

​the game.

​Your pitcher’s crease

​is lamb white, your heart

​the same.

​Yet unmarked by the spikes

​of the enemy.

​Your arms are supple and

​ready under home

​cotton whites.

​Your glove new leather

​oiled and shaped the night before.

​You love our summer game.

​

​But they come, the people from

​the world, and you have to pitch to them.

Mick Murphy is astudent of Amy Holman at the Hudson Valley Writers center in Sleepy Hollow New York. A former business executive, he has studied and written poems for many years. His work looks at personal and spiritual issues and the intersection of these with the life of his generation. He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. He also writes about sports.