SUNFLOWERS

by Ed Madden

for Dónal, Dublin, May 2015

At dinner in Dublin only days before
the vote, a friend told a story about
being on the 13 crosstown bus,

carrying a bunch of sunflowers for Gary.
He was wearing his Tá Comhionannas pin.
A drunk began to harass him, snatched

at the flowers, pulled off the head of one.
He said the Dublin grannies on the bus
got the driver to throw the fellow off

at the next stop. One picked up
the broken flower, returned it to him, saying
something about his girlfriend.  When he replied

that the flowers were for his boyfriend, he said,
the whole bus seemed to be filled
with grannies talking about the referendum—

all the rest of the way all the Irish
grannies telling me they’re voting yes.
Oh, to be on that bus.


Ed Madden is an associate professor of English and director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at the University of South Carolina.  He is the author of 4 books of poetry -- Signals, Prodigal: Variations, Nest, and Ark (to be published spring 2016).

SIDES?

by Gil Hoy

So it’s bound to be

    Hillary (thank god)

Obama can’t and

      Warren gave her word 

and if donkey's second best’s lust

       full hubby     can please

keep his      self-destructive philandering

                  habits to himself         

   and both of you please stop         

                       taking big money for

            giving speeches because

      it’s all about public service and       

remember  to              get all money

             out of politics anyway             and it better 

be Bush                      on the elephant side 

just in case because 

                         for one reason

     who could begrudge a man for 

defending his own brother  against wmd

        and another is anyone but    those fruit cakes 

from Texas Florida or            Wisconsin  and also 

he’s better than the other wacky tea party folks and

Editor's note: Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush images from DonkeyHotey.

Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, and received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Gil started writing his own poetry in February last year. His poems have been published most recently in The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, and The Zodiac Review.

MEN OF COLOR

by Phyllis Wax

Image source: The Sentencing Project

Prison has replaced the plantation                

Pick him up for loitering                              
Handcuff him for a driving offense              
Jail him when he can’t pay his fine              
Harass, kick ass so he knows his place        

Young men rant in solitary
Molder for penny-ante crimes        
Or felonies they didn’t commit
In private prisons
Profitable enterprises
The public chooses not to see
                                                     
The bullet has replaced the rope      

New York, Saginaw                        
North Charleston, Cleveland
Sanford, Milwaukee

Amidou Diallo, Trayvon Martin
Walter Scott, Dontre Hamilton
Tamir Rice, Milton Hall

Black bodies in their own foyers
Chalked on sidewalks
Slumped in stairwells            
Bodies sprawled in city streets

Cheap lives, death at a discount


Phyllis Wax writes on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  Her work has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals, both online and print, among them Out of Line, New Verse News, Verse Wisconsin, Ars Medica, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem. When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic.

PICK ME, PICK ME

by Earl J Wilcox

Image Source: DonkeyHotey

In my small South Carolina town, kids line up to be
chosen for the summer sandlot baseball team.
Nine or ten players (or more) arrive already, chatting
and showing off their stuff before a tiny crowd. First,
there’s Linsdsey, home town favorite, such a hawk
sure to be chosen for the outfield, where he can roam
freely. Over here looking eager is hunky Rand, pepper pot
for short stop--gutsy, full of chatter, though his coiffed hair
will be hidden beneath that ball cap. Hey, look! It’s good old
Huck chatting up the coaches, winking and shaking hands
vowing he will gladly say a prayer before every game.
And standing nearby in freshly pressed uniform it’s Rick.
Oh, such a sweet demeanor, he’ll be an outstanding catcher,
one who can control the game while showing his sparkling teeth.
Then, any solid team needs a bulky New Jersey first baseman.
Chris is so stout he can block Hillary or Patrick or Bernie—
anyone who might try to hustle down the line. Oh, let’s not
forget: any team wants a doctor:  let’s choose Carson, who, by
the way, also helps with our minority numbers, as does Carly;
she will add a splash of beauty to our bench. Everyone knows
a Cuban is essential for today’s baseball team, so Marco’s our man
for the hot corner at third base. But we save till last choosing
our pitchers and outfielders from among whose ranks are such
audacious governors and one wily Texan (Cruz): Jeb and Scott
and Jindal and Pataki and Kasich because they have an array
of fading fast balls, screw balls, even more curve balls and knuckle-
balls, to say nothing of already honing their skills for arguing
with umpires about every pitch and close call. Play Ball! Batter Up!

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 The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.

PONT DES ARTS, 2015

by Scot Ehrhardt

Photograph: Remy de la Mauviniere/AP via The Guardian

The city had warned us
about the weight of promises:
the civil engineers, our parents,
one parapet of the Pont des Arts
predicted this would happen.
Five ounces for two lives
padlocked to padlocks
an exponential mass
on an iron grill,

and when forever
proved temporary, no one
returned for the divorce.
No one dredged the Seine,
a bed of discarded keys,
for the one they jettisoned
the summer their lives
brimmed with youth.

Let us dismantle this
monument of hope,
scatter and melt the
seven hundred thousand
moments we dismissed
the weight of a symbol,
when we thought
that steel could represent        

the fickle carbon of our hearts.


Scot Ehrhardt is a teacher and writer from Baltimore, MD. He has appeared in Little Patuxent Review, Lines + Stars, Tidal Basin Review, and Infinity's Kitchen. His first book of poetry One Of Us Is Real is currently looking for a home.

IT IS DRIZZLING HEAT

by Martin Willitts Jr

NEW DELHI—The death toll from the blistering heat wave in India exceeded 2,000 on Sunday as weather officials said the sweltering conditions would persist for another four or five days. —WSJ, May 31, 2015

It was ninety degrees with humidity topping a hundred,
and the heat felt atrocious
until reading it was one hundred and twenty-two in India
where the roads had melted.

Here the haze was merely white blossoms of agony,
and the residue of moisture disappears before forming.
In India, their minds must have been cooking
and their eyes must feel like frying while sleeping.

Some politician denies climate change
and car tires in India explode overheating.
Somewhere night promises more heat for tomorrow.
Politicians must have air conditioners hearts.

The angry god of furnaces depletes water to bone.
Somewhere a rich person wonders about the fuss.
Comparatively speaking, I have it good to India.
Politicians have assured me heat is my imagination.


Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian. His poems have appeared in Blue Fifth Review, Stone Canoe, Centrifugal Eye, The New Verse News, and others. He has 8 full length collections of poetry and over 20 chapbooks including his social issue chapbook City Of Tents (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2014). His forthcoming full length collection, God Is Not Amused What You Are Doing In Her Name (Aldrich Press) should cause a ruckus or two.

WHEN I READ ABOUT DEATH IN THE NEWS

by Tasha Graff

Social justice activist DeRay Mckesson praised Twitter on Monday after the social network suspended a conservative blogger who threatened his life —Raw Story, May 25, 2015

Since Aug. 9, 2014, when Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department shot and killed Michael Brown, Mckesson and a core group of other activists have built the most formidable American protest movement of the 21st century to date. Their innovation has been to marry the strengths of social media — the swift, morally blunt consensus that can be created by hashtags; the personal connection that a charismatic online persona can make with followers; the broad networks that allow for the easy distribution of documentary photos and videos — with an effort to quickly mobilize protests in each new city where a police shooting occurs. —Jay Caspian King, The NY Times Magazine, May 4, 2015

I think about my students. I’ve taught nearly 900 of them,
but when I read about death in the news I think of those lost:

to hands not old enough to vote, to hands old enough to know better,
to the lack of arms around their shoulders and the right to bear arms

automatic that did not exist when quill scratched parchment to create
a nation built on hope and blood and tears. This morning,

a tweeting troll threatened a friend’s life. This is not some ogre
from a fairy tale gone awry, stomping his foot in a cave

or under a bridge, but an open terrorist with safe, white skin.
This is not folklore, this is not a myth. This is the sad song

of America’s heart seeping the blood of black children.
Where is the pulse of justice? Where is our rallying cry?

The truths are self-evident. There is hatred in America.
But there is love, too. Oh, let there be love, too.


Tasha Graff's poetry appears in such publications as Word Riot, English Journal and From the Fishouse. She lives, writes and teaches high school English on the coast of Maine.

SAME SCRIPTURE, DIFFERENT DEITY

by Tom Russell

The Bible gets used like a Swiss Army Knife
by sanctimonious cherubs thrashing about
with defective right wings.
Every time they decide to open
another vessel of anger, hate, or judgment
they turn to these writings
for a blade, a corkscrew, or pliers
to open it and allow the toxin therein
to contaminate the conversation.

They see God as a cantankerous old white man
who throws thunderbolts at kids who
get too close to His lawn.

Here’s the church, here’s the steeple.
Here’s God threatening to smite the people.

These same zealots say there is legitimate rape
that is a gift from Him
on this 5,000-year-old Earth.

Remember, you were put here to suffer.

Boy Scouts shall surely have a Heavenly Reward
but Satan walks door-to-door with those little girls
who sell lesbianism, communism, and abortion
at three-fifty a box.

The Raging Right says the God they created in their own image
loves you so much
that you’re going straight to Hell.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for them to preach compassion and hope
instead of fire and damnation.
Inclusion instead of exclusion.

Resist the darkness and
let there be light.


Tom Russell works at the Omaha Public Library in the extremely red state of Nebraska. Extremely red. Extremely.

DON'T CALL IT A COUP, JUST SING TRALALA

by Siham Karami

Egypt: Rape and sexual violence perpetrated by security forces 'surges' under el-Sisi's regime in campaign to 'eliminate public protest' —The Independent (UK), May 19, 2015

Hail to the army! All hail the police!
Stay out of trouble and give us a piece!
Of what, you'll find out—meanwhile, we own the street!
Our weapons are loaded. You're lucky to eat.
To us, you are sugar, and we are the ants.
So get in the station, and pull down your pants!

We round up the students, professors, the doctors,
the girls in hijab, the sons and the daughters,
with Al-Sisi's blessing and superpower bucks,
we barrel-bomb neighborhoods, get free-for-all fucks,
make everyone watch so they'll know in advance
how bad things can get when they pull down their pants!!

No one can touch us! We do as we please!
The law says you're guilty, so crush you like fleas!
We grab you from classes, dispose you at will.
Then parents go looking—their spines feel the chill!
So scream—and we'll charge there's a bomb in your hands—
c'mon little terrorists, pull down your pants!!

We'll fuck you at your place in front of your man.
Your daddy's on death row, so get in the van!
We write up the charges, the judge slams his gavel:
Guilty as charged! Tomorrow the gallows!
The tears of the mourning will only enhance
the pleasure we get when you pull down your pants!!

We're the new god in town. How we barged through the door,
told a Brotherhood bitch to get down on the floor.
She carried her baby and dared to talk back!
So we threw the kid out of the window, like smack!
And we tore off her clothes and we told her to dance
with police stations ringing out: Pull down your pants!!


Siham Karami's recent work is or will be published in such places as The Comstock Review, The Rotary Dial, Möbius, Measure, Unsplendid, and The Raintown Review. She works in the tech industry by day, and spends nights with poetry, owls, and medicinal herbs.

DEAD END

by Michelle Marie

Photo by Bob Chwedyk | Staff Photographer | The Daily Herald

"Anyone is too good to be a waitress," she told him,
after he asked if she thought her new job was beneath
her. "At 30, I never saw myself making minimum wage

working multiple pink collar jobs." The thought made
her cringe. It was a slap in the face. An affront to her
dignity, her values, everything she stood for. Like her,

I didn't believe in wage slavery. If it kept up with some
combination of inflation, worker productivity and executive
pay raise, minimum wage would be $20 an hour today.

It's not the work, it's the pay that's the problem, we agreed.
She is in a perpetual state of amnesia, trying to forget the
hard facts of her life while maintaining a small degree of

hope. Which is easily dashed when male customers call
her honey or proposition her, like when the amateur
photographer offered to take "professional" photos of her.

He got a strange pleasure from watching her fill orders
and waterglasses and empty the bus bin because there
was no busboy, only her. Like an intrepid reporter in

search of a sad story he asked her nagging questions that
haunted her, that he wrongly assumed would help her see
his depth. But there was no depth to a man who dined with

his camera, toting it around like some big statement. She
knew she was nothing but a walking plot device in this
man's pathetic universe, a keeper of his manhood, a

mirror that doubled his virility. She hated him. And hated
me too. As a patron, I could never be fully on her side
even though I threw a fist up and railed against the system,

even though we exchanged world-weary, knowing glances
as she went about the room fulfilling the obligations of
her dead-end trade, smiling and tolerating stupid questions,

like if she was too good for her job.


Michelle Marie has written for Infita7 and Bluestockings Magazine and is currently a Stop Street Harassment blog correspondent.

YOUR HANDS WILL BE PREGNANT IN THE AFTERLIFE

by Luisa A. Igloria

After claiming that a man would meet his masturbating hand “pregnant in the afterlife” and “asking for its rights,” a Muslim televangelist has set Turkish social media aflame. Self-styled televangelist Mücahid Cihad Han . . . claimed that Islam strictly prohibits masturbation as a “haram” (forbidden) act. “Moreover, one hadith states that those who have sexual intercourse with their hands will find their hands pregnant in the afterlife, complaining against them to God over its rights,” he said, referring to what he claimed to be a saying of Prophet Muhammad. . . . “Istimna,” the Arabic term for masturbation that Han also referred to, is a controversial issue in Islam, as there have been varying opinions on its permissibility throughout history. The Quran has no clear reference to masturbation and the authenticity of many hadiths is questionable. —Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey), May 25, 2015. Image source: MemeCenter

Your hands will be pregnant in the afterlife,
warns the televangelist to men who masturbate,
which makes me put my coffee cup down in alarm and stare hard

at my own hands. What about women? What happens to women's hands?
I mean, not necessarily from masturbating, but from all the things
our hands ​so frequently and ​lovingly do? I know a carver who couldn't stop

touching​ ​any surface of wood he happened across: flotsam on the beach,
the rails​ ​along a ship's boarding ramp on which his fingers could have lingered
for hours if not for the porter's brusque Come on, hurry it up will ya?​ 

I know a weaver who'll smooth and finger each tensile fiber on ​her loom,​ ​
each shuttle's pass setting off ​hundreds of indistinct vibrations that give
​the resulting garment its patterns of flushed color and shade.

If indeed hands could get pregnant in this or in ​the afterlife,
would that provide relief for women who have up to now borne
the brunt of each sexual​ ​aftermath, ​9 months housing a growing body

until it's really time​ ​to ​count out the rent? Think of ​the ​revisions
we'd have to make​ ​in the histories of our science and art, ​including
fashion---​ ​buttoned elbow-length gloves back in style, the idiom peek-

a-boo once more in circulation; artists commissioned to paint
fig leaves like giant Band-Aids over the hands of both Adam and Eve​,
in a garden cordoned off with signs saying Absolutely do not touch.


Luisa A. Igloria’s most recent publication credits include Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014) and Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014).

OIL SPILL

by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

Last Tuesday, an onshore pipeline belonging to the Texas-based oil company Plains All American burst, spewing roughly 105,000 gallons of crude down a storm drain and into an undeveloped stretch of coastline just north of Santa Barbara. Roughly a fifth of that oil made its way into open water. It may be the worst oil disaster the California coast has seen since a devastating 1969 spill in the very same region sparked a national wave of environmental legislation. This photo provided by the Santa Barbara County Fire Department shows an oil slick from the broken pipeline near Santa Barbara on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. Photo credit: Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP —Gizmodo, May 24, 2015

The water
paints the shoreline
black.

No.

We did this to ourselves.


Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California's Central Valley. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, The Kentucky Review, Paper Nautilus, The Tule Review, Right Hand Pointing and The Lake, among others.

MEMORIAL DAY HAIKU

by Jimmy Pappas

Image source: Aftertaste

Memorial Day.
Eating burgers and fries. How
quickly we forget.


Jimmy Pappas is currently finishing a collection of poetry and stories about his experiences in the Vietnam War. He is an active member of the Poetry Society of NH. 

UNKNOWN SOLDIERS

by Paul Smith

Photography by David Jay from The Unknown Soldier. The Unknown Soldier is a series of large scale photographs of severely wounded young soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shot by photographer, David Jay, The Unknown Soldier documents the lives and stories of these young men upon their return home. The Unknown Soldier will culminate in a nationally traveling exhibition. A documentary is currently in production.

One cannot count how many
Unknown soldiers lie hidden
Nor their monuments
From Arlington to Vitkov Hill
To Shevchenko Park
There are more unknown soldiers
Than poetry slams
More unknown soldiers
Than tattoo parlors
More than churches
Their voices silenced
Their bones
White and intumescent
If they could talk
They’d say
‘You don’t know us
But we know you
And we know each other
The earth has joined us
By a seam of metamorphosed rock
Running from Verdun to Leningrad
And all the places in between
And outside of
A road map of futility
That you think leads to
War memorials and museums
But instead
Leads to cemeteries
You don’t visit
Where the known among us are
And to libraries full of books
You don’t read
Pages white and visceral
Inviolate and untouched

Paul Smith lives near Chicago.  He writes fiction & poetry.  He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo.  He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.