HOLY HYPERBOLE, HILLARY!

by Jill Crainshaw





“I am Goliath and I will not be toppled by some sheep-herding
small fry! An eye for an eye.” A pompous fist-pump

pommels the air and pummels the bully pulpit preaching pretentious
promises of presumptive presidential potency. “Sticks and stones can’t

touch these bones and words are no worry either. Winners don’t
lose and I am not a

loser!” Whack! Thud. Kapow. ZZZZZZ----

---pop. ZING!

Ouch.

Penetrating porous clouds around his head
sling-shot slicing dicing slashing gashing backlashing

words of no worry to ballot-blessed bones unless

Ouch.

“Who dares to attack? I am invincible!”  Eeeee! Look. Behind
you. Through a glass dimly he sees

himself. Zinging demeaning
soliloquies. No boy David slinging stones. Just
himself. “Mini-Me staggers me!” “Holy hyperbole!  I think he shot
himself in the foot in his mouth.”

Ouch.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.

DANIEL

by Carol Alexander

What we know of spirit and visible ink,
the human voice raised in remonstrance
against bloodshed and greed

we learned from you, and from your small birds
glimpsed at twilight,  and the ubiquitous coat
shrouding flesh against plague.

They are walking against this morning's rain,
and the habit of skirting the terrible questions
that imbue the bomb and splintered cross.

The fountain will not die with you
but frame its steeple with the greater strength
and yes, waters will upward rise

in the memory of you.

Carol Alexander's poems have appeared in such journals as Bluestem, Caesura, Canary, The Common, Chiron Review, Illya's Honey, Mad Hatter's Review, Mobius, TheNewVerse.News, Poetry Quarterly, Poetrybay, Red River Review, The San Pedro River Review, Sugar Mule, THEMA and Zymbol, as well as in various anthologies including Through a Distant Lens (WriteWing Publishing) for which she received the award for best poem, and Proud to Be, for which she was a poetry finalist. Alexander's chapbook, Bridal Veil Falls, was published by Flutter Press (2013).  Recent work appears in Split Rock Review and Clementine Poetry Journal.

MOTHER'S DAY CARD

by Peg Quinn





I avoided rhinestone flowers,
puffy hearts, love, family, glitter,
found a simple,
Hope you have a happy day!

Then, when I dropped it in
my purse, the envelope sliced
the tip of my finger.

It hurts.

Now everything I touch
reminds me of you.

Peg Quinn is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, mural and theatrical set painter, award-winning quilter and art specialist at a private school in Santa Barbara, California.

TEN LITTLE REPUBLICANS

by Daniel Galef

Caricatures by DonkeyHotey

Sep. 11, 2015

Seventeen Republicans:

What a sorry scene!

Funds dried up for one,

And then there were sixteen.

Sep. 21, 2015

Sixteen Republicans

Vying for King or Queen.

One was called by God to quit,

And then there were fifteen.

Nov. 17, 2015

Fifteen Republicans

On your TV screen.

One went out on a limb,

And then there were fourteen.

Dec. 21, 2015

Fourteen Republicans

Shelling out the green.

One fraternized with the enemy,

And then there were thirteen.

Dec. 29, 2015

Thirteen Republicans,

With too much dirt to delve.

One fell into Jeopardy,

And then there were twelve.

Feb. 1, 2016

Twelve Republicans

(Though I can’t remember seven).

One got out-FOXed,

And then there were eleven.

Feb. 3, 2016

Eleven Republicans,

Most old, most white, most men.

One got cut to pieces,

And then there were ten.

Feb. 3, 2016

Ten Republicans

Sat down to wine and dine.

One aborted his campaign,

And then there were nine.

Feb. 10, 2016

Nine Republicans,

Scrapping in debate.

One dropped out—got up—dropped out,

And then there were eight.

Feb. 10, 2016

Eight Republicans

In a hater’s heaven.

One took a bridge too far,

And then there were seven.

Feb. 12, 2016

Seven Republicans,

Nobody’s top picks.

One couldn’t score a score of votes,

And then there were six.

Feb. 20, 2016

Six Republicans,

Fighting for their lives.

One “left the island,”

And then there were five.

Mar. 4, 2016

Five Republicans

Where once stood a dozen more.

One couldn’t stay awake,

And then there were four.

Mar. 15, 2016

Four Republicans

(And none of them for me).

One ‘whiz kid’ whizzed away,

And then there were three.

May 3, 2016

Three Republicans:

So very, very few!

One got elbowed out,

And then there were two.

May 4, 2016

Two Republicans,

When the moderate finally left,

Leaving one Republican,

Of sanity bereft.

One Republican

Dragging us to Hell.

Just—

One “Republican.”

O, God.

Oh, well.

Daniel Galef has published poetry in Light Quarterly, Lighten Up Online, the Snakeskin Poetry Webzine, Child of Words, and Word Ways. He tweets sometimes, too, so would it kill you to follow him?

A COMPASSIONATE JUDGE AT THE VETERANS COURT

by Phyllis Klein


   

   “It was more of a father-son conversation. It was personal.”

The Washington Post, April 22, 2016

And so, when the judge
gets into the cell
with the man he has just sentenced
to twenty-four hours in jail,
the man asks, “For the whole day?”
and the judge says,
“Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.”

Like a father who says,
“He’s my son and I won’t see him fall."
And a son who isn’t alone
locked down in the dark with his terror.

Because the judge has been to war, too,
and knows there are wounds
that aren’t visible. Because the man,
two decades in the military, knows
another soldier died for him in combat
and lives crushed under this,
and not only this.

And a judge can be a brother
to a man who has lost his way,
as two oak trees in a meadow
can be connected by their roots.
The way a man who has lost
his way can be a messenger
to remind us
there is so much more to know
about what’s on the inside.

Because we are so ready
to skate on the surface
of our minds. Because
we can do so much more
to be relatives in the fields        
of trees, beauty,
and devastation we call home.

Phyllis Klein believes in poetry. Her work has appeared in the Pharos of Alpha Omega Medical Society Journal,  Qarrtsiluni, Silver Birch Press, The Four Seasons Anthology, TheNewVerse.News, and is forthcoming in Crosswinds Poetry Journal and Chiron Review. She is very interested in the conversation between poets and readers of poetry. She sees artistic dialogue as an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area as a psychotherapist and poetry therapist.

EXCLUSION ZONE

by Joan Mazza

Evolutionary biologist Timothy Mousseau and his colleagues have published 90 studies that prove beyond all doubt the deleterious genetic and developmental effects on wildlife of exposure to radiation from both the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters, writes Linda Pentz Gunter. But all that peer-reviewed science has done little to dampen the 'official' perception of Chernobyl's silent forests as a thriving nature reserve. —The Ecologist, April 25, 2016

Thirty years after Chernobyl’s accident
spilled radiation equal to twenty Hiroshimas,
wolves, roe deer, boar, bison, and moose thrive
between abandoned apartment buildings and once-
tended fields and gardens. Animals too contaminated
to eat. Appearing to be normal, they meander
within what is left of Pripyat. Tourists travel
to photograph the haunting beauty of decaying
buildings, trees flowering in spring, ignore long-term
threats of gamma particles that enter their bodies—
silent with their sinister destruction. This zone
is an unintentional wildlife sanctuary,

while Fukushima fallout spreads eastward
across the Pacific Ocean toward the west coast
of the Americas. Southern California seaweed
holds five times the normal radiation. What this
means for other foods, for long-term human
health, we don’t yet know. The ocean maps show
the field widening, contaminating fish, plankton,
and mammals, dumping tsunami debris on islands
along the way. Another natural experiment.
Perhaps another surprise nature reserve. We wait
to see what it brings, which of the fittest survives.
No one will be excluded from this test.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Kestrel, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

THE VICTRESS

by James Reiss   

Hillary Clinton by DonkeyHotey

    From Ronald
    to Donald
    politics
    sticks
    to people
    who sweep all                              
away with their tricks.

     The voters
     gun toters
     scope out Reeps
     not Bo-Peeps
     while the Dems
     with ahems                      
eye Al Gore–like veeps.

     But the winner
     a grinner
     more clever
     than ever
     won’t say Trump
     on the stump                                                        
is a dirtbag—never.

     As our prez
     she says  
     she’ll drink in                              
     Abe Lincoln
     standing straight
     while we state                  
Here’s to Hillary Clinton!

Spuyten Duyvil will release James Reiss’s debut novel, When Yellow Leaves, in September, and it will publish his second novel, Façade for a Penny Arcade, in 2017. He is the author of six full-length poetry books, including The Breathers, Ten Thousand Good Mornings, and Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems. His work has appeared in such places as The Atlantic, Esquire, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry, Slate, and Virginia Quarterly Review. As Professor Emeritus of English at Miami University, he is Founding Editor of Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio. His surname rhymes with “peace.”

AMAZING POETRY

by DeWitt Clinton





I’m a really good poet, everyone reads me, everyone
Loves me more than I can even count. Just yesterday
I heard that my books are selling incredibly at all
The bookstores, really, it’s just amazing. I’m not

Surprised by this at all as I’m a really really good
Poet, I’ve been doing this for years and years.
I’ve sold I can’t count how many poems to all
The littlest of magazines, and some big shots

As well.  We’ve been getting phone calls like
Crazy, really, they want me to come read more
Of my happy and even some of my depressing
Poems. People love my poems all kinds.

I’ve sold so many of my poems, really, I know
How to sell them, have been selling, and all
Of my poet friends who used to call me friend
Now there all filing petitions saying my poetry

Isn’t that good. Which makes no sense, really
As everybody loves my work, really, I can’t
Think of anyone who doesn’t love me and love
My poetry as well. Some of my critics even

Like what I write even though the corporations
They have to write for are telling them to
Keep quiet about my poems as it’s not good
For the market but everybody everybody

Everybody loves what I do with these crazy
Lines it’s so easy, and look at who else is
Writing poetry, they can’t even write a
quatrain they're all horrible,  I’ll read my

Best poems for you tomorrow night after
I win more national prizes, almost five tonight
To be exact, people are loving me and my
Poems all over the country, it’s just amazing.

DeWitt Clinton is Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater, and lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin.  A few poems from a book length adaptation of Kenneth Rexroth’s 100 Poems from the Chinese have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Quarterly, qarrtsiluni, Verse Wisconsin, Verse-Virtual, The Missing Slate, and at medicinthegreentime.com.  He received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award by the Council of Wisconsin Writers. 

JE SUIS REFUGEE

by George Salamon

David Cameron has rejected an attempt by the House of Lords to force the UK to take in child refugees from Europe, arguing that they are in safe countries and not comparable to those fleeing Nazi Germany. The prime minister defended his position amid a standoff between the Commons and Lords about the plight of child refugees who have already travelled to Europe from Syria and other war-torn countries. Peers first voted to amend the immigration bill to get the UK to take in 3,000 child refugees from Europe, but this was rejected by MPs earlier this week. The Lords then voted on Tuesday to ask the government to take in an unspecified number of refugees in consultation with local councils, which will be debated again by MPs next week. Alf Dubs, a Labour peer who came to Britain on the Kindertransport for Jewish children in the late 1930s, has said the government would have “probably said no” to to those fleeing the Nazis. (Photo: A family of refugees gather outside their tents at a makeshift camp in the northern border point of Idomeni, Greece. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP) —The Guardian, April 27, 2016

I was three when my parents and I scurried
Through forests of the night from Austria into Switzerland,
Where cantonal police chief Paul Grueninger
Defied federal orders and allowed 3,000 Viennese Jews
Into his Alpine paradise in 1938.
Since then, Je Suis Refugee.

The children from Syria may not be granted
My lucky toss of the dice in
Inhumanity's cruel game with humanity and
Endure  as flotsam and jetsam that has reached
Its highest total since World War Two now
That 'violence has forced 60 million from their homes.'

The refugee enjoys no amor fati, discovers no love for his destiny,
Musters no shout of "Invictus' as he struggles ashore in Greece or
Stumbles across borderland swamps in the Balkans.
The Swiss wanted Rothschildian Jews for Davos's apres-ski,
The Brits want oil-rich Arabs for Mayfair's condos.
Bleeding hearts get little respect in the
Jungle of the global economy.

To the refugee home is not where the heart is, 'though
Another's heart can become his home,
While geography offers only fragments of city
Blocks filled with borrowed lives

America showed me its good side, way back when
We wore the white hat in the West.
But refugees learn not to trust, and look for
The wormhole, secure  routes of flight and escape.
There no longer are numbers burnt on their forearms,
But the Je Suis Refugee song stuck in their throats.

George Salamon taught German language and literature at several East Coast colleges, served as business reporter and editor on a military magazine. For the past five years he has written for the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and TheNewVerse.News from St. Louis, MO.

BILL OF GOODS

by Jill Crainshaw

Donald Trump was asked about his favorite Bible verse in a Thursday radio interview, and he responded by citing an Old Testament law that Jesus specifically repudiated. In the interview on news radio WHAM-1180 in Rochester, New York, host Bob Lonsberry asked Mr. Trump whether there was "a favorite Bible verse or Bible story that has informed your thinking or your character through life, sir?" Mr. Trump responded with a Mosaic law rule an "eye for an eye," mentioned in several books, most prominently Exodus 21 . . . Unfortunately, an "eye for an eye" is one of the few Mosaic Law verses that Jesus singled out in the Sermon on the Mount as overcome, by the New Covenant that His death and resurrection would seal. "You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other," Jesus says in the famous sermon Matthew 5. —RawStory, April 14, 2016. PHOTO: A billboard cartoon of Donald Trump being promoted by The Community of Saint Luke church in Auckland, New Zealand. CREDIT: The Community of Saint Luke via The Christian Post.

“What am I bidden, good folks,” he cried.
“Who’ll start bidding for me?”
That’s the pitch
perfect (if we believe perceptions of perfection’s
promiscuous promise)
prophetic
perhaps
poetic.
“Do I have a deal for you!”
Rhetoric reiterated until routinized
galvanized
disguised
“sharpened to a single atom” to slice,
dice,
overprice
what’s selling today
stolen tomorrow
sold again the next day.
“An eye for an eye.”
“Who’ll make it two?”
The feverish double-edged sword flashes
blinding glint
binds unsuspecting hearts and minds on
the auction block. Never
mind the cost. “Sold to the highest bidder.”

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press.