52 LIES

by Julia Marsiglio

On social media I see the thunderous applause
for crushing bones under buildings
for bullets that close the eyes of children
forever—whose last words are unspoken
replaced with a cacophony of heavy
artillery, and the screams of mothers who hold them
under the rain of hellfire, and instead of running
count their eyelashes, one by one, and join
the dust, brought in rolling out from under tanks
manned by twitter fingered horsemen
who expected seas of sand but instead
colored the mountains with bright red blood.

The domes are imploding under 52 lies
all written by 45.
The explosions started at home—
on Facebook. Tic Toc. They don’t stop.
They are ours, but we don’t own them.
We watch them, like fireworks and we clap.
As flesh parts from flesh
mother from child
child from life—
we yawn
and we laugh.

Julia Marsiglio is a writer currently located in Montréal, Québec, who has been writing poetry and fiction since she was a child. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish language and literature from the University of Alberta in 2011. Her work has previously appeared in Montréal Writes.

WHITTLED LIES

by Jan D. Hodge

Faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

When
Sir
Impresario rose for the vacuous ritual discharge of pomp
      In that dismal political swamp,
Insulting and faulting those who dared to oppose him
      (Sneering and jeering at them),
Meeting their protests with humbug and shrugs
Amid the capuchin clicking and whining
Of cameras, his answers were dreary as verses on Stalin,
Then echoed in turn by a toadying chorus of dim-
Witted grim apparatchiks routinely intoning:
O leader of peoples, our nation spearheading,
Great One, our Sun, applauded by millions of hearts
      (Chanting in classical metres).
Like Vergil recited from packets of cue cards, they
Hailed and regaled him.  Not one of the thugs
Had conscience or courage enough to consider resigning
               . . . Preferring fine dining!


Author’s note: The situation, alas, is all too recognizable.  For those not familiar with the model for this verse, I refer you to Edith Sitwell’s “Sir Beelzebub.”  (My title, incidentally, is an anagram of "Edith Sitwell.")
     To explain the allusion to verses on Stalin, consider these lines by A. O. Avdienko:
           When the woman I love presents me with a child
           the first word it shall utter will be: Stalin. . . .
           O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
           Thou who broughtest man to birth . . .
           Thou who makest bloom the spring,
           Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords . . .
           Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
           Sun reflected by millions of hearts.

Jan D. Hodge's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. Two of his books, Taking Shape (a collection of carmina figurata) and The Bard & Scheherazade Keep Company (double-dactyl renderings of Shakespeare, tales from the Arabian Nights, and Reynard the Fox) have been published by Able Muse Press.

WAYS OF THE WORLD

by James Schwartz 

Amish delegation visits White House on December 20, 2019.

No, the televisions, radios, cars, 

Are not for Our People.

No, the televisions, radios, cars, 

Are the Ways of the World.

No, Amish don't enlist: conscientious objectors,

Christ commands to turn our cheek.

Yes, they cheer at his rallies,

About building walls,

No, My People,

Are lost to the Ways of the World.

Yes, the World is a battlefield.

Not for me. 

#NoWarWithIran 

James Schwartz is a poet, writer,  slam performer & author of 5 poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America. Twitter @queeraspoetry

SOUNDINGS

by Ann E. Wallace

In Australia, the magpie 

pipers have sounded the alarm. 

Strange singing sirens lure 

us to belated attention,

whistling their learned panic 

cry as we lean in and stare.

How clever they are, these 

crows turned mocking jays,

turned canaries in the fires.

We pull out our phones, press

record and listen in awe 

at beaked imitation of man

made warning calls. Months, 

years after the flares and shouts 

of scientists, of firefighters,

went unseen, unheard, 

the birds learned too 

late to speak our language. 

As the heat swells, billows

to flame, and sucks each breath 

dry, hot angry licks sneer 

and force us to the water’s edge. 

And the rescue boats come 

too late, too few to heed 

the magpies’ urgent call. 

Ann E. Wallace has a new poetry collection, Counting by Sevens, available from Main Street Rag, featuring work about the realities and joys of life in contemporary America, motherhood, and illness. Recently published pieces in journals such as Mom Egg Review, Wordgathering, Snapdragon, Riggwelter, and Rogue Agent, can be found on her website. Twitter @annwlace409.

ACHE

by Ron Riekki

Artist Frederic Remington painted “The opening of the fight at Wounded Knee” in 1891. The massacre took place on December 29, 1890.

"There have been more mass shootings than days this year: As of December 25, the 359th day of the year, there have been 406 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. Twenty-nine of those shootings were mass murders." —Jason Silverstein, CBS News, December 25, 2019

“The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history took place in 1890, when representatives of the U.S. government executed as many as 300 Native men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for practicing Ghost Dancing, a spiritual tradition within our culture.” —Allen Salway, Teen Vogue, June 14, 2018

“Arise from their graves” —William Blake, “Ah! Sun-flower”

Ugh! Gun-powder!  weary of EMT
shifts, how it may look like an entrance
wound in front and an exit wound in back,

but it was really two bullets, fired behind
and in front, and bullets, now, with shitty
NRA-backed legislation are made to

ricochet around in the chest once they
enter, going from organ to organ, intro-
ducing themselves with a bloodbath,

destroying colons and lungs and spleens,
the way that colonizers smallpoxed
and large-poxed and sent poxes upon

thee—the Pawnee, the Cherokee, the
Kansa?  Have you never heard of the
Kansa?  Because extinction is erasing—

worse than erasing, de-racing, destroy-
ing the -ing of a people: their breathing,
talking, writing, hearts beating, cultures

living.  And over an Xmas dinner,
we get on guns, and I say that I wish
I could take all the gun-owners and

put them on an ambulance with me,
allow them to see what bullets do,
see bullets in merry-go-rounds and

bullets in dollhouses and bullets in
Etch A Sketches where you shake
the world and nothing changes.

Ron Riekki's most recent book is Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press, 2019).

LISTLESS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve grown weary of best of
recipes with wine
or cookie doughs
which candidate raised the most
murder mysteries
and top discoveries
must-see
movies
raw hip-hop
and alternative songs
records for longest feather
boa
lies we stopped counting
we endured
the year of fire
flood
wind
tornadoes
and can’t we just move
on
knowing what needs
to be done
and do it.

Tricia Knoll has seen dozens of media lists of "best of" in the news. The flashes of what famous people died in 2019 (without including the names of all the victims of bombings and war) and is suspicious there are also lists of the year of the most people who died by gun violence, etc. 

SEASONS IMPEACHING

by Robert Knox

On the third day alone
I begin talking aloud to myself

Or, perhaps, I will eat myself to death
I wake at night
with the word necrosis
in my thoughts

What is it, oh what,
country of my soul
who will you eat yourself out of
given such rot?
Will you smell yourself
dying with putrefaction?

how can anyone be left alone
with their thoughts,
such thoughts,
when the rats nibble
at our toes

and bandits make
for our heart?

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.

NEW YEAR'S WISH

by George Salamon

Out of our broken mouths
The protests get wilder,
The occupation did not last.
The marches lost their rhythm,
Compelling poets to abandon
Shining harmonies and blow
Shrilly in chopped up phrases,
Raging against the malice
In the heart and at the helm
Of people blinded by false
Promises and propelled by
Dark urges, only nudging us
Not to close our eyes to
What humanity has done in
Good and evil, and not yet
Say goodbye to all that.

George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO and most recently has contributed to One Sentence Poems, The Asses of Parnassus, Dissident Voice and TheNewVerse.News.

2020

by William Marr

during this year
you'd better not
think one thing
say another
do something else

we all can see right through you
with our perfect vision—
20/20

William Marr's poetry has been translated into more than ten languages and included in over one hundred anthologies.  Some of his poems are used in high school and college textbooks in Taiwan, China, England, and Germany. He is a former president of the Illinois State Poetry Society and lives in the Chicago area.

BRING IT ON: A NEW YEAR'S POEM

by Aaron Poochigian

I.

For several decades I have been one cold,
one fall, one monthly bill, away from living
derelict under cardboard on the street.
Why is it, now that I am halfway old,
my mug a mug of damage and defeat,
that New Year’s has become its own Thanksgiving?
Why do I sit here typing words of praise
about the world’s largess? Why do I sing
heart-felt ballads about each silly fling
and psalms of hope about the coming days?

II.

From California I can see Times Square,
one of the chakras of America.
The ball has dropped. I’m sorry I’m not there
to add my whoop to the hysteria.

Tourists and buskers mob the streets, and you,
my friends, are wild among them. Pop the cork,
loose the confetti, sound the shrill kazoo.
I heart the mess of you, New York, New York.

Midnight has come to Minneapolis.
While, here and there, a raucous air-horn blares,
my friends from school, as wives and husbands, kiss
on couches, with their kids asleep upstairs.

Oh Uptown rife with music, theater
and Madeleine—the things I love the most.
In memory of a twenty-something blur
of poetry and wine, I raise a toast.

Cheers have gone up all over Salt Lake City.
Futurity has driven out December!
I wrote my first book there and kissed a pretty
red-haired girl (whose name I don’t remember).

I see her, hunched and fearless, on the slopes
of Alta, snowboard-footed, goggles on.
I hope that she has Rocky-Mountain hopes
for 2020 and is up till dawn.

Finally, in Pacific Standard Time,
I feel fireworks erupt at Disneyland,
and I can see my niece in Anaheim
agog in bed, stuffed elephant in hand.

Just so I journey westward, zone by zone,
while sipping whiskey at my laptop here
in Fresno, at my mother’s house, alone.
How should I resolve to spend the year?

III.

This year I will bottle
my animal candor
the way Aristotle
honed Alexander.

The redolence of
this martial spirit
will vanquish like love
all who come near it,

and a sip will lay
the taster out.
This year, I say,
will know no doubt.

Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His first book of poetry, The Cosmic Purr (Able Muse Press), was published in 2012, and his second book Manhattanite, which won the Able Muse Poetry Prize, came out in 2017. His third book, American Divine, won the Richard Wilbur Award and will come out in 2020. His thriller in verse, Mr. Either/Or, was released by Etruscan Press in the fall of 2017. His work has appeared and is forthcoming in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY.

NEW YEAR'S OWLS

by Buff Whitman-Bradley




In the first hours of the new year
After the midnight explosions have ceased
And no more revelers
In clutches of three and four
Go stumbling by the house
Happily jabbering away
I lie in bed with the window open
To the freezing night air
Listening to two owls
Speaking to each other
From nearby treetops.
Hu-hoo, hu-hoo says one
In a deep and quiet voice
Hoo-hu-hoo, hoo-hu-hoo
Responds the other
In a higher pitch.
I picture the baritone as an elder
Complimenting the young alto
On not panicking
During the booms and bangs and kapows
They had just endured,
On staying put in its tree
Until the onslaught of flash and bam had subsided.
It’s safe to go out now
The old one says
But be mindful of the humans,
They are loud and messy
And really have no idea
What they are doing.
And of course the old hoot is right.
We are a cacophonous, lurching,
Bumbling, bungling bunch
Making a fine shambles of things
And we’d be a whole lot better off
If we resolved in the coming year
To cultivate a little quiescence
And pay closer attention to owls.

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

POPES

Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Lullaby and Wheel.

SEVENTH NIGHT

by Judith Terzi

A fleeing suspect was arrested
with blood spilling over his clothing
smelling of bleach. Candle wax
dripping down my silver-plated
menorah. Multi-colored wax
clinging to its round base, clogging
its candle holders that we clean
each festival night. My family
closed blinds when we lit the candles
just after the war in Philly. This
same menorah with a star of David
in the middle guarded by the claws
of a lion on either side. The suspect
could have stabbed my grandfather
and my great-grandfather––Hasids
like the five he stabbed on the seventh
night of Chanukah. My grandfather
could have given me a check for $5,
written Chanukah gelt in the lower
left-hand corner with a hand unused
to writing English letters. My parents
could have given me another pair
of pajamas on the seventh night,
or a jigsaw puzzle, or a Toni doll,
or a dress my mother would have
sewn on her Singer. We closed
blinds when we lit the menorah.
The suspect wielded a large knife.
The children stopped singing, and
the dreidel stopped spinning, and
the rabbi prayed for his congregants
and for his son who were stabbed.
And for the victims of the twelve
other acts of violence against
Hasids in the past three weeks.
And the people are terrified.
And the country stays divided.

Judith Terzi is the author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books) as well as of five chapbooks including If You Spot Your Brother Floating By and Casbah (Kattywompus). Her poetry appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, has been nominated for Best of the Net and Web and a Pushcart, and read on Radio 3 of the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

DARK WOOD

by Mark Williams

So there I am in the jury box. Voir dire,
the judge calls it, which means speak the truth,
as in don’t and you’re in big trouble. “Have you had
any past acquaintance with either the prosecutor,
the defense attorney, or the defendant?” His Honor asks me.
I no sooner say, “No,” than the prosecutor says,
“May I approach the bench, your Honor?”
and His Honor wiggles his finger as in yes, and make it snappy,
so the prosecutor stands and approaches His Honor.
With their eyes on me, they exchange a few words
before the prosecutor steps to the box and asks,
“Do you have a beagle named Keeper?” Since I do
have a beagle named Keeper, and I speak the truth,
I say, “Yes.” Then he says, “Do you remember
the time you were walking on the levee,
and Keeper and another beagle picked up a deer scent,
and you and the beagle’s owner spent three hours
searching the woods for your dogs?” And now I realize
the other beagle’s owner is asking me these questions,
and my chances of being squeezed from the box are high.
Sure enough, “You’re excused,” says His Honor.

But in the upcoming case of

                       The Truth
                              v.
       The President of the United States

the majority of Senatorial jurors have demonstrated
they are no more capable of speaking the truth
than Keeper is capable of ignoring a deer scent. Not only that,
the majority of jurors are acquainted with the defendant
in the sense that Barnacle Boy, The Dirty Bubble,
and Man Ray were acquainted with each other
as members of EVIL (Every Villain is Lemons)
in Season 3 of SpongeBob SquarePants.
But with no provisions in place
to squeeze our Lemons from the box,
it is we who are lost within a dark wood,
with no hope, until November,
to get out.

Mark Williams lives Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, and The American Journal of Poetry. His fiction has appeared in Drunk Monkeys and the anthologies American Fiction and The Boom Project. In response to the current administration, his poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, and Writers Resist.