O EGGS, DON'T FIGHT WITH ROCKS

by Aaron Hicks

A protester at a rally in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in support of ethnic Uighur Muslims in China. Uighurs in China are being forced into “re-education” camps for indoctrination. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency via Shutterstock via The New York Times, January 2, 2019

Even the tiniest pebble has
Many brothers in the valleys of liberation
Despite the distance between them but,
An egg in great numbers whether far or near
is still fragile, still spineless
Still an
egg

Do not fight against the good
People
Whose patience is that of
Stone and passions are ignited
By a garish will comparable to
The sun

What is hidden today, will be
Uncovered tomorrow
and the fragile flesh of censorship
will be gashed in coming time as
the truth bleeds out
bountifully gifting death to
the brawny body of injustice

Your tanks have made you shielded
And your clubs have extended your arms,
And your weapons have armed you
but oh eggs
You will always be just that

As the virus contaminates the news
Let us look closer under the scope
As we keep our eyes on the oppressed and
Give a voice to the silent

Keep your eyes on the mighty
Rocks as they wage war against
The many villainous eggs


Aaron Hicks is a writer from Wilmington, North Carolina. He enjoys well crafted movies, creamy coffee, and standing on the side of those who are oppressed. #FreeChina

THE SENATE IS DEAD

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

When you wake up tomorrow morning,
the Senate will still be dead.

It will not attend your daughter’s graduation.
It will not say “Next year in Jerusalem!”
at your Seder.

It will not offer advice on which lawn service to use
or what types of shingles last longest.

The Senate will not tell you bedtime stories
or remember the year the Washington Redskins last
won a Super Bowl (or even won at all).

When you wake tomorrow
next month
next year
the Senate of the United States
will still be dead.

So, it is best for you to come to terms
and do whatever you must to mourn
appropriately
cathartically
before going on with your life
living your loss

Because it is a loss and let no one say otherwise.

But bear in mind,
the Senate has been dying for a long time
and you were aware that you could not count on it
to come over for Thanksgiving
or Christmas
or not get you into debt
or send your daughter off to war
after all, how many times did the Senate
forget who you were

You kept showing it photographs
reminders of better days
of people it knew who have also passed
you tried to remind it of its forgotten ideas
and values
and how it looked when it was in fighting trim.

So, remember the Senate
maybe even say Kaddish for it
but don’t expect it to fast with you
during Ramadan
or hunt Easter eggs with your son
or bring roasted corn to your tailgate
at the next football game

Because the Senate is dead.

Maybe there is still time to appreciate the last days
of that other ailing giant
the Republic.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in London, Ontario. Recent poetry, prose, and photography appear in Apricity, On the Seawall, Red Fez, Barren Magazine, Unlikely Stories, Bewildering Stories, 365 Tomorrows, and Literary Orphans.

FANTASY

by Wendy Hoffman

When I speak to women who rejoice

in their husbands not
battering them this month,

I say, "You’re doing a Susan Collins."

Wendy Hoffman had amnesia for most of her life. When she regained memory late in life, she wrote books about what she had forgotten. Karnac Books, London, published two of her memoirs in 2014 and 2015, as well as her first book of poetry in 2016. She co-authored a book of essays in 2018 for Routledge. Her third memoir is forthcoming from Aeon Books. Hoffman has a MFA and lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her little dog.

HERO

by Gil Hoy




The sun rises, just as splendidly
and majestically as she did
the day before. And the day
before that. He'll be fine,
he thinks, for telling the truth.
The Lieutenant Colonel, with a
Purple Heart, is honest and steadfast.
He loves his Country. She's oblivious
to the impending tempest--ignorant
and innocent. He's not worried, unaware
of his coming marching orders.
For this is America--not the Soviet Union.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and progressive political activist. He served four terms as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman.

A PRAYER NOT SPOKEN

by Jill Crainshaw

Words.

Matter.

In us.

God’s love
made skin and bones
muscle and marrow
hands and hearts
God’s words.
Matter.
In us.

No more speeches or spin doctors,
debates or diatribes—no--
God’s nouns and adjectives and verbs
made alive
welcoming
respecting
forgiving
loving
incarnating belonging
in us.

Words made matter,
planted in salvaged soil
reclaimed
restored
valued
savored and saving
hope
in us.

So be it.

Author’s note: So many words. Too many. This is what came to mind for me as I listened to all the talk at and about the National Prayer Breakfast. As a Christian clergy person, I longed at the end of a week of chaotic and contentious words in Washington for prayerful moments of reflection, even for expressions of concern for all that divides us as a nation. John’s Gospel speaks of Jesus as God’s Word made flesh. This week, I longed for fewer spoken words and more words made flesh in embodied actions of communal care that cross boundaries and borders that separate us from each other. I realize that such longings are idealistic. They dwell in sacred geographies of hope. For now, these longings are, for me, the prayer that was not spoken at this week’s prayer breakfast. 

Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

AFTER PNEUMONIA, AFTER ACQUITTAL

by Kathleen McClung

Graphic for “Scare in the Crow” from the CD Heart of Wood by My Father's Son

I hear it first before I see: lone crow,
insistent, caws. A president who lies
and struts, here a loud bird.  The one surprise:
how long it grips that twig-ringed spot below
the Walgreens cursive script, the huge display window
of beauty creams, pills, potions, some device
for whitening our teeth—swell merchandise
or “perfect” in his lexicon. The crow
seems rooted to that perch, unyielding bird
commanding passersby to hear its call.
Sheer volume. Sheer relentlessness. No grace
or nuance here, no eloquence, no words.
Just shameless, crude intent: drown out, appall
all those outside its nest, its tilted base.

Kathleen McClung is the author of Temporary Kin, The Typists Play Monopoly, and Almost the Rowboat. She teaches at Skyline College and The Writing Salon and judges sonnets for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. She lives in San Francisco.

THE SMEDLEY D. BUTLER BRIGADE

by Art Goodtimes

Smedley Darlington Butler by Robert Shetterly / Americans Who Tell the Truth

John Bolton

Mitt Romney

McRedeye has to say

that it’s unexpected truth-tellers

of a completely different

stripe

that make my day

Like Smedley Darlington Butler

in FDR’s day

America’s not perfect

by a long white shot

but it has its heroes

Art Goodtimes of the Talking Gourds Poetry Program in Telluride has a new book out from Lithic Press in Fruita, Colorado: Dancing on Edge: the McRedeye Poems (2019).

WORDS, GRAMMAR, EVERYTHING

by Jen Schneider

CARTOON:  David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star, 2017

If for some reason you haven’t been clear about what President Trump thinks about traditional public schools, consider what he said about them in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. There was this: “For too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.” What’s a “government school” to Trump? A public school in a traditional public school district. —The Washington Post, February 5, 2020

Some speak of failing
government schools. The cement-block
halls and crowded rooms I call home.
Rooms lined with pet turtles, donated books,
and color-blocked rugs. Often too hot.
Sometimes too cold. Usually just right.
Some speak of failing
government schools. Staffed
by hard-working folks—with tenures
of ten, fifteen, and twenty years and passions
for literature, mathematics, Us—I call family.
Some speak of failing
government schools. The 7 AM through 4 PM
world where I find breakfast, lunch,
and meaning. And where I learned the power
of Words. Of Grammar. Of Punctuation.
Of love. Mrs. P. Ms. T. Mr. B.
I miss them—All.
Some speak of failing
government schools. I, rather, speak
of schools that have been failed.
Mr. B taught me well. We have not failed.
We have been failed. Where failing is a verb,
not an adjective. With funding
denied, teachers declared
no longer hired, and students
deemed unworthy
of care. Of Love. Some speak
of failing government schools.
All I see, from the windows
of the school I Love,
is a failing government.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

PURELL DISPENSER

by Judith Terzi

The camera zooms in on Healthy Hands
in a Senate hallway. As they pile into
the chamber, do Senators sanitize? Not all.
Some don't wish to purify, break away
from the prize of dirty manos. The Chief
Justice walks briskly down this ornate
road. We don't know if his hands are
sterilized. We don't see him sanitize––
no Purell odor as he enters the chamber.
All we know is that he wants his hands
tied as he listens blankly to two sides,
perhaps counting backwards counter
clockwise. Try reading his face, his eyes.
Does he recognize the twists & turns
of truth, the spoof of lawyers? The Justice
never shows surprise when they
dramatize, aggrandize their battle cries.

Try & visualize justice biting into a burger
& freedom fries & à la mode apple pies,
as long black robes are shed for good
along with red, white & blue striped ties.

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books, 2018) as well as of five chapbooks, Judith Terzi's poetry appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, has received nominations for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and Web, and has been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. A former educator, she taught high school French for many years as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. 

THE DAY MY FALLOPIAN TUBES ASKED ME TO PLAY HOPSCOTCH

by Dianna MacKinnon Henning

Source: reddit

All lies are not the same.
That’s why I won’t watch the State of the Union.
A plague of misinformation.

Even my favorite merlot
fails to numb the pain of the times
and I wake with stains on my tongue.

Go tell it to the mountain
my ears admonish, or at the least tell it
to your closest friend.

But there’s no good in talking,
no one can do anything
with unabashed crooks playing guard.

I would walk my dog
to hush the horror off, but my dog
goes belly flop, won’t budge.

Because of this, my fallopian tubes ask me
to play hopscotch, with assurance that jumping
carries a fertilized egg into heaven

where the Catholic priest Gabriele
Falloppio, the anatomist, promises better days ahead,
that all oviducts aren’t created equal.

Dianna MacKinnon Henning is widely published. A three-time Pushcart nominee, she had work in 2019 in New American Writing and The Kerf. Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants, and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand was published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.

SENATE ROAST

by Tricia Knoll

We roasted the anger peppers,
so hot, so very very hot
spit flew off our tongues.

We fed the anger flames
yelling with open throat
to wildfires for justice.

We felt the electricity
of lightning and static charge
surround the fear of outages.

We nibbled at that pepper,
slow bites of what became so burning—
when the tears began to fall.

Tricia Knoll shares the anger progressives have felt over the T administration for months on end. After the Senate vote, some tears began to fall.

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE IDIOCRACY

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Sign at Women's March, January 21, 2017 via diggit

"God grant that men of principle be our principal men."

—Thomas Jefferson

Idiocracy is claiming you are the king
of reality, seeking only ratings
while the rest of us
let the show go on.

Idiocracy is becoming your own smoke-
filled room, your attraction
to wrong-doing unabated
as supporters compromise
integrity on demand.

Idiocracy is having thousands of points of entry
to you
through your businesses
and no one sticks a finger
in that holey dike.

Idiocracy is allowing a transactional businessman
to run the country like a mafia state
while the rest of us watch reruns
of The Sopranos.

Idiocracy is riding the rollercoaster
of presidential whims
ignoring the vast scope
of your childish unruliness.

Idiocracy is standing by
while you self-ignite
self-inflicted crises
daily, glorified
babysitters for the biggest
crybaby in the history
of our crumbling world.

We live in an idiocracy
our government run by loyalists
where narcissism and hegemony,
hateful groupthink,
one-size-fits-all cowardice,
dangerous stupidity
and the end of democracy
being neither
indictable crime nor
impeachable offense
are okay with us.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Her books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.  Project XX, a satirical crime novel, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. What I Did for Love was released by Bloodhound Books in October. Kelsay Books is publishing the poetry chapbook the disappearing self in 2020. 

SANCTUARY

by Mary K O'Melveny    

                       

A Mexican environmental activist who fought to protect the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly has been found dead in the western state of Michoacán, two weeks after he disappeared. Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January. His body was found floating in a well on January 29, 2020, reportedly showing signs of torture. The motive for his murder remains unknown, but some activists speculated that it could have been related to disputes over illegal logging. —The Guardian, January 30, 2020. Photo from CNN, January 31, 2020.

I was not always a lover of butterflies.
Once I was once a logger, clear cutting these pine
forests like those who later turned against me.

One autumn morning I saw conifers tremble
like a young bride, heard sounds that danced like silk in wind.
I understood then that my job was to save them.

How can such tiny creatures travel three thousand miles?
I queried them as they shivered, shimmied there,
circled around each limb like jeweled bracelets.

For two months, sunshine is their compass as they fly.
They come to rest here in our pines. Skies thicken with orange,
yellow, white, laced with black. My silhouettes of autumn.

No one prayed as hard as me for their safe arrival.
They write their memoirs in these deep woods.
It is their great-grandchildren who will return next year.

Sometimes I stood at the edge of the tree line to listen
to their angel sounds.  Each synchronized wing beat calmed me.
It was like heaven, if one believes in such magical thinking.

I felt such sorrow when their arrival began to thin down,
turn translucent, like a memory that fades when we most need
it to be sharp.  I craved vivid images of sunlight at rest.

When the end was near, I pleaded for mercy.  Not for me.
My expendability was always understood.  For my floating
charges whose safety is all we have left as refuge from ourselves.


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

BRITAIN AND I

by Nina Parmenter

Image source: Meijburg & Co

Back, back we go,
Britain and I,
back to those heady days
when we sat in our studies
gruff and moustachioed
and barked at the children.

Out, out we go,
Britain and I,
out to our verandas
in rakish hat-and-slacks combos
to take pot shots at Johnny Foreigner.
Ruff-ruff-huzzah!

Off, off we go
Britain and I,
to shake hands with petty despots
and trade their spice and silks
for gold, favours
and averted eyes.

So goodbye, Gerhardt,
farewell, François,
and so long, bland, borderless tomorrow.
Hand me my hunting stick, Britain,
and let us stride on
to glory.

Nina Parmenter is a mother to two busy boys. In her spare time, she is a marketing manager. Her poetry has appeared in Light and Lighten up Online, and on her blog, itallrhymes.com. She lives in Wiltshire, UK, and is currently working on her first children’s novel.